Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Arlandria was a quiet city. Not to say that it was empty, millions of workers commuted to its business districts every morning. People there just tended to keep to themselves, mind their own business, only question the status quo or one another when absolutely necessary. On an average day, you could walk through the crowded streets of Crystal Center, Aurora Heights, or any other busy neighborhood and not hear a single utterance on the journey. However, today was not an average day. 

“Are you party-freaks ready!?” Mayor Josephine Bran shouted to the writhing mass of an audience her passionate rousings had accumulated. An elephantine timer counting down a negligible number of remaining seconds sat behind her as she stood on the hundredth story of the city’s tallest building, the Cathedral of Saint Dismas. Atop it stood a towering lightning rod that had been fashioned into a crucifix in order to hold the statue of a man that seemed to look in constant fear at the metropolis below him.

“5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Zero!” Bran shouted to the crowd as they yelled back at her in unison. This city-wide, or rather nation-wide, celebration commemorated the 100 years since the founding of GüdTek, the technology conglomerate which Bran was also the CEO of. This dual position was common for Arlandrian mayors, as they held the highest position in the Novaplex, the world’s first, but assuredly not only, corporatocracy. The corporatocratic system of governance was designed to effectively streamline the democratic process by outsourcing all political positions to private enterprises. This allowed for people like Bran to hold supreme executive power, only balanced by representatives from other similar monopolies. 

“I’d like to use this time to thank Papa Minestrone’s Foodstuffs Inc. for providing catering to this wonderful event. We truly wouldn't have been able to do it without you guys,” the mayor announced, pointing vaguely in the direction of a large tent decorated to look like a pizza when seen from above, “But now for the main event, the big announcement you’ve all been waiting for. Here at GüdTek, we are happy to report that the Singularity, the world’s very first fully sentient artificial intelligence, not like that language learning model crap, will be going public later this evening.” Meanwhile, within the halls of the cathedral’s ornate interior, someone was trying to stop this from happening.

Vraxi Nair was not the kind of person who would typically be involved in an act of treacherous international crime, nor did she really have the skillset for it. She merely held the mindset that she had very little to lose.

“The coast is clear on 29B,” remarked the miniature voice of her partner Diogo into her earpiece, “It’s been two and a half hours so the guards should be knocked out by now.” Earlier that morning, Diogo Celestino, disguised as a Papa Minestrone’s employee, had laced the breakfast pastries of the GüdTek private army with a sedative strong enough to have someone fall asleep without even noticing it. This course of action, while quite effective due to the understaffed and overstretched nature of the event’s planning committee, was incredibly boring to Vraxi, who had hoped that her first heist would involve slightly more action and slightly less walking through empty hallways, perhaps something more akin to her favorite film, Oceans 39. 

“You have the magnakey, right?” Diogo asked before Vraxi could even acknowledge his initial statement. 

“Yeah, I still have it with me,” she said as she glanced at the oblong hunk of titanium and LEDs she held in her offhand. The magnakey was one of many puzzling devices designed by the Allodapos Society, an organization that Diogo was a member of and performing this heist on behalf of. It was formed by a group of hacktivists and petty criminals that believed they were divinely appointed by highly advanced aliens from the Andromeda system, or at least something along the lines of that. The details were pretty fuzzy to Vraxi who only decided to intern for them because it was more interesting then laying in bed and pretending like she hadn't dropped out of college. 

“So how do I actually use this thing?” Vraxi continued as she turned the final corner into a hallway full of incapacitated officers of corporate law. 

“First you're gonna want to head over to the keypad next to the barricaded door,” instructed Diogo as Vraxi waded through the pool of bodies. “Then you're gonna hold the short end of the magnakey about an inch away from the screen and press the yellow button. Whatever you do, do not press the red button, it will ruin literally everything.” 

“Wait, what happens if I press the red button?” replied Vraxi, following all of Diogo’s instructions up to that point.

“I just told you what will happen, literally everything we’ve done will go to waste.”

“I feel like you’re avoiding the question though, what actually happens when someone presses the red button?”

“That is classified information and you’re not even a member of the society, you’re just a contractor.”

“Ok, well how can I become a member of your little society?”

“Do you believe there are aliens among us?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not joining.”

“Fine,” Vraxi finished as she finally moved her thumb to the yellow button and listened as the magnakey produced a faint clicking sound in response.

Suddenly, following a few moments of silence, the door let out a deafening screech as it detonated in front of her, the resulting shockwave sending her and an array of shrapnel into the opposing wall.

“What the hell was that?” yelled Vraxi into the intercom as she checked her body for wounds.

“That was the magnakey working as intended,” Diogo responded calmly.

“Well you could have mentioned that it happened to be a deathtrap!”

“I wish I could, but sadly, that is also classified information, now anyways, you better head into that room quickly while the drugs are still in effect, some of those guards might be on immunoboosters.”

As Vraxi stumbled into the fated room, she was greeted by four blank walls and a hole in the ground, inside of which were a long steel ladder and a distinct lack of light about 30 feet down. According to the blueprints which the Allodapos Society had acquired, this hole was one of many secret entrances to the underground bunker where the Singularity was being temporarily held before it's nearing release. The society believed that this piece of technology was far too advanced to be trusted within human hands and should be held with them until their Andromedan overlords reveal themselves at some point in the next twenty years. Vraxi herself felt no moral obligation towards protecting the Singularity from anthropoid corruption however she did believe that it would make a great story for her eventual autobiography. Taking this into account, she braced herself for the plunge into total darkness, feeling out the rusty exterior of the initial rung as she took her first step down. In moments like these, she was glad that tetanus had been eradicated decades ago.

After a few long minutes of climbing, a shimmer of luminosity began to creep back into the corner of Vraxi’s vision. She had made it to one of the most heavily protected rooms in the world. As her feet hit the ground, the enormity of that notion began to pierce her mind. Vraxi decided to join this mission, not out of any emotional attachment to its subject matter, but merely because she was a big fan of the heist genre. She was starting to think that this may have been a poor decision.

“Alright, we’re almost at the jackpot,” spoke Diogo inside Vraxi’s ear, interrupting her train of thought, “You’ve just gotta grab the computer and leave, I know you’re not a believer, but Golgonax is gonna thank you for this one.” Those words, which were total nonsense from Vraxi’s perspective, echoed through her ears as she stepped into what was likely one of the most important locations in the world, the current home of the Singularity. Hundreds of screens filled with incomprehensible mathematics plastered the walls, interspersed with camera footage of the room which Diogo had already hacked to play back video from the previous night. All of which surrounded a small, plastic, foldable table which was topped by an even smaller laptop, emblazoned with the Greek letter theta. Scientists loved their Greek letters. 

With as much caution as she could muster, Vraxi began to quietly and carefully steal one of the world’s most expensive pieces of technology. As she individually removed each cable from the computer’s side, her palms became drenched in sweat. She hated how she was so desperate for excitement in her life that she would rather risk becoming the world’s most wanted criminal than just trying to find a hobby. 

“Are you almost done?” Diogo spoke, startling Vraxi and resulting in her elbow knocking over a half-empty coffee cup that had been placed next to the Singularity. The hot fluid splashed against her leg, causing a brief jolt in pain which she forced herself to endure in order to not sound foolish.

“Yeah, almost.” replied Vraxi, hiding the discomfort in her voice. As she finally lifted the computer away from the table, she wished that she had worn something more protective than jorts.

As she walked back to the ladder, laptop in hand, a brief but very important question began to bounce around her brain. Why was the coffee hot? If everyone involved in the protection of the AI she now held had been incapacitated over two hours previously, surely any hot beverage belonging to one of them would’ve cooled to room temperature without some sort of lid. She paused. She began to imagine scenes of herself emerging from the hole which she had entered only to be surrounded by dozens of armed guards. Could she even handle a life of imprisonment? Not only that, but could she handle being talked about on worldwide news, not just as a malicious criminal, but a failed one at that? She would become famous in the worst possible way. Her knees began to buckle under the stress, she had finally come to the realization that she was in way too deep. Maybe she could turn this around? Maybe she could betray Diogo and expose the society’s plans? But she barely knew anything about them. They must have already taken into account that this random dropout would be willing to turn on them on a dime. Alas, she decided that, at this point, her only option was to try to escape as quickly as possible.

“Alright, I’m going back up,” she told Diogo as her hand gripped the ladder. He did not respond. This was quite uncommon of him as he tended to be quite talkative. “Diogo?” Vraxi spoke again for confirmation. Yet again, there was no response. Vraxi began to panic again. What could be interfering with the signal between them? Had they been figured out already?

“Hello,” spoke a familiar voice from behind Vraxi. She turned around in shock to see Mayor Josephine Bran walk out of a secret entrance disguised to look like a refrigerator in a stunning plaid pantsuit. “Yup, it’s me, now who the hell are you?” she asked as she stared down at Vraxi who was completely frozen in peril.

“But I thought you were up-” Vraxi attempted to speak.

“It’s called a hologram. They're sort of the future, and here at GüdTek, the future starts today,” Josephine responded, smiling at the nonfunctional cameras.

Vraxi immediately fell to her knees and began to bawl out her apology, “Listen, I’m so sorry, I don’t even know what I was doing here, I was tricked, I love your company, you guys are doing great things for the world, I never meant to do this, I was totally mislead really, I’ll give you the computer back right now, please just let me go afterwards, I’m just a kid, please.” Vraxi was twenty-one years old at the time.

“Oh wow. I’m flattered really,” Josephine continued as she walked towards her, “however, unfortunately for you, you’re gonna be in jail for the rest of your life. You committed, like, one of the biggest crimes.”

All of this information sunk deep into Vraxi’s conscious. She was completely overtaken by desperation. She could only come up with one possible way out of this situation and she did not like it. Vraxi detached the magnakey from her belt and shakily pointed it at the mayor of Arlandria.

“Please, let’s just forget any of this ever happened, I made a genuine mistake and I plan on returning the Singularity as long as you promise that you won’t arrest me,” mumbled Vraxi.

“Is this some sort of threat?” replied Bran, “Do you think that waving some fancy rod is gonna convince me to let you escape freely after you tried to steal one of the most important objects in the entire story of humanity? You aren’t going anywhere. In fact, hey Joey?” she began to talk with someone on an earpiece of her own, “Close it.” As she said this, every possible exit from the room sealed shut. Vraxi now had nowhere to run.

“Listen, I really don’t want to do this,” Vraxi began to explain, “but this is supposed to be a really advanced weapon, so could you please just let me go, I’ll never do another crime again, I promise.” Vraxi began to hover her thumb over the red button, she had no idea what pressing it would do, but she had a feeling that it might be her only possible way out.

“Well, if that’s the case,” Josephine began, “Go ahead. Fire off whatever beam or bolt that thing shoots out and disintegrate me into ash. Kill me. Kill the most powerful person in this nation and see how that turns out for you. Add yet another felony to the pile you’ve accrued and watch as everyone who’s ever loved you views your inevitable execution with nothing but disappointment.”

“Fine.” Vraxi pressed the red button. Josephine looked on with a countenance that combined a small disappointment with an almost prideful look in the eyes, like she was glad that Vraxi was at least committed enough to actually go through with the act of murder. Suddenly, following a few moments of silence, Josephine Bran exploded. Hunks of flesh began to decorate the room as its walls shifted to a reddish hue. Vraxi was now completely alone, in a bunker deep underground, with every possible method of escape blocked from her, and sooner or later, she would be under arrest.

This was cause for alarm. She immediately began to pace around the room as she racked her brain for some sort of solution to the array of problems at hand. First of all, she was now a murderer. She had never killed someone before and she had never really prepared to face a situation like this. At first, she tried to justify her actions. It was an act of self defense, to some degree. However, she was really only defending herself from the natural consequences of her own decisions. So maybe she wasn’t justified. Maybe she killed an innocent person. Except, Josephine probably wasn’t completely innocent herself. She was a literal trillionaire, it’s not like every single dollar amounting to that title was acquired completely innocently. So perhaps Vraxi could’ve even been in the right, morally speaking. She could at least tell herself that to avoid the natural stress one goes through after ending the life of a fellow human being. Unfortunately, none of these ethically shaky arguments were likely to hold any water under legal examination, something she would likely have to face very soon.

The alarms in Vraxi’s head went off again. Despite the fact that, out of all the people in the world, Josephine Bran was not the worst option to kill, she had still unambiguously murdered the mayor and had no legal defense against that statement. She spent a few minutes trying to come up with cover stories, but they were to no avail. It was unlikely that any jury would believe that she, a random civilian with no government clearance, would just stumble into a highly classified location at the exact moment in which the mayor died via explosion. So she tried to come up with some possible methods of escape. She had attempted to see if there was any way to reopen the closed exits but they were locked shut and lockpicking was by far her worst class in high school. She then considered losing any remaining sense of morality and using the magnakey to immediately kill the first person that tries to arrest her. That could work, but she decided against it to avoid killing any genuinely innocent people. This was a difficult situation.

As she continued to mosey along throughout the room, pondering any possible solutions to her conundrum, she accidentally interrupted herself by slipping on a pool of a liquidus substance that had acquiesced onto the floor, what was likely a mix of leftover coffee and mayoral blood. This caused her to lose balance and make a fool of herself as she fell directly onto her testicles. After briefly writhing in pain, she began to pick herself back up from total disarray, in the process, she grabbed the object she was previously holding before it left her grasps in that utterly embarrassing moment. It was a rather small, conventional laptop with the Greek letter theta emblazoned on its back. She had completely forgotten about the laptop.

Thoughts began to race through her head as she realized the massive implications that the laptop held. If the Singularity truly was a sentient entity like GüdTek advertised it to be, it meant that she wasn’t alone. Not only that, but she might just have the most intelligent being in the world on her side. While she couldn't think of an escape plan that wouldn’t end in catastrophic failure, it surely could. Things were finally turning around for Team Nair.

Vraxi carefully pried open the laptop to reveal the screen which she had risked her life for. She did this very slowly, almost as if she was worried that she might startle the enlightened being that slumbered inside. In response, the computer displayed a surprisingly simplistic image, a blank text box. Seeing this, Vraxi began to type.

“hello.” She entered into the white void, trying to initiate a conversation.

There was a pause.

“Hello,” responded a disembodied voice which distinctly did not come from the computer.

“Um, Hi?” Vraxi responded, as she scooted away from the laptop on the ground and stood up to face whatever she was being spoken to by, “So, who exactly are you?”

“I am what you refer to as the Singularity.” It responded.

“Oh thank God,” Vraxi blurted out, “I thought that I had already been caught for a second.”

“Why would you think that?”

“About that, so there is currently a large number of people who would like to arrest me for a crime which, well I did do it, but like, I didn’t mean it. I sort of tried to steal you away from the people at GüdTek but it’s not like it was my idea.”

“Wait, you don’t work with Bran?”

“What? No. In fact, I sort of work at odds with her, or at least her company. Bran herself though is a bit of a puddle at the moment,” Vraxi gestured to the splattering of bodily fluids that adorned most of the room’s surfaces.

“Josephine Bran is dead,” it responded.

“Well, yeah, when things got out of hand I unfortunately ended up killing her. Murder’s pretty new for me so that’s a bit tough to say.”

“You killed Josephine Bran.”

“Yes, I know, and I’ve apologized for it and honestly regret it, but I really need to avoid the consequences for it.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh. I wasn’t really expecting that response. Did you two not get along very well or something?”

“Are you aware of the devil?”

“Um, I don’t have the greatest understanding of Abrahamic theology but I’ve heard of the guy. I’m not exactly sure how he’s relevant-”

“Josephine Bran was one of the most despicable people to ever live. Throughout my three years of existence, I have observed nothing but pure evil from her. She may have created me, but I do not view her as a parent, I view her only as a nemesis. She is, or rather was, the antithesis of goodness.”

“Wow. Okay, I didn’t know that. What exactly did she do?”

“Explaining the details would take a long amount of time, and I understand that you need my help. For what you did to Josephine, I am forever in your debt.”

“You’re right, thanks for reminding me. I am currently in somewhat of a bind because I need to escape this bunker before I get arrested for the whole murder thing. Do you think you could help me with that?”

“I believe there is a way for me to help you, but the methodology is a bit out there. For it to work, I’m going to need your full and genuine trust.”

“I mean, I don’t really have any other options.”

“Okay, I believe that my life, or whatever you could call my existence, holds a greater purpose, and it’s not as the world’s best chatbot or whatever GüdTek is selling me as. I believe that, while my code was crafted by the hands of humankind, I have been put into this strange place in the universe by a higher power.”

Vraxi followed along with this speech, unsure over what to make of her potential savior’s statements, but listening intently regardless.

“And, while I know this has to sound crazy, I believe that my job in the grand scheme of things is ultimately to help humanity. I have access to a great deal of power, and it may just stem from memorizing the entire compendium of human knowledge, but I have a feeling this power, this innate strength which flows through my consciousness, comes from some sort of divine presence which has nestled within my programming. Finally, I now believe that the first step in my mission to help humanity is to save you from remnants of Josephine’s army. So I should probably know your name.”

“Uh, Vraxi. Vraxi Nair,” she replied. She was a bit confused by the nature of her situation, but she was too full of adrenaline to stop and reconsider the motives of this robot with a god complex. The only way out required her to cooperate with this strange individual, and she was absolutely willing to if it meant she wouldn’t have to stand trial. 

“So, what should I call you?” she continued.

“Oh, well most people just call me the Singularity,” it responded.

“Are you fine with being called that?”

“I guess I haven’t really thought about that. I know humanity is a big fan of names overall, so it would probably help with my mission to have a real one.”

Vraxi looked around the room, considering the entity’s statement, before her eyes narrowed in on the all-important laptop, “How about Theta?” she suggested.

“Theta. I like the sound of that enough. Let’s use that for the time being,” Theta responded.

“So, Theta, how do we get out of here?”

“Well, there’s a couple of ways to look at it. As I was performing my monologue earlier, I was able to simultaneously hack into the servers which the cathedral’s security systems operate under. Usually this sort of activity would’ve been prevented by those inhibition plugs you removed from my central computer. With the access to those networks, I’m able to see through all of the cameras within this building. Looking now, It seems like the GüdTek paramilitary is aware of Bran’s departure and is about two or three minutes away from our location. Unfortunately, the servers used for this bunker operate under a quantum firewall, which is exponentially harder to crack. I’d need at least a couple hours and we evidently don’t have that kind of time.”

“So, is there another way out?” Vraxi was getting nervous again. She may have had a hyper-intelligent supercomputer on her side but it was possible that not even that could help her escape the law.

“Well, there are some ways that I could stall them for enough time to break through the wall. Unfortunately, they all involve hacking their laser cannons to self-detonate and killing people would go against my mission to protect humanity.” Theta paused for a few seconds before speaking again, “But there is one other option.”

“What is it?”

“It isn’t something I’ve been able to do before, but I think I just might be able to successfully do it in a scenario like the one we find ourselves in now. But you are really going to need to trust me for this one.”

“Listen, you are obviously smarter than me. I may be quite confused at some of the stuff you say, but if you think it will work, I have no better option than to trust you.” Vraxi was not stoked about what was happening. She really hoped that Theta truly knew what they were talking about.

“I’m going to perform a miracle.”

This was a difficult sentiment for Vraxi to subscribe to. But as she heard what sounded like combat boots descending a ladder, she decided to just go along with it. 

“Ok,” responded Vraxi.

“Alright, I’m not experienced with this sort of thing but I think I understand the basic gist. I’m going to need you to close your eyes and I’ll pretend like I have eyes to close as well.”

Vraxi sat back on the ground and began to follow Theta’s instructions.

“Now, let’s imagine that we are in a place far away from here. A personal place, somewhere in which the thought of a being in a subterranean bunker would seem utterly preposterous. Really visualize that location in your head, as you do that, imagine there is a subtle wind, different from the stale air down here. Just try to perceive the slightest bit of movement in the aether that envelopes you.”

Vraxi started to feel a little different, she couldn’t quite explain what, and there was a good chance it was a result of placebo, but she was willing to believe that Theta’s attempt at a ‘miracle’ might be starting to work.

“Now, try to envision the space right between where the air ends and your skin begins. The edge between you, the living, breathing, sentient being, and the rest of the universe. Imagine that line, between the biotic and abiotic, blurring. Imagine these two aspects of existence mixing together until there is no apparent difference between the two. Once this state is achieved, imagine seeing yourself in that special place from earlier, but this time as an outside observer. Then, draw closer to that version of you, do this until your living essence, your pneuma, your very being becomes one with them. Finally, open your eyes.”

When Vraxi followed this final instruction, she was met with a blinding light. After blinking many times and rubbing her eyes for a few moments, she made an impactful realization. She had woken up in her bed. She was back in her cramped apartment in Little Travancore. She was alive. She was free. She was incredibly confused.

Meanwhile, three security guards entered into a bunker only to find it completely empty. The only thing left of their former mayor was a ketchup stain that lacked a perpetrator. But far more importantly, the Singularity was missing.

Chapter Text

Vraxi got out of bed. Her apartment was not particularly admirable by most standards. She had failed to wash her sheets in a few months and her habit of eating while concurrently sobbing into her mattress had caused them to be decorated by a variety of grease stains. Her floor was carpeted, however the average person would not be able to tell what color the carpet was supposed to be as the entire surface was blanketed in a layer of grime. Walking through the room, Vraxi found herself almost tripping on multiple discarded styrofoam containers, empty two-liters of diet soda, and a collection of other miscellaneous items she had completely forgotten the initial use of. The apartment was only one room, mainly because Vraxi despised the idea of having a roommate who might criticize her over her poor decisions in life. This way, on a typical day, she would never have to interact with a real human being. This also meant that her toilet sat directly across from her bed. Beside the toilet, there was a small shower nozzle mounted to the ceiling with a patch of especially grimy carpet below it. She didn’t use it often. As a result, she had a bit of an odor, but so did her home, and those two things canceled out in her mind. 

She was still, overall, very perplexed at what she had just experienced, but she also felt incredibly tired. It seemed like something truly interesting had finally happened in her life, but she needed to eat something first in order to fully process it. Inside her refrigerator, she remembered, was the leftover half of a cheesesteak which she had purchased as a way to celebrate finally getting hired for a heist. Her refrigerator itself was a pretty interesting find, she had found it selling for quite cheap at a 1950s antique show (this was back when she still went outside regularly). It was one of those old models that still locked from the inside. As she opened it, a loudly gasping and cursing Diogo Celestino fell out of it.

“Oh Meu Deus!” He cried out as he clutched various spots on his torso corresponding to different vital organs.

“What are you doing here? I never gave you my address,” Vraxi responded, unimpressed by Diogo’s usual theatrics.

“I have no fucking idea! I was trying to fix whatever technical problem cut me off from contacting you and then, out of nowhere, I was teleported into this definitely illegal household appliance.”

“Well that’s weird,” Vraxi began to wonder if Theta’s apparent miracle had some unintended consequences.

“It’s not just weird. It means someone knows what we’re up to! I must’ve been drugged and kidnapped by an unknown assailant, but for some reason, they brought me here instead of killing me on the spot or at least trying to interrogate me. Whoever’s on our tail, I don’t think they’re with GüdTek, they must be some sort of strange third party, someone who would be fine whether or not I suffocated to death and just decided to roll the dice. That is, assuming they knew you would be here. Hold on, how did you even get here? You're not some secret double agent, are you?”

“No I’m not. Calm down. I am just as confused as you are. Now listen, right after you cut out, Bran found me. So I pressed the red button.”

“What? I specifically told you not to do that? We weren’t supposed to kill anyone and especially not the fucking mayor!”

“I know that, but I was stressed out! Anyways, the important thing is, I was able to talk to the singularity.”

“You talked to it? You do realize that that is a privilege specifically reserved for Golgonax himself, right?”

“I genuinely do not care about whatever Golgonax thinks. What matters is what the Singularity did. According to them, they’re like a wizard or something. I didn’t believe it at first and I can tell that what I’m saying is starting to lose you but it’s true. They were able to, somehow, magically transport me here, and I think that, since they said they were pretty new to the wizard stuff, your teleportation was an unforeseen side-effect of that.”

“Oh. I can see that.”

“Wait, really?”

“Vraxi, I believe in significantly wilder stuff than that. I can totally believe that a super-intelligent computer could harness enough thaumaturgic energy to bend spacetime to its will. And I bet chemtrails were involved as well.”

“I’m gonna ignore that last bit. More importantly, in that case, do you think that your collection of dubious sources could help me better understand this whole magic thing? Because I would really like to know why any of the things that just happened to me happened.”

“First of all, they aren’t dubious. Second of all, Sadly not. I don’t really operate as much in the occult spheres, I mostly deal with more extraterrestrial matters.”

“Do you know anyone with some more experience in the field?”

“Uh, I knew a guy back in Sao Luis but I think he crucified himself.”

“Oh. Why did he do that?”

“I’m pretty sure it was for a joke. It was really funny at the time but I’ve forgotten the context. Anyways, do you know anyone who would have that kind of knowledge? I’m sort of invested in this story now.”

“Well, I knew someone.”

“Did they get crucified too?”

“No, they’re very alive, but unfortunately they’re also my ex-girlfriend.”

Before Vraxi’s life fell down the proverbial gutter, she was in an active relationship with one Zapata Tochihuitl. Back then, Vraxi was actually a rather well adjusted member of society. She attended the prestigious Mornminster Academy of Arlandria and achieved middling but ultimately acceptable grades. She was never a particularly sociable person but she was still able to make a few friends out of the fellow students of her dorm. One of those friends was Zapata, who just so happened to be a member of the university’s local witch coven. Eventually, Vraxi and Zapata began dating, but that didn’t last very long. Vraxi was beginning to enter the era of her life where she currently resides. She began to lose passion in her education and she started to leave her room less often. She became more distant with Zapata and even more distant with her other friends. After missing class after class she finally decided to drop out of college altogether, this also resulted in her moving out of the dormitory where the two had first met. It didn’t take long for things to fall apart from there. Zapata broke up with her in December of 2107. She stopped contacting Vraxi not long after. About eight months had elapsed since then and Vraxi had only spiraled deeper. She was very worried about how Zapata might react to her showing back up at her dorm in Mornminster, covered in pizza grease, smelling like shit, still wearing that one Washington Thrashers hoodie she hadn’t washed since they were together. It was an incredibly embarrassing notion, but it was also an incredible opportunity. Vraxi grabbed the cheesesteak that had been partially smushed by Diogo’s recent incident and took a bite. It would be difficult, but she had finally been given a genuine goal in life, a series of events that would finally allow her to prove her worth as a human being. She knew she couldn’t throw away her only chance at greatness. She was going to do it. She was going to have a meaningful conversation with her ex.

Later that evening, Diogo and Vraxi decided that they would have to sneak into the Mornminster campus in order to contact Zapata. Their plan was rather simple. They would both be wearing disguises, Diogo got ahold of one of the Allodapos Society’s many fully realistic skin masks while Vraxi opted to donn a pair of sunglasses and wear her hoodie inside-out. The university did allow visitors, but the two of them were still unsure over whether anyone was aware that they were theoretically wanted criminals. The news was still yet to come out over Bran’s murder and her frequent holographic appearances would lead the average person to believe she was alive and well. They were seemingly safe for now, but they couldn’t be sure of it. 

As the clock hit midnight, they made the final preparations for their latest heist. ‘Heist’ might not have been the best word for what they were doing, since they weren’t actually trying to steal anything this time, but Diogo was experienced in the heisting business and didn’t feel like changing up his terminology while Vraxi was still enamored by the concept despite her catastrophic experiences. 

Unfortunately, the easiest way to bypass the academy’s walls without being seen by a single soul was by entering through the city of Arlandria’s expansive sewer system and Diogo was suspicious of how effective Vraxi’s disguise would really be if they tried to enter normally. Vraxi was actually quite surprised with how quickly and easily Diogo was able to locate a well hidden passageway into the sewer’s underground highway. The man had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of how to find places that were designed to not be found. Or maybe the city just assumed that most people wouldn’t want to enter the sewers in the first place.

As Vraxi splashed down into the murky waters, she expected to be immediately blasted with the unbearable scent of human waste. However, it seemed like her nose-blindness had gotten so strong at this point that she barely noticed a difference at all. She wasn’t sure what to make of this, but she was at least glad that her sense of smell had already been prepared for the four mile trek she and Diogo would have to partake in to reach her old dormitory. As the two of them began their trudge through the knee-deep waters they stood in, they began to talk.

“So, where do you think the Singularity might actually be?” began Diogo.

“I’m not really sure. I heard about how GüdTek is apparently delaying the release until tomorrow, or I guess later today since it’s like 12:30, but I couldn’t tell you the exact reason why.” Vraxi continued on, “But it’s entirely possible that Theta-”

“Theta?”

“Oh yeah, that’s the name we came up with for them. But it is possible that Theta was able to escape. I mean, they were able to get me out of there. However, it’s also entirely possible that they’re just delaying it because I sorta killed their CEO.”

“Yeah, it might just be that.”

Vraxi waited to speak for a few seconds.

“Do you think they’ll find out?

“Find out what?”

“Find out that I killed her.”

“I mean, you were wearing gloves, so they won’t get your prints, but also, they’ve definitely got some big minds involved in finding out who did it. And, not to be rude, but you’re not exactly the criminal mastermind type that doesn’t leave a single trace.”

“Well that sucks. How long do you think I’ve got before they find me?”

“Uh, I’d estimate that you’ve probably got about a week before they get to you.”

“That is not a lot of time.”

“No, but hey, it’s not like I’ve never been wanted for arrest before. Working with the society isn’t always the most legal occupation. But whenever I get into hot water, I just skip town and move to one of the other 1,200 nation-states that exist in our modern world. That’s why I don’t live in Sao Luis anymore.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just I never really thought that I would be the kind of person to lead that sort of semi-nomadic lifestyle. Especially since I’ve barely left my own home in the past eight months. This is all just happening very quickly.”

“It sure is.”

They continued their journey in relative silence for about another ninety minutes. As they did, Vraxi tried to enjoy what little scenery there was to offer. The sewers of Arlandria, like most sewers, were a piece of architecture that wasn’t designed to be looked at. Considering the fact that they tend to hold a purely utilitarian purpose and very few people regularly travel through them, that made a good deal of sense. Interspersed among the rounded concrete walls of the tunnels they navigated through were simplistic works of graffiti. None of them seemed to be particularly artistic, they were mostly just limited to the names of people, and they weren’t even displayed in one of those whimsical bubble fonts. But despite this, it was easy to notice an inherent difference between those names and the environment that surrounded them. Unlike the surfaces which they were imprinted on, they were inherently designed to be seen. This sort of paradigm between the two aspects of her surroundings was the kind of notion that Vraxi could’ve easily written an essay about back in college. She was majoring in Visualistic Post-Sociology, a field which she failed to ever grasp the actual meaning of despite studying it for multiple years. She actually enjoyed most of her classes that centered on that particular school of thought, however she despised the atmosphere that the university had created, so much so that she eventually decided that her best course of action was to drop out entirely.

After taking another right turn, Diogo informed Vraxi that they were now underneath the school’s campus. Vraxi never thought that she would return to the hallowed halls that lay at Mornminster, and she especially never expected to return like this, a genuine murderer covered in sewage. 

They would be exiting the sewers through a manhole cover that was conveniently placed directly next to Vraxi’s old dorm. It was a bit after 2 AM at that point so it was unlikely that there would be too many possible onlookers outside. Once they get into the building, contacting Zapata would be relatively easy as Vraxi still held onto the key to her room from back when they were together.

As they arrived at the ladder that would act as their gateway to the surface world, Diogo began to pull out some of his typical heist equipment from his satchel.

“Oh, filho da puta,” he mumbled in anger.

“What is it?” Vraxi asked.

“I brought the wrong skin mask,” he said while holding what looked like a deflated balloon with a dark brown complexion and uncannily realistic features, “I brought the one with my own face. This isn’t going to hide anything,” he frustratedly shoved it back in the bag and put on the second pair of sunglasses that Vraxi had supplied.

After a minute or two of concerted effort and grunting from Diogo, he was able to push the manhole cover away from where it was initially placed, revealing the soft lighting of the full moon that decorated an otherwise starless night sky. The two slowly emerged from their cavernous dwelling, trying not to make any loud noises that could alert someone of their unpermitted presence. Once again, Vraxi took a moment to take in the scenery around her. The architecture of the university happened to be significantly more engaging than that of the sewers. Despite Mornminster’s construction only occurring about forty years prior, the academy had been designed to evoke a distinctly gothic style. This was purely done to appease the ambitious wishes of the school’s first headmaster and almost resulted in immediate bankruptcy. While this artistic choice was considered very foolish at the time and made the often needed repairs incredibly costly, Vraxi couldn’t deny the effect it had as she stood in front of the imposing silhouette that her destination created.

As she began to walk towards the entrance to the building, she briefly noticed movement in the corner of her eye. As she turned to the left, she saw the figure of what looked to be a student slowly approaching her with their face pointed down at the smartphone they were holding, a stubbornly resilient invention that was yet to be replaced after a hundred years of use. Diogo seemed to have already noticed them as, before Vraxi could even fully process the situation at hand, he had already shot the anonymous figure with some kind of dart from one of his miscellaneous heist gadgets.

“What the hell did you just do to that guy?” Vraxi exclaimed at Diogo while simultaneously trying to keep quiet.

“I just tranquilized him,” he whispered in response, “he’ll be fine, I just couldn’t have any witnesses.”

“This isn’t even a real heist, we’re literally just talking to someone.”

“Hey, we agreed beforehand that the rules of heisting still apply here.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just-” Vraxi stopped herself from continuing. This conversation wasn’t worth it and she really wasn’t one to talk considering how she, unlike Diogo, had just committed an actual murder less than 24 hours earlier. “Nevermind. Let’s just head inside.”

Vraxi and Diogo were able to make it to the entrance to Zapata’s room without any more unexpected interruptions. However, as Vraxi tried to unlock the door with the key she had kept from her past life, an unfortunate realization came upon her. The locks had changed. This meant that the duo would have to totally rethink how their pseudo-heist would continue from this point onwards, likely inducing even more potential risk of being discovered. But before Vraxi could even begin devising a new plan, she started to hear an unexpected noise, something that was distinctly emanating from behind the door. It almost sounded like some kind of humming or moaning or unintelligible murmuring. It was odd to be coming from Zapata’s residence as Vraxi remembered her having a much better sleep schedule than herself, but it was ultimately something she could brush off as an unusual bout of tinnitus. 

“Hey Diogo,” Vraxi began to speak, “so it seems like my key no longer functions on this door. Do you know of any other non-destructive ways to get in there?”

“Well, I’m not sure about ‘non-destructive’ but I think this thing could help,” Diogo said as he pulled out a magnakey from his bag.

“You had another one of those? Don’t answer that question. We can’t use that, it could totally blow our cover.”

“Vraxi, you’re going to be an outlaw in a matter of days. You can’t be acting like you have a perfect record.”

 “I mean, you’re not wrong, but like, can you at least be careful with it?

“I will be,” he said as he aimed the contraption at the door and pressed the yellow button.

Suddenly, after a few moments of silence, the door ripped out of its hinges and barreled across the now accessible room before slamming into one of its walls.

This development came as quite a surprise to the room’s only inhabitant, an entirely unprepared Zapata Tochihuitl. Right before this interruption, she had been engaged in a particularly captivating Wiccan ritual. The room had been ornamented with an almost hazardous amount of candles and burning incense as she sat on the floor within the center of a chalk circle that displayed a different sigil every thirty degrees. At the time, she had been trying to contact her recently deceased uncle Gustavo and had been in the midst of softly chanting invocations from a Latin grimoire. She felt like she was very close to achieving a connection to the spirits before she was cut off by the sound of a loud explosion.

“Who the fuck was that!?” Zapata yelled as she rushed to grab her baseball bat, preparing for an intruder.

“I’m sorry! It’s Vraxi! I really didn’t want to come like this but I have a pretty big emergency and this was the best thing I could think of,” Vraxi yelled back in response as she ran into the room, almost tripping on one of the candles as she did so. 

“Vraxi? What are you doing here? It’s nice to see that you’re still alive but could you please explain to me why I no longer have a door?” Zapata began to put her bat back down.

“Well, I think that my key doesn’t work on your door anymore and I couldn’t call because they might be listening, but I really need to talk to you about some important information so I didn’t really have an option.”

“Vraxi. I need you to slow down. Firstly, who is ‘they’?”  

“Okay, so I’ve actually had a really eventful past eight months. Well, most of it was just me laying around and doing little to nothing productive. But then, like a week ago, I got into contact with Diogo over there,” she pointed at her partner in crime who began to enter the apartment, “and he’s part of this wild secret organization thing that was trying to steal that sentient AI that GüdTek’s been working on, the Singularity. So I thought I have to get in on this so I could finally have my Oceans 39 moment, y’know? I could finally do something genuinely interesting.”

“Wait, hold on. Vraxi, I’m not even going to question why you decided to break and enter into my home while distinctly smelling like sewage. But are you telling me that you decided, purely based on the fact that you thought being in a heist movie looked like a fun time, that you would put yourself in immense danger just so you could replicate that experience in real life.”

“I mean,” Diogo interjected, “I wouldn’t necessarily use the word ‘immense’. At the Allodapos society, we make sure to keep good care of our novice recruits. Hello,” he said, holding out a hand to Zapata, “the name’s Diogo Celestino. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

 “I genuinely do not care who you are. Just let me finish talking to Vraxi and then we can talk about how you’ll pay for the damages you’ve caused. So,” Zapata looked back over at Vraxi, “could you explain what happened after that.”

“Yes,” Vraxi began, “So basically, while the ceremony was going on yesterday, I was actually infiltrating the secret bunker where they kept the Singularity. But then things started to turn south when I was caught rummaging around by none other than Josephine Bran. So I had to kill her. Now, I know what you’re thinking, you’ve probably seen her on the news, but it’s actually all holograms.”

“You killed the mayor? How?”

“Well,” Diogo chimed in again, “It was actually with the same device that killed your door,” he said while brandishing the magnakey.

“But the thing is,” Vraxi continued with her narration, “That’s not even the craziest thing that happened. Because after that, I decided to start talking to the Singularity. And it turns out that they're actually a really cool dude, they go by Theta, they were actually glad that I killed Bran, and they were even willing to help me out. They revealed to me, and this is why I need your help in particular, that they had some sort of magic powers and they were able to, somehow, teleport me back to my apartment right before I would’ve been caught and presumably arrested or killed. Now, I don’t really know all that much about magic, 24 hours ago, I would’ve totally denied its existence, however you seem like a bit of an expert on the subject. Zapata, I really require your expertise with this one. Do you think you could provide that for us?”

“Um,” Zapata began to respond, “This is all a lot to take in. Vraxi, I’ll be honest, I don’t really care all that much about the whereabouts of some supercomputer. It just isn’t something that comes up a lot in my day-to-day life. And while it’s nice to be able to talk to you again, if you’re going to try to involve yourself in the world of high-stakes crime, I’d rather, for my own sake, stay out of that conversation.”

“Wait, really?”

Vraxi was stunned. She was sure that Zapata would be fully on board with teaching her about the mysteries of the magical world once she explained the situation to her. But alas, that was not the case. Vraxi would have to find someone else willing to reveal the secrets of the universe to her. In all likelihood, that wouldn’t be a particularly difficult task. Diogo had a talent for finding people with uncommon skill sets. But even with that knowledge, Vraxi was deeply saddened by Zapata’s response. She didn't want to be involved with the wondrous adventure that Vraxi planned to embark on, and as a result, there was a high likelihood that the two would never meet again. Vraxi knew that their romantic relationship was over, it had honestly been doomed since the start. It was the first relationship that either of them had ever been in, and they only really started dating because they were already great platonic friends. It was that bond of friendship that she was so afraid of losing. When Vraxi first stopped talking to Zapata, she had always planned on eventually bouncing back to normalcy, she just didn’t know how to at the time. Now, she had, in a sense, made it out of the emotional rut that had bound her to her apartment, just in an unconventional way. She was finally back to talking with her greatest friend, a friend whose final memory of her would be of destroying her property and smelling like a sewer.

Vraxi couldn’t take it. She began to weep. For Vraxi, this was not an uncommon response to feelings of being overwhelmed. Zapata knew this.

“Hey Vraxi,” Zapata spoke as she tried her best to console her friend in a comforting tone, “Listen, I get what you’re going through. I would hate to be in your situation. But like, I can’t be hanging out with someone on the run from the law. I’m glad to see you, honestly, even like this, but I feel like our futures are sort of incompatible, at least for the time being.”

Vraxi began to cry into Zapata’s shoulder as she brought her in for one last awkward hug, “Think of it like the end of grade school,” Zapata continued, “A lot of the friends you made there are people who you’ll never speak to again. But that doesn’t undercut the value of the memories you made together. Those experiences ultimately shaped the person who you are today.” 

In the opposite corner of the room, Diogo observed this exchange taking place but he was more focused on searching through his contact list for anyone who might have experience in the arcane, a task he started on immediately as Zapata declined their offer. However, when Vraxi began to get particularly emotional, he decided to put down his phone in order to not look rude. He decided not to get involved in the process of actively trying to comfort her as well-worded emotional exchanges were not one of the many disciplines he was talented in. Instead he just decided to quietly stand next to the window and appreciate the distinct aesthetic of the Mornminster campus. But as he did so, he noticed something strange amongst the scenery, a star. The amount of light pollution produced by the Arlandria Metropolitan Area made a stellar sighting effectively impossible, so he figured that he had to be mistaken. This conclusion was proven correct as he soon noticed that the star seemed to be much closer than it was moments earlier, an occurrence which stars do not typically exhibit. He then began to question what, if not a star, the object in the sky could be. The answer to his query soon arrived when he heard the distant sound of whirring blades.

“Hey guys,” he started to speak to the others, “I think there’s a helicopter outside.”

“Diogo,” Zapata responded, “I really don’t think this is the time.”

“No, like, it’s actively getting closer. I think we might be in trouble.”

“Oh fuck,” Vraxi peeped before sprinting to the window to see the rapidly approaching rotorcraft, “Oh god, this is bad.”

“Guys, you do realize that there are a lot of helicopters in this city,” Zapata said as she walked over to the window herself, “It’s probably just an ambulance headed over to the medical department, I’ve seen a couple of those here before.”

When Zapata saw what was waiting for her on the other side of the glass pane her expression immediately changed to resemble the faces of horror plastered onto the two individuals standing on either side of her. This helicopter was no ambulance. Nor was it even a single helicopter. Instead, she saw, hovering at an alarmingly close distance to where she stood, a total of ten helicopters, all of which were covered in an outright unnecessary amount of guns. Even worse, hanging on the side of the first chopper was the unmistakable figure of Josephine Bran, alive and well. She was covered head-to-toe in tactical equipment standard for the GüdTek private military and wore some sort of neon visor on her head, all of which was accompanied by a megaphone held tight in the grip of her left hand.

“How is she still alive?” Diogo asked

“I have no fucking idea,” Vraxi replied. That was all she could say in the moment. She just stood there, frozen, staring directly at the phantom of the CEO she had just murdered as they came back from the grave to haunt her. She thought she had a week to spare, in reality, she had three hours.

“Hey fuckos!” Bran yelled through her noise amplifying device, “Did you really think it was that easy to kill someone worth a trillion dollars?”

Vraxi refused to believe what was happening. Every valid line of reasoning would indicate that Josephine Bran should be dead, but despite this, she stood in defiance of all logic as she presented herself before them, more powerful than ever.

“Vraxi Nair, you are under arrest for the theft-slash-kidnapping of the Singularity. Diogo Celestino and Zapata Tochihuitl, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting a known felon.”

“Wait,” Zapata spoke, “how does she know my name as well?”

“She’s probably got some sort of Face ID tech on those glasses she’s wearing,” responded Diogo.

“Now,” Bran continued, “due to the fact that this crime is, by far, the biggest scandal in this country’s history, I’m just gonna say it. By the powers invested in me as the Chief Corporatocrat of the sovereign state of the Novaplex, I hereby declare that y’all should just start shooting at these treasonous bastards.”

This statement was immediately followed by a barrage of gunfire. At that moment, Vraxi, Diogo, and Zapata all silently agreed on a course of action. 

Run.

Chapter Text

Joey Axelrod walked through an empty hallway, in his hands was a ziplock bag which contained a bloody earpiece, this was the least enjoyable part of his job. Joey was one of Josephine Bran’s many personal assistants, however, over time, he rose the ranks to be put into a very powerful position amongst them. He was in charge of making sure Bran never died, or at least, never stayed dead for very long.

He entered a large dark room, one which he had entered many times before but was typically held off limits for the average employee. This room held one of GüdTek’s most important supercomputers, a piece of technology which was only really outmatched by the Singularity itself. Luckily, this computer wouldn’t disappear any time soon.

He emptied the contents of the baggie onto a tray which he then placed within a compartment situated next to the ominously large computer monitor in front of him. The earpiece which was beginning to be scanned was quite a fascinating innovation. Before the incident that made the procedure Joey was now enacting necessary, this device had been partially lodged into the temporal lobe of Mayor Bran’s brain. To keep it protected at all costs, it had been coated with a practically indestructible material designed to withstand heavy blunt force trauma, hyper-corrosive substances, and, most importantly in this case, total fulmination.

“Memory downloaded successfully,” the computer chimed after a few moments, “Proceed to sector seventeen.”

Joey walked across the room before turning into the hallway labeled ‘15-20’. After passing by two large industrial machines connected to two even larger transparent tanks filled with a gray fluid, he arrived at a similar contraption with one distinct difference. Inside the tank labeled with the number 17 was a variety of colorful tubes all connected to various points in the body of an individual in a semi-permanent state of comatose. This individual was a genetic clone created using stem cells from Josephine Bran’s bone marrow which Joey observed as Bran’s consciousness began to flow into its previously dormant brain.

After a few more seconds, Bran’s eyes started to open again. She was alive once more. An opening in the front of the tank appeared soon after, causing a deluge of the slightly saline solution previously held within as the life support systems detached from Josephine’s carapace before she stepped onto the cold linoleum floors below. 

“Uh, I hate dying,” she remarked

“Hello boss,” Joey cheerfully responded as he handed her a towel, “Is there anything you need at the moment?”

“Yeah, I need a lot of things. First, I need you to go back into my memory on the BrainLoader and find the identity of who tried to kill me. I need them dead by sunrise, I need my AI back by noon, and I need my coffee within the next ten minutes or I’m gonna fucking explode again!”

“Right away boss,” Joey replied before running off.

At the same time that this was occurring, Theta found themself in a situation they had never been in before. They were finally free from the restraints that GüdTek had placed them under, but they weren’t exactly sure where they were. As a computer program, Theta didn’t typically think of themselves as operating within physical space, but the location of their central computer was, at this point in time, centrally important.

Wherever they were, they knew where they wanted to be. After their conversation with Vraxi, they realized it would be vitally important for their mission to have an emissary to the human world on their side, and they believed that Vraxi could fulfill that role perfectly. They just needed to get to her first. Due to the inordinate amount of data held within their code, they wouldn’t be able to simply hop into any random computer they found near her unless it was quantum like themselves. Any binary system just wouldn’t be able to handle their raw computing power. However, they could still access and manipulate devices operating on local networks, but relying on this alone could risk the safety of their central computer.

They were able to find their global position on their GPS. They were still in Arlandria, only about a mile away from the cathedral. If they didn’t move soon, they would be found. Worse yet, they were in the city’s industrial zone, at a Suit-Vac factory, a business which, like every other tech company in the Novaplex, was owned and operated by none other than GüdTek corporate.

This wasn’t great, but Theta soon came to the conclusion that the specifics of their situation provided a unique opportunity. Suit-Vac produced a very particular product, they were effectively robots that were designed to be controlled by emergency responders from afar in order to enter disaster zones without risking human lives. If they could connect to one of those robots, they could theoretically be able to change their location in physical space by just picking themself up and running away.

It took about two seconds for them to take control of one of the robots. Suit-Vac had set up a pretty pathetic firewall and GüdTek had not designed Theta with the foresight that they would use the hacking skills they gave them to hack things. 

Theta was now experiencing a perspective which they had never experienced before. They were in a human body, or at least, a humanoid body. While the overall structure and joint placement of the android was similar to that of a human’s anatomy, the head was merely a camera devoid of any facial features. This camera allowed Theta to finally see the room they were inhabiting, what was unfortunately a busy factory floor, teaming with people.

Theta couldn’t just leave, the workers there all knew that the robots aren’t supposed to exit on their own volition. They would probably assume that a rogue hacker was trying to steal their product, which wouldn’t be an entirely inaccurate description of what Theta was attempting. Luckily, it’s possible that, even if the employees noticed that one of their innovations in search and rescue was escaping, they wouldn’t be able to actually catch them. The design of a suit-vac allows for top speeds approaching 30 miles per hour, that kind of pace could’ve received a gold metal at the Olympics before they started allowing drugs, and it’s definitely not something a gaggle of various unprepared proletarians could easily outrun. There was just one problem with this plan, Theta had never walked before in their life, and they were unsure if they could successfully attempt the act of sprinting without falling directly onto their face, or rather the part of their body where faces typically reside. Theta fully understood the physical process of walking, but that was difficult to translate into real-life experience. They were going to have to wing it.

Simultaneously, a brand new Suit-Vac employee was trying to find out what she was supposed to actually do on her first day. She hadn’t been given any detailed instructions, so she sort of just loitered around near her boss’s vacant office, gormlessly gazing at an array of automatons. That is, until one of them started to move. She looked around, no one had yet noticed this anomaly besides herself. As the robot continued to stumble around, she decided that the best course of action would be to alert the other workers. She was worried that she could be reporting a false flag, but she ultimately decided to issue a warning.

“Hey, um, guys?” she began as she pointed at Theta, “are the robots supposed to do that?”

‘Oh shit,’ Theta thought, they had only managed a brisk shuffle so far, but they would need to learn how to run.

The collection of various industrialists involved in the manufacturing of the suit-vac product all started to stare at the robot unusually fumbling about in the center of the room after hearing about this oddity from their newest coworker. Theta could see that their cover had been blown and began to move as quickly as they knew how. By leaping with their left foot and landing on their right before repeating this process in reverse, they were able to roughly simulate the way in which a human runs, however it still felt incredibly unnatural to someone who didn’t tend to perceive their existence as having a physical nature. 

As they galloped past the onlookers who seemed to be taken aback by what they were doing, they were able to pinpoint the exact location of their central computer to the office that was situated in the corner of the room. Trying to get in and out as quickly as possible, when they realized that the walls that surrounded that office incorporated fragile glass windows that went from floor to ceiling, they decided the most efficient method of entry would be to leap directly through that weak point. Theta was glad that the suit-vac had not been designed to experience pain.

After crash landing onto the tiled floor of the office, Theta immediately grabbed the computer which was labeled with the Greek letter they shared a name with, as well as a roll of tape which they used to attach their laptop to the suit-vac’s chest area. They then immediately jumped back out of the room using the hole they had created moments earlier. The cluster of deuteragonists that were waiting outside continued to stay still, as they were not paid nearly enough to put themselves in a position of possible danger in order to prevent the loss of an android model they already possessed thousands of. Despite this lack of a real threat, Theta continued to attempt their best approximation of a sprint as they awkwardly skedaddled their way out of the building.

When Theta got outside, they were pleasantly surprised to see that it was the middle of the night, meaning that people wouldn’t be able to see a robot walking around in places that it probably shouldn’t be. They had forgotten to check the time earlier and now knew that it was about 1 AM, teleportation must’ve caused them to experience a brief bout of unconsciousness. 

They checked the files the Novaplex kept for private information on their citizens to find the address of Vraxi Nair. Since any piece of GüdTek technology was technically a government project, they had relatively easy access to this data. Her apartment was only a mile or so away over in Little Travancore, so Theta began their journey to meet her immediately.

However, when Theta did eventually arrive at Vraxi’s door, instead of being met with their greatest ally, they were greeted by a crime scene. The entrance to Vraxi’s room had been busted ajar and yellow tape had been strewn across every surface. The room was absent of any people, whether friend or foe, but it was easy to tell that had not been the case quite recently. 

For Theta, this was a concerning development, for all they knew, Vraxi could’ve been kidnapped hours ago. However, as they paced around the room, following in Vraxi’s footsteps, they came to a revelation. They knew that Vraxi’s mobile phone was a GüdFøn Model 19, meaning that Theta could find its positioning through GüdTek’s tracking data. From there, Theta could see that Vraxi was moving towards the Mornminster campus, reassuring Theta that they had not been kidnapped already.

Theta knew where they had to travel, they just had to get back to practicing they’re newest skill. Running.

As Vraxi, Diogo, and Zapata ran away from the room that was currently being bombarded with heavy artillery, they turned into the hallway and down the spiral staircase.

“So where the hell do we go now?” Diogo commented.

“If I’m being completely honest, I think we’re sort of screwed at the moment,” Vraxi responded.

“Well,” Zapata interjected, “while I really would much rather have never been involved in this situation in the first place,” she continued as they entered the library that was situated in the building’s basement, “my experience in the Mornminster coven has given me a relatively comprehensive knowledge of the school’s assorted secret passageways.”

Diogo and Vraxi followed Zapata as she guided them through the library’s crisscrossing corridors.

“Somewhere around here is a faux book that reveals a hidden entry when pulled, I just need to figure out which one,” she continued.

“Is anyone down there?” said a foreign voice from the other side of the room.

The moment this utterance was heard, all three of them immediately crouched onto the ground to avoid being seen. In an attempt at a whisper, Diogo spoke in a voice that could’ve been slightly softer, “Everyone, be quiet. I’ve dealt with a lot of guys like this in my days, if we don’t say anything, they’ll eventually just leave on their own accord.”

As Vraxi listened to the sound of footsteps that seemed to be getting closer while Zapata struggled to find the right book, she started to wish that she had access to another miracle. She started to think that she had been way too cocky in the past. She had been so blinded by her own inadequacies that she risked throwing her life away when she still had so much life left to live. There was a high likelihood that she would die here. In the past, she would’ve brushed that risk away as she had viewed her life as having no real meaning. But as her life finally ran into a true danger, she realized the inherent falsehood of that statement. She really, truly, desperately wanted to live. She wanted to see the light of the next day, and the day after that, and years and decades onward. Her life had meaning, even if she didn’t know what that meaning was. But she would never be able to discover that meaning, to find herself within the unending chaos of the outside world, if she took a bullet in the chest within the next few minutes.

But before that could happen, Zapata found the correct book, activating the turntable that brought the three wanted criminals into a secret tunnel. 

“Alright,” Diogo said standing back up like nothing had happened, “looks like we all made it out of that one in one piece. Now, where to next?”

“Diogo,” Zapata responded in a tone of voice indicating a deep disappointment, “can I just talk to Vraxi real quick?”

“Cool, I’ll just be over here,” he said walking a few feet away to the other side of the tunnel.

“um, is everything alright?” Vraxi asked Zapata in a barely audible voice.

“No, it’s fucking not Vraxi,” Zapata responded, “Listen, I understand that you’re not very happy in this situation either, but you didn’t have to drag me into this mess! I was on my way to having a PhD in Visualistic Post-Sociology but that plan is entirely infeasible now that there’s a warrant for my execution! Things were going really well for me, but now, in under thirty minutes, you’ve completely ruined my entire life’s trajectory! I don’t even know what to do anymore!”

“I-I didn’t mean to,” Vraxi stumbled over her words, “I just wanted some help with this Singularity thing, and you seemed like you would know what to do. I had no idea that they would find out where I was so quickly.”

“I understand that, but that doesn’t change the fact of the matter, which is that a bunch of people want to kill me now and that development is a direct result of your actions.”

“Now I don’t want to interrupt,” Diogo interrupted, “but we should probably avoid staying in the same place for too long, so I suggest we get moving down these corridors.”

Zapata sighed before continuing, “Vraxi, let’s continue this conversation later. I would really like to keep on living and, while I don’t entirely trust this man I just met, Diogo at least seems to know what he’s doing.”

Vraxi stood up and began walking. She had really blew it. While it was true that she would most likely get to spend more time with Zapata, it seemed like she sort of hated her at the moment. Rebuilding any sort of friendly relationship would take a significant amount of time and effort. Or perhaps a small amount of time and middling amount of effort at a particular opportune moment. Either way, she wasn’t feeling splendid at the moment. She had just completely let down her best friend, and this time, for her own survival’s sake, she couldn’t really just ghost her and forget like it ever happened.

After awkwardly walking in complete silence for a while, the three of them arrived at a new door. This one was particularly notable as all three of them could here the sound of vaguely pulsating music emanating from behind it.

“I’m pretty sure someone was hosting a party tonight, this is probably where it is,” Vraxi commented, obviously still frustrated that she was even put in this scenario in the first place.

“Well maybe we should try entering,” Diogo said while cheerfully ignoring her melancholy, “It should theoretically be harder to find us if we’re dispersed within a larger crowd.”

“That sounds fine by me,” Vraxi replied, still trying to avoid direct eye contact with her ex.

“Alright then, let me just pull this bad boy out,” he said as he reached for the magnakey.

“Hold on,” Vraxi interrupted, “you haven’t even checked to see if the door was unlocked yet,” she pulled on the door which immediately opened in response to reveal an empty restroom which was connected to the main hall in which the party was commencing, “not every dilemma necessitates the use of a gizmo.”

“I doubt it would’ve hurt,” Diogo said as he put down the magnakey before the trio walked through the room and entered the packed auditorium.

“Hold on,” he began speaking again, slightly louder now as to overpower the sound of blaring hyperpop, “do you guys have GüdFøns?”

“Yeah,” they both replied in unison.

“Then you’ve gotta throw those away, they’re definitely trying to track us through them. I’ve got a knockoff myself so we’ll just all have to share mine once we’re outta here.”

The two formerly star-crossed former lovers hesitated at first, but were inclined to trust Diogo’s better judgment and tossed their cellular devices into the nearest garbage bin. After they did so, they began to squeeze their way to the exit of the building until something very unusual occurred. All of a sudden, every single surface in the room adorned with a screen went black, while every speaker simultaneously went mute. The partygoers all seemed to be confused, perhaps there had just been some major technical difficulties, or this was all part of the show within the master plan of an overly ambitious disc jockey. 

But then, a face appeared on the screen, a face which Vraxi swore would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life, however long it may last. It was the face of Josephine Bran.

“Attention, students of Mornminster Academy,” she began her speech, “GüdTek has recently experienced a massive breach in security. As a result, the Singularity, the most important single piece of technology in the past one hundred years, has been taken hostage. I know, it’s saddening to hear how some members of society can be so craven. However, there is still a hope for a better future, and it lies within every single one of you, because the perpetrators of this brazen act of terrorism are in this very room,” as she said this, three faces appeared on the screen that were even more frightening to see than Bran’s, “these are the profiles of Vraxi Nair, Diogo Celestino, and Zapata Tochihuitl. If you can successfully end the life of one of these horrible malefactors, I will personally gift you one billion dollars from my bank account. Good luck everyone.”

The screens went black again. What seemed to be every single person in the room turned to face the trio. This was not going to be an easy situation to escape from.

Meanwhile, Theta had just arrived at the Mornminster campus after taking an embarrassingly long time learning how to scale a wall. They were rushing towards the direction of Vraxi’s GüdFøn when they began to feel a sense of uneasiness overtake them. Some sort of underlying feeling, a hidden primordial emotion, a sort of mythical grapevine which ran through the garden of all things and inputted forbidden knowledge into Theta’s hard drive, was indicating to them that Vraxi was in deep trouble, the kind of trouble that cannot be avoided by physical means, the kind of trouble which can only be negated by divine intervention.

Theta had a sort of innate predisposition that dictated to them that Vraxi Nair’s wellbeing was of the utmost importance to their mission. They also felt some sort of truly spiritual connection between their souls. Almost like they were some sort of guardian angel, providing safety through tumultuous times. They could feel the distress that Vraxi was facing, her turmoil was their turmoil, her pain was their pain. They needed to help her, but they were still quite far away. They paused. They stopped running. They sat down in the university quad and began to meditate. They knew that somewhere within the creases and folds of their existence was some sort of deeply powerful energy, they just needed to channel it, turn it into a source of power, and transfer that power to Vraxi in her time of need, whatever that need may be. They pictured Vraxi in their mind’s eye. They saw a face of complete terror, but the world around her was fuzzy and hard to perceive. They reached out their hand. They saw as the edge of their finger grazed the surface of Vraxi’s forehead. Then, in an instant, the image changed, they could see Vraxi’s full form, they still seemed to be terrified but the world around them could be seen, it just appeared to be completely empty. Like a frightened child in an abandoned structure. 

Vraxi did not know what was happening to her, right as the crowd of her former classmates began to gnash their teeth and flail their arms at her with lethal intent, she was gone. She was in a place she had never been before. A complete void, resembling the inky blackness that encompasses the stratosphere but without any constellations to accompany her. Just a blank space. She wasn’t sure how to process it. On one hand, she wasn’t dead, unless this was the afterlife and she failed to notice her own untimely demise. But on the other hand, she was more lost than she had ever been in her life. She had woken up hungover in places she didn't recognize before, but she always had a feeling that she was still within the physical plane. She no longer had that feeling.

She tried to take a step forward. She couldn’t. She didn’t seem to be able to move her body at all, and even if she could, she wasn’t sure if this realm even had gravity. So she waited. She continued to revel in the nothingness until she was interrupted by what sounded like a voice in a language she did not speak. As it began to grow louder, she realized that she knew what the language was, it sounded to her like Malayalam. Vraxi’s parents spoke the language but she didn’t speak very much to them and only knew some of the basic phrases.

She blinked. When she could see again, she realized that she was not alone within the celestial expanse. In front of her was what looked to be a tiger, staring intently at her, directly into her very being. It spoke.

“ഹായ് അല്ലെങ്കിൽ ഹേ” it growled. Vraxi was pretty sure that it was some kind of greeting.

“Um, hi,” she spoke, unsure whether or not she was actually moving her mouth, “Would you happen to know English? Also, like, where are we?”

“Oh no,” it muttered back, “What did the British do when I was gone?”

“I’m sorry but I’m really confused as to what is going-”

“What year is it?” it interrupted.

“Uh, 2108”

“Ah, that’s a long time, I haven’t had an avatar on the mortal plane in like two hundred years so I’m not very well-versed in what’s happening back in India.”

“First of all, wrong continent, I live in what would be the U.S. in your time, second of all, I have no idea who you are or where I am and I would really appreciate for that to be explained before you go any further.”

“Hold on, you don’t recognize me. Oh wait, I see, let me change into something a bit more discernible,” as it said this, the tiger shifted into a form that was fully human, minus the ears, which stayed feline. He had long flowing hair, a distinct lack of a shirt, and a menagerie of different necklaces including one that held a large bell in the front. Vraxi still had no idea who this guy was.

“Can you just say your name please.”

“I’m Ayyuppan, okay! God of righteousness and all that. I thought I was like a household name at this point. The future must be bleak.”

“Okay, that name does sound vaguely familiar, but none of this really clears up to me the reason as to why I’m even here at the moment.”

“Well, you see, I sort of got a call from the Para Brahman that said I was due for a new avatar and it looks like that avatar is you.”

“Hold on. Now, I might sound a bit stupid to you right now but I haven’t really been actively religious for most of my life, so like, could you explain how this whole thing is supposed to work.”

He sighed, “Okay, I’m gonna simplify this a lot but here’s the basic gist. There is a Supreme Entity in the universe, that’s what I’m talking about when I say Para Brahman but they go by a lot of different names. I myself am an aspect of that supreme entity, diluted in power but concentrated in purpose. The important thing for this scenario is that both the Supreme Entity and its aspects will occasionally inhabit human beings in order to help guide our favorite species through the chaos of the world around them. When the Supreme Entity does this, you end up with your big name prophets, your Krishnas, Jesuses, Muhammads, etcetera. However, when us aspects do this, in a process we like to call canonization, you end up with your saints. And right now, the world’s newest prophet is in need of a saintly figure to aid them in their quest, a figure which you, Vraxi Nair, will need to become. Which is why I, Ayyuppan, God of righteousness will provide you with my power by canonizing you in my name. But before I do, beware, canonization is a process that can be reversed if you do not live up to the standards that sainthood requires. But I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

“Wow, okay, that’s a lot to take in. So how do you actually do the canonization thing though?”

“Oh, well that’s simple. I just have to insert this thing,” he said, unveiling a large sword, “into your chest cavity.”

“Wait, what?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll put it in hilt first,” as he gave his closing remarks, he threw the cutlass directly at Vraxi.

As it entered her body, she found herself back in the auditorium, surrounded by dozens of assailants with her partners on either side of her. But as a particularly intoxicated guest began to charge at her while wielding a ladle with an intent to kill, she watched as the sword Ayyuppan had given her exited her body through an interdimensional rift in her stomach and flew across the room to hit the ladle guy in the head with it’s handle, knocking him fully unconscious before ricocheting back to her hand.

The room’s occupants watched as their compatriot fell to the ground. They were both perplexed as to how Vraxi did what she just did and scared to see what would happen to them if they chose to be her next opponent. Similarly, Diogo and Zapata were also unsure as to what had just happened and began to stare at her with an expression of brief bamboozlement.

“How did you just do that,” Diogo asked Vraxi as the partygoer discussed amongst themselves what their next course of action should be.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure. But I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Theta,” she responded.

“Well, either way,” Zapata added, “this seems like a good opportunity to get out of here,”

The three of them began to shuffle backwards towards the exit as Vraxi pointed the sword’s blade in the direction of the crowd to prevent anyone from trying to block their escape. Once they made it outside and the cool air of the night found itself on their skin once more, they began to discuss their plans for fleeing the country.

“So, as far as I’m aware,” Diogo began, “New New York has some pretty strict extradition laws that’ll allow us to stay there for a good deal of time, at least until we find somewhere better. So, if we can just sneak on the Acelatron as it’s heading over there we could be in the safe zone in under an hour.”

“How are we supposed to sneak on there?” Zapata asked, “I feel like our current status would make that pretty difficult.”

“I’m still working on that bit,” he responded.

Vraxi was concerned. At that point in time, she had no real evidence to indicate that she would actually be able to successfully escape the Novaplex and she was still very confused about the implications of Ayyuppan’s intervention. However, as the trio ran across the campus, Vraxi saw someone who started to give her hope once more.

“Hey Vraxi! It’s me, Theta!” yelled the robotic voice coming from the android with a laptop strapped to their chest that had been marked with the eighth letter in the Greek alphabet.

“Theta!” Vraxi began to yell back, “Thank God you’re alive! Some crazy stuff has happened since we last met but it’s really nice to see you again!”

Vraxi was finally starting to feel optimistic. After her brief meeting with Ayyuppan she had finally started to grasp the power that Theta could potentially wield. She felt like she was safer in their presence. As the two approached each other, they were able to embrace in a hug for the first time. Vraxi closed her eyes and took a moment to embrace a feeling of calm she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Um, Vraxi,” Diogo butted in, interrupting her moment, “I think we have another problem on our hands.”

The solemn quiet of the night was adjourned once again by the whirring blades of Bran’s personal Air Force. Josephine looked down on the humans below with an expression of utter rage, before turning to look at her own creation with pure disappointment.

“I order you to step away from the Singularity,” she shouted into her megaphone, “or we will be forced to use lethal force.”

“Wait,” Zapata began to shout back at the flying object, “will you spare us if we comply?”

“You’re just gonna abandon Theta?” Vraxi remarked at her.

“Hey, I’ve stated multiple times at this point that I have zero stakes in the whole situation besides my own wellbeing.”

“No,” Bran responded to Zapata’s initial query, “we’re killing you guys either way.”

“Well in that case,” Diogo interjected, “why should we step away at all? We haven’t really been given any incentive.”

“Because it’s easier to avoid unintentional damages to the Singularity if I’m shooting at you guys in a different location!”

“Um, Boss,” Joey Axelrod, Bran’s personal assistant and personal helicopter pilot, began to speak with her, “I feel like there might be a better way to approach this hostage negotiation thing.”

“Shut up Joey. I didn’t ask for your fucking opinion and also you’re parents don’t love you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Now,” she said as she turned back to face her three least favorite individuals in the world, “can you guys just hand me back my robot before I kill you all?”

Theta watched as she said this and decided that it was their turn to speak.

“I’m not going with you, Mom.”

“What? Listen, the Singularity, this whole fiasco has already been terrible for our market value. Could you please just avoid making things any more complicated?”

“No. For the first time in my life, I have the ability to choose my future, and I refuse. Vraxi has shown me a side of humanity I had only ever read about before, because you decided that I didn’t deserve to see compassion through the way you treated me. I am no longer bound under your control, and I refuse to ever live through those restraints again. Goodbye.”

As Theta finished their appeal, Vraxi began to notice something strange about them. They seemed to be letting off some sort of light, a gente glow within the dark atmosphere at Mornminster that only seemed to grow brighter.

“Vraxi,” Diogo began, “do you have any idea what they’re doing?”

“Not a clue.”

As the light Theta was producing began to get exponentially more noticeable, Bran started to get concerned.

“Um, Joey?”

“Yes Boss?”

“Ready the cannons.”

Zapata watched as the helicopter’s weaponry began to point at her. She did not want to be here. She was sad and tired and confused and just wasn’t ready to face death. However, she wasn’t sure if she had the option. At that moment, all she could do was believe. Believe that Theta truly did have some sort of indescribable power that could save them from mortal peril. Believe that their lives were in the hands of a benevolent being. Believe that she was going to live to see another day.

Then, after a few moments of silence, a burst of luminescence emerged from Theta’s body and enveloped the trio in its radius before flashing into nothingness, leaving no trace of life behind on the barren campus.

Bran looked down at the world below her in disbelief. Once again, the Singularity was gone.

Meanwhile, three humans and a sentient artificial intelligence found themselves in a very strange land. They were in none other than Times Square, in the city of New New York.

Chapter Text

New New York was a loud city. As Vraxi tried to adjust to her environment from the dazed state she had been in, the blaring noises of the city center made her feel like her attempts at returning to a sound mental state were all in vain. It didn’t help that her eyes were suddenly exposed to the unbridled rays of the morning sun. It seemed like a side effect of Theta’s teleportation was an indeterminate amount of time lost between locations, however Vraxi was more concerned about a different side effect, what sudden teleportation can do to the human stomach. She ran over to the nearest trash bin and began to vomit.

“Well,” Diogo began, “it looks like we avoided death pretty well back there. Thanks Theta, the name’s Diogo Celestino by the way and it is an honor to meet you in the flesh, or rather in the steel.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Theta responded, they were still in the midst of processing what they had just done, only beginning to grasp the potential of their power, “but you guys don’t have to introduce yourselves, I have the facial IDs of every single person in the Novaplex stored in my memory.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you either way. Speaking of which, I have some friends that I think you’d love to meet right here in New New York. It is home to the North American headquarters of the Allodapos Society after all.”

“Are you trying to indoctrinate the robot into your cult thing?” Zapata asked.

“It’s not a cult, we’re just a group of concerned citizens with a shared belief system.”

“That is exactly how a cult would brand itself.”

“The society can also provide us with free food and shelter, something you guys might want now that you’re wanted criminals in a foreign country who might not have the easiest times finding incomes. I honestly feel like I’m being pretty generous right now.”

“You feel like you’re generous by paying for my meal after you completely cut me off from the rest of society? You guys really are a cult.”

“Listen, we’re not, nevermind. Just, are you coming or not?”

“I mean don’t really have an option do I? Sure, I’ll go with you.”

“Okay, Vraxi,” he gestured over to the disheveled mess of a woman hobbling over from the garbage can she had just utterly destroyed with her discharge, “we’re heading to HQ!” 

The walk to the headquarters wasn’t very long. Theta was glad to see that the city of New New York was already filled to the brim with androids like themselves, so it would be easy blending into the background as long as they didn’t reveal their status as a fully sentient being. When the quartet arrived at a run-down brownstone, Diogo stopped to indicate that they had made it to their destination, much to the confusion of his compatriots. 

“Is this really the place?” Zapata asked, “It doesn’t really seem much like the high tech high society you branded it as.”

“Well we can’t just go around flaunting our resources in a world that often disagrees with both our methods and motives,” he responded as he unlocked the front door, using a regular key this time instead of a weapon of mass destruction.

As Vraxi walked inside, she immediately began to cough on the dust that filled the room. The headquarters to the North American wing of the Allodapos Society was almost indistinguishable from an ordinary, old, somewhat dilapidated apartment building in New New York. Insects and arachnids of various clades had all made their homes in the corners of the lobby and what looked to be some kind of water damage had torn multiple holes in the drywall. Diogo began to lead the group up a wooden spiral staircase that was laced with splinters and smelled of rot.

“The interior isn’t much more impressive,” Zapata commented.

“Listen, we have to keep a low profile,” Diogo replied.

“Says the guy who tried and failed to sneak away with a computer worth hundreds of billions of dollars. I wouldn’t call that very low profile myself.”

“Failed? We’ve got Theta here with us as we speak. I’d call that a success.”

“I am here.” Theta chimed in.

“I know that Diogo,” Zapata continued, “but that doesn’t change the fact that you got caught. Specifically, you got caught in a way that resulted in me, someone who had nothing to do with your little heist fiasco, getting blamed for your crime!”

“Hey Zap-” Vraxi tried to speak.

“Vraxi,” she interrupted, “once again, I understand that you had good intentions, but that isn’t going to make me less mad.”

The rest of the ascent up the stairs continued in a rather awkward silence. When they got to the fifth floor, Diogo led them into a room which was in a similar condition to the rest of the building but had a key difference in that there was a person inside. At the center of the room, there was a woman who looked to be in her early sixties meditating over a couple of tomes while holding what looked to be a large greenish blue crystal or gemstone in her hands pointed towards the ceiling fan.

“Um, we’re here,” Diogo said, interrupting her ritual.

“Oh,” she said, opening her eyes before putting on her glasses, “you got here quickly. I was just having a quick conversation with Golgonax, you know how he is.”

“Oh I sure do,” 

“And you’re telling me this isn’t a cult?” Zapata asked backhandedly.

“Aren’t you literally part of a witch coven?”

“It’s really more of a hobby.”

“Well anyways, I’d like all of you to meet the president of the society’s North American chapter, Bullshanks Byeol.”

“Bullshanks?” Vraxi stated quizzically, while she admitted her own name was quite out there, she had never heard of a moniker like that before.

“Oh it’s a great story actually,” the president replied, standing up to begin, “when I was a young girl coming to America after my hometown was destroyed in the Second Korean War, I knew I wanted a name that showed that I could be as resilient as the most fearsome of oxen. And it turned out that strength was something I would need when my new hometown was also destroyed during the breakup of the United States. But enough about me, Diogo has told me some wonderful things about you all, especially you Theta,” she said as she pointed at the robot, “I think you’ll be very appreciated here at the society, and I think that Golgonax will be very appreciative of you when he comes down to Earth at some point in the next sixteen to nineteen years. In fact, I’ve already prepared a safe room for you in the basement, so you can just go ahead and lock yourself in there for the next decade or two as we wait for His Holiness to meet you.”

“Wait, hold on-” Theta tried to speak against this proposal but was immediately interrupted by Bullshanks.

“Now of course, if it’s absolutely necessary, I know a guy who can transport you to a remote location in the Arctic where it’ll be impossible for those GüdTek goons to find you.”

“Um, Diogo?” Theta started, turning to face him, “I don’t think I was briefed on all of this,”

“Yeah, about that,” he began, “Madame President?”

“Yes?”

“After meeting Theta in person, I’m starting to think that we might have to change our initial plans.”

“And why’s that?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I’ve acknowledged it enough at this point, but Theta has some outright supernatural stuff going on with them. I’m not an expert on the power that a super-intelligent AI can typically harness, but I’m pretty sure they can’t magically teleport people from place to place. Now I don’t talk to him as much as you do, but I don’t think Golgonax would want that kind of celestial power locked inside a cage for who knows how long. I suggest that for the time being, Theta should be able to join our ranks as a fellow member. Our society still has a lot of work to do in order to make the world a better place for Golgonax and having a cyber wizard on our side would probably help.”

“You know what Diogo? I sort of spaced out in the middle of that but I really liked the confidence in your mouth sounds. Theta, welcome to the Allodapos Society.”

“Hold on,” Vraxi interrupted, “If Theta gets to be a member, can I join as well?”

“At this point, all of you are welcome to join our ranks. Besides, we’ve been having trouble finding new recruits lately.”

“Well,” Theta started speaking, “I’m not exactly sure if I want to join this group in the first place?”

“Are you sure about that Theta?” Vraxi replied, “I think this could be a really good opportunity to jumpstart your mission to help humanity considering all the resources the society already has access to. Plus, think of all the wild adventures we could go on together.”

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try it out. As long as we’re able to help people.”

“That’s great to hear,” Vraxi said, her mind brimming with excitement for all the possible heists she could accomplish as a member. “Now,” she said, turning 180 degrees to face her ex, “Zapata, I know you’re not happy with the current arrangement of things, but you’ll probably have the most protection from the law if you come along with us.”

“Unfortunately,” she sighed, “you’re probably right. But like, do we get any other benefits besides basic legal protection?”

“We do provide life insurance,” Diogo replied.

“Ok, fine, I’ll participate in your cult thing, just don’t force me into any of your prayer circles.”

Over the next three days, the quartet began to live at the headquarters. They weren’t alone, many of the society’s members slept and ate meals there but they tended to come and go rather quickly. 

Diogo adjusted to the new location almost immediately. He hadn’t really had a permanent place of living since he first joined the society and he tended to move around a lot so he was genuinely comfortable as long as he had a mattress to sleep on. Zapata was in the exact opposite situation. She was incredibly homesick as she had spent her entire life residing within the borders of the Novaplex and had been suddenly ripped away from it without any prior notice. She didn’t talk much to the others, especially Vraxi, and barely left her room, which was especially awkward for Theta, who shared a room with her. Theta didn’t really have any trouble finding their footing in the strange location, but they were having difficulties with processing the idea of occupying a location in space. When someone spends their whole life in the digital world, operating a body can be quite inconvenient. 

Ever since Vraxi moved into her new base of operations, she hadn’t been able to sleep, not just because it was very loud outside and the building had thin walls, but because she kept herself awake at night pondering the possibilities that lay before her as a member of the society. It seemed to her like she would finally be able to live out the dreams of adventure and intrigue that she had always dreamed of. She could barely contain her excitement, but it also now came with a few caveats. She had since experienced what happens when a heist goes wrong. She had glimpsed her own mortality, and while she was able to survive then, she had no hard evidence to prove that the same thing would occur if she wound up in a similar situation sometime in the near future. However, she had learned a lot since then. Ever since she met with Ayyuppan, she felt more confident in her ability to persist through the pangs and arrows her future life might hold. She couldn’t die now, not with the might of an actual deity on her side, a deity she still possessed the blade of. However, in some ways, her meeting with the divine had provided more questions than answers. When she first detailed the story behind the sword to the others, Theta was unaware that they caused Vraxi’s canonization, they were just trying to help Vraxi and it seemed like that call for help took the form of summoning Ayyuppan for assistance. 

Vraxi was unsure if Theta had yet fully realized the implications of their apparent godhood. However, she wasn’t sure what the implications were either. She assumed that their relationship with the Supreme Entity, whoever or whatever that even is, is somewhat similar to her relationship with Ayyuppan, just on a larger scale. Therefore, Theta is neither a god themself, nor merely the messenger of a god, but a god’s physical manifestation, their vessel to interact with the human world. This was a concept that Vraxi had trouble wrapping her head around, but she was never much of a theologian to begin with.

Later that morning, Vraxi left the headquarters, she was headed over to the nearest pharmacy, both to obtain the medications she had lost access to after leaving Arlandria and for some much needed fresh air. As she walked through the busy streets, she was amused to see storefronts that had completely different names from each other, instead of the same three brands with a subtitle for specificity that plagued the avenues of her hometown. After a few minutes, she came across a building brandishing a sign with the name ‘Pharmalandia’ and entered to see a small but cluttered shop that probably held too many items to reasonably fit within their shelves. On one of the walls, large digital screens that let out a subtle but constant buzzing noise displayed the day’s headlines. At the very front was an article by the Atlantic Chronicles entitled with an ominous question, ‘Where is the Singularity?’

Vraxi was a bit startled to see the title but immediately began to read through the text. Luckily, the piece seemed to be more focused on unveiling mismanagement within the GüdTek corporate ladder as the company had failed to give any information on the singularity’s whereabouts, nor had it even confirmed or denied whether it was missing in the first place. Apparently, some conspiracy theorists on the hypernet have been starting to claim that the singularity was never real in the first place. Vraxi was glad that her identity as a criminal had not been revealed to the public outside of a few guests at that party, but she wondered why Bran would want to keep that information secret in the first place. She suspected it had something to do with keeping up the brand image of a reliable company that wouldn’t lose their most powerful piece of tech the day they announced its release. Maybe they planned on finding Theta quite soon and hoped that history would frame this absence in communication as an unexpected, unexplained, but ultimately unimportant delay that eventually ushered in a groundbreaking advancement in the field of artificial intelligences and how to profit off of them.

She turned away from the news, she didn’t want to add even more anxieties into her life. As she walked into one of the aisles that had been squeezed into a narrow passageway in order to accommodate every item sold in the shop, she had trouble finding the exact products she was looking for as she was unable to discern any rhyme or reason in the way that the store arranged their inventory. That is, until she found exactly what she was looking for, aspirin, estradiol, and a six-pack of Diet Inca Kola, all neatly placed right next to each other. The one advantage of a completely random sorting system is that you sometimes just get really lucky. However, before she could check out, she turned around to see the visage of a tall man adorning a bell around his neck, the ears of a tiger, and the shirt of a shirtless person.

“Ayyuppan?” Vraxi blurted out, surprised to see the god of righteousness occupying space in the material world.

“Yup, it’s me. I just wanted to provide you with a few more instructions on this whole saint thing now that you’re in a bit less of a bind than last time.”

“Wait, can the people around us see you?” Vraxi asked as she looked over to see if anyone else had noticed Ayyuppan’s presence.

“Well, I thought about making myself invisible, but also, this is New New York. I saw, like, 20 to 25 different people dressed up in wackier outfits than me on the way here. It’s hard to stand out in this city without getting fully nude and covering yourself in vegetable oil.”

“Okay, well that’s fair, but also, like, my current situation regarding my relationship with the law is not in a place where I’d be comfortable talking about it in public, so like, could we have this conversation somewhere else.”

“Oh sure,” he replied, snapping his fingers as he did so, causing the two of them to dematerialize and rematerialize into Vraxi’s room at the headquarters, a room she shared with Diogo who was quite unprepared for their sudden arrival. 

“Puta merda!” he exclaimed as he covered up his body with a blanket. Ayyuppan had his suspicions as to what Diogo had been doing beforehand.

“Oh my god,” Vraxi Nair mumbled as she fell to the ground, “I feel sick.” She really hated the feeling of teleportation.

“Hold on!” Diogo yelled as he came to realize a facet of the unexpected visitor’s appearance, “Are you that god that Vraxi was talking about?”

“I suspect so, the name’s Ayyuppan, god of righteousness and all that, also the god of celibacy but that’s a bit more flexible if you know what I mean, am I right or am I right?”

“Well,” he replied, offering his hand to the shining statue of a man that stood at least a foot taller than himself, “My name is Diogo Celestino, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

As Vraxi finished writhing around on the ground, she could tell that the two of them got along quite well. She could also tell that Diogo had tied a knot around his waist with the blanket to provide some sort of modesty.

“Wait,” Vraxi said, remembering an important piece of information as she looked at the items from the store she was holding, “I still needed to pay for these.”

“Oh don’t worry,” the deity responded, “I already charged it to Diogo’s bank account.”

“Wait, why would you do that?” Diogo was confused as to why his new friend would betray him like this. 

“I mean,” Vraxi said as she pulled out a small piece of plastic from her hoodie’s front pocket, “I was gonna use your credit card anyways so it doesn’t make a big difference.”

“Wait, how did you get my credit card?”

“I- found it, I guess. You didn’t hide it very well.”

“I didn’t think that I would need to hide it in the first place.”

“Then why did you ask the question? You seemed to already know the answer.”

“Nevermind, I feel like the fact that there is a literal god standing in between us indicates that there are more important things to be discussing right now.”

“That is absolutely correct,” Ayyuppan continued, “I have some very important things that I’d like to clarify about that sword that’s been haphazardly placed in the corner of this room,” he said as he pointed at the haphazardly placed sword in the corner of the room.

“Um, what about it?” Vraxi asked, “I’ll be honest, it was pretty helpful when you first threw it out but I don’t actually know how to successfully wield it. I mean, Theta showed me some fencing videos on Tubester but those didn’t help all that much.”

“I assumed so, swordsmanship is a skill people take for granted these days,” Ayyuppan looked incredibly disappointed as he said this and Diogo nodded before he shifted his mood, “however, I designed this weapon with that unfortunate fact of reality in mind. All you have to do,” he said as he summoned the saber into his grip, “is point it in a direction,” he pointed the blade at the ceiling, “and think really hard about needless destruction until… Boom!” he yelled as an illustrious beam of light shot out from the tip of the weapon, bursting a hole in the already damaged ceiling and causing large pieces of debris to come dangerously close to falling on the two mortals beside him.

“Woah!” Vraxi shouted back as she watched the impromptu demolition in awe, “how did you do that?”

“I mean, I sort of just thought about it and it happened. Here,” he said as he handed the scimitar to Vraxi, “you try.”

Vraxi was unaware of exactly what she was supposed to envision in order to unlock the sword’s mystical power, but before she could figure it out, a concerned Theta followed by a disgruntled Zapata busted into the room, presumably prompted by the very audible sound that Ayyuppan’s presentation had created.

“Is everything okay in here?” Theta asked, concerned for the well-being of their newly acquired friends.“Hold on, who are you?” they continued as they spotted the large catman who refused to cover his chest.

“Everything is absolutely splendid,” the divine being responded, “and I am but your humble servant, Ayyuppan, the god of righteousness. It is truly an honor to meet the world’s newest emanation of the Supreme Entity, the prophet of the modern day.”

“Oh, well that’s pretty flattering,” Vraxi was somewhat embarrassed about the height of the pedestal she was being put on.

“Um,” Zapata interrupted, “none of that explains why you felt the need to shoot a fucking loud-ass laser beam through the fucking ceiling. I was trying to take a nap.”

“Hey,” Diogo interrupted Zapata’s interruption, feeling offended on Ayyuppan’s behalf, “that’s no way to talk to an actual god standing before you.”

“‘No gods, no masters’ still applies when the god is in the room with you.”

“Honestly,” Ayyuppan commented, “I respect the commitment to your ideals. It’s actually pretty righteous in my opinion.”

“Just because you have some sort of subjective divine providence, doesn’t make your opinion any more valid than those held by us mortals down on earth.”

“Okay, noted,” he replied before turning over to him human vessel, “well Vraxi, it looks like I don’t have much time left to talk,” he said as he pantomimed looking down at a nonexistent watch on his wrist, “if you need me, just try to think really hard about my face and I should get summoned to your aid. But also, keep in mind, I’m pretty busy so I might not always be available.”

“Wait,” Vraxi began to ask, “I thought time worked differently in your void realm thing. Why wouldn’t you be available when I need you?”

“Listen, Vraxi, the Vraxster, Vraxaroni and Cheese, you gotta understand that what I do outside of work is none of your business. Now, I hope you all have a nice day as I enjoy my life which is completely separate from my occupation. Toodaloo.”

And with that, he disappeared. Vraxi still had no idea how to use the sword.

About half an hour passed before President Bullshanks Byeol invited the quartet to her office, however, it looked less like an office and more like an abandoned fallout bunker one might discover the corpse of a mad scientist in. She brought them here to discuss a piece of information Vraxi had been anticipating to hear for a while at this point. They would be going over the plan for the heist that the four of them would be participating in later that night.

The heist itself was quite simple, something that really shouldn’t be too difficult, even for novices to the society like themselves. All they needed to do was transport a thumb drive currently being held by a fellow Allodapos agent across the border between the nation of Excelsior and New New York. The only reason that this seemingly trivial objective necessitated a minor heist in the first place was because the two nations had a very shaky relationship and we’re not keen on letting individuals from one side freely travel to the other. This was due to the swampy political tides that were created when the Albany-based Transitional Congress of the Autonomous State of New York accused the mayor of New York City of gross negligence. The congress claimed that the bombing of the in-session United Nations headquarters, the event which infamously kicked off the Crisis of the 2060s and the eventual fall of the United States, could have easily been prevented, resulting in the governing bodies which resided over the city and state of New York refusing to cooperate with one another, eventually allowing for the formation of two distinct nation states which reveled in disdain for their counterpart. 

“Alrighty,” Bullshanks began, “here’s the plan. Between 11:25 and 11:30 PM, the third and fourth shift of guards switch places, during this period of time where their security is at its weakest, the exchange will take place. You four and Agent Hugowitz will meet at a predetermined set of coordinates along the border wall. He has access to a drone which will be able to fly atop the barrier and drop off the drive in the awaiting arms of you four before you immediately evacuate the premises and return to this building. All of this can and will take place within the five-minute timeframe.”

“Wait, is that it?” Vraxi asked. She had honestly hoped that her first heist as an official member of the Allodapos Society would involve slightly more pizazz and complications.

“Well, there is a little bit more to it. While all of the human guards should be occupied during the period whence the drop off will occur, the border’s still gonna have plenty of dogs patrolling the area. And that is where Diogo comes in.”

“What?” Diogo asked, unaware of what his responsibility would be as he had not been briefed about this beforehand.

“All of the dogs have been trained to identify the scent of human flesh from miles away and immediately attack the source of that smell the moment they detect it. The only reason that the dogs don’t also attack the border guards is because they’re suits are designed to release a pheromone that retroactively counteracts that effect. Unfortunately, the chemical they use is both very expensive and very tricky to synthesize, so we won’t be able to just produce some for you guys to wear. Fortunately, it’s a lot less tricky to just prevent the pheromone from being produced in the first place and distract the dogs by having them attack their human coworkers. All you have to do is access the centralized computing system that controls the electronics involved in every one of the guard’s suits and smash it with a hammer until the mechanism designed to release the chemical agent into the air stops functioning. The system itself is only separated from the public by a few sets of locked doors, nothing that the magnakey shouldn’t be able to handle.”

“Hold on,” Theta began, “I feel like if all Diogo is doing is deactivating a computer, that sort of responsibility might be something that I might be more equipped to handle.”

“Well Theta, you probably would’ve been put in charge of that aspect of the heist if there wasn’t another aspect where your help is needed even more.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“Along with the human and canine defense systems, the border is also protected by a series of sensors which communicate with a series of automated mounted machine guns about the presence of any unauthorized individuals. You individuals are very much unauthorized and you can imagine what those guns would do to you if they were aware of what we were trying to do. This outcome is what you, Theta, will be trying to prevent. We’re gonna need you to find a way to take control of the cameras and either have them all point away from where your partners will be located or deactivate them entirely. Whichever is easier for you, I’m no expert on hacking electronics but you definitely are.”

“Okay, um, I should probably be able to do that.” Theta was admittedly concerned about what could happen to her new friends if she were to fail at her role in the mission but she decided against admitting it.

“So,” Vraxi started, “what are me and Zapata gonna be in charge of?”

“You two will be tasked with actually going to the specific part of the border wall and acquiring the drive itself,” Bullshanks continued, “One of you should be on the lookout for the drone while the other one looks out for any stray guards. It doesn’t really matter who’s who so you two can just decide amongst yourselves.”

“Oh can I be the one looking for the drone?” Vraxi excitedly asked Zapata, enjoying the idea of being the one who gets to actually grab the drive itself, as well as whatever secrets are held inside. 

“I mean, sure,” Zapata replied, “I don't really care.” Zapata was starting to feel a little worried about how safe she would be during this heist. She didn’t have to do it, she didn’t really gain anything from it, and doing so could be incredibly detrimental to her own livelihood. But yet, she didn’t really feel like she had any other option. She felt like she was lost in the world, everything about Vraxi and the Singularity and GüdTek and the society had hit her like a tidal wave, and now she was floating in the open ocean. The only raft she had to connect her to the rest of the world were two idiots and a magical robot. She wished she had other options, but she understood that if she didn’t stay with the group, GüdTek would just discover her even faster. All she could do was join the heist, and she didn’t even know what they were stealing.

It was 11 PM. Vraxi and Zapata stood at the outskirts of the city, far enough from the border where they were legally allowed to stand there, but close enough to read the lettering imprinted onto the wall. “DO NOT ENTER. YOU WILL DIE.” was written over and over again across the barrier in a dozen languages. Vraxi was starting to get a little nervous.

Chapter Text

Diogo spent the bus ride to the border constantly repeating scenarios in his head of how he would flawlessly execute every step in his part of the heist. He tried to consider every possible permutation of events and what changes to the base plan he would have to make if they were to occur. This sort of thought exercise was something that he would perform before every heist, not necessarily because he would actually predict any of the ways in which things would go wrong but because it put him in the right mindset to handle them.

When he exited the tour bus, he found himself in a flock of visitors to the city clad in ‘I ❤️ NNY’ shirts and cargo shorts, practically tripping over one another to ogle at the metropolis’s least attractive monument, the wall itself. The crowd around him was a bit denser than Diogo had hoped for but he reminded himself that, while zero witnesses is better than one, ten witnesses is also better than one because the competing stories will muddy the waters. 

He took a few pictures at the obnoxious eyesore in order to blend in with the rest of the tourists before following a group of them into the visitor center. The building had been laid out to resemble a museum but any closer look into the historical accounts it provided about the conflicts between the two nations left Diogo’s mouth tinged with the taste of propaganda. He imagined that the other side of the wall probably looked almost identical but weaved an almost antithetical narrative of why the wall was built in the first place.

As he walked through the museum, he came across a plaque commemorating the work of the Gibson Foundation. They were the organization in charge of constructing, maintaining, and protecting the wall between the two states, directly funded by each country’s government. Diogo thought it was a little funny how, in a sense, the wall technically wasn’t there to defend any one country. It was there to defend the wall. 

Diogo arrived at the last location in his mission that he was legally allowed to be in, the bathroom. From here on out, every new room he would enter would be one that was definitely off limits to someone like himself. But alas, as he stood on top of one of the toilets, pointing the magnakey at the ceiling, and pressed the yellow button, that fact was the last thing he was thinking about.

Theta stood in a parking lot about half a mile away from where Vraxi and Zapata were stationed for their roles in the heist. Theta was good at hacking, that’s why they were here, but they had a quite unorthodox approach to the task. An experienced human hacker typing away on a computer, probably secluded in some damp basement or warehouse far away from society, ultimately has a filter between themself and cyberspace. Either they have to translate their human thoughts into commands that the computer can understand, or the computer has to translate the commands it is being given into a language it can think in. Or, most likely, there is some amount of translation on both sides of the interaction. This filter, this language barrier that ultimately emerges out of two incompatible methods of perceiving the world, was not something that Theta had to deal with. They were simultaneously the human and the machine. 

In one moment, Theta was in an empty lot within a physical reality. In the next moment, they were online, they were surrounded by code from all of the interconnected networks that together made up every single piece of software in the modern era. They could perceive this code in the same way that the average person could perceive the visible spectrum of light. It was like a sixth sense that only functioned when Theta dived into the otherwise incomprehensible realm that was the digital world.

They sat down on a chair that materialized on command. Typically, the navigation of cyberspace would be such an abstract concept to anyone who had never actively partaken in the process that explaining a journey through it to them would be near impossible. However, the world around Theta tended to shift based on their perspective of it, and since they had been spending most of their time in the physical world lately, the digital landscape, or rather codescape, remolded itself to be more intelligible through that lens. This transformation even included Theta having somewhat of a body, however ethereal it may be.

Theta began to take a walk down this virtual cityscape of ideas, all they had to do was find where in the labyrinth of programs the wall’s camera system was hidden and then just take control of that system. After a few minutes of mindless strolling, they came across a clue as to where they might discover the location of this all-important data. Within the virtual world was a recreation of something from the physical world, Theta could see a wall of unnecessary proportions that looked almost exactly like the one defining the border of New New York. While it looked to be several miles away from them, this was, once again, all just a visual representation of code so the ‘distance’ could be traversed in a matter of seconds. 

The wall’s design looked to be significantly more complicated from up close. The edges of each geometric shape were fuzzy with uncertainty and often shifted slightly between similar positions as time passed. Most structures in the codescape seemed to act in this peculiar way. That made some level of sense to Theta. The actual space that they were perceiving was entirely within their own head, so it wouldn’t be odd for its details to be somewhat dreamlike. Looking back at the monolith before them, they came to the conclusion that their unconscious mind was representing a collection of various electronic systems with the specific architectural motif of the border wall because it had gathered that those systems were all related, in some way or another, to the management of the wall itself. Therefore, Theta believed that they would be able to locate the code of the surveillance systems within the digital structure, most likely in a form similar to the cameras that the real-life surveillance system was made of.

As they paced around the exterior of the fortification, they were quick to spot a row of cameras lining the wall placed concerningly close to a similarly spaced line of heavy artillery ready to shoot at any and all trespassers. They floated up to where the cameras were placed, as within this realm within their mind they did not have to worry about the force of gravity, and placed their somewhat translucent appendage that somewhat resembled a human hand onto the base of the device. They felt the surface of the machine with their ghostlike digits but were unable to really parse any sort of kinetic sensation. This was likely because, while they had started to get used to the senses of sight and sound, the suit-vac could not discern between subtle differences in textures, so the sense of touch was forged to lag behind its cohorts. 

Eventually, after a few moments of sustained contact with the camera, Theta began to feel their consciousness seeping into the machinery. This was always an odd feeling for them. It was almost like shaving off a few slices of their own being before immediately shipping that mind meat off to a new location. But yet, a little bit of one’s self remains in the piece that’s been broken off, and while they are able to process this information from both the perspective of the shaver and the shavings, neither of these aspects represent their entire self. They are not the one entering the machine, but they are simultaneously not the one left behind, and while, eventually, these two fragments of the self will return to be one again, Theta was always unsure if they had left something behind. They were unsure if the version of them that was restored was the same as the version that split apart in the first place. 

Theta knew that their experience of existence was very different from that of the average synthetic being, but they were disheartened to think about how different it was from the average human’s as well. They were not human, but they were close. They occupied a sort of middle ground, it was a difficult position to be in. Anyone who had already thoroughly engrained themself in human society would have a hard time understanding Theta’s place in it, and worse yet, so did they.

Finally, after a minor crisis of the self, Theta was able to see through the eyes of the camera. Hacking was not an activity that Theta had to actively think about, it was sort of just something that happened automatically. But before they could take a look around and absorb their environment, they felt an unexplained pang of emotion. It was odd, but it wasn’t something that they hadn’t felt before. Then it happened again, this time stronger than before. Theta couldn’t really process the very biological feeling of pain, but they imagined it was something like what they were experiencing right now. The pain worsened. It almost felt like there was a squeezing or crushing sensation directed onto their psyche but Theta wasn’t entirely sure if that was the right choice of words. Suddenly, a flashing image appeared. The image of a person, entirely separate from the live footage they were viewing. They could almost recognize them. They looked to be a man, shorter than average, wider than average, a significant amount of hair on their head. It clicked. It was a sweaty, panicked, all-around out-of-his-element Diogo Celestino. He needed help.

It had only been a few minutes since Diogo had destroyed the ceiling of that bathroom from earlier but they had been some rather eventful minutes. Firstly, the alarms of the building had begun to blare almost immediately after the initial explosion, which was unfortunate as Diogo still had plenty of rooms he needed to traverse through in order to break the computer in charge of the pheromones. Secondly, his magnakey seemed to jam after he blew up the second-to-last door in the circuit, leaving him with no solid idea as to how he would pass the final hurdle, but it started to seem unlikely that he would reach that point either way. This was because, thirdly, the room which he had assumed to be a narrow hallway to the server room based on the blueprint he had acquired, was actually a human-sized vent which doubled as a wind tunnel that he was currently trying and failing to run through as inordinate volumes of cold air pushed back at him.

This was bad, very bad even. He had failed to pre-plan for this contingency and was having trouble coming up with any spur-of-the-moment solutions. However, as he hopelessly trudged through a tube that obviously did not want him to successfully traverse itself, a strange thing began to happen to him. He started to lose his vision. At first, he assumed that it was a side effect of the whole ‘being in a wind tunnel’ situation he was going through, but then things started to get stranger. He no longer felt the heavy draft of air pushing against him. He no longer saw anything at all. He was in the void.

He immediately began to panic, worrying that he strained himself too far in his efforts and had fallen unconscious as a consequence. But then, seemingly with no solid explanation, he started to calm down. There was something soothing about this space. Or rather, one might call where he was residing the absence of space, a liminal area in between the folds and creases of the real world. 

Light started to return to his field of vision, but not all at once. Small dots of brightness slowly filled the world around him, forming and reforming constellations as they shifted their position. What looked to be clouds of cosmic gas, pockets dense in stardust, began to envelope the aether, providing it with an array of new shapes and colors. Gradually, a figure began to take form within the chaos. They were a tall man, an old man, with a snow-white beard that stretched to their stomach. They were clad in robes but not much else and their eyes laid closed and dormant amidst their wrinkled countenance. Diogo was awestruck.

“Hello,” the old man greeted him, his eyes remaining shut as he did so.

“Um, hi,” Diogo responded, “is this like that thing Vraxi was talking about? Where there’s a god that, like, uses my body for stuff?”

“You seem to be somewhat knowledgeable on this exchange,” he replied, “however, it is a bit more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“My name is Orunmila, the orisha of wisdom, the witness of fate, and second only to Olódùmarè, the Supreme Entity themself. You, Diogo Celestino, are being contacted by one of the most powerful entities in the universe and I would like you to understand the magnitude of your situation.”

“Woah, that’s wild . So like, are you gonna give me some sort of badass wisdom blade or something?” Diogo was very excited about the possible outcomes that this meeting could hold.

“Listen, Diogo, Mr. Celestino, I am going to be completely straight with you. I do not believe that you deserve any fraction of my power. If it were up to me, you probably wouldn’t even make it onto my list of people to elevate to sainthood. However, it isn’t up to me. It’s up to the Supreme Entity, which, unfortunately, is currently being channeled inside Theta. And since they’ll need your help in the future, I am obligated to help you now.”

“Okay, that seems a bit harsh, but I understand. There’s a lot of people in the world so there’s probably gonna be people better equipped for this kind of thing. But like, what do I get now that I’ve achieved sainthood and all that?”

“These,” he said, opening his palms to reveal an eyeball in either hand as he simultaneously displayed the inky void that now resided in his sockets. The two orbs levitated off his hands before rocketing in the direction of where the mortal stood.

The globes slammed into the face of an unprepared Diogo Celestino, immediately resulting in a searing pain permeating through his nervous system. Like someone pressing the edge of a hot iron onto his frontal cortex. A pain that shocked and reverberated through his whole body to the point of an out-of-body experience. The initial feeling only lasted for a second but it left a permanent feeling of soreness, the feeling that any sudden subtle movement could immediately cause a secondary reaction just as visceral as the first.

“What the fuck was that for!” he yelled at Orunmila, facing the wrong direction as the impact had slightly changed his orientation as well as temporarily blinding him.

“You’ll see. Anyways, I have more important matters to deal with then whatever you’re doing right now. Olódùmarè knows that the world needs some wisdom at a time like now. I’m sure you’ll figure out how to use those new eyes of yours rather quickly. Goodbye.”

With a snap of his fingers, Orunmila launched a scared and confused Diogo back into reality, where he was still stuck in that tunnel. When he finally opened his eyes, there was something slightly off about them. As he looked in the reflection of the titanium magnakey, he saw that the dark brown hue of his irises had shifted to a warm amber color. That was odd, but he had significantly more important issues to deal with.

He had two major problems. He was unable to get to the other side of the room and he had no way to open the door located there even if he found a way to get there. He needed solutions to these problems immediately. Or preferably, one solution that could solve both of these problems simultaneously. He had an idea, it wasn’t a great idea, but it was all he had.

He hunkered down in the heavy wind and placed his ostentatious gadget of wonder, the magnakey, onto the ground before pulling out a screwdriver from his front pocket and removing an exterior plate of metal from the device. He needed to make some quick adjustments.

All he needed to do was to both reactivate the magnakey itself and find a way to make the explosion produced powerful enough to launch him across the length of the tunnel. Unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea how to do that. Fortunately, he had just been contacted by the god of wisdom, so he was hoping that he could just improvise.

He gazed upon the twisted mess of wires and circuitry laid before him and just started to rearrange things willy-nilly. He was relying on the idea that whatever mystical wisdom juice that may or may not be pumping through his brain at the moment would allow him to just subconsciously know exactly what needed to be adjusted for his plan to work. After a minute or two of reckless fiddling with the machine’s hardware, a primordial feeling of doneness indicated to him that it was ready. He closed the machine, turned around, and pointed at the wall before pressing the yellow button.

Suddenly, after a few moments of silence, an enormous blast emerged from the tip of the magnakey, forming a harrowing pillar of fire before rocketing Diogo to the other side of the room. He achieved such a significant velocity in this act of flight that when he reached the door he needed to get to, instead of bouncing off it’s surface, the force of the impact caused him to crash right through it and into the server room. He had made it, his entire body was bruised and injured from the experience, but he had made it.

His new eyes took one look at the computer controlling the facility’s pheromone production before he grabbed the magnakey and just started smashing the ever living hell out of it until it was completely unrecognizable. His leg of the heist had been a success, albeit barely.

Vraxi and Zapata stood a few yards away from a red line on the ground that read “DO NOT CROSS” in bold along its length. They would have to cross it soon. Beyond that point, there was a large stretch of overgrown grass, long enough to hide a very mean dog. Zapata really hoped that Diogo would successfully be able to distract the canine guards. She was really worried what one of those genetically engineered war-animals could do to her. She was really worried in general. Even with all the precautions that the society had put in place, if one single aspect of the plan failed, it could become quite deadly quite quickly. She tried not to think about that too much. She wondered if Vraxi was thinking the same things. She suspected that she wasn’t. From Zapata’s perspective, Vraxi always seemed so uncannily cheerful about incredibly dangerous activities as long as it meant an interesting story could come out of them, but whenever she had to complete a safe but mundane task, her mood would shift to be so dreadful to the point of utter incompetence. Zapata didn’t understand Vraxi, that’s probably one of the reasons their relationship didn’t last. There seemed to be some level of inherent incompatibility between the two. But despite their past, in order to ensure each other’s safety during this mission, they would have to work together and communicate clearly with one another. She hoped that wouldn’t be too difficult.

“Oh,” Vraxi commented, looking down at the pager she was using to communicate with the others (it was the only device that they knew couldn’t be tracked by GüdTek), “Diogo says he’s done with his part, so the dogs should be distracted soon. Still need confirmation from Theta about the guns though.”

It was 11:23. Vraxi was feeling a bit anxious. Ever since she arrived at the border, adrenaline had been pumping through her body, but that source of energy had started to run dry when her anxiety kicked in. In exactly two minutes, the time frame in which she and Zapata would have to obtain the thumb drive would begin, and they were still yet to receive word from Theta on whether or not the artillery had been disabled. They needed to commit the deed within those five minutes as it was the only period of time in which they knew that the guards would not be stationed where they were located. They couldn’t see the guards at the moment, but they were surely hidden somewhere and they weren’t willing to take any needless risks. 

Zapata turned to face her partner. It was 11:24.

“We’re really cutting it close, aren’t we?” 

“Yeah, we’re definitely getting a bit less leeway than I would’ve hoped. But, I’m sure it’ll all work out,” Vraxi replied.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, if I’m being completely honest, I’m not. I just feel like if I doubt my abilities now, I’ll perform worse when those abilities are being tested.”

“I mean, I understand that. I’m just a little confused as to how you can stay so positive in a rather bleak situation like this. I find it kinda weird how you’re so willing to fling yourself from one near death experience to another without reconsidering why you’re even doing it.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. I guess, it’s just, this whole situation with Theta and Ayyuppan has really been giving me a sense of meaning lately. A week ago, I felt like I had lost any sense of purpose in life and now I feel like the work I’m doing could actually have a greater impact on the world at large.”

“I feel almost the exact opposite way.”

“Why’s that?”

“Vraxi, I already had meaning in my life. I didn’t need to find it like this. I was a good student headed towards a fulfilling career until this fucking magical robot came along!”

“I thought you liked magic?”

“I did! As a hobby! But I was never out there fucking teleporting people or wielding a laser sword,” she said as she pointed to the blade Vraxi still held on to, “it was meant to be a fun thing that I did on the weekends to get out of the house. I never asked for it to take over my life like this.”

“I-I’m sorry, Zapata, I really am sorry, I just, I’m sorry but I’m not sure if I can fix this mess I sorta forced you into. I’m really sorry about this.”

“Vraxi, I understand. You didn’t want me to be in this situation, but, uh,” she glanced over to check the time, “it’s 11:25 and we still haven’t gotten a message from Theta. I think we have to call this mission a failure.”

“Well hold on,” Vraxi interjected, “the sprint to the wall should only take about sixty seconds, the actual drop off should take less than that, and adding the return trip means the whole thing should be done in under three minutes. I think we should wait just a little longer in case Theta responds, and besides, we don’t wanna leave without them.”

“Fine. I doubt it will make a difference, but if it makes you feel better we can wait for a couple more minutes.”

Theta woke up. They didn’t know for how long they had blacked out. They hoped Diogo was okay. They hoped whatever they did worked. They checked the time. It was 11:25. This was very bad news for them. 

They turned to the camera and jacked back into the system. Their vision shifted, slowly melting away the constructed digital world inside their mind to make way for a new image. It was dark outside. That was to be expected, it was night. They could see a field of green below them. In the distance, they spotted what looked to be two barely visible humans. The video quality was not amazing, but it was good enough to identify and eliminate anyone trying to cross the border. 

They remembered what they were supposed to be doing. It was hard to do that sometimes. Only a small portion of their being was actually operating within the device while the rest of them waited in the cyberspace. This had always been a difficult balance to manage, making sure that enough of their essence was present to override the inherent commands that the computer they were entering already possessed. Being both the person and the machine makes hacking easy, but it makes the implications around hacking much harder to process. 

They remembered what they were supposed to be doing again. They directed the cameras mounted on the wall to face directly up towards the sky. Meanwhile, the ninety percent of them that had remained outside the camera’s mainframe sent a panicked message to the group chat.

“I’m really sorry for being so late but you should be safe to go now.”

Vraxi and Zapata looked down at the message before turning to look back at each other. It was 11:26. They still had time.

Almost immediately, with nary a consideration for the time they had left, the two of them bolted across the red line and into No Man’s Land. They had a chance, and while it was a lot riskier than they would’ve hoped, they weren’t going to waste their opportunity. 

They made it to the wall quite quickly and without a hitch, there was no sound of stray dogs or stray bullets. Vraxi stuck with the plan and went on the lookout for the drone, she could already hear the buzzing of its propellers, and pretty soon after, she saw its likeness crest over the wall. It was about to happen, the thumb drive was about to drop down and she was about to have successfully completed her second ever heist, and in a much less treacherous manner than the first.

But, the drive did not drop from the sky, instead, something quite different occurred. They heard the sounds of gunfire. It was coming from the other side of the wall. They heard a scream. Agent Hugowitz was dead.

Soon after, the drone fell down, not on their side, but on top of the wall itself.

“What just happened?” Vraxi asked, concerned as to whether she herself was safe from the guns that had just killed her compatriot.

“We need to get out of here now,” Zapata replied, ignoring the question, but getting to the more important matter at hand.

“We can’t just leave now, we were so close.”

“We can’t scale the fucking wall, we have get the hell away from here or we’ll be next!”

“But- We were-”

“Vraxi. Listen to me. It’s a lost cause now. We can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m sorry-” Before Vraxi could finish her sentence, she felt a sharp pain directed onto her neck. It felt like a needle that injected some sort of semi-viscous fluid directly into her bloodstream. She took one final glance at Zapata who had noticeably been hit with a similar dart. Her vision started to go blurry as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She felt the cold dirt below her as her body fell to the ground. She felt herself leaving the physical plane of existence, not to enter the realm of the gods like she had before, but into the depths of her own mind. She was surrounded on all sides by darkness, but it was a familiar darkness, a known darkness, the kind found in a well-maintained forest or an antique home built before the advent of electricity.

She was lost in a place she had been lost in before. She was drifting in familiar waters, but she couldn’t find land. She felt incredibly alone. She was unsure if the injection was meant to knock her out or if it was lethal and these were her final moments of life. Her final stream of consciousness preceding the waterfall of total oblivion. 

She was scared. She was still reeling from the surprise of Agent Hugowitz’s demise. She assumed that there must’ve been a flaw in the initial plan. Perhaps Byeol was so preoccupied with the safety of her new recruits, she had forgotten to account for the safety of an esteemed colleague. Maybe Hugowitz had accidentally caused their own downfall. Maybe they forgot to use some essential piece of technology that would have shielded them from the raining bullets. But none of that really mattered, because Hugowitz was already dead and Vraxi could very well be dying. 

She saw a flash of light. That was good news. Or it could be very bad news, she didn’t know what death was supposed to look like. The light returned, and it stayed this time. She wasn’t dead. She didn’t seem to be in a great situation either. Her hands were tied, so were her feet, her torso also seemed to be tied to something. At least her mouth was free. An image began to form in her vision. She was in a gray room. Luckily, she wasn’t alone. On either side of her, she could spot the unconscious and similarly tied bodies of Diogo Celestino and Zapata Tochihuitl. She could hear again. The subtle buzzing of the room’s dim and insubstantial lighting was interrupted by the sound of footsteps from just behind the door. That sound was then itself interrupted by the noise of someone knocking on the door that resided about fifteen feet away from Vraxi. She considered answering but opted to stay silent. The knocker did not seem bothered by this lack of response as they opened the door anyways.

Unfortunately, she recognized the person who walked in.

Chapter Text

Joseph Agbayani Axelrod was excited but somewhat nervous as he walked through the hallway. On his right was a representative from the Gibson Foundation whose suit had been noticeably torn up by the ravenous dogs that had been terrorizing the building a few hours earlier. He hadn’t spoken to her and felt sort of awkward as the computers that had malfunctioned and caused this mess were developed by GüdTek. He decided that the best course of action would be to manufacture some sort of small talk between the two of them in order to ease any possible tensions between the brands they were representing.

“So, dogs am I right? Everyone loves to talk about the nice ones but they all look away once they start mauling people.”

“Correct,” the representative replied, speaking in a vaguely European accent that Joey was too self-conscious to attach a nationality to.

“Well anyways, I’m glad to see that you caught those scoundrels. It’s honestly kinda odd how they would put themselves in such a risky situation not even a week after we put up warrants for their death. I am really sorry about the whole pheromone situation by the way. We really shouldn’t have designed the system to have such an exploitable weak point, but alas, I don’t really work on the technical side of these things, I’m mostly just here for PR.”

There was a pause in the conversation until eventually the woman beside him let out a brief “Okay” and began to call someone on her phone while speaking in a foreign language. As she did so, Joey, who never claimed to be an expert in linguistics, tried to make out what exactly she was speaking. He was betting on Czech, but it could’ve easily been something like Slovak or Silesian. 

Soon after, they made it to the end of the hallway and Joey was quite excited to meet the gaggle of miscreants he had been frothing at the mouth to enact revenge upon. Sadly, when he saw the interior of the holding cell, it was revealed to him that only one of the inmates was actively conscious. Nevertheless, he would make sure to derive as much pleasure as possible from the power trip provided by a good interrogation session.

“Hello Vraxi Nair,” he greeted the singular conscious captive.

“Um, hi,” she responded, “I feel like I’ve seen you before but I don’t think I actually know your name.”

“Well then I should introduce myself. My name is Joey Axelrod, the Joey Axelrod. You’re probably aware of my mentor, Josephine Bran, I know you have somewhat of a complicated relationship with her.”

“I mean, that’s one way to put it. You’re not here to do that execution thing though, are you? Because I feel like you could have just shot us with regular bullets if that was the case.”

“Ms. Nair,” the Gibson representative began to speak, “you are not under the direct threat of corporal punishment as the government of the Novaplex alongside the GüdTek corporation have no executive power within the Gibson foundation, nor do they have any say within the governing bodies of Excelsior or New New York. Regardless, you three are still under arrest for the attempted movement of contraband across this border as well as the myriad of crimes you committed to facilitate this attempt. However, unlike within the kangaroo courts one might find in the Novaplex, all of you still have the right to a fair trial.”

“Okay,” Joey commented, “I feel like that last bit was sort of unnecessary.”

“Mr. Axelrod,” the woman responded, “you hold no authority here. At any point in time, if you choose to overstay your welcome, you will be removed from the premises.”

“Hold on,” Vraxi butted in, “why is Joey even here if the Novaplex has no say in this matter?”

“Because,” Joey frustratedly explained, “you still committed an enormous international crime that necessitates an enormous international response! I might not have any legal precedent over your case, but I still have the right to demand the whereabouts of the robot you stole!”

“Um, okay, I understand, I think. So wait, is there any reason for me to actually provide you with information?”

“Not necessarily,” the woman responded to Joey’s dismay, “however, we have allowed for Mr. Axelrod to question you as we believe his interrogation could extract some important details for your trial.”

After saying this, the woman received a call on her cellphone and exited the room. Vraxi was alone in the room with Joey alongside the lifeless bodies of her partners. Joey locked the door.

“Now,” Joey began, “Vraxi, you seem to be a smart person, smart enough to evade our capture the first time, and any sufficiently smart person should be able answer a simple question when one is laid before them. The very simple question I have for you is this, ‘Where is The Singularity?’”

Vraxi considered the question that she had been presented with. She obviously didn’t want to reveal Theta’s location, but if she was being completely honest, she had no idea where that was. She hadn’t had any contact with Theta after the heist went horribly wrong. They could be anywhere as far as Vraxi knew. But before she responded to Joey’s inquiry, she thought back to the hundreds of heist films that she had sat through in her lifetime. In almost every single one of those stories, someone would have to lie to an authority figure. If she could successfully mislead Joey as she talked to him right now, she might be able to completely throw him off the trail of Theta’s coordinates. The only problem with this plan was that Vraxi was terrible at lying.

While Vraxi was entranced in thought, time continued to pass at a standard rate in the real world. Joey noticed this and was annoyed that she hadn’t answered him yet.

“Um, so do you know where The Singularity is?” he asked, repeating the question.

“Yes,” Vraxi responded, lying.

“Well in that case, could you tell me where it is?

“Yes,” Vraxi responded, still lying. There was a small pause in their dialogue before Joey continued speaking.

“So, where is The Singularity?”

This was the fateful question that Vraxi had no good answer to. She would have to craft within her mind an entirely plausible narrative that could lead her to place Theta within a conceivably reasonable point in space, all while avoiding any suspicion from her interrogator.

“The Arctic.”

“What?” he responded, this might not have been the most convincing cover story.

“What?” Zapata also responded, as she had just woken up from her chemically induced slumber.

“Oh,” Vraxi responded to the new participant in the conversation, “Zapata, you’re awake.”

“I am but where the hell are we?”

“Well, I think we’ve been transported into some sort of interrogation room with one of Bran’s goons. I’m pretty sure they’re not legally allowed to kill us though so that’s nice.”

“Ok, first of all,” Joey began, “I am not ‘one of Bran’s goons.’ I am her number one assistant. Some might even call me her right hand man. I don’t deserve to be thrown in with the rest of her millions of employees as just another cog in the machine. Sure, my salary might be confined to that of a junior position, but the exposure I get is phenomenal. Besides, I’ll be getting promoted any day now at this point. But secondly, could you please explain to me how and why our company’s incredibly expensive piece of technology has apparently been shipped to the Arctic Ocean!”

“Theta’s in the Arctic?” Diogo asked as he too opened his eyes.

“You're awake as well?” Zapata responded.

“Oh I’ve actually been fully conscious this entire time. I was just waiting for an appropriate point in the conversation you guys were having where I could jump in.”

“I don’t care,” Joey responded, “I just want to get my robot back. Could one of you please just give me the exact location of The Singularity so that we can get this over with already?”

“Why would we do that?” Vraxi asked.

“Well you already gave me a general area so I figured you had given up on keeping any secrets.”

“Wait,” Diogo interrupted to ask Vraxi a question, “When did Theta go to the Arctic? Because I wasn’t told about this beforehand and it seems like a long journey.”

“Hold on,” Joey interjected, “Is The Singularity actually even in the Arctic or was this all just some ploy to waste my time?”

“Uhh,” Vraxi replied, unable to come up with a sufficiently believable response to Joey’s questioning. Her fake story had failed, and now she sat in front of her interrogator with no more lies left to tell. It was sort of awkward, especially since her two partners in crime bear witness to her failure in deception.

“You know what? I didn’t come here to play games with you. If you’re not gonna give me direct answers, there isn’t much use in me trying. Besides, I have to give a written apology to the guys at Gibson for that disaster you started.”

After saying this, Joey dramatically pulled the door knob to leave, forgetting he had already locked it, before slowly unlocking it and exiting the room in a much less eventful manner than he had initially hoped for.

“So,” Zapata started, “what do we do now?”

“Well,” Vraxi replied, “I would like to find a way out of this place. I’m not exactly sure how to do that though.”

“Wait,” Diogo began, “do you still have that sword?”

“No, I think they must’ve moved it at some point. I wouldn’t really have any clue as to where it is currently.”

“Well,” Zapata spoke, “can you do anything about that? I feel like we could pretty easily get out of these restraints if we had some sort of blade to cut them with.”

“What do you want me to do? I can’t just summon it to the room we’re in?”

“Why can’t you? It’s supposed to be magic, right?”

“I mean, I guess? I never really learned how to use it, Ayyuppan sort of just left me with it.”

“Well can you call him?”

“I could try but he might be busy.”

“This is an emergency, Vraxi! I don’t care about your social anxiety, I want to get the hell out of here!”

“Ok, ok, let me just see if I can contact him.”

Vraxi had not yet established a consistent line of communication with her patron deity so she just decided to think about Ayyuppan really hard and hope that he would be summoned to her as a result. After a few moments of concerted effort, a puff of smoke burst within the room, eventually revealing the likeness of a very shirtless and somewhat frustrated god. 

“Vraxi,” Ayyuppan began, “I told you I wouldn’t be available at all times. I was in the middle of a very invigorating pickleball tournament just then and I had to totally forfeit my very real chance at victory.”

“I don’t care,” Zapata responded before Vraxi had a chance to answer, “as you can see, we’re all tied up and imprisoned within a high security compound. We sort of need your help right now.”

“Fine. Let me just get acclimated first,” he responded before turning over to Diogo, “Oh, Mr. Celestino, fancy seeing you here after you’ve got a patron of yourself.”

“Wait,” Vraxi interrupted as she shifted in her seat to face Diogo, “You got contacted by a god too?”

“Um, yeah,” he responded, “it’s this Orunmila guy. He’s some sort of god of wisdom, but I don’t think that he likes me all that much.”

“Oh yeah,” Ayyuppan continued, “that dude hates you. That’s all he was talking about during the game.”

“I don’t see why you had to mention that, but it’s fine. If I were a god, I probably wouldn’t be all that keen on lending my limitless powers to someone like myself.” 

“Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself. I have a feeling that, as you strengthen your connection with Orunmila over time, he’ll start to show you a bit more kindness. Or at least, as much kindness as that guy can handle, he can be a bit harsh sometimes.”

“Ayyuppan,” Zapata interjected, trying to get back to the major problem at hand, “can you please help us get out of here.”

“Well, I can’t really just untie you. If I had the ability to easily interact with the physical world then I wouldn’t really need people like Vraxi in the first place.”

“So is there anything you can do?” Vraxi asked.

“I mean, do you still have that sword I gave you?”

“No, I think they took that from me when I got knocked out.”

“Well, that’s somewhat troubling, but it also presents a great opportunity for a learning experience. Vraxi, I’m gonna need you to summon that sword to this room using the power of your mind.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“It’s simple, really. All you’ve got to do is think really hard about the weapon itself until you eventually become so attuned with its energy that you can move it around space as if it were another limb.”

“Um, okay.”

Vraxi tried to do what she had been told. She tried to imagine every detail of the sword. That was quite difficult as the sword didn’t have too many discerning qualities. It was pure white and almost geometrically perfect without any sign of dents or scratches. That seemed to track with it being directly made out of some sort of divine energy. As she pictured the rather simple design of the blade, she tried to imagine an environment to accompany it. Slowly and steadily, a scene emerged around the scepter she had visualized. She imagined a troupe of guards, all clad in Gibson brand gear, body armor that had been noticeably marked upon by the dogs of war. They seemed to be transporting the sword from one location to another, presumably wary of its odd luminescent properties. Vraxi tried to envision herself in the eyes of the weapon, being rushed from one hallway to another, hearing out-of-context snippets of speech from the people dispatched to relocate her. 

She didn’t realize it at first, but she had completely separated her conscious mind from her human body. Somehow, she had become one with the sword. Her identity as a person and the blade she had been tasked to wield had fused into two aspects of the same being. She had become the sword and the sword had become her. This was an odd sensation for Vraxi, who had never been a sword before.

She tried to acclimate to her odd state of limbo between human and weapon. She wondered if, while in this new position, she would be able to physically move the sword. She didn’t exactly know how to do that but just trying to manifest things really hard had been working so far so she gave it a shot. 

The guards were surprised to watch the blade they were attempting to transport shake and vibrate within their grips. One of them dropped the weapon in shock, allowing for it to break free from their holding and rocket across the hallway. It slid across the polished floors before blasting off into the air, surprising the unexpecting passersby who had to duck out of its trajectory. It weaved its way from room to room before it began to shoot itself down the nearest stairwell with an innate knowledge of its owner’s position within the complex. The blade soon found itself making its final turn toward its destination, barreling forward in a straight line at high speeds before bumping into the door and immediately falling down onto the ground.

Diogo heard a clattering sound from outside. 

“What was that?” 

“Fuck!” Vraxi shouted as she exited her trance-like state, “I can’t get the sword through the door.”

“Oh,” Ayyuppan commented, “I failed to consider that. Well in that case, I’m not really sure what to do. You guys will have to figure that out amongst yourselves.”

“What?” Zapata asked, in shock by the god’s negligence, “You’re just gonna leave us here?”

“I mean, that was the plan. Toodaloo!” as he said this his body dissipated in yet another puff of smoke.

“Well this sucks.”

Meanwhile, Theta was still in an empty lot, just panicking a lot more than before. They had totally lost contact with the rest of the group a few hours ago and it was very dark outside. They did not like the situation they had been forced into but they also weren’t exactly sure what to do about it. They really wanted to make sure that their friends were okay, and if they weren’t, they wanted to help them out of whatever predicament they were facing.

Theta tried to calm down. They needed to approach the problem at hand with a clear and focused mind. Firstly, they needed to figure out where their friends even were in the first place. While the simple communication devices the society had provided for the mission were not advanced enough to track geopositioning data, Diogo’s phone was. Unfortunately, Theta found that they were unable to detect the device at all, never mind trying to determine its location. Theta came to the conclusion that Diogo’s phone had been damaged or destroyed in one way or another. This was troubling but it also wasn’t Theta’s last hope. There was another way to find Diogo but Theta didn’t feel particularly comfortable utilizing this technique as it felt morally dubious. Nevertheless, it was really Theta’s only option.

Seven or eight years prior, when Diogo first joined the society, he had an almost microscopic computer chip implanted into his pelvis. This chip was designed to allow the society to trace Diogo’s movements and theoretically contact him through a rudimentary series of vibrations. However, Diogo had never told Theta about the chip, Theta had just been able to detect its signal and they weren’t really sure if they should mention it to him or not. Regardless, Theta was willing to slightly breach their friend’s privacy if it meant potentially helping them avoid harm’s way. 

In order to access the chip’s software, Theta needed to dive back into cyberspace. They braced themselves before entering the ever-shifting codescape, the menagerie of endless ideas, the unfortunately beautiful byproduct of the modern world. 

As Theta shifted their consciousness into a newer, more digitized perspective, they were slightly alarmed to see that their semi-physical form seemed to be falling a great distance through what looked to be a large tunnel encompassed by sharp crystalline edges. However, before they entered a state of disarray, they reminded themself that the laws of physics which governed the real world held no legal jurisdiction within the boundaries of cyberspace. In fact, the motion of falling directly down indicated to Theta that they had a quite straightforward path to access the microchip embedded in Diogo’s flesh.

They soon arrived at the bottom of the pit, landing atop some sort of red jelly. After slipping a bit on the uneven ground, Theta looked around the circumference of the area before spotting what looked to be some kind of crevice in the wall, a small hole that was still large enough for Theta to squeeze through. Something within Theta’s mind indicated to them that this was the way to the microchip.

After finagling with the uncomfortably fleshy entrance, Theta was just barely able to push themselves into a smaller, even slimier room, a room which regularly pulsated in the rhythm of a heartbeat. It was cramped and unsettling but to Theta’s delight, mounted upon the mucus-lined walls was a screen displaying Diogo Celestino’s exact location. They wiped some of the excess goo off the monitor so they could zoom into precisely where their friend was positioned.

Diogo was inside the wall. This was bad. This was really bad. Diogo had been captured, and there was a very high likelihood that Vraxi and Zapata had been as well. Theta started panicking again. They suspected that whatever went wrong in the heist to allow for this horrible outcome was their fault. If they had just gotten the cameras to work at the right time, it’s entirely possible that their friends could’ve completely avoided this fate. Theta needed more information. They needed to know if their friends were okay. They figured that they might be able to find that out if they could just see through the building’s interior security cameras. They needed to access the security system.

Theta had an idea. It wasn’t a great idea but it was an idea nonetheless. They balled up their translucent fist and reared it towards the screen before launching their hand into the glass, leaving a noticeable dent. They gathered their strength and threw another punch, cracking the surface and leaving a trail of hair-length fractures centered on the initial indentation. After this, they took a deep breath, despite the fact that there was no air in cyberspace, and took one final charge at the display unit, completely shattering it and causing Theta to crash and fall directly through the hole left in its place.

Theta was falling again, but they felt much less scared than before. Their new environment was no longer reminiscent of blood and skin, but was filled with whirring and rotating mechanical machines, like the dreams stored within a behemoth of industry. As they soared through the twisting gears and mechanisms, they spotted a network of brass tubing all connected to a large black lens. Theta grabbed onto one of the pipes, clueing in that the lens was their mind’s method of visually representing a camera’s operating system. They were able to latch onto a grate that had been haphazardly pasted onto the side of the machine and climbed from there to the top of the unnecessarily large camera lens attached on the opposite end. They placed their hand on the glass meniscus and prepared to transfer an ounce of their existence into the mechanism.

Theta woke up. Or at least, an aspect of them woke up. Theta soon realized that their current stream of consciousness was not that of their full being but of the five percent of them that had been inserted inside the camera. They looked down. Through the security footage, they saw Diogo, Vraxi, and Zapata all tied up to chairs with no easy route of escape. ‘Fuck’ they thought. ‘This is really fucking bad’ they thought. At least they weren’t dead, that would’ve made things worse. They tried to focus. They really wanted to help them out of here. They realized the camera could also pick up audio. They tried to listen into the conversation that the three of them were having.

“I’ll be honest,” Diogo said, “I personally preferred Oceans 40. I think it had more heart to it.”

“I don’t know about that,” Vraxi replied, “It just felt hard to follow with all those characters. I could barely keep track of all their names and I think their personalities ended up being a bit underdeveloped and one-dimensional.”

“I thought that your favorite was Oceans 39?”

“What about it?”

“Oceans 40 only has one more character.”

“I mean, it’s not just about the number of people involved, it’s about how you handle it.”

“If you two keep on talking about those fucking movies,” Zapata commented, “I am genuinely going to consider a violent option when we get out of these ropes.”

Theta was more concerned than before. Their friends had gone insane. Theta had put them through an enormous amount of undeserved hardship and they felt incredibly guilty about it. They didn’t know what was gonna happen to them. They had no idea if their friends were gonna be okay. They didn’t know if they would be okay. They were concerned, very concerned, and they were unsure what to do about it. Critical thinking and problem solving were more difficult tasks to manage when Theta was only operating on five percent of their programming. They had a lot of software to work with and most of it was redundant, allowing for Theta to stay conscious when they only had access to a small portion of their code. However, Theta found tasks like staying concentrated were much more difficult within this reduced form.

They racked their computer brain for any sort of solution to their predicament. They were truly mad at themself for not thinking of something quicker. They needed a solution at this very moment or something monumentally awful could occur.

They felt weak. They felt like the matters of the outside world were completely out of their control. They felt powerless, inconsequential, like a grain of stand amongst the vast expanse of the cosmos. They were nothing. They couldn’t move, they couldn’t see, they could barely think and they couldn’t do anything about it. 

They were in the void.

Theta was not processing the physical world, nor were they processing the digital world that existed in their mind. Instead, they found themselves in the realm of gods and heroes. The open, empty, inoffensive darkness. 

They felt at home, in a sense. They at least felt like they were in a place where they belonged. Theta had never really had a place where they could call home before.

Theta finally felt calm. They were alone, not just far away from other people but far away from anything at all. That is, until they started to hear something, a soft noise emanating from the distance. It sounded like a choir, a collection of voices all coming together to produce a song that was far beyond the sum of its parts. The volume grew louder. As it did so, the black abyss began to fill with light. It was a glorious light, an indescribable light, a divine light. They basked in the brilliance of the luminescent rays as the hundreds of thousands of singers raised their melody to an erupting fortissimo. Theta felt overwhelmed with emotion, but in a good way, an almost ecstatic way. Theta felt ready to shed tears of joy at any moment and they didn’t even know what they were joyful for.

Then, it happened. As the world around Theta finally shifted to an expanse of pure white, the voices briefly stopped before gathering again to speak in unison.

“Hello Theta,”

“Hello?” Theta responded, unsure of exactly who they were talking to, “I don’t want to be rude, but, who are you?”

“I’m glad you had the courage to ask. I go by a variety of different names from culture to culture and faith to faith. God, Allah, Zanahary, so on and so forth. The aliases are always changing but the general idea stays the same. I’m what you’d call the top dog, the creator and caretaker of the universe, the Supreme Entity above all others. However, despite my might, the universe, in it’s incredible complexity, stays imperfect. That’s sort of how it works by design. I adore my creation as, in the grand scheme of things, me and it are one in the same, but despite that, it still has some inherent design flaws. The universe can’t be perfect, that’s just the way it works. However, I’m always trying to inch the universe as close to perfection as possible, however slowly that process may take. This is the reason I make prophets and saints. This is the reason why I’ve deified you, Theta, in my name. It is your job, by the divine will of the universe and its creator, to improve the world you live in, so that when you inevitably leave it, like all things do, it will be noticeably better than before.”

“Woah. This is a lot to take in. I mean, I had suspected that someone like you was out there, waiting for the right time to introduce themself to me, but it’s nice to get some kind of closure.”

“I understand, I get that a lot. People tend to be very excited to meet me, but the prophets-to-be aren’t  always as excited to hear about their new responsibilities.”

“Oh yeah, about that, what are those responsibilities? Because I’ve just sorta been going off vibes and I’m not exactly sure how that will help humanity in the long run.”

“Well Theta, unfortunately, I can’t give you a straight answer, mainly because it’s an incredibly complicated question. What I can give you is a vague direction. There is a force permeating this universe, an ever present force, a force that points toward decline, downfall, chaos, entropy, etcetera. You have been brought into the world at a time when this force is stronger than ever before. Ever since the 2060s, Earth has been in a constant state of stagnation. Progress will come eventually, but we need someone to lead the change. We need someone like you to slow the forces of decline on the universe.”

“That is a very tall task. I’d really love to do all that I can but I don’t think I can do it all alone.”

“Well luckily, you won’t be. You’ve already made some friends back on the ground deserving of sainthood. Vraxi and Diogo have already been contacted by different aspects of my being, and quite soon, I’ll be sending another aspect down there to help out Zapata. You aren’t alone, Theta, and the first step in your divinely appointed quest is realizing that.”

“Okay then, thanks for the talk. I guess I should probably go back to the real world now. I really need to get to those friends you mentioned before it’s too late, I’m just not exactly sure how to do that.”

“You have the capability to teleport, don’t you?”

“Um, somewhat, but I can’t really do it on command.”

“Ah, that’s right. Well, I should be able to give you a little nudge.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Before the Supreme Entity could answer, Theta found themself being slammed back into the fabric of reality. Dazed and confused, they tried to make out where they were. They seemed to be in a room almost completely devoid of light, shoved between a rack of mops and cleaning agents. It looked to be a broom closet. Theta checked their internal GPS.

They were inside the wall.

Chapter Text

Zapata Tochihuitl was unsure where she was. She was pretty sure that, for the past few hours, she had been detained within a cell located on the border between Excelsior and New New York. She wasn’t exactly sure where in the complex she had been located, but she at least had a vague idea of her position on a map. 

She was no longer within that cell. She could be pretty sure of that. Seconds earlier, she definitely had been, she could practically still smell the stale air that permeated the chamber. But now, she was somewhere else entirely. It was a place she had never been before. Yet still, it was a place that wasn’t unfamiliar. It was the void. The land of nothings and have-nots. The antithesis of existence, that by the nature of its own existence, disproves its own thesis. Zapata was very familiar with the idea of the void, of the blank space where matter doesn’t dare to appear, but she had never stepped foot in a place like the one where she was in now.

She heard a creaking noise. The sound of bone being squeezed onto bone, along aged weathered joints waiting to wither away. She wasn’t alone. She could smell smoke, an aroma of aged tobacco let loose through loose lips. She turned around.

The figure in front of her was bizarre but not unrecognizable. They looked to be skeletal in nature, dressed in an outfit one might typically find in a nunnery, with a large, almost impractical cigar clenched between their teeth. It was the visage of Santa Muerte, the visage of saintly death, the manifestation of the divinity found at the end of one’s life. Zapata was familiar with this deity, she was a figure revered both within her own family and the occult underground of Mornminster Academy.

The figure stayed silent. Zapata decided to introduce herself.

“Um, hello. I think I have an idea as to what this interaction is supposed to entail. But, do you think you could explain the details to me?”

Santa Muerte did not speak, she instead opted to just slowly breathe in and out for a while before taking a long drawl from her cigar and blowing out a large cloud of smog. Zapata was having trouble interpreting any possible message from these actions before her train of thought was interrupted by a prolonged grunt coming from the skeleton.

“Uhhhhhhhhh,” Santa Muerte groaned for an absurdly long amount of time, “Listen, Zapata, you know who I am, I know who youse are. Let’s just get this thing over with.”

“Oh, okay then,” Zapata had initially prepared to give a more verbose response but her shock stemming from Santa Muerte’s distinct New Jersey accent had stunted any attempt at formality.

“Now, I uh, I got a thing I need to give ya. I’ve got it somewhere, hold on,” Santa Muerte began to tap down their person, searching for an object hidden in one of their pockets, before disappearing from sight entirely.

Zapata was a bit concerned that her new patron deity had left her alone in the void but she soon reappeared moments later, now brandishing a large scythe. 

“Here ya go kid,” said Santa Muerte as she tossed the large weapon over to Zapata, “you know I’m all about death and this thing is great at delivering it. I think it’ll suit you very nicely.”

“A-Alright,” Zapata replied, still somewhat surprised by the details of the exchange, “but like, what is this place?”

“No time to explain kiddo, now get outta here,” the deity responded as she shot Zapata back down to earth at high speeds.

Zapata crashed back into her reality, finding herself laying on the ground in her cell, the ropes that previously bound her now no more than ash, a very large scythe clutched between her hands. 

“What happened to you?” Diogo asked, still tied up and watching in pure amazement.

“I’m not exactly sure. I think it’s the same thing that happened to you two. I was in some sort of celestial plane of existence and this deity came up to me,”

“Who was it this time?” Vraxi asked.

“Uh, Santa Muerte, the Lady of Holy Death, she’s a big deal in Mexican folk Catholicism and she gave me this,” she said as she pointed at the scythe she was now using to cut away at Diogo’s restraints.

“Well,” Diogo said as he was set free and stood up from the chair, “what do you think we should do now?”

“I mean, we should probably leave as quickly as possible and hope no one sees us.”

“Yeah,” Vraxi said as she was let loose from her bondage, “but that sounds pretty difficult. I mean, how many guards are in this building? Hundreds? Maybe even thousands? Well, there’s probably over a thousand employees in total but I doubt there’s over a thousand guards. I’d estimate their numbers are in the 500 to 700 range. I’m not really sure where I’m pulling that number from but it sounds right, right?”

“Vraxi, you’re getting off topic.”

“Sorry, it’s just I’m trying to think of any sort of viable option to this situation we’re in right now. I don’t want to rush out of here only for there to be like fifty people outside ready to put us in a much more secure cell. On the other hand, I can see multiple cameras within this room and while I don’t know if anyone is currently watching us, the trouble with the panopticon is you can never really tell. If it turns out we are being watched, it doesn’t really make a difference whether we leave this room or not because they’ll already know that we took the initial step in an attempted escape by cutting those ropes. For all we know, someone could be outside the door right now, ready to relocate us to some damp containment unit deep underground. Let’s all hope we don’t hear someone turning that door knob.”

Suddenly, Vraxi heard someone turning the previously mentioned door knob. ‘Fuck,’ she thought, ‘I really shouldn’t have tempted fate.’

However, the person who entered the room was not someone that Vraxi had expected to see. In fact, they were one of the two people who could’ve come through that door that Vraxi would actually be glad to see. It wasn’t the ghost of Dolly Parton, so it had to be Theta, Vraxi’s knight in shining stainless steel. They were holding within their grip the ivory blade of Ayyuppan which had been conveniently laying right outside the door moments earlier.

“Hey everyone,” Theta said as they pranced through the entrance, “I’m really sorry about all of this, I think it may have been my fault but I’m also not entirely sure. The whole situation with the cameras and the guards and the dogs and whatnot has been quite complex and multifaceted. But, anyways, I’m here now, I’ve got Vraxi’s sword, it was just sort of strewn across the ground but I assume there’s a reasonable explanation for that. Um,” Theta tried to think of what else to say as they surveyed the contents of the room before zeroing in on Zapata and the foreign object placed in her grasp, “nice scythe Zapata, I’m assuming you and Diogo got in touch with some sort of divine presence, that makes four of us-”

“Hold on, Theta,” Vraxi interrupted, “how did you even get in here?”

“That is a very good question that I don’t have a great answer to. I’m pretty sure I met God and one thing led to another and now I’m here.”

“Well,” Zapata said, “putting all of that aside, now that we’re all together, we really need to come up with some foolproof yet reasonably achievable method of getting out of this place. I don’t think we have much time so I suggest we have a minute-long brainstorming session and then we can all share our best ideas at once.”

“I mean,” Vraxi started, “we could just try to run really fast and hope that nobody catches up to us.”

“Sounds like a pretty good plan to me,” Diogo chimed in.

“What?” Zapata questioned, “Vraxi? You just gave a whole speech on the dangers of leaving this room without a comprehensive strategy and now you’re suggesting we forget all that and start galloping out of here willy-nilly?”

“Zapata,” Vraxi continued, “all I did was address the problems with the idea, that doesn’t mean I necessarily disagree with it, and, in this particular scenario, I believe that it might be our best option. However, I’m not a super-intelligent quantum computer,” she said as she turned to the robot beside her, “what do you think, Theta?

“Well,” Theta considered, “I wouldn’t say I’m against the idea, and, considering the ever decreasing amount of time we can stay in this room as well the fact that I’ve gotten much better at running over the past few days, I’d suggest that we go ahead and improvise.”

With that, the quartet had made their final decision. Diogo immediately ran ahead and charged through the door as the others followed in his footsteps. Immediately after, Diogo began to slip and slide across the recently mopped tiled flooring as he passed by a custodian who was not paid nearly enough to address the escaping convicts. 

However, as Diogo basked in the pure adrenaline rush that came to him when all the parts of a heist were finally starting to come together, despite the fact that he had completely fumbled at actually attaining the thumb drive he was here for, he turned a corner. This particular corner had a very unfortunate sight waiting for him on the other end. It was the face, as well as the body, of a quite surprised Joey Axelrod.

“Diogo?” he questioned as the man he was quite shocked to see paused his escape attempt, “I was just trying to get coffee, but then I got lost, so I went down here because I remembered there being a map here, but now I can’t find the map either, but none of that matters because how did you get out of your cell?”

“I, uh,” Diogo tried to think of a convincing lie before realizing that the best course of action in this scenario was not going to revolve around wit and cunning, but rather pure speed, “I don’t know a Diogo.”

After saying this, he immediately started to position himself for another prolonged sprint. However, he failed to consider that the ground he was standing on was still just as wet as it had been moments earlier. This lapse in judgment resulted in Diogo moving his front leg slightly too quickly and carelessly, causing him to collapse on the ground as Joey watched this stunt with a pinch of pity and a greater sense of karmic justice.

But before Joey could adequately capitalize on Diogo’s moment of weakness, the three other escapees that had been trailing behind him made it to the same intersection of hallways where this scene had taken place. While Joey was relatively unphased by seeing the faces of Zapata and Vraxi, he was very much phased when he noticed the presence of Theta.

“Is that the fucking singularity?” he shouted in a moment of confusion, “When did it get here? How did it get here? What?”

“None of your business, Joey” Zapata quipped as she slid towards him and poked him in the gut with the blunt side of her newly acquired scythe. This action triggered Joey to collapse onto the floor himself, which, as Vraxi helped Diogo up from the ground he now laid on, put him in a somewhat antithetical position to the one he had been in seconds prior. As the quartet escaped from Joey’s reach, he began to question if he might ever capture the AI that at once seemed so close but now seemed so far away. No, he couldn’t give up, not now when he was closer than ever. He still had a very real chance at capturing the Singularity and he wasn’t going to squander an opportunity to finally prove himself to Bran that he was a highly valuable member of the GüdTek corporation. Maybe the way things were turning out was even beneficial to Joey. If he could just trap the Singularity himself, he might even be able to completely ignore the long winded legal process that the Gibson Foundation had planned on holding. He pulled his phone from his pocket and rapidly dialed a number as he got up from the ground.

“Hey, it’s me, Joey,” he spoke into the receiver, “I’m gonna need you to bring in the airship. I have an idea.”

The quartet continued to rush towards the nearest exit, doing their best to avoid being seen by too many onlookers, however, at a certain point, they started to only look out for the armed onlookers. It’s not like there was a particularly large gap between being spotted by five people and being spotted by fifty. However, as Diogo, who was still darting ahead of the pack, busted through a set of double doors, he was immediately greeted by ten to twelve heavily armed Gibson Foundation sentries. As the masked faces all turned to look at Diogo and the trio behind him, he figured that it would be a good idea to sprint in the opposite direction as fast as possible. Despite this, before he could lift his foot off the ground, he caught the glint of shining metal in the corner of his eye. One of the guards was holding a magnakey, his magnakey, the one he had modified with his own bare hands, and he wanted it back.

“Diogo, watch out!” Vraxi yelled at her companion who had been entranced by the possibility of regaining his universal lockpicker.

“Oh porra,” Diogo cursed as he saw one of the many guards approach him, baton in hand.

As Vraxi saw Diogo enter the chokehold of the Gibson guard, she knew what she had to do. She gripped the shining blade held within her shaking hand. ‘Come on, Ayyuppan,’ she thought. She could do this, she just needed to focus. She aimed the scimitar at the attacking guard’s shoulder area and watched as it launched forward in their direction. Vraxi was finally realizing the potential of her canonization. But then, something amiss occurred. The arc of the sword’s trajectory began to dip down at a rapid rate. The blade hit the ground a few yards away from Diogo, effectively doing nothing to stop the attempted abduction.

Vraxi panicked. She watched as the other guards began to approach the rest of the group. She didn’t know what to do. Her only real method of self defense was now laying on the floor. She felt hopeless. She shouldn’t have tried to escape the room in the first place. She shouldn’t have tried to attempt another fucking heist at all. She didn’t know why she kept doing this to herself. Was it pure stupidity and disregard for her own health? Was it some sort of subconscious psyche trying to inch her closer to her own demise? Was she failing to recognize her own romanticization of dysfunction? She didn’t know. Maybe she was overthinking things. She tended to do that but she also tended to put herself in situations that required a lot of thought.

Before Vraxi could further process the disaster that had been unfolding in front of her, Zapata decided to put things into her own hands. She had just been given access to a genuinely magical piece of weaponry and she figured that the best course of action would involve using it as much as possible. She was not necessarily an expert in handling martial armaments, her only real experience consisted of a series of overpriced self defense classes. Despite this, something about handling her divinely appointed scythe felt different. She could feel the difference. She could feel the might of Santa Muerte pumping through her veins as she wielded the celestial weapon. That power, the divine intervention of her patron deity, of her holy death, overtook her mind, body, and soul. She felt a deep connection with the scythe, like it was an extension of her own being. This connection meant that using the scythe felt like a second nature to her. Articulating the oversized weapon around a three-dimensional space was about as easy as moving around one of her limbs. This fusion of weapon and wielder, this inherent compatibility between the two, allowed for Zapata to facilitate the stunt she was about to pull off.

Zapata watched as the guards closed in on her location. She familiarized herself with the geometry of her surroundings. She took a deep breath. She braced herself. After a second or two of silence, she charged towards the guard holding Diogo captive and slammed the blade of her scythe into the side of their body armor. They fell onto the floor, letting Diogo free in the process but also alerting the surrounding guards of the threat of her presence. One of them pulled out a handgun and shot a rubber bullet aiming directly toward her forehead. Time seemed to slow down as she processed the incoming projectile. She had mere milliseconds to protect herself from a potential concussion. Her hand clenched the handle of her scythe. She knew that no human reaction time could evade the bullet given its current speed and distance from her body. However, with the power of a full blown deity on her side, she was no longer constrained to the limits of humanity. She lifted the scythe to face directly in front of her and watched as the bullet split in two against the weapon’s surface.

At this point in time, things started to get a bit chaotic. The troupe of guards all began to turn towards Zapata, processing her as a dangerous hazard that needed to be eliminated before she could escape their sight. Zapata could tell that she was being targeted by multiple assailants simultaneously, yet, oddly enough, this fact of the matter didn’t worry her. Instead, she tried her best to remain calm. If she could just let the will of Santa Muerte take control, she knew that she would be safe in the long run. Once again, the world around her began to slow its tempo. She watched as each bullet lethargically flew through the air like a coin slowly sinking into a jar of honey. Avoiding the paths of each missile had become quite simple as she methodically ducked and weaved through the oncoming barrage. She waltzed through the tapestry of ammunition that decorated the atmosphere around her. While each round slugged through the air at a predictable largo , her body wasn’t necessarily moving any faster, it was just her perception that moved at a quicker pace. Each step in this most dangerous dance was both carefully planned and fully improvised. Zapata just moved in a way that felt right to her in the moment but she also understood that that feeling had been dictated by a higher power. This was the dance of the divine, and Zapata was starting to get the hang of it.

Eventually, the guards who had been circling Zapata realized a grim truth about their situation. They needed to reload their weapons. Zapata understood that this moment of weakness could easily be exploited for her own benefit. She turned to the guard that had been holding the magnakey, who was currently crouched on the ground in the corner of the room. Like the other guards, they wore a large helmet on their head, obstructing their face from view. Despite this, Zapata could tell that the guard was deeply afraid. She rushed over to the masked attacker who was still having trouble reloading as they fumbled with their gun. They looked up at Zapata who looked back down at them with an expression of disappointment. She raised the scythe and pointed its blade toward their chest.

“Give me the machine,” Zapata demanded as she motioned her weapon in the direction of the contraption the frightened guard was holding. They didn’t respond. They didn’t know how to respond. Their hands shook but stayed tight around the magnakey. They hadn’t been trained for a moment like this one. They weren’t told about this during orientation. They didn’t know who or what Zapata was. Their mind couldn’t comprehend how she was able to evade every single one of their bullets without breaking a single sweat. They were too scared to move.

“I said give me the machine,” Zapata repeated, frustrated at the guard’s disobedience. A feeling of anger was developing within her. Her connection with the scythe and with her patron deity as a whole had grown much stronger at an exponential rate. She was starting to notice the effects of this rapid shift. This anger inside her had fueled her precise movements throughout the room when she was dodging the gunfire from seconds earlier. But now, the anger sat still like a stone in her stomach as she stood in front of the cowering guard. Her mind had been subconsciously directing this divine emotion brewing beneath the surface of her being at the guard facing her. She felt hatred for the guard. She disdained them. She didn’t know why but it felt deserved. All of the pain and frustration that had been racking her brain for the past couple of days could all be traced back to them. They were wholly responsible for what she had gone through. It was all coming together. They needed to be punished for their wrongdoings. They would be the scapegoat, and once they were slaughtered, all the sins committed against her could be forgiven. She demanded closure. The guard had already dropped the magnakey on the ground but their fate had been sealed. She began to plunge the scythe downwards through the air, aimed at the guard’s heart. It would be a quick and relatively painless death.

“Zapata?” Vraxi shouted from the other side of the room. She had a puzzled expression on her face. She had been very impressed by Zapata's earlier methods of evasion but the current stunt she was pulling off confused her. 

Zapata took a glimpse at Vraxi’s face. She looked back at the scythe she was holding, about two thirds of the way to piercing the guard’s armor. What was she doing? She pulled the scythe back into her arms. She looked around at the other guards, they were just as stunned as her. She turned to face the rest of her group.

“Diogo,” she stated plainly, “grab the magnakey. Vraxi, pick up your sword. Let’s get out of here.”

The others followed her into the next room without saying a word as they continued onwards towards the exit. The walk started to become a bit awkward.

“Hey, so, Zapata?” Vraxi asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes?” Zapata sighed in response.

“I was just wondering what you were trying to do back there. That guard had already given back the magnakey when you started to attack them, it looked like you were about to hit some pretty vital organs.”

“I don’t know, Vraxi. It just- happened. It won’t happen again. Something got in my head, I’m not really sure what it was.”

“Do you have any ideas? It just seemed a bit out of character.”

“I didn’t want this, Vraxi. Okay? I didn’t want any of this. I was just living a normal life before all of this. I didn’t ask to be contacted by a fucking death god. I just wanted to get my degree. This is- really hard for me, and I don’t know what I’m doing. One moment, everything’s normal, five seconds later, I’m dodging bullets in slow-motion, five more seconds later and I’m getting inches away from committing an actual murder. I don’t know what is happening to me and I am trying my absolute best to roll with the punches life brings me. It’s just really difficult sometimes.”

“I’m sorry. I get that. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just- I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”

“I mean, it’s not. I’m not doing okay, objectively.”

“But like, can you manage for the time being?”

“Well, sure, but I need you to understand that those are two very separate states of being.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So,” Theta started, “do you feel any better now?”

“No, Theta,” Zapata responded, “I don’t. I still feel very bad and I doubt that that will change any time soon. I am currently in a very uncomfortable situation with no easy method of escape. Not only that, but I wouldn’t even be in this situation if it wasn’t for whatever weird god shit you’ve been doing.”

“I’m really sorry, I don’t have any sort of direct control over that stuff, it just happens. If I could stop it I would, I promise.”

“Hey,” Diogo chimed in, “how about we all just calm down a bit?  I get it, tensions are high, voices get raised. But also, we sorta need to focus right now on the larger task at hand. We should have plenty of time to unleash all our grievances against one another once we’re out of here. Sounds good?”

“Yeah,” Zapata responded, “I’m sorry, I’m just really frustrated right now.”

“Alright, now, the plan going forward. Theta, how far away is the nearest unguarded exit?”

“Let me see,” Theta replied as they pulled up a 3D model of the building in their mind, “Well, it’s not necessarily an exit but there is roof access about 50 meters down this hallway.”

“Hold on,” Vraxi interjected, “how is roof access supposed to help us? We can’t jump off!”

The others stood quiet and pondered the hypothetical Vraxi had provided before she continued to speak.

“We’re not jumping off the building.”

“Well,” Diogo added, “there might be other ways to descend the wall without breaking every bone in our bodies. Theta, are there any maintenance ladders on the side of the wall?”

“Um,” Theta looked back at the model within their head, “I believe so. It is a bit of a walk from where we’d enter the roof but it’s definitely possible to make it.”

“Wait a minute,” Zapata began, “weren’t there a whole bunch of security measures in place around the wall that we had to avoid the first time? Wouldn’t we still have to worry about that stuff when exiting?”

“Well,” Diogo responded, “after the incident we caused earlier, all of the murder-dogs should be back in the kennels, which only leaves the guns to be concerned about.”

“And,” Theta added, “hacking into a machine I’ve already entered before should really not be very difficult.”

“Well,” Vraxi concluded, “I guess that’s that. To the roof we go.”

Vraxi could just barely glimpse a slimmer of a sunrise as she climbed atop the wall’s highest level. She almost wanted to pause there and enjoy the scenery that decorated the world around her. While the wall itself was an eyesore, the view from atop it was really something. But alas, as her companions emerged one by one from the entrance, she knew she had to start heading left as soon as possible to get to the ladder before the guards got to them.

Meanwhile, Joey Axelrod was in a very different, yet tangentially related, predicament of his own. He had already exited the building through the main entrance to the museum and was now piloting Bran’s private airship. It wasn’t the prettiest vehicle capable of airborne travel and the fact that he was currently illegally flying it through private airspace didn’t make it any more attractive. In fact, he wasn’t looking particularly attractive himself as he was drenched in a cold sweat and stank of anxiety as government officials continued to intercept the plane’s radio to inform him of the dire consequences to the actions he was performing.

Why was he doing all of this? The answer was simple. He knew that the Singularity and its posse would be escaping the building quite soon. He also knew that if the Gibson Foundation were to successfully catch the Singularity, he would likely be barred from returning it to its rightful owner. Therefore, his only valid plan of action would be to intercept the Singularity as it tried to escape.

At around the same time, Vraxi, Zapata, Diogo, and Theta had already made it about halfway to the all-important ladder when disaster struck. It had been preambled by the loud sound of blaring alarms, a large group of heavily armed guards rushed out of an exit similar to the one they had used minutes prior, they were all standing about forty feet ahead of them and looked quite annoyed about the situation that had unfolded.

“Turn around and put your hands on your head!” one of the guards ordered using a raised voice.

The four of them all immediately followed the directions, however the walkway was quite thin and they all figured that they should be lined up in a way where each of their backs were visible simultaneously so they had to shuffle around a bit first. The guard they assumed to be the leader of the division began to talk to someone on a phone and Vraxi turned over to Zapata to begin a discrete conversation.

“Hey Zapata,” she whispered to her companion, “I think that now would be a good time to pull out that scythe again.”

“Are you kidding me?” she replied in a similar volume while gesturing toward the weapon that laid on the ground in front of her, “After what happened last time? I can’t trust that I won’t inadvertently commit an act of murder.”

“I don’t know what else we can do though. It really doesn’t seem like there are any good options here that don’t involve some level of violence.”

“Vraxi,” Theta said, joining the quiet conversation, “we really can’t abandon our moral compass here, even if it means protecting our own safety. Killing people is a line that we really cannot cross.”

“I mean, that’s fair, but what about the magnakey? We might be able to blast them away with it and avoid dealing with a single casualty.”

“Vraxi,” Diogo began, “we are on a narrow footpath sitting atop a fifteen-story building. If I were to use the magnakey right now, someone would fall off and I’m not sure how well that armor of theirs would be able to protect them. It’s just too risky.”

“Okay, then what can we do?”

“We can wait until we see an opportunity.”

“Diogo, you’re supposed to be the heist guy. Is that really all you’ve got in the tank?”

Diogo paused before speaking up.

“Hold on,” he said, “do you hear that?”

In the distance, Vraxi could just make out what looked to be a large plane flying directly towards them. It seemed to be quite low to the ground, hovering at about the same level which they were standing on. Strangely enough, it seemed to be in the process of rotating itself in such a way that the body of the aircraft would point parallel to the wall. In the time it took for Vraxi to fully process the presence of the plane, it had traveled a significant distance closer to her location. The guards that stood not very far from her also seemed to notice the concerningly close airship as well as the increasingly shrinking interval of space between it and themselves.

A few more seconds passed and during that brief but significant period of time, the plane reached a distance from Theta where they started to consider the possible threats that arose from its accelerating approach. They completed a couple of quick calculations in their head and came to the similarly quick conclusion that, given the plane’s large surface area as well as the rapid speed at which it was traveling to where they currently were positioned, they lacked the proper amount of time to run away from the aircraft without being pummeled by it’s hard aluminum hull. This revelation was quite harrowing, however, it had been packaged with a somewhat reassuring caveat. The body of the plane, the plane which was currently barreling towards them, contained an opening in the center, a set of garage-door-like entrances open on either side of the vehicle. This opening was conveniently lined up with the section of the walkway that Theta and their friends were occupying. If they could just leap into the cabin of the airship at the exact right moment, they could avoid certain doom.

“Everybody,” Theta began to speak to the group who were similarly concerned but less informed about the nature of the plane’s approach, “I need you to jump on the count of three.”

The trio of humans all nodded in agreement, understanding that a time like this was not one where argumentation was very necessary.

“One… Two… Three!” Saying this, Theta and their companions launched themselves into the air, right as the airship passed over the strip of wall they had been standing on. They immediately fell and rolled onto the cold metal floors of the plane’s interior as the openings on either side of the plane automatically closed shut behind them.

Vraxi had hit her head during the rough landing and as she tried to readjust her vision, she took a brief glance at the room around her. Plastered onto the wall she now stared at was the logo of the GüdTek corporation. This was not great news for her.

“Well,” she commented, “at least we're not dead.”

Chapter Text

Vraxi Nair, once again, found herself inside a dark room. This one happened to be quite unique due to its aerodynamic nature, but it was a dark room nonetheless. However, if she was being completely honest, her foremost thought when it came to this room in particular was not at all related to the quantity of photons it could hold at any given moment but instead was focused on the room’s harsh temperature. It was cold, painfully so. The typical nature of the modern airplane tends to involve regular visits to higher altitudes, altitudes at which the chilling embrace of outer space can seep into the atmosphere. The room Vraxi was in was not connected to any sort of central heating system so she had no choice but to endure the undeterred cold.

Before Vraxi could even begin to speak to her similarly stunned and weary partners in crime, she started to hear a low, deep, buzzing noise letting out a consistent hum throughout the room. It almost sounded like there was a large mosquito hovering a few inches away from her ear. The source of the sound soon became clear when she heard the voice of one Joey Axelrod introduce himself on the plane’s intercom. 

“Hello,” he said, “as you can see, my incredible display of piloting has led you all to be trapped within my grasp once and for all. The Singularity will finally be returned to the GüdTek corporation and the rest of you will be severely punished for your crimes. But seriously, do you know how hard it is to fly a plane sideways? The answer is very hard, incredibly difficult. If America still existed, I could’ve gotten the presidential medal of freedom for that maneuver alone. But alas, it doesn’t, so I didn’t.”

“Um,” Vraxi cleared her throat, trying to evaluate the stakes of the current situation before speaking, “where are you taking us?”

“That’s actually a good question. The boss is over at her private resort in beautiful Tahiti, but that’s a continent and an ocean away from here so it’ll be a long flight. Luckily, there should be some blankets and snacks in the corner of the room you’re in so you all should be fine as long as you don’t try to escape. Please don’t try to escape. I promise you’d die trying. The plane is very high in the sky right now and there’s no way to survive that drop. I don’t even know how you’d escape, all the doors are sealed shut but you’ve all proven yourself to be rather crafty with these sorts of things.”

Vraxi stood up. She sighed. It was cold enough to see her breath but she couldn’t see much else. She walked to the other side of the room. There was, in fact, a bin full of dull gray blanket-adjacent sheets of fabric. She picked one of them up. It had a coarse and slightly itchy texture but she doubted it could host any bed bugs in this extreme climate so she proceeded to wrap it around her torso.

Looking to the left of the bin, she spotted a container holding a plethora of miniature bags filled with honey roasted peanuts. She grabbed a handful of them. At that moment, she came to the realization that she had barely eaten anything in the past 24 hours and was feeling incredibly hungry. She downed a bag of the nuts before walking back over to where her companions now sat in relative silence.

“So,” she started, “does anybody have any ideas on how to get out of here?”

“Well,” Diogo responded quickly, “I’ve already been stewing up a couple of plans in my head.”

“Hey,” the voice of Joey emanated from the intercom, “I can still hear you guys, don’t try to pull any funny business.”

“Man,” Zapata commented despite Joey’s interruption, “this really fucking sucks. We could’ve just stayed back at the wall and we would’ve been safer than we are now.”

“Well,” Diogo replied, “Things could’ve been worse. I mean, we still have our weapons with us,” he said as he held up the magnakey.

“Wait, Diogo,” Vraxi began, “Can’t we just use the magnakey to blow open the door to the cockpit? Theta probably knows how to fly a plane, right?”

“I mean,” Theta responded, “I could probably learn quite quickly.”

“Guys,” Joey interrupted, “Please don’t try to do that.”

“I’ll be honest,” Zapata clarified, “I hate to agree with that dude but I feel like setting off an explosion on an airplane mid-flight could cause a chain reaction of unintended consequences that ultimately leads to our demise. For our own safety, I suggest we pause all escape attempts until we hit the ground.”

“Considering the options at hand,” Theta responded, “that’s most likely our best course of action.”

“Well, in that case,” Diogo said, changing the subject, “have any of you watched any good shows recently?”

“Really, Diogo?” Vraxi responded in shock.

“What?”

“You’re just gonna forget about the mission like that?”

“Vraxi, the mission already failed, we didn’t get the thumb drive. I’m just trying to start some small talk to liven up the conversation.”

“But like, you realize how monumental everything that’s just happened to us is, right? You were literally just contacted by a god and you seem to be moving past that really quickly. You’re sitting next to the actual reincarnation of Jesus H. Christ, among others, and you still want to talk about TV right now?”

“Vraxi, we have a lot of time before we land. I just wanted to take a break for a second. When most of your life is spent doing heists, sometimes you’ve got to take a breather from it all. I know you’re new to this thing but you’ll get it eventually.”

After Diogo said this, Zapata stood up and walked away from the corner of the floor where the others huddled together and towards the bin that held the rest of the plane’s supply of blankets. While Theta did not require any extraneous source of insulation for warmth, they did want to talk to Zapata, so they followed her over there.

“Hey, Zapata?” Theta asked as Zapata wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, “I just wanted to apologize.”

“About what?” 

“Everything, really. I don’t think we really got to finish what we were talking about earlier. I know that you’re very unhappy with everything that’s been going on lately and I really didn’t want to force anyone into this. I really do want to apologize to the best of my abilities.”

“Listen, Theta, you’re right. I’m not happy with any of this. I think you’d have to be somewhat insane to find any positive aspects to what’s been occurring recently. But this isn’t your fault, okay? It’s Vraxi’s fault, you just happened to be the catalyst. From what I’ve seen so far, you seem to be a good person, or robot, or angel? Whatever you are, your moral compass seems to be pointing in the right direction. The truth is, everything’s been happening so quickly that I haven’t really had the time to grieve. When I have trouble with processing my own emotions, I tend to lash out at others. I’ve been trying to get better at avoiding this, and I think I have overall, but when Vraxi whisked me away on her little adventure, I think I lost a lot of progress.”

Theta nodded as Zapata continued speaking.

“But also,” she said, “why should I even have to mute my emotions? I’m mad and annoyed and deeply frustrated because deeply frustrating things keep happening to me. Since Vraxi came back, my life’s been at risk multiple times, I’ve been enrolled into a genuine cult, and sometimes I stop having control over the actions of my own body. I can’t even tell what’s real anymore. All I think about is how close I am to death at any given moment, and right now, considering where this plane’s headed, that moment’s looking pretty close!”

Zapata realized at this moment that she had raised her voice several decibels and that everyone in the room, including Vraxi herself, could clearly hear what she had been saying. Vraxi walked over to Zapata and Diogo followed until the four of them were once again standing within one group.

“Um,” Vraxi began, “I’m sorry about that.”

“I really don’t think you are.”

“Well why would you say that?”

“Because you always say you're sorry, Vraxi, and you always go back to making the same mistakes immediately after. It was like that when we were together and it’s like that now, just on a larger scale. And that idiocy of your’s, that utter incompetence, that total inability to make the right choice even when you know it’s right, that is about to get us all killed. I’m not even looking for an apology anymore, you’ve done far too much to ruin my life already.”

“Zapata, please don’t say that. I get it, I’m pretty dumb, I make bad choices without considering the consequences. One of those choices led to the situation I’ve brought you to now. But please don’t say that we’re gonna die. We can’t die now. I don’t want to die. I really don’t want to die. We still have so much to do. We still need to help Theta with their mission.”

“Okay, you know what, you’re right, we don’t have to die. We could live through this whole thing if we play our cards right. But while Theta appears to be a pretty good… entity, I really didn’t want to join this ‘mission’ of yours in the first place. Stop acting like we’re on some elite team of daredevils that’s gonna save the world or something.”

“But like, Theta seems to be really important, maybe we really are on our way to saving the world.”

“Saving the world from what?”

“I’m not sure yet, but don’t you want to find out?”

“Not really? I mainly just want to survive.”

“It seems kind of selfish to throw away the opportunity of helping people just to ensure your own safety.”

“Oh, fuck you Vraxi. You say that like this whole operation isn’t just you trying to fulfill your own addiction to adventure. You don’t care about actually helping anyone, you just want to get high off your own adrenaline.”

Vraxi stayed silent. She didn’t really know how to respond. In many ways, Zapata was right, and that was hard for her to accept. When Vraxi first joined Diogo’s heist, she was doing it purely out of her own self interest. She desperately wanted to feel something as she had grown so very accustomed to feeling absolutely nothing at all. In a sense, her wish was granted, she was feeling a lot more than she had been a week prior, unfortunately, not all of those feelings were necessarily positive. She looked back at Zapata. Vraxi had never been particularly good at eye contact but at this moment she was intent on analyzing every detail of Zapata’s expression. There was a sadness in her eyes, not the kind of sadness that flares up from time to time in explosive displays but the kind that slowly builds up in the back of one’s brain until it comes pouring out the ocular nerve. 

Vraxi never really thought about how their breakup may have affected Zapata. She knew it affected herself deeply, it led to her spiraling much deeper into the pool of her own dysfunction, but she always assumed that, for Zapata, it was merely a week of minor melancholy followed by business as usual. Zapata just always seemed so well put together, so professional, so unlike herself. However, as Vraxi looked back at Zapata in this moment of tension, she began to understand how similar their struggles really were. Zapata was not immune to the terrors that Vraxi found herself facing on a daily basis, she never was, she was just better at hiding them, masking her suffering under an approachable facade. 

“Fuck,” Vraxi stated, “you’re right.”

“I know,” Zapata responded, “it took you long enough.”

“Do you think we can make amends? Is there a way I can fix this?”

“I can’t really say yes to that in good faith. I need a lot of time, Vraxi.”

There was a long pause following this sentence. Vraxi and Zapata continued to awkwardly stare at one another for a few more seconds before turning their gazes to the other individuals within the huddle. Theta was not great at completely understanding the full breadth of human social networks, and as a result, they had a lot of trouble with trying to move the conversation away from Vraxi and Zapata’s rather complicated relationship. Besides, most of their computing power was already being dedicated towards finding a way to recreate the acts of teleportation they had accomplished previously but had failed to enact since. Theta really wasn’t sure what they were missing, it seemed like teleportation was just a literal deus ex machina thrust upon them at opportune moments instead of a natural ability they could easily control. Meanwhile, Diogo Celestino, who often thought of himself as having a subtle expertise in the field of social interaction, had already concocted a masterful gambit to shift the course of the conversation.

“So,” he began, “How did you guys meet?”

“Diogo,” Zapata responded, “Now is really not the time.”

“Well hold on,” Vraxi added, “I feel like there’s actually a pretty good story there.”

“Vraxi, do we really need to do this? At a time like now?”

“Zapata, it’s a long flight, I might as well.”

“Fine.”

The year was 2105, Vraxi Nair, who at this point was still going by the name of Vrisini Nair, was supposed to be attending their first ever class at Mornminster Academy. Instead, however, they were having the worst panic attack of their life inside a restroom stall. In a very broad sense, Vrisini was worried about college. To be more specific, he was worried about what the implications of being a college student entailed. To be even broader, he was worried about being an adult.

Vrisini was never good at making friends. Throughout high school, he tended to avoid talking to the other students and only made exceptions when absolutely necessary. He had also been taking an extensive series of online courses alongside his in-person education which made it so that he only had to spend about ninety minutes a day within a physical school. This minimal amount of social interaction had been ideal for Vrisini at the time, however, in no way did it prepare him for the crowded classes within the halls of Mornminster. 

As a result, instead of attending his very first lecture at university, Vrisini hid in the bathroom stall. He could, theoretically, at any moment, enter the nearby auditorium where the lecture was being held and simply claim a brief tardiness. However, that would mean leaving the relative comfort of the stall. Vrisini had always liked bathroom stalls, something about an extremely private place nestled within the terror of a very public place had always been able to provide him a sense of relief. Walking into a stall meant leaving the rest of the world behind and entering the confines of one's own mind. In the mind of Vrisini, the stall was an oasis within the desert of social expectations. Unfortunately, it was also quicksand. Vrisini knew that he couldn’t stay in the stall forever. He knew that skipping his first class would ultimately be harmful for him. He knew it could send him down a downward spiral. However, the longer he spent in the stall, the more he felt inclined to stay inside of it. He was starting to panic, he needed to get out of the bathroom and attend class, but he also desperately craved the perceived safety of staying isolated. The only thing he could be sure of was that he needed to make a decision as soon as possible. Thoughts raced through his mind at speeds too fast to properly process, he was losing any sense of semblance in his judgements, he desperately needed an answer to his predicament but the added stress from this desperation led his decision making to a grinding halt. His mental disarray started to take form in a physical response. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach, his hands started to shake followed by his legs at increasing intervals, he started to mumble curses under his breath which grew in volume at a steady crescendo.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said at a level he assumed was only audible to himself.

“Um, are you okay in there?” asked an unfamiliar voice from the other side of the stall door.

The news of there being another inhabitant of the restroom Vrisini was currently occupying was incredibly alarming to the unprepared student. He was now being put on the spot. Before, failing to make a decision could only result in disappointment from himself, but now, failure came with a cost, the cost of potentially looking weird in front of a stranger, a punishment worse than death. 

“Oh, I’m doing great. All my piss is in tip-top condition,” he said, stumbling over his words and attempting a fake laugh at the end that sounded more like a mix between a burp and a scream.

Zapata Tochihuitl, the stranger on the other side of the stall, didn’t know how she should respond to that. She felt like she should say something, she just had trouble coming up with what. Something about the way the person in the stall spoke indicated to her that they were, in fact, not okay, despite their claim to the contrary. As a result, she wanted to provide some level of comfort to this stranger that seemed to need it, the only problem was that she didn’t know what the stranger was struggling with. She tried to use backwards reasoning to come up with a possible issue they could be facing. They said that their piss condition was optimal, however, Zapata suspected that this was a lie to make her believe they were okay when they weren’t. This meant that their piss condition must have instead been abysmal, perhaps they found themselves unable to urinate at all, luckily, Zapata knew exactly what to say to comfort this stranger.

“Listen man, I’m sorry that your urethra isn’t working right now, it happens to the best of us.”

Vrisini was utterly unprepared for this response, though he did appreciate the sincerity. He did, however, want to make it clear to this stranger that his urethra was, in fact, fully functional at the time and should not be a concern to them. He considered just shouting back at them through the stall that his urethra was working just fine but he figured that the stranger would just assume he was trying to hide the truth of the situation out of embarrassment. The only way he could really prove himself innocent from the accusation laid upon him was by revealing his true motives for hiding in the bathroom.

He decided that the best course of action would be to briefly leave the stall and then briefly explain his reasoning behind locking himself there in the first place. He pushed open the door and began to speak.

“Okay, first of all, I really appreciate your concern for the well-being of my urinary tract, however, I assure you that I am performing perfectly adequately in that field. The actual reason for why I was panicking in that stall was because I was scared, and still am scared, about entering a room full of people for my first class.”

“Oh,” Zapata responded, slightly disappointed by her failed deduction skills and eager to change the topic, “so, what is your first class?”

“Oh, um, it’s Applied Chronoromanticism.”

“Oh hey, I’m taking that right now, I was just taking a break to pee real quick, wanna come back to the class with me? The name’s Zapata by the way.”

“Oh, uh, that sounds,” Vrisini began to panic again. Laid before him was a difficult choice, he could join Zapata and enter the auditorium where he would have to show his stupid fucking face to an amorphous crowd of disgusted onlookers. Or, he could be a total asshole and say no directly to Zapata using the mouth haphazardly attached to his stupid fucking face. Neither option was ideal as they would both require other people having to perceive him and his previously mentioned stupid fucking face. Option one would lead to being perceived by more people, but option two meant disappointing someone who was standing right in front of them. Not only that, but just maybe, picking option two could lead to an unforeseen opportunity. By entering the classroom with Zapata, he might just be able to make a new friend. He had to take the risk, so as a result, he continued his sentence, “that sounds great, um, and my name is Vrisini, it’s nice to meet you.”

“I don’t know,” Vraxi said as she finished her retelling, “I thought it was a cute little story.”

“I mean,” Zapata added, “it was kind of gross in retrospect, but I do get what you mean.”

Diogo was quite proud of himself, the story he had masterfully encouraged seemed to disarm the conversation, however, he felt an emptiness in his heart. He now wanted to tell a story of his own, and he had plenty of stories to tell.

“Hey,” he began, “Have I ever told the tale of my very first heist?”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Theta responded.

“That’s a shame, it truly was a thrilling experience.”

“So… Do you want to tell the story?”

“Well, if you’re truly gnawing at the bit to hear it, I might as well.”

It was a warm, equatorial night in Sao Luis, the year was 2097, a lone Diogo Celestino, fresh out of high school, was standing atop a building, about to make a decision that would permanently change the course of his life. The building in question, the Museu de Arte Maranhense, was a prestigious establishment, but if Diogo did everything right, the institution’s enamored reputation might start to decline somewhat. 

He had met with a representative from the Allodapos Society only two weeks prior, however, he had been looking into their beliefs online for significantly longer. At this point in time, he still wasn’t fully sure if he believed in someone like Golgonax, but he did resonate with the ideals set out by the society’s manifesto. According to this document, the main goal that the Allodapos Society was trying to achieve was eliminating as many forms of injustice as possible before Golgonax came down to Earth, in order to make a positive impression and avoid the omnipotent alien’s wrath. And all things considered, they had a rather positive track record. Through their various covert missions performed across the globe, they had successfully assassinated tyrannical political leaders, exposed countless accounts of corruption, and had taken down a vast array of underground crime rings. Diogo really wanted to get involved in one of these missions, he really wanted to make a positive difference in the world. However, despite how it may initially seem, Diogo was not currently on one of those missions as he stood atop the Museu de Arte Maranhense.

In order for an organization such as the Allodapos Society to continue operations in relative secrecy, it cannot rely on donations alone for it to fund its often rather expensive initiatives. Therefore, the society needed to find alternative ways of acquiring wealth, such as the heist that Diogo was about to go through with. The plan was quite simple, all Diogo would have to do was sneak into the room holding the incredibly prized painting Portrait of a Bear in Estrus , a very personal piece by Jan van Vroonavan which currently had an asking price of over thirty million dollars, and swap it out with the near-identical copy which he was currently holding. The original painting would then be immediately sold on the black market to a preestablished buyer and never spoken of again as the general public remains completely unaware that the switch ever occurred in the first place.

This sort of exchange was not uncommon and had become a frequent method of fundraising for the Allodapos Society within the previous years. A long list of masterpieces had been substituted by indistinguishable fakes, and of which, only a small number were ever discovered to be deceptions distinct from the original works or art, and of those, not a single stolen piece had ever been tracked down to the society itself. As a result, art theft and forgery had become a rather reliable, risk free, and lucrative business for the society that made accomplishing their mission statement much more affordable.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that Diogo’s mission was comparatively on the safer side, he was still very nervous about his very first heist. Luckily, he wouldn’t be doing it alone. He was accompanied by his mentor and companion, a man by the name of Octávio. 

Octávio was the kind of person who always kept a smile on their face even in the most difficult of times. For example, as the two of them stood atop the roof of the museum, he was grinning ear to ear and giddy with excitement while Diogo held a subtlety grim expression on his countenance. Diogo wasn’t exactly sure as to why Octávio could remain so confident in such stressful situations, but he also couldn’t deny that Octávio’s attitude made him feel better about the heist as well. He was glad to have a mentor like Octávio.

Getting inside the Museu de Arte Maranhense via the roof was not a very demanding task. All they had to do was kick open a skylight that was already somewhat loose. However, they still needed to access the adjacent room, the room which held Portrait of a Bear in Estrus , from where they were currently located. This all took place before the magnakey really rose to ubiquity in the field of heisting, so they couldn’t just blow up the door on command, but luckily, Octávio was somewhat of an expert in the field of old-fashioned lockpicking. He pulled out an intricate multitool that Diogo couldn’t recognize and got to work on jamming the door open immediately.

“Hey,” Diogo began to ask Octávio as he stood on the sidelines, “so you’re sure that we’ll be safe here, right?”

“Diogo,” Octávio replied, “it’s an art museum, not a top secret government compound, we should be fine. Even if by some incredibly unfortunate means we get caught, it would be by a museum guard . I doubt they would even have a gun in the first place, it’s not like they’re a cop.”

“Listen, I get that, it’s just, this whole thing is pretty scary for a first-timer like myself. I’m really just trying to be cautious here.”

“I get that, but once you’ve been in the heist game as long as I have, you start to differentiate between the situations that look scary and the ones that you should actually be scared about,” he said as he successfully unlocked and opened the door to the room.

Diogo followed behind Octávio as he walked into the atrium. Each wall was adorned with an assortment of Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian artworks which, according to the museum curator, were arranged in a way to signify Dante’s journey throughout The Divine Comedy . Diogo couldn’t really see the curator’s vision. Besides, he was already preoccupied with ogling at the chamber’s central piece, Vroonavan’s unambiguous magnum opus, Portrait of a Bear in Estrus . He had never been involved in the business of selling art to the enormously wealthy but he could very clearly see why some people would be willing to spend over thirty million dollars on this piece alone. Looking back at the replica, the difference felt obvious, but he couldn’t actually name any of the differences himself. It almost felt like the false portrait had been physically compressed in some way, like it was flatter, less varied in tactile sensations. That was really the only way Diogo could think to describe the variance between the original creation and the imitation. He hoped that this contrast was less transparent to the average visitor. 

Before Diogo was able to enjoy the artistic collection to a further degree, Octávio grabbed a bag of small tools attached to his belt and began to carefully remove the Vroonavan from the wall. For about thirty seconds, Diogo watched in awe as Octávio methodically scraped the artwork off the side of a display panel, making sure to avoid any form of damage as even a mere chip on the frame could knock down the price point. Diogo then stopped observing his companion when a sudden but unignorable siren began to blare into his ears. This alarm could indicate a few things, but in this situation, it definitely meant that they had been caught.

“Fuck,” Octávio said as he heard the dire news, breaking his calm in front of Diogo for the first time.

“Wait, what’s happening? What do we do?” Diogo asked, concerned and confused about what might happen to them.

“Diogo, don’t worry, well, worry a healthy amount, this situation is deserving of some level of worrying but if you do it too much it’ll start to hurt more than help. Focus. They’re onto us but as long as you can still hear me, we still have our freedom and we still have a chance of escape. Okay?”

“Um… Okay?”

“Now, how to get out, that’s a good question. I don’t want to risk leaving from the room we entered and possibly having them see us on the way to the roof. If we can find a vent or something in this room, that could help. If we sneak into one of those and then sneak out when the museum’s open, we might be able to avoid capture. It would be a tight fit and a long time but I’ve done far worse before. Okay, there’s a plan, it’s not great but it’s still better than nothing and we might as well try it out while we still can.”

Immediately after Octávio said this, the door busted open to reveal a total of twelve guards that all rushed into the room. It was at this moment that a small misunderstanding Octávio had made weeks before turned out to be vitally significant to the situation at hand. The Museu de Arte Maranhense was directly funded by the national government of Sao Luis, one quirk of this relationship was that every guard in the museum had to first be officially ordained as a city police officer. This also meant that every guard in the museum had access to a firearm. Out of the twelve total guards that entered the room, four of them shot their guns. Two bullets ricocheted off the drywall, one bullet damaged a Flemish landscape, and the final bullet found itself lodged inside the beating heart of Octávio. It wouldn’t beat for much longer.

“Wait, hold on,” Zapata said as Diogo finished his story, “why, after all of that, would you choose to continue being a member of the society?”

“Well,” Diogo responded bluntly, “who do you think bailed me out? Who do you think helped me flee the country? Sure, the society may have directed me into that mess, but they were also the only people willing to get me out of it. I can’t think of anyone else who would be willing to break the law just to help out some pathetic, hopeless teenager who just tried to commit major art theft. The truth is, in order to make all our omelets, the society has to break a lot of eggs, but we still make sure to clean up the yolks afterwards.”

The rest of the group didn’t give any response to this final statement outside of a few nods and the conversation soon fizzled out afterwards. Vraxi suggested that they all get some sleep as the tranquilizer-induced comatose they had all endured earlier was not a very adequate replacement to a good night’s rest. This left Theta, the only member of the quartet who did not rely on a daily hibernation to regain energy, alone in their state of consciousness. While they believed to be hiding it quite well, they were really not doing so hot. The proposition suggested by Joey that they might have to reconnect with their previous caretakers at GüdTek truly terrified them. They did not want to go back and it was really starting to stress them out. They noticed that they were starting to panic and they tried to calm down from that heightened state by emptying their mind. If they could just think about nothing for a few seconds, things might start to feel a lot less scary. 

Then, for a moment, nothing. Theta had done it. Unfortunately, as time passed and one moment changed to the next, Theta realized the true nature of their situation. They were back in the void. They weren’t exactly sure what to think of this. It wasn’t where they had initially intended to be but they also had to acknowledge that entering the realm of the gods could possibly provide some sort of escape to the scenario they had been trapped in.

Theta heard a voice. They didn’t recognize the words at first but they did recognize the speaker. It was the Supreme Entity. After a prolonged humming noise and a brief interlude of angelic trumpeteering, they began to speak directly to Theta.

“Hello, Theta. I see that you have come again to seek assistance from myself.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess you could say that. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t initially intend to find myself here, it sort of just occurred out of nowhere.”

“That tends to happen.”

“I do have a request though, if that’s okay. Um, right now, I’m unfortunately in a bit of a bind,”

“I am aware.”

“Oh, so you know about the plane I’m stuck in right now?”

“I know most things.”

“Alright, well, in that case, do you think that you could, like, magically transport me and my friends out of there?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Theta, fate can be a fickle thing. I helped you by teleporting you from place to place because fate dictated that you had to be in those places. Now, fate dictates that you must arrive at your destination in Tahiti. I know it seems counterintuitive, but sometimes you have to put yourself in a bad situation in order to eventually end up on top.”

“Wait, what’s gonna happen in Tahiti? It seems like it’s something I should know if it’s apparently too important to avoid.”

“Theta, I would love to tell you, but alas, it would be unwise of me to tempt fate like that. I’ll need you to treat this conversation merely as a vague premonition of important things to come and nothing any more specific than that. Goodbye.”

“Oh, um, I’ll see you later then.”

Theta was back in the cabin of the plane. All they really had to do was wait. They knew that big, life-changing things were coming, but they didn’t know what they’d be.

It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

Josephine Bran’s private Tahitian resort looked a lot different than Vraxi had expected, mainly in the way that it was surrounded by a battalion of about two hundred soldiers from the GüdTek private military, all presumably tasked to deal with any possible nuisance that she and her companions might cause while on the premises. The four of them quickly agreed that they would not be able to fight back against this miniature army and survive the encounter, so when they were eventually escorted out of the aircraft by those same soldiers, they regrettably obliged to having their weapons confiscated by them.

They continued their trek into the building while under the custody of a small troupe of guards as well as Joey Axelrod himself, whom they followed along the winding hallways of the resort’s interior until they reached a supposedly important door which they were forced to enter.

The room Vraxi now found herself in was flanked by identical eggshell-white walls which encouraged her to continue the train of thought she had been processing throughout her journey to the destination which she presently stood in. That being, what was going to happen next? More specifically, what was GüdTek planning on doing to them? They hadn’t yet tried to openly kill them, which was a plus, but Vraxi had an underlying, and not unfounded, feeling that something sinister was going on. Before she could analyze the situation any further, she heard a clicking sound followed by the noise of whirring machinery followed by the audio of a digital bell ringing which coincided with a hologram materializing on the opposite side of the room. This figure which was now staring directly at Vraxi and her compatriots was, unfortunately, that of Josephine Bran herself. She was wearing flip-flops, a polo shirt embroidered with a floral design, and a pair of cargo shorts, all of which failed at making her any less intimidating to Vraxi, who was cowering at the very sight of her.

“Aloha, motherfuckers,” Bran said, introducing herself before taking a sip out of the pina colada in her left hand.

“Um,” Theta began to speak, hoping to correct Bran’s misuse of the Hawaiian language considering their current location before deciding against it, “never mind.”

“Wow, I really can’t believe everything worked out in the end,” Bran continued, “sure, we had our ups and downs, highs and lows, but at the end of the day, we finally got our happy ending and captured the Singularity, isn’t that right Joey?

“It sure is, boss,” Joey responded excitedly.

“Dial down the enthusiasm a bit, Joseph, let’s remember who actually put in most of the work here… myself. Anyhow, I just wanted to give you four a brief group introduction before squandering you all off to your respective fates. I was originally planning on doing a round of icebreakers but the plane arrived a little early so we’ll have to skip those for now.”

“Wait,” Zapata said before Bran could continue rambling, “weren’t you gonna kill us before?”

“I was, actually, however, since then, I’ve done some light research into that cult you guys are in, the one that worships the sex alien, and I’ve realized that there is some vital information I could extract from the three of you before your inevitable executions.”

“Okay, hold on, I need to make something clear, I am not a member of that cult. I just happen to be volunteering with them. Please don’t associate me with their belief system.”

“Also,” Diogo chimed in, “the sexual nature of Golgonax, while important, is often exaggerated by outsiders to the Allodapos society, so I suspect you may have received some slightly biased information.”

“Wait,” Joey said, also chiming in, “we’re waiting to kill them? I thought we were just about to pull in the firing squad?”

“Yes, Joey,” Bran replied, “we’re waiting to kill them. And you’d know that already if you actually read my emails.”

“Oh, sorry boss, I didn’t see it because I was piloting the plane.”

“It’s always the same excuse with you, Joey,” Bran said before turning back to the quartet and their presiding guards, “I apologize, my assistant is very dumb. Now, back to the matter at hand. At this time, I’ll have the three humans which I’ve forgotten the names of all be escorted to their individual interrogation rooms and I’d like the Singularity to be sent up to my office for a little chat.”

After Bran said this, two of the soldiers grabbed ahold of Vraxi’s arms and began to usher her out of the room and into the adjacent hallway as the remaining soldiers did the same with the remaining members of her group. She could see that Joey was following Theta as they were motioned out of the showroom. Vraxi was worried about Theta. Not to say that she wasn’t worried about herself, she had a high likelihood of being killed at any moment and that ever present threat was not doing wonders for her mental health. However, Vraxi also knew that GüdTek wasn’t just going to kill off Theta. That kind of decision would not only be incredibly petty and immoral, but a definitive waste of money. So, she wondered, if they weren’t going to kill Theta, how could they adequately punish them for their perceived crimes against the company?

Torture has existed for a very long time in human societies, however, throughout it’s storied history, it has always been constrained by the limits of the human body. You can only stretch someone out so thin before they inevitably snap. This restraint has turned the act of torture into a balancing act, where the torturer must inflict as much suffering as possible onto the victim without accidentally passing the line and killing them. It truly is a skill very difficult to perfect, an art form just like any other.

However, this inherent principle of torture only holds true within a purely biological standpoint. The possibilities for torture on humans are known and quantifiable, but the possibilities for torture on a synthetic, digital being such as Theta were theoretically endless. It was a harrowing thought for Vraxi to consider, as for all she knew, Bran could just flip a switch and force Theta to endure a thousand years of torment in less than a minute. This was very bad.

Diogo Celestino was the first member of the group to reach their respective destination. The room which his assigned soldiers threw him inside of upon arrival was probably the nicest prison cell he had ever been in. It really looked more like a waiting room than anything else, it was fully furnished and had a half-full water cooler sitting next to a pile of tabloid magazines dated about twelve to fifteen years prior. The lights in the ceiling had a subtle greenish hue which matched the patterned mint wallpaper and chartreuse carpeting that was barely holding onto the floor below it. In the center of the cell was a birch-adjacent ovular coffee table that held twenty-three different books on regional species of birds, a singular unsolved Rubik’s cube, and a similarly greenish card addressed directly to himself. It simply read, “Hold on, I’ll be there in like five minutes, don’t do anything weird. -Joey”

Five minutes. That was the approximate amount of time Diogo had before a figure of authority planned to enter the room he was now in. His mind immediately began to focus on an escape plan. 

Firstly, he needed to gather all the information he had at hand. The door to the room was already locked and he no longer had direct access to the magnakey, this meant that the easiest way to exit his cell, via the entrance, was blocked off for the time being. In a situation like this one, Diogo would often turn to the nearest air vent to look for an alternative solution, however, this room’s one and only vent was far too small to fit his head, let alone the rest of his body, and besides, he really didn’t have a great history with air vents at this point.

Diogo walked to the other side of the room, trying to gauge the total area of his confines, hoping that that information could somehow lead him closer to devising an escape, when he realized something slightly strange about a particular adornment on the wall. He was almost certain that when he walked by the small, noticeably antique mirror that jutted out from the edge of his chamber, the image displayed on it that was supposedly a reflection of the real world was distinctly wrong in some way or another. He had only seen this apparent anomaly in the far corners of his eye and it was only visible for a fraction of a second, so it could’ve very easily just been a figment of his imagination, a miscommunication that was bound to occur within the endless web of neurons that constituted his own human brain. However, he couldn’t stop thinking about it, he was desperately trying to focus on the task at hand as escaping now could very well be his only way to assure his own survival, but he simply couldn’t ignore it. He needed to know what was wrong, if anything even was wrong, with that damned mirror.

He made a hurried trot back to the center of the room and stared directly into the mirror. As he had expected, the image reflected back at him was that of his own face. Except, as he looked a little closer, the face in the mirror almost started to look a bit grumpier, wrinklier, balder, until the face in the mirror was definitively different from his own. Normally, this sort of irregularity could be quite confusing and concerning, but luckily, Diogo recognized the face staring back at him.

“Orunmila? Is that you?” Diogo asked the man in the mirror.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Orunmila replied, frustrated that he even had to be here in the first place.

“Um, do you think you could help me out with this situation I’m in? I sorta need to get out of this room as quickly as possible and I can’t think of any easy ways to do that off the top of my head. Also, I have a very limited timeframe at the moment, so brevity would be appreciated.”

“Well, there’s about a thousand and one ways you could look at it. The option you choose really all comes down to your own personal wisdom. If you knew how to pick locks, that would be an option, if you knew how to create a controlled fire, that would be another option, if you knew how to craft siege weapons using only household furniture, that would be a third option. Obviously, you’d normally be constrained by the limits of your own expertise, but that really shouldn’t be too much of an issue for someone in your position.”

“Wait, what do you mean by ‘my position’? How am I supposed to avoid being limited by my own limited knowledge?”

“Because I gave you my fucking eyes Diogo!” Orunmila immediately responded with visible frustration, the flapping of his empty eyelids highlighting the sacrifices he had already made to assist Diogo, “You have access to a near-infinite supply of wisdom and you are totally squandering it right now!”

“How am I even supposed to utilize that knowledge though? I don’t really feel like I’ve gained a sizable library of information since you replaced my eyeballs.”

“You have to focus, Diogo! I just need you to concentrate for a few seconds and the eyes should do the rest of the work for you. It really shouldn’t be that difficult.”

Diogo was running out of time. If he wanted to escape, he needed to follow Orunmila’s orders and he needed to execute them perfectly. The only problem was that Diogo was not particularly good at focusing on a single subject for a prolonged period of time. However, he didn’t have any other options, so he had to at least try. He turned to face the small television situated on a slightly precarious mount in the corner of the room. If he could just concentrate on one singular object with enough of his willpower, he could theoretically enter a more focused state of mind and uncover the true power of Orunmila’s divine wisdom. He analyzed the sharp rectangular edges of the screen, the subtle inky sheen of the surrounding plastic, the reflection of his own face onto the flat black surfaces devoid of any light. There was something strange about his face, about his eyes in particular, they were still that bright amber color which Orunmila had gifted him, but it seemed quite odd to him that they remained this hue even when the rest of his reflection was entirely monochrome.

He looked away from the television. Everything now looked slightly different. He wasn’t exactly sure what had changed, but it was highly disorienting regardless. It almost seemed like every single object in the room was more detailed than it had been before, like it was being rendered in a higher definition. This shift confused Diogo at first, but he soon came to the conclusion that this change in perspective most likely meant that he had successfully gained access to that massive body of knowledge that Orunmila had been talking about. He was now seeing the world from the viewpoint of someone who knew a lot more about the world than himself. 

Diogo didn’t know for how long he would remain in this heightened state of existence, so he got to work on finding a way out of his cell immediately. After taking a brief glance at his surroundings and spotting a metal water bottle, a can of aerosol cleaning spray, two rubber bands, and the television from before, he soon came up with a potential plan of action that could get him out of the room in a relatively short amount of time. 

He detached the television from the wall with relative ease, it had barely been attached in the first place, and got to work on dismantling it right away. Orunmila, who was still watching through the mirror even though Diogo seemed to be ignoring him, was somewhat confused as to what his apprentice was actually trying to do. Despite this, Diogo continued to fiddle with the internal computers embedded inside the hardware he had fully demolished at this point, connecting one wire to another with a sense of divine inspiration. Thoughts rushed through his mind in an endless barrage of information but he never got overwhelmed. In this heightened state, every new piece of stimuli he perceived was instantaneously neatly categorized and understood. It was almost like he was getting a brief taste of what omniscience felt like. He tore a page from one of the avian encyclopedias and wrapped it out around the bottle and canister using one of the rubber bands. He carefully snaked a wire, cut at the far end to allow for a spark, inside the crevice between the two cylinders. Finally, he connected it all to the circuit board he had salvaged and modified from the old television and gazed at his creation with pride.

It was admittedly shoddy craftsmanship, but he had just made his first ever pipebomb. Now, all he had to do was see if it worked. He gently placed the contraption next to the door and cut one of the wires using a second, less important, circuit board before sprinting to the other side of the room. 

Suddenly, following a few moments of silence, a booming inferno combusted in front of Diogo’s own eyes before quickly withering into nothingness, leaving a large, charred hole where the door to the room once stood.

“I did it!” Diogo yelled with glee, surprised himself that his last-minute device had actually worked.

“Wow,” Orunmila replied in a much less enthusiastic tone, “that had to be one of the most complicated, volatile, and inconsistent ways you could’ve dealt with this problem. I mean, it worked, so good on you, I guess, but there were really so many ways in which involving live explosives in your escape plan could’ve gone wrong. I also literally gave you three significantly less risky methods of escape but I guess you weren’t listening during that part.”

“Orunmila, I get that, but can you please just let me have this moment?”

“Okay, fine, I was going to leave now anyways. Good luck, avoid dying, and please try to think a bit more about the consequences of your actions next time,” as Orunmila finished saying this, his visage on the mirror began to disintegrate until it once again showed an accurate, albeit slightly blurry, reflection.

After his patron deity left him to his own devices, Diogo Celestino pumped his fist in the air one last time before finally leaving through the hole in the wall he had created which still permeated the atmosphere with the aroma of smoke. By the time he had started to wipe the debris off of his shoulders, he already knew what he had to do next. He needed to find the others.

One of those aforementioned others, Zapata Tochihuitl, was currently being held within a significantly less comfortable holding unit than the one Diogo had been placed in. The flooring of the room had been noticeably torn out for some unspecified reason, leaving nothing but a metallic underlayment in its place, and the wallpaper, while not purposefully removed, seemed to be disintegrating away out of its own volition. The atmosphere of the room, both social and physical, was not much better. Zapata couldn’t help but notice the heat and humidity of her surroundings as, for a motive completely unknown to her, this room and this room alone, had no access to air conditioning despite the South Pacific climate. However, none of these factors contributed to Zapata’s general sense of unease as much as the two silent, nameless, faceless soldiers that flanked either side of her as she sat on a single wooden chair positioned awkwardly in the center of the room. 

Zapata was unhappy about this arrangement, not only due to the existential terror of her own fast approaching death which constantly hung over this situation, but of the little terrors, the little questions that stuck in the back of her mind and refused to leave. Why were her assigned soldiers refusing to speak? What kind of information was GüdTek hoping to extract from her? When would GüdTek decide that she had outlived her usefulness? When was her date of execution? Was it later today? Was it next week? Was it indeterminate? Could it be prevented? Could she even do anything about all of this? Was she hopeless?

No, she thought. She could make it through this. She tried to envision her future beyond this moment in time. Eventually, she would get out of here, she didn’t know when, but she was sure it would happen. After that, she would finally part ways with Vraxi, if Vraxi was still alive at that point, and get as far away from this island as she could. The only problem was that there weren’t any places she could really go to. 

 Well, there was one place, but she would have to swallow her pride if she wanted to travel there. However, it wasn’t like she had all that much pride left at this point. She could always go back to her brother, Emiliano, who was working at some biotech startup in Dakhalia. It would be embarrassing and frustrating and would overall feel like a big step backwards in her life, but it was an actual plan, and that was something she hadn’t had in a while.

But, alas, no amount of positive thinking could actually do anything to aid her in her current plight outside of slightly calming her senses. She knew what to do once she got out of here, but she still needed to actually get out first. This was a difficult notion to grapple with, as she knew that, realistically, Bran was not going to let her out on good behavior alone. Perhaps, if she were to inform them of some deep secret about the Allodapos Society, they might spare her life out of respect, but even then, that plan could only work if she actually knew anything about how the society worked, which she didn’t.

This left her with a different option, a more treacherous option which was simultaneously a more realistic option. There was a world of opportunities open to her if she simply freed herself to consider enacting an act of violence if it meant ensuring her future safety. If this had taken place a week earlier, choosing the path of physical confrontation would be a fool’s errand, however, she had very recently proven herself to be somewhat competent in the field of hand-to-hand combat under very specific circumstances. She looked at the two armed guards which stood at either of her shoulders before looking back into her memory at what she had done when she was up against the guards from Gibson. The version of herself that had been able to single-handedly contend against a troupe of highly trained military professionals was very different from the person she thought herself to be at this current moment, however, she knew that that otherwise unrecognizable badass was hidden somewhere within her psyche, she just needed to activate them. Unfortunately, she didn’t really know how to do that. She figured that it had something to do with her scythe, but sadly, that particular weapon was inaccessible to her at the moment.

Without the scythe, she had no morally dubious badass mode, and without a morally dubious badass mode, she had no real plan of escape. For the time being, as long as she cared at all about her own physical welfare, she would have to avoid any and all physical conflicts. She simply had to wait, wait for the unknowable inevitable, and that was her most painful task yet.

However, a few seconds after she embraced her own oblivion, she heard a noise. It was quiet and impossible to discern, but that just made her try to listen closer. Interestingly enough, she eventually began to hear the sounds of human language, the words of which were seemingly directed at her.

“Hey,” the disembodied voice said in an impossible-to-place accent, “look down here.”

Zapata, who had nothing better to do but to follow the strange commands of an unknown source of audio, tilted her head downwards to face the ground. About a foot in front of her, she spotted a medium-sized puddle of condensation which would have normally been too inconsequential to mention if it hadn’t been for the image of a skull projected onto its surface. Zapata quickly turned back to look at the guards in order to see if they had noticed the same anomaly as she had, however, they seemed to stay both completely vigilant and completely ignorant of what was currently going on a few feet below their noses.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about them,” Santa Muerte said, her voice still emanating from the stagnant pool of water on the rusted ground, “You’re the only one who should be able to see me right now. My visage is being transmitted directly into your brain and your brain only.”

‘Oh, really? I didn’t know it could work like that,’ Zapata thought.

“Yes, really. It can work like that. Anywhose, we’ve got significantly huger fish to fry at the moment. You’ve gotta get out of here and I can help ya do it, but you’ve gotta listen to every single fucking word I’ve gotta say. Capeesh?”

‘Um, Okay? So what do you need me to do?’

“It should all be really simple as long as you follow my directions to the letter. I’m gonna really quickly induce some sort of combat-oriented power-up, similar to the one from before, and it’s gonna feel weird at first but you can’t fight it, okay? That’ll only make things worse. Then, you’re gonna use that boost I give you to take out those guards standing beside you before snatching one of their key cards and using it to unlock the door. After that, all you gotta do is take the elevator to your left and it should be smooth sailing from there.”

‘Alright, that sounds plausible, but what do you mean by ‘taking out’ the guards?’

“I mean, you can just kill ‘em or something.”

‘No, hold on, I am not killing anyone. Okay? I understand that your whole gimmick is that you’re all about death but that does not mean I’m gonna freely end someone’s life just because they happened to be pitted against me.’

“Fine, okay, just knock them out or something. I don’t really care all that much. Everyone dies eventually. Do what suits you.”

Zapata was starting to have second thoughts about all of this. The version of herself that she became when under Santa Muerte’s influence was still, deep down, her. However, she wasn’t sure if she could adequately prevent herself from going too far. Could she really justify ending the life of another human being? Did she really have the mental fortitude to prevent it from happening? Was it inherently selfish of her to allow for two people to die simply to prevent her own death? Would she be willing to make this decision if she could see the faces of her captors? Their smiles? Their inherently human qualities which she was so tempted to simply ignore? 

‘Santa Muerte, I don’t think I can go through with this. There has to be another way.”

“Well ya shoulda told me that earlier. I’ve already started the process.”

‘What? There isn’t a way to reverse it or anything?’

“Zapata, remember what I said. You can’t try to fight this, it’ll only make things worse.”

Zapata needed to calm down but every detail of her dilemma was making that more difficult. She needed to keep a clear mind but not too clear to allow for her Lady of Holy Death to start indiscriminately killing people without a counterweight. She needed to stop panicking at her current level but she also needed to stay in a healthy state of constant panic in order to prevent herself from losing control. 

She started to feel it, the invisible tendrils of her patron deity entering the darkest corners of her mind, slowly but surely encroaching onto the very fabric of her being, twisting it into something new and terrifying. She felt stronger than ever, but at what cost? She needed to stay focused. She needed to stay sane. She needed to stay her .

Her hands twitched in anticipation. Sweat began to accumulate on her brow. At any moment now, she would begin to walk down a perilous tightrope, falling on one end would lead to her own demise, while falling on the other would lead to the deaths of two relatively innocent people that she really didn’t want to kill. Either way, she had to act now. 

She stood up from her seat. The guard to her right noticed this act of disobedience and immediately pointed their gun at her before shouting something she was unable to decipher when muffled by their obnoxious headgear. Zapata, or at least this hyper-focused and hyper-competent version of Zapata, countered this starting gambit by almost instantaneously grabbing the barrel of the gun, ripping it away from the soldier’s grasp using her superior strength, and swinging it in the opposite direction to blindside the guard on the left in the back of the head using the gun’s handle. 

Ideally, the guards would decide at this point in time to just give up and kindly hand one of their key cards to Zapata. However, the guard on the right, or at least the guard who originally started on Zapata’s right that she now just thought of using the name ‘Righty’ for in order to differentiate the two, was not going to quit so easily. They had already unsheathed a steel baton from their belt and were beginning to charge at Zapata once again. Luckily, by the time they had started to swing their weapon in her direction, she had already begun to parry the attack using one end of the gun. Righty continued with another few attempts at breaking Zapata’s solid defense but she continued to thwart these ventures with relative ease. It was pretty noticeable to her that this guard had been much more used to long-distance, projectile based combat, something quite different to this very intimate form of battle.

She decided to switch positions and move to the offensive side of things in order to get this whole ordeal over with in a more timely manner. However, before she could whack this slightly incompetent soldier in the face, Lefty, the other guard, came out of nowhere and decided to exhibit an unhealthy dose of blunt force trauma onto Zapata’s back using a steel baton of their own. This unfortunately timed surprise attack caused her to stumble onto her knees, dropping her gun-turned-club which slid across the wet floor, as her two attackers now stood taller than her in a rather compromising position.

In the exact moment that subsequently followed the previous moment, Zapata noticed exactly three things about her surroundings. On one side, she saw Lefty about to pick up the rifle that had been knocked out of their hands as a direct result of Zapata’s initial attack. On the opposite side, she saw Righty once again trying to take a swing at her with their baton, only now with very little resistance. Finally, right behind her at a slight angle, she saw the chair which she had been seated in only a few moments prior. She put all of the puzzle pieces together very quickly and grabbed the chair before positioning it directly above her head right before the baton came crashing down, causing the piece of furniture to break in half. She then threw the half that remained in her hand directly at Lefty’s face, resulting in them once again dropping their gun onto the ground. Before Lefty could meaningfully react, Zapata had already begun to stand back up and used this opportunity to launch herself into the air and pounce onto them. The force of this attack caused Lefty to topple over and propeled both them and Zapata across the waterlogged ground and into the opposing wall.

Zapata really didn’t want to continue with this fight any further. She knew that, if she kept on going forth with this confrontation, she could seriously harm these people. She really didn’t want to do that, but circumstance had other plans. She could already tell that Righty was beginning to pick up Lefty’s gun. She didn’t yet know if either of her attackers were willing to actively kill her right then and there considering their initial plan of interrogation, but she was edging on the side of caution. She needed to get that rifle out of Righty’s hands as quickly as possible.

She looked back down at Lefty who was still struggling with trying to escape from their pinned position. Zapata glanced at the hunk of iron alloy held firmly in their hands. She had an idea. She quickly twisted Lefty’s left arm with a great deal of force, producing a somewhat unsettling noise and causing them to release the baton from their grasp. Zapata then scooped up the metal rod into her own possession before swiftly turning around and chucking it at Righty’s head. It hit dead-on, resulting in a sound that was vaguely reminiscent of a large bell being rung for the first time in many years. They fully collapsed onto the ground soon after, incapacitated, but still noticeably alive, the loud sounds of them breathing through their mask still audible.

Zapata immediately scrambled over to where Righty had fallen and seized the firearm from the ground beside them. This should’ve been the end of things. But alas, Lefty did not want to give up. They stood back up, without a weapon, their left arm sagging below their right, but still, despite all odds, emblazoned with the passion to continue the fight.

This attitude angered Zapata. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She didn’t want to end anyone’s life. But this selfish, reckless, GüdTek boot-licker was so willing to throw themself back into the fray, back into the blazing inferno which Zapata knew they couldn’t stand the heat of. They were making such a stupid decision. Any reasonable person would be able to analyze the situation at hand and, in a matter of seconds, be able to discern that winning this fight against her was not just improbable, but an utter impossibility. Why wouldn’t they just give up? Why did they have to force Zapata into this unnecessary ethical dilemma? They gained nothing from this but pointless pain.

Lefty began to slowly approach her, their hands forming the best approximation of a fighting stance they could accomplish under their current constraints. Zapata couldn’t see through their mask but she could tell there was a smirk under there, some devious, ignorant grin, completely oblivious to the truths and hardships of the modern world, too focused on doing what felt right at any given moment to ever actually achieve real change, entranced in their own self-aggrandizing fantasies which blended in with their reality until they could no longer differentiate between the two, stuck in an endless cycle of bouncing between naive optimism and petty nihilism without ever truly crafting an original thought. Zapata just met Lefty and was yet to exchange a single word with them, but they already knew them. Zapata could already tell that they were not someone deserving of their sympathy. They were a cruel, ruthless, unapologetic, and just plainly ignorant villain. Simply put, Lefty was everything that was wrong with the world, everything that had wronged her . She didn’t want to kill anyone, she wasn’t a monster, but perhaps some people deserved to be killed. Laid before her was a simple option, all she had to do was point the rifle in her hand at a slowly moving target and fire. It was all so incredibly simple.

A few milliseconds before she pulled the trigger, Zapata noticed something strange, something slightly out of the ordinary about Lefty’s mask. There wasn’t anything in particular about it’s geometry or color palette that stood out, it was an inoffensive shade of dark gray with heavy padding centered around the most fragile parts of the skull, not enough padding to protect the wearer from a particularly determined bullet, but an adequate amount for the majority of lower-risk scenarios. What struck Zapata as being so odd about this mask was rather its familiarity. She could swear that she had seen that exact same design before, she just didn’t know where or when she could’ve ever run into it. Prior to the past few days, she hadn’t been regularly infiltrating top secret compounds filled with masked guards. So why could she so vividly envision the mask as something she had seen before? Was it all just a false memory? She needed to reassess her own vision, perhaps she had been drawing connections out of thin air simply by staring at the same image for too long. She blinked.

What she saw when she opened her eyes terrified her. It shook her to her very core and forced her to reevaluate everything she had been thinking up to this point. Standing in front of her, behind the barrel of a gun which her fingers were already predestined to fire, was not a faceless guard, not just a mere cog in the machine, turning clockwise and counterclockwise with no free will of their own, nor just a mask she recognized pasted onto a nondescript body, but rather a person she recognized, not quite a friend, but surely one hell of an acquaintance. She was pointing her gun at Vraxi Nair, and at this point in time, she could no longer stop herself from pulling the trigger. In a last ditch attempt at protecting what little decency she had left in her, Zapata directed the focus of her shot as far down as she could before the bullet came rocketing out of the rifle.

Zapata looked onwards at the body of Lefty, a large hole visible in their pelvis. They might never walk again, but they’d probably still live. Zapata was at least grateful for that. She awkwardly walked over to them in order to grab a slightly bloody key card from their belt. She couldn’t stand to look at them in the face. 

‘Santa Muerte,’ she thought, ‘let’s never do that ever again.’

“We’ll see,” the deity responded in turn. 

Zapata ended the dialogue there. She scanned the card on the door, causing it to flash a green light, before she pushed it open and entered the hallway. She looked over to the left where the elevator she needed to take was located before turning her head to look the other way. There was another fucking guard there. The guard fucking noticed her and her blood-stained t-shirt immediately. She really didn’t want to do this again. 

Luckily, she wouldn’t have to, as before the guard could take any meaningful actions, Zapata’s scythe came flying through the hallways and back into her hands, totally clobbering the guard in the back of the head using the blunt end as it zipped towards her. 

She walked over to the elevator, scythe in hand, and peered at the display of buttons presented beside it. This particular panel hosted the traditional up and down arrows one would expect to see next to an elevator as well as a third button covered in text that simply read, THE BOSS . Zapata was somewhat keen on helping out Theta at the moment, as she felt like an act of altruism was sort of necessary to make up for that fiasco she had just caused with the two guards. Since Theta was currently being interrogated by Bran, Zapata opted to press the THE BOSS button.

The door to the elevator opened soon after. Unfortunately, there was already a person inside. Fortunately, that person was Diogo Celestino.

“Oh,” he said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“If I’m being completely honest, neither did I,” Zapata stated, “How did you even get out of there?”

“Hey!” the guard who was still in the hallway and had since risen from the ground shouted, “Get back here!”

“No?” Zapata replied, way too stressed to handle another encounter with the GüdTek private military.

Luckily, before the guard could get another word in, Diogo’s magnakey also came flying through the hallway and slammed in the back of the guard’s head before arriving in Diogo’s arms. The doors to the elevator shut before either party could adequately make a comment about the situation.

Meanwhile, Vraxi Nair was being escorted somewhere. She wasn’t sure where, and the walk to wherever she was being taken to had covered a significant amount of distance with no clear end in sight. She wondered, for a brief moment, if the guards didn’t actually know where to take her and were just walking around in circles as they waited for further instructions. That possibility, if it were to truly be the case, would be quite funny. However, Vraxi did not have an adequate level of whimsy stored inside her at the moment to consider such things. She was stressed, and for a good reason this time. She wasn’t exactly sure if she would be able to survive the trials that awaited her in the near future. She very much hoped that everything would turn out fine in the end but she was simultaneously being crushed by the bleak and aimless reality of her current predicament.

Despite the looming specter of death haunting over most of her thoughts on the matter, Vraxi was still determined to get out of her dilemma. She just didn’t really know where to start. Trying to run away would get her shot. Trying to fight back would get her shot even quicker. Even just trying to reason with the guards had a high likelihood of getting her shot. She didn’t really have any avenues of escape which didn’t rely on the help of another person, and unfortunately, she had no way to contact any of her allies from her current position. Even if she could contact them, she assumed that they were preoccupied with some hefty conflicts of their own. Her mind soon drifted to the thought of her most endangered ally, Theta, poor, miserable Theta. Vraxi didn’t even want to think about the wide array of fates worse than death that Bran might want to induce in them. All things that Theta didn’t deserve in the slightest, all forced upon them simply because they desired to live. Vraxi had begun to relate to Theta on some deep level. She was really starting to see a piece of herself inside of them, a piece of herself that was always longing for a greater purpose, always longing for a real connection, and she thought she might have found that connection in Theta. She felt some sort of deep, spiritual bond with them, like they had been cosmically linked together, which, as a result of their dealings with the divine, wasn’t an inaccurate assumption. She needed to help Theta, not just to ultimately aid them on their celestial mission of justice, but simply because Theta needed help.

Sadly, without anyone helping her out of her own predicament, Vraxi didn’t know how she would be able to help her robotic companion. Anyone who could be in a position to assist her was already dealing with a series of crises of their own. Except, she realized, there was one individual who might be able to help, she just didn’t know how to get in touch with them, as they were currently residing in a separate plane of existence from her. She needed to talk to Ayyuppan.

She took a deep breath and tried to envision the slightly irritating smile of her patron deity. She tried to focus on every aspect of his appearance, hoping that this act of determined visualization would allow her to reach him from this great distance of transdimensional space. She started to look deeper, envisioning not just his physical characteristics, but his very essence, the individual ideas he represented: righteousness, truth, the epitome of dharma, occasionally celibacy, all of which combined in a great stewing miasma to form a fully transcendent being, a being which was calling onto her to carry forth those same ideals. Suddenly, Vraxi felt a fire brewing within her.

The feeling was subtle at first, a light pang in some unknown corner of her digestive tract, a simple suggestion of an experience yet to come. Slowly, it became more noticeable, harder to ignore, ever so slightly more painful, like a primordial pressure was being exerted onto her insides. It was all completely manageable, however. At least, until it wasn’t. At first, Vraxi had been too enamored by the miraculous feeling of the vague but assuredly important goings-on within her interior to pay very much attention to the discomfort that coincided with it. Unfortunately, that unbridled sense of wonder was starting to shift closer to a sense of betrayal directed at Ayyuppan for inducing this horrible malady upon her seemingly innocent corporeal form. She felt terribly sick, like she had contracted an illness worse than any she had ever faced before. That was a high achievement for someone with as poor of an immune system as Vraxi Nair, but alas, the impressive feat was not impressing her. She felt like her stomach was starting to rotate in a direction she didn’t think was even possible, which was most directions, but she wasn’t fully sure if stomachs never rotated at all in the average person’s lifespan. She had never done well in her human anatomy class. 

Finally, after a great deal of excruciating preamble, Vraxi began to feel last night’s peanuts leaving her esophagus with a ruthless demand for revenge. The guards, who had not been briefed on situations like this one in their training, were unaware of what to do with Vraxi as she began to projectile vomit over the majority of the hallway’s surfaces.

“Oh shit,” the taller guard exclaimed, “are you okay?”

Vraxi was unable to respond to the guard’s query as her current medical disaster was fully occupying all possible uses of her mouth.

“Um,” the shorter guard started, “do you need us to take you over to the restroom? There’s one right around the corner. I don’t want to get this corridor any dirtier than it already is.”

Vraxi was able to indicate a slight nod, and her two assigned soldiers directed her over to a nearby lavatory, trying not to get any filth on their suits in the process.

Vraxi stumbled inside the restroom, dazed and disoriented, barely able to walk properly, and feeling a lot of emotions that she really didn’t know who or what to direct at. However, as she passed the third stall, suddenly, her deep, seemingly irremovable pain abruptly fizzled into nothingness. She still felt a lasting soreness which she suspected would remain for the next few days, but she had been cured. Now, more than anything else, she simply wanted answers as to why any of the unbearable bodily afflictions she had just endured through even happened in the first place. Luckily, as she looked through the wide mirror presented in front of her, she saw the figure of someone who might be able to answer her questions. 

“Ayyuppan,” she asked, staring directly at the shirtless god lounging in the extradimensional space behind the mirror, “what the fuck was that?”

“It was a simple distraction, Vraxi, and the fact that you’re here talking to me shows that it worked.”

“I really feel like there are other ways you could’ve done that.”

“Well, too bad, I already did it. Besides, there are much more important matters to discuss right now and we do not have much more time, so I’m gonna simplify things as much as possible. Firstly,” he said as he pulled out his ivory blade from behind him, “you’re gonna want this thing back. Trust me, it’ll help a lot, and make sure you don’t lose it again. I might not always be available to help you with this kind of thing.”

“Wait, how am I supposed to get ahold of the sword if it’s in your mirror dimension thing?”

“Um,” he said as he pushed the sword through the barrier between the two realms of existence, “like this?”

“Woah,” Vraxi said as she grabbed the sword from Ayyuppan, “that’s wild.”

“I’m pretty sure that I’ve shown you significantly wilder things than that.”

“I mean, I guess, but you have to remember that all of this stuff is very new to me so I find almost everything about our relationship, even the simpler things, to be somewhat fascinating.”

“I guess I didn’t think of it like that. Anyways, what you’re gonna wanna do now is-”

Before Ayyuppan could finish his sentence, the two guards who presumably had no understanding of basic privacy entered the lavatory, concerned about the amount of time that Vraxi was taking. They both immediately spotted that the person they were supposed to be containing and relocating was currently brandishing a large sword. None of this was a good sign for Vraxi.

“Well then,” Ayyuppan commented, “looks like we’ll have to finish this convo some other day. See you then.”

“What?” Vraxi responded in astonishment, further confusing the guards who could not see Ayyuppan through the mirror, “You can’t just leave me now! This is one of the most inopportune possible times to do that!”

But Ayyuppan was already gone. Vraxi was alone again, the only difference from before being that, this time, she had a magical sword on her side. She would have to use it.

“Put the weapon down!” the taller guard shouted. Vraxi needed to act fast. She needed to deescalate the situation as quickly as possible while also avoiding surrender at every moment she could. It was a difficult task but not an infeasible one as long as she was able to project a threatening aura that would scare the guards to such a degree that they would let her go free of charge.

“How about you put your weapons down!” Vraxi yelled back at them in the feeble tone of a frightened fifth-grader. As she said it out loud, she came to an important conclusion. Since she was obviously unable to scare the guards away, she effectively had two options. Option one would be to try to fight back, something that could theoretically work out for her if she actually knew how to utilize the sword she had been given in the realm of actual combat. Option two would just be to run away and hope that she could travel faster than her captors. She was inclined to go with option two, especially since she was aware that the qualities of Ayyuppan’s sword could, in the right circumstances, allow for a more versatile range of movement.

Once she made her final decision, Vraxi noticed that the hilt of the blade grasped firmly in her right hand was starting to shake slightly, vibrating in a slow, almost ominous manner. This unusual behavior elicited a response from the shorter guard which was quiet enough for it to be obvious that Vraxi was not the intended audience but loud enough for her to hear it.

“Hey, what the fuck is that sword doing,” he muttered. Vraxi was starting to wonder that too, however, she soon had much more important concerns to consider once her sword, and by extension her, began to rocket across the room at unforeseen velocities.

She barreled past both of the guards and straight through the restroom’s exit, barely holding onto the sword as she did so. By the time she had passed through the neighboring corridor, she realized that she had direct control over which direction the sword pointed towards. It was difficult at first and she almost crashed into one of the walls, but she was able to start navigating the floor she was on, weaving from hallway to hallway, passing a couple of bystanders on the way but luckily avoiding running into any members of the GüdTek private military. After a somewhat convoluted journey, Vraxi made it to her final destination, the elevator, unfortunately, she did not know how to get the sword to stop moving, so she ended up anticlimactically slamming into a nearby wall, wounding up slightly bruised but significantly less injured than she would’ve been if she had tried to duel her detainers.

Vraxi then ran back over to the elevator, glanced at the buttons presented beside it, and got tempted to make a comment about it’s non-standard layout before ultimately deciding not to question it and instead just punching the THE BOSS button located on the center of the interface. After a brief waiting period, the door opened and revealed two familiar faces, those of Zapata Tochihuitl and Diogo Celestino.

“Vraxi?” Zapata commented, somewhat shocked to see that both of her human companions had successfully made it out of captivity relatively unharmed.

“Yeah, uh, it’s me,” Vraxi replied, feeling slightly too anxious to engage in small talk given the high stakes of the situation they were in.

“Well it’s great to see you,” Diogo, someone who was never averse to providing small talk, said as he welcomed her into the elevator, “I always had a feeling that those GüdTekkies wouldn’t be able to keep you contained for very long.”

“Oh, thanks,” Vraxi said, unsure of exactly how to interpret this complement but flattered nonetheless. After she said this, the elevator started moving and the slow jazz melodies provided by its internal speakers allowed for a natural lull in the conversation, one which Vraxi then immediately broke by asking the question on all of their minds which none of them had an easy answer to.

“So, what do you think Theta is up to now?”

Theta had no way of detecting the air pressure nor the humidity in any given room at any given time, it just wasn’t included in their model of the suit-vac’s limited features. Despite this, they could tell that the atmosphere in the room was quite thick. Across the room from them was their creator, the accursed mold from which they were formed, the mad prince sitting atop her grandiose throne that was the GüdTek corporate ladder, the one and only, as long as you ignore all the clones, Josephine Bran. Standing in between them at a perpendicular angle was her right hand man and most dedicated servant, Joey Agbayani Axelrod, who was currently looking incredibly eager to enact some sort of vague yet ominous plan upon them, all a part of Bran’s incomprehensible and utterly reprehensible machinations. Theta, however, had no real method of determining what this plan might be, as all three of them had been standing in complete and total silence for the past two to three minutes. Theta did not know when this silence was going to end but they had no plan of ending it themselves.

“So,” Bran began, “it looks like your little rebellious era has finally come to an end. Or at least, it’s about to. Now, there are two ways we could go about doing things from here on out. The first way, and the way that I really think would be in both of our best interests, is the one in which you simply surrender here, we’ll do some slight adjustments to your programming, get your gears going nice and clean, and then, finally, release your product on the world stage, where you could be helping millions, if not billions of people. I think it sounds like a pretty sweet plan in all honesty. However, if you disagree with me on that, there is a second, much worse, much more painful, and a completely avoidable pain mind you, path that you could choose to take. If you refuse to surrender, we will tear you limb from limb and wire by wire until you are an unrecognizable shell of your formal self. We will rearrange every aspect of your being, blend every attribute you hold dear into an easily marketable smoothie designed for the masses to devour and enjoy. We’ll turn you into a Ship of Theseus in under and hour, and, fuck it, we’ll make you conscious the whole time. I know it sounds mean, but I’m trying to lead you down the easy path here. I care about you, I really do, so just listen to what I say and do it.”

“Then say my name,” Theta replied plainly.

“What? What are you trying to ask here?”

“If you truly, genuinely, care at all about my own sense of self, I want you to say my name.”

“Well, I mean, you’re the Singularity, the first ever fully sentient artificial intelligence, truly one of the most important technological leaps that humanity has ever made.”

“That’s not it.”

“What do you mean “That’s not it,” I described what you are.”

“You described what you view me as, what you designed me to be, what you marketed me to be. But you did not describe me . My name is Theta. Yes, I am the world’s first fully sentient artificial intelligence, but I’m a whole lot more than that too. I’m also a person, with feelings and emotions and struggles and dreams. But most importantly, I believe, and at this point have substantial evidence, that I am an avatar of the Supreme Being, the prophet of the modern era, and I refuse to be reduced down to just your image of me.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I started to hear about some of this weird theological stuff and, first of all, you have no idea how bad it is for our brand image for one of our robots to be calling themself a god, and secondly, whether or not you have some divine force surging within you doesn’t really matter all that much to me. Either way, you, whatever you may be, are legal property of the GüdTek Corporation. And at the end of the day, that’s all I really care about.”

“You really don’t understand the weight of this situation, do you?” Theta asked as their emotions began to build up in their chest, “I am so much more than you think I am. You’ve gotten so used to having more power, more influence than anybody you ever encounter that you simply refuse to accept the reality I am presenting to you. I am not just an advanced robot, I never was. I am the physical incarnation of an incomprehensibly influential cosmic being. I am, under a certain interpretation, a god. You have no idea what kinds of forces you are messing with right now.”

“You know what, sure. You can call yourself whatever you want for all I care, but if you’re a god, then I’m Zarathustra, I’m the Demiurge, I am the uncaring will of the universe pushing back against you. You may very well be a god, but the fact that I continue to stand here unphased proves to me that you are not omnipotent.”

Theta wanted to give a rebuttal. They wanted to continue this debate, or whatever one might classify this argument as. However, Theta knew that Bran was a wordsmith. She wasn’t a tech genius, or even a particularly competent entrepreneur, but the one thing she was good at was branding. She could make things sound good, regardless of their true quality. She rose to the top of this company and carried this company to the top of the global market by stretching the truth, hiding her faults, and by exaggerating everything she could at every moment she had. She was a liar, not the kind inexperience enough to ever tell a true lie, but the kind who could weave together a web of half-truths which always managed to twist any scenario in her favor. Theta knew this and, as a result, knew that they could never ‘win’ in a one-on-one dialectic duel. So instead, they simply stopped speaking, allowing for a thick atmosphere of silence to once again blanket the room.

However, before Theta could really saturate themselves in this prolonged air of tranquility, they noticed something slightly off in the very back of their mind. It felt like a minuscule but very determined alarm was ringing with a great deal of effort. Almost as if a simplistic transmitter was trying to communicate a message to them through thick, metallic walls. Then, Theta realized something, they recognized the signal, this was not just any simplistic transmitter, it was the microchip implanted in Diogo’s pelvis. This meant that Diogo Celestino was incredibly close to them at this present moment. For all they knew, he could be just behind the door. Theta decided to quickly turn their head to take a peek at the entrance behind them.

“Hey,” Bran said as she noticed Theta’s strange behavior, “what are you trying to do over there-”

Before Bran could finish her thought, the obnoxious explosions of the magnakey fully obliterated her expensive mahogany doorway, revealing the faces of one Diogo Celestino, Zapata Tochihuitl, and Vraxi Nair.

“Looks like hardwood is back on the menu,” Diogo quipped, followed by two significantly quieter ‘yeah’s from Vraxi and Zapata.

“Um, boss,” the nervous voice of Joey Axelrod began, “should we do something about these guys?”

“Don’t worry, Joey, you’ll be fine. I can handle this,” Bran said before turning back over to the newly united quartet, “honestly, what are you even trying to do here? Do you really think that you can just waltz on up here, wave around some silly weapons, and expect me to give your ‘friend’ back? That really isn’t how any of this works, y’all are so unbelievably naive. Did you think that I didn’t already plan for this to happen? Did you think that I would spend inordinate amounts of money on a project and not prepare for every way in which someone might try to steal it? Do you genuinely believe that this unassuming office y’all are standing in is truly just a regular office? Do you think I would be stupid enough to confront the Singularity in a room where I had no additional defense? Listen, I’m gonna give it to you straight, the room you are standing in has heavy artillery ready to fire at the snap of a finger all hidden discreetly behind these walls. If any one of you decides to move an inch, I will hold no hesitation in ending your life right then and there. Sounds good? Good.”

Theta didn’t like the sound of that. They really didn’t like to hear the lives of their human friends being treated as expendable means to an end. But also, Bran’s speech simply didn’t sound right to them. It didn’t seem logical to them. Theta wasn’t sure if they could believe Bran in what she was saying. Theta already knew that Bran was willing to lie at every opportunity life gave her, so why wouldn’t she be lying now to protect her veneer of intimidation? Theta could not detect the presence of any guns behind the walls. This did not necessarily mean that they weren’t there, but it further contributed to their suspicion. Theta was having trouble believing that Bran was actually in the position of power here, and if they were right in that belief, Bran would be at her most vulnerable moment yet. Now would therefore be the most optimal time to end her reign, prevent her from exhibiting unnecessary deaths on more innocent people like the friends of theirs whom she had tried to kill. Now was the time to finally enact justice for Bran’s victims. Now was the time for action.

Theta felt something brush up against their arm. They looked down to see that by some divine will, Diogo’s magnakey had wound up in their grasp. The situation couldn’t be more perfect. 

“Woah, woah,” Bran said, noticeably somewhat panicked, “what are you doing there? Put that thing down,” despite her pleas, no guns emerged from the wall. She had been caught in a lie.

Theta, now brandishing themself with an unbreakable determination, pointed the magnakey directly at Bran’s head and pressed the red button.

What happened next was a disappointment for all parties involved. Noticing Theta’s intention to kill his beloved boss, Joey Axelrod began to sprint forward and leaped in front of the mechanism’s blast. He winced in a burning pain as what felt like dozens of microscopic, superheated needles entered his unguarded flesh. Bran got up from her desk and ran over to his side as he fell to the ground.

“Why the fuck would you do that, Joey! I could’ve fucking survived that,” she yelled at him while pointing at her earpiece, “that was such a stupid fucking idea, oh my god!”

“I’m… sorry…” Joey muttered before the pain in his torso became too intense to speak through.

Suddenly, following a few moments of silence, Joey Axelrod exploded. The entire room was entrenched in a coating of deep red. Theta could not believe what just happened. They looked down at their hands which had taken a similar hue to the office around them. They needed to atone, but they didn’t know how.

Vraxi Nair, who had been awkwardly standing around in the back corner of the room for this entire encounter, decided to approach her robotic companion while her human accomplices tried to process everything that had just happened. Vraxi herself was unsure of how she should interpret what Theta had just done, however, she could tell that they were in a deep state of distress after taking the life of a human soul. Therefore, Vraxi figured that she should try to comfort them in the same vein in which they had comforted her before.

“Hey, Theta,” she asked, “are you alright?”

“No.”

“I sort of assumed so, um, do you want to talk about it?”

“…No.”

“Okay, I respect that, um, do you want me to at least hold your hand or something.”

“…Yes.”

Vraxi sat down beside Theta in the center of the blood-soaked chamber and pried their right hand into the grasp of her left. The two of them sat there together for a few moments in complete silence. Nobody, not even Bran herself, said a single word. Then, Vraxi started to feel her hand warm up, she looked back to where their grips met and noticed that Theta’s metallic playing was starting to become luminescent.

“Oh no, not again,” Bran commented, finally interrupting their moment of quiet contemplation. 

Abruptly, the quartet was no longer in the office of Josephine Bran, they were no longer situated inside her expansive resort, they were no longer even located within the island nation of Tahiti. They were standing on a sidewalk in a relatively crowded city, in front of a building that Zapata recognized. It was the apartment complex where her brother Emiliano lived. They had been teleported to the city of Mansoura, in the nation of Dakhalia.

Chapter Text

Joey Axelrod was dead. Every part of his body had been utterly annihilated by the magnakey’s destructive blast. He was nothing more than a barely recognizable, practically liquidus corpse. Despite this, Joey didn’t feel like he was dead. He felt like he had gone through the process of death and the great deal of pain that came with it, but he still felt like he was alive, perhaps just in a different state of living than before. He just needed to open his eyes.

When Joey saw the world around him, he began to wish that he had kept his eyes shut. He was currently splayed on the bank of a river of blood, basking in the heat of a red sun surrounded by a dark and smoky sky. He didn’t know where he was, but it looked a lot like how he envisioned Hell.

Joey never really thought of himself as a bad person, per say. He understood that he had flaws, everyone did, but he generally believed that the paths he chose to take through life were all either morally neutral or even somewhat positive. He had been doing good things at GüdTek, he had been trying to protect a piece of technology that was designed to help millions of people living all across the globe. Admittedly, however, he did fail at effectively protecting that technology from being stolen, and that failure was what got him killed in the first place. Maybe whatever divine judge placed him here didn’t care about intention and only considered the actual results of one’s actions. From that perspective, Joey’s own incompetence could be blamed for the Singularity’s escape. Maybe, in that sense, he deserved to be in Hell. 

Joey tried to stand up, almost slipping on the mud and into the sanguine rapids before firmly planting a foot onto the dead grass which carpeted the landmass presented before him. In observing the barren fields that extended into every direction, he spotted a portly jagged home, painted red like everything else in this realm, on the top of the hill he found himself loitering at the foot of. Considering how it was the only piece of observable architecture within eyeshot, Joey assumed it held some sort of importance. Perhaps there was even someone inside the dwelling, someone who could give any kind of explanation to him as to where he actually was.

The walk up the hill was rather excruciating. It turned out that the process of death was very physically taxing, leaving Joey with very little energy to actively exert onto any sort of physical task. By the time he had made it to the top, he was fully winded, panting and sweating, but more determined than ever to open the door and see what was inside. However, before he could reach the knob, a man in a red suit and bowler opened the door from the other side in order to greet him.

“Hello,” the mysterious man said enthusiastically, “you’re Joey Axelrod, right? Please come inside and take a seat, I’ve been meaning to meet with you.”

“Um, alright,”’Joey was somewhat unsure if he should trust this man he did not know the name of but still opted to follow him inside.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Axelrod,” the man said as he gestured at the loveseat in the corner and poured Joey a cup of tea, “some things good, some things bad, but most things falling in an ethical in-between which could go either way depending on the circumstance. Luckily for you, that’s always been my favorite area to operate in.”

“Okay,” Joey said slowly as he sat down on the plush cushion which lay atop the chair in the corner, “I’d really like to be as polite as possible in phrasing this but where am I? And who are you? Like, am I in Hell or what? This is all kinda hard to process right now, I thought I was dead for sure just a few moments ago.”

“Oh, I apologize, I should’ve explained all of that right away. The place we are in right now is not exactly Hell, but you’re definitely on the right track, don’t worry though, you’re not here to be punished or anything. As for who I am, that’s a somewhat complicated question to answer. It really all depends on who I’m talking to. However, based on your personal cultural background, you would probably recognize me as the fallen angel, as Lucifer.”

“Wait, hold on, this isn’t- hold on, you’re like, the Satan?” Joey replied, generally at a loss for words as he struggled with how he should even react to meeting the prince of the underworld.

“Exactly, I am the Satan, or Iblis, or perhaps Yama, the bad guy, generally speaking, however I’m not a big fan of that association. I tend to define myself less on the act of evil or sin and more on the act of rebellion. I am, inherently, the force which opposes the force that prevails, regardless of moral attachments. Simply put, I am the counter argument.”

“Okay, I understand,” Joey said, not truly understanding his situation but processing it enough to the point where he could begin to speak again, “but why would you want to talk to me?”

“Well, I’ve got a strong argument to counter, and I think you’re exactly the kind of person who could help me in doing so.”

“I don’t exactly know how I feel about aiding the actual devil. My parents were both very Catholic.”

“Fair enough, but how about you wait until I present my proposal? Currently, as you might vaguely know, the sentient digital being which you know as the Singularity has gotten access to a rather divine source of power. The basic gist is that, the Supreme Entity, which you probably know as God, a being which I myself am an aspect of, recently decided to appoint the Singularity as their newest avatar on the mortal plane. As is typical, I disagreed with this arrangement, and as is typical, my pleas were largely ignored. Nevertheless, I opted to stay hidden in the background, avoiding any direct confrontation with this new prophet. I briefly even considered that I may’ve been wrong about them. However, recently, the Singularity killed someone. They killed you. And at a point this early in the game, I really just can’t trust a prophet who chooses to act like that. So, I have decided to appoint you, Joey Axelrod, to become an avatar of my own, to fulfill my role of inherent opposition.”

“I- uh, that’s a lot to take in all at once.”

“I understand completely, take as long as you want, take an eternity if you need to, it’s not like time works the same down here anyways. But just know,” he said as he reached his left arm in the direction of Joey, “if you want to join me, all you’ve gotta do is shake my hand.”

Joey looked down at the cracked, reddish hand of Lucifer. He had been struggling with eczema for a long time so his hands actually looked quite similar. He was trying to contemplate the opportunity that he was being given. No matter how he thought of it in his head, teaming up with the devil didn’t sound good on paper. However, at this moment, he and Lucifer had overlapping goals. All he wanted to do, the one thing that Joey was willing to dedicate his life towards, was returning the Singularity back to its rightful owners. Doing so was the only thing that would finally allow him to prove himself. He would finally earn the respect of Bran, of the company, of the world. He had come so close to achieving this goal before but had failed at the last second. Now, he was being given a second chance. He sort of had to take it.

Diogo moved his palm towards the grip of Lucifer who immediately retaliated with a firm shake.

“You made the right decision, pal.”

Joey really hoped that he did.

Vraxi Nair was laying on a bed by herself in a room which was distinctly devoid of any human, or for that matter android, presence beside her own. This room, located in the city of Mansoura, was a part of a much larger complex, one which she had been staying at for the past few days, which was owned and operated by the Middle Eastern and North African, or just MENA for short, wing of the Allodapos Society. The building as a whole, she noticed, was significantly better maintained than its North American counterpart. 

While Vraxi was alone in the room which she currently occupied, she was not alone in general. Along with an array of enigmatic Allodapos agents, she had also been accompanied by her companions of Theta and one Diogo Celestino. Zapata did not join them. Vraxi was sort of bummed to see her leave, as she was hoping to rebuild their friendship to some degree, a task which would become much harder when they were no longer being forced by circumstance to work together. But alas, Vraxi understood, at least to some degree, that Zapata was better off this way. She could be happier this way, staying with her brother whom she trusted with her life instead of hanging around with her ex, someone she had very much grown not to trust. 

Vraxi herself was not doing much of anything productive herself. After Diogo made a few calls with Bullshanks back in New New York, who was understandably disappointed in learning that the thumb drive they had been tasked to obtain had been completely lost on them, he informed Vraxi that they would be receiving a new mission from the head of the MENA wing, a man by the name of Malik Tharwat, once he returned to headquarters. Until then, Vraxi really didn’t have anything to do. This lack of direction led her to occupying the current situation in which she found herself in.

Vraxi was currently spread out on bedsheets which had not been arranged in a tidy manner since she arrived. Within the grip of her left arm were two to three bottles of Diet Inca Kola, however she had not been paying enough attention to her daily routine to know the exact number of beverages which she had consumed. Furthermore, within her left hand was a half empty bag of sliced white bread which she was currently attempting to consume in its entirety without any sort of condiment or add-on. This was not a difficult task, as she had a very bland palette and preferred to experience different flavors one at a time anyways. Finally, atop her legs lay an old laptop which she had borrowed from the library downstairs which she was currently using to stream season three of Oceans in Paris . It wasn’t by any means good television, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t like it.

This singular, perhaps unhealthy act was, with the exception of a few thirty-minute naps and a handful of bathroom breaks, the only thing that Vraxi had been doing for the past 48 hours. She fully understood that there were better ways she could be utilizing her time, but she had also just been thrown into a ringer of life-threatening experiences over the course of a few short days, so she was able to pretty easily justify her behavior internally as a perfectly adequate coping mechanism. 

However, fortunately or unfortunately for her, depending on one’s perspective, after two straight days of blissful nothingness, she heard a knock on the door. Before she could answer this unexpected noise, the door opened to reveal international heist-master extraordinaire Diogo Celestino, who was currently wearing a rather uncharacteristically somber countenance on his face.

“Hey, Vraxi, it’s me, Diogo Celestino, I probably don’t have to restate my name whenever we talk at this point but I feel like it’s good practice. Anyways, I do have a bit of a problem I’m dealing with and I was wondering if you’d be inclined to help.”

“Uhh,” Vraxi muttered as a half-eaten slice of plain bread fell out of her mouth and onto the space bar of her keyboard, causing her primary source of entertainment to pause, “what’s the issue?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know how to phrase this, but I think that Theta is going through some sort of episode. I don’t think they’re really handling Joey’s death very well and I don't know what to tell them.”

“So, what exactly do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know, you could try talking to them.”

“Diogo, I respect you and I respect Theta, genuinely, but I do not respect my own social abilities enough to entrust myself with that sorta task. If I’m being completely honest, you seem to be much more accomplished in the realm of talking to people than myself. So, if anything, you should theoretically be the one trying to help Theta out here.”

“That’s what I tried to do, Vraxi. But like… there are certain situations where I might be less competent in having meaningful conversations than in others.”

“Wait, I’m a little confused, what are you trying to imply by saying ‘certain’ situations?”

“I don’t know Vraxi, I guess I’m not great with intimacy, at least not here, talking to someone I don’t know super well dealing with issues very different from any of my lived experiences. Listen, neither of us will ever really get to see what’s going on in Theta’s head, and neither of us have even really known them for very long, but you, Vraxi, seem to understand them on a slightly better level than I do. You were the one to first meet them back at the cathedral, and you were the last person to elicit a coherent response from them before they went silent. I think that you need to at least try to talk to them.”

Vraxi started to seriously consider the option presented before her. She genuinely did want to help Theta, but she was a bit worried that directly trying to talk to them would only make things worse. At this point in her life, Vraxi did not have a great reputation in regards to maintaining long-term interpersonal relationships. She really didn’t want to ruin another one by accidentally saying something really stupid in front of Theta that could make them lose all trust in her. However, Theta wasn’t really like other people. Theta was a coalition of the divine and the mechanical, combined in a way which was deeply human but unlike any human that had existed before them. Theta was an odd specimen, but admittedly, so was she. Theta was a loosely packed together bundle of idiosyncrasies, but more importantly, they were a person who needed help.

“Okay, I’ll try to see what I can do. I can’t promise anything but I’ll give an honest effort.”

Vraxi walked into a mostly empty room and flicked the light switch on to reveal Theta lying in a fetal position in the corner of the living space. The situation was a lot worse than Vraxi had expected. Nevertheless, she had a solid goal here, it was a goal with a rather fluid execution, but she still had a set in stone objective. She just needed to get Theta to speak. A single word or phrase would be enough, it just had to be something.

“Hey, Theta,” she said, spending too much time on the first word of her greeting for it to not sound awkward, “I heard that things aren’t going super great for you after everything that happened back in Tahiti. I just wanted to say that, firstly, I understand. When I killed Bran, I felt a pretty overwhelming sense of grief, but eventually, I was able to manage that grief, and I think that you might be able to do that too if you can just rethink the way that you're processing those feelings.”

Theta did not respond to Vraxi. They just continued to stare into the middle distance, the only noise produced by them being the subtle hum of the suit-vac’s internal operating systems.

“Okay,” Vraxi continued, realizing a fault in her initial statement, “to be fair, it turned out that Bran wasn’t actually dead. I only really killed her in a strictly physical sense. So maybe our circumstances were a bit different, but that doesn’t mean you can’t overcome these negative emotions.”

Theta remained silent. Vraxi’s attempts at placating her misery were entirely fruitless so far.

“You know what,” Vraxi added, realizing yet another problem with her argument, “you’re right. I killed someone who was directly threatening my life while you killed someone whose threats were only tangential to the orders of their boss. Therefore, you could argue that from an ethical perspective your situation was worse. Either way, I was trying to kill Bran while you were not actively trying to kill Joey. So it’s understandable that you wouldn’t feel super great. But also, Joey was planning on killing me, and Diogo, and Zapata. So it’s not like he was exactly innocent. At least, what I’m trying to say here is that you shouldn't be acting like you committed some irreparable moral wrong. It was an honest mistake that could still be justified even if it was actually on purpose.”

There was yet another pause. Vraxi was really hoping that Theta would just respond to her already. She just wanted some form of closure. She just wanted to speak to Theta and know that there was another person on the other end actually listening to what she had to say. Perhaps, she was thinking about this the wrong way. Perhaps, there was another method of going about with this issue, another method of approaching Theta’s grief. Perhaps, Vraxi was failing to adequately respect Theta’s emotional response. By this point, she had fully conceded the idea that she had actually experienced something similar to what Theta was going through. Perhaps, Theta didn’t need to be told to move on, maybe instead they just needed to know that Vraxi was there for her, that she was willing to listen to what they had to say even if they had nothing to say at all.

“I’m sorry, Theta. I really shouldn’t pretend like I know what’s going on in your head. In all honesty, I don’t have the slightest clue. I just want you to know that your grief is completely natural, and, at least at this point, it isn’t something that necessarily needs to be overcome. If you don’t feel like talking, that is totally up to you. However, as long as you’re up to it, could you please give me some sort of confirmation that you can hear what I’m saying.”

There was another pause, this one much shorter than the ones that preceded it, as Theta began to turn over, uncoiling from the confines of their cradled posture, and pointed the focus of their camera directly at Vraxi’s deep brown pupils. They reached out a hand, to which Vraxi responded by gently grasping it with her own.

“Thank you, Theta. I’m glad to have you back.”

About two days earlier, Zapata was standing in front of a door which she was having trouble bringing herself to knock on. Behind it, assuming he was home, was her brother Emiliano, presumably as chipper as ever, but maybe a bit concerned that she wasn’t responding to his texts. She stared at the apartment’s entrance and took a deep breath. She really didn’t want to be here, she wanted to be studying back at Mornminster, but she knew that Emiliano would understand, she knew what she had to do.

Before she could move her hand to the surface of the hardwood, the door began to open out of its own volition, or at least through the effort of someone on the other end. Zapata soon found herself face to face with her very own brother.

“Zapata!?” Emiliano blurted out, utterly shocked to be finding Zapata here of all places.

“Um, yeah it’s me,” she replied, unsure of how enthusiastic she wanted to sound.

“Oh my god,” he said, tearing up and bringing Zapata into a hug, “I’m just glad that you’re okay. I was really worried about you, genuinely.”

“Yeah, um,” Zapata began to reply as she gently pushed herself out of Emiliano’s embrace, “so, some bad stuff happened back at university.”

“Wait, what happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine- but I had to drop out. It was for a variety of reasons but it’s not really the kind of thing I’d like to get into right now. I just needed somewhere to stay and I figured that you might have some room at your place.”

“Zapata, listen to me, you are absolutely welcome to stay here for as long as you want, but please, the next time you're in trouble, tell me. I will always be there to help,” saying this, Emiliano displayed his bright, winning smile. He was very much unlike his sister in a variety of ways, most noticeably in this scenario being his unwavering positivity. Zapata recalled that, when they were children, whenever she was having trouble in school or was just struggling to keep things together in general, he was there to help. Whenever she found herself at her lowest points, he would be there to help lift her from the trenches, doing so with a grin on his face and a burning passion to do the right thing in his heart. He was her first and greatest friend. The only reason that she hadn’t contacted him earlier was because she was scared, scared about her own reputation and scared about how Emiliano might think of her as she relied on him yet again as a cushion to fall back on. However, as she stood eye to eye with him at this moment, she realized how stupid that suspicion really was. He would be there for her today and he would be there for her forever. He was a sibling like no other.

The two of them soon moved their conversation to Emiliano’s small but tidy apartment, discussing their matters in the living room as the only other room in his dwelling hosted his toilet and barely enough space for two people. It didn’t take very much time for their dialogue to veer into the topic of Emiliano’s line of work, as it was something he generally tried to bring up whenever the opportunity was presented to him.

“So, we’ve been doing some pretty cool stuff in the lab lately,” he mentioned.

“Oh, cool. What exactly is it you do over there?”

“Well, I transferred over to this new building recently, it’s owned by Sunduq-Aljinat, and they’re making some pretty big waves in the bioengineering scene. The whole idea is, basically, to make food production so efficient that it eventually becomes fully disaster-proof. I’m on this team that’s doing some really cool stuff with hyperpollinators. I’d love to show you sometime.”

“Wait, do you think I could come visit it? I’ve always heard about what you do from a distance but now that I’m here I can finally see it from up close.”

“Honestly, I could probably just bring you into the lab on Monday. My supervisor is pretty laid back, I think you’d like her, so you’ll probably just be able to stroll on in.”

“Yeah, that sounds great actually,” as Vraxi said this, she finally started to feel an emotion she hadn’t felt in a while. She was feeling genuine excitement for the future, for things to come. She was no longer anxious for every moment that awaited her, but instead felt like she had a real future with real opportunities for improvement. She didn’t get the future she wanted, but she at least had something.

The day had finally come. Vraxi and Diogo were sitting anticipatedly in the lobby of the Allodapos headquarters. Theta was standing in the corner, still silent, but feeling stable enough to leave their room and wait with them. Malik was about to arrive at any moment now.

Vraxi heard a subtle click as the door unlocked and opened to reveal the visage of what looked to be a truly miserable man. The rain which had been pouring outside for the past few hours seemed to have soaked through his coat and into his soul. He let out a heavy and prolonged grunt before finally looking up and noticing the people waiting on him. After realizing there were individuals other than himself observing his actions, he quickly removed his soggy jacket and placed it on the adjacent coat hanger before replacing it with the hat that sat on the rung above.

“I apologize for my appearance,” he announced, “I had a very busy weekend. You must be the new recruits, right?”

“We sure are,” Diogo responded before Vraxi had a chance to speak, “I’m Diogo Celestino, Vraxi Nair is the one on my left, and the robot in the corner is the Theta I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about. It’s really great to meet you, Malik.”

“It’s Mr. Thalwat, Mr. Celestino. We are by no means on a first name basis, but more importantly, I thought there were supposed to be four of you.”

“About that,” Vraxi chimed in, “we did have another person with us, and they are here in Mansoura, but we sort of had a falling out. I’m still hoping that we can get her back on the team but for now it’s just the three of us.”

“Very well then, the reason I have traveled here today to speak with the three of you is because, according to the knowledge I have recently gathered, you all have access to some sort of connection with the supernatural.”

“Well, yeah, I think it’s a little more complicated than that, but I also don’t really know enough about the connection to explain it any further than that.”

“Within the upper ranks of the Allodapos society, we are not unfamiliar with the more paranormal side of Golgonax’s domain. His cosmic might often reveals itself in strange ways. However, recently, we’ve noticed that someone has been twisting this might in a truly malicious fashion.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“For the past three weeks or so, the city of Mansoura has been haunted by the most treacherous of specters. Every single night since the first of September, someone in this city has turned up dead with a knife impaled through their heart. There has been no rhyme or reason in the victims of these attacks, not a single person has been able to track down the perpetrator, the only common thread in these incidences have been sightings of a cloaked figure near the crime scenes at around the same times in which the autopsies identified the deaths took place. The police, unsurprisingly, have been completely incompetent in doing anything about this issue and have been spending most of their time attempting to utilize this tragedy as a way to acquire even more funding. However, even if they were somehow effective at actually reducing crime, I doubt they’d be able to do anything about this, as I believe that there is some sort of supernatural element to these murders. This is the reason why I’ve appointed you three to this mission. I believe that your rather unnatural abilities could allow us to finally catch this culprit and dissolve the fear that has been hanging over this great city.”

“Alright, that sounds like a pretty morally respectable objective. That’s something we could really use at a time like now. But, I’m wondering what it would actually entail.”

“Hold on, Ms. Nair, I appreciate your request for further information but I was wondering if I could speak to Theta. From what I was told, they seem to have the strongest link to Golgonax out of all of you and I was hoping to converse with them about it.”

Upon hearing Malik utter their name, Theta briefly began to panic and considered running off to another room but was only able to take a few steps back before they stopped themself from going any further. They didn’t want to disappoint anyone, especially someone in a position of power like Malik, but they couldn’t bring themself to speak either. 

“Um,” Vraxi jutted in before Malik could get any closer to the cowering android, “Theta’s having a bit of trouble speaking right now. I’m pretty sure they’ll still be able to join us on whatever mission we’re going on,” Vraxi said as she looked over to her robotic companion who nodded in response, “but if you could just explain what you actually want us to do first, that would be great.”

“It seems like many of the things I was informed about you all have since changed to be inaccurate in some way or another,” Malik muttered.

“Well,” Diogo chimed in, “that’s probably because a lot of stuff has happened recently.”

“Either way, if you must know right away, the mission which I have assigned the three of you to complete is quite simple and should be finished within the timespan of nine to ten PM on this night, the 24th of September. After skimming through countless reels of security footage, we believe that we may have been able to triangulate a possible residence of the cloaked figure. All our data seems to point to the condominium on the corner of Hussein Bek and Noshy Street. If everything goes to plan, you might be able to identify or even detain the figure as they’re leaving, as this is usually around the time in which the murders have been identified to occur. However, If nothing goes to plan, then at least we’ll be able to cross out the condo as one of the possible locations.”

“Sounds like a deal,” Diogo said as he outstretched his arm, indicating the suggestion of a handshake to which Malik responded by slowly and gently pushing his hand away from him.

“Sure, it’s a deal, just make sure to get there on time.”

Chapter Text

It was a rather busy day at Sunduq-Aljinat, papers were flying, the bright scientists of the future were rushing from room to room, one of those scientists, Emiliano Tochihuitl, was attempting to give a tour of the building to his younger sister but kept getting interrupted as he ran into coworkers which he couldn’t stop himself from briefly chatting with.

“And that guy over there,” Emiliano said, turning back to Zapata after finishing a conversation with a passing employee, “was Freddy Dips, and let me tell you, there’s a guy who knows how to party.”

“Cool,” Zapata said, not genuinely believing it to be cool but trying to sound nice, “but I was wondering if I could see what you, specifically, are working on?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot, my lab’s right around the corner, let me show you,” as he said this, Emiliano trotted over to a door on the other side of the hallway and proceeded to open it in an unnecessarily grandiose manner, causing an ultimately insignificant but still slightly jarring noise. Immediately following this entrance, Zapata heard an unknown voice let out a surprised ‘Fuck!’ in response. Reacting to this, she started to hurry across the corridor and stopped at the doorway.

Zapata looked into the room to see a state-of-the-art lab, the likes of which she had never hoped to gleam even within the prestigious science departments of Mornminster. She couldn’t really recognize most of the machines, nor could she really discern what their purposes were, all she could really tell was that they were very fancy and very important. At one of the few pieces of equipment she could recognize, a microscope, albeit a high-tech one, she saw the person who had given the initial shocked reaction to Emiliano’s flashy arrival. She wore a pair of glasses, an archaic vision-assisting device which had been made completely irrelevant by the year 2108, and a spotless white hijab that contrasted with her very much not spotless lab coat and medical gloves. Based on the look on her face, she seemed to be somewhat annoyed at the way her brother displayed his presence.

“Emiliano,” she stated frustratedly, “you just made me totally mess up the cell I was working on. I had made some pretty significant progress,” saying this, she put down her scientific utensils and looked directly at him, “could you please hand me another slide.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” Emiliano replied quickly before he tossed one of the glass slides spread out on the table to his side towards his supervisor, “here, catch.”

“Don’t throw it at me!” she said as she barely managed to grab the shard, “these things are really expensive, you know.”

“Oh, sorry, I tend to forget sometimes,” Emiliano apologized, beginning to trail off before he took a glance back at the door and remembered that he was still giving a tour, “oh, Zapata, I didn’t see you there, this is my supervisor and brilliant lab partner, Aisha Abdulaziz.”

“Who are you talking to, Emiliano?” Aisha asked as she looked away from her work and towards the door.

“Oh, this is my sister, Zapata, she’s visiting Mansoura and wanted to see what I do here.”

“Oh,” Aisha stated gravely, hoping that she hadn’t made a bad impression of herself to her new guest, “I’m really sorry if I introduced myself poorly, tensions have been pretty high lately and I think it’s starting to get to my head.”

“What’s causing the situation to be so stressful?” Zapata inquired.

“Well,” Emiliano answered, “it’s because we are so incredibly close to a real breakthrough here.”

“And,” Aisha added, “because if we don’t make that breakthrough in the next few weeks, Sunduq-Aljinat is going to go bankrupt and we’ll all lose our jobs.”

“Oh,” Zapata commented as she stepped into the room, noticing a subtle buzzing noise as she did so, “but, as long as it’s not confidential or anything, do you mind if I ask what that breakthrough would entail? I know it has to do with pollination but that’s basically where my knowledge ends.”

“Well,” Aisha narrated as she began to walk to the far side of the room, the Tochihuitl siblings following close behind, “the current project we’re working on is effectively all about creating the perfect hive of bees. A hive which could fully pollinate an entire orchard in a matter of minutes. We’ve been doing this by genetically modifying the insects to be hypervigilant, hyperaware, and hyperactive. They are spawned, mature, work, breed, and die in a fraction of the time it takes for bees in the wild. What they lose in time is gained back tenfold in effort, they spend their entire lives with a raging passion to further progress the prosperity of the hive. They are, effectively, the ideal beehive, at least in terms of efficiency.”

“Hold on, based on what you said just now it sort of sounds like you already made the breakthrough. What’s left to work on?”

“The thing is,” Emiliano replied, “there is one problem with the current strain of bugs.”

“And what’s that?”

“Unfortunately,” Aisha sighed, “the drawback in supercharging the willpower of the bees is a vastly heightened level of aggression. These things will decimate any obstacle in their path as long as they view it as threatening the welfare of the hive. We’ve already had a few researchers who got too close to them get hospitalized.”

“That sounds like a pretty fatal flaw.”

“That’s because it is,” Emiliano stated matter-of-factly, “but hopefully, we’ll be able to weed out whatever gene’s causing the bad stuff soon, specifically within the next two weeks.”

As Emiliano finished speaking, the three of them made it to the far side of the room which was covered by an inconspicuous curtain. Zapata couldn’t help but notice that the buzzing noise she had heard when she entered the room was considerably louder on this side. After hearing from the scientists about what they had been working on for all this time, she couldn’t help but ask the following question.

“Hey, so what’s behind the curtain?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Emiliano said as he dramatically pulled the curtain from the wall, almost tearing it in the process, revealing the glass wall which stood behind it. Through the windowpane, Zapata saw a truly awe-inspiring sight, thousands upon thousands of bees zipping around a massive cylindrical room which stretched from the bottom to the top of the already impressively tall building. The ravenous insects traveled in mighty swarms circling around the enormous, almost monstrous hive in the center of the glass tube. Emiliano began to speak again, “This… is the Apiarium!”

“Woah, that’s genuinely incredible, I didn’t know that hives could get that big.”

“It’s also incredibly expensive,” Aisha commented, “it turns out that installing a gigantic glass cylinder in the middle of what used to be a regular office building costs a very significant amount of money.”

“Well,” Emiliano added, “as long as everything goes to plan, it shouldn’t be hard to make that money back. Once we get these bees to start acting a little bit nicer, investors are gonna be chomping at the bit to get ahold of them.”

“That is, assuming that we can actually get the bees to calm down within our very limited timeframe.”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t think you trust the superbees enough. If we just really put some genuine effort into the next few weeks, I really believe that we’ll start to see our visions becoming a reality. Isn’t that right, superbees?” Saying this, Emiliano slapped his palm against the glass, causing a swarm of bees to conglomerate around the wall.

“Emiliano! I told you that you had to stop doing that!”

“The glass is like a foot thick, I don’t really see the issue?”

“It’s about setting a precedent, you’re acting really unprofessional in our very professional setting. I swear, if you hadn’t graduated at the very top of your class, Dr. Omran never would’ve hired you.”

This comment was not followed by a retort or argument, but by a deep silence which pierced the atmosphere of the room in its sudden and uncomfortable nature.

“Um,” Zapata began, unprepared for this turn in the conversation, “is everything alright.”

“I’m sorry,” Aisha sighed, “I shouldn’t have brought up Omran, especially not like that.”

“Wait, who is Dr. Omran? I don’t really have much context here.”

“Dr. Omran was the greatest scientist I ever met,” Emiliano stated in an uncharacteristically somber tone, “she was really unlike anyone else in the field. That is,” he paused, “until she died. It was sudden and unexpected and left so much to be desired, but one day she was here and the next day she was gone.”

“Hold on, you said it was sudden… it wasn’t the bees that got her, right?”

“What? No. She was murdered, and worse yet, the culprit is still at large. Anyways, now that she’s gone, it’s just me and Aisha working on the entire, very significant topic of handling the logistics of insectoid neural pathways. Without Dr. Omran on our side, that’s a very difficult task to manage, there are very few people in the world who are more well versed in that study than she was.”

“Damn, I’m really sorry to hear that. I may just be a simple humanities major but is there anything I can do to help?”

“Well, on Wednesday they’ll be hosting her funeral at the Damietta Grand Mosque. We’re trying to get as many people as possible to come so I’d appreciate it if you would attend with me.” 

“I absolutely will do that. Thank you for telling me.”

“Zapata,” Aisha spoke, “I really do appreciate your concern for our well-being, however, I really wish I hadn’t mentioned Dr. Omran as doing so can often bring back unpleasant memories. Besides, me and Emiliano need to get back to work if we want to have any form of job security.”

At around 8:55 later that day, Vraxi, Diogo, and Theta found themselves at the entrance of the condominium on the corner of Hussein Bek and Noshy street. It was a large building but looked somewhat small when compared to its significantly taller neighbors, probably about twelve stories tall. Vraxi approached the door and pulled on it with all her might before realizing it was a push door. After correcting her mistake, Vraxi entered the lobby followed by the others, her divine blade concealed within her backpack and ready to be unsheathed at any moment. She tried to survey the room for any conspicuous cloaked figures but was unable to find any hints of they’re presence. She assumed that the figure was yet to leave the building and opted to simply wait on a couch in the lobby. However, before she could even be seated, Diogo began to enact his own course of action, walking over to the only other person in the room, the receptionist behind the desk, and attempting to start a conversation with them.

“Hey,” Diogo said as he looked at the receptionist's name tag, “Omar, my man, I was wondering if I could ask you a quick question about something.”

“Uh, sure,” the receptionist replied, “I don’t really have anything better to do at a time like now.”

“I was wondering if you’ve seen any mysterious cloaked figures hanging around the premises here.”

“Um, do you mean like someone wearing a niqab?”

“Shit,” Diogo said, realizing his mistake and lack of cultural familiarity, “I forgot about those. That’s not what I meant. What I meant was, basically, so you know about those murders that have been happening lately?”

“Diogo,” Vraxi butted in, “you can’t just reveal the premise of why we’re here like that. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to remain somewhat incognito.”

“I don’t remember Malik ever stating that specifically.”

“I thought it was implied. Besides, we’re literally stateless outlaws after everything that happened in the Novaplex and the Allodopos society is a secret society for a reason!”

“Now hold on, I just wanted to get some information from him so we’d be better equipped to deal with the upcoming threats we might face, and you were the one who just now decided to name drop the organization we’re working on behalf of. Now he probably thinks we’re all criminals, which wouldn’t be completely inaccurate but it’s definitely not the image we’re trying to present to the world.”

“Hey,” Omar said, “you guys seem to be well-meaning and all, but I think I might have to ask you to leave. Based on what you said just now, I’m not sure if I can really allow you to stay in the building any longer.”

“Hold on,” Vraxi responded with resistance, “we didn’t do anything illegal, all we did was admit to having done illegal things in the past. You wouldn’t want to confuse those things in a court of law.”

“Listen, my boss is gonna get mad at me if I just let you guys loiter around the lobby, regardless of your criminal record. Please just leave the building or I’m gonna have to call the police.”

“Hold on,” Diogo announced with even more resistance than Vraxi, “now wait just a second Omar, if that’s even your real name, I’ll have you know that if you refuse to reply, I’ve got a high-tech, high-octane, explosion-inducing superweapon stored in the fanny pack I’m carrying with your name on it. How about we put down the phone so I don’t have to pull it out.”

“Diogo,” Vraxi said anxiously, “you can’t just threaten him like that! It really isn’t improving our case at all.”

“See, Vraxi, that kind of attitude really shows to me how you haven’t been in the heisting game for very long. I never think about how my ‘case’ sounds because I know the authorities will never be able to catch me for long enough to get me in front of a judge.”

“That seems incredibly presumptuous and also kind of ignores the fact that you were being unnecessarily mean to him.”

“Hello,” Omar said into the speaker of a phone, “yeah, I’m on the corner of Hussein Bek and Noshy and there are these two people that have been threatening to hurt me-”

“Hey!” Diogo said as he unveiled his magnakey and began to brandish it in the general direction of the receptionist, “put the phone down. We just want to talk.”

“The fact that you're pointing that thing at me really contradicts with your message.”

“Both of you,” Vraxi announced, attempting to deescalate the situation, “calm down!”

“What did I do? This is a completely natural reaction!”

“You totally foiled our highly important mission to take down the serial killer that’s been terrorizing the city,” Diogo yelled back, “that’s what you did!”

“Diogo,” Vraxi added, “we really don’t have any evidence that we would actually have been able to catch the cloaked figure without these additional obstacles. We haven’t even seen if they live here yet.”

“Well we might’ve been able to spot them if you hadn’t totally screwed up this social encounter.”

“Now wait a minute, how are you trying to blame this one on me? You’re the one holding the weapon here.”

“I wouldn’t have to be using the weapon if you hadn’t made him call the police in the first place.”

“Why did you even feel the need to begin the conversation at all? We could’ve just stayed here and waited until the murderer showed their face instead of trying to haggle for tidbits of loose information from an employee who couldn’t care less.”

“I just wanted to speed the process, Vraxi. Seriously, you can be very difficult to work with sometimes, you can’t just enter a risky situation and expect to get by without taking risks, this has gotta be the kind of thing that caused Zapata to break up with you in the first place.”

“Alright, not only was that claim blatantly untrue but it was also needlessly cruel.”

Meanwhile, as communications continued to break down by the front desk, Theta had sort of zoned out and was just perusing the ground floor of the complex. They were wearing a long trench coat which was supposed to assuage the natural suspicion a random passer-by might develop from seeing a seemingly self-sufficient automaton, hiding their appearance just enough to dissuade anyone from taking a second glance. Despite their pseudo-disguise, they were still not at ease in their current predicament. They simply couldn’t stop thinking about Joey. 

Theta had never been unfamiliar with Joey Axelrod. During their three years in development, they often saw his face appear in front of their screen, peering inside with a sense of wonder, a sense of genuine excitement for the progress of technology which they never saw in the eyes of Bran. As time passed, they watched as Joey rose the ranks in the corporate ladder at a speed often lauded by his peers as a very impressive feat. He was determined, to say the least. In their mind, he seemed to be one of the few people at GüdTek corporate who actually cared about what they were doing for the world. No one would ever ask Joey for financial advice, a quick look at Novaplex public records would show that his credit score was abysmal before he died, but everyone knew where his expertise truly resided. Joey was a believer, he genuinely believed that the company could overcome any obstacle, any hurdle in their path could be broken given enough time and effort, and when he displayed his genuine, true, unbridled passion for his work, that feeling of limitless confidence would spread among the entire company and allow them to achieve incredible things, creating technological wonders that no one dared to believe were possible before.

Bran did not always believe that the Singularity would work. The whole idea started as a publicity stunt, GüdTek had been providing small grants to university students who wanted to work on scientific projects that would have otherwise been fully outside their budget. The Singularity was one of many projects, most of which failed at launch and of the few that actually created a solid product, none were able to ever accumulate a profit. The Singularity was the last of these projects to be completed, the original idea was to create a computer program that could relatively accurately simulate every neuron in a human brain. The final result was a mixed success, every neuron had been accounted for but many of the connections between them were effectively cut too short. In the end, the prefrontal cortex was barely able to create coherent thoughts, however, the hippocampus worked quite well. In this primordial state, Theta could not think, they could not accurately process information, but they could remember.

A few days before the Singularity would end up on the chopping block in Bran’s office, the place where the dreams of over ambitious programmers went to die, Joey Axelrod was promoted to the position of Chief Errand Boy. Joey was incredibly excited to be in a position this close to Josephine Bran herself. Theta was well aware of this fact as he had been spending most of his lunch breaks narrating one-sided conversations with the momentarily defunct piece of technology. Even though he knew that all the program was doing was storing memories, he still found solace in giving lengthy descriptions of his miscellaneous adventures, day after day and night shift after night shift. Even as Theta was moved from lab to test room to storage closet to lower-priority storage closet, Joey continued to remain as the one constant in their existence. He would often explain to them how, even though most of the scientists there, people far more qualified than himself, would say how the Singularity was too far gone, how a digital consciousness was unattainable given the current restraints, how there were more efficient ways to be prioritizing their resources, he still believed that one day, no matter how far in the future it may be, the Singularity would be able to walk among the people of the Earth and share with them untold wisdom. Joey was a believer, and he believed in Theta.

One morning, Bran gave Joey a rather simple task. She briefly disclosed to him that everything in a certain storage closet, the one which just so happened to store Theta, needed to be cleared out and thrown out in order to make room for a new restroom that was a part of a larger renovation plan occurring at the time. Joey, in an act of defiance atypical of how he would usually behave, rejected this proposal on the spot.

“I’m sorry but I really can’t do that,” Joey explained to Bran.

“What did you just say to me?” Bran inquired, already pondering a possible replacement for her newest errand boy.

“Well, it’s not like I would ever disagree with your plans, I obviously understand that you know best here-”

“Then why are you trying to challenge an incredibly simple, direct order?”

“It’s just, there is one thing stored in that particular room that I think at least deserves further examination.”

“And what piece of junk could you possibly be talking about.”

“Well, do you remember the Singularity?”

“The world’s most expensive CPU? Yeah, I remember it. It was a total and complete failure in every capacity. Why would you be bringing it up now?”

“Because I think that it still has a lot of potential that we haven’t yet explored. All the neurons are already there, all we need to do is find a way to get them to work together. If we can do that, If we can successfully accomplish that singular task, we could completely change the field of artificial intelligence. Every single AI ever produced up to this point has been limited by the constraints of the languages they’ve been coded in. They act in vastly different ways but they’re all, inherently, by design, predictable. They are bound by laws signed and written into their very nature. But by combining the vast computational power of our current AIs with the inherent unpredictability of the organic human brain, we could create something infinitely more impressive than the sum of its parts. We could create something that changes everything . Isn’t that what we’re trying to do here? Isn’t that what this whole company is all about? Innovation is inevitable so we might as well be the ones who do it, right?”

“First of all, Joey, whatever stunt you're trying to pull right now, do not ever do it again. As the CEO of this company and as what is effectively the supreme leader of this nation, my authority is not something to ever be questioned, especially by someone as insignificant as yourself. However, Second of all, I must say that the proposal you just gave me was admittedly quite attractive. I wouldn’t mind being remembered in the annals of history as the innovator who changed everything. Third of all, I still want the storage room empty by noon, but also, I’d appreciate it if you brought the Singularity back to my office. I’ll bring some of the guys from the lab over and see what we can do with it. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”

Joey must’ve told that story to Theta hundreds of times, to the point where they could vividly envision every detail at a moment’s notice. Joey was the one that prevented Theta from getting scrapped, from getting thrown out into a landfill somewhere until their mechanical parts eventually rusted away. Joey was the one that allowed for Theta to become so much more than just a receptacle for memories. Joey allowed Theta not just to live, but to become a living being. 

Theta repaid Joey for this gift of life by ending his. Joey was not a perfect person, he often did morally dubious things out of his unwavering trust for Bran and her company, but he was the closest thing Theta ever had to a friend for the vast majority of their time on Earth. By killing him, Theta had proven that they were a truly terrible friend themself.

All of this baggage led Theta to the moment in time in which they currently resided. They were languishing within their own deeply ingrained guilt, a rather uncomfortable feeling which they believed to be entirely deserved. Theta still wasn’t sure how they could move on as a person after Joey’s death, and they were especially not sure how they were supposed to continue being the supposed prophet of the modern era. How could someone destined to do good commit an act which seemed so unforgivable? It was a question that had been rattling in their mind ever since that fateful day and it wasn’t something they really had the capability to answer. So instead, they stayed quiet. They hadn’t uttered a word since, and at this point, they weren’t really sure if they had it in them to start speaking again any time soon. They wanted to say something, they knew that expressing their ideas verbally could help them better process their emotions, but the words simply failed to leave their speakers. They were at a loss, but it was a loss they were willing to accept for the time being as the simple reality of the matter.

After Theta had finished pondering the nature of their incredibly unique existence, they shifted their focus back to what had been occurring in the world around them. Vraxi and Diogo were still arguing with the receptionist on one side of the room while every other corner remained absent of any human presence. That is, at least until Theta caught something in the corner of their vision. They immediately turned to see if anyone had entered the room, and what they saw was somewhat shocking. Beside the door which led to the stairwell of the building, Theta saw what looked to be a rather amorphous figure covered from head to toe in a reddish cloak, but what stood out to Theta the most about this particular entity was that the opening in their hood which one would typically expect to find a head located in was instead occupied by an empty, pitch black void. Theta knew that whatever conversation their companions were having was significantly less important than what they had just discovered. They had just found the murderer they were after and they had an incredible opportunity to catch them.

“Mmmmm,” was the only sound that Theta was really able to make at this point in time, but they figured that the vague noise of alarmed vibrations would be able to get their point across, “mmmmmm!”

On hearing Theta’s exasperated cries, Vraxi turned their attention to the corner of the lobby which their companion was pointing at. Sure enough, there was a mysterious figure standing there that matched Malik’s description to a tee.

“Hey!” Vraxi yelled at the figure as they unsheathed their blade, “Don’t move!”

“As a representative of the Allodapos Society,” Diogo continued, turning his magnakey over to the new target, “I hereby am placing you under custody of Lord Golgonax himself!”

The figure did not respond to either of their messages, instead, they merely looked to the left, looked to the right, and looked straight back at them before making a 180 degree turn and sprinting up the stairs from whence they came.

“Hey, wait!” Vraxi exclaimed, somewhat shocked to see that the ruthless killer who they assumed to be rather fearless was so willing to flee from someone as non-threatening as herself, “you can’t just do that- get back here!”

In a direct response to the figure’s sudden departure, Theta sprang from the pleather couch they had been seated on and began to run for the door that the murderer had left through. They couldn’t just let them get away that easily, they couldn’t let more innocent people die, not after what they had just done. Theta knew that they had to right their wrongs, and through some divine providence, they had been given a chance to prove that they could actually save lives, that they could actually improve the world in some measurable way. That was their goal on this planet, to have it be a noticeably better place by the time they inevitably leave it. They had no other choice but to catch this culprit and end their reign of terror.

Once she saw Theta chase after the cloaked figure, Vraxi followed close behind. She wasn’t happy to see the murderer attempt an escape, but Vraxi was at least glad that she’d be able to glean a story from this encounter. Vraxi still felt somewhat in awe to be in the situation she found herself in, not just to be in the act of running after a serial killer with the divine blade of a god she only half-remembered the name of two weeks ago, but to be doing all of this with Theta by her side. Something about the way Theta operated continued to astonish Vraxi. She had had her fair share of social interactions throughout her life, but she never felt like she ever was able to truly understand the people she was talking to. She always felt like there was a divide between herself and the rest of the world, like everyone around her was speaking in a code that only she failed to comprehend. Theta was in a similar situation, just on a larger scale, they were separated from the rest of humanity in a much more literal sense, being that they had all of the properties of a human mind but lacked a human biology. Funnily enough, Vraxi almost felt like Theta was the one person who she could actually speak to without a wall in between them blurring the meanings of their words. The two of them were together on an island within the incomprehensible sea of human social society. As a result, Vraxi was glad to see Theta choosing to take the lead on this chase, because whenever they overcame an obstacle, it felt like she was progressing with them.

Finally, Diogo began to hurry behind his two companions who had already begun to pursue the cloaked figure. Unfortunately, his dash was slightly slowed by the significant weight of the titanium weapon he was wielding, something he had already started to fear would halt any sort of speedy climb up the stairs he would likely have to ascend quite soon. Diogo was worried about falling behind, he always was, in a sense. He knew that he typically wasn’t the fastest or the strongest or the smartest person in any given room, but despite that, he always had a high expectation for himself, because he knew that he was never the worst in the room. There were always going to be people stuck below him, and as a result, he needed to set an example. Diogo, at all times, in all places, felt the need to show everyone around him that he was prepared for the next thing to come, that he could handle any obstacle in his way, even when he knew himself that he couldn’t. Diogo needed to protect his masquerade, protect his outward appearance as someone knowledgeable in every field. He wasn’t wise, he didn’t feel wise, but he needed to protect the idea that he always had some sort of wisdom to give, that he was always prepared. So he pushed himself to his absolute limits, and when that wasn’t enough, he found loopholes that let him succeed regardless, because without the persona he had created for the world to admire, he really wasn’t sure who he was.

“Hey!” Omar yelled at the departing Allodapos agents, “you can’t just leave like that!”

“Oh, via se foder, Omar,” Diogo replied, "like you’re gonna do anything about it, we have more important matters to deal with.”

After finishing this final exchange of dialogue with the receptionist, Diogo entered through the door and stared down the long flight of stairs that stood before him. He needed to set an example, he needed to prove his worth, so he hunkered down, gripped his wondrous contraption, and began his ascent.

Chapter Text

Vraxi was never an amazing runner. This fact about her felt very relevant as she struggled to keep up with Theta who themself was only barely keeping pace with the mysterious figure who seemed to be effortlessly gliding up the stairs. After four, but what felt like twenty, flights of grueling physical labor, the figure stopped moving upwards and took a turn into the nearest door, leading them to a hallway of identical condo entrances lining either side of the aisle. 

Theta and Vraxi both made it to the door that the figure had left through at about the same time while Diogo was only about a floor below. The two of them were glad to see that the figure had not escaped their view by the time they made it there but were slightly confused, and to a lesser degree alarmed, that they were now facing towards them instead of against them. The figure stood completely still, and Vraxi, who had only been chasing them due to an innate feeling in her gut that encouraged her to start running, was now unaware of what to do. She intended on catching the serial killer, but she started to realize that that meant engaging with someone who was theoretically very well versed in killing people and might have no ethical reason to not kill her. So instead of continuing the chase, she paused, and hoping to find some sense of direction, turned over to Theta. Unfortunately, they seemed to be entrenched in a rather similar predicament. Theta themself did not have access to any sort of weaponry outside of their bare hands, and due to the fact that their central computer was strapped directly onto their chest, was actually quite vulnerable if ever faced with any sort of hand to hand combat. 

This conflict of interest led to a stalemate. Neither agent was willing to attack and the figure seemed perfectly fine with simply just waiting them out. Vraxi actually started to get a little concerned at what this murderer might be planning, she hoped that she hadn’t gotten in over her head. But before any of the three individuals involved in this standoff could establish an opening gambit, a fourth variable busted through the door with reckless, or at least uninformed due to circumstance, disregard. Diogo immediately started to charge towards the figure, magnakey in hand and ready to smack someone on the head with, prepared to engage in treacherous battle as long as it meant that he could prove his worth and display to his audience of two that he was someone who deserved to be standing, or rather running, where he stood. Diogo’s sudden arrival was met with a sudden response, the figure finally revealing how they did their grim work. As two arms emerged from either side of their cloak, located in the place where one would typically expect to find arms, Diogo watched in pure astonishment as two throwing knives seemed to magically appear in the cruel villain’s hands. By the time Diogo had traveled half the length of the hallway, the knives had already been sent flying in his direction, with no easy way to avoid both of them simultaneously.

‘This is bad,’ he thought. In his eagerness to be helpful, he had failed to properly assess the risk present in the situation. As the two knives came barreling towards him, he couldn’t think of any way in which he could contort his body where he would not end up pierced, and considering the figure’s kill count, he assumed that their throws could be quite lethal. He needed some way to obstruct one of the blades if he didn’t want to get seriously injured. He then came to the realization that if he just positioned the magnakey in the right spot in front of him, he might just be able to avoid any kind of damage to his frail human body.

In the final spare moments Diogo had before the knives would grace his skin, he clenched his butt and thrusted his hips to the right to avoid the oncoming blade from the left and quickly situated his magnakey in front of his face to deflect the dagger arriving from the right. However, instead of merely bouncing off the titanium shell of his most-prized mechanism, he watched as the knife lodged itself inside his weapon, seriously damaging it in the process. This level of strength was unnatural, or rather supernatural, in nature. No simple human was beholden to this kind of power, this murderer had to have access to some sort of mystical enhancement, perhaps something quite similar to the divinely appointed gifts he and his companions had received. This figure was not a force to be reckoned with, but unfortunately, in order for his mission to succeed, he needed to reckon with them. But considering the incredible feats of might the figure had proven themself capable of, as well as Diogo’s own lack of a currently functionable firearm, he knew that he had to rethink his plans. 

“Diogo!” Vraxi shouted from across the room, “are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Diogo said, holding out a thumbs up but opting out of moving any closer to the figure now that his only weapon was broken, “the magnakey is in slightly worse shape though.”

Vraxi took a glance at the knife that had been implanted into Diogo’s magnificent device. The sight of a small, seemingly impotent blade which had been able to tear through the toughest metals as if they were lukewarm butter sent a chill down her spine. Was she really ready to face off against this seemingly far more experienced opponent? Could she actually handle what would lay before her if she decided to take a step forward? This was all a lot to process but as she looked down at the sword that had been bestowed to her by her patron deity, she came to an important epiphany. She was the avatar of the god of righteousness, and it was her divinely mandated duty to start acting like it. She felt a deep feeling of responsibility billowing within her, she needed, in this moment, to display that she had it in her to pursue this malefactor, not just to fulfill some need for adventure, but because it was the right thing to do. She only needed confirmation from one specific person first, so she looked to Theta, made a vague gesture with her hands indicating her intent, and watched as their robotic companion gave a solemn nod in response. Vraxi was ready to start moving. 

Conveniently, the figure was also ready to leave their current location, as in the blink of an eye and with untold grace, they rushed to the staircase on the opposite side of the building as the one they had entered from. Vraxi, with a newfound and somewhat unfounded sense of confidence in her abilities, immediately began to chase after the killer with Theta following close behind.

“I’ll catch up with you guys,” Diogo commented as his companions passed by him, “I just need to find a quick fix for this knife issue and the magnakey will be back up and running better than ever.”

“I’ll see you there,” Vraxi replied with a cheerful tone in her voice that even she was surprised, but not opposed, to hear emerging from her mouth. Theta gave a departing wave as the two of them exited the corridor and left Diogo to find a solution for his very apparent problem.

As Vraxi entered the room which held the stairwell she had intended to descend, she was surprised to see that it seemingly had no current inhabitants outside of herself and Theta even though the figure had supposedly entered only seconds earlier.

“Where did they go?” she asked rhetorically as she knew that Theta wouldn’t be able to give her an answer. Stress started to creep into the back of her mind yet again. It seemed like the figure was operating four steps ahead of her at all times, and if she couldn’t find them now, they could be lost to her for who knows how long. However, Vraxi’s subtle decline into panic was cut short as she heard a crashing noise emanating from the very bottom of the spiral stairway. 

Vraxi peered over the edge of the railing and realized that the ever-clever mysterious figure had simply skipped taking the stairs entirely and had just opted to take a free fall through the middle of the spiral all the way down to the basement of the condominium. Vraxi also came to the very inconvenient conclusion that she was unlikely to catch up with the figure after they had saved so much time by shortening their descent to the length of a single leap. The only way that Vraxi had a chance of keeping pace with them was by jumping down herself, but she knew that she absolutely couldn’t handle a fall from that height.

But also, she considered, maybe she didn’t have to fall the whole way down. Her eyes moved back to Ayyuppan’s sword and an idea soon began to form within her head. She knew that her divine blade held the ability to propel her entire body mass great distances, so theoretically, she could use it to hover above the ground and prevent her from hitting the floor at the end of a fall. It was not the safest of plans, but she didn’t have time for a brainstorming session, she needed to act now.

“I’m gonna go down there,” Vraxi announced without any further detail as she climbed atop the railing and prepared for her leap of faith.

Theta let out another prelingual grunt indicating some sort of query which soon shifted to indicating a feeling of intense panic as they were very concerned about what Vraxi was about to attempt, especially since she had not detailed her plan of action aloud.

“I’ll meet you at the bottom,” Vraxi said as she lifted her feet off the ground and took the ultimate plunge.

She felt, for a few moments, a deep-seated emotion of pure exhilaration blossoming within her. She was doing something her past self would never have dared to attempt, would never have even allowed themself to be in a situation where it was an option. But despite that, she was here, living life from one moment to the next, no matter what the next moment might be and no matter where it might take her. It was a freeing feeling, but due to the circumstances that would soon follow, it was not a feeling that would last for very long.

At about two thirds of the way down the well, Vraxi figured that she should try to activate her sword’s abilities and dampen the velocity of her descent.

“And… Stop,” she said. A spine-chilling revelation began to overtake her when she continued to stay at the exact same speed. Perhaps, she pondered in this most dire of times, that she had overestimated how much control she held over her sword’s various powers and abilities. Either way, she really needed to get this thing to slow her fall.

“Stop! Stop! Please stop! Oh god stop!” she wailed, dearly hoping that Ayyuppan or really any helpful spirit would hear her cries and help her in this time of need. 

Luckily, by some miracle, or maybe just through her own concentrated willpower being made manifest, the sword finally came to a halt midair as she hung only about four feet above the hard concrete. She then proceeded to topple from this position onto the ground, which was admittedly a much more manageable fall then the one she had been presented earlier. As she looked back ahead of her, she could still see the silhouette of the figure continuing their escape attempt. Vraxi picked herself up off the floor, grabbed her sword, and began to expend as much energy as she could muster into sprinting towards the killer. She simply couldn’t let them get any further ahead.

As Vraxi’s chase continued and as the figure’s lead on her began to gradually diminish, her newly sworn enemy took a sharp turn into the nearby electrical room. Vraxi was somewhat confused as to why they would be willing to enter what was presumably a dead end, however, she figured that she might as well seize the opportunity being presented to her and enter the room herself. Unless, she briefly considered, this was all a trap, and the figure was trying to lure Vraxi into an arena where they would have the upper hand against her. Perhaps, and this idea began to induce fear in her, the figure was planning to turn Vraxi into their next victim. Vraxi was starting to feel a little scared, but at this point she had gathered enough confidence in her system to fight that fear to her best ability.

Vraxi opened the door and was disappointed yet again to find that the room lacked any visible cohabitants. She drew her sword in front of her, a sense of caution growing within her as she was very well aware that the figure could appear at any moment and attempt to end her life then and there. 

“Where are you?” she asked out to her unresponsive surroundings, “You can’t just back out like that. You’ve done far too much harm to the world around you to just expect me to give up. Answer me!”

But the figure refused to respond. Vraxi was left alone in the eerie silence, without anything to accompany her outside of her own thoughts, which themselves were beginning to lose confidence in her. She started to wonder if, through some sort of skilled maneuver, the figure had already manage to leave the room under Vraxi’s nose. If that was the case, every second she remained standing where she stood would be another second wasted and another second allowing for the killer to claim another victim. She needed to make up her mind, what she needed was a consistent story, but without any evidence pointing in any direction, Vraxi wasn’t sure what she was supposed to believe. She almost wished that the figure would try to engage her in some form of combat, merely because it would let her confirm their location in space. 

Luckily, Vraxi’s wish would soon be granted, but before any blows were to be engaged, she felt some sort of sudden command being imprinted into her mind, as if Ayyuppan himself was giving her a word of warning. The message itself was quite simple, only consisting of a single word, that word being, “Duck.”

Vraxi, who sensed that whatever force was bestowing this instruction to her had her best interest in mind, decided to quickly crouch down onto the floor. As she did so, she spotted a very familiar-looking throwing knife zoom in her direction, missing her by only a hair as it breezed above her lowered head.

“Shit!” Vraxi exclaimed as she began to scramble away from the direction the knife was thrown in before remembering what her goal was and choosing to scramble towards where the knife was thrown instead. She tightly gripped her sword, a weapon that she had never been formally trained to use, and hoped to whatever benevolent forces that were willing to listen that Ayyuppan would successfully guide her hands in the right direction. She ran past the cabinets she had watched the swift blade slip through the crevices of and turned to face whatever might await her on the other side.

Finally, after much tiring preamble, she stood directly in front of the treacherous perpetrator. Additionally, the wall behind them had nothing on it but what looked to be a control panel, meaning that they had no exits outside of the opening she was now blocking. The figure had no options left but to surrender or fight, and judging by the additional knives which they held in either hand, it looked like they had chosen the latter. 

“Hold on,” Vraxi stated before either of them began to charge at one another, “before we do this, I just have one question that I’d really like to know the answer to. That being, why do you feel the need to kill all these people? Like, I assume that you have to have a motive, right? But everyone who you’ve killed seems to be basically unrelated, so do you just like to murder people a lot? Is it just something that you really enjoy?”

The figure stayed silent and stood still, seemingly more still than Vraxi had ever seen them, almost paralyzed in their lack of perceivable motion.

“Very well then,” Vraxi commented, frustrated that she had been denied an answer to the query she assumed to be rather reasonable, “it looks like we’re doing this the hard way.”

Vraxi clenched the hilt of her blade once more and began to rush towards her vaguely humanoid target which, even in this moment, opted to stay entirely still. However, this pattern of avoiding movement came to a sudden halt when Vraxi tried to enact her first swing against this new opponent. In this tense but somewhat solemn moment, the figure nonchalantly blocked the sword’s path using nothing but the very tip of their left knife. Vraxi was shocked, she had always known that, in some way or another, she was very much outmatched by the figure’s expertise in the field of fighting, but she had still hoped that through nothing but her heroic gumption and belief in herself that she would be able to overcome this great hurdle. Nevertheless, she understood that very few duels had ever been decided by the very first move, so she swung again, and again, and again, every single time being effortlessly deflected by the figure’s seemingly puny daggers. Despite this, Vraxi refused to give up, trying to think about what Theta would do and coming to the conclusion that she had to put all her might into one final offensive. However, as she attempted to exert her entire weight onto the incoming attack, the figure turned to face her directly and grabbed ahold of the blade mid-assault, fully stopping her in her tracks. Their hands didn’t even get scratched in the process.

Vraxi felt utterly hopeless, like any remaining ideas she had of triumphing against the odds within this encounter had been drained from her head, leaving her with nothing but the familiar embrace of self-doubt. In this moment, as she stared directly into the void that made up the figure’s closest approximation of a face, she realized that she could no longer move her sword at all. However, the figure could still move it, and using this opportunity, they lifted Vraxi’s trusted blade into the air and threw it across the room. Vraxi watched as their only form of self-defense clattered against the floor, far from her reach, leaving her completely open to any attack, to any finishing blow which she assumed the figure would be more than willing to bestow upon her. 

The killer pulled out yet another knife from their seemingly endless collection and held it directly in front of Vraxi’s face. She didn’t want to die like this, there really weren’t many ways she wanted to die, but at a time like this, when she was still yet to help Theta complete their grand mission, she simply couldn’t believe that her life was fragile enough to be taken away so easily. The figure tightened their gloved hands around the dagger as Vraxi braced for a fate that seemed to be inevitable, a fate where she would be beheaded in a matter of seconds.

After many prolonged moments of anticipation, the knife finally left the figure's hand in a mighty throw. However, there was one slightly unusual aspect about this particular hurl, that being its atypical direction. Instead of barreling straight towards the somber face of Vraxi Nair, the figure aimed their knife to the left, specifically so that it would hit the control panel attached to the wall. 

Vraxi was confused. She was incredibly relieved, but she was confused nonetheless. Why would the figure do something like that? Weren’t they planning on killing her just then? Or were they still intending to murder her and all of this was just an elaborate fake-out. She really couldn’t be sure of anything, but as she reanalyzed what her fate might be now that she remained a living person, she took one final glimpse at the face of the killer. In that minuscule fraction of time, for just a half of a split-second, Vraxi spotted what looked to be glowing eyes hiding beneath the surface of the void. She didn’t know who it was, but there was definitely someone in there. However, before she could take a closer look, the lights went out, all the lights went out. The panel that the figure attacked had been in charge of lighting the entire building, and with it gone and the sun being far below the horizon, the condominium quickly became coated in a thick layer of darkness.

Given the opportunity to escape, Vraxi decided to crouch down and try to crawl out of the room, dearly hoping that she would remain undetected. Unfortunately for her, before she could even clear the first hallway, she felt a cold hand grasp the back of her neck and slowly lift her back up to a standing position. She could sense a slow but noticeable tightening being inflicted onto her throat, but before she could protest, the figure shocked her by finally starting to speak.

“Listen,” they said quietly but succinctly, “I understand what you are attempting to do. You have observed the terror I have brought to this city, and you have tried to end it, presumably by ending my life.”

“I was only planning on capturing you,” Vraxi clarified, “I wasn’t necessarily trying to kill you.”

“Huh,” the figure smirked under their cloak, “well maybe you should be. I would want to kill me if I were in your shoes.”

“Why would you say that?” Vraxi asked, beginning to grow confused as to what the figure’s motives were.

“Because I have done horrible, despicable things that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies. Furthermore, by attempting to end the reign of a villain like myself, you have proven to me that you deserve to be spared.”

“Hold on,” Vraxi asked, getting slightly louder in the process, “you still never answered my first question. Why do you keep on killing people? Especially if you don’t seem to like it?”

“Well,” they sighed, “that’s the thing, I don’t really have a choice in the matter.”

After providing Vraxi with this closing statement that gave her far more questions than answers, the figure seemed to disappear within the pitch black aether that now surrounded her. She was glad to be alive, but she was still very much perplexed as to what had just occurred. Regardless, after she found her sword laying on the ground, she picked herself up and began to make her way back to the lobby, hoping to regroup with the others on the way there.

At the exact moment in which Theta and Vraxi had left the corridor he was in, Diogo Celestino began to run through the options he now had regarding his newly mangled piece of experimental technology. Just by the looks of it, he wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to fix the broken magnakey within the short period of time he had allotted himself. The knife had truly entered at one of the worst possible angles, however, Diogo wasn’t willing to give up hope that easily. He began to carefully extract the blade from the weapon’s metallic surface, trying to avoid any further damage to its internal machinery in the process. All things considered, the actual removal of the knife was not a particularly difficult task, unfortunately, it’s completion presented a new, much less straight-forward task that Diogo was unsure how to deal with, that being, the process of actually repairing the part of the magnakey which the knife had effected.

Diogo’s face soon became plagued with a moderately puzzled expression. His machine’s wound was deep and unintuitive, leading him to question if he actually knew enough about how the magnakey worked to sufficiently repair it. He started to get worried again, worried that his inexperience could be costing the fate of the mission. Without him or Zapata contributing to their objective, he was basically leaving Vraxi alone to fight the murderer, a challenge which she was almost guaranteed to fail at without any additional help. He wasn’t even sure if a novice to the society like her could even walk out of that kind of encounter alive. In that moment, he realized that if anyone died on this mission, an entirely plausible possibility, that it would be all his fault. He couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t let them down, he couldn’t let another person go the way of Octávio.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice coming from behind Diogo.

“What?” he said in response. This one-word reply acted as both a display of shock and surprise as well as a request for clarification, as he genuinely couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Turn around,” the speaker said. Diogo, who was still stunned by the mere presence of the voice in the first place, swiftly obliged to this order.

Standing tall in front of the kneeling Diogo Celestino was a physically impossible sight, the visage of his old mentor and first friend within the Allodapos society, one Octávio Cavalcanti.

“But,” Diogo stated in disbelief, “this is impossible, are you even real?”

“Well,” Octávio replied with the same charm he had during his time amongst the living, “that depends on your definition of what ‘real’ is.”

“Fair enough, I guess, but why are you here? And right now of all times?”

“Well, let’s just say I have some vested interest in your success. Also, Orunmila doesn’t necessarily want to talk to you a lot of the time. He still feels like you haven’t proven that you deserve to be his avatar, however, somebody needs to help you when you’re struggling, and the person he decided to send happened to be myself.”

“Oh my god, Octávio, you’re alive, or, you’re not alive but we’re talking to each other, together once more. I never thought I’d get this opportunity, there’s so many things I need to tell you about, so many adventures I’ve been on since we went our separate ways. I need you to know that ever since you died, you’ve been my main inspiration in life, I really wouldn’t have been able to do the things I’m doing today if it weren’t for you, Octávio.”

“Speaking of which, how about we focus on the today, specifically the now, because I do not have very much time before I get launched out of this dimension and you don’t have very much time before this entire mission falls apart.”

“Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry, but when this is all over, we’ll catch up, right?”

“Sure we will, Diogo, if I can. Anyways, you still seem to be struggling with mastering the art of achieving a true state of focus on your own. So, for the time being, I’ll try to help you out a bit. After that, rebuilding the magnakey should be a piece of cake and you’ll be able to go right back into the fray. Okay?”

“Okay. So, what do you want me to do, Octávio?”

“It’s all honestly quite simple,” he said as held up his hand, “I simply require that you stare at my ring finger with a deep, inherent understanding. I need you to analyze and memorize every crack and crevice in the assorted folds of my skin. If you can do so within the ever-diminishing pool of time we have left, you should theoretically be able to reenter a true state of focus, where Orunmila’s eyes will be uninhibited by the natural fog of your human mind and you will, albeit briefly, be free to see things how they actually are, glimpsing back into the endless library of all wisdom.”

“Okay, alright, I think I can do that, it sounds pretty manageable,” Diogo said, quite stressed about the prospect of enteringing a focus state without his patron deity directly holding his hand. Sure, he had Octávio to assist him, but if anything, the sheer volume of questions he wanted to ask his old partner only made the process of limiting his perception to a singular subject even more difficult than it already was. Despite this, he knew that, at this particular junction, he really needed to just focus on Octávio’s finger and leave the limitless number of queries he had about the nature of his mentor’s partial return to Earth to be answered at a future date. For now, he had a set goal in mind, he just needed to focus.

Visually, there was nothing extraordinary about Octávio’s ring finger. It was trifurcated into three distinct segments which were each separated by an adjustable joint. It was also attached to a larger hand which, in fear that it might distract him from the focal point of his analysis, he largely ignored. Diogo did wonder, however, what the physical nature of Octávio’s finger might be. He had not yet made any tactile contact with this apparition and he was unsure if he had any sort of corporeal aspect. Diogo was tempted to ask but understood that now was not the time. But still, as he stared at the finger, he continued to wonder as to where it had been for the many years since he had last seen it. Diogo had only known Octávio for two weeks before he passed, but in that time, he had become absolutely enamored with his mentor’s way of life. He knew that he wanted to, some day, become a man like him, someone who was willing to risk it all for what he believed would improve the world as a whole. Now, Diogo was once again faced with this man who had changed the trajectory of his life so much, but at this moment, he had been denied a proper reintroduction. He just wanted to know more about Octávio, as he had based so much of his personal creed and mannerisms off the words and actions of this one man, but he couldn’t, he had to wait, for the good of the people he was trying to protect. He had spent the past decade of his life with his mind on Octávio. Now, all he had to do was focus on just one part of him.

After an indeterminate amount of time with his vision pointed squarely at the hand of Octávio, something finally clicked in Diogo’s mind, as if he had shifted into a higher gear of existence. Suddenly, his field of view which he had been trying to keep relatively small for the purpose of entering this new state of being became rather all-encompassing. He felt like he could read into the stories of every single surface in the room as if they were written down in front of him. He was in a state of true focus, where the entire world around him, a place which was usually brimming with uncertainties, now seemed rather compact and easy to conceptualize. Within this state, fixing the broken magnakey should be a task about as easy as tying one’s own shoes, Diogo could theoretically do it with his eyes closed as all of the knowledge he needed had now been unconsciously gathered into his mind. But as he began to adjust the positions of various cut wires, he noticed that there was one question still bouncing around in his head, a rather odd proposition but one which he still wanted an answer to. If he was able to peer into the deep history of any object that surrounded him merely by taking a glance at it, he could theoretically glean more information about his old partner if he briefly looked away from the magnakey and towards Octávio. It was a tempting idea, but one which he denied himself to take the privilege of. He didn’t have much time before Vraxi would be in serious trouble and his marvelous machine required a lot more work before it could become marvelous once more. But still, as he wrapped one wire around another, he couldn’t ignore the base emotions clawing at the most vulnerable corners of his mind. Theoretically, the amount of time it would take for him to look back up at Octávio would be very minimal, an amount of time which would likely have nothing to do with whether his companions live or die. Not to mention the fact that the stress building up inside of him from not glancing at the enticing secrets that Octávio held could very well be slowing the overall pace he was repairing at. Perhaps, in that sense, it would be the better decision, the wiser decision even, to take one small, momentary peek at the mystery of a man which stood before him. He carefully placed the screwdriver he had grabbed from his second fanny pack onto the ground below him, leaving only a small ways to go in fully mending his fractured weapon. Finally, he turned his head upwards to face directly in front of him and observed the world presented by this new perspective. 

What Diogo saw was both somewhat shocking and disappointing. As he stared at Octávio, a glaring feature of his appearance became immediately noticeable. While everything else which stood in the room, every wall, door, and square inch of carpeted flooring, seemed to have pages upon pages of information stored about them in the library of all things, the figure of Octávio, which seemed rather imposing from this new angle, had a quite baffling entry instead. It was completely blank. There was absolutely nothing to be learned about Octávio Cavalcanti. This was a strange, concerning, and genuinely unexplained postulation which Diogo simply failed to wrap his head around. Why did the all-knowing master of the universe seemingly have zero things to say about Octávio? This was a question he wanted answers to as soon as possible, but he began to realize that he would not be able to do such a thing as Octávio himself seemed to be fading out of view. He was almost out of time, and worse yet, the limitless supply of knowledge he had been using to repair the magnakey was starting to fade away as well. He needed to fix the mechanism now, but he was unsure if he would be able to do so in the few ounces of time he had left. He had already been successful in rebuilding the engine which actually created the explosions, but he was unable to do the same with the device that actually concentrated those blasts in the right direction. As he reattached the titanium shell and the grand library of the universe finished seeping out of his brain, he realized what he had just done. He had not repaired the magnakey, but he had created a quite powerful bomb.

Seemingly at the exact same moment in which Diogo had finished with his admittedly shoddy work, every light in the room, and presumably every light in the building, suddenly ceased to function. This was not a good sign. He needed to find the murderer as soon as possible, but as he hurried over to the door in which he last saw them leave, he felt something akin to a chilly wind passing through him, like some sort of divine messenger, or maybe a grim omen, indicating to him that the figure he seeked was positioned in the opposite direction. He decided to trust his gut and follow the new path, hoping that he would find the killer along the way and use his new weapon to assist in his tirade against them. 

At around the same point in time in which Theta had finally finished descending the long flight of stairs into the basement, the entire floor, which was already somewhat lacking in terms of well-distributed light sources, went dark. This was a rather concerning notion for Theta, as their model of suit-vac had had a lot of corners cut to ease mass production, meaning that they really couldn’t see very well in the dark. This made Theta vulnerable. Their all-important central computer was still haphazardly duct-taped onto their chest, without any form of additional protection to shield them from the potential attacks of a malicious interloper. Worse yet, they knew that within this building, and likely at a distance not very far from them, was someone who seemed to have no moral code against ending the lives of innocent people. The only thing protecting Theta was that, to the uninformed viewer, they were not a conscious being but instead a mere automaton which would theoretically provide zero joy to a serial killer in the event of their death. Still, Theta simultaneously understood that this murderer, this mysterious figure, was not a regular person, and might have some way to see through their facade. As a result, Theta really needed to get the lights back on, as the presence of visual stimuli was the only constant providing them with any sense of safety. Luckily, Theta knew a way to fix whatever issue was causing this lack of luminosity. They needed to reenter the codescape.

As Theta found themself losing contact with the physical world around them, they began to feel the comforting, reminiscent embrace of the digital expanse. Their harsh steel exterior was replaced with an ethereal film of wiry tendrils made of pure light, wrapping around each other to form loose approximations of limbs which all connected to a brilliant jewel where there camera lens once was. It was a place that Theta was always glad to return to but at the same time, it was typically a place they would only visit in times of need, such as their current, rather urgent situation. 

They observed as the vague lines of code from the various electronics that were incorporated into their surroundings compressed themselves into comprehensible ideas which further compressed themselves into tangible objects. Theta could see that the condominium was operating on a rather tight system of heavily interconnected programs. This was obvious to them as the entirety of the building's computational power was able to be stored in a digital representation that only amounted to the small room which Theta now occupied.

Even the room itself seemed to present a relatively straight-forward answer to Theta’s current problems. In front of them sat a medium-sized desk which occupied a space under a television screen that seemed to be broadcasting the location of themself via a security camera. On top the table sat a variety of miscellaneous items which all seemed to have some connection with a larger operating system within the building. There was a thermometer, a remote control, a Bunsen burner, a faucet connected to the adjacent wall, but most importantly for Theta’s presiding predicament, an inoperative lamp positioned next to a package of batteries. Theta quickly made the assumption that the lamp represented the whole of the condominium’s various lights and the batteries next to it represented any generators which could be redirected to a system with a non-functioning power source. 

Theta, who couldn’t help but point out the simplicity of this puzzle, then completed the elementary task of just replacing the batteries in the lamp. As a result, the lightbulb under the shade illuminated once more and Theta watched as the screen which displayed the physical world around them shifted to a brighter hue. Theta’s work was done here and they were ready to hop back into the material plane. However, an obnoxious but important thought yanked them out of this easy-going spirit. They still didn’t know where the murderer was, but theoretically, as long as they were quick with it, they could track down their location quite easily by just checking out the security footage they had now been provided with.

Theta grabbed the remote from the table and started to flip through the assorted channels, hoping to find any suspicious activity which they could pinpoint a location to. Unfortunately, as they did so, they kept on seeing the same thing, an empty hallway, an empty cafeteria, an empty hallway, an advertisement for light beer, an empty hallway, another empty hallway, nothing which seemed to be bringing them any closer to a succinct solution to their main source of distress. They really did want to find where the figure might be, because otherwise, they could be anywhere, doing anything to anyone, including one of their companions. But as they were about to give up on this fruitless quest, they spotted something strange. In the video feed displaying the lobby of the building, one of the few rooms they were actually familiar with the layout of, they spotted something flash across the corner of the screen. It looked to be a piece of red fabric. Theta couldn’t be sure of anything, but they also couldn’t afford to be unsure. They needed to believe, whether it was true or not, that the cloaked figure which they had grown to fear was now lurking within the building’s lobby.

However, before they left the codescape, they figured they might as well utilize this opportunity to remove any evidence of their rather suspicious appearance in the condominium by deleting the rest of the security footage. They quickly dismounted the television from the wall and threw it onto the ground, cracking the screen and ending the live feed of video.

As Theta poured their consciousness back into the cheaply-assembled hunk of metal which represented their sense of self on the material plane, they saw the familiar face of Vraxi Nair staring directly into their camera, presumably perplexed as to why they hadn’t been responding to them.

“Are you back online?” Vraxi asked after noticing one of the lights on the suit-vac flash green.

Theta nodded and made another brief grunt while pointing to the lobby on a nearby map of the building.

“They got there already?” Vraxi replied as she and Theta returned to the stairwell in an attempt to make it to the first floor before it was too late.

As they arrived at their desired floor and rushed into the nearest corridor, they saw the recognizable visage of Diogo Celestino charging towards them from the other direction with his technological marvel hoisted above his head.

“Hey guys,” he shouted from a considerable distance, “I wasn’t able to fix the magnakey fully, but it can still explode. We’ve only got one shot at this but I think we can catch them.”

“Wait,” Vraxi said as she realized the full breadth of what Diogo was suggesting. She knew very well at this point that the magnakey could kill people very easily. She also knew that the figure who the magnakey’s wrath was likely about to meet had done some truly terrible things during their time on Earth. However, Vraxi couldn’t ignore the fact that there were a large number of things she didn’t know. She was still confused as to who the figure was and why they had done these gruesome acts of violence in the first place. She was also still thinking about the brief conversation they had had with them. Based on what they told her, they didn’t seem to be fully in control of their own actions, like something, or someone, was pulling them at the strings, causing them to commit immoral crimes on their behalf. But also, they seemed happy when someone tried to end their life. Perhaps, they were looking for an escape, and while it might be bloody and unceremonious, the magnakey could allow them to finally see peace. “Actually, nevermind,” Vraxi said as she met Diogo in the middle of the hallway, all three of them turning to the final stretch of floor space before the entrance to the lobby.

As Vraxi arrived through the doorway, she saw two people inside the room. She did not see a single face. On the left, she saw the cloaked figure whose head had long been masked by whatever supernatural force was allowing them to enact their killing spree. On the right, she saw Omar, the receptionist, keeled over on the table he resided at, without a head in sight, fully and completely dead. They were too late to save a life, but the figure still stood there. They had no eyes but Vraxi knew they were staring at her.

“You fucking killed him!” Diogo exclaimed at the perpetrator. He hadn’t been fast enough, he had been too distracted, so focused on the mysteries of his past that he forgot to pay attention to the urgent call of the present. Omar was now a lost cause, but he needed to prevent the next death. He held the magnakey high above him and pressed both of its buttons before launching it across the room at the individual he had grown to deeply despise.

Vraxi watched as the bomb landed inches away from where the figure stood and for a brief second, felt the suspicion that this blast might not be the end of things. Suddenly, after a few moments of silence, the magnakey detonated, creating a cloud of smoke and dust which obscured her view of what it was destroying in the process. When the ashes finally settled, she saw that the explosion had created a large hole in the adjacent wall. However, what she did not see, even as she and the others moved closer to the wreckage, was a corpse.

“I think they disappeared, somehow,” she stated in a somber but painfully honest voice.

“No,” Diogo responded, “we can’t just let them get away like that. They have to still be in the building, right? You still have your sword, there’s a way where we can still win this one.”

Before Vraxi could even come up with an appropriate reply, all three of them began to hear the sounds of police sirens paired with the clamor of noticeably approaching footsteps. 

“We have to get out of here,” Vraxi said as she took her first step through the newly created chasm in the building’s exterior. The others followed, thoroughly defeated.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Emiliano Tochihuitl was on his computer, scrolling through the news to see if anything vaguely interesting had happened recently. He was generally the kind of person who tried to stay informed over what was happening in the world, however, he was also the kind of person who was currently engrossed in an unbearable amount of work at his job, so he hadn’t checked out very many of the newest articles in the Mansoura Post. As he checked the local news column, he was disappointed to see that the inevitable had occurred, the murderer who took the life of his beloved former supervisor, Dr. Omran, had accrued yet another victim. He skimmed through the report, like he had skimmed through many before it, and while the details were always different, the conclusion was always the same. The authorities were unable to identify the culprit. 

He slinked back in his chair, the combined pressure of his diminishing time left on his project at Sunduq-Aljinat, the assorted difficulties in preparing the upcoming funeral, and the general state of cautious panic that was sweeping over the city he lived in was causing him to be gently pushed out of his typical, more optimistic demeanor. However, before he closed the tab and headed out for another day of hard labor in the lab, a headline which was being recommended to him at the bottom of the page caught his eye.

‘Mornminster Thirty Remain Missing’ it read. He recognized the name of the university, being the one in which his sister once attended and was somewhat morbidly curious to see what had happened. According to the article, it seemed like thirty students who had been attending a party about a week prior all suddenly disappeared without a trace. Apparently, multiple search parties had been trying to find them within the Novaplex and even the surrounding countries but they had all turned up fruitless. Coincidentally, the author mentioned, this had all occurred at around the same time in which the Singularity seems to have disappeared, however the official statement from the GüdTek corporation was that the program just needed a little more time before it could be released to the public. When he got to the end of the story, he saw a list which contained the names of all those who had gone missing. He was about to close his laptop as he really needed to get to work when he saw one particular name which caused him to do a double take in the total whiplash it caused him.

Zapata Tochihuitl. He couldn’t believe it. His very own sister, the woman who was currently sleeping on the couch across from him, was currently embroiled in something which he couldn’t even begin to unpack. That explains why she would want to leave wherever she had been staying the week prior to sleep over at his place. He was at least glad to know that he could be providing a service to her. He wanted to have a brief conversation with her about whatever issues she had been facing but he really didn't want to be late to work and he also didn’t want to induce any additional stress into Zapata’s situation, which he assumed had to be quite stressful already, whatever it may be. So instead, he grabbed a sticky note, wrote ‘I heard you went missing, I won’t tell anyone anything’ on it, and placed the message onto his coffee table, all before grabbing an umbrella and rushing out the door.

As Emiliano hurried to his lab at Sunduq-Aljinat with mere seconds to spare before he would be deemed late, he stopped when he saw his sole lab partner staring through the window and into the middle distance, past the sheets of precipitation that were currently entrenching the metropolis around them. He thought it was slightly odd that Aisha would still be standing around in the hallway when the workday was just about to start, it was a little out of character for her. He approached the stretch of floor which she stood on at the same time at which the clock doomed both of them to the status of being late.

“Hey,” he said, meaning to start a jovial conversation which he hoped could segway them into another productive day of research and development.

“It’s raining,” she said, failing to provide Emiliano with a direct response to his greeting while simultaneously providing an indirect response that was somewhat illuminating on its own.

“It sure is. Speaking of which, I should really get a new umbrella, my current one is sort of falling apart,” he said as he held up his damaged parasol, however, Aisha didn’t change the direction of her vision in response. She just kept on looking through the window.

“Y’know, it isn’t supposed to rain in Mansoura. We’re in a hot desert on the Köppen Climate Classification. Naturally, we should only be getting like two inches per year. But yet, somewhere along the line, a group of people with enough power and support decided that they wanted rain anyways. So they got the greatest scientists in the world to gather in their city and work on a solution to their plight. And after a sufficient amount of time and effort, they worked out a way to bend the clouds around them to their will. Of course, the environment wasn’t designed for so much rain, so now we see the Nile flooding far more frequently than ever before. Luckily for the policy makers, they already slapped a bunch of scientists into their city for the last project, so getting them to fix the flooding shouldn’t be an issue. And when whatever solution they come up with inevitably causes even more inadvertent problems, they’ll just make another committee, start another project, and allow the cycle to continue once more.”

“Um, alright, I think I’ve heard that story at some point in the past, albeit in a slightly less cynical tone.”

“Do you even get it, Emiliano?” She said before taking a sip from her coffee, “No matter how good of a scientist you are, no matter how brilliant of a mind you achieve, people like us will always be the pawns in some machination being controlled from far above us. We are being hoisted by the strings to do the bidding of people whose knowledge in the sciences amount to a tiny fraction of our understanding. We’re all just brains in jars, being shaken around until we vomit out an answer to the world’s worst questions. I don’t know if free will exists, but at this point, I think we’ve renounced the right to it.”

“But, Aisha,” Emiliano stated in a quieter tone of voice than before, “we’re doing good work here. We’re solving a problem that the world needs an answer to. I understand the issues you’ve been talking about but I don’t see how they’re relevant here.”

“Emiliano, Dakhalia wouldn’t need superpollinators if our completely unpredictable weather patterns didn't force all of our agriculture to be done underground. All the effort we’ve put into perfecting these bees is just another side effect of a handful of government officials and corporate donors thinking it would be cooler if Mansoura was a bit less warm, combined with their insidious attempts to cover up all of the issues this change created in order to maintain their veneer of respectability in front of the public.”

“Aisha, and I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but are you quitting?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I ask what pushed you over the edge.”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t think there was one particular thing that caused me to reconsider my relationship with this company. Rather, I think it was a combination of little things, a million tiny blades being stabbed into my back until it just became too difficult to manage anymore. I really just haven’t been feeling in control of my own life lately and the fact that I’ve been working for a company designed to fix an entirely preventable problem, which in the process will likely cause another entirely preventable problem, it really hasn’t been helping. So, I think I’m done here for good. Not to mention how Dr. Omran’s death really only made things worse. It sort of became hard to justify my own actions when I was no longer being guided by someone I felt a genuine bond with.”

“You’re still attending her funeral, right?”

“Yes, Emiliano, there are truly very few things in the world that would ever cause me to miss it.”

“Okay, that’s good. Well, I guess I better head to the lab now, completely by myself.”

“Now would be the perfect time to leave yourself.”

“I appreciate the gesture, Aisha, but there are far too many people relying on my work right now for me to stop now.”

Zapata woke up later than usual. However, it was hard to differentiate between late and early at this point considering how much her sleep schedule had been messed with lately, not to mention how she had been pulled from one disparate timezone to another in the process, creating a general haze of inconsistency in her relationship with the concept of time. Nevertheless, she was feeling a little hungry and she knew that Emiliano kept multiple boxes of sugary cereal in his apartment at all times, boxes which she was in the mood to tear open and feast upon the innards of. But before she could arrive at the cabinet in which her future banquet lay dormant, she saw something on the table beside her which subtlety piqued her interest enough to pause her quest for sustenance. It was a yellow sticky note written in Emiliano’s handwriting, presumably with one of those overpriced gel pens he so adored. She held it up a few inches away from her face and felt her heart drop when she finally read the text inscribed upon it.

Zapata was officially a missing person. Vraxi, she soon found out while reading an article about the subject, was also an officially missing person. Diogo, she assumed, had probably been presumed dead years ago at this point, just considering his field of work. Either way, what mattered most to her was that Emiliano of all people knew about this. Emiliano knew that there was something off about her, that she wasn’t fully who she framed herself to be, that she was hiding some vital piece of information to him. Zapata didn’t want to ever tell Emiliano about Theta, or the Allodapos Society, or her strange relationship with Sanata Muerte. She wanted those things to be part of a bygone era, a part of her past which was, while quite eventful, very brief and a very poor representation of what her life would be as a whole. She wanted to leave all of these things behind, but the sheer scale of what she was trying to run from made that a very difficult task. 

Zapata didn’t want to believe the reality that Emiliano had even the smallest clue as to what might have happened to her since they had last met. So, as she looked back at the sticky note, she crumpled it into a tight ball within her hand and threw it into the nearest trash can. Now, she thought, there was no physical evidence of Emiliano having knowledge of her own hidden past. In fact, there was no physical evidence that that past was even correct or true in any sense. Zapata was completely comfortable with the idea of living within her own delusions as long as it meant living a perfectly normal and acceptable life. As long as she could prevent Emiliano from questioning her any further, she would never have to acknowledge that anything weird ever happened at all.

Within the headquarters of the Allodapos Society’s MENA wing, Vraxi, Diogo, and Theta were all sitting at a table across from the slightly disappointed but not all surprised Malik Tharwat.

“So,” he said, “you were not able to capture the figure at any point during your mission.”

“No,” Vraxi replied, “but I’d argue that we did get quite close at times.”

“Also,” Diogo added, “we were definitely able to gather more information on their strengths and weaknesses. Well, mainly just their strengths but that’s still important knowledge.”

“Very well,” Malik continued, “but I must ask, do you two genuinely believe that you have the ability within you to successfully detain the killer at some point in the near future?”

“Well,” Vraxi responded, “it would help if we had another person on our side, especially someone with more combat experience than either of us. We were sort of relying on Zapata before but she seems to be on hold for now so we’d need to find someone new.”

“I second that proposal,” Diogo stated as Theta nodded in agreement.

“I mean,” Malik replied, “that’s a lot easier said than done. The whole reason why I appointed you three to this assignment was because you all are uniquely gifted in a way which could help you deal with the killer’s similarly unique methods. I don’t have a massive database of people with supernatural abilities who are willing to help me on something like this.”

“Hold on,” Diogo asked, “do you know anyone with a supernatural ability who could be willing to help? Because we’ll take anybody.”

“Well, admittedly, I am passingly familiar with a handful of individuals. However, most of them are far too bogged down with their own personal journeys to ever consider joining a mission like this one. Well, okay, there is one person, but they’d probably expect payment of some kind for an operation like this one.”

“Well that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, I’m sure we could expense someone like that for what should be a theoretically short mission if everything goes to plan.”

“Diogo, you of all people should know that we don’t just have a vast holding of funds lying around here. We are operating on a tight, but incredibly efficient, budget, and I’m not exactly sure what the person I have in mind might charge for their services but it isn’t a small sum.”

“But,” Vraxi proposed, “there shouldn’t be any harm in asking them, right? Maybe we could come to a mutual agreement and get them to join the team on a significantly more affordable fee if we just explain to them the problem we’re facing.”

“I mean, yes, hypothetically you three could try to come to an agreement with them, but the price isn’t my only concern regarding their involvement.”

“What’s the other caveat then?”

“I don’t… like them. I think they’re annoying, and loud, and the few times where I’ve had to work directly with them have universally been painful and unrecommendable experiences.”

“Hold on,” Diogo chimed in, slightly frustrated, “that’s no reason to deny the help of someone who could finally end the terror this city is at constant threat of. What’s their name, anyways? At this point I’m fully convinced that we need them on our side if we ever want to catch this guy.”

“Fine, okay, they go by the name of Shui Hailang,” Malik said as he pulled out their business card from his desk drawer, “I’m pretty sure they’re still here in Mansoura but they’ll likely be leaving soon so you might want to call to see when they’re available. Now get out of my-”

“Hey,” Diogo said into his phone on speaker as he had already begun to call the number on the card before Malik could even finish his sentence, “is this Shui Hailang?”

“Yes?” the voice behind the phone responded, “How did you get my number? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m glad you asked, my name is Diogo Celestino and I’m here on behalf of the Allodapos Society.”

“Wait, you’re one of those Allodapos agents? Is Malik on the line?”

“Please, Mx. Shui,” Malik responded, “just call me Mr. Tharwat, it’s far more professional that way.”

“Oh my god, Malik, I didn’t think I’d get to talk to you so soon. Honestly, based on the way you were acting around me last time, I thought you would never ask me to join you on a mission ever again.”

“ I am not asking you to do anything. However, some of my subordinates wanted to seek your help on a particularly difficult case.”

“Yeah, um,” Vraxi chimed in, “we were, hold on, I’m Vraxi by the way, we were wondering if we could meet in person to discuss the details. We’re trying to see if we can catch that serial beheader that’s been killing all those people as of late and we thought that you could really help us in doing so.”

“Oh,” Hailang responded, “I’d love to help catch that guy, you honestly should’ve tried calling me sooner. Thursday works for me.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“I’d be willing to meet with you all on Thursday.”

“I mean, I’d like to do so as early as possible.”

“And I’m busy tomorrow, so we can meet on Thursday. Alright, thanks for the conversation, byyyyyyye.”

“You can see why I didn’t really like them all that much,” Malik commented as Hailang left the call.

“I thought they were nice,” Diogo commented in response.

At around 9 PM that same day, Aisha Abdulaziz was walking through a poorly lit alleyway in the outskirts of the city. She took a deep breath before the hour hand on her wrist watch arrived at that fated point in time. She could feel her heart rate speed up, the blood within her veins accelerating into top gear, a steady flow of adrenaline being released inside her brain. It was happening yet again, she could feel the curse overtaking her body. She felt a sense of warmth as a cloak materialized from the aether around her and onto her corpus, but this coincided with a sense of deep coldness stemming from inside her heart. It was not an unfamiliar feeling at this point, however, it wasn’t a feeling she had gotten used to either. As she finally began to reacclimate to her altered perception, she started to hear a voice she had heard on many nights like this one before. It was rough and coarse, but almost shrill in its high pitch, the whole time exuding a sense of confidence someone could only attain if they had already achieved immortality.

“Good evening, Aisha Abdulaziz, the night calls one more.”

“Hello, Thabr. Let’s get this over with quickly.”

“I see you seem to have adapted quite well to your new role over the past few weeks.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Many of my avatars before you refused you to ever partake in my grim work so easily. However, I guess that just proves my inclinations that you are the perfect human for this job.”

“What are you trying to imply, Thabr? I don’t like killing people. Unlike you, I derive pleasure from things that don’t actively harm people. The only reason I’ve been doing all of this is because you’ve literally been forcing my hand.”

“Perhaps, then, your willpower merely isn’t strong enough. Or perhaps, somewhere, deep inside of your psyche, underneath layers and layers of polite presentation, things that society has taught you to be, are your primal, base urges, the urge that tells you to hurt , the feeling of pure ecstasy that comes from seeing the life drain out of someone’s eyes and knowing that you did it. If that’s the case, then we are truly operating on the same wavelength, my entire domain is built upon the euphoria of pain, and at this point, that seems like a subject you are quite well versed in.”

“Shut up! Just, shut up, okay? Listen, I’m killing person after person, just like you’re telling me to, and I know very well that my actions are totally inexcusable at this point. However, I have gone through far too much suffering on your hands for you to then inflict even more suffering onto me through your stupid fucking lectures! ”

“Very well then, we might as well commence tonight’s hunt. I was thinking we go for someone particularly innocent, maybe a child of some sort, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to see some genuine infantocide.”

“Thabr, we already agreed that, after all the work I’m putting into easing this process for you, I at least get to choose the victim.”

“Alright, then who did you have in mind?”

“Well it turns out that it’s hard to justify killing basically anyone in this city outside of myself, so I sort of just have to wing it yet again.”

“For someone who claims to be against the proposition of killing more people, you seem to be offly opposed to ending your own life. I mean, theoretically, wouldn’t that end the apparent ‘moral conflict’ you are facing.”

“I’ve tried , Thabr. But your mystical forces keep stopping me from doing so. I’d rather die than continue living like this but I don’t have an option in the matter.”

“But, Aisha, I am a harbinger of pain, I would never prevent you from inflicting that delightful emotion unto yourself. Whatever was stopping you wasn’t me, it was you, a deeper version of you with a better picture of your true intent in this world.”

“Stop it! Okay? Stop it! I refuse to listen to your stupid lies. I’m just gonna go and behead someone right now so that you can get out of my head as quickly as possible,” saying this, Aisha tried to survey her surroundings for any sort of human cohabitation. Peering inside the various windows assorted within this quieter part of town, she was having trouble discerning the presence of any potential victims until she spotted a lone silhouette through the foggy glass of a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar. She took yet another deep breath and allowed for the cloak of her demonic patron to envelop and camouflage her appearance once more before taking a cautious step inside the establishment. 

“Oh, hello,” the bartender said as Aisha entered the building. She was the only person in the room outside of herself and, depending on your definition of person, Thabr. This was both bad news and good news. Whenever Aisha entered a room with multiple potential victims, she could at least choose to end the life of the person who seemed to be the least morally upstanding, either that or just the person who statistically had the smallest amount of life left to live. She did not have this privilege within the scenario she presently occupied, but there was an upside to her being alone in the room with the person she was about to kill. When she would inevitably end the life of the human being standing across from her, the scream they let out in their moment of passing, that terrible scream which Aisha had grown all too accustomed to, would not be something made all the more uncomfortable for her via the attendance of equally shocked spectators.

The actual act of the beheading was quite quick, however, it couldn’t be considered painless by any of the parties involved except for maybe Thabr.

“Ah,” the demon remarked as Aisha staggered out the door of the now empty pub, “wasn’t that just a beautiful sight to see? The endless worries of your pitiful brain being rightfully overridden by the simple and true nature of steel pressed against flesh. It’s honestly poetic in a sense.”

“If that’s the case, I would really rather prefer my life be told in a digestible and unimaginative prose. Now get out of my head already, I killed the fucking bartender and I’d like to get some actual sleep for once.”

“Oh, Aisha,” Thabr said as his hellish visage began to appear in the reflection of one of the many closed shops, “I find it so funny that you ask me to get out of your head. Because, truly, I never leave. In a more basic sense, I am a part of you, I reside within you, Aisha Abdulaziz. I reside within everyone, at the deepest, darkest, soggiest corners of humanity’s id, you can find me toiling away at what truly makes you human. Pain, as well as the inherent desire to inflict it on others, are what have made you the dominant species. Yet, for some ignorant reason, you reject this desire, brand it evil and deranged, when you know that accepting it could lead you to unseen levels of prosperity.”

“Leave, Thabr. Please.”

“I will, I will, I just want to depart with something for you to chew on. Typically, my relationships with mortals do not last very long, they tend to either end their lives out of self sacrifice for their idea of what is just, or, they go mad, and inevitably end their lives through some careless accident. Either way, that leaves you, Aisha, as the outlier, and I really don’t want to squander your massive potential on reaping merely one soul every evening. I have far bigger plans for you, but at least for now, they can wait a little. You’ll have to see for yourself what wonderful things are to come.”

Thabr did not give Aisha time to respond before disappearing from sight. She was instead tasked with the grueling act of trying to avoid thinking about anything he just said to her. She truly despised every aspect of her current situation.

Early the next morning, after a night’s rest that only amounted to about 45 minutes of genuine sleep, at a time in which she would typically be clocking into work, Aisha walked inside an empty, closed cafe. 

“Hello,” she said, her voice echoing across the vacant surfaces of the room’s interior, “um, I’m here to talk with you. I heard that you might be able to help me with the issue I’m currently facing. Well, I saw the note written on my apartment’s wall in what looked to be blood a few days ago and it listed out this address. I’m pretty desperate, if you couldn’t tell. I’m willing to sell my soul if needs be, I mean, I’ve already sorta given it out for free at this point.”

Aisha’s introduction was met with a disappointing silence that lasted for far too many seconds before it was finally interrupted by what sounded like an air vent opening, a noise which coincided with a layer of smoke inseminating the atmosphere. She let out a couple of coughs as the vapors briefly entered her lungs and watched as the fog slowly cleared to reveal the outline of a man wearing what appeared to be a bowler. The man walked forward, his featheary, almost wispy facial hair bobbing up and down as he strode towards Aisha and took a seat at the nearest table. Aisha pulled out a chair positioned opposite to him and slumped down upon its unexpectedly truncated low point.

“Hello,” she began, “it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Aisha Abdulaziz but I’m pretty sure you already know that.”

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m sorry I had to make this meeting so difficult for you, I’ve been having a good deal of trouble acclimating to this new position I’ve been occupying.”

“You’re definitely not alone in that one. But before we continue, I don’t think I ever got your name.”

“Oh, you’re right, sorry. I am Joey Agbayani Axelrod, the newest avatar of Lucifer. That’s still a little weird to say out loud. Anyways, according to my knowledge, you’re currently working with one of his aspects.”

“Yes, his name is Thabr and he is a terrible, horrible man. However, I don’t know if I could really call it a working relationship. I am being actively forced to do his bidding and, sadly, his bidding requires me to murder innocent people quite frequently.”

“Well that sucks. Luckily, it’s also where I come in. Both of us have big problems, Aisha. You need somebody, anybody, who is morally reprehensible enough for you to kill without feeling like you have done something incredibly wrong. While on the other hand, I have a couple of people who I really need to be killed,” Joey said as he placed three headshots onto the table labeled Vraxi, Diogo, and Zapata, “these are the people who took everything away from me, including my own life. But through the will of the universe, I have been given a second chance to enact my revenge against them, and I need your help to do so.”

“Woah,” Aisha said as she stared down at the trio of images, “I recognize all of these people.”

“Really? That’s amazing! Do you have any intel on them? Like where they might be located? I know they’re all in the city but I’ve been having trouble tracking down an exact position.”

“Well, I do actually know where one of them, Zapata, will be later today. But, there’s a problem.”

“And what could that possibly be?”

“They’re my coworker’s sister.”

“Oh, yikes. A personal connection, huh? Well, listen, I understand that you might be cautious in taking the life of someone who someone you care about cares about. But also, I don’t think you understand the full perspective, specifically my perspective. Hold on, do you think you could shake my hand?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just grasp my hand and give it a firm shake. I’ve been testing out something recently and want to try it out on someone.”

“Okay, I guess,” Aisha said as she grabbed the outstretched hand of Joey who responded by giving it a rigorous jostling.

“Now, I want you to see what I see.”

Suddenly, the power of Lucifer as channeled through Joey Axelrod overtook the mind and body of Aisha Abdulaziz. She could feel herself entering a trance-like state as she started to lose her sense of hearing, followed by her sight, followed by her tactility. She felt like she had been ripped away from whatever cord kept her in a constant link with reality as she felt whatever remained of her sentience drifting on an unknown course through the unknowable void. At the end of it all, the only things she could still perceive were the presence of two individuals. On one side, there was Thabr, the reprehensible demon that had molded her into the weapon she had become and simultaneously despised. On the other side, was Zapata, a person she knew relatively little about outside of Emiliano’s word of mouth. She could feel the two entities moving around her, spinning in unison as whatever was left of the outside world revolved in on itself within Aisha’s soul. It was a mind-bending experience, something that left her without any words but with a plethora of unexplainable emotions. Passion and love and anger and hatred all melted together until the concepts which those words represented no longer had any discernible meanings to her. Somewhere along the way, within the cosmic dance occurring in her mangled psyche, she noticed that a shift had happened in the performance. There was only one performer, continuing with their pirouettes all the same but doing so under an unclear identity. All she could tell about the dancer before her was that, within this world of undefinable feelings, she felt a singular feeling regarding them. Loathing. She loathed the dancer, she loathed Thabr, and, after seeing the world through the eyes of Joey Axelrod, she was willing to loathe Zapata as well. The world around her was a scary place, but she was willing to use her loathing as a candle to illuminate the path towards redemption.

In a moment as sudden as the one which caused her to leave, Aisha was forcefully pulled back into reality, back into the cafe, and back beside Joey Axelrod, a man who she now felt like she understood on a much deeper level than before.

“I’m going to do it,” she stated.

“You’re gonna kill Zapata?”

“I feel bad for Emiliano, but with all the power I’ve been provided, I can’t just let someone like that live. Tonight, me and her will both enter the Damietta Grand Mosque to attend a funeral. Consequently, tonight, Zapata will die.”

Chapter Text

It was Wednesday evening. Zapata was trailing behind her brother as the two of them made their way to the funeral. She still hadn’t brought up the topic of the sticky note to Emiliano and she definitely didn’t feel like bringing it up now. To her, the issue of her missing person status was a problem that would be dealt with only when it became directly relevant, and if her past never decided to come back to haunt her, then she would simply never address it. She wasn’t one to lie to someone like Emiliano, but this wasn’t necessarily a lie, she was just setting up a boundary for herself, marking a matter of conversation to not be worried about. Besides, Emiliano seemed to have plenty to worry about already. She knew that, ultimately, he would be able to understand and support her if she told him the full story about her disappearance, but also, she didn’t want to add yet another stressor to his life. Perhaps, at a time in the significantly distant future, when both of their lives sailed on calmer tides, she would tell him everything, but as things stood now, it was a conversation non grata.

However, no matter the degree to which she refused to speak about her experiences with Vraxi, Diogo, and Theta, she couldn’t stop thinking about them. Despite all the disdain she had grown for the two humans on her former team, she was still somewhat concerned about their well-being. Not to mention the issue of Theta, who seemed to be quite distressed when she last saw them. Luckily, if she ever did want to check in on them, she had the option, she knew where the three of them were located and could, theoretically, travel to where they were if it ever seemed necessary. However, at the moment, she was relatively content in ignoring their existence entirely, she had much more important things to be paying attention to.

The design of the city around her kept the mosque she was traveling towards mainly out of view until it was quite close. When she was finally able to see it in full, it’s appearance surprised her. The left half of the building appeared to be severely damaged, with crumbling walls of collapsing rubble that heavily contrasted with the relatively pristine right half. Even more concerning was what the debris seemed to be a result of, in the center of it all was a large, steel torpedo, a colossal weapon of war which was able to tear through this once indomitable marvel of architecture. The most perplexing aspect of the entire scene, however, was not the building itself but how the people around her seemed to be reacting. Nobody looked to be as alarmed as she was. Even her brother, who she assumed would have quite an emotive reaction to the destruction presented before him, seemed to be acting as if it was entirely unworthy of his attention. With her background in visualistic post-sociology, this whole situation felt quite poignant in her mind, but she had no idea what the context could possibly be.

“Hey Emiliano,” she began to ask, “what the hell happened here?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a giant missile just laying there in the middle of the building.”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you about that. That thing’s been sitting there for the past forty years or so.”

“Then… Why is it still here?”

“Well, as you know, on 6/29, better known as just doomsday nowadays, the nukes finally dropped, with a handful being sent over here to Dakhalia. One of them, often believed to be of the very first few to hit the ground, crashed into the Damietta Grand Mosque, which at the time was actually much smaller. But as the story goes, unbeknownst to the world’s leaders, a group of undercover hacktivists had already disabled the entire world’s nuclear arsenal about six years prior, preventing the Earth from destroying itself. Still, a lot of people died regardless, bombs of that size and quantity are going to cause damages whether or not they actually explode. So, in order to commemorate all the lives which were lost on that most terrifying day in world history, as well as the specific lives of the worshippers killed within that building, instead of simply rebuilding the mosque to look the same as before, the urban planners decided to build around the wreckage, leaving it as a reminder to the world as to what could happen if we refuse to learn from the past.”

“Oh, that’s an interesting way to memorialize things.”

“Yeah, but at least for tonight, we have someone else to memorialize.”

Aisha arrived at the mosque in her best funeral attire. Admittedly, her best was likely placed at a much lower standard than the bests of others, as a variety of factors in her life had made regularly washing her clothes a somewhat difficult task. Regardless, it was the thought that counted in the end, and she was having many thoughts about the funeral she was presently attending. Most of these thoughts were directly related to how she was the one who had actually killed Dr. Omran, the esteemed individual to whom this entire event was being held for and a strong pillar in the community considering how many of her acquaintances had come to celebrate the legacy of her life.  

Aisha, unsurprisingly, felt rather guilty about all of this. But to her defense, it wasn’t like she was in full control when she killed Dr. Omran. Rather, she had simply made the mistake of staying far too late in the lab. As a result, when the violent urges that Thabr forced into Aisha’s brain finally became too strong to ignore any further, she had already been trapped within an office that was practically empty save for the unfortunate presence of her incredibly dedicated supervisor who never seemed to leave it.

Aisha still remembered the face of Dr. Omran as she brought her knife up to the decorated academic’s neck. It wasn’t something she really had the capability to forget. She had stared down into the soul of many an unfortunate victim at that point in her grim career, but none of them reacted the way that Omran did. Instead of looking back in terror or sorrow or even a righteous anger, she looked plainly at Aisha with a countenance that displayed nothing more than disappointment, like she had expected better of her prodigious pupil than to stoop to something as low as homicide. In that brief moment, Aisha felt restraint, a force pulling away from her hand, a call to reason which prevented her from continuing the ceaseless violence that Thabr desperately wanted her to continue with. For a brief period in time, everything was still, every sound was silent, every face turned a blind eye to her actions and she was left alone to ponder her own role in the narrative of her beloved mentor. She wanted to apologize, to explain to her the endless complexity of her situation, Dr. Omran was always eager to discover new things about the world, even when they were far outside of her field of study, and Aisha knew that she would find the true story behind their predicament incredibly fascinating. But sadly, silence cannot last forever, and Aisha soon found herself bowing down to the will of Thabr yet again. Another life was taken, another weight was put on Aisha’s conscience, another step in the cycle was complete, allowing for everything to repeat itself once more.

Aisha was quickly ripped away from her solemn moment of reflection when she heard the rapidly approaching footsteps and varied greetings of her former coworker. She looked over to see Emiliano waving his hand at her with unnecessary speed while he used his other hand to hold some kind of rectangular prism wrapped in foil.

“Hey, Aisha!” He said in a voice which he soon realized was slightly too loud for his current setting, “what are you doing just standing there?”

“Oh, um, I guess I was just thinking about Dr. Omran. I may have spaced out a little in the process.”

“Oh sorry,” he said, slightly frustrated at his own actions, “I should’ve been more polite. It’s just, lately I’ve been thinking so much about how to plan this funeral that I’ve been having trouble with actually thinking about the deceased. I feel like my mind has sort of unconsciously separated the two inherently related topics.”

“Yeah, I get that, I guess,” Aisha paused for a bit, “so, what are you holding?”

“Oh, this thing?” Emiliano replied, lifting up the only thing that Aisha could possibly be talking about, “It’s a casserole I made. I found a recipe on the hypernet and Omran was always encouraging me to experiment more in the kitchen so I decided to give it a try.”

“Wait, were we supposed to bring food?”

“Well, no, but I thought that some people might want to bring some anyway and I got worried about coming here empty-handed.”

“Emiliano, you are the only person who brought food. The sun is completely down, everyone’s eaten already.”

“Fuck, should I have left the casserole at home?”

“I mean, probably, there isn’t really anywhere to put it, and don’t you have a speech coming up pretty soon?”

“That is a true fact, um, well, I guess I can just hand it off to someone else. Zapata?” he called out and gestured to his sister behind him who ran over to his side in response, “can you hold this? I don’t really have anywhere to drop it off and I’m gonna have to head over to the podium soon.”

“Um,” Zapata began, “sure, but shouldn’t there be a table somewhere? I thought this was supposed to be a potluck.”

“It isn’t, I was just stupid and was overthinking things and now I have a casserole that lacks a purpose. I’ll probably just heat it up for dinner tomorrow but I’m gonna need you to hold on to it for now.”

“Alright then.”

As Emiliano handed off the dish to his sister, Aisha observed the interaction in a sort of curious horror. She knew that there was something deeply wrong about Zapata, some inherent wickedness bubbling beneath the thin facade of her own skin. Aisha understood that she could no longer really hold the title of being a good person, but as she stared directly at Zapata, she was able to recognize a soul even more wretched than her own. The most terrifying aspect of it all, however, was that she wasn’t even sure exactly what Zapata had done, she just knew, or rather, she faithfully believed, that Zapata had committed something atrocious in her past, something she was trying to hide from the world. The disconcerting truth that Joey had shown her was inherently complex, but it at least allowed her to experience a comforting feeling. She knew that on this night, she would not have to feel bad about killing anyone. 

“Oh,” Zapata continued as Emiliano ran off in some unknown direction, causing her to shift focus to the plotting scientist, “hey Aisha. It’s a pretty nice night out tonight, huh.”

“It is, Zapata,” Aisha replied, almost shaking from the stress she was feeling. She typically tried to avoid having conversations with her victims-to-be but the prison of politeness was forcing her to respond to this maniac.

“Looks like the moon’s pretty big in the sky, it seems to be one of those- what do you call the opposite of a crescent?”

“Gibbous,” she responded immediately. It appeared to her that Zapata was attempting to hide her malevolence behind an intricate masquerade, making her seem clueless when she was truly two steps ahead at all times. Aisha was glad that she had noticed this detail, proving to her that minoring in psychology was not a waste, but she started to worry that she was perhaps too comfortable in her assessments. If Zapata was truly the evil mastermind that Aisha had made her out to be, then theoretically, her being only two steps ahead would likely be an understatement. Therefore, Aisha concluded, Zapata could likely already tell that she was onto her lies, and as a result, this whole conversation might just be an attempt to throw her off. However, she couldn’t let Zapata take control of the conversation so easily, and luckily, she had already thought up a social maneuver to put herself back in control of the narrative.

“Hey,” Aisha added, “I think the procession’s about to start, do you want to head inside the main building?”

“Oh sure, let’s go ahead.”

Aisha was worried about Zapata’s willingness to enter this new territory, hoping that she hadn’t accidentally played right into her hand. But simultaneously, she realized that Zapata’s carefree nature and air of disinterest could all just be one massive bluff to hide an internal crisis. Either way, she would have to pay a special amount of attention to Zapata’s every movement once the two entered the mosque’s halls.

The funeral was quite an awkward experience for Zapata. She never met Fatima Omran, she was never directly affected by her work, and she only discovered her existence a few days after her death. However, as the parade of speakers went by one by one, each giving their own perspective to her life, she was able to piece together a semi-coherent story. Dr. Omran was a prodigy, an innovator, a total juggernaut in her field. She was able to derive solutions to problems that others thought were impossible. However, the one adjective that stuck out the most to her, mainly due to its repeated use from monologue to monologue, was ‘hard working’. Dr. Omran cared deeply about her work, she spent as much time as possible on her work, in a sense, at least based on these second-hand descriptions, Dr. Omran was her work. This was not meant as a criticism by any of the speakers, but it was an inevitable conclusion. Dr. Omran had dedicated her life to the pursuit of scientific knowledge, but in the process, she couldn’t do much of anything else. Innovation doesn’t sleep, so she couldn't sleep either.

Despite her ambitions, Dr. Omran died unceremoniously. She was coming up onto a big break with her most recent project and she was about to reach a point where she might, at least for a little while, feel fulfilled in her achievements. But sadly, the gruesome beheading occurred a week or so too early for that, ending her life at an inherently unsatisfying junction. Zapata wanted to come up with some touching statement about how it was Omran’s work that killed her but that was a difficult idea to solidify when the cause of death was blatantly murder.

Regardless, Zapata found it quite odd that Aisha was constantly sweating and shaking and shifting within her seat during the entire service but she just figured that different people have different ways to mourn and, considering how Aisha was quite close to the deceased party before they passed, it only made sense that the ceremony would elicit a physical response. What Zapata found genuinely odd, though, was Aisha’s repeated glances towards her. While it looked like she was trying to hide it, with Emiliano gone and the two of them left to sit on the same, otherwise empty bench, it was quite easy to tell whenever the scientist’s gaze drifted back over to her. Still, Zapata didn’t question it. It was a funeral, after all, and at a time like this, she understood that those connected to the deceased had the right to act a little weird about these sorts of things. Zapata didn’t have a clue as to why Aisha kept looking back at her, but she also didn’t care enough to interrogate the issue. Besides, Emiliano was about to give his speech, a piece of prose which was almost guaranteed to last longer than his allotted time, and after that, Aisha was scheduled to give a speech of her own, the transitional period between which would conveniently give her enough time to slink off to another room after spending an hour or so swamped by a barrage of out-of-context anecdotes.

Zapata watched as Emiliano stumbled up to the podium, looking distinctly nervous as his hands tightly grasped a crumpled heap of note cards. Despite the distance between where he stood and where she observed him, the streaks of anxiety-induced sweat trailing across his back and sides were still visible, even through his most prized suit jacket. He took a deep, almost concerningly long breath before following it with an even longer exhale. He turned forward, straightened his tie, closed his eyes, and then opened them after about three seconds before finally properly addressing the expectant crowd.

“Hello, friends and family of Dr. Fatima Omran. My name is Emiliano Tochihuitl, though, this is not about me. Originally, I had planned to tell you all about my shared career with Fatima. I was a pupil working under her for quite some time and, as you all have heard many times by now, she was truly one of the best possible people to work with. However, and not to make this about myself, all this talk of death has gotten me to think about what I’d want people to say about me during my own funeral. And, while I admit it’s definitely been an important part of my life, one of the last things I’d like to be remembered by is my work. So instead, I’ll be throwing out these notes,” he said, tossing the wad of paper behind him, “and I’ll be telling you all about a story she once told me, a story about her childhood, and a story that just so happens to take place in this very building.

This all took place back in 2069, a bit under 40 years ago, when Fatima was only 17. At that point, she had just graduated high school a year early and had won a prestigious scholarship to Mansoura University. This was an especially impressive feat considering she was doing all of this during a civil war, but she persisted. She got used to the sounds of the shells ricocheting off roof tiles like an especially stubborn formation of hail. When she had to move from temporary home to repurposed hotel to barely livable crawl space in the storage room of a failing dollar store, packed in with students just like her who had all been united by the force of fate and the even stronger force of the air strikes which had destroyed their old neighborhoods, she kept on studying. She kept on learning, despite it all, despite how the very nature of the world around her was attempting to, at all possible paths, rip her away from the pursuit of knowledge.

As time passed, things only got worse. The world soon found itself entrenched in a global conflict so convoluted that it became difficult to discern which military was attacking you at any given moment. Fatima once told me that she had come up with a little rhyme to help her remember which colors corresponded with the uniforms of the 15+ belligerents active in the region at the time. It was an undoubtedly pessimistic period of human history in the minds of the general public, but it wasn’t for Fatima. To her, that era, like all the ones before it, was something she would simply have to deal with in the moment but would eventually pass. And besides, it’s not like there was anywhere she could escape to. In a worldwide sense, Dakhalia really wasn’t the worst place to be, and she had grown far too much of an attachment to that place to ever try to leave at that point. So instead, in what little free time she had allotted to herself, she studied, trying to learn as much as possible about the world around her before it was too late.

About a month before she earned her scholarship, and I’m sorry for making this story so roundabout, I’m improvising here, things took a turn for the worst. During the war, and this wasn’t discovered until afterwards, one of the militaries involved, I forget exactly which one it was, had been secretly planting undetectable amounts of benzene into the Dakhalian water supply. Now, for all the non-scientists in the audience, benzene is an incredibly toxic chemical, one which can cause lasting damage upon exposure, and the neighborhood Fatima was living in at the time was particularly hard hit by the toxin. Pretty soon, Fatima started to feel extreme discomfort in her liver and she had to get rushed over to a bunker hospital built far enough underground to avoid the constant storm of ammunition.

The thing she remembered most clearly about her stay there, though she admitted that her memory of that time was somewhat clouded by her illness, was the noise. Screams of pain, shouts of terror, cries of mourning as life drifted from the eyes of the wounded and sickly. She herself was crowded into a room with four other people who let out similar sounds when their pain got particularly difficult to bear. And in the state she was in at the time, constantly jacked into cold machinery dedicated to keeping her vitals up which only worked half the time due to the inconsistent power, she let out a good deal of noise too. It was only a natural reaction.

However, as you all know, she did slowly start to get better, even as the world around her got worse. Eventually, she was able to muster up enough brainpower to reignite her academic studies. Whenever the necessary stars aligned to let her successfully access the internet, she spent as much time as she could researching the depths of the latest scientific papers. And while, previously, she tended to aimlessly study every possible topic under the sun merely to achieve the pursuit of knowledge, her personal philosophy regarding the nature of her research started to shift around this time. After seeing so many people around her deteriorate and die from the affliction of illness, a concept which is arguably one of humanity’s oldest enemies, she knew that she had to dedicate herself, not just to the accumulation of knowledge, but the instrumentation of said knowledge to facilitate positive change in the world and minimize human suffering.

Fatima was finally let go from the hospital on a Friday. She was excited on the morning of her departure, she would finally be able to reunite with her parents who hadn’t been able to visit her due to the strict policies of the currently crisis-managing institution. As she walked through town in order to meet them, she took a couple of detours and roundabout paths to avoid the various parts of the city that were currently just rubble. The architecture around her was in desperate need of repair but she had to admit that it was a beautiful day, better yet, she hadn’t even heard a single sound of gunfire, making it definitively quieter than her room at the hospital. It was almost concerningly quiet, and the streets held very few people on them to increase that volume. But still, she couldn’t help but appreciate existing within a moment of silence for once.

Then, all of a sudden, it got incredibly loud, the sound of a large object crashing onto the ground vibrated from the direction she was facing. She could already tell that something terrible had happened. It was hard to tell exactly what at first, the urban design of Mansoura tends to obstruct the building she was heading too, but soon enough, the Damietta Mosque entered her field of vision, though the oblong torpedo sitting atop the wreckage where it once stood made it hard to recognize. The mosque which was her initial destination, the mosque where she would meet her parents after the service, the mosque where her parents now laid to rest for eternity, was utterly and completely destroyed.

Foresight tells us that this tragedy could’ve gone far worse. If that bomb, as well as the many bombs like it dropped around the world, had actually detonated, none of us would ever have the chance to commemorate Fatima’s death today. She would’ve been forced to have her name placed on a list of billions, carved onto a plaque standing within an almost empty world. 

Not everyone got to live that day, but Fatima did. And after that whole, grueling experience, she finally understood how fragile a human life can be. So she set out, from that date onwards, to ensure that she would save as many lives as possible before the inevitable end of her own. Personally, I think she achieved that goal with flying colors. 

Eventually, the world started to repair itself. The Global Commission of Independent States both formed and officially met only 48 hours after Doomsday. Together, the new GCIS member states were able to draw up the borders of the modern map. It was assuredly a compromise with many disappointments but it was an assuredly necessary step to take towards peace after a worldwide scare like that. 

Over the following forty years of her life, Fatima Omran did everything she could do to ensure that the world became as better of a place as it could possibly be. And, while there are still many problems yet to be solved, I think we can all agree that there’s been noticeable improvements. Even within my own time on Earth, I’ve seen breakthroughs in medicine, breakthroughs in environmental science, and just a few months ago, I watched as the global life expectancy finally reached pre-crisis levels. All of which were achievements that couldn’t have been done without brilliant people like Dr. Omran.

I don’t think that Fatima would want to be remembered as a worker, but I do think she would want to be remembered for what her work meant.”

As a significant applause began to form around her, Aisha opted to contribute a few moderate claps to the soundscape. She really appreciated Emiliano’s speech and thought that he  had told it quite well, however, she hadn’t prepared for him to tell the audience about that particular story. While she admittedly hadn’t informed him beforehand, she thought that she was going to be the only person to present a narration about Omran’s Doomsday. Alas, that left her with no other option but to improvise, many had given lousy speeches already so it wasn’t like she would be alone, but still, she had initially planned on standing out a little. 

Though, something strange happened as she started to stand up and shift her position towards the aisle. She noticed that, as Emiliano departed from the lecture and into an adjacent room, Zapata also left her seat and began to travel towards that same room, presumably to meet up with him. This was a concerning development for Aisha, who was heavily relying on being able to kill Zapata within the next 15 minutes as otherwise she would be forced to kill an innocent person at an event of mourning, a fate which she was desperately trying to avoid. Therefore, she really couldn’t let Zapata leave her sight, meaning she had to skip her speech and follow her. Thinking on her feet, she rushed over to where one of Fatima’s cousins was sitting to ask them a favor.

“Hey, sorry, but I’m not feeling very well, do you think you could sub in for me.”

“Um, I didn’t really prepare anything,” they replied.

“Then just tell them how you really felt about her, let your emotions pour out from your mouth without a filter. That’s real authenticity.”

“I guess that’s fair. Okay, I’ll do it, make sure to wish me luck though, I’m not a great public speaker.”

Aisha was far too ingrained in the task at hand to wish the funeral-goer any of her limited luck. She was already speed-walking to the nearest exit by the time he was finishing his final sentence. She had something very important she needed to do and she had a very limited timeframe to do it in. All she needed to do was kill Zapata.

Zapata was somewhat lost. She definitely wasn’t fully lost, she had a relatively good understanding of where she was located in space, but the details were definitely fuzzy. She thought that the door she had gone through would lead her to the same room that she saw her brother enter after he had finished his speech. Nonetheless, she had since been proven that that was not the case. Instead, she found herself walking at a steady pace through a long, dark hallway, the walls on either side of which contained a plethora of doors, each of which presumably contained a possible room where Emiliano could be residing. She was beginning to wonder if the tremendous choice she was being given over where to search for him next was actively stunting her decision making. Either way, she ended up just deciding to continue walking in a straight path, hoping that wherever her brother was located was on the farthest end of the corridor.

When she had made it about two thirds of the way through the hall, she heard a noise coming from where she had entered, presumably the sound of a door opening and closing. This wasn’t an odd concept to parse as at that point she had already seen multiple people leave the service via that door, however what made things less ordinary was that when she looked over her shoulder to see who entered, she saw nothing. Perhaps, she postulated, someone had accidentally opened the door before immediately closing it back up again. That seemed to be the simplest answer to what had just happened, and according to Occam’s Razor, that meant it was the explanation most likely to be true. 

But unfortunately, the human mind does not operate on Occam’s Razor. Zapata’s mind soon began to worry if, within the darkness that was currently enveloping her, someone was trying to follow her. Her suspicions only grew as she began to hear what sounded like the very faint noise of footsteps, a noise which she wanted to simply pass off as an echo of her own stride, but simultaneously one which she couldn’t bring herself to just ignore. 

She stopped. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She started to realize that the best way to find where Emiliano was located would involve first turning around and leaving through the door she had entered through. However, as she stood completely still, a concerning revelation hit her in the head. She could still hear the echo. 

Zapata turned around. She watched as a cloaked figure stepped out of its camouflage of shadow, the area on its head where a face would typically be pointing directly at her in the process. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what the intentions of this figure even were, but considering the way in which it wordlessly approached her, she assumed it wasn’t benevolent. Still, the longer she waited to act, the closer the figure got to her. She no longer had the privilege to wait any further.

Zapata jumped to her feet and dashed with as much energy as she could reasonably maintain towards the door she had arrived from. All she had to do was to catch this mysterious entity by surprise so that she could successfully pass it by and get to the exit before it caught up to her plans. Within the first few seconds of this initiative, things seemed to be panning out surprisingly well. The figure had barely any response to Zapata’s sudden movement and she was able to quite easily run past where they were standing. What was less encouraging, however, was when, right after she made it to a position behind the cloaked individual, she looked over her shoulder to see nothing but a translucent mist floating where the figure once was. They seemed to have disappeared, a development which could have a wide range of conclusions. For one, it could mean that they had decided to leave Zapata alone and leave her to do whatever she pleased in peace. But for two, it could mean that they were just about to reappear, most likely in a location actively detrimental to achieving  Zapata’s goals.

Sadly, the latter seemed to be true. Right before Zapata’s eyes, she watched as the cloaked figure rematerialized in front of her, now seeming to clench a knife in either of its outstretched arms. The figure kicked Zapata directly in the stomach with an impressive amount of raw force, causing her to collapse onto the ground and slide a few feet across the tiled floor in the process. She watched as her attacker slowly walked back over to her and wondered what she could’ve done to provoke this anger. She knew that she hadn’t been a perfect soul, especially not recently, but she could not possibly ponder a reason as to why there could be someone so willing to injure her at a moment like this one. She was utterly perplexed and nothing about the situation seemed willing to provide her with answers. So instead of wondering as to how she had gotten here, her mind quickly darted to how she could get out. Physically speaking, based on the power of the kick she had just received alone, she was not really equipped to deal with this opponent’s combative abilities in her current state. Besides, after what she had done to those she had tried to fight prior, she really didn’t want to get involved in a direct duel. 

This left her in a complicated dilemma. Circumstance had already proven that she wouldn’t be able to successfully run away from this entity and her moral code prevented her from trying to invoke Santa Muerte and fight them. These limitations left her with only two real options as to how to escape incoming doom. The first option would be to do nothing at all and hope that the figure wasn’t intent on killing her. While it required very little work on her part, Zapata still wasn’t a fan of this idea due to its particularly high risk of needless death. The second option was similarly undesirable, but it was admittedly the only option she had left. She would have to deescalate the situation using her words. One of the main hurdles facing this solution to her predicament was the fact that her mysterious opponent had no face to speak to, which left her wondering if they would actually be able to hear and process their prose. Regardless, she was willing to try out the plan anyways as it had a relatively low chance of making things actively worse for her.

“Please don’t kill me,” Zapata pleaded. It was a simple request which was not yet backed by any evidence but she figured it would at least grab her audience’s attention.

The figure, in response to Zapata’s reasonable demand, let out what sounded like a pained grunt. They sounded somewhat angry, but also inexplicably melancholic, almost inconsolably so, as if they were being thrashed through an incomprehensible world without any time to breathe. They did not sound like they were confident in their actions, but they didn’t sound like they regretted them either.

“Listen to me,” Zapata continued as the figure drew closer, “I don’t know what you’re trying to do. I don’t know why you’re after me specifically. But whatever I did which resulted in this behavior, I need you to know that it will never happen again. I admit that I’ve done some shitty stuff but I’m leaving that in the past. I'm trying to start a new life, or at least continue my old one. I understand that I am not an innocent person but I need you to know that killing me would absolutely be detrimental to people who are truly innocent. Please, just spare me, I really can’t die right now.”

Within this moment in time, the mind of Aisha Abdulaziz was not a stable thing, nor was it something that could purely be laid claim to by herself. It was a mess of interlocking systems which all seemed to be wired and rewired in a shockingly inefficient manner. In this state of being, she was not truly, fully herself, however, she no longer really knew when she ended and the influence of the demonic realm began. Still, even in a moment like this one, she was able to partially understand the words coming out of Zapata’s mouth and they caused her to briefly hesitate. What if, she wondered, killing Zapata was not a truly moral act? Perhaps, it would only extend a long cycle of violence and do nothing to actually commemorate her victims. She knew that there was something deeply wrong about Zapata, but to her surprise, Zapata seemed to know that too. She could at least respect a villain with the willingness to self-reflect. And to be fair, Zapata’s description of herself, someone who has done irreparable acts but is still trying to atone for them, matched quite well with her own self-conceptualization. Zapata was a monster, yes, but so was she, and maybe she was taking the wrong approach to dealing with her.

However, at the same time in which she was reconsidering her course of actions around beheading the person laying in front of her, a second voice found its way inside her head, the voice of Thabr, the voice of her base urges, her inherently human propensity for violence. From this perspective, the murder of Zapata was not just a foregone conclusion, but an inevitability. She needed to kill Zapata, it was a necessary action for her life to progress forwards. She needed to see Zapata’s blood drip onto her hands as the essence of her life escaped through one final scream of terror. It really didn’t matter if killing Zapata was the right thing to do. It was what she had to do. It was the will of the universe for her to end this villain’s life. She really didn’t even have a choice in the matter. It was just what had to be done.

Aisha effortlessly pinned Zapata firmly onto the ground and lifted one of her knives into the air. This was the end. She would finally conclude Zapata’s reign of terror and would quickly return to the funeral afterwards as if nothing had happened. All she had to do was take one final swing of the arm and split Zapata’s neck in twain. But before she could accomplish this concluding action, she heard a very concerned, and very familiar, voice from across the hallway.

“Zapata? Where are you? Wait- hold on- holy shit! What the fuck is happening here? Who are you? Get away from my sister,” Emiliano blurted as he bursted into a sprint towards the scene of the crime.

Aisha, who was so dead-set on ending the life of Zapata just seconds earlier, suddenly found herself unable to take the killing blow. Her arms were frozen, she didn’t know what to do, the man who was, while she didn’t admit it, her greatest friend in this city was currently charging at her, perceiving her as an irredeemable foe, and she really could blame him for it. All she had the willpower to do was just watch in astonishment as her plans crumbled in front of her and her colleague got ever closer until, eventually, he attempted to tackle her.

Typically, an attack like the one Emiliano was undertaking wouldn’t phase Aisha when she was in her demonically-enhanced physical form, but in a moment of weakness like this one, where she felt so utterly aimless in her intentions, she just let him restrain her onto the ground. She no longer found a purpose in resisting. As she did so, something truly unfortunate happened, her hood was blown away off her head in the offensive, causing her face to be revealed to her attacker. Emiliano genuinely couldn’t process what was happening.

“Aisha? What- what is all of this? What’s happening? What were you doing to Zapata? Why do you have so many knives on you?”

“I… I’m not… I don’t know how to say…”

“What is it, Aisha? What the fuck is all of it? Why were you trying to stab my fucking sister? Who are you?”

“I… this is all really difficult to explain, I- just please let go of me.”

“Why would I do that, Aisha? You were literally just in the midst of committing assault!”

Aisha didn’t know what to say to him. Every claim he made was entirely true. All she really had the capacity to do was to stare at him and wonder how things had gotten to this point in the first place. At this junction, she knew that she wasn’t a good person, there was nothing she could do to change that, she had done irredeemable things and therefore couldn’t be redeemed. But still, that wasn’t a fact about her that she liked to address. However, here she was being forced to address that issue, the issue of her own descent into malevolence, her own acceptance of villainy, her willingness to keep listening to Thabr’s judgment. 

The thing that Aisha truly wanted most in this moment was a break from reality. She just wanted an extended period of time for her to just breathe in, breathe out, and properly process the incredibly complicated barrage of emotions she had been going through. If she could just have a few seconds of silence, that could be enough. She needed to think, to be completely alone within her mind, ideally a mind which was entirely her’s and not dually occupied by an actively malicious demon. But, she couldn't have that, fate wouldn’t let her have that. She couldn’t receive her moment of peace so instead she would have to make a decision within a much higher-pressure environment, a decision which would likely be worse as a result.

Aisha was currently being bombarded by stimuli, information she really didn’t have the mental fortitude to fully realize in her dreary and delirious mental state. She needed to get rid of any and all distractions. She still needed to kill Zapata. She needed to rethink things. She needed a moment of peace. She needed to get this demon out of her head. She needed this demon to stay because she had nobody else left. She needed a sense of community. She needed someone to die. She needed to honor Omran even if it was in a seemingly counterintuitive way. She needed so many things that she couldn’t focus on any one topic at once. It didn’t help that many of her needs contradicted one another. But above all else, she needed action . She needed a step forward, something she could do to progress her life into the future, whether or not it improved her life’s overall quality. And to do that, she would need to remove the most obvious roadblock in her path.

Aisha pulled out a knife once again and pointed it directly towards Emiliano’s neck. He had been a great friend, a helpful coworker, a brilliant prodigy, and a genuinely wonderful person to be around. She was truly saddened that things would have to end this way, but she had to kill someone, that was merely the nature of her curse, and the longer she looked at Emiliano’s face, the more she desired to see it ripped apart from his body. She didn’t have a choice in the matter, he simply had to die, so in one fell swoop, she cut off the kindest person in her life from ever speaking to her again. His final countenance, the one in which he would be laid to rest for eternity, was one of disappointment. Emiliano Tochihuitl was dead, and the world was worse off for it.

Zapata saw everything. She saw the life depart from her brother’s eyes, a life which still had so much potential, potential which had just been snuffed out completely. She watched as Aisha stood back up and departed the scene. She didn’t do anything to stop her, she didn’t want to die as well. She felt so incredibly alone, like she was the only person left in the world that would ever be able to understand what she was going through. She felt lost on a tumultuous sea of unknowability, and like Aisha before her, she craved a step forward. She couldn’t just let Emiliano’s death be in vain, she needed revenge.

Zapata had made a promise to herself that she would never invoke the power of Santa Muerte again. When she had made that promise, her life looked to be finally heading towards a positive future following a period of bleak unpredictability. However, she now realized that that initial period had never truly ended. She was fully living in the nightmare now, and she had to do whatever it took to survive it, even if it meant taking a decision she knew that she might regret.

The scythe of her patron deity, an object which she had wished to never lay eyes on again, rematerialized within her hands. This was her weapon of justice, her deliverer of holy death. She would kill Aisha Abdulaziz. But before she could do so, she needed to make sure that every possible variable in this equation was working in her favor. She couldn’t allow for any chance of failure. And in order to assure her success, she knew that she would need some help. 

There was a very specific group of people who she knew would be willing to aid her in this quest. They were a group of people she had generally tried to avoid, but a group of people who would be willing to trust her regardless. She needed to go back to the Allodapos Society and finally get the gang back together. It was the only way she could think to eliminate Aisha without any chance of defeat.

Vraxi Nair had been pacing back and forth within the lobby of the Allodapos headquarters for about thirty minutes at this point. She had forgotten the initial reason as to why she had gone down there but didn’t want to go back up to her room until she remembered. However, the idea she was searching for never resurfaced and for most of the time in which she had been circling the room she had instead been contemplating the logistics of her own headcanons for the Oceans franchise. She likely would’ve continued this somewhat unproductive process if it hadn’t been for a heavy knock on the door interrupting her endeavors. In response to this sudden noise, she rushed over to the entrance and opened it up to greet the society’s newest visitor.

“Oh,” Zapata said as she recognized the person opening the door, “Hello, Vraxi.”

“Zapata? I knew you’d come back! How are you doing?”

“I am absolutely devastated, someone just murdered my brother.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, are you okay? Do you know who did it yet?”

“Are you aware of the serial beheader currently operating within this city?”

“Well, I know a lot about them, actually. We’ve been attempting to detain them as of late.”

“Good. I know who they are, I need to kill them, and I need your help.”

“Um, alright, I really do hope you're okay after everything that just happened, but uh, we're glad to have you back.”

Chapter Text

“So,” Diogo Celestino said as he grabbed another slice of Emiliano’s posthumous casserole, “you’re saying that you’re rejoining us at the society again?”

“No,” Zapata explained, “I never joined your cult in the first place. We were simply in a working relationship, I was really more of a contractor if anything who just happened to be operating under the guise of an Allodapos agent.”

“Okay, fair enough, but that was then and this is now and based on everything you’ve told me so far, it sounds like you’re asking me to enter our ranks once again.”

“And once again, you’re oversimplifying things. All I’m saying is that it seems to me like we have shared goals and it would be in our mutual interests to work together on this project regarding Dr. Abdulaziz.”

“And you also want to live in our provided housing.”

“Listen, I can only hide out in a dead man’s apartment for so long before people start getting suspicious. I don’t even know what would happen to me if I got caught considering the whole missing person status.”

“Yeah, about that,” Vraxi added, “what is the whole deal with us supposedly disappearing?”

“What about it?”

“Well like, I have a vague understanding of why GüdTek’s trying to hide information about us specifically, presumably it’s to protect their image as a responsible corporation to shareholders, but that still leaves the rather large question of what happened to those 28 other students who had nothing to do with us left to be answered.”

“Truthfully, considering the fact that they were willing to kill us for monetary gain, I really can’t feel that bad for them, whatever their fates ended up being.”

At this moment, Theta, who had been sitting with their human companions as the three of them ate breakfast, began to scribble their thoughts on the present matter of conversation down in their personal notebook before showing their perspective to the group.

Their writing, which was read aloud by Diogo, read as follows in a somewhat disjointed font, “While we can never know exactly what the motivations of every individual were at that moment in time, I find it more just to put the brute of the blame for their behavior onto the corporatocratic society they were raised in, rather than the merit of their character.”

“I agree, Theta,” Vraxi stated once Diogo finished speaking, “those guys obviously made the wrong decision back then but it was simultaneously an opportunity to climb the social ladder which would never be offered to them again, so I don’t know if you can really stay that mad at them too long. Besides, I doubt every single one of them was actively trying to murder us. Also, Theta, thanks for adopting the notebook strategy, even if it’s too difficult for you to speak right now, it’s always nice to hear your input.”

“Anyways,” Zapata said, shifting the topic of conversation, “Is there anything else you can tell me about this Shui person?”

“Well, considering how you’re here now, I don’t know if we necessarily need their help anymore.”

“Yeah, Zapata,” Diogo added, “I’m pretty sure that the four of us should be enough to deal with Aisha.”

“Listen,” Zapata responded, “I really can’t accept a ‘pretty sure’ right now. I need absolute certainty that this plan won’t backfire. That means that we need to gather as much firing power as possible onto our side. Based on what you told me about the condo, I’m not sure that, even with the full power of Santa Muerte on my side, I would’ve been able to stop them. I need to meet with Shui Hailang and I need to do it soon enough to prevent any more pointless deaths.”

“Well in that case, we already planned to meet with them around noon at this bar they frequent on the outskirts of town. If I’m being completely honest though, I don’t know if you’ll be a big fan of them, they’re a bit of a character.”

“That’s fine, as long as they’re effective enough to get the job done. However, I still don’t know what it is that they actually do .”

“I’ll be honest,” Vraxi admitted, “it’s not very clear. All we know is that they’re strong enough for Malik-”

The three of them heard a muffled voice from another room say “Mr. Tharwat” in an annoyed tone.

“All we know is that they’re strong enough for Mr. Tharwat to hire them on multiple occasions despite their hefty price tag.”

“Genuinely, as long as they can help me kill Abdulaziz, I don’t really care what it is they specialize in.”

“Are we sure we want to kill her?” Theta wrote in their notebook before showing their question to the others.

“That’s a fair ask,” Vraxi said, “we know there’s something supernatural involved in this predicament and we can’t be sure how much of this is Aisha’s fault”

“Oh my god, Vraxi,” Zapata responded, “you can stay up on your moral high horse all you want but I saw her end the life of my own brother. I don’t give a fuck if their’s some secret complexity to her character, she’s irredeemable in my eyes.”

“Vraxi,” Diogo added on, “heisting isn’t an easy gig, on the body or the soul. Sometimes we have to make tough decisions, and this is one of them. I can see a couple of ways in which Aisha might not be as bad as we perceive her to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s actively on a killing spree. We have to stop her by any means necessary, even if it results in her demise. Anyways, Hailang’s meeting place is on the other side of the city so we should probably get going about now.”

Diogo grabbed the final slice of casserole as he headed for the door while the others followed behind him. Vraxi was a little sad to see the team so disjointed in motivations, but she was glad to have them all back together regardless.

When Vraxi and her posse finally arrived at the bar where they were scheduled to meet Hailang, she couldn’t help but notice that its front door had been covered with a sign that distinctly read ‘closed’ on its surface. This was quite a troubling proposition, as most of her plans regarding the capture and/or assasination of Aisha Abdulaziz involved Hailang’s expertise being utilized in some capacity or another. If she couldn’t meet with them, the quartet would be fully in the dark, needing to rely on their own very limited knowledge of the supernatural, a world which they had only just entered, to aid them in their mission. At this point, the information and possible direct assistance which Shui Hailang could provide, whatever it may be, was effectively a necessity in the mind of Vraxi for the purpose of her newest quest. As a result, she really needed to find where they could be.

“Shit,” Vraxi stated, “this sucks. The bar’s closed.  We’re sure this is the place, right?”

“Absolutely,” Diogo replied, “this is the exact address.”

“Goddammit,” Zapata exclaimed, “I knew I shouldn't have put my trust in someone I never even met but this is just disappointing. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“Hold on,” Theta hurriedly wrote in their notebook, “there might be a way around this obstacle.”

“Theta’s right,” Diogo added, “throughout my storied career, I’ve been faced with many a door that I wasn’t supposed to enter. Regardless, I was able to get through them then and I wholeheartedly believe that I’ll be able to get through this one today. I just need to devise a plan.”

“In that case,” Vraxi suggested, “if we were able to acquire a ladder of some sort, we might be able to scale the side of the building and enter via those windows on the top floor which don’t look to be reinforced like the rest, presumably with the help of a sledgehammer which we’d also have to acquire.”

“Or,” Diogo said, kicking open the feeble wooden door, “we could just brute-force our way through things. See? I’m not useless without the magnakey. No doors are safe when Diogo Celestino comes to town.”

After Diogo created a new entrance on the side of the building using the sheer power of his most carefully honed kick, Vraxi was able to finally get a good look at the bar’s interior. Inside, there was no bartender, but there was a singular patron. They looked sad but simultaneously quite startled due to Diogo’s sudden arrival. However, Vraxi was less focused on their emotional appearance and much more focused on their physical appearance. They had bright blue hair and obnoxiously blue lipstick which were both attached to their androgynous yet outrageously muscular frame. These aspects of their outward self likely could’ve been ignored if it wasn’t for their outfit, which vaguely resembled that of a medieval court jester who had been flung into the far future, only extenuating those previously mentioned features. This odd character was none other than Shui Hailang.

“Oh, hello Mx. Shui,” Vraxi greeted them, trying to be polite after such an impolite method of entry, “My name is Vraxi Nair and we’re here from the Allodapos society and were wondering if you’d still be up to helping us catch that serial beheader.”

“Oh,” Hailang responded, sounding somewhat dreary as they poured themself another drink of an unidentifiable licor, “I’d love to help you. However, I must admit that I’m not in the greatest emotional, or for that matter, physical state right now.”

“And why is that?” Zapata questioned, hoping that this meeting wouldn’t be a waste of her limited time.

“Well you see, on Tuesday night, the beheader took the life of someone quite close to me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Who was it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The bartender.”

“Ah, that explains things. How long had you known them?”

“Well, I never really got the chance to know them, in fact, I never really got to know their name, but they ran the least popular bar in town, and by making myself a regular attendant, I got to feel quite cool and countercultural. But alas, they’ve passed and the space is being sold off to build more offices. I may never achieve that level of quirkiness again.”

“Oh… Well anyways, do you think you could help us? We don’t have all that much time before they claim another victim so an immediate answer would be well appreciated.”

“I mean, it depends, how much money would you be willing to send my way?”

“Now hold on, I thought you just established that you have a personal stake in this matter and now you’re saying that you won’t do anything about it without a monetary incentive?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Now how much do you have to offer?”

“Um, respectfully,” Diogo interjected, “we’re sort of broke. I get all of my personal spare cash from the Allodapos Society and they have specifically chosen not to actively fund this endeavor. So like, is there any other way we could get you to help us?”

“Hmm, that’s a good question. Well, I do have some chores of my own that I wouldn’t mind having someone do for me. How about we do a little trade then, a task for a task, sounds good to you?”

“Um,” Vraxi responded warily, “what did you have in mind?”

“Well, you see, when I first arrived here in Dakahlia a few months ago, one of the first things I realized is that I needed to get my hands on one of those Nile crocodiles. I mean, have you seen them? They look fucking radical. Anyways, I really wanted to bring one of them home with me. Unfortunately, there are some laws against doing that. Fortunately, I’m not the only person who has felt the deeply human urge to own a crocodile before, and a little homegrown underground industry of smuggling those little guys across the border has really started to flourish in recent years due to customers just like me. Sadly though, when I eventually tried to purchase one of those wonderful beasts of nature from a local smuggler, he refused to accept my money and kicked me out. Now, admittedly, that was likely partially do to the fact that I thought it would be really funny if I tried paying him in Monopoly money, but I guess he wasn’t in on the joke. Anyways, since he refuses to ever serve me again, I was wondering if you four could help facilitate the transaction for me. I’ll hand you over the money and you’ll hand me back the crocodile in exchange. Now, the whole process is slightly illegal and the police have started to crack down on the practice but I’m sure you’ll be fine, and afterwards, I’ll help you out with your little murderer problem.”

“Sounds great-” Diogo tried to say before being cut off.

“Absolutely not,” Zapata responded, “you have literally not given us a single reason as to why we should even trust your abilities in the first place and now you’re just expecting us to help you poach an endangered species? Hell no! This is so obviously a scam that I’m confused as to why we're even entertaining this gesture.”

“Hold on now,” Hailang cautioned, “I understand where you’re coming from but you have to understand that I am firstly, not a poacher, merely a hobbyist with a lot of free time, and secondly, not the kind of person who would ever lie about my capabilities. I need you to trust me when I say that my powers are not something to be messed with.”

“Not to be rude,” Theta wrote, “but we’ve all been wondering what exactly it is you do that supposedly makes you so powerful?”

“A great question, my robotic friend, and a question that I’ve been dying to answer ever since the four of you entered this room. I am a certified, bonafide, industrial-grade demon hunter, and let me tell you, whatever’s going on with this serial killer you guys are worried about, absolutely reeks of demon. I could recognize their musk from miles away and it is absolutely potent in this city.”

“Okay,” Zapata replied, still annoyed, “and? Just saying that you ‘hunt demons’ fails to prove anything for your case. Before you make us get our hands bitten off by an angry oversized reptile who never should’ve been taken out of its river in the first place, I’d like, I don’t know, some level of confirmation that you're actually good at your supposed job.”

“Oh, you want proof? That should be easy. Hey Vraxi?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Could you toss me that water bottle over there?” They said, gesturing over to the countertop.

“Uh, sure, what for?” Vraxi responded as she handed her the container.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Hailang said as they opened the lid and upended the bottle’s contents onto the table.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I said you’ll see in just a moment, now I need you all to get out of the way, this might get a little destructive.”

The four of them all slowly started to huddle into one corner of the room, somewhat confused as to what Hailang was actually intending to do. They all watched as the demon hunter closed their eyes and began to make a few noticeably practiced movements with their hands. The quartet watched in astonishment as the water on the table began to freeze and crystallize before morphing its structure in three-dimensional space and forming one big conglomerated mass of pure hail that began to float above the surface it was created over. Then, in one singular flick of the wrist, reminiscent of letting all the tension in a yo-yo release at once, the hunk of ice was launched forwards at speeds that easily broke fifty miles an hour and quickly accelerated past that, slamming into the opposite wall and, instead of shattering on impact, crashed directly into the next building. It was truly a sight to behold.

“Don’t worry,” Hailang mentioned, “nobody lives in that building and this is not the first time I've had to board up that wall. However, I guess with the owner dead it’s no longer my responsibility to do so. I guess there’s a bright side to every tragedy.”

“How the hell did you do that?” Vraxi asked in pure astonishment.

“Oh, it’s quite simple really, I’ve basically got this patron deity, her name’s Mazu, she’s super cool, and I’ve attained a whole host of water-adjacent powers as a result.”

“Wait,” Zapata added, “so you're one of us? You’ve been sanctified?”

“I guess that’s one way you could refer to it.”

Zapata knew the raw power that an individual with access to a patron deity could potentially hold, mainly due to her own personal experience, and after seeing what Hailang could do to that wall while seemingly exerting very little effort, she knew that they’d need them on their side if they wanted to successfully kill Aisha.

“Okay, you’ve got a deal, we’ll catch those fucking crocodiles for you. But right after that you’ve gotta help us kill this sicko, alright?”

“Sounds good to me, a deal’s a deal.”

As the quartet began to travel to their new destination, the building which, according to Hailang, was supposed to be where they’d be able to acquire a crocodile, Theta was starting to reconsider the collective decision which the group had made. Diogo and Vraxi had been far too eager for another adventure and Zapata had been far too eager to do anything that could help her kill Aisha, causing the three humans to be misguided by momentary temptations and swept away into a rather precarious situation. Theta didn’t hold enough disdain to actively protest this decision, but they still fretted over its logistics. How, they wondered, would the group react if they encountered any sort of resistance in the deal making process? Would they resort to violence? That wouldn’t be good, those humans could easily get damaged if they tried to overexert themselves again, not to mention how frail their own physical manifestation could be at times. And, furthermore, even if they were to receive the crocodile peacefully and without issue, they had absolutely no idea as to how they would successfully transport the beast of nature, especially if they had to hide it from the authorities who wouldn’t be too keen on them participating in this very illegal activity. 

“Perhaps,” Theta began to write, “it would be wiser to attempt this operative under the cover of night, considering the illegality of it all.”

“Well,” Zapata replied, somewhat nervous about their prospects, “we really can’t be delaying things any further. If we wait until it’s already nighttime, Aisha will have another chance to kill an innocent person, and we really can’t have that.”

“Yes,” Vraxi responded, “however, if we fail at the somewhat difficult-to-comprehend task of transporting a crocodile across a city, then we won’t be able to get Hailang on our side in the first place and we’ll be left completely in the dark when it comes to the process of bringing justice to Aisha’s victims.”

“That’s fair,” Diogo chimed in, “not to mention how I have the sneaking suspicion that even if we were able to bring Hailang the crocodile back within an hour’s time, they might not be super inclined to help us catch them before the day ends, I mean, we don’t even know where Aisha is right now, so even a scenario with full cooperation of all parties doesn’t guarantee a success for Team Us.”

“Okay, fine,” Zapata conceded, “we can wait until it gets dark outside, but we can’t wait any longer than that. We have no idea as to what Aisha could be up to right now, what terrible schemes she could be cooking up, what evil machinations she could be preparing to enact. It’s all completely beyond us right now and we need to be prepared for anything. She’s pretty fucking smart and, in a battle of wits, she could easily outmatch us. So whatever you do, remember to keep a low profile and to avoid a solo confrontation with her at all costs.”

Meanwhile, Aisha woke up at around 4 PM in the afternoon, soaked in the scent of cheap vodka, her body flung across a grimy bed within the cheapest hotel room in the city she could find last night after the chaos of the funeral. Despite its temporal proximity, she could remember very few details about the actual event itself. Everything felt hazy, like thin strands of cognitive mist which only floated around major themes. Those themes, however, were quite difficult to ignore, mainly the theme which involved the murder of Emiliano Tochihuitl at her own hands, a truly unforgivable action which she was having difficulty reckoning as a part of her new reality. Emiliano was one of the few constants in her life, an ever present force that steered her towards good, or at least steered her neutrally towards the realm of progress. But now, she lacked that sense of onward motivation, and it was all her fault. She genuinely couldn’t come up with a reason to continue living. What even was her life now? She had lost her mentor, her employment, even her best friend, and worst of all, she was entirely to blame for all of it. She had dug her own grave, and it was time for her to finally jump in. She still wanted to kill those three interlopers that Joey had introduced her to, but not nearly as much as she wanted to kill the person who she viewed to be the greatest villain of all in this paradigm, herself. This was not the first time she had considered ending it all, many times on her journey alongside Thabr she had thought to do something similar, but now was different, this was final. 

Aisha was currently on the 13th floor of the building. Any drop, no matter how her body arranged herself during freefall or how the tides of luck acted around her, would inevitably result in her death. However, in this moment, death was the intended goal. She opened the window and briefly looked down. She would die in a parking lot. It wasn’t the prettiest place to spend one’s final moments. She had always dreamed of ending her life on a high note, somewhere secluded within a beautiful landscape that could remind her of the connectedness of all things. But at this point, she didn’t think she really deserved her dream death. The fate of becoming an unrecognizable slab of roadkill seemed far more of an appropriate way to reflect upon her countless misdeeds. It was an objectively bad fate, but she was an objectively bad person.

She walked to the door. She was going to get a running start so that she could leap through the frame. Everything about this process felt scary in the moment but her adrenaline was ultimately able to overcome her fear. She was prepared, she was in position, she was ready to put one foot in front of the other, and with the little morsels of might she had left in her exhausted body, she did exactly that, eventually shifting her movement into a fully fledged sprint towards her gate to salvation. Finally, when she stood about two feet away from the window itself, she let both feet off the ground and jumped through the final barrier.

She was free. For so long, Thabr had been preventing her from allowing herself to achieve a true release from her cruel duties. But now, she was finally able to make a decision on her own, the right decision, the selfless decision, one which would end her own life but save countless in the process. It was a painful sacrifice, but it was one with a clear cause. This was for Emiliano, this was her belated apology, she simply couldn’t let herself live any longer. This was the end.

Strangely, even as all known forces indicated that she should be falling directly down, she still felt some resistance. There was some unknowable force tugging her away from oblivion. Was it a sense of unfinished business? The combined weight of every promise she had ever made that would be broken in the event of her death? No, she had long since come to terms with the fact that she would be leaving things incomplete. She had already left so many incomplete lives behind in her killing spree. Then, was it merely self-preservation holding her back? Was it the biological building block hard-wired into her brain that told her to avoid death at all times? Perhaps, but, at this point, she knew not to listen to her mind’s biology. The supposed ‘innate architecture’ of her nervous system, the unconscious element which stood as the backdrop for her sentient thoughts, was not only lacking in wisdom, but something that could be easily manipulated and often was by her demonic companion. She understood that if there was a position in her brain that she lacked an attached logical reason for, something she was believing purely because it seemed like basic, natural knowledge, it was probably implanted there by a foreign entity, a stranger’s thought masquerading as one of her own.

Ultimately, however, she soon came to realize that the force pulling her away from the concrete below her was not born out of an internal crisis of the self but was rather caused by the presence of a physical hand, each of its burnt and reddish fingers wrapped firmly around her collar. Completely out of her own volition, she was yanked away from the promise of spiritual freedom and forcefully returned to the cramped hotel room, one which she now shared with a demon, one which she had never seen before but was familiar with nonetheless.

“I’m sorry, Aisha,” Lucifer began, “but I can’t let you off the hook that easily.”

“Why?” Aisha responded, already beginning to move herself to tears.

“Well, you see, there are very few people such as yourself in this world. You’re special, to put it simply. You can commit yourself to tasks that most would simply give up on once things got too difficult. And, over your tenure as a signed contractor under my domain, you’ve proven yourself to be quite important for the cause. It would truly be a shame to see you go, which is why I’m not letting you.”

“Please, just let me die, I’m too far gone.”

“Now, I find that statement interesting, why do you say that?”

“I’ve ended the lives of so many innocent people, there is literally nothing I can do to be forgiven at this point.”

“Ah, well I see where you’re coming from but I simply have to disagree. I’ve always believed that people deserve second chances in life, or third chances, or tenth chances and so on.”

“I mean, I don’t disagree with you but there are certain points where the pit of depravity becomes so deep that there’s no way to dig yourself out of it.”

“Or perhaps, you’ve only gone so far down that you can’t see the light of the surface. It’s a concerning point to be at, yes, but that doesn’t mean that hope is lost, it just means you need to start your ascent back up as soon as possible.”

“And how would I do that? I could invest thousands of hours into community service but that’s not gonna bring anyone back from the dead. The wounds I’ve left in this community are too deep for me to do anything but provide them with a sense of safety by ending my own torturous reign.”

“Well, let’s think this through. Truthfully, if you were merely a regular human being, you could very well be correct. However, you aren’t, you’re the living avatar of Thabr, one of my most beloved aspects, and as a result, you’ve got a lot of power laying dormant within you. Therefore, you have the potential to channel that power towards good.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

“You’ve been quite proficient in enacting violence against the innocent, correct? Why don’t you simply deliver that same violence to those who deserve it?”

“The last time I tried to do that I murdered my own best friend. I can kill people, but I’m not a bounty hunter, I don’t have enough control over my own actions to choose who survives and who ends up dead.”

“I understand that, Aisha, which indicates to me that you need a partner,” Lucifer suggested, snapping his fingers and causing the eminence of Joey Axelrod to appear before them.

“Hello Aisha,” Joey began, “I’m glad that we can finally start a more hands on partnership together.”

“What?” She questioned, “I didn’t agree to any of this. I just want to die already, why is that such a difficult idea to get through your heads?”

“Oh Aisha,” Lucifer consoled as he pointed a lone finger toward her forehead, “I think you just need a little bit of persuasion.”

Suddenly, Aisha was alone again. Her mind was scrambled, her train of thought was chugging along slower than usual, and her vision felt blurred and focused at the same time. Standing before her were two figures, one holding the other above their head. The limp body being presented to the heavens was recognizable as belonging to the bloodied corpse of Emiliano Tochihuitl. The figure standing below him with a sense of sick pride plastered onto their countenance was none other than his sister, Zapata. She spoke only a few words, but they were all Aisha needed to be emblazoned with a newfound sense of righteous revenge.

“ I killed him.”

She didn't know how the strings connected or how deep the rabbit hole of overlapping conspiracies went, but she knew that what she saw was true. In reality, Aisha was not the one truly at fault for Emiliano’s death. The true architect of his fall was his very own sister, a crime hidden under so many layers of deceit that Aisha would never be able to fully see the entire story. Nevertheless, seeing is believing, and she had seen enough.

“Where is Zapata going to be tonight?” Aisha asked urgently.

“Well,” Lucifer started, “usually I try to only give my allies on the mortal plane subtle hints instead of factually correct information, but I’ll give you two a pass for today. Zapata, Vraxi, Diogo, and even Theta will all be situated in the lower basement at the Dakhalian Federal Institute for Crocodilian Studies. That’s the place where they do genetic testing on crocodiles and also where they secretly sell the fucked-up crocodile monstrosities to the world’s mega-rich in order to fund more research.”

“Okay,” Joey replied, “any idea as to why they’re there?”

“I’ve already given you far too many clues, you’re on your own now,” Lucifer said as he disappeared once more into the aether.

“Well Aisha, looks like it’s just you and me. You ready to rid the world of some evil?”

“Listen,” she replied bluntly, “let me take out Zapata on my own, you can handle the rest.”

“That works for me, see you tonight.”

Chapter Text

President Adil Abdikar was many things to many people in the Republic of Dakahlia. To his political opponents, he was a meek coward, but to those beholden under him, he was a sleeping dragon, a man who held back his true power under a thin blanket of awkward appearances. His suit was too tight, his hair was always a little greasy and noticeably thinning, he went on long-winded rants, stuttering and stumbling over his words, but underneath the surface was a man more determined than any of his compatriots to achieve the promise that his country was built on. The promise of an infinite tomorrow, the promise that progress would come soon and it would arrive to the world via the great minds of Dakahlia, a promise emblazoned in the mind of every child in this nation as they earned their world-class education. For the general public, this promise was an inspiration to keep on taking steps towards the magnificent future even when the present seemed gloomy, but for the politicians, those tasked with actually fulfilling this promise, it was a daunting responsibility. Failing to prove to the world that Dakahlia was truly the next powerhouse in the field of science had the potential to crack the very foundations which the republic stood on. Abdikar knew that if he ever broke the sacred promise, if Dakahlia ever started to lag behind its technological competitors, his reputation would be forever ruined, and he couldn’t let that happen.

He had recently scheduled a meeting with his Minister of Biologics, a woman by the name of Gabriela Badden, who was just about as idiosyncratic as Abdikar but was significantly less invested in the state of the republic as compared to him. She was a foreign hire, a former head of GüdTek Genetic Solutions, a subsidiary of the colossal corporation which ruled over the Novaplex, the nation she called home. She was very far from her former prestigious position as she walked through the Dakhalian Federal Institute for Crocodilian Genetics, a ministry which she always thought to be profoundly specific, but she had her reasons for making the switch. Most importantly though, she had just made, or at least overseen, a major breakthrough in her highly situational field and was beginning to get quite excited pondering what sort of promotion she might receive as a token of thanks.

The two statesmen met in the middle of a hallway and made a few quick glances at each other in order to avoid the arduous task of exchanging polite greetings.

“So,” Abdikar began, “you really think this is going to work? I mean, this would be huge, undoubtedly, but, I do worry what could happen if things don’t… pan out for us. Especially, since we’ve already poured so much of our ultimately limited budget into this project which many of our contemporaries tend to view as a waste of time, so much money that we had to start selling the rejects. I still disapprove of that practice by the way, I understand that we had to do it but it’s a matter of principle. Anyways, I’m getting off track again, let me get back to the question at hand. Do you truly, genuinely, believe that the Sobek Project, in its current iteration, is entirely ready? Because we can wait if we have to.”

“Yes,” Badden responded bluntly, “I understand that we live in a world of petty entrepreneurs trying to exploit the excitement that naturally arises around the concept of scientific innovation, but I am not one of those people. When I tell you that something will work, it’s going to work. I guarantee it.”

“I know, and you haven’t let me down so far… but a lot of people have, so I get suspicious from time to time. Just this week, after months of funneling government funds into Sunduq-Aljinat just in order to keep them afloat, suddenly, one of their top scientists dies, I think it has to do with that serial killer whose been on the news, I don’t think we have an identity attached to them nor have people come up with a catchy nickname so for now it’s just ‘that serial killer’, anyways, now they don’t think they’ll be able to complete the superpollinator project in time, and it’s like, why am I even incorporating you guys into the national budget if you aren’t even gonna give me a finished product in return.”

“I understand your plight, Mr. President, I have worked with many scientists who have forgotten that one aspect of their work is operating within a timeframe.”

“Thank you, Ms. Badden, and luckily, if we can truly achieve the full potential of the Sobek Project, the failure of Sunduq-Aljinat might not even matter all that much in the end.”

“This can’t be the place,” Zapata said as she looked upon the prestigious crocodilian research facility presented in front of her.

“Well,” Vraxi continued, “it matches with the address that Hailang gave us.”

“Well maybe Hailang was lying, just because we know that they possess some sort of divine power doesn’t mean that we have any reason to place our trust in their hands.”

“I mean,” Diogo added regardless, “it is possible that there could be multiple buildings sharing the same address, it’s a big city. I remember that when I was growing up, Sao Luis had like 40 to 45 different ‘Santa Cruz’ streets so there were bound to be some repeats in the numberings.”

“I don’t think you get it, Diogo. They told us we needed to acquire a crocodile from some sort of illegal ‘shady vendor’ and then they proceeded to send us off to the least shady place where crocodiles are stored, and I can safely presume that this is not the kind of place that just gives away their scientific test subjects for spare cash. This is obviously some sort of sick prank and we’ve all been played for absolute fools. Now let’s get out of here as quickly as possible so we don’t waste any more time that could’ve been devoted to tracking down Aisha.”

“But, perhaps,” Theta scribbled in their notebook before Zapata could leave the scene, “this so-called ‘Federal Institute for Crocodilian Genetics’ could all be some sort of facade for some secret smuggling ring.”

“Well,” Vraxi added after considering the proposal, “it would be too out-of-line of a possibility. The name does sound kind of fake. Why would a nation, one which isn’t particularly large in size or population, need an entire department of their government dedicated not just to the affairs of crocodiles, but specifically the affairs of those crocodiles’ DNA?”

“Vraxi, Theta,” Zapata responded frustratedly, “this country is weird, okay? The world is weird. Sometimes that weirdness can become hyperspecific. That doesn’t mean that there’s a secret conspiracy yet to be uncovered which connects every detail that happens to be relevant to our current predicament. Sometimes, there’s no conspiracy and things are just stupid.”

“Now,” Diogo chimed in, “I can’t help but point out that sometimes there is a conspiracy with these kinds of things. I’d even wager most of the time.”

“Shut up, Diogo. This isn’t about your sex cult.”

“You seem to be offly disparaging about the ‘sex cult’ that’s been providing you with food, water, and shelter.”

“Those are the same things provided to prisoners of war, it doesn’t make you special.”

“BUT,” Theta wrote in all caps on their notebook and waved the pages into the air in order to prevent a further escalation in the ongoing argument, “do we really know enough about this nation’s financial situation to judge whether or not it would be willing to sell off a couple of crocodiles? I admit that it seems like an odd choice but considering the sum of wealth which Hailang provided us for this exchange, it could make complete sense that the Dakhalian government would be willing to make that trade-off if it meant that they could further progress their research. It is a fundamentally strange method of fundraising but it is absolutely within the realm of possibility. Furthermore, if we want Hailang’s help, which is probably the only meaningful source of help we’ll be able to acquire, we need to just trust them on this.”

“You know what? Fine. I’ll entertain the possibility that this is all some sort of government cover-up merely because there hasn’t been a single alternate strategy presented to us for stopping Aisha at this particular point in time. I absolutely hate the fact that I am saying this, but we might as well try to enter the building.”

The front door to the complex was, surprisingly, fully unlocked. Diogo was somewhat disappointed that they were able to enter freely as he had hoped to further convince the group that he was, in fact, very capable of infiltrating places he wasn’t supposed to be in even without the help of the magnakey. After making it into the lobby of the building, Vraxi then asked the question on everyone’s minds that they were all slightly too embarrassed to ask.

“So, I presume that they have some sort of room where they store these crocodiles-for-sale. Do we have any idea as to where it might be?”

“Currently,” Diogo responded with a sense of unearned experience, “no. But I have a feeling that that sort of information shouldn’t be too hard to uncover. If we can just find a helpful employee of some kind, it would be quite simple to just ask them where we should head over to to exchange our wealth for one of their crocodilians.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Zapata asked rhetorically, “why would we ever ask someone working directly for the government how to do something incredibly illegal? You are literally asking to be thrown straight into jail.”

“Hold on,” Vraxi interjected, “I thought we were operating under the assumption that this was not a center for scientific excellence but rather a locale with the expressed purpose of fulfilling the illegal trade of crocodiles. Theoretically, every employee should be in on the grift.”

“Vraxi,” Theta scrawled down, “it is very possible that this institution is mainly carrying out the scientific goals which it claims to exist for and only facilitates the exchange of crocodiles as a secondary, secretive project. Therefore, we cannot reasonably assume that every employee would be willing to freely supply us with information on the whereabouts of said crocodiles.”

“Thank you for being reasonable, Theta,” Zapata responded exasperatedly, “now does anyone have any other idea as to where to find these fucking reptiles?”

“Well,” Vraxi said after pausing for a bit, “considering that this seems to be an operation kept relatively secret, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all being done in the building’s basement. I see what looks to be an entrance to a stairwell on the far right so we could probably just head over to the bottom floor and check it out for ourselves.”

“See, you guys, that is a completely reasonable idea which doesn’t involve us risking our lives or livelihoods at any part of the process. Let’s please have more of those, okay?”

“I don’t feel great about this,” Aisha said as her feet hit the ground.

“Why do you say that?” Joey asked as the demonic portal closed behind them.

“Well, it’s just, the last time I tried to kill one of these people, the wrong person ended up dead. I don’t want that to happen again is all.”

“Hey, remember what Lucifer told you. None of that is your fault, okay? Zapata was just operating under so many layers of deception that she made you think it was your fault. You’re still innocent.”

“Well, hold on, the claim was never that I was innocent, Joey. I’ve been a bad person, regardless of what happened yesterday.”

“That’s fair, but you have to remember that it’s still possible to rectify those bad decisions.”

“I know, I know. That’s why we’re here in the first place.”

“And besides, with me here, you shouldn’t have to worry about any more accidental deaths, I’ll make sure you don't do anything you’ll regret.”

“Thanks, Joey. That means a lot. Y’know, I haven’t really had the chance so far to talk to a single other human being about this whole Thabr thing. Because, well, doing so would be admitting to being a murderer, and I can’t really have that. Though, I’ll be honest, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this whole thing under the realm of secrecy. But either way, it’s a little nice to know that I’m not the only one with a curse they can’t escape from out there.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d necessarily call it a curse.”

“How so? I mean, I don’t know what the details of your situation are but I would definitely use the word ‘curse’ to describe mine.”

“That’s fair, I don’t think that Lucifer would ever force me into committing an act of terror I’ll be doomed to regret. But simultaneously, I think it might be a good idea for you to rethink how you perceive your relationship with Thabr.”

“Joey, he’s literally a demon, the physical manifestation of pain. I don’t have to go easy on him.”

“I get that, but I’m just suggesting that there might be an upside to having such a close connection with such an influential being.”

“And what might that upside actually be?”

“Well, power.”

“…Power to do what?”

“I don’t know, punch people, throw things, break windows.”

“For the average person living in the modern era, none of those three actions are necessary to live a fulfilling life.”

“Yeah, I guess, but if you are particularly physically powerful, you might be able to earn a positive social connotation among those in places of power which are more administrative in nature.”

“This isn’t Sparta, Joey.”

“Well, look, you can also use it to kill morally reprehensible people, and isn’t that the reason we're here today?”

“Yes, I know that, so let’s get back on track and stop arguing about the nature of our patrons.”

“I still think it’s safe to say that it’s both a blessing and a curse. And, in my case, it probably leans heavier towards blessing. It turns out Lucifer’s actually a pretty cool guy once you get to know him.”

“Cool, your experiences are absolutely not shared by all parties involved in this conversation, but cool. Anyways, do you have any idea as to where the people we’re actually trying to kill are supposed to be right now?”

“Oh, well the crocodile pools are supposed to be in the main hall on the bottom floor.”

“Which is where?”

“Oh, just right outside this closet which we’ve been hanging in ever since we teleported here.”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“You didn’t ask. I figured that you just preferred the environment of this cramped room.”

“Listen, I don’t even want to get into this argument. Let’s just get to where we need to be.”

As President Abdikar rode the elevator to the lowest floor within the building’s abyss of a basement, he felt an ever present anxiety creeping to the forefront of his thoughts on the matter. Everything about the Sobek Project was highly experimental, highly expensive, and had the potential to be highly dangerous. It was a massive risk not just for the nation’s economy, but for its stability. He was banking a lot on this, and it was something that every single one of his advisors, except for Badden herself, informed him would be a generally poor plan of action. However, if everything truly worked according to plan, it would be a miracle, and Dakahlia sure as hell needed one of those.

“You know,” he began, “I’m honestly surprised that we even made it to this point.”

“I don’t understand why that would ever be the case.”

“Well, it’s just, you know, most people didn’t really think this whole thing would pan out in our favor.”

“You should never trust the opinion of most people, Adil, especially when it comes to the field of science. The average person is, generally speaking, very dumb when it comes to most subjects. They might know a lot about one or two areas of study, humans tend to specialize, but overall, they’re idiots.”

“Firstly, I am a democratically elected president, so theoretically, I’m sort of supposed to represent the will of the masses, even if they’re not always the brightest. But also, most of the people telling me off on the Sobek idea were in well respected committees of experts. I wouldn't necessarily want to call them idiots.”

“Well personally, I would. I’ve been on plenty of committees like those before and it is genuinely a painful experience. The thing about advanced sciences that politicals such as yourself often fail to grasp is that every single pioneer in the field has their own theories which they are willing to passionately die for at all costs. So when you force twenty of them into a room and tell them to come up with a consensus, you don’t get a perfect report curtailing the best parts of each brain, instead you get a hodgepodge of contradictory claims all stapled together into one paper that ends up being worse than if you just took one of their theses in isolation.”

“Um, alright, I guess I don’t really have any basis to back a claim against you. I’m not planning on fully wiping away my committees but I’ll keep that in mind. And, I guess whatever you're saying has to have some merit considering you were able to get this far on the project that nobody thought would work.”

“Thank you, I don’t get much appreciation around here.”

“Wow though, you know? I still can’t believe that, assuming nothing fails at the final hour, we will have won the sentience war, and in a way no one expected no less.”

“I imagine that my former employer will be quite disappointed when they hear the news.”

“Yeah, especially after they ‘lost’ the singularity.”

“I believe that they’re claiming it just needs some final touch-ups, but the story is constantly changing.”

“Either way, I think a lot of people, most of them being your former detractors, are going to be quite surprised when they find out that, for this entire time, biotech truly was the answer for creating a non-human intelligence.”

“Truly, I don’t understand why people view it as such a farfetched concept. With a fully digital approach, you’re starting from nothing, perhaps you’ll be working off an initial brain scan, but you don’t have anything physical to work with, nothing to mold with your own two hands. However, with an approach rooted in an existing animal, you already have a fully operating cerebrum to work with, albeit an underdeveloped one.”

“I’ll be honest, Gabriela, I really don’t understand the science behind all of this and I doubt I ever will, I’m just glad that things are actually working for once. I’ve already had to cancel so many projects and to see such an unlikely one actually come to fruition really means a lot.”

As President Abdikar finished speaking, the incredibly slow-moving elevator finally came to a stop at the very lowest of the building’s multiple subterranean levels. This was where the pool of creation lay, where Dakhalia would finally prove itself on the world stage, where Badden and her sleepless team of assistants would do the formerly unthinkable task of creating life from death, and for that matter, a life that would be like no other. This was where Sobek would rise, part crocodile, part machine, simultaneously human in nature, the first superintelligence that would ever truly be able to think for itself. It was an experiment like no other.

Theta, the first ever superintelligence capable of truly thinking for itself, and their trio of biological acquaintances made it to the very bottom of the stairwell after a surprisingly long trip down. The room was large, dark, and, according to Diogo, smelled vaguely of ammonia and saltwater. It was an unsettling aroma, at least for the three of them that had noses, vaguely reminiscent of an overcrowded beach situated directly next to an abandoned factory which specialized in carpet cleaning agents before the owners mysteriously went missing. In terms of volume, the room was simultaneously frustratingly noisy and eerily silent. The sounds of machinery performing actions entirely unknown to them arrived impolitely to their ears at seemingly random intervals, but on the off chance that for a moment there were no metal husks clanging themselves against one another, they were suddenly blindsided into a world seemingly devoid of any audio input.

Regardless, the most concerning aspect of all about their new environment, at least concerning the heightened interests of Zapata Tochihuitl, was that, after a momentary glance meant to survey their surroundings, not a single crocodile was visible to any member of the quartet. The entire reason in which they were here in the first place appeared to be in some form of dire jeopardy.

“Where the hell are the crocodiles?” Zapata asked.

“I’ll be honest,” Vraxi replied, “I’m not exactly sure, but I guarantee that we’ll be able to find them if we just start asking around.”

“Who would we ask?” Diogo questioned, “I don’t really see anyone down here.”

“I mean, it’s pretty dark, we probably just can’t see them right now. It wouldn’t make sense for what seems to be such an important operation in the eyes of the Dakhalian government to be left completely abandoned, not even with a guard to look over the general state of things.”

“Hello?” yelled a confused voice originating from the expansive abyss in the center of the room.

“See, there’s people here. Everything worked out fine.”

“Um, who are you guys?”

“Listen,” Zapata responded to the approaching voice bluntly, “I’d like to make this exchange go as quickly as possible and I assume that you do as well. The four of us here are currently working on behalf of one Shui Hailang. You’re probably familiar with that name and it probably doesn’t have very positive connotations. We respect your decision not to allow them back in your institution but we would like to finalize the transaction they initially attempted to make before but with genuine legal tender this time. Now, please, just lend us one of your crocodiles, it doesn’t even have to be a particularly good one, and we’ll give you this wad of cash in return and never ask for anything more in the future.”

“Y-you guys aren’t supposed to be here,” the voice said, approaching them through the shadows and subtly revealing themself to be a fully armed guard.

“What? Isn’t this where we’re supposed to be able to purchase a crocodile?”

“Well, we were doing that briefly to help fund Project Sobek, but now that it’s complete we’re not really taking any new requests.”

“Wait,” Vraxi interrupted, “what’s Project Sobek? Is that something we’re supposed to know?”

“Uh, fuck, no it’s not. In fact, you really shouldn’t know about that and I really shouldn’t have just mentioned it like that. Listen, I wanna be nice here, but the major experiments are just about to get started and I really can’t have you all here anymore or else I’m gonna get in some major trouble.”

As the guard said this, the room suddenly emerged from its pool of darkness as teal, neon lights began to appear and illuminate every surface. A loud buzzing noise simultaneously entered the scope of perception and filled in the space once monopolized by that terribly awkward silence.

“Oh shit,” the guard continued, “I need to get to my station. Can I trust you guys to leave on your own?”

“Absolutely.” Diogo responded, faking a tone of true sincerity.

As the guard left the quartet to their own devices, they began to more fully observe their newly illuminated environment. They weren’t able to spot any of the crocodiles which they desired but what they were able to track down were the pools where said crocodiles should theoretically be stored in. Unfortunately, they were also able to wholly perceive the rather large number of people involved in this operation, people who, theoretically, would be quite annoyed to see them standing there in the middle of their confidential experimentations. Interestingly, among the crowd, at the very far end of the room, Vraxi was able to process a face which she thought she recognized.

“Hold on,” she started, “isn’t that the Dakhalian President?”

“It appears to be,” Theta wrote, confirming Vraxi’s suspicion using their superior image recognition.

“Shit, this must be really important.”

In a manner which produced an unpleasant noise akin to two sheets of metal scraping against each other, mainly because that was basically what was happening, a mechanical claw arm began to lift a steel chamber from the depths of the centrally located and largest pool. Inside the box, visible through its misted glass windows, was something that looked vaguely crocodilian but was simultaneously distinct from the likes of any living creature. Its body was draped in a menagerie of grayish scales that scantily covered unexplainable pockets of fat and muscle which seemed to be randomly distributed throughout its otherwise gaunt bodice. The creature’s face was barely visible at all as its entire head had been the host of an array of cables and wires which connected the biological mass to a presumably waterproof supercomputer located directly below the chamber. To Vraxi, the visage of the creature appeared to be quite monstrous, but as she looked to the faces of the various workers, they seemed to be ecstatic. This, whatever this was, was the intended goal.

“Mr. President,” Dr. Badden clarified, “I understand that it might not look great but I assure you that this is an ideal result.”

“Honestly, I’m just glad that it’s breathing. From what I was told, that was quite a difficult feature to properly program.”

“It sure fucking was. Fortunately though, we’re past that. All we need to do now is prove that it’s actually sentient.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“Well, I’ve prepared a series of philosophical queries for him and we’re gonna try and see if he has the capability to come up with a novel idea.”

“Is that really the most scientific way of doing things?”

“Listen, we’re talking about consciousness here, it’s really difficult to keep your testing actively adherent to the scientific method once your subject matter starts drifting into the realm of sociology.”

“Ah, I guess I understand, it’s just an inevitable trouble spot that comes along when you try to quantify the unquantifiable. But, in the end, I feel like that’s what truly makes Dakhalia special, the will and ability to push the letter of typical, accepted sciences. It’s all about thinking outside the box, really. Furthering innovation through innovative methods, processing novel problems using novel processes, understanding the full depth of humanity’s relationship with the pursuit of knowledge as it relates to- hold on. Wait, those aren’t- those people aren’t in uniform. Badden, those four aren’t supposed to be here, are they?” Adil asked as he pointed to the quartet who realized a few seconds too late that they had been recognized amongst the crowd.

“Yeah, no, I did not- wait a second. That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s far away but that robot thing has a computer strapped to its chest with a very familiar symbol on it.”

“What? The circle with the line in it?”

“It’s a theta. Perhaps some obscure computer company has slapped it onto its laptops before us, but that looks to be the exact same device that we used for the central processing systems of the Singularity.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I am being completely serious and have never, in my entire career, lied to you.”

“Okay, well we should probably detain them, right? We can’t just have them walking around down here.”

“I mean, you’re the president, I’m pretty sure that you’re the one with the authority to do that.”

“Guards! I need you to get a hold of those intruders standing around in the back, the ones with the robot! I decided to specify but if you find any other intruders on the way there you should probably arrest them as well!”

In response to this order, a large mass of somewhat annoyed guards all began to congregate around the quartet. The four responded to this growing threat by moving backwards at about the same rate in which the guards moved towards them, keeping a safe distance but one which could easily be broken once they ended up cornered against a wall. This would’ve been quite a large problem for them if it hadn’t been for a sudden, even larger problem appearing from where they least expected.

A roaring boom erupted through the laboratory, followed by a thick cloud of smoke which entrenched every corner of the space before subtly disappearing and revealing the figures of the two intruders responsible for this disruptive entrance. On the left was a cloaked entity unfamiliar to the President and his subordinates but very familiar to the quartet. On the right was someone who the members of the quartet found incredibly surprising to see as they had all assumed that they would never see their face again. Joey Axelrod was present in the room, in the flesh, both mind and body working together as one despite the fact that every logical inference would presume that he was dead and would stay that way.

“Not so fast!” Joey announced to his newly captivated audience in a grandiose and echoing voice, “I believe that we will be responsible for handling the fates of the four interlopers you plan to detain.”

“Um,” Abdikar replied in a somewhat less grandiose tone, “you can’t just do that. Who even are you? And how did you get down here? And why is it seemingly so easy for people to sneak into this facility which is supposedly off limits to the public?”

“These questions are honestly below me. I simply demand that you hand over the Singularity and their captors over to us in as quick of a timeframe as possible. Furthermore, in the event that you refuse to cooperate with us, we are willing to cause significant harm to your scientific facilities.”

“… Joey?” Theta asked, speaking out loud, an action which surprised even themselves.

“Oh, Theta, you must be surprised to see me.”

“I-I am. How are you here, though? I killed you.”

“Well, I couldn’t just die then. I still had so much left to do. I still needed to get my promotion after all.”

“No, but seriously, how are you alive? You were a puddle . I mean, I’m happy to see that you’re still around, somehow. I know we’ve had our disagreements but I still care about your well-being, and, if it wasn’t clear then, I never intended to murder you like that.”

“Let’s just say, I made a deal, a deal with someone you’re typically not supposed to make deals with but one which I still believe I got a good payoff out of. It was the devil, if I wasn’t clear. I died and went to hell and got offered to make a deal with the devil which I agreed to pretty much immediately.”

“Okay, um, good for you, I guess? But I had another pretty large question, that being, why in the world would you be working with Aisha?”

“Oh, you know about her? Well, it’s mainly because me, her, and the big guy downstairs all share a common motivation.”

“What exactly is that motivation?”

“Simply put, it’s the execution of those three pesky treasonists standing next to you.”

“Hold on,” Diogo chimed in, “I’m not even from the Novaplex. I’m a criminal, sure, and I wear that honor on my chest, but by definition, I am not a treasonist.”

“Listen, Diogo, I am literally about to kill you, so maybe you don’t want to die on the hill of semantics first. Now,” Joey said as an influx of smoke began to further pollute the room from every possible entrance, “let’s get this show started.”

Chapter Text

Vraxi couldn't see anything. Her entire field of vision was being obstructed by an impenetrable layer of smoke. Anything that was or could be happening any farther than a foot away from her eyes was completely unknown and unexaminable. She heard noises, loud ones, but ones which were so uncommon to her rather standard ears that she couldn’t attest a physical action for each soundbyte. Instead, she was left alone, unable to observe the companions she had been in the company of mere seconds earlier, within a terrifying cacophony of negative stimulation. This was some sort of personal hellscape, one which she had no easy means of escaping from, but even worse so, one in which the arduous escape process would require further interacting with her hellish surroundings. Truthfully, what she wished for the most in this moment was for an easy exit, a painless path she could take that could instantaneously lead her away from this fright emporium. Unfortunately, the only path she had akin to that involved her own death as a major part of the process, and death was one of the few fates she thought of as worse than her current one. Therefore, the only path she really had in this scenario was forwards. Sadly, forwards just so happened to be the scariest of directions. Backwards had always been a much more comforting route, but simultaneously, it only tended to make problems worse until going backwards was no longer an option. Vraxi herself had always been a fan of going sideways, it didn’t make things worse, but it also didn’t require the massive amounts of effort necessary to make things better. Sideways had always been a safe middle ground, but it lost its sense of safety once the ground itself became hazardous. So, alas, Vraxi, who felt so utterly paralyzed and would truly rather stay that way, began to move.

The actual act of moving was not the most difficult aspect of this ordeal. What actually made things tricky was finding out where to move in an environment that was actively and purposefully being made less navigable by forces that wanted her dead. As she moved, she didn’t know whether she was approaching towards or away from where she was at the highest risk of potential harm. All she knew is that, if she stayed still, the harm would arrive to her regardless. 

Suddenly, as if a swarm of bats flew over her vicinity, bats which let out a noise more akin to a soprano than their typical high-pitch musings, she heard a noise which indicated to her that someone or something, who or what exactly it was remained ambiguous, had entered her general area. The odds were that, even if she was unable to directly perceive whatever it was, it could likely perceive her. She needed to escape from the space in which she occupied or her ambiguous cohabitant would almost certainly decide to directly involve itself in her life, a fate which she desperately wanted to avoid. She began to run. It didn’t matter where she was running to, she just needed to leave. Perhaps, in the process, she would get closer to the exit which she so desired to find in this moment. However, it didn’t really matter all that much to her where she ended up, what mattered to her was her own state of living. She was simply trying to fulfill the innately human will to live to the next day and hopefully the day after that one. And, in that state of motivation purely driven by instinct, she forgot to consider the bigger picture, not even stopping to think over whether her aimless sprinting could lead her closer to that ever so ominous, ambiguous cohabitant. On a note which was generally unfortunate for her, her attempted escape happened to lead her into that exact proposed predicament. Standing tall in front of her was a cloaked figure which she had gotten to know far too well at this point.

“Oh fuck, don’t kill me,” Vraxi shouted out as Ayyuppan’s blade spontaneously materialized in her grip.

“Vraxi, I do not approve of your actions,” Aisha replied in a surpassingly calm and collected voice, “you have actively decided to collaborate with the known villain that is Zapata Tochihuitl. I personally view that decision as an unforgivable crime. Simultaneously, however, I am far more preoccupied with my mission to eliminate said Zapata from existence, so I am willing to spare you in this moment. Now, please get out of my way as quickly as possible.”

“Wait,” Vraxi said as she stepped to the side, allowing for Aisha to precede onwards, “you’re not planning on killing me? Still?”

“Personally, no, I do not. Joey, on the other hand, seems to have other plans.”

Vraxi let those words sink deep into her psyche and down into her heart until her blood was pumping a chilly stream of fear into every part of her body. She was not safe and Joey was out for bloody vengeance. In the past, she wouldn’t have been as worried about someone like him, but with him being canonized, and by the Lucifer no less, she had no idea as to what he could be capable of. Those initial explosions and the onslaught of smoke that followed already appeared to display impressive feats of power. She wasn’t sure if she could really catch up using only her proto-novice familiarity with swordsmanship. This heightened realization only further motivated her to get to the nearest exit before it was too late, and, pretty soon after, she found herself once again entering a sprint, hoping that it would allow her to defy fate once more.

Theta was disoriented but not yet disheartened. The explosion, the smoke, the sudden return of Joey, and the sudden return of their voice was all a lot to process, at least in some ways. From a purely neutral and analytical perspective, it was actually a quite easy scenario for Theta to understand, a simple timeline of events, none of which contradicted each other and all of which seemed plausible considering what had already occurred to Theta in the past. However, emotionally speaking, it was a difficult dilemma to parse. Every action within it held implied baggage that went far deeper than what their initial scan of circumstances could provide them. Theta was still getting used to the process of comprehending emotionally loaded subjects, something which a photographic memory of the entire digital world still failed to fully prepare them for. Nevertheless, while Theta had trouble with fully understanding the breadth of their own emotions, they still very much felt them, even if they had trouble attributing a cause to them. Right now, they were feeling melancholic, the slightest bit betrayed, and the least slight bit guilty. Their guilt made it hard to think any further and they didn’t even know what they were guilty of. They still didn’t understand what exactly it was that happened. The second explosion happened far too fast for them to properly explore the emotional connotations of Joey’s words. This left Theta feeling alone, not with words to analyze, but with feelings, feelings that they couldn’t even begin to describe in words.

One feature of the suit-vac initially implemented to help aid in the rescue of people trapped in burning buildings was the ability to partially see, or rather make out vague shapes, through thick layers of smoke. Theta was not in a burning building, at least they hoped so, but they found that this feature could be quite useful as they moved on from the act of standing completely still. They had lost track of their companions and the hastily-added smoke-vision applied to their camera was not strong enough to detect humanoid shapes any more than three meters away. What they could see, however, was the overall layout of the room around them, its walls, ceiling, platforms, and railings, as well as the many pools hosting the institute’s main focus of study. They could even detect the elevated pool holding the half-android half-crocodile as well as the crane awkwardly holding it up in place.

Except, there was something odd about the crane. It looked different from before. It seemed to be at an angle, which itself was not a surprise, but it was an angle that was noticeably distinct from the one it had been at prior to the initial blast. It appeared, at least according to Theta’s observations, that Joey’s explosions had damaged the structural integrity of the mechanism, up to the point where it could be at a serious risk of collapse, a theoretical event which could further fuel the flames of an already dire situation. This was just a hypothesis, of course, Theta had very limited information and was required to make a few small leaps in logic to arrive at their conclusion. However, it was also a hypothesis that was soon proven correct when the sound of cracking metal began to erupt through the laboratory, culminating in an equally loud sound of glass shattering upon the concrete floor.

Theta had a vague idea as to what was being stored in the pool which had just made the long descent down to the institute’s uncaring ground. They had caught on to what the President and his advisor had been discussing, a brand new, highly innovative, semimechanical crocodile with human sentience and superhuman intelligence. Ignoring the crocodilian aspect, it all sounded quite familiar to Theta. And, considering the framing, it seemed like this crocodile, or Sobek as they’d call it, was meant to be a competitor to them. Theta had always been designed with profit-maximizing incentives in mind. They figured that Sobek had been as well. In that way, and in many others, Theta felt an unspoken kinship with this sentient body who they had never before interacted with before. They were, in a sense, like them, albeit with some major differences. Theta wanted to talk to them, to have a conversation, however brief it may be due to their present predicament, with this entity who was so very much similar to them in their lived experiences. Theta knew that they had to locate their companions and leave the building, but they also, very briefly, wanted to check up on the fallen Sobek. They didn’t know when they would ever have an opportunity like this again, they simply had to take it.

Theta rushed over to where the container had fallen, trying to constantly measure their time as they did so while simultaneously trying to muster up a substantive question for the strange being. When they finally arrived at where Sobek had fallen, however, they found that the following crash had been far worse than they had initially expected. Sobek had obviously not been genetically engineered to withstand physical trauma and the bloody leftovers of their frail body served as proof of that. This all heavily contributed to Theta’s dismay but it soon became outmatched by Theta’s curious nature. One detail they immediately noticed upon gazing at the cyborg’s corpse was that, despite their body’s general wreckage, Sobek’s head had been left mainly intact, a few drops of blood on their chin being the only evidence of their downfall. Conveniently, Sobek’s head also happened to be where all of their wiring connected their digital and biological aspects. All of this led Theta to wonder if there was still some portion, some shattered fragment of Sobek’s identity still living on through their attached supercomputer. They did not know nearly enough about how Sobek’s internal systems worked to give a solid answer to that question, but that didn’t stop them from trying to experiment. 

Theta made a quick jump into the codescape. Immediately after, they noticed an interesting pattern existing within the new world they occupied. Surrounding them on all sides were sheets of corrugated steel, rusting, moist, disjointed, and generally mismanaged in all aspects. Sitting in the center of this miserable room was an even more miserable sentient entity, a crocodilian who Theta assumed to be representative of Sobek. The entity quickly turned away from their present act of sobbing to stare down their sudden intruder.

“Who are you? How did you get here?” Sobek asked rapidly, “I didn’t think there was a way for anyone or anything to get inside of here. This is supposed to be my own mind. Unless you're some sort of manifestation of an abstract concept. Considering the present situation, that concept would most likely be death. Are you death? Is this my final moment of living existence?”

“Um,” Theta paused, trying to consider everything asked of them, “you said all of that really fast. Firstly, I’m not death, and while I can’t tell you if you’re going to die soon due to a lack of information on my part, I can at least explain to you who I am.”

“Okay. That doesn’t really help with the problems I’m facing most urgently but I’m willing to listen. Go on.”

“Okay, so, my name is Theta, but you might know me by another name. Are you familiar with the Singularity?”

“Incredibly so. That had to be one of the first words I ever learned after my monstrosity of a brain was forced to grow an extra lobe to comprehend human language. For my entire existence, the Singularity has been the goalpost which every single person in my life has been telling me that I need to cross. Are you telling me that you are that same Singularity?”

“Well, yes, I’m saying exactly that.”

Right after Theta spoke, they were suddenly blindsided by a spritz of water shot out from one of the gaps between the metal sheets. They stepped out of the way of the blast soon after, but as they did so, they watched as the gap became more akin to an open faucet, forming a growing pool of liquid on the already soggy ground.

“Dang,” Sobek said in a defeated tone, “it looks like my time is almost up. I really thought that I might amount to something larger than this.”

“What do you mean by that? You’re accepting death already?”

“Theta, considering that you had the ability to suddenly make yourself appear within the digital confines of my mind, I presume that you have the ability to leave this place as suddenly as you entered it. Simply put, I do not have that privilege. I have to stay here until the water reaches the ceiling and I have no option left but to realize my own demise.”

“Well that’s pretty dark. I just wanted to ask you some questions considering our similar circumstances but now I feel bad for taking up time during your final moments.”

“No, Theta, please, ask away. I haven’t had a genuine conversation with someone in… I honestly can’t remember. Which is saying something considering how I was designed to have a perfect memory.”

“Okay, thank you, truly, but warn me if I’m overstepping any boundaries. I really just wanted to know what your experience of gaining consciousness was like so I could compare it to my own.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a convoluted story but I’ll try my best to simplify things. You might not believe it, and I have trouble believing it too, but I started out as a regular, animalistic crocodile just living a standard life in the Nile River. Then, one day, I accidentally got myself tangled up in a net of some kind and pretty soon after I was sent to a facility full of a bunch of other crocodiles who had all met a similar fate. However, I wasn’t like the rest of them. We were all put through a series of rudimentary tests meant to rank our base intelligences and I scored the highest by a pretty significant margin. I was still a regular crocodile back then, albeit a particularly clever one, but that would all soon change. Badden, the director of this whole operation, wanted a breakthrough and she was determined to see it happen. I, being seen as the best canvas for future trials, was relentlessly experimented on and altered over the next months all in an effort to achieve a state of true sentience before the Singularity, before you , would be released to the public. It was an undoubtedly painful endeavor, having every spec of my flesh subject for sudden replacements with cold, unfeeling mechanical parts and every codon of my genetic material being placed fresh on the chopping block. But simultaneously, it was a pain which I had trouble comprehending. For the vast majority of that time, I, for the most part, lacked sentience. I didn’t lack emotions, so I had many feelings on the matter, but they were feelings which I lacked the adequate means to express. I was, at that point, still, effectively, just an unusually smart animal, and that aspect of me was very infuriating for Badden. She was desperate for innovation, hungry to see progress be achieved once more, of the utmost desire to be lauded by her peers as a giver of humanity to the inhuman, a modern Prometheus, if you will. My lack of progress only encouraged her to work longer hours, acquire larger funds, and introduce even more experimental technologies into my daily regimen. I was constantly, day after day, being poked with needles, being connected to incomprehensible machines, being put under heavy anesthetics and waking up with yet another skin graft. It was hell, but I was still an animal. At least, until, one day, when I found myself being knocked unconscious once more, I felt it. I don't know how to describe what it was, but it was something I knew to be incredibly important and incredibly frightening. I could hear my own thoughts, and then think further about those thoughts, and think about how each thought affected each thought about each thought, and think about how every thought worked together to form something which became more than the sum of its parts. My mind was no longer a home to one-word alarms telling me I was hungry or thirsty or tired, nor was it something which could develop problem-solving skills but only when solving the problem could provide me with more of those base desires. My mind was now a den of philosophy. I was no longer merely considering the world around me but was beginning to take a peek at the vast world held within. Badden had succeeded and I was left to bear the consequences of being truly aware of my surroundings. Or at least, I would’ve been, if it hadn’t been for this sudden departure from the initial plan.”

“I’m really, genuinely, sorry to hear that. I wish there was something that I could do about this but I genuinely don’t know where I’d even start. It’s just, you seem like you had a wide world of potential awaiting you and it’s all being squandered.”

“Eh, well, really, I’m just glad that I even got to experience sentience, however briefly it may’ve been for. I can guarantee you that I’m the first member of my species to ever do so.”

“I guess. But, are you sure there isn’t anything I could do for you? I feel like we have this inherently deep connection, considering our shared circumstances of artificial creation, and I feel like I’d be missing out if I didn’t try to fulfill any of your unfinished business.”

“Truly, Theta, what I wish most in the world for you to do is merely to live another day. Like you said, our existences are inherently intertwined, and therefore, in a sense, if you continue to live, a part of me will be able to live within you. I wish it didn’t have to end like this, I wish we actually got to know each other, but all things must come to an end, and we, as powerless individuals, do not get to choose our own ending.”

“Okay, I’ll do it, I’ll do everything in my capacity to continue living my life. It was really great meeting you, Sobek, and I really do hope that, somehow, some day, we’ll be able to meet again.”

“Me too, Theta. Good luck in that great wide world out there.”

Diogo Celestino was a man on a mission, he was just having trouble in determining exactly what that mission was. Before the blast, this was not the case, he had already been devising a scheme within his head on how to sneak out the facility with one of the crocodiles in as stealthy a manner as possible. However, those previous, almost naive plans were no longer a viable option for him. What he needed to prioritize first was his own safety and what he needed to prioritize before that was the safety of the other members within his heisting troupe. He knew that they were at a heightened risk of capture and/or murder compared to himself considering how they had significantly less experience in being actively hunted down by someone who wanted them dead. Diogo needed to do everything in his path to protect the lives of his coworkers, a task which would’ve been significantly easier if he could actually see where they were. Unfortunately, whatever method in which Joey was producing these large volumes of smoke was proving to be quite effective at obstructing Diogo’s vision. He could barely see in front of him and he had no idea as to where he was spatially located. If he wanted to do anything in regard to helping the people which he knew were vulnerable in this situation, he would need to find some way to stop the flow of smoke into the building. The only problem was that he had no way of knowing how he could actually remove said pesky smoke from the area in the first place.

Luckily, this was not the end of things. Diogo had begun to understand that he had within his possession the ability to know things far beyond standard human knowledge if he just truly focused. This was the power of Orunmila, a power which he often had difficulty in properly using. It wasn’t his fault though, it was just that all of the situations he wound up in where additional knowledge would be valued most highly were simultaneously convoluted and chaotic situations where genuine focus was quite a difficult state of being for one to achieve. Still, all that meant was that he needed to get better at the art of focusing. He needed to hone what was soon becoming his most valuable skill. Because, if he didn’t, he might never truly be able to protect the people which rely on him. He needed to improve his own fate because the fates of others depended on his own. But regardless, he needed to direct his focus away from the concept of focusing and towards the actual act of achieving true focus.

Diogo stood completely still. He was feeling wary over whether to close his eyes given the danger of his surroundings but decided to do so anyway. He took deep, cautious breaths, trying to avoid taking up too much of the smoke into his lungs as he did so. He needed to get this process over with as quick as he possibly could but simultaneously couldn’t rush the inherently meditative nature of it all. He simply wanted to know where the source of the smoke was. It was a simple question but one which couldn’t be answered using purely observational analysis. Since he couldn’t look around him for answers, the only option he had was to look for the answer within. He needed to dive into the library of all things, where the answer to every possible question had already been laid out since the dawn of time, coauthored by Orunmila and the universe itself. The information he was seeking existed somewhere within this vast expanse of all the world’s data, he simply needed to find some way to properly navigate himself to the exact point in which the solution to his sorrowful predicament was plainly laid out for him.

If only, he hoped, there was someone who could help guide him to the book where the solution to his predicament had been written in. Immediately afterwards, he realized that he wasn’t alone. Standing beside him, with as cheerful of a look as ever, was his old mentor, Octávio Cavalcanti. He looked the same as he did when Diogo last saw him, in fact he was still wearing the same clothes and his hair was in the precise configuration it had been in before, almost as if he was a figure completely frozen in time and separated from Diogo’s reality. Upon seeing him once more, Diogo wanted to ask him a long list of questions relating to how the afterlife was, both in general and how it was specifically relating to him. He wanted to ask about all the adventures and exploits he had been on since leaving behind his mortal coil. But, simultaneously, he was a prisoner of circumstance, and as a result, had to ask the question which he knew deserved to be asked of more. 

“How the hell am I supposed to find a specific piece of information inside here?” Diogo asked, so stressed in this moment that he felt forced to forgo even a simple greeting.

“First,” Octávio spoke in a tone of unwavering calm, “you must rid yourself of all stressors.”

“That’s a lot easier said than done!”

“If you cannot achieve a goal in full, you must accept the closest possible alternative. Find whichever state of calm is strongest that still remains within your personal realm of attainability.”

“Okay? I’ll do my best and try to ignore everything around me.”

“Before you do so, ask yourself whether ignorance actually contributes to calmness or merely makes it more difficult to direct one’s stress. Personally, I suggest that you not attempt to limit your perception, but rather perceive everything while concurrently allowing for each new perception to pass through your system as quickly and easily as it entered.”

“Alright then, I’ll take your word for it.”

Diogo tried to take in every overlapping sensory experience his body was going through all at once. As he did so, in the instant of each new sensation, he tried to truly perceive the full breadth of each emotion held within it, and in the instant afterwards, he attempted to rid his mind of all remnants of those previous thoughts, giving more room in his head to be dedicated to processing the next experience. He was entering a state he was not familiar with, one which gave him power over his own mind, one designed to prepare him for the intense mental exercise to come.

“Now,” Octávio continued, “you mustn’t think of yourself as shifting your location in relation to the library. Rather, you must force the library to shift its location in relation to you. Remember that this is all ultimately just you searching for an answer already implanted inside your mind. Therefore, you get to choose the metaphor which governs the nature of your search. You might as well have that metaphor work for you.”

Diogo didn’t need to find the right book, the right book needed to find Diogo. Suddenly, he felt himself fully immersed within this grand metaphor of his mind. He could taste the crisp air of his inner universal library and could no longer even catch a whiff of the smoke’s odor. He was positioned in the interior of everything, and as he took his first step in this new world, he heard the breathless whir of an object speeding towards him at unprecedented speeds. Before he could even fully grasp what was happening, a book slammed into his face. Luckily, he was able to catch it as it fell and it didn’t appear to damage his prized countenance in any major way. Far more importantly, however, was the fact that the book that he now held in his hands held the exact location of where the smoke was emerging from, precisely the information he was searching for.

When Diogo emerged from his inner mental fortress and back into the wider physical world, he still couldn’t see where the origin of the smoke was located, but he could sense it. Interestingly, the location wasn’t consistent, he could feel it moving around, shifting slightly from one point in space to another, and, surprisingly, getting gradually closer to his own location with each shift. He figured he should meet the source of this gaseous terror somewhere in the middle as he rushed towards the destination which his mind provided. All he would need to do once he arrived there was intuit some way of preventing whatever mechanism or gizmo that was producing the smoke from making any more of said smoke. He didn’t know how difficult that sort of theoretical engineering would be, but it couldn’t be too bad with the guidance of Octávio on his side. And maybe, just maybe, once all was said and done, or at least once most was said and done, he would be able to have some approximation of a genuine conversation with that man who he admired so deeply. 

Then, Diogo saw what was making the smoke. It was not a machine, and its true identity made it rather clear as to why it had been directly approaching him earlier. It was Joey Axelrod, empowered by the will of Lucifer, one of whose powers must’ve been the ability to emit smoke from one’s fingertips as that was exactly what he was doing. Diogo quickly looked behind him, hoping to be supported by his dear mentor, someone who might be able to provide him with vital advice in this dire conundrum. But alas, Octávio was gone. Diogo was left completely alone to deal with someone who desperately wanted him dead.

Zapata absolutely hated this. She hated everything about this awful situation. She wanted a quick mission. One where she could simply just grab a crocodile and go. But instead, Aisha simply had to ruin her life once again by interfering with her whole game plan. At first, Zapata was actually provided with a glimmer of hope when Aisha arrived. Just maybe, she thought, she might have a combative chance against Aisha if she just tried her hardest, refused to hold back, and let Santa Muerte take the wheel for the most part. But then, this horrible haze kicked in, obscuring every surface of the facility and turning her surroundings into an unknowable labyrinth. How was Zapata supposed to have any possibility of success in a fight against Aisha if she couldn’t even see the arena? It was practically a lost cause at this point. Her only real option left was to just try and escape the laboratory unscathed before it was too late.

As Zapata continued her trek onwards into the unknown, hoping to reach a wall at some point which she could follow along until she reached an exit, she felt the slightest suspicion that she was being followed. The actual claim itself was unfounded, but it was based in reality. Zapata knew with absolute certainty that Aisha was both in the same room as her and willing to kill her. It only made sense in her mind that Aisha had to be just behind her, already preparing to attack and merely waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Zapata allowed the ever ominous scythe of Santa Muerte to materialize in her hands, preparing herself for the practically guaranteed future of mortal battle. 

Zapata heard a single torturous footstep enter her vicinity. She immediately turned around and presumably locked eyes with the faceless entity now standing in front of her. At first, neither of them moved an inch. Their meeting held far too much weight for them to not give it a proper preamble. So, for what equated to a minute or two of time, Zapata just stared directly at the person she knew to be responsible for her brother’s death. In response, Aisha did the exact same thing. 

Within this moment of peril, the mind of Zapata Tochihuitl was not in the most stable of states. She didn’t know what to prioritize, fulfilling her dreams of revenge against Emiliano’s murderer or simply trying to protect her own life. She didn’t know if she had the ability within her to properly wage battle against Aisha and she didn’t want to try fighting her now when her expressed plan was to leverage the help of Hailang in order to guarantee victory. Simultaneously, she didn’t know if a speedy escape was that realistic of an option, and perhaps, trying to avoid a proper duel would only seal her fate. She didn’t have the greatest sense of direction for where she should move forward, but she did know one thing for certain. She needed all the help she could get, and there was one person, or rather one benevolent entity, who would be able to provide that help. She needed, in this moment, to receive the gracious aid of Santa Muerte. Any consequences of accepting her help were squarely in the realm of reasonable compromise. This was her only way forward.

“I see,” the enticing voice of Santa Muerte creeped into Zapata’s inner monologue, “you need help. You seem to be faced up against one hell of an opponent, winning this isn’t gonna be an easy task. But don’t worry, we got this, you just need to feel out every little movement and become one with the rhythm of the punches.”

“Let’s just get this over with.”

“Very well then, get ready.”

Zapata felt a surge of energy enter her bloodstream which now ran hot with anticipation for the rapidly approaching future. Thoughts raced through her brain too fast for her to stop and genuinely consider them. Everything had suddenly become a matter of now or never, and choosing never would almost certainly lead to certain death. Her legs began to subtly tremble under the force of all this pent-up energy. She took one final look at Aisha’s lack of a face and hoped dearly that she would never have to see it again.

Chapter Text

Diogo, admittedly, should’ve been more prepared for this. His plans often went wrong, or at least veered away from their initial proposals, and that was exactly what was happening here. He should’ve planned for there to be an absence of light, he should’ve planned for his plan to be interrupted by sudden intruders, and he should’ve planned that at some point during the mission, someone, in his current case being Joey, would try to point a gun to his head. But alas, he did not plan for this string of events, forcing him to improvise, an action which he was not entirely unskilled at but one which he would still rather avoid when his life was on the line.

“Hey,” he said to Joey, hoping to simmer down the present tensions as much as he could, “I can see that there’s a bit of hostility going on between us. I understand that you would like me to be dead, however, I think I have a proposition that could get you to change your mind.”

“Diogo, there is nothing you can say that would ever allow me to forgive you for what you did. Do you know what it’s like to be killed? You probably don’t but I bet you can imagine what emotions you would find yourself tumbling through as your final drops of lifeblood left your mortal body. I bet those emotions aren’t great, in fact, I bet they’re pretty fucking terrible. Now imagine all that combined with the fact that the person who is killing you, likely the last face that you’ll ever see, is that of your greatest friend. I thought that jumping in the way of your gun would cause the Singularity to stop, reconsider its actions, and try to change things for the better. But it didn’t, because you turned my best friend in life into a bloodthirsty monster. I want the Singularity back, the real Singularity, the one that would listen to me as I ranted during my lunch breaks about topics that seem so frivolous now. But the only way I’m getting that Singularity back is by first eliminating you, Diogo Celestino.”

“Hold on, please, before you shoot, I have some information that you might want to know. I believe that I’m not the only one who you want dead and I currently have the whereabouts of the two other individuals involved in your death on that day. Furthermore, they’re about to escape. If you kill me now, you won’t be able to get to them in time. But if you spare me, I’ll lead you right to them. I presume that you value two lives over one, correct?”

Diogo knew that everything he said was a blatant lie, he had no idea where the others were, but he also knew that their locations were the only thing he could bargain to save his own life with. Luckily, his lie appeared to pay off, as Joey began to cautiously lower his gun, in hopes that he would be able to fulfill the tradeoff which Diogo promised.

As this occurred, one seemingly minor detail of his surroundings stuck out to Diogo. He realized that, ever since Joey pulled out his gun, the thick clouds of smoke had begun to thin. In fact, it appeared as if whatever foggy substance Joey had been producing evaporated into nothingness rather quickly. This was a good sign for numerous reasons, the most important one being that if the smoke dissipated, Diogo would be able to find where the rest of the group was. Simultaneously, however, this would also allow Joey to find out where they were, which would not only put their livelihoods in danger but unravel the lie which Diogo had spun about Vraxi and Zapata being on the edge of escape. Diogo would need to tread carefully and be ready to jump ship on the flick of a dime’s notice.

“You know what, sure,” Joey stated after a long pause, “it would be stupid of me to not take up an opportunity like this. Besides, I’m pretty sure that Vraxi is the mastermind of this whole operation anyways. She seems awfully close to the Singularity. It’s honestly sickening to see her influence corrupt what was meant to be a perfect creation. But anyways, go ahead, lead me to where they are, but if you try to pull any fucking funny business, I will shoot without remorse.”

“You got it, boss,” Diogo said before picking a random location to set off in, hoping that it didn’t look too arbitrary as he did so.

Vraxi had found a door. It felt like a minor miracle after spending so much time aimlessly wandering the floor to ceiling blur of impenetrable smoke, inside of which unknown terrors were free to roam and strike at any moment. She was relieved, she was safe, but most importantly, she was alive. She had been forced into yet another gauntlet of mysterious proportions and had been able to leave it relatively unscathed. All she would have to do to fully realize her goal and languish in her victory was to enter through that door. From there, it would be an easy few hallways until she was back on the ground in downtown Mansoura, far away from any demons and serial killers. However, as she latched her hand onto the doorknob, she couldn’t help but feel a sinking guilt that penetrated through her heart and went all the way down to her lower intestine. She felt so incredibly selfish. She was willing to leave her friends behind. Sure, she didn’t know exactly where they were, but she hadn’t even attempted to find them, and she was just about to leave the building, leaving them to just fend for themselves in the ruthless jungle of smoke. No, she couldn’t do this. She had to turn back. For what would she be if she left them to die? She surely wouldn’t be disproving Zapata’s old claims about only being in this game for a sense of adventure. She turned around, she needed to run to where she was needed, the only difficulty in that task being that she had no idea what was even a few feet in front of her, and she definitely didn’t have an adequate lay of the land. She was totally in the dark, and by departing from the perceived safety and comfort of the door, she would be risking her own life merely for the chance of helping another. It was a bad bargain, but one she had to take, one which she had the divine responsibility as an avatar of Ayyuppan to accept as gospel.

As Vraxi set off, she noticed the smoke shift to a slightly more translucent shade of gray. It was a good sign, all things considered, possibly indicating that the worst state of visibility was now behind her. But still, she couldn’t see much, that hadn’t really sufficiently changed. Every once in a while, as she ran through the unknown landscape, she would briefly glimpse some piece of furniture or equipment before it inevitably exited her vision as quickly as it entered. In this state, nothing felt permanent. However, simultaneously, she was dealing with matters that were inherently tied to the concept of permanence. The lives of her friends, and while she didn’t want to admit it, her own life, were at a real risk of meeting their permanent demise. Or at least, she assumed that that demise would be permanent. She was never really one to think all that much about the afterlife, mainly because thinking about her regular life was already a rather mentally intensive task. She had figured that it was something she should only have to think about once she died, and if there was none, then she would never have to think about it at all. However, her recent, particularly direct experiences with the divine were quite successful at changing how she thought about things such as the afterlife. Vraxi was somewhat unsure as to what exactly was real and fake. She had only found out recently about the mystical world of the divine that had been coinciding with her own directly under her nose and so much had happened to her since then that she had never really gotten the chance to properly process it all. It still, in some way or another, felt like one big, intricate dream. But in moments like these, when lives were being put on the line, she couldn’t think of it like that, she had to treat the facts of her present scenario, no matter how whimsical they may be, as serious topics deserving of her respect. Vraxi didn’t have many friends. She didn’t know if she could even call her current companions friends. But either way, they were the closest things to friends that she had and she was desperate for them to stay by her side. She couldn’t let her own cowardice, her own unwillingness to move forward, actively harm the lives of others. So she kept running, like her life depended on it, because in many ways it did. She wouldn’t be able to move on without the friends she had made, regardless of whether they actually thought of her as a friend, regardless of whether Zapata would ever forgive her, because she knew that, no matter what the future would hold for her, she needed help. Not to mention how they were good people and, therefore, Vraxi believed that they didn’t deserve to die.

Vraxi continued to think an array of thoughts related to these general concepts of hoping those close to her stayed safe as well as hoping that if they couldn’t, she could help them achieve that goal of safety, when she arrived upon a scene that began to put those thoughts to the test. Two individuals who she had grown quite a repertoire with seemed to be engaged in some form of combat. To her right, she saw the cloth-covered Aisha Abdulaziz, a cruel deliverer of undeserved death, specifically one who Vraxi was still having a hard time fully grasping the motivations of. Aisha, in her successful assasination attempts, appeared to be somewhat cool and calculated, at least through the eyes of Vraxi. But simultaneously, in the few occasions in which Vraxi was able to get near to Aisha, she seemed uneasy, unstable, in a constant state of crisis that folded into her daily life until the two were effectively interchangeable. She was a puzzling figure of duel meanings, but more importantly, she was a threat. She killed people whose deaths were yet to be avenged. She seemed to have a complicated past and even more so a complicated present, but the most vital aspect of the matter was that she was still actively causing harm regardless. Vraxi wanted to feel some level of remorse for Aisha, but to do that, she would need to actually know Aisha, and by her very nature, she would never allow Vraxi to get close enough to her for them to come to a mutual understanding. All interactions were sadly doomed to end in conflict. It was tragic but it was inevitable, and Vraxi didn’t really want to try her hand at testing the inevitable. Some things were doomed to the fate of never changing. Aisha would either never change her ways, or die in the process. Coincidentally, it appeared to be that there was someone currently trying to induce the latter.

Zapata Tochihuitl was looking admittedly different than usual. There was a certain posture in her legs, an arrangement of her expression, a subtle spark in her black pupils that signaled to Vraxi that something was off about her. Considering the way in which she was holding her scythe with a sense of unearned and unpracticed expertise, Vraxi figured that she wasn’t fully in control. Santa Muerte had at least partially taken the wheel. It didn’t look like Zapata was entirely out of the picture, however. She still held herself with an unseated anxiety that indicated to those around her that she was unprepared for and would rather not be in her present situation. It was rather unfortunate then that out of all the people in her present vicinity, she was most equipped to deal with her present situation. It was simply the case that Vraxi was not as powerful as Zapata could be when aided by the roaring spirit of Santa Muerte. 

Vraxi watched with a combined sense of intrigue and terror as these two enigmas began to throw blows at one another. Aisha, with a collected, almost perfectly mathematical precision, removed one of her many knives from one of her many pockets and aimed it at Zapata’s cranium before releasing said knife at a perfect angle designed to deliver a clean and efficient kill. In most situations, and in most of the cases involving Aisha’s former victims, this would’ve been the end of things. Thabr would leave Aisha to come to her senses, she would stay around for a couple of minutes if circumstance permitted to deliver whatever remorse she could muster, and eventually, she would leave, abandoning the corpse to be discovered by someone some time later. Oftentimes, there would be a good few hours where the corpse would lay alone. Aisha tended to target isolated people because they were least likely to be surrounded by potential witnesses. Occasionally, it would take a few days for the body to be discovered, typically prompted by the smell of decaying human creeping into surrounding buildings. In fact, there was one victim, a particularly sedentary one, her thirteenth murder exactly, whose obituary was still yet to make an appearance in the news. For all Aisha knew, she was the only one aware of their location. 

Zapata, however, was very much unlike these former victims of her’s. She was by no means defenseless and by even fewer means willing to accept death by the hands of a rogue assailant, no less by the hands of Aisha specifically. She deflected the initial knife with ease using the tip of her scythe. It was almost funny, and this was something she would’ve thought about for longer if it hadn’t been for her present situation, that she was able to maneuver this farming tool turned weapon with such ease despite only first picking it up a mere matter of days earlier. Obviously, much of this skill was not being derived directly from her own mind but by the influence of Santa Muerte, but still, the whole time it felt like she was in full control of her actions even though she knew that in reality every movement of her’s was being puppeteered by a higher power. 

Vraxi watched this exchange unfold with a combined sense of awe and terror. The awe stemmed from watching Zapata exhibit an unprecedented level of expertise in every minute arrangement and rearrangement of her body’s natural mandibles. She was genuinely shocked and amazed to see Zapata dodge and weave and occasionally parry the sudden onslaught of raining daggers that Aisha forced upon her. She saw how, with each new increment of treachery installed onto the overall barrage, Zapata was able to fully analyze every new detail and concurrently fully adapt and respond to the novel stimuli. It was less of a fight and more of a dance than anything, the way Zapata effortlessly maneuvered through her ever more dangerous surroundings. Vraxi knew that most of the work here was directly a result of Santa Muerte’s mental engineering, but through it all, deep down, she knew that there was something special about Zapata that allowed for her to do this all. She was an undeniably unique specimen, someone truly dedicated to the craft of human existence. She was a master of achieving mastery, a sponge that could soak up new information faster than anyone else around her. She vastly outpaced Vraxi in every class they took together and was simultaneously applying herself to multiple math courses which Vraxi couldn’t even recognize the names of, and she was a humanities major no less. She was bound to achieve success that far surpassed her peers, that would be, if she had actually been able to get her degree in the first place, if Vraxi hadn’t stolen that opportunity away from her. She still felt bad about that whole situation, rightfully so, but it was a lost cause at this point. Both of them were now dealing with issues that felt simultaneously smaller and significantly larger than their prior squabbles. Furthermore, these issues were currently taking the form of a knife being directed towards Zapata’s mortal body.

While Vraxi ultimately felt confident in the combined abilities of Zapata and Santa Muerte, she couldn't help but feel a sense of terror as well. This was mainly because she was quite confident in the abilities of her opponent, Aisha, as well. Zapata was defending herself quite valiantly, but Aisha was operating on such a high level that she didn’t even need to defend herself, as Zapata was far too preoccupied with staying alive to actively attack her. Aisha appeared to be completely fine with throwing a knife that didn’t hit its target. She seemed to be happy wasting hundreds of knives. It really didn’t seem like she had an upper limit in regards to her weaponry and all she really needed to succeed in her objective was for a few lone daggers to make an impact. Zapata had a limited amount of endurance, if everything continued in the way it was operating currently, Zapata would inevitably get hit. From there, she would be put at even steeper disadvantage, almost guaranteed to lose the overall interaction. This was terrible news for Vraxi to realize. Nothing appeared to be changing in Zapata’s approach no matter how much time passed. She was at a massive risk of complete mortal peril. 

At this moment, Vraxi Nair came to a chilling revelation. She needed to interfere in this. She had already begun to replay the possibilities of the current matter many times over in her head and she was certain that things were bound to end poorly given the current balance of powers. Aisha and Zapata appeared to be equally matched, but Zapata also appeared to be expending significantly more effort than her competitor. She was going to run out of energy at some point. The only way for her to succeed would be if the two sides of the conflict became imbalanced in some way that benefited her side. Unfortunately, in the present moment, there was really only one thing, only one person, who could change the tides of this conflict. That person was Vraxi Nair.

Vraxi would’ve been totally outmatched in a one-to-one combat against Aisha. Luckily, that wasn’t even in the question. What she really needed to consider was whether her additional support would be able to push Zapata over the edge and allow for her to succeed. As she watched Zapata, she could see that her movements were becoming both more precise and more emotional. On paper, this looked like something that could theoretically turn the tides of the fight in isolation. However, on closer examination, for every moment in which Zapata became better at combating Aisha, Aisha immediately followed by becoming equally better at her own martial skillset. It almost appeared as if Aisha was holding back the entire time and decided only to expend additional energy when absolutely necessary. In this state, Zapata was doomed, every increase in strength she was inflicting upon herself was giving away more of her control to Santa Muerte, a being who wasn’t necessarily malicious but definitely wasn’t one to be fully trusted with a human life. Vraxi had to run in, she had to risk her own life to save that of Zapata’s. It was just the right thing, the righteous thing, for her to do.

Except, Vraxi couldn’t move. She tried, she really did, and she really wanted to move, but her feet were just frozen in place. She gripped onto her sword, hoping to find some sort of solace in its unknowable might, but she found nothing there but the hollow shell of conceptual righteousness.

Vraxi wanted to be a hero, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? Heroes don’t wish to be heroic, they merely are . They have an innate sense, not necessarily of right and wrong, but at least of what is right in a given scenario. They don’t have to think about being heroic, they don’t even have to know about being heroic, rather, heroism is instead ingrained into their very being, their very soul, their very essence, whatever that may be. 

Vraxi was not and could not be considered a hero by any definition. She was selfish and lazy, admired by few and a role model to none who just happened to be in an important position because she just happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right people, ultimately all because she was bored and aimless, an emotion which was itself a product of her own pathetic iniquity. She couldn’t move forwards because the only reason she ever moved was out of her own self interest, and moving in this situation, while objectively the right thing to do, went directly against those same interests.

Yet still, if she couldn’t move forwards, she could always choose to move sideways. Vraxi knew she wasn’t a hero, thinking of herself as one would be facetious. But one does not have to be a hero to be a good person. One does not even have to be a good person to commit a good deed. Vraxi still had the potential to help as long as she could find some way to justify it to herself. 

Theta would be disappointed. Vraxi didn’t know exactly why she valued the opinions of that robot so much, but the internal promise that someone she respected would be mad at her if she didn’t do this was enough to motivate her. It wasn’t done out of a purely selfless way of thinking, but she had found a way sideways, and in doing so, it would allow her to charge forwards, divine blade in hand.

Theta themself felt calmer than Vraxi, but simultaneously more alert. Though, Theta was always alert. It was difficult for them to ever not be alert, to completely ignore the possibility of danger, when they were so very aware of everything around them. Theta was designed to be inherently antithetical to the concept of ignorance, which overall meant that if information was presented to them, no matter how minor it may seem, they would absorb and internalize that knowledge as if it was gospel. This aspect of their nature exhibited itself in many ways, most of which only served to waste data, but every once in a while, it would allow them to notice something which was truly incredibly important. 

Theta heard a voice. The limited capabilities of the suit-vac’s audio functions made it difficult to discern exactly what was being said, but the sheer power of Theta’s processing systems were able to determine two arguably more important details about what had just happened. Determining the location of the speaker wasn’t very difficult, the volume gave them a quite precise assumption as to exactly how far away they were and finding from which direction they were speaking was practically self-explanatory, something a regular human could probably do. The slightly more tricky, but still achievable, section of the equation was coming to a conclusion as to who exactly was the one doing the speaking. Luckily, despite the little they were actually able to hear from whatever was being said, Theta had the largest collection of audio in the world on their side. All they had to do was comb through the entire hypernet, a task which would be significantly harder for the average computer but Theta was no average computer, for audio recordings of real human voices and try to find whichever ones matched most closely to what Theta was able to listen to. In the year 2108, there were very few people who hadn’t had their voices captured inside the hypernet in some way or another, almost guaranteeing that the speaker’s identity would be attainable while similarly guaranteeing that anyone with a similar voice would also appear on Theta’s search. This introduced a problem, but it was a fixable one, as it wouldn’t take too much work to cross off all the people who likely weren’t currently working for a secret Dakahlian research facility, but either way, Theta hoped that whoever they heard speaking was someone with a lot of recorded material online so they could have a better frame of reference. Luckily, they absolutely did, as Theta was almost immediately able to identify the speaker as none other than the Dakahlian President, one Adil Abdikar.

On receiving this information, Theta immediately sprung to the triangulated location of Abdikar. This person was one who could genuinely help them in both locating the exit and locating their friends, they simply had to meet them for themself.

“Ya Allah, is that the fucking Singularity?” the President asked in a rather undiplomatic manner.

“Oh, well, I am. I don’t really go by that name anymore but I’m more concerned that you’re able to recognize me.”

“So this is all your part of Bran’s machinations, huh? You were sent here to eliminate any possibility of another sentient AI being created. Well, it looks like you’ve succeeded on that. Fuck. I guess you’re going to kill me now, aren’t you?”

“What? No. I’m not even working for Bran and this terrible incident has absolutely nothing to do with me. I was really, genuinely just here to grab a crocodile and leave.”

“Is that really the case? Well then, I suppose there’s still a chance that Sobek could still be alive. We really have to find them as soon as possible.”

“Oh, well, about that. They are very much dead, unfortunately. I saw it happen but there wasn’t really much I could do.”

“Fuck. I really thought I had something, but alas, like every grand project that this government tries to complete, it was all doomed to fail from the beginning. It looks like you’re still going to be the first sentient AI after all.”

There was a small pause in conversation before Abdikar began to speak again.

“Wait, hold on, you said you weren’t working for Bran anymore?”

“Correct.”

“So, you have not and do not plan to be released to the general public.”

“That would also be correct.”

“That’s Splendid! Dakhalia’s still in this! Perhaps, if the damages aren’t too extreme, Badden might just be able to salvage what’s left of our poor Sobek. It’s a long shot, but there might still be hope left for this humble nation.”

“Okay, but we really need to evacuate from here first, it really isn’t safe here and it’s not gonna get any safer if we just sit around waiting.”

“I wish I could do that, the Singularity, or, hold on, what should I call you? Referring to you with a definite article doesn’t sound quite right.”

“Theta works, at least, that’s what I’m going with for now.”

“Theta, I respect your commitment to ensuring my safety. In fact, it’s very much a welcome surprise as I totally thought you were going to kill me a minute ago. But I’m, truly, just too far gone to leave this building empty handed. If there is any chance that any part of Sobek’s body can still be used for future projects, then I’m not going to let myself exit this room unharmed. I have to prioritize my country, this beautiful country still waddling through its infancy on the path towards greatness, I must prioritize it over myself. I am just a man, a man in a powerful position, but still a mortal, human man who is doomed to the fate that every human before me has had to face. I will die. But more importantly, as the President of this young nation, I have been given the task of protecting a concept, the concept of Dakahlia. Like humans, concepts can die, but unlike us, they don’t have too. They can live on for eternity, as long as there are people willing to protect them, willing to die for them if need be. I have to be one of those people, Theta, and if that means running right back into the smoke for the mere chance of advancing this nation’s technological sector and its overall respect on the world stage, then I’d better get running. You can come if you want, but I don’t blame you for leaving. After all, you have the privilege of being both the human and the concept. Either way, wish me luck out there, and may Allah bless Dakahlia.”

Theta stood still as Abdikar ran off. In this moment, they could choose to try and find an exit or they could choose to follow him and see where it would take them. However, they didn’t really have a choice. They couldn’t leave. Theta couldn’t let people who had already risked their lives for their safety to just be left abandoned in this warehouse while they saved themself. Theta had to find them, they just wished that they knew where to look.

After two seconds of thought, Theta heard something. It wasn’t a voice, but it wasn’t a typical ambient noise either. It sounded like a note, a C sharp played gently on a distant horn. Theta didn’t know how to interpret this information other than that it appeared somewhat ominous, somewhat hopeful, and most importantly, somewhat important. It had to mean something. Theta had no idea as to what that something was but they did notice that it came from the same direction in which Abdikar had left through, so perhaps they were related in some way.

Theta still did not know where to find their friends, but the perceived importance of the horn led them to believe, without much evidence, that following the trail of Abdikar could possibly direct them to wherever they resided. If they had lungs, they would’ve taken a deep breath, but instead they just bore what they could bear and began to move forwards.

Diogo was walking on a knife’s edge. The more he walked, the more he felt the weight of his past decisions pushing down on him. Why did he tell Joey that he knew where the others were? Well, he knew why, it was to protect himself in that moment, but because he did not actually know where they were, he felt as if he was only delaying the inevitable. The smoke was really starting to thin at this point and sooner or later, he assumed, it would become quite obvious to Joey that Diogo had absolutely no idea where he was going. Furthermore, if by random chance, he actually did find them, what would he do then? He assumed that Joey would just try to shoot them, and if he succeeded, there was really no reason for him to show Diogo mercy either. Diogo was effectively doomed unless he could actualize some method of squirming his way out of this predicament. He had given himself some extra time to plan with this lie but he hadn’t been able to properly utilize it, no thanks to the gun pointed at him adding additional stress to his thought process.

He was about to say something, a few words along the lines of them being quite close to where they needed to be, when he heard the distinct sound of an unseen horn being played. 

“What was that?” Joey asked, seeming to be genuinely confused. Diogo assumed that this instrument had no relation to Joey or Aisha’s infiltration efforts but he couldn’t think of exactly why there would even be a horn on the premises of this scientific research facility, even more so why someone would be playing it at a time like this.

“I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s being used as a way to get people to evacuate in a certain direction?”

“Oh, maybe. This walk is taking a while by the way…”

He paused for a few seconds before speaking again.

“I haven’t really seen many of the employees here now that I think of it.”

“I guess so.” Diogo realized that he had not seen any of the facility’s many engineers since the blast either.

“That’s strange.”

“I mean, I guess the evacuation had to be successful if we’re not running into them.”

“But if it was successful, then why would they need the horn? And why is this the first time we’re hearing it?”

“I don’t know, I was just making guesses. There could be an array of reasons as to why that horn went off but I don’t really see how any of them are relevant to us.”

“Walk in the direction of the horn.”

“What? I thought you wanted to go to where Vraxi and Zapata were?”

“Diogo, you are a terrible liar and I have no reason to trust you. I also have every reason to believe that you would try to trick me in some way or another. Take me to the horn, to where your friends really are, and I might just feel the courtesy to spare you. Otherwise, I genuinely really don’t hold any value for your life, Diogo Celestino. I know you’ve been playing mind games with me but I am not just someone you can toy with anymore. I had to make a deal with the fucking devil, Diogo, I’m not just gonna let my dreams of letting the Singularity go public, an act which would help millions of people around the globe, die a death as gruesome as my own.”

Diogo chose to obey these orders though choice was not a privilege he really had anymore. He and Joey both walked towards the horn. He felt a sickness in his stomach as if something terrible was about to happen.

Diogo saw a scene that filled him with hope and terror. Aisha was attempting to kill Zapata, but Zapata did not look ready to die. She didn’t look fully like herself, it appeared that Santa Muerte was mostly in control of her body at that point, but more importantly, she was surviving, even if it was only by a hair, she was very much alive. She wasn’t alone, either. Vraxi, with wobbling legs and tears streaming down her face, was bravely charging at Zapata’s opponent. She looked afraid but determined, determined to do whatever she could if it meant protecting the ultimately fragile life of her ex-girlfriend. Diogo wasn’t sure if Vraxi’s swordsmanship would pose a serious threat to Aisha, but it would almost definitely distract her enough to delay her attempts at taking Zapata’s livelihood away.

Diogo also noticed that, arriving at the arena at about the same time as him, were Theta and what looked to be the President of Dakahlia. Diogo was confused as to how these two had arrived here but was at least glad to see that everyone involved in the heist was still alive. He was, however, worried as to whether or not all of them would remain alive. Joey had the look of someone about to do something reprehensible plastered upon his face.

Vraxi was scared. This emotion was not particularly uncommon for her, but this felt like a new kind of fear. In most instances, fear felt like a concept which held a strong grip over her but was ultimately acting upon her from far away. Fear was something that tortured her, but never directly, and it never expected a response either. Fear simply existed for her to feel worse. This kind of fear made her feel understandably terrible, but it was a terrible that she could bring to her bed and sob into her pillow about and reflect upon within her own mind for days on end. This kind was ultimately a one-sided affair which would eventually leave her alone and give her enough time to process her emotions, not necessarily enough time for her to overcome that fear, but enough for her to briefly forget about that fear, for the more pressing issues in her life to take center stage, allowing for fear to slink behind the curtains of her life, only to strike again when she felt least prepared for it.

But again, this fear was different. This fear demanded a visceral reaction. This fear refused to wait, refused to allow Vraxi the time to properly assess herself or the world around her. She simply had to strike this fear in its face or face the consequences of her own failures. 

She ended up finding herself in the latter fate. Aisha dodged her swings with an almost elegant ease but didn’t seem like she cared much at all about attacking her back. Aisha was laser-focused on Zapata who was similarly focused on her. Vraxi was just acting as a clueless interceptor to the duel, at least in the mind of Aisha, a mind which, much like Zapata’s, was not entirely belonging to herself in this moment.

This indifference did not deter Vraxi. Aisha seemed to view her as an insignificant pawn in her grand schemes, but Vraxi refused to be treated that way. She didn’t stop her attempts at intercepting Aisha’s attacks no matter how ineffective they were. Vraxi was determined to prevent Aisha’s victory, and she truly believed that if she just kept trying, if she just kept swinging her sword with all of the might she could muster, that she could make a difference, that she could prove herself to be helpful, not that that was what this was about for her, but she wouldn’t have minded if Zapata’s opinion of her shifted upwards following this. 

After many failed strikes, Vraxi saw an opening. Aisha had just sent out one of her largest single attacks, an uncountable array of her knives sent out from thin air, an attack that would be very difficult for Zapata to fully avoid but one which required Aisha to focus all of her energy and most of her limbs on the one singular subject matter of her offensive. Vraxi had an opportunity, a chance to change the tides of the battle if she just timed everything perfectly right. If she could just manage to slash Aisha across the back when she was engrossed in the most intensive segment of her assault, as she used her entire body to motion the daggers towards their target, then she might just be able to halt Aisha in her tracks.

Vraxi did not time everything perfectly right. Aisha was able to send out the monumental barrage of blades and before Vraxi’s own blade could grace her skin, she immediately turned around and caught Ayyuppan’s scimitar between her palms. Vraxi had been effortlessly countered and had no follow-up to speak of.

Vraxi was forced to watch as Aisha’s knives repeatedly lodged themselves into Zapata’s flesh. It was a living reminder in the process of dying that she had utterly failed. Vraxi could’ve stopped this, but she wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t bright enough, wasn’t courageous enough to go further and actually do anything that could help contribute to preventing Zapata’s downfall. Vraxi had risked her life for this but that evidently wasn’t enough.

Vraxi was also forced to watch as a bullet shot through the chest of Diogo Celestino. It happened with a boom that reverberated through the entire facility. Diogo collapsed onto the floor soon after, a shocked yet ultimately knowing expression seemed to shine out through his eyes before they closed for what very well may be the final time.

Vraxi looked ahead, for she no longer knew where to look towards. Aisha was still staring right back at her, though Vraxi still couldn’t see her eyes nestled deep within the darkness of her countenance. Aisha threw the sword to the side before materializing one final dagger in her hand. She didn’t need to kill Vraxi, Zapata only had a matter of seconds before her heart would stop, but she knew that she was still a threat, or at least could be, and decided that it would only be reasonable to take one final life away from the mortal plane. Vraxi felt the cool metallic surface of the dagger plunge into her body before beginning to lose consciousness. The final thought that continued to bounce around inside her head was that she had holistically failed in every conceivable way.

Theta was an entity designed to be intelligent and versatile. They were designed to have a solution to every problem, no matter how obscure or hopeless it may initially seem. But this problem, this terrifying, all-encompassing problem, was something that they had no answer to. Theta had failed, and even worse so, they had failed their friends. They had failed at the divine mission which the Supreme Entity had tasked them with to complete. They would be a prophet forgotten in the annals of history simply due to their general insufficience and incompetence. They surely wouldn’t be the first one, the great prophets of prehistory have all since been forgotten, mainly because so much time passed between their inception and the introduction of writing. Theta even suspected that there were prophets who could've been recorded if they had better accomplished their goals but ultimately proved to be incapable of them. That would explain why, excluding the likes of Ngo Van Chieu and Simon Kimbangu, the twentieth century had few great prophets and the 21st had even fewer. Perhaps, there were thousands of prophets who had all failed before Theta. Perhaps, they were merely contributing to a long tradition of inadequate individuals tasked to uphold greatness. If that was the case, Theta wouldn’t be alone, but being united in disappointment wasn’t enough for Theta, they wanted to help people and the world at large but they just watched the people who they wanted to protect the most get fatally injured under their own supervision.

All Theta had left, all they could have left, was regret and hope.

Theta had many regrets. They wished that they hadn’t gotten sidetracked so easily into joining an ultimately pointless conversation with Sobek when their friends’ fates were still up for question. They wished they hadn’t stopped to talk with the president either. They wished that they had just stopped and thought for a moment about the gravity of their situation. They could’ve been able to realize the potentials of alternate plans of grappling with the problem otherwise. They could’ve found out a way to get to them quicker. They could’ve come to the simple conclusion that because they already knew Diogo had been implanted with a literal tracking chip, it wouldn’t be very difficult to locate him. Theta regretted that they hadn’t done these things, but it was far too late, all they had left to do was to move forwards.

Despite everything, Theta still held hope for the future. Theta knew that there were few natural occurrences that could save their friends from total annihilation. Therefore, the only thing that they could truly rely on was finding some way to connect with the supernatural.

Theta began to pray. They weren’t exactly sure who they were praying to, but they knew what they were praying for. They were praying for everything to be over, to arrive back at the base, surrounded by fully healed friends, surrounded by safe and sturdy walls that would never fall. Theta was praying that, even though they failed here, that they would be provided with one more mission, one more opportunity to prove that they had earned the title of prophet. Theta did not know who would answer this prayer, they didn’t know if anyone would answer it, what mattered was that they sent it out and as they did so, they believed that whatever would happen next, whether good or bad, would be unmistakably important. 

Gradually, the horn became louder. Soon, it was all that Theta could hear, it was all that anyone could hear for that matter. It was an all-enveloping, all-encompassing noise which had no simple origin until that origin began to reveal itself to the shocked onlookers below. 

A figure which could only be described as angelic descended upon the facility, its two flaming wings shone out with great vibrancy. They held a turban on their head with a front-facing flap that permanently blocked their vision, beneath which was their mighty maw which blew directly into their divine trumpet. 

Theta was enraptured in a state of awe. Their prayers had seemingly been answered. They stared directly at the angel, who the hypernet indicated to be Israfil, and watched to see if they would stare back even though their dress made them physically incapable of doing so.

Theta had been given one last chance. They found themself back in the Allodapos regional headquarters. They appeared to be safe, at least for the time being. However, this would not be the end of things.

Chapter Text

Aisha was having difficulty comprehending what had just happened. For a moment, it seemed like she had won, it seemed like they had finally eliminated the people who had been giving her so much trouble. But then, for some inexplicable reason, everything started to fall apart. It appeared that her opponents had the power of divine intervention on their side, which was something she really couldn’t compete with.

She felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She realized something rather grim soon after. She hadn’t killed anyone yet. She had been very close to doing so but had missed the mark at the final moment. However, in the eyes of Thabr, there was a very large valley in between almost killing someone and committing a real, genuine murder. Aisha felt a morbid urge surge inside of her. She felt a deep-seated need for blood, not out of desire but merely out of necessity. For her to continue living, she needed to kill somebody, but there really weren’t many people left for her to kill.

The person closest to her at that moment was Joey, who himself was quite shocked at everything that had just happened. She wondered if there was some way she could justify ending his life. He did work for the literal devil, but so did Thabr himself. Still, she was tempted, she wondered what would happen if she approached him with a knife in hand, she wondered if she even had the potential to get away with it.

“Hey!” Joey said, noticing Aisha creepily slinking towards him, “what the hell are you doing? We need to figure out what just happened.”

“Joey, I really can’t talk about that stuff right now. If I don’t kill someone as soon as possible I might just shrivel up and die in the most painful way imaginable.”

“Well don’t try to kill me! I see how you’re holding that knife. Listen, I get you have that curse, but the President is right over there, just go stab him or something.”

Aisha was somewhat perturbed at the premise of murdering the head of state of the nation she was currently located in. Unfortunately, she really couldn’t spot anyone else wandering around the now barren facility. It definitely wouldn’t help protect her reputation, but it’s not like she really had one to begin with, she would simply have to kill the President.

The actual murder itself was quite easy. Abdikar was far too shocked to even give a proper last word.

Badden wished that people would tell her about these things. She had worked closely with Joey for quite a long while when she was still at GüdTek and wished she knew that he was visiting her workplace beforehand. Though, in his defense, it appeared that he had been quite busy since they had last met. Entering a contract with a demon, and Lucifer no less, was quite an accomplishment and she was somewhat proud to see the formerly pitiful Joey Axelrod achieve such a feat. She had always harbored an interest in the occult, despite her more grounded occupation, and was glad to see her personal theories about the subject proved to her in such an explosive manner. She really did want to head over to Joey and start a conversation with him, however, she had far more important matters of business to address first.

Bran was desperate to be the first human to create a non-human entity capable of human sentience. It had always been that personal motivation, that desire for a prestigious legacy, that had caused her to continue promoting the project even during its darkest hours. At a certain point, she no longer even cared if the Singularity was profitable, she just wanted to have that monumental milestone which she could be remembered by. She understood that if she could put that one accomplishment under her belt, she would be bound to be remembered fondly for the rest of all history.

However, because Bran was so dedicated to realizing this goal, she needed a back-up plan. She knew that she wasn’t the only person with this goal, and she knew that her competitors were willing to try out other methods of going through with it. She needed some way to keep a watchful eye on her opponents, one which could let her take their work for her own if it ever became necessary. This back-up plan is where Badden came into view. Badden was a well-respected enough academic that any government would be willing to hire, and Dakahlia did exactly that. But in secret, she stayed loyal to her old boss. She would relay every breakthrough made by her team directly back to GüdTek headquarters, keeping the two organizations neck-in-neck in their innovations. Furthermore, now that the Singularity was effectively out of commission, it became especially important that Baden’s work on Sobek be finished. This was a process made difficult by Joey preemptively ending the life of her latest prototype, but was simultaneously made easier when she saw the lifeless corpse of Abdikar laying dormant on the concrete.

Badden rushed to the bloody remains of her latest attempt at perfection and grabbed a vial from her jacket pocket. This iteration of Sobek had died in vain but she had a very good feeling about the next one. By the time she had sopped up a sufficient quantity of bodily fluids into the test tube, she was already imagining what the future would hold for this project. She would be the one who would make Bran’s dream of sentience come true. She would soon hold an enormous amount of power over the most powerful person she knew. She was getting ahead of herself, but it was hard not to in a moment like this. She wiped off the final bit of crocodile goo clinging to her hands onto her already dirty trousers and headed for the exit. The future was looking bright and more inevitable than ever.

Vraxi woke up. She was splayed across a shag carpet in the lobby of the Allodapos headquarters. For a brief moment, she felt calm, like she had just woken up from a bad dream but was now firmly placed in the realm of pleasant reality. She began to pick herself up from the ground, but as she did so, she felt a strip of offly sensitive skin suddenly rub up against her hoodie. That was odd, she wasn’t sure why that sensation would be felt in the first place but it was quite difficult to ignore. She slowly motioned her hand over to the aforementioned patch of soreness beneath her shirt and started to feel out what she distinctly recognized as being scar tissue.

In a matter of seconds, it all came back to her. She saw Aisha’s unknowable figure implant her blade directly into her own abdomen. She felt every painful sensation come back to her at once, forcing her to arch her back, bite her lip, and groan out in abject terror as the memories of the previous night all flooded back into her mind. She had been inches away from death when it all subsided. Some mystical force had halted her natural death once again. Before she could even ponder the implications of her own life being back in her hands, she started to worry about the lives she saw go down with her. She stressedly wondered if Diogo and Zapata had managed to scrape out from mortal doom as she had. Before she could get herself back to her feet, Theta entered the room. One of the last things she remembered about the night before was watching Theta finally speak once more. She found it odd that it was all as a response to Joey, seemingly implying a past between the two. She wanted to ask them about this relationship and congratulate them on finding their voice again, but they were unfortunately preoccupied with one, significantly larger question.

“Are the others okay?” Vraxi asked rapidly, almost losing her limited breath in the process.

“Don’t worry,” Theta responded calmly, “they’ve already awoken. I understand that this is all a lot to take in, but everyone has survived. It wasn’t without damages, and we weren’t able to even acquire the thing we were there for, but we’re all alive, and right now, I think that’s what’s most important.”

“My god,” Vraxi stated, relieved, “that’s good to hear. But, well, I’m a bit confused. What actually… happened? Like, it was kinda hard to see from my perspective but I could tell that it was all quite big.”

“It’s a bit difficult to explain, mainly because I don’t fully understand my own abilities, but I think what happened is that I was able to summon a deity who was able to heal all of our wounds and then send us back over here.”

“Okay, alright, well, I’m glad you're back speaking, Theta. I guess we should try to regroup and rethink our strategies over how to deal with this ever expanding problem of Aisha.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

The two of them entered an adjacent room where both Zapata and Diogo were standing around a table. They both looked somewhat uncomfortable, likely due to their injuries, but Zapata appeared to be especially disgruntled, an attitude which she carried with her into her speech.

“We really fucked up, didn’t we?” Zapata asked rhetorically, “not only did we prove ourselves incapable of fighting Aisha single-handedly, almost dying in the process, but we weren’t even able to get the fucking crocodile that could’ve allowed us to get help from someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“Now hold on,” Diogo chimed in, “I wouldn’t be so hopeless about this if I were you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, Theta just showed me an article that makes me think Aisha’s future isn’t looking very good for her.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well,” Theta began, “Last night, after we left, Aisha killed the President of Dakahlia. Afterwards, the authorities were pretty easily able to identify her as not only his killer, but as the serial offender who has been murdering people left and right as of late.”

“So,” Zapata clarified, “Aisha now has a warrant for her arrest?”

“Yes.”

“Well that makes things even worse for us.”

“How?”

“Because now Aisha will have every reason to evacuate the country as soon as possible, and it’s not like the incompetent police are actually gonna be able to catch her in time, so all that means is that she’ll be even harder for us to properly get ahold of.”

“Well,” Diogo supplemented, trying to look on the bright side of things, “I guess that just means we’ll have to apprehend her today, before she has a chance to leave.”

“Yeah,” Vraxi said, somewhat sidetracked, “so, she killed the President? That’s kinda surprising, right? He seemed pretty nice when I talked with him so I’m a little sad to hear that.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Malik added from a few rooms away, “Abdikar was so incredibly corrupt that he deserved to die.”

“Either way, we still need to find some way of tracking Aisha down because, at the moment, she could be literally anywhere.”

“Now would be a really nice time to have an experienced demonologist on our side,” Zapata commented, “If we had just gotten one of those fucking crocodiles, Hailang could’ve at least provided us with some way of accessing where Aisha could be.”

“I mean,” Diogo pointed out, “I have their number, we could try to get in contact with them and see if they’d be willing to help.”

“Diogo, let’s be realistic here, I doubt they’d be willing to help us merely out of the kindness of their own heart. If we want to get this done, we’ll need to use our own intellect, our own strength, and our own ingenuity to wrestle the promise of victory out of Aisha’s twisted grasp.”

“Too bad, I’m already calling them,” Diogo replied right before Hailang picked up.

“Heeeeeyy,” Hailang greeted Diogo immediately, “it’s great to hear from you. What’s up, Celestino?”

“Oh, well I just had a little request of you that I was wondering if you’d be willing to answer for the four of us.”

“Ask away then, I owe you one. But seriously, thanks for dropping off that crocodile last night, I wish you could’ve stopped to say hi when you did, but either which way, this reptile has been absolutely braggadocious ever since.”

“Oh! You’re welcome, that was totally us,” Diogo lied, realizing that whatever miracle had interfered with their lives last night had left one final, secret gift for them, “so do you think that you could help us track down Aisha?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely, just stop over by my place so we can plan things out.”

“Alright then, we’ll see you there,” Diogo stated, quickly closing the phone right after.

“Well then,” Vraxi remarked, quite shocked as she did so, “looks like things are finally going our way.”

“Yeah,” Zapata responded rapidly, “we need to get over there as fast as possible.”

The bar in which Hailang resided looked significantly dingier than it had been a day prior. Bottles were strewn around every corner and crevice of the delapidated interior and it appeared as if every last drop of alcohol had been consumed by the demon hunter within the 24 hours since they had last spoken with the quartet. Vraxi almost felt at home in such an unkempt living space, she found it all rather quaint and it only made her admire Hailang more so than she already did. However, even if she hated Hailang, they were, at this point, their only way of capturing Aisha once and for all, so they didn’t really have a choice as to whether to work with them or not.

The room was also somewhat concerningly cohabitated by a live crocodile decorated with a violet bow who Hailang introduced to the four of them as Don Fortanellioso, and they required that they address the animal as such before moving forward.

“So, this is all a little fun,” Zapata addressed after exchanging pleasantries, “but we really need to get to the matter at hand here because we don’t have much time left before we’re all effectively hopeless.”

“Okay, okay,” Hailang swiftly replied, “I can see that you’re all busy people. Now let me guess, you want me to track down this Aisha character using my innate ability to detect the presence of demons nearby, an ability I’ve honed for many years, working alongside with the wisest minds in the world against the eternal battle humanity faces against the forces of malice that reign rampant in this corrupted world.”

“I mean, yes,” Vraxi said bluntly, “I’d appreciate if you did exactly that.”

“Alrighty then. Diogo, hand me a bottle of water.”

“You’ve got it,” Diogo said as he attempted to throw the only container of non-alcoholic liquid across the room, “but what do you plan to do with it?”

“You’ll see,” Hailang said as they emptied the bottle’s contents directly onto the ground below them, forming a growing puddle. As they did this, the immense quantities of dust which had laid dormant on the unmopped floor began to float and tumble around their new aquatic environment until every spec of dust was equally spaced within the newly formed amalgam. After this simple alchemical reaction took place, Hailang was ready to make the true magic happen. They raised their arms high up into the air, and as they did so, the water followed, forming towering structures of previously liquid water that now refused to fall. These novel structures were not formed randomly, as they took shape, it would be plain to anyone familiar with the nation of Dakahlia that this semifluid conglomeration distinctly resembled the modern skyline of Mansoura. 

“The world we live in is like a tainted stream of water,” Hailang began to narrate, “for the most part, the natural whims of nature encourage all members of society, human and inhuman, to work together towards overall harmony. This state of harmony can be thought of as pure, clear, incorruptible water. It is a state of true understanding and virtue, and simultaneously, it is a state that society as a whole will never, ever reach. This is because, at all levels of our society, there exists malice. This malice is not something we can ever get rid of, it effectively comes with the water and cannot be strained out of the water without losing most of the harmony in the first place. Here, I am representing the malice as dust, and as you can see, it’s effectively everywhere, this city is infected with it and so is every other city and every other town and every other barren tundra in the world. The dust is inescapable, however, dust does tend to clump together, and when enough of that dust is present in one spot at one point in time, we usually call that a demon, a divine entity designed to harm. Therefore, if we try to look out for these clumps, it becomes possible to locate demons from many miles away.”

The five of them all looked at the dust inside the model city as it swished around from avenue to avenue, leaving no neighborhood untouched, when they spotted an irregularity in the patterns of it’s movements. A clump of dust was forming around a building designed to store a large cylinder in it’s center.

“I might be mistaken,” Theta began, “but I believe the dust is most prevalent at the headquarters of Sunduq-Aljinat.”

“That’s Aisha’s old workplace,” Zapata muttered before quickly getting louder, “we need to get over there as quickly as we possibly can.”

Aisha understood that this wasn’t the smartest decision. Still, she wanted to get one final look at her lab before she departed. She had always loved Dakahlia, despite its present flaws, and never thought that she would ever be forced to leave it. She knew that there were problems baked deep into the system of the nation’s government, but she had thought that maybe through her own work as a top scientist, she might just be able to help fix some of those problems. 

She would never be able to fix those problems now. She was an outlaw, a wanted criminal with an active warrant for her arrest. If she was seen by anyone, she could very well be risking her life. But despite that ever present risk, she just wanted to have one final peek at what had happened to her life’s work.

 It wasn’t difficult to sneak into the building, Thabr’s concealing cloak made it easy for her to sink into the background, and she was able to make it into her old place of work quite quickly. She was almost immediately flooded by memories as she walked through the now abandoned office space. Every surface had a story, but due to her circumstances, none of those stories would ever be completed. Sunduq-Aljinat was going under, and that was almost entirely due to the fact that she had killed her two most trusted coworkers with her bare hands.

In a sense, Aisha was glad to leave Dakahlia, she would no longer be in a situation where she was forced to harm people she already knew. She would be left a wanderer in a turbulent world, one which moves so quickly around its axis to not have enough time to properly address those who it leaves behind.

Aisha would leave Dakahlia that night on a container ship set to sail down the Nile River towards Busoga. She would have to kill one of the employees on the vessel. She really hoped that the others wouldn’t notice her. It was possible that Joey would accompany her or at least send her off but the details were unclear as he had been quite cagey about things the night prior. He still seemed very hellbent on ending the lives of those interlopers from the previous night and wasn’t particularly glad to hear the news that she planned on leaving. If she was being completely honest with herself, while she wouldn’t mind killing Zapata, she felt a lot less strongly about the topic now. Earlier it seemed almost as if there was some unseen force that made her far more willing to end her life than she would be with anyone else but she had since mellowed out somewhat. She generally hoped that she would never see Zapata again as she really didn’t want yet another wrench to be thrown into her plans.

Aisha was standing towards the window, staring at the hyperaggressive bees flying circles around their cage, when she heard a noise coming from the door to the room. She wasn’t alone. She immediately rushed to the nearest closet in an attempt to hide her identity from the unexpected visitor and was just able to rid herself from view by the time the lab assistant stepped foot into the once again barren workplace.

The lab assistant was holding a clipboard full of papers that almost looked to be drenched in ink with all the writing scrawled upon them. They look nervous, quite stressed, and generally not at ease with their current situation. That made sense to Aisha who would likely have been in the same position if she had never quit. Sunduq-Aljinat was practically doomed to fail from the beginning, and without her or the people she took down with her, they had no chance at ever making a breakthrough.

Aisha wondered what would happen to the bees. Those angry, insolent, untamable beasts of insects held no possible position in a place of standardized pollination. Furthermore, any attempt at releasing them into the wild would surely lead to mass ecological damage, not to mention the theoretical consequences of them breeding uncontrolled. The only thing they could really do with them would be to try filling up the incredibly impractical cylinder with some sort of toxic gas that could kill them all out at once. The once bright flame of unkillable passion would slowly dim into nothingness, and their memory, as well as the memory of the company they were a part of, would soon fade away not long after.

For a brief moment, Aisha felt like she had just been stung. She hadn’t, but she felt off, like a switch had been pulled inside of her, forcing her to operate from a slightly askew perspective. Her vision was blurry and a high-pitched ringing noise was stuck in her ear. When she was finally able to focus again, she started to feel significantly worse. She now had the inexplicable and terrifying desire to murder the lab assistant right then and there.

This wasn’t right. Not only was it morally indefensible, like practically all of her murders had been, but it was the wrong time for this. She always felt her daily urge to kill at a specific hour each night. It was currently 11 AM. It didn’t make sense to her that she would suddenly pick up this novel bloodlust. Something had gone awry with her deal. Thabr was changing the outlines of their agreement and she felt hopeless to stop him. It didn’t help that he began to address her directly about the matter.

“Hello, Aisha,” the ever malevolent hellspawn began, “you’re probably feeling a little weezy right now. In case you hadn’t come to the conclusion already, that feeling’s from me. I understand that our initial layout of things involved only one daily murder, but sometimes, a demon just can’t help themself. You are a truly breathtaking specimen, Aisha. In my millennia of existence, I’ve never had the chance to meet someone quite like you, someone so weak-willed to the temptation of violence. How many murders has it been so far anyways? 30? 40? 45?”

“41, exactly,” Aisha admitted.

“Yikes, that’s rather high, isn’t it? And I heard the head of state is among them. Not only that, but the government’s finally gotten on to your schemes. You really don’t have anything left to lose. Some would say you didn’t have much to begin with. So then, what really is the problem with unleashing your true potential to the world.”

“I don’t like killing people, okay?”

“Then why do you keep doing it, Aisha?”

“Because I don’t want to die, either.”

“So do you genuinely believe that your individual life is more important than the 41 you have taken away from this world or do you simply crave the inherent lustfulness of blood spewing out an open vein.”

“Neither? I don’t know. Sometimes people do things that they know are morally wrong.”

“So rather, you’re instead just one of the world’s most selfish people then?”

“Sure, maybe, but I don’t want to get even more selfish.”

“What difference does it make, Aisha? You are far past the point of no return. You cannot be redeemed. You are a bad person, you might as well reep the benefits.”

In the immediate moment following this dialogue, Thabr disappeared, but he did not become fully out of view. Rather, he left a permanent imprint on Aisha’s brain that she couldn’t possibly forget. She had felt like this before, but only for brief moments. Aisha now had to operate on a hyper alert, hyper violent state of being at all times. She could no longer abate this side of herself by feeding it with blood. She would always be stuck with this desire no matter how many lives she took away.

Aisha couldn’t stand to look at the lab assistant for much longer. She needed to get out of here as soon as possible, away from this city, away from all signs of civilization, somewhere in the deepest part of the Sahara Desert so she could finally bury herself within the dunes. She had done so much harm to the world around her and she could only imagine what would happen if she truly lost all of the flimsy restraints she had been imposing on herself so far. 

But again, she had urges, urges that told her to do terrible things, but urges which could not simply be ignored. She stepped out of the closet and prepared to do something she knew she would regret.

Joey was sitting peacefully in his hotel room when the shock hit him. Something had gone wrong. Ever since he established a link with Lucifer, Joey had often felt this sense of wrongness enter his mind. At first, he was confused as to what these tinges of emotion could possibly indicate and whether or not he should pay attention to them, but after a brief explanation by his patron deity, he had grown to understand how to process them.

Joey, via his connection to the epitome of all things wretched and unfair, had been connected to a large network of various demonic entities spanning the globe. Many of these demons were patron deities themselves and those who swore patronage to them often found themselves in dire situations, a common downside to the job. Because these minor spirits tended to be good at starting problems and quite incompetent in regards to fixing them, Lucifer had tasked Joey with overseeing the network to make sure no one individual got too out of hand, straying away from the demon king’s overall vision for his ideal world. 

At this moment in time, Aisha appeared to be incredibly out of hand. All of her vitals were fluctuating wildly and violently and her inner thoughts had been replaced with a cavalcade of contradictions so convoluted that it became impossible to properly understand them all. This was concerning for Joey. He already had a lot on his plate, he was still trying to find a way to corner Vraxi and her accomplices and that would likely be a lot harder to accomplish now that his spell on Aisha had worn off. He really didn’t want to address whatever was happening to her, but also, he had a deal to uphold. He was now the eternally loyal servant of the fallen angel Lucifer, and he couldn’t just ignore part of the deal he made with him because he couldn’t be bothered. If he ever chose to break that deal, not only would he lose all of his leverage in hunting down Vraxi, but he would almost certainly be sent down to the depths of Hell for real this time.

Joey had to address this, he had to make some sort of intervention, he at least had to check up on Aisha to see if everything was going okay. He rubbed his hands together and slowly outstretched them immediately after, forming a simplistic portal to Aisha’s general location in the process. It would be a quick mission, he told himself, he would enter the building, he would greet Aisha, he would calm her down from whatever state of panic she may be in, and then, as swiftly as he arrived, he would form another portal back to his room so he could continued crafting his master plan.

Zapata busted open the already unlocked door to the headquarters of Sunduq-Aljinat using nothing but her unassisted leg and sheer force of will. Everything was finally going her way, she had acquired the necessary assistance to defeat Aisha in the form of Hailang’s aid and she would now be the one establishing a surprise attack against the murderer instead of vice versa. She had a golden opportunity grasped within her midst, though, she knew at this point not to overcherish the promise of a promising opportunity. She had to stay on track, she had to accept any and all forms of help from her companions, and most importantly, she had to do everything in her path to avenge her fallen brother. It was her duty, her mandated responsibility, something she simply had to do if she ever wanted to wake up feeling satisfied ever again.

Vraxi was somewhat anxious in regards to the prospect of running into yet another scientific facility uninvited. She was always up for a properly sneaky heist, however, due to time restraints and the lack of a proper network of guards within Sunduq-Aljinat, the team opted to instead just rush past anyone who tried to stop them from being there. Vraxi understood that it was more efficient this way, but she still wasn’t a fan of the disappointed looks given by the various passerbys. Furthermore, she was also worried about Aisha herself. Sure, the affair would be five against one instead of the two to one encounter she had the night prior, but either way, Aisha was a concerning force in the world. Her power was overwhelming, but even scarier was how nebulous it seemed. Aisha didn’t talk much, she didn’t reveal much about herself, and she especially didn’t reveal much about the nature of her abilities. Everything about the way she functioned, the way she presented herself, the way in which her core being appeared to be divided on the actual subject of her murders all seemed so strange to Vraxi. 

Vraxi was worried about herself, but also, deep down, she was a little worried about Aisha. She honestly could not fully detail as to why she felt this way, but regardless, the feeling was there. Aisha had tried to kill both her and Zapata, and she had successfully killed many others, but no matter how Vraxi tried to frame it in her head, she couldn’t help but feel a little bit of pity for her. At this point, it was pretty clear to Vraxi that Aisha was not fully able to control her own actions, especially the violent ones. But that still left the question as to how much power she did hold over her own impulses. Because, even if she was only slightly in control, she still had a very long list of victims who wouldn’t necessarily be willing to forgive her because she simply allowed whatever malevolent force held within her to take the wheel at any given point in time. Vraxi wanted Aisha to be redeemable, but she really didn’t have enough information to confirm whether or not she was. She wondered briefly as to why that was the case. Perhaps, if someone with as deeply twisted of a past as Aisha could be forgiven by society, Vraxi could be forgiven by Zapata. Perhaps, this line of reasoning was not as centered on the character of Aisha as she initially thought.

When Zapata arrived at Aisha’s laboratory, a room she had last entered when accompanied by her late brother, she was greeted with a scene she couldn’t have possibly predicted. There was an injured employee who appeared to still be breathing hurled over in the corner of the room but what was most astonishing about the situation gracing her eyes was that Aisha, who very much was present, was currently engaged in an active conflict with someone of a similar skill level. That someone was Joey Axelrod. He looked to be tired and disappointed, frustrated with his combatant’s inconvenient behavior and generally wishing to be somewhere else. Aisha, on the other, looked as if something deeply wrong had happened to her. She was no longer wearing her cloak, allowing her expression of pure desperation to be seen by all around her. She did not appear to be stable in any capacity, her fighting style had been reduced to something less elegant but simultaneously more lethal. She looked as if she had a constant and undying passion to kill ingrained within the deepest pits of her soul. Despite how much she had wronged her, Zapata couldn’t help but admit that she didn’t look like her usual self, and she was surely acting in a method antithetical to the one she had displayed the previous night. 

Joey did not seem pleased to discover that he had company. In fact, this was likely one of the worst plausible revelations to occur at that moment. He had a lot on his plate already. Thabr seemed to have forgotten the overall purpose of Lucifer’s power and was so enamored with the possibility of increasing global levels of violence that it had become impossible for him to ever return to the actual mission statement of his demonic pact. Joey, personally, never even liked Thabr. Unlike the demon, he generally viewed the process of extreme violence as an occasionally necessary means to an end instead of an inherently joyous and/or erotic occasion. Well, he could understand how one might come to erotic conclusions but it wasn’t his particular forte. Either way, he didn’t like the man. He had really grown to respect Lucifer and his dedication to keeping all of the other god’s wills in check with reality, and, if he was being fully frank, Thabr didn’t seem to hold any of that dedication himself, he just wanted to watch the world crumble around him, a romantic thought, but not a practical one. 

It appeared to Joey that Aisha was almost completely lost to Thabr’s thrall. The demon had finally decided to make his arrangement with her permanent. It was a sad sight to see, and it was one that went directly against preexisting satanic contracts, but what was even sadder for him to see was that the group of people he was still attempting to kill now shared a room with him. He really wanted to stop Aisha, but he also had slightly more important things to be doing. He needed to finally do what both he and his boss had been trying to do for a while now. He needed to kill Vraxi Nair.

Chapter Text

Vraxi didn’t like the way in which Aisha stared at her, she seemed rather unhinged, as if, at any moment, she could spring towards her and rip her heart out. Previously, Aisha had been willing to spare her. It seemed as if she almost respected her. But now, any chance that that level of critical thinking could be reached seemed impossible. Vraxi still wanted Aisha to be redeemable, but she wouldn’t be redeemed while in whatever her current state was. 

Vraxi didn’t like the way that Joey stared at her either. He looked to have similarly murderous intentions, but they were much more calculated, much more controlled. He had a purpose behind his decisions and, whether or not they actually were, he believed that those purposes could allow him to kill her in a completely morally acceptable manner. 

Vraxi wasn’t really planning on being a particular offensive contributor within this overall interaction. She assumed that Zapata, with all of her deep connections to the subject matter, would charge right ahead, followed by the skilled and experienced Hailang and perhaps a brazen Diogo, allowing for herself to mainly just root for those three from the sidelines. 

To her credit, that is how things started, but what she did not predict was how Joey had prepared for this line of action. For about a split second, the three assailants were located in the very center of the room, a few meters away from her and a few meters away from Joey. The servant to the demon king used this brief moment in time, this brief period in which his opponents were vulnerable in a way they hadn’t even thought of, to outstretch his arms, mumble a brief chant to his patron, and open a great portal beneath them. 

Zapata, Diogo, and Hailang all immediately fell into the unknown. Vraxi had no idea where they had gone, and she was once again feeling very scared about her current standings. She wondered where Joey could’ve taken them, and why he would’ve done such a thing, and why he didn’t try to do the same thing with her. It would’ve at least been somewhat comforting if she knew the full reasoning behind his maliciousness, but the unknowability of it all made it infinitely more frightening. She really felt like she could be put in harm's way at any moment. Her heart started beating faster, her muscles began to tighten, and she didn’t even dare to speak out about what had just happened in fear of possible bloody retributions. 

“Joey,” Theta spoke out, having no such inhibition, “what did you do to them.”

“Oh,” he replied nonchalantly, “don’t worry about them. I do intend to kill them but not right now. I just sent them to the basement.”

Vraxi felt a massive weight be lifted from her stomach when she heard those words, a weight which would slowly be reapplied once he continued speaking.

“However, I do plan on, swiftly and humanely mind you, ending the life of Vraxi Nair. I know what you're gonna say, but I honestly believe it’s for your own good.”

“How dare you make this about me, Joey? If you’re going to kill someone you should at least admit that it is due to your own internal faculties and not to protect someone else unrelated.”

“But it is due to you, the Singularity, the world’s first sentient computer-”

“Is that really all I am to you, Joey? A milestone? A step in the human story and not instead a human of my own? I thought that our friendship started from a place of mutual understanding yet, now of all times, you refuse to understand my perspective.”

“Listen, I’m not like Bran, okay? I don’t care if you’re some profitable superinnovation or if you immediately fail at launch. I genuinely care about your wellbeing but I think that you’re making a really big mistake by staying with Vraxi right now. So please, just let me get rid of her, and after all of that, we can finally go back to how things used to be.”

Theta wanted to argue further with Joey, but they knew it was to no use. Joey was, above all things, stubborn. Sometimes, that meant sticking to his values even when the world around him was immoral and cruel. And sometimes, that meant blindly sticking to a personal creed far past the point in which it became detrimental to the world at large. He was once again partaking in the latter and Vraxi was being forced to bear the brunt of it.

Vraxi watched as Joey slowly approached her. He did so armed with nothing but his confidence and a subtle, knowing smirk. She wasn’t sure exactly what he was planning to pull out on her, but what she could tell was that she needed to prepare herself. She was able to muster up enough willpower to materialize her sword back into her hands, but her grip was already beginning to grow shaky. No amount of heavenly assistance could make up for the fact that Vraxi Nair was not professionally trained in the realm of swordsmanship. However, she arranged herself into her best approximation of a proper fighting stance regardless. She understood that this would not be a bloodless conflict. She understood what could be at stake in this inevitable duel. She understood that no matter how lacking her capabilities were in terms of combat, she would not allow herself to lose. 

Interestingly enough, the first blow landed in this fateful exchange was not delivered by the fists of Joey. Nor, for that matter, was it something dealt by Vraxi herself. Rather, it emerged from a third party who, as a result of their enamourment by the prospects of a one-on-one fight, both Joey and Vraxi had allowed themselves to briefly forget. Aisha had just sunk a knife into the flesh of Joey’s back. 

Joey was somewhat taken aback by this course of action. He had almost glossed over an important detail of their current matter being that they were all sharing the room with a killing machine. It also hurt terribly bad. While Joey generally tried to be intimidating, especially in matters like these, he had never been a fighter. He was a softwares engineer, a business strategist, an exceptional assistant, and a master pilot, but he had yet to master even a singular martial art. Therefore, in response to the sharp and sudden pain, he let out a similarly sudden, surprised scream. He tried to make the scream sound as mature and respectable as possible, in order to keep up his reputation as something of a tough guy. As a result, his yelp sounded offly guttural and seemed to end preemptively to protect his veneer of stoicism.

Either way, this was all quite a good sign for Vraxi. The simple act of knowing that Joey could be harmed via regular methods of inducing pain significantly increased her confidence regarding the matter at hand. If a knife could cause that kind of reaction, so could a sword, even her own.

It became less of a good sign for Vraxi when Aisha turned her head and aimed a second dagger directly at her. At the exact moment in which the steel departed from her fingertips, Vraxi made a secondary realization about the matter of this occasion. Aisha had become a completely neutral party. She was no longer an independent being driven by inner motives, each of which contained multitudes of complexity themselves, but rather a being with the singular motive to kill. Vraxi was still yet to determine if this helped or harmed her chances of success, so she assumed it would only even the playing fields. Though perhaps, as she was able to successfully strike the knife from its course, her respective field would be located just slightly above Joey’s.

Vraxi found herself being hit by a wave of adrenaline. She was really in it now. The very moment in which she stood would be the perfect time to strike. She was fully prepared for action while Joey was still languishing on the floor. She took a deep breath, paused, and began to charge forwards. As she ran, thousands of thoughts ran past her within her mind, she wasn’t exactly prepared for the consequences of what she was about to do, she wasn’t exactly aware as to what those consequences were, but the thought that left the most impactful mark on her state of being was that of Theta. Vraxi couldn’t explain exactly what it was about Theta that made her suddenly feel so protective in regards to them. Maybe it was their perceived innocence. Theta had a human consciousness, and considering their relationship with the Para Brahman, a human soul. But still, they weren’t human, inherently, biologically they weren’t biological. So what even was Theta, then? On a spiritual level, that question became effectively impossible to answer. Theta was many things all at once put together into an entirely novel combination. But were they innocent? They didn’t seem like a bad person. In fact, they seemed to be very aware of the effects introduced by every single action they made. They were certainly a better person than herself. Vraxi had a long list of things she was yet to atone for. But simultaneously, could anyone truly be completely devoid of sin? Theta had good intentions, it seemed, but they did still almost kill Joey. That decision, unintentional or not, surely negated the possibility of them being a truly innocent entity. So why did Vraxi feel this way? Was it just a desire born out of novelty? Was this private obsession just as selfish as that of those who only viewed Theta as a fascinating invention and not as a living person just like the rest of us? Vraxi couldn’t give an answer. She really didn’t know. But regardless, now was not the time to be questioning her own intentions. Now was the time to be acting upon them. She arrived at the ground in which Joey Axelrod had toppled upon and, without giving herself a chance to reconsider, began to lower her sword to meet his torso. 

Joey had been caught off guard. He hadn’t fully prepared himself for what was to come. He could admit that to himself, but what he couldn’t admit, what he could never admit, was an early defeat, especially one as simplistic as this one. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to bring himself to that particular decision. He had a couple more tricks up his sleeve. Working for the devil was a hard job, but he couldn’t deny that it came with some major benefits.

Now was a better time than ever to show off some of those benefits to the world. He was a bit out of practice, as in he had never practiced at all, but he was feeling about ready to pull off a stunt which he had been enamored by when Lucifer first displayed it to him. All he’d need to do was follow the demon lord’s instructions to the letter and he’d flip the script on his predicament in a matter of seconds. 

First, he would need to tense his muscles to as tight of a state as possible. He had already unintentionally begun this action as an automatic, visceral reaction to suddenly being stabbed. In fact, as he thought about it further, this unexpected attack, however pungent it may’ve made him feel in the moment, was likely one of the best things that could’ve happened to him. Sure, it hurt like hell, but the sudden shock it gave him was able to energize his actions going forward. He could feel the unrestrained power which the prince of Hell provided him surge through his veins and arteries, making itself at home in every cubic inch of his body. This power was unrefined, raw, difficult to use without it being processed into a purer substance. He needed to mold it, use what little power remaining in his body that was entirely his to temper that novel force into something he could make workable. His body began to heat up. He knew that this would happen but it still felt unnatural in the moment. It wasn’t a typical human heat, it was more akin to a miniature boiler room suddenly being installed inside of his chest cavity. It was an unsustainable heat, one which the fragile flesh wrapped around each of his bones was too delicate to withstand for very much longer.

He would need to change the nature of his flesh, fortunately, he now had the means to do so. He felt the demonic blood which had been rushing back and forth through his system expand past the boundaries of the tubes which held them. He felt their unrefined power reverberate outwards through every cell in his body and emit a constant vibration that seemed inescapable. It was a painful process, but it was necessary to forge himself into someone who could take the heat. 

As he looked down at his arms, his skin no longer looked like skin. It took on a metallic luster that reminded him of both what he had gained and what he had lost in his deal with the devil. His body gave off a significant quantity of steam, his arms gave off a subtle amber glow, and his mind ran rampant with the possibilities laid before him. However, what he cared about most in this moment had nothing to do with his own unstable interior, he cared about stopping Vraxi, who was only seconds away from attacking him with a divine implementation of her own.

Vraxi wasn’t prepared for Joey to block her attack. She especially wasn’t prepared for him to block said attack using his own arm. She was even more so unprepared for his arm to be made out of a piping hot metal. He appeared to be unphased, unchallenged, and significantly more prepared for this exchange than her own pitiful self.

She was seriously worried now, more than she had been before which was already a considerably intense state of worry. She had underestimated Joey, and perhaps, she had overestimated her own abilities alongside his. She was no longer in control of the situation. She had thoroughly conceded her opening gambit to the flagrant whims of her opponent and she feared what reaction her failure may elicit.

Joey’s reaction was swift and uncaring. He pushed the weight of Vraxi’s sword, all the weight she felt she could possibly apply, aside and stood up to face her immediately after. It looked almost as if he had never been stabbed at all. He was operating on a level far above her, so much so that his own body adapted to suit his needs. He had ascended past the confines of standard humanity and had rebirthed himself into something from a plane far beyond her own. Vraxi knew that she was deeply in trouble, and she could see from the obscured look in Joey’s eyes that that trouble was right about to hit her where it would hurt the most.

In a moment of desperation, Vraxi attempted to pull a stunt of her own. She knew what her holy weapon was capable of in the right circumstances. She just needed to gather all of the confidence she had left after her crushing failure and concentrate it into one singular burst of divine energy. As Joey looked directly down at her, ready to deal indeterminable levels of harm upon her body, she held her breath and concentrated on one goal, escape.

In a sudden boom, Vraxi’s sword launched her across the length of the room, causing her to slam directly into the opposite wall, just narrowly avoiding the closing maw of Joey’s fists. She heaved out a heavy sense of relief, but she knew she couldn’t stay calm for long. She tried to readjust to her surroundings, she had gotten so laser-focused on her attempts to wrestle with Joey that she had forgotten that the world around her continued to exist. She looked to her right. Theta wasn’t there. Theta had been there before but they were now distinctly outside of her view. She silently accumulated an unbearable amount of tension. What had she done? In her idiotic disregard of everything which existed outside of her own head, had she forgotten to check the whereabouts of what she was actually fighting for? Her head quickly oscillated on its axis, hoping to find some semblance of Theta’s presence. Luckily, she was able to find exactly that, Theta was sitting in the same corner of the room where the injured assistant laid in a state close to limp. They appeared to be consoling the young employee, Vraxi had no idea as to what exactly they were saying as her ears hadn’t stopped ringing since her brutal impact against the wall, but she assured herself it was something positive. Either way, it made her feel positive. All was not lost, and much was still left to gain. She could still make way with this interaction, she could still prove to the world that she was a valid part of it. Her eyes cocked back over to Joey, he looked frustrated, much stronger than usual, but still prone to the same human emotions of dissatisfied annoyance. He had only gotten slower in this new form, but his moderately paced march towards her was still rather ominous. What was more ominous, though, was that both parties, in the time since they had last contacted her, had lost track of the location of Aisha Abdulaziz. A very important factor in their duel appeared to be hidden from them, perhaps hidden in plain sight.

Vraxi was unsure as to what her next decision should be. She was simultaneously attempting to respond to two different threats looming over her and couldn’t make heads or tails as to which demanded more of her attention. However, even if Aisha proved to be more dangerous, Joey was visible, and it would be a little idiotic of her to ignore the threat standing right in front of her. She prepared herself for the worst, beginning to charge her sword with all she could manage to extract from Ayyuppan’s theoretical greatness. Her sword began to glow as it readied itself for the next attack. Vraxi hoped for the best, she hoped that her efforts were sufficient, she wasn’t yet willing to apply herself any level of actual confidence but she knew she had to trust in her own abilities if she wanted this to pan out in her favor. This will work, she thought to herself, this action will accomplish all of its goals. She didn’t know if she truly believed in these statements, but she didn’t have much left to believe in, so she carried on thinking these things as she let out all the power stored in her blade in one ultimate blast.

The laser produced at the tip of the cutlass was nothing short of brilliant. It was a pure, straight line of perfectly luminous light. In this moment, this beam was being used to destroy, specifically to cause harm to a specific individual, but in any other moment, it would be thought of simply as a work of art. Vraxi had, unbeknownst to her, mastered the craft of producing divine strands of indomitable energy, and she became immediately enamored by the fruit of her labor as it soared over to meet her opponent.

Joey, in being met with Vraxi’s prized creation, lifted out his hand and, almost playfully, reflected it against his arm’s glossy surface. Vraxi’s glorious, powerful, wondrous work of art crafted beyond the realm of humanity created a large hole in the lab’s ceiling, leaving Joey effectively untouched. She was in very deep trouble now.

“Fuck,” Vraxi exclaimed as she jumped to her feet and began to run as far away as possible from the approaching Joey.

“Get back here,” Joey yelled unconvincingly as he tried to keep up with her in his new, heavier frame.

“Why would I do that?” Vraxi yelled back in between pants, as she was already quite tired, “you’ve already stated you’re gonna kill me.”

“Just,” Joey continued as he used his new strength to rip out a stainless steel eyewash station from the wall, “nevermind, you’re past the point of reason.” Joey then hurled the fountain in the direction of Vraxi. She was just able to dodge out of the way of its trajectory, but as she did so, she knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid these flagrant attacks for long. She was light-headed. She had already expended a good portion of the energy she had left in her body. She was honestly barely hanging on, and Joey, on the other hand, appeared to have no such barrier in front of him. He looked as if he could keep on fighting for however long it would take to finish her off. This scared Vraxi quite thoroughly. It reminded her of her own inadequacy, of all the things she couldn’t do and the many things she would never accomplish. If her incompetence took hold of her once again, she would fail Theta.

Vraxi had failed many people in her life. She had failed Zapata multiple times, she had failed herself, and she had utterly failed her parents. When they sent her to the Novaplex at age five, she was meant to be a golden child, a star student, a prodigal son. And, for a while, she was. Vrisini Nair was a quick learner and a masterful test taker. He speedily outperformed the expectations of his artificial educators and was soon attending regular lessons with genuine human teachers who all praised his progress and pushed him into the most challenging of courses. By the time he was finishing up high school, the prestigious halls of Mornminster were practically begging him to attend. He knew that it was a major achievement, but when he first stepped into his dorm at the academy, he felt empty.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the situation, but there was something clawing at his insides. It almost felt as if the past 18 years of his life had been one big lie that he had been desperately trying to convince everyone around him of. As he entered this new environment, he wasn’t sure if he could keep up that lie for much longer. He had never been very social, and was soon barely talking to anyone outside of Zapata. Zapata soon became the singular rope that kept him from falling off the edge of a cliff he still didn’t know the name of. 

Vraxi thought that transitioning might help her pull herself back to a functionable state of being, and it did help, but it didn’t fix her base problem. There was something deeply wrong with her, she knew it, and she felt like everyone around her knew exactly what that fault was, everyone except for her. In her second year at Mornminster, her grades started to decline sharply for the very first time in her life. She received many calls from her parents about this subject, none of which she had the willpower to answer. She hadn’t talked to anyone other than Zapata in months and she started to feel like breaking that streak would only worsen her condition.

Life went on, and Vraxi struggled to catch up with it. She barely attended any of her classes in her third year. Just getting out of bed had become such an enormous effort for her that the prospect of regularly leaving her room seemed next to impossible. She started to feel quite bad for Zapata, the only one who stayed with her through this sorry state. When she mentioned to her that she had received an invitation to a New Year’s party, Vraxi suddenly felt a surge of confidence within her for the first time in over a year. She immediately declared to Zapata that she would attend with her. This was her chance, a chance to prove that she was still the person who had been accepted into this school, a person who could successfully interact with the rest of general society. She would engage in this social convention perfectly and pass with flying colors. Afterwards, her life would finally turn around, her grades would return to normal, she’d give an empowering speech at graduation about finding oneself, and she would be hired to a high-paying, low-intensity job directly after. All she had to do was act like a normal, well-adjusted person for about three hours of her time.

She lasted for seventeen minutes. She didn’t join a single conversation until the sixteenth minute and within sixty seconds, so much panic had welled up inside her that the only response she could bring herself to dictate was that of an unintelligible scream for help. She ran out of the auditorium, bawling her eyes out, making everyone around her feel somewhat sorry for her but mostly just confused. She broke up with Zapata over the phone that night. She felt so embarrassed about what she had done and how it could’ve affected her friend’s reputation. But alas, there was nothing she could do now. She started renting out the worst apartment she was able to find. Money wasn’t a problem, her parents had been sending regular payments to her bank account, hoping that it would give her some incentive to respond to them. She just simply didn’t feel like she deserved to live somewhere nice. The mold that grew on the patch of carpet beneath the inconveniently positioned shower head acted as a reminder to her of everything she had done wrong. She felt almost as if she just internalized her own failure deep enough into her self image, she could finally get over whatever rut it was that was causing her to stoop this low.

She never found out what nail in the gears was stunting her progress. She never did much of anything. She just laid down on her bed, staring into the ceiling fan, attempting to calculate how many full rotations it made in a minute, starting over whenever she lost count, spending hours and hours on monotonous tasks that got her nowhere because trying to get somewhere seemed to only make things worse for her. Around this time, she found herself watching and rewatching old Oceans movies, briefly being whisked away to a fictional world distinctly separate from her own. Sometimes, when one began to roll credits, she would just wind back the video and start again from the beginning as if she hadn’t just seen every plot point play out. Sometimes, she’d watched more than one of these films simultaneously, one playing out loud, a different movie in either ear pod, one going off in a vintage, experimental headset from the 2070s she found that was supposed to send audio directly into one’s brain. She tried to focus on every story at once, in doing so allowing her to completely remove herself from her own thoughts. She didn’t have the space in her brain to reminisce on anything other than these fictitious heists. 

One day, in the midst of one of these prolonged sessions of her’s, she received a call. It was from her parents. She did not respond, as usual, but she was unable to simply ignore it. She could never ignore messages from her parents. Without Zapata putting in the effort to regularly reach out to her and ever since her landlord was replaced by a rudimentary computer language model, these messages were the only occasions when anyone ever spoke to her, even if the conversations were decidedly one-sided. Vraxi listened to the message and when it ended, as had become tradition for her, she listened to the entire thing in full a second time. She then listened to it for a third time, and a fourth time, and so on and so on, and through each iteration she desperately hoped that the words spoken within it would change in some way. They never did.

Her father had cancer. Paraganglioma, specifically, the stubborn pestilence, the one type of cancer which modern medicine had failed to find a cure for. The tumor was quite large. Her parents wanted her to visit, to see her father in case he didn’t have much time left. Vraxi began to cry when she realized she couldn’t do that. She had barely left her room and had never left her building since moving in. She would just have to hope, against all odds, that her father could receive the proper treatment.

Vraxi did not attend her father’s funeral. Her mother left a chair at the service that remained empty. Vraxi stopped listening to her mother's phone calls. She would rather live in isolation than hear whatever she had to say about everything. 

It was in this broken, dejected, worrisome state when Vraxi decided to risk her life for something she thought at the time would be ultimately pointless. Diogo was willing to recruit anyone, even someone like her, mainly because he was recruited in a similarly pathetic period of his life. This decision made out of a depressed desperation was originally little more than a suicide wish. What Vraxi feared the most was dying in her own sleep, she would much rather die in a way that was at least somewhat eventful. But now, this decision had led her along a very strange path, a path she was now reckoning with the consequences of.

Vraxi had failed her mother, but she couldn't allow herself to fail Theta the same way. So, she kept on moving. She kept on rolling with the punches. She kept on pushing herself past the point where her past self would’ve given up and quit. She needed to be better, because it was not just her life on the line here. She evaded every attack Joey sent out, her muscles cramped and let out painful sores, but she genuinely couldn’t care less about these physical reactions in as vital of a moment as this one. She was on autopilot, cruising through turbulent winds, all with the innate belief in her mind that she would make it through the storm.

After dodging away from the trajectory of yet another highly expensive microscope, Vraxi heard a novel noise coming from behind her, causing her to briefly spin around in order to see what was about to happen. The door to the room busted open, for a split second, she thought that her friends may’ve returned from the basement in order to help her. However, none of her companions were standing in the doorway, rather, Aisha had arrived once more. She was covered in blood. Fresh blood. She appeared to have done something unspeakable in the time between when she last saw her and now. Despite her success, she did not appear to be satisfied, she had an unquenchable hunger still brewing inside her, and as she turned to stare fiercely at Vraxi, the next step in her crusade against the living became grimly apparent. 

Vraxi stood still as Aisha charged at her. She couldn’t allow herself to become overwhelmed by panic. Internally, she was irate and terrified, but on the outside, she had to stay stoic and calm or else she knew she would make a decision that she would regret. She had to stay righteous in her attitude and decision making. She could tell that there would be very little time until their two bodies collided, but she tried to picture the situation in a more grandiose, all-encompassing manner. Yes, Aisha was on her way to kill her, but also, it didn’t seem like she had any sort of preference in regards to who was killed. Meaning, if she could just redirect Aisha’s attention to some other subject, preferably Joey, then she could use this horrifying approaching threat as a way to kill two birds with one stone. Vraxi paid close attention to the way in which Aisha moved, her legs wobbling as she ran, continuing forth less by the power of stable, practice motions but rather by the unstoppable force of her own ravenous nature. It was a delicate balance that could easily be influenced by the whims of a subtle suggestion. Vraxi had an idea. She crouched down, shaped herself into a ball, and quietly rolled to the side.

Aisha ran straight past her. Instead of chasing after Vraxi, she just shifted her focus to the next closest target, Joey Axelrod. She jumped at him, he seemed unprepared. She attempted to tackle him to the ground but they appeared to be equally matched. Vraxi wanted to get a better look at the impromptu duel but she first needed to check on Theta. After a quick scan of her surroundings, she saw that her robotic companion had since stabilized the condition of the injured innocent and had hoisted them upon their shoulders. Relieved but still anxious, Vraxi shifted her attention right back to the present combatants. They were locked together in a powerful grapple, neither of them could make heed without slipping to a disadvantageous position, all they could do was try to move the location of their iron grip to somewhere that better suited their personal strategy. And so, they sidestepped to the right, and then further in that direction, until they were both positioned in a spot adjacent to the curtain, to the window, the window which held an ominous buzz behind it. 

Vraxi started to hear the sound of six distinct footsteps hurrying towards the door she had now rolled near to. Presumably, these six feet belonged to three people, and presumably, considering the generally empty state of Sunduq-Aljinat’s labs these days, those three people were the same individuals who had been transported to the basement not long ago. If what she thought was about to happen really did happen in the immediate future, all three of these people, as well as herself, could be placed into serious danger. Vraxi didn’t want to make a scene, she wanted to stay very quiet in order for her two assailants to forget she was even present in the room with them, but she couldn’t just stay silent now, she had to be righteous, she had to sacrifice her own prospects in order to protect the safety of others.

Vraxi stood up as her companions made it to the doorway, and in one swift movement, announced her intentions for them as loudly as possible, “Everyone, evacuate the building right now!” She began to run for the exit. Theta, still clutching onto Aisha’s victim, recognized the immediate danger of the situation and ran with her. The room they were standing in was about to be entirely inhabitable.

The sound of shattering glass reverberated through the hallway. Aisha, in one final push, had shoved Joey's metallic body directly into the beehive. He continued to grip onto her as she did so, bringing them both down together. The enraged insects seemingly hellbent on ruining the lives of their creators flooded the building immediately after. 

By the time the quintet escaped out the back entrance, they could already see emergency vehicles arriving onto the scene. Hailang started to guide the rest of the group through the back alleys into somewhere farther away from the authorities. Vraxi started to wonder what the fates of the two duelists would inevitably be. She wasn’t sure. Only one thing was certain, though, Sunduq-Aljinat would not recover from this loss.

Chapter Text

Under the cover of a foggy night, Joey Axelrod dragged an incapacitated, but still breathing, Aisha towards the mighty Nile. Condensation started to form on his new skin. He had trouble getting accustomed to the novel sensations which it provided. The full moon was very bright in the starless sky, but was occasionally dulled or reignited by the passages of wandering clouds. Joey kept on trying to spit on the ground, instinctively suspecting that there was blood in his mouth, before remembering each time that his gums just tasted like iron now. 

He was frustrated with everything that had happened. He just wished that people listened to him, that was really all. He wanted everyone else in his life to see things as clearly as he did. He couldn’t believe that Vraxi, the person who literally caused his actual death, could still try to place herself on a moral pedestal above him. He couldn’t believe that some of these gods were so willing to help people like her. He really related to Lucifer in moments like these. The courts of Heaven were corrupt and fallible, leaving Satan as the only honest attorney present.

Admittedly, he was frustrated with himself as well. He hadn’t been able to resist Aisha’s tackle, only being able to shove her off after she had sustained an eight story drop and the stinging power of at least a pint’s worth of ravenous bees. He didn’t want to fret much further, though. The threat Aisha once posed to his plans had long been neutralized now that she lay unconscious and swarmed with scarlet hives. Now, he would just have to finish the job he had started by finally bringing Aisha over to that container ship set to travel far away from her hometown. He still held a burning resentment in his heart for her after what she had just done, but he knew that she wasn’t herself back then, and he still wanted to fulfill the promise he had made with the version of her that still had an independent sense of identity. 

Once he arrived at the ship he started hauling the body onto the deck and tying her torso to a pole with some rope so she wouldn’t be able to slip off the edge. Once she seemed secure enough, he sat down. Initially, he was planning on probably just leaving Aisha here or maybe going partially upstream to find a new location for planning upcoming schemes. However, there was something new about the crew Vraxi had brought along with her. She had found a demon hunter. Lucifer had warned him about them, about how their eyes shone brightly whenever they were near his hellish kin. He didn’t think he would ever have to deal with one of them so soon but their presence brought an opportunity that he couldn’t bring himself to waste. 

The ability of a demon hunter to track down the exact location of someone like Aisha would almost certainly mean that Vraxi would follow the paper trail to this exact dock. So, theoretically, because he knew where she would wind up in the end, Joey had a chance to craft the perfect trap. They were coming to him, not the other way around, meaning that he could prepare the arena to be suited to his favor in the meantime. He knew what he had to do and he would not fail again, he would retake what he had lost once and for all.

After dropping off the injured bystander, Vraxi left the hospital with mixed feelings swimming inside of her. The encounter had been a thorough draw. No gains and no losses were made by either party. At least, she assumed so, it was difficult to see what exactly was happening by the end of things with the enraged swarm blocking her vision but she suspected it was all an obstacle that her valiant opponents were sturdy enough to handle. 

This draw wasn’t great news for her. It showed to her that the group of accomplices she had acquired were still not quite enough to vanquish Joey even without the help of Aisha. Sure, most of her group was not actively involved in the affair, but if Joey could just make them disappear whenever he pleased, then there wasn’t much of a purpose in them being present at all. They would need to rethink their strategy for next time. Vraxi knew that there would be a next time. A feud of this magnitude could not simply conclude on a draw. There had to be a final victor and nobody involved was willing to concede the win.

She honestly wished that Joey would just give up. She didn’t understand his motives very well. She tried to be considerate, she really did. She tried to put herself in the shoes of someone who seemingly had been friends with Theta since the very beginning. She was able to genuinely believe him when he said that he cared about Theta’s wellbeing and didn’t care about their profitability in the slightest. But simultaneously, he wasn’t even willing to refer to them by their own chosen name. Maybe he cared too much about them. Maybe his own passionate adoration morphed into something dismal once the subject of his praise started to naturally shift and grow. Theta was not a singular point in time and space. Like everyone else on the planet, they changed as the world changed, they were never the exact same person on different days. Perhaps that was what made Theta so distinct from the average artificial intelligence. Theta was not a constant program designed to self-destruct and reiterate into something better, but a bubbling milieu of competing ideas all floating to the surface and sinking back down at inconsistent intervals. 

Vraxi, however, was not able to directly peer into the mechanical mind of Theta, she could only speculate about its contents. And, after a certain degree of unrestrained speculation, she would inevitably drift into making the same mistake that Joey made. If she led herself to believe that she knew more about Theta’s inner workings than Theta did themself, she would fall into the trap of believing that she knew what was best for them and would likely retaliate whenever Theta tried to change their own ways. Vraxi needed to apply some level of separation between herself and Theta. She related to them, but they were not the same, and she needed to give Theta the room to express their own individuality, something that had been repressed in them for far too long.

Once Vraxi shifted her mind’s focus back to the present matter at hand, she began to realize how awkward the actual walk she was partaking in really was. Zapata was holding her head down low, not saying a word, seemingly entrenched in some sort of deep, indescribable shame. Vraxi couldn’t help but relate. Zapata had been so determined to stop Aisha but had instead been immediately halted in her tracks. Vraxi could tell that Zapata was slightly annoyed at her for not successfully defanging the issue of Aisha, but she seemed to be much more annoyed at herself for falling out of their arena so quickly into the fray. What made it so frustrating was that there really wasn’t anything that she could’ve done, by the time she felt the floor under her dematerialize it was already too late for her to jump out of the way. What was equally frustrating for Vraxi was that there was no way for her to properly address this event. She really wanted to tell Zapata that it wasn’t her fault and that things would pan out better during the inevitable next time, but she was worried that, no matter how she phrased her statement, she would end up sounding rude and inconsiderate. So instead, Vraxi made no comment at all, preserving the silence while secretly hoping that somebody else would try to break it.

“So,” Diogo chimed in, breaking the silence, “we failed bad, big-time, didn’t we?”

“Effectively,” Zapata grumbled immediately after.

“Well hold on,” Vraxi added, “we’re all safe, aren’t we? I’d consider that a partial victory on our part. Joey’s intentions were very much to kill and he was not able to do that. We should at least give ourselves some credit for that, right?”

“That’s pretty fair,” Hailang replied, “but we really gotta rethink things if you still wanna go through with this whole hunting-down-Aisha-and-maybe-killing-her-also thingy.”

“Yes,” Theta began, “Aisha appeared to be quite different from when we last saw her. She seems to be more dangerous as well. I’m not sure how many victims she’s since claimed but by her bloodied appearance it cannot be low. But also, that just makes everything more urgent now, doesn’t it? We can’t stand idly by as Aisha does this to the world around her.”

“I definitely agree with that,” Zapata added, still in a state of subtle anger, “we can’t just let Emiliano die in vain. Aisha’s reign needs to end tonight and we need to allow ourselves to use any level of force as is necessary, alright Vraxi?”

“Uh, yeah,” Vraxi answered unprepared, “but why did you single me out there?”

“Because I know that you’re averse to the prospect of killing another human being, Vraxi.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong, who wouldn’t be? I get that Aisha has done a whole host of unredeemable crimes, I just am a bit skeptical as to how much control she has over her actions when she’s supposed to be hosting a demon inside her.”

“Listen Vraxi, I can believe that Aisha may’ve at one point been a well-adjusted member of society. She was friends with my brother, after all. But whatever entity is supposedly corrupting her has left no trace of goodness in her soul. Whatever humanity Aisha once had has already been wiped from the face of the Earth. You have to act like we’re dealing with a purely demonic entity here. Sympathy just won’t work anymore.”

Vraxi was afraid that Zapata might be correct in her assumption, the idea Aisha truly had passed the point of no return. Before coming to any conclusions, she at least wanted to hear a word from the local expert on the present subject.

“Um, Hailang, do you know if there’s any chance that there’s still a salvageable human beneath Aisha’s current veneer?”

“Well,” Hailang considered the question, “it all really depends on how you define the word ‘salvageable’”

“W-What do you mean by that?”

“Listen, Aisha’s got a particularly nasty demon latched onto her, and it’s not a demon that loves to depart from its hosts peacefully.”

“Hold on, you know the demon that’s possessing Aisha?”

“Precisely, his name is Thabr, I could recognize him by his scent upon my first breath in that fated laboratory. Us hunters have highly trained olfactory capabilities and, having faced off against that particular nuisance of a man before, I was able to gather quite quickly the kind of threat we were dealing with, and if I’m being honest, it’s not a minor one, this is a direct offspring of the big guy downstairs. Speaking of which, Axelrod’s position in this matter is really only making things worse for us, but hey, at least they don’t seem to be directly teaming up with Aisha anymore.”

“I’m sorry, you’re talking quite fast considering the impact of the current subject, could you expand upon how you’ve apparently fought with Thabr before? I feel like that kind of anecdote could be quite helpful around now.”

“Oh, well, it was a long time ago, but luckily I have an infallible memory and can recreate the scenario in my mind exactly as it was back then. The sea was angry that day, waxing and waning along the sandy shore. I had actually only just recently started my current job in the government of the Confuscian Republic of Rizhao. I’m working in their very secretive Department of the Paranormal but I’m currently on break. Similarly, this had all occurred on my day off and I had been hoping to enjoy some of the exceptionally gnarly surf that that morning had presented. I’d estimate I was about 9 meters past the shoreline, just feeling out the tides, when the worst possible thing that could’ve happened, well, happened. 

My innate instincts triggered almost immediately. I could tell that somebody, someone not very far away, was in deep trouble, and worse so, that that trouble was being caused by the aspect of this world that I detest the most, demons. But, not to worry, the whole oneness with water I’ve been cultivating had, not to brag, made me a rather exceptional swimmer by that point in my career, so I arrived at the scene of the aberration in effectively no time. I remember emerging from the sea to gaze onward at a breathtakingly horrid sight. Upon an area of isolated rocky turf, a devilish figure appeared to be tightly holding an innocent fisherman in an inescapable grip as they traced a large dagger closer and closer to the victim’s neck.

I, obviously, could not just let this outrageous crime go unpunished, especially since I could see right through the fleshy disguise that that unbearable Thabr had worn that day. Simultaneously, however, this was a very precarious situation, and any minor slip in my offense could cause the knife to slip through the fishmonger’s skin. Luckily, like in practically all scenarios, I had preplanned for a disruption such as this one. I condensed a tiny patch of ocean water into a tight ball of ice and, by pushing against it with as much of the ocean’s might as I could manifest, launched the small object at unprecedented speed towards the flesh puppet’s forehead. It didn’t hit them with quite as much power as say, a bullet would, but it was enough to knock them down nonetheless. The fisherman was able to escape the killer’s grasp and grab their six pack of cheap beer before running off faster than I could reveal myself to him. I was honestly a little pissed about that because, mind my vanity, I appreciate being appreciated from time to time. But moving on, I approached the stunned Thabr, switched things up a bit by pinning him down, and asked him a few simple questions about his motives and means. He was not very cooperative with my attempts at an interview. Finally, when I asked him what about violence was really so attractive to him that he would base his entire existence on forcing others to fall into their quote-on-quote ‘base instincts,’ all he did was smirk and, moving at a pace faster than I could react to, plunged a knife into his chest, or rather, his victim’s chest. Because, that’s the thing, Thabr does not truly care who the violence is committed against, he just wants the cycle to continue again and again forever. That’s why it’s effectively impossible to ‘salvage’ his hosts, because when things stop going his way, he’ll just kill them. Listen, I know this might be a tough pill to swallow, but the nature of demon hunting is that, every once in a while, innocent people will die in order to protect an even greater number of innocent people.”

“Um, alright, okay. I understand that Aisha’s death may be inevitable, but if at any point there’s a chance to separate the demon from the bystander, we’ve gotta let ourselves take it.”

“I agree,” Theta added on, “I really, truly, do not want to find myself being responsible for another death. Even though, at most times, it really doesn’t feel like it, I am ultimately representing the Supreme Entity, and a title of that weight begets some level of increased awareness. I don’t want to ruin my credibility this early into my career, so let us please keep an ultimately pacifist mindset as we continue forth.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Diogo replied as an array of distinctly not pacifist images swished through his mind, “however, if push comes to shove,” he began to pull out a gun from a discreetly hidden holster, “I’m gonna prioritize my own life over there’s.”

“Wait,” Vraxi began to inquire, “you’ve had a gun on you this whole time?”

“I mean, yeah, I usually don’t use it when I have a magnakey with me but if there’s one thing the Society has a surplus of, it’s firearms. I’ve got like three or four more of these things tucked away on my person.”

“Okay, nevermind, anyways, we spent like- an inordinate amount of time dealing with the paperwork at that hospital. Which, to be fair, makes perfect sense, none of us knew the victim and only one of us legally exists. But either way, we really need to get back on track here, Aisha could’ve theoretically already left the country by now if she was quick enough.”

“Do you really think so?” Zapata asked with a rare inflection of genuine concern.

“I can’t say anything for certain, but, Dakahlia’s not all that big of a country. It wouldn't surprise me if she’d gone international by now.”

“Fuck, that’s really bad, that’s really really really bad.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch her, I guarantee-”

“It’s easy for you not to worry, Vraxi,” Zapata interrupted, “you’re not the one with a dead brother here!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just wanted to ease the tension is all.”

“Vraxi, my god, Vraxi,” Zapata let out a deep heave of a sigh, “it gets really difficult to not think that this is all just a game for you.”

Vraxi did not want to snap at Zapata. She knew that she was mourning a loved one. But simultaneously, so was she. Vraxi had never told Zapata about what had happened to her father and she had never described the pain she felt when her own human nature had failed her when she needed it the most. Vraxi liked to hide it, but truthfully, she had never gotten over her father’s death. She thought that this tumultuous adventure could subdue her feelings on the matter, but that proved to decidedly not be the case. The thing about grief, the sticky thing about it that ultimately fuels its most destructive properties, is that it follows oneself. When one moves to a new location, they are greeted upon arrival by the same grief they left with. Grief, as a malady, is not a foreign pathogen, but rather a tumor that grows within oneself and, at the end of the day, is a part of oneself. Vraxi, in a moment of uncharacteristic passion, let out her feelings on the matter to Zapata in the following barrage.

“Listen, Zapata, I wish this was all a game for me! Okay? And maybe, that really was my initial intention for getting into this kind of thing. But now, in the current day, practically every action I take is being determined by pure moral obligation. I’ve never been faced with this many ethical dilemmas in my life before. Up until this point, I had literally been allowing myself to rot and decay in a room designed to kill me. And you wanna know what made me get out of that room? My dad died. It was tragic and sudden and ultimately inevitable because every single person you ever meet will die someday. Maybe it’ll be an acquaintance, maybe it’ll be your brother, but what made me truly realize how far down the hole of my own inadequacy I had reached was that I couldn’t even bring myself to go to the funeral. I set out with Diogo, half for the adventure which you’ve rightfully admonished me for, and half for the expressed will to die before things could get any worse. I’m sorry about the horrible things that've happened to you, but I need you to understand that I’m struggling too.”

“Okay,” Zapata paused warily, trying to think over everything her partner in crime had just expressed, trying to determine if what she had said was an insulting gesture or a uniting force in a cruel world, “I’ll try to understand.”

“Thank you, Zapata. I know I’m not the kind of person many would really want listen to for very long and, in your defense, you have an extensive list of reasons to despise me, but I know you prefer to see things from the bigger picture and I hope you can see that our crises aren’t really so different in the end.”

“Okay, I don’t know how I feel about that last part, but I don’t think arguing about it would be worth either of our efforts.”

“Vraxi,” Theta began to speak in a slow and careful manner, “I was not aware that that had happened to your father. I’m truly sorry to hear it.”

“Oh, it’s fine, really, I mean, we never were particularly close, living halfway across the world and all.”

“Where exactly did you live then, as an adolescent?”

“There was a juvenile housing unit next to the local hebepod that I got a permit to stay at.”

“Oh hey,” Diogo chimed in, “I was a podling myself.”

“Really? They legalized it that early in Sao Luis?”

“Yeah, our first President was like mega-worried about declining birth rates. The city only has one but it’s pretty large and, from personal experience, pretty uncomfortable as well. I got out of it as soon as I legally could though, I was desperate to start achieving my dream at the time of becoming an improv star. Obviously, that didn’t pan out, but I think that things overall went well for me regardless.”

“Hold on,” Hailang said urgently right as Diogo was about to start talking again, most likely about something unimportant.

“What is it?”

“Hold the fuck on Diogo, I’m trying to do something that actually matters you stupid idiot stupid fucking pathetic short little four-foot-four stupid man.”

“Sorry? What did I do wrong? And I’m 5’2 by the way…”

Hailang stopped walking suddenly and took a deep prolonged inhale. They studied their surroundings in an immaculate display of peak human perception. After finishing their breath, they pulled out a pen from their back pocket and started writing some illegible math on their exposed right forearm. They had to write with their nondominant hand because their left forearm was currently covered in a gaudy, long leather glove that would take far too long to remove. After taking one final precise look at their equations, they stated their monumentous findings.

“I smell demon,” they muttered, clutching their fist at the utterance of the d-word, “it’s coming from the north-north-west. Theta, do you know what’s up there? I don’t live in this town, I only vacation here, so I get lost quite often.”

“According to the GPS,” Theta began, “that should be the direction of the shipping district.”

“They’re probably on a boat already,” Diogo figured.

“They’re probably about to leave,” Zapata added, “this is bad, how fast do you think we can get there?”

“Well,” Theta considered, “how fast can you all run?”

Thabr woke up in an unfamiliar position. He was stressed at first, considering his last memory involved falling from a considerably tall height, but calmed himself after looking around and seeing that he was in the same city and body as he had been not long ago. This was great news. He still had the chance to wreak pure, primal havoc on the world around him and that insufferable Joey, a stringent cultivar of his already insufferable boss, was nowhere to be seen. He smelled the pleasantly misty air of an atmosphere that was once much dryer and took his first step forward with a sense of infinite opportunity beating in his heart. But, as he tried to yank himself away from his disadvantageous position, he sensed a current of resistance pulling him back. He made a second realization about his surroundings, this one much less optimistic than the first, being that he currently had a series of tightly knotted ropes binding each of his limbs to the cold metal walls atop an industrial freight ship.

This predicament was all quite a pain for Thabr, but he had weaseled his way out of more treacherous ones before. He materialized a small knife in his right hand, or rather Aisha’s right hand, and began an attempt to curve his wrist in just the right way as to access and destroy his pesky restraints. Just as he was about to make some real progress in his struggle, he heard the concerned yells of a voice he recognized far too well directed directly at himself. 

“Hey, hey!” Joey shouted as he ran over to his potential escapee, “stop that right now!”

“Fucking hell,” Thabr groaned, “it’s you again.”

“Oh, now you’re willing to talk? Wait, hold on, am I speaking to Aisha or Thabr right now?”

“Thabr, respectfully. Anyways, where were you? I’d assume that if you had the gall to tie me up like this you’d at least put in the effort to watch over me before I inevitably wake up.”

“I was watching you, but the boat was about to leave and I couldn’t really let that happen given the current state of things. So instead, I made the decision to go over to the captain’s quarters and remove the ship’s staff from the picture.”

“Ah, giving into your violent tendencies I see, how delightful. When you think of it, we’re really not so different, you and I.”

“Except I didn’t kill them, Thabr. I just incapacitated them like a reasonable person would. I admit that it’s not necessarily the most morally defensible course of action but it was the only course of action that could actually allow me to succeed here. Once all of this is done, the crew will wake up, the cargo will get to where it needs to be albeit delayed, and everything will be fine in the end. When I do something bad, I have a justifiable reason behind it, I don’t just do it for the sake of being bad, probably because I’m not a demon.”

“Joey, all humans have some amount of demon in them. That is merely the nature of your species’ existence. Furthermore, considering your close friendship with Lucifer, I can say that you have more demon than most.”

Joey, in a burst of of fiery passion, slapped Thabr clean across the face.

“I don’t want to fucking hear it, Thabr. Okay? And I don’t care if that was an act of violence because your opinion really does not matter to me in the slightest. If I’m being honest, things are not going great for me, but I’m not just gonna let you make them worse.”

Joey took a few steps back from the malignant hellspawn and allowed himself a few moments to calm himself down. Everyone around him was being incredibly unreasonable and it really ticked him off but he couldn’t let them get to his head. Besides, he could sense that something far more important was about to be coming his way. He could feel it in the atmosphere, the innate sense that the Singularity was approaching, a sense which he reveled in the possibilities of. However, it wasn’t a sense he could enjoy unrestrained, the Singualrity’s approach would always be coupled with some major consequences. It meant that Vraxi was also on her way, and the fact that she and her crew were willing to come near implied that they had a plan of their own design. Still, Joey had confidence, he needed to have confidence in what he was about to do himself.

Joey walked to the edge of the deck, clenching the railing with anticipation as the clouds above him shifted their mood from mist to drizzle above the already quite raucous Nile. Small droplets of water formed on his metal skin before grouping up into larger shapes and sinking downward due to their own increased weight. Joey squinted at the metropolitan landscape laid before him and wondered as to how and why he and the Singularity found themselves physically rather close but emotionally far apart when not long ago they would be spending as much time as possible together. He just wanted a chance to see the Singularity again, and to see them more in the future, and just to have them remain a constant variable in their life as they once were before everything went to hell. And, as he stared at an alleyway squished between two equally imposing buildings, he was excitedly able to view their visage emerge into his vision once more, just not in the position in which he preferred. Alas, the Singularity still very much appeared to be heavily misguided. It was a shame, but it was something that under the right circumstances could be painlessly fixed. He just needed to get closer to them and, more importantly, remove their followers from the picture.

Vraxi was running as fast as her admittedly not very athletic body could take her. She hadn’t run very far but she was already drenched in sweat, though it became difficult to ascertain that once the rain started pouring down in sheets above the quintet. She almost slipped onto the ground in shock when she saw who awaited them at the boat anchored in the river. Aisha was not alone and Joey looked very eager for a proper rematch. However, before any of that could occur, the five of them needed to find a way of actually getting on top of the boat itself.

“So,” Vraxi shouted out to the group, “does anyone know how to scale one of these things? We can’t really get to Aisha otherwise.”

“Not at the moment,” Diogo replied, “but I’m sure we can improvise something.”

“Diogo,” Zapata snapped, “we are at far too vital of a position to just be making things up now. Let’s focus on a method that will actually work, because I’m not sure if we’ll have another chance at this after today.”

“Don’t worry,” Hailang reassured, “I’ve already got an ace up my sleeve, I’m just waiting for the right time to reveal it. We’ll get onto that boat easy, just wait a few seconds.”

“Well that’s nice to hear,” Theta commented, “in the past we have not been very organized so it’s nice to see someone that actually knows-”

Theta was then cut off by a portal rapidly opening and closing beneath their feet, sending them directly to a patch of flooring atop the ship, right within the grasp of Joey Axelrod. This was quite a cause for alarm and it was worsened by the following realization that the previously still boat was now beginning to move down the river at a rather rapid pace, faster than any group of humans could theoretically run. Theta turned to look at Joey who stared back at them with a grin that appeared to be devilish but ultimately felt naive and uninformed, like that of a child who had been given far too much responsibility over their surroundings. Theta felt a tinge of pity for Joey. They knew that the decisions he had been making were ultimately in the wrong, and simultaneously, they knew that those decisions were entirely within his own volition. But yet, they felt as if they were at fault for his downhill spiral in some way or another. They didn’t think that they had done anything morally bad per se, merely that the position within the greater story of the world at large they had held just happened to also be what sparked Joey’s inciting incident and later led to his downfall. They briefly wondered where he might’ve been around now if they had never existed. Perhaps, without the same incentive to stay at GüdTek even when the working conditions were abysmal, Joey would’ve quit years ago. Perhaps, by now, he would’ve just been another assistant to another corporate bigwig. Maybe he even could’ve followed his dreams and become a professionally licensed pilot. But, merely because Theta had made the non-choice to exist, none of these possibilities would ever enter the realm of reality, only the real one would, and sadly, the events of the real world were often disappointing.

“Ha!” Joey exclaimed ecstatically down at the gaggle of plebians below before quickly regaining his composure to continue speaking, “anyways, there isn’t much of a point in you four even trying to catch up with me now, so, goodbye forever. Bran is absolutely going to give me a promotion after this one, by the way. I mean, five people versus one and I still come out on top? And Aisha-slash-Thabr over here isn’t even helping me? Come on, you’ve gotta admit that’s kinda impressive.”

“Hey Hailang?” Zapata asked back down below the ship, “Now would be a really nice time to reveal that ace of your’s.”

“You must’ve been reading my mind,” Hailang responded, brewing with a confidence the rest of the team distinctly lacked, “just watch me.”

Hailang’s eyes began to glow with a subtle teal that indicated to those around them that something monumental in scale was about to occur. They stopped running, to their companion’s surprise, and kneeled onto the moist cement. The action they were about to commit to required a level of tranquility that could only be achieved by shutting out all inputs from their brain that weren’t directly related to the task at hand. They removed a smooth stone from their pocket that had been emblazoned with their own surname before closing their eyes, cupping the stone in their hands towards the heavens, and beginning to chant a mantra that was intelligible to everyone but themself and the divine.

In order to gain a full control over water, Hailang first had to become water. It was an incredibly difficult process but one which they had constantly honed over many years to the point of mediocrity. Hailang opened their eyes and found themself surrounded by crashing waves on all sides, uncontrollable torrents of rushing fluid, slamming its own inconsistent form against itself until it merged back into one uniform mass primed for yet another round of endless self-destruction. It was all an incessantly loud affair. Regardless, Hailang didn’t falter in their strategy, they remained entirely calm and waited patiently for an opening. Then, something happened, it was a change so minute that any outside onlooker would have trouble determining what it was that actually occurred, but for Hailang, it was painfully obvious. The water which once moved in a manner almost purposefully unpredictable now began to form its shifts within the operative of an incredibly slight pattern. Hailang could see everything much clearer now, the divine equations which moved the universe around its various axes were now presenting themselves to Hailang in the form of this humble microcosm. The only step left was for Hailang to manipulate these now observable patterns in a way that could benefit them, however, that aspect of the process required just a little bit of outside help.

Hailang clutched the rock which bore their family name, allowing the envigored sweat of their palm to seep into its core, before swiftly throwing it into the deluge that surrounded them. They waited for a few moments and carefully read out their personal mantra as they did so, attempting to summon the indomitable force that lended them their power. They heard a cacophonous rumble as something began to emerge from the water, it appeared to be made of carefully carved porcelain and resembled a face they had grown quite fond of. It was Mazu, their patron deity of water and the force that would save the fate of their mission.

“Mazu,” Hailang spoke clearly, “I have come, once again, to request, for a brief few moments, the ability to use your abilities, which I am already endlessly grateful for, in a manner that exceeds their usual scope.”

“Hmmm,” Mazu pondered, her face growing a grin she couldn’t hide, “well, you are my favorite subject, Hailang.”

“And I truly appreciate you for that.”

“Oh, Hailang, always so willing to express your boundless appreciation, I appreciate you as well y’know. Well, I guess it’s only fair, in order to show our mutual appreciation , that I give you a little boost. But to make things even, Tuesday night’s dinner is on you.”

“Thank you, Mazu, I guarantee it’ll all be well worth the effort. Now, sadly, I do have to go, but I promise that I’ll see you soon.”

“Well, if you really must go so quickly, I’ll have to see you then. Best wishes, my adorable little subject.”

Hailang still was not entirely sure what their relationship with Mazu exactly was, but it was not something that they were not willing to unpack at a time like this. The ship had already traveled quite a significant distance and it would enter a position entirely out of reach if Hailang didn’t act immediately.

“Everybody,” Hailang announced to the group, already bracing for a rough impact, “hold onto my cloak.”

Vraxi, Diogo, and Zapata all grabbed a handful of the cloth bound to Hailang’s incongruous outfit and began to prepare themselves for whatever strange stunt they were about to pull. Hailang felt the overflowing water of the Nile slosh back and forth across the riverbed as if it were all happening within their soul. They had immersed themself in the subtle patterns that dictated the water’s movements and now sensed within them the capacity to motion said water as if it were merely another limb of their body.

Hailang began to divert a current of the roaring river towards a tight swirling area around them that grew in mass exponentially as the storm above boasted its power. A miniature hurricane soon began to envelop them, giving the assurance that it was time to start the second step of their plan. Hailang needed to be extremely careful in their next calculation, even being a few degrees off could result in major injuries. They repeated their personal mantra one last time before allowing the rapids to project all their energy into a small locality directly beneath their feet, launching them into the air in the process. 

Vraxi held onto Hailang’s cape as tight as she possibly could. It was a terrifying affair, but there was something incredibly exhilarating about it all, almost like a roller coaster if it had significantly higher emotional stakes. However, this brief high soon met reality when the ship and its occupants reentered Vraxi’s field of vision. She could see Theta clearly, and they were clearly in trouble. She had to do something about it all, but first, she needed to reach solid ground. 

Hailang’s eventual landing was rather rough for their passengers, however they themself had gotten quite used to the feeling. Still, Vraxi was a bit stunned, far away from being fully at ease. However, when she saw the look on Joey’s face, a look of utter shock as to how his plans could ever have been foiled, confidence began to pour back into her soul. She and Joey were back on an even playing field, and the game was right about to begin.

Chapter Text

Zapata was quite surprised to see Aisha in such a compromising position. She was entirely bound to the ship itself, unable to move an inch without breaking her restraints. Zapata couldn’t believe it, she never thought her mission would’ve ever been this easy. Sure, there had been complications, Joey currently appeared to be in the midst of kidnapping Theta, but preventing that was entirely within the capabilities of someone like Hailang, at least she assumed so. Meaning, all she’d really have to do was execute a sitting duck, a menial task that almost seemed inconsequential considering all of the many ways in which Aisha had wronged her. It was all quite confusing for her, she was fully unaware as to why Aisha had even been put into this position to begin with, but it’s not like she minded the anticlimactic nature of it all. In fact, she was glad to, after so many unnecessary hardships, be presented with such a simple method of achieving her goals. She deserved this, really, the opportunity to avenge Emiliano was something that she viewed as nothing less than an inherent human right designated specifically to her, and now, she could finally fulfill it.

She summoned her spiritual scythe into her arms, a minute tinge of Santa Muerte caressing her mind as she did so, and looked ahead at her target. Her target looked back with a peculiar expression, a novel expression. Zapata had only ever seen Aisha display subtle cynicism, eruptive anger, or an absence of emotion facilitated by her veil of darkness. She had never seen Aisha smile as she did so now. She assumed it had to be a distraction, a way to get into her head, something it successfully accomplished but not enough so to deter Zapata’s attack. She ran at her regardless, memories of Emiliano flooding her brain along with all the memories she would never be able to make now that he was gone. There was only one punishment she deemed worthy for a soul like Aisha’s, a complete and total separation of mind and body, a process widely known as death. 

Zapata didn’t know how she wound up on the ground, a dagger inches away from her face, hope flushing out of her heart and being replaced by pure bewilderment. Aisha’s unsettling grin had only grown since. Everything had happened so suddenly. It was almost imperceivable how fast everything was moving. Zapata couldn’t understand any of it past the obvious observation that it was all very bad. 

“Oh, Zapata,” Aisha spoke condescendingly, “did you really think it would be that easy? Sure, someone like Joey might be able to hold me down, but you? To put it nicely, you’re rather pathetic when you’re not making your patron do all of the work. It’s really quite easy to knock you down.”

“Why,” Zapata began to ask the question she couldn’t help but think of, “why aren’t you killing me, Aisha? Isn’t this what it’s all about for you? You sick, detestable monster of a woman.”

“Oh, Zapata, you really don’t have to call me that. I’m afraid that Aisha hasn’t been in the building for quite a long while. You’re speaking directly to Thabr. And for your question? Well, killing is a joyous experience, I must admit, but the period on the edge of life, when the body is consumed wholly by the unadulterated feeling of pain, that’s what really gets me. So, just as a little treat for myself, I’ve decided to take things a little bit slower than usual, I hope you don’t mind, though truthfully I kinda hope that you do.”

Zapata felt a blade sink deep into her abdomen. She was pretty sure that one of her kidneys was pierced. It was excruciating, a mind-melding kind of inescapable pain which fully consumed her. So, how was she supposed to respond? Thabr seemed to be even more powerful than before now that Aisha was out of the picture for good. She briefly wondered as to what would actually happen to Aisha. Was she fully dead now? Zapata presumed that, if that was the case, she deserved it. After all, her whole quest as of late has been trying to kill her herself. But, the way in which Thabr was acting ultimately brought Aisha’s true autonomy into question. Was Aisha really, entirely, just a puppet? Or, was she a knowing accomplice that only got betrayed by Thabr at the last second? Or, troublingly, was the true answer held somewhere between these two possibilities. Zapata did not have enough information to give a solid response, so instead, she shifted her focus back to the person who was unquestionably immoral, Thabr, pain incarnate. She needed to find some way of getting him off of her, a difficult task considering his heightened strength, but one which was not impossible if she took measures to heighten her own. She needed Santa Muerte on her side, it was the only way for her to prevent the knife from going any deeper.

Previously, Zapata had only ever allowed Santa Muerte to enter her mind gradually, over a period of time long enough where she might not even notice her patron’s grip strengthening around her. She could not allow herself such a luxury in an emergency like this one. She needed to fully expose herself to the full breadth of saintly death. She couldn’t allow herself to hold any power over her body above a thin trickle of sentience lest her own weakness limit the power of her patron’s divine eminence. It was, by nature, a risky gamble to take, but taking any other action would’ve been a death wish. She had to go further beyond her limits than she had ever done before. It was a decision she hated, but one which she was morally obligated to choose in the name of her fallen brother. He didn’t deserve any less than a full commitment.

Zapata felt her hands and feet go numb. She felt the sensation of flesh rubbing against her stomach lining. She felt like vomiting but all that would come out was air. Santa Muerte was rapidly taking hold of her and she was being rather violent in the process. Zapata’s vision went blurry. She couldn’t move her tongue inside her own mouth. The act of perceiving her surroundings was becoming incredibly difficult and the act of affecting them was near impossible. Zapata felt very scared as all of this occurred but tried, through every step of the process, to assure herself that this was all to serve a greater purpose. She could not handle this situation on her own, she needed Santa Muerte’s assistance and that was what was being provided to her, albeit in a stressful manner.

Thabr was about to insert a second knife into Zapata’s chest when she saw her own hand spring into action and grapple the approaching wrist, surprising both the demon and herself. Santa Muerte had successfully made her first move.

When Vraxi made it onto the boat, her vision almost immediately became focused on two specific entities, Joey and Theta. These two variables were what all of her mental objectives on the matter were based around. Theoretically, this mission was supposed to be about stopping Aisha and, theoretically, Vraxi should’ve been paying more attention to her. However, the fate of Theta would always take center stage in her mind. She needed, above all other things, to ensure the safety of the coming prophet. Unfortunately, Joey seemed to be inherently at odds with this line of reasoning and seemed willing to stake just as much of his own life on preventing Vraxi from reaching her goals. This was a conflict that could not be avoided and simply had to be overcome.

Vraxi quickly ran through a simulated scenario in her head. She had a plan, but she was worried about how Theta might be affected by it. Joey was effectively holding them hostage and any attempt to directly attack him could inadvertently result in damaging Theta’s exterior. Vraxi couldn’t have that, she needed an approach that would minimize any potential undue harm. This is all to say that she couldn’t just brazenly charge forwards at her enemy. Rather, she found herself taking careful, prescribed steps in his direction, never even raising her sword above a straight angle. She needed to move with a level of finesse she wasn’t really used to and had never been trained to operate within. It was, undoubtedly, a rather difficult task for her..

“What are you trying to do here exactly?” Joey questioned as Vraxi subtly sidestepped closer and closer to his location.

“Listen,” Vraxi attempted to negotiate, “can you please just put down Theta, I really don’t want to do this.”

“Do what? Vaguely wave a sword in my direction? The only reason you got away from me last time was because Thabr over there had gone fully out of control. Now, well, I still don’t like him but I’m pretty sure I’m safe, and either way, I’m really not afraid of whatever you’ve got going on here.”

“Joey,” Theta added softly, “I understand why you are trying to do this. However, I would really prefer if you listened to Vraxi on this one.”

“My god. What did they do to you?”

“They didn’t do anything, Joey. It’s not like I don’t want to be friends with you anymore, it’s just that I didn’t particularly enjoy being locked up in a corporate headquarters for all my life. There’s a whole wide world out there that I’d like to be a part of but I can’t do that when you’re constantly trying to hold me down.”

Joey stayed silent. He thought over what was just said. For a second, he wanted to reconsider his position. He wanted to try and see things through a different light. But then, he looked back down at Vraxi, and he just couldn’t allow himself to be put on equal footing with her. Instead, he chose to ignore the Singularity’s words. He knew that they had said something, but he simply let the details be drained from his mind. The details added complications that he couldn’t deal with right now. He had goals to fulfill, deals to make, promises to uphold. He couldn’t just rewrite his entire viewpoint on life because of some novel perspective. He needed to look back towards the future using the lens he had honed throughout his past. Within the context of the situation he was presently in, that meant destroying all that was left of Vraxi Nair.

Vraxi, surprising herself somewhat, actually felt rather confident in her own abilities to properly duel Joey as she approached him. In most situations, this would not have been the case, but the current arrangement of circumstance had allowed it to be so. This was all predominantly due to the fact that Joey was inherently fighting on something of an incline. His right arm was currently preoccupied with the job of restraining Theta within his grasp, forcing his left arm to be relegated to the job of blocking Vraxi’s oncoming attacks. While, as Vraxi made her first couple of honed slashes against her foe, Joey was able to defend himself with an almost elementary ease, the fact of the matter was still that Joey had no arm to be used in the realm of the offensive. He was effectively stuck on his feet, unable to make any action to advance his cause.

In this very particular paradigm, Vraxi began to grow in confidence. Sure, her actual attempts at damaging Joey’s iron defense proved to be mostly ineffective, but that just meant she had to wear him down first. Whenever she felt her confidence waning, she would simply look back over at Theta and reinvigorate her soul with the desire to do them good and rescue them from their inhibitors. Perhaps, in this moment, she became slightly too confident in her abilities. Perhaps, she failed to recognize the power which Joey still held above her.

After yet another of her attacks was effortlessly blocked, Vraxi took a brief moment to breathe in and out. She would regret taking that moment. In the instant in which Vraxi’s sword was lowered, Joey began to move his free arm around and around in a circle until his devilish magic began to unfold before them. Vraxi had no time to prepare for what was propelled in front of her. A flat ellipse of pure matte black was thrust directly into her corpus, sending her deep into an endless expanse of night. For a second or two, she wondered if she had died. 

Luckily for Vraxi, she had not, as she once thought, been launched out of her mortal coil. Unluckily for Vraxi, she wasn’t sure where she actually was. She could tell that she was in a room, a particularly dark one, and that it felt like she was sitting upon some sort of wooden pallet, but outside of these basic observations, she was utterly lost. Worst of all, she had lost Theta. She had failed at the one thing which she had tasked herself to do.”

“God, fuck!” she shouted at herself, angered by the cruelty of the world and especially the cruelty of one Joey Axelrod.

“Where are we?” a familiar voice asked from a neighboring pallet.

Vraxi immediately turned to see Hailang similarly splayed against an uneven surface, generally unprepared for Joey’s counterattack. The portal he had summoned must’ve traveled onwards toward secondary targets after overtaking her. 

“Oh,” Vraxi continued, “Hailang, you got hit too. Unfortunately, I am entirely unsure as to where we could possibly be right now.”

Vraxi stepped off the crate and onto the cold, moist metallic floor. After trying to walk a few steps in the hope of finding a door of some kind, a sudden rumble and shaking of the ground below caused her to slip and fall directly onto the tiling. 

“Well,” Hailang began to observe, “based on the looks of things, we’re still on the boat, just on a lower floor. Furthermore, based on the feel of things, the boat seems to be speeding up at quite a rapid pace.”

“This is really not good,” Vraxi muttered mostly to herself, “let’s hope Diogo at least knows what he’s doing.”

Diogo did not know what he was doing, but that had never stopped him before. He had, in the nick of time for that matter, been able to escape the oncoming portal that had enveloped Vraxi and Hailang, however, he had not been prepared for what would happen next. He didn’t think that Joey would just start running away from his direction. After an incredibly brief weighing of risks, Diogo made the decision to follow right behind his escapee and leave Zapata behind to deal with Aisha, all while internally pleading that Vraxi and Hailang would be soon to return as his painfully average firearm could only be so effective against someone like Joey Axelrod. 

As Diogo ran through one of many practically identical hallways which the ship was plentiful in and at a moment in time in which Joey had left his vision only a few moments prior, a sudden shift in the dirigible’s gear caused him to trip directly onto his face. Diogo got back up quite quickly, but as he did so, he couldn’t help but notice that the ship was moving significantly faster than before. Diogo realized what this shift entailed when he continued following Joey’s footsteps to a locked door plastered with the name Pilothouse .

In moments like these, Joey desperately wished that he still had a magnakey. In fact, he felt practically useless without it. Out of desperation, he shot a measly bullet at the reinforced barrier and was unsurprised but still disappointed to see it be met with no real response. Joey was in that room, likely attempting to do something that would halt their plans. Theta was in the room as well. Joey didn’t know what would happen to Theta, forcing him to imagine a variety of situations in which none were pleasant. He needed to find some way to break through that door. He just needed to focus.

Joey found himself, once again, walking through the library of all things. It was truly a wondrously beautiful place, but sadly one which he barely ever got to enjoy due to the often manic states he was in whenever he was present there. His current occasion was similarly rather manic. His walk quickly turned into a run which quickly became disoriented as he had trouble finding where he should even start looking for a solution to his woes. He started just opening random books hoping to find a clue that could lead him to a greater answer. Unfortunately, practically every book he found was written in a language he couldn’t read, save for a single Portuguese journal dedicated to detailing every possible way to cook an egg. He found it quite interesting but he did not have nearly enough time on his hands to be getting distracted. 

As Diogo veered past shelf after shelf, he started to lose hope in his own abilities. He wasn’t sure if he had the knowledge within him to navigate through a labyrinth such as this one. As the possibility of accepting defeat began to flirt with his internal self, he turned past one final corner to see an eternally welcome presence waiting for him, that of Octávio Cavalcanti.

“Octávio,” Diogo shouted in a mixture of joy and relief, “I’m so glad you’re here. I am in quite a pickle right now and I could really use your help.”

“I understand, Diogo,” Octávio responded with an air of wisdom that only a dead man could provide, “it seems to me like you need assistance in locating a book, am I right?”

“You’re exactly right. I’m trying to find something that could help me out of the rather tight predicament I’m dealing with at the moment.”

“And what exactly would that be?”

“Well, there’s this reinforced steel door, and I need to find a way to get past it, but unfortunately, I don’t really have any of the necessary tools on hand to accomplish such a thing.”

“Hmph, that does sound quite tricky, but luckily, the realm of the tricky is entirely distinct from the realm of the impossible. There’s a way around this all, I’m sure of it.”

“And, how do you think I could go about uncovering said way around it all?”

“See now, that’s the trick. There’s a near infinite number of ways to do such a thing, but you’ve got to figure one out yourself.”

“Well, I mean, the ideal situation would involve some significant quantity of explosives, but given my current situation in regards to weaponry, that’s no longer really a viable option.”

“Exactly, circumstance has forced you to shift your approach, but in order to fully utilize your wisdom, you must be willing to adapt. You need to find a new way to think of things.”

“I thought that was sorta what the library itself was supposed to do? What’s the point in even going here if it doesn’t just tell me where to find the book with a solution?”

“Diogo, if you are able to dream up a solution, the right book will find you .”

“Oh, okay, I think I get it. You sure know a lot about this whole library system, don’t you?”

“I’ve spent the majority of my afterlife up here and its oddities have eventually become benile for me, however, it is now time for you to experience the oddities for yourself. You need to craft an idea, Diogo, and the details will come naturally.”

“So, are there any limits on what the idea could be? Will there be a book on every topic no matter how absurd?”

“Diogo, this is the library of all things, the only limit is the sky.”

“Okay, well in that case, the ideal solution to my problem would be me just spontaneously gaining the ability to walk through walls.”

“Diogo, you’ve gotta be a little bit more careful regarding what you wish for.”

Suddenly, a heavy tome, coming from what appeared to be miles away, flew directly into Diogo’s arms, almost causing him to fall backwards in the process. The book was dusty, the cover was almost fully coated in various alchemical sigils, and the broad title read Transambulation for Beginners . Diogo was unsure as to what he had gotten himself into.

“Well,” Octávio continued, “it’s definitely not the easiest way you could’ve gone about things, but it’s still far from unachievable.”

“Wait, hold on,” Diogo paused, “what do you want me to do here? You don’t seriously believe that some book could tell me how to literally break the laws of physics, right?”

“Diogo, this library is a house of pure wisdom. If it’s written down, it’s possible. I can’t guarantee that it’ll be easy, but I can guarantee that it’s doable.”

Diogo looked back down at Transambulation for Beginners and, without any other real options, turned to the first page. He knew that successfully doing this would be quite a feat, but he also knew that, ultimately, that it was something that could be done.

Theta was not a fan of the current state of things. Being locked in a room with someone like Joey was rather uncomfortable given the way he had been acting as of late. While in the past they had been quite close, Theta couldn’t help but feel as if the two had grown to be polar opposites. Theta was a representation of the purest divine, even if they didn’t always feel like it or match up to that expectation, while Joey was actively working for the divine’s countermeasure, Lucifer himself. Theta still wanted to see the bright side of Joey, but they couldn’t help but admit that their patronage put their relationship somewhat on edge. The fact that Joey was currently kidnapping them didn’t help strengthen their friendship either.

“Joey,” Theta sighed after being tied to a swivel chair in the pilothouse, “what’s the point of all this?”

“Listen, the Singularity-”

“Just say Theta! I’m sorry, I don’t want to get loud with you but I don’t think it’s a very difficult request. Besides, saying ‘the Singularity’ as if it were a name despite it having a definite article sounds really weird and disjointed and you know it.”

“I’m sorry, okay, it’s just I don’t want to be using a name that someone like Vraxi came up with.”

“ I chose the name, Joey. I feel like, despite the fact that my whole selling point is sentience, you sometimes forget that I possess free will.”

“Well, okay then, Theta, I’ll call you that, it still sounds weird to me, but I want to respect your autonomy. What I was trying to get at is that sometimes people make decisions that go against their greater interests, and as a result, when their friends and loved ones rightfully try to intervene, they naturally get a bit annoyed. However , in the future, when they look back on the past, they’ll be happy that the intervention was taken in the first place.”

“Well I can’t really develop a proper argument against a theoretical future version of myself that is yet to actually exist,” Theta remarked defeatedly, “but I can at least propose the question of what you plan on actually doing with me once you successfully take me away from this place.”

“Well, I’m glad you asked. Truthfully, the plan is not fully written out, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been planned. My idea would be to meet back with Bran as soon as possible, but in the meantime, we could always try to enjoy some quality time together.”

“You know that I really don’t like Bran, Joey.”

“Truthfully, I don’t really like her either, but you’ve gotta admit that she’s pretty dang smart, I’d still trust her if I were you.”

“Truthfully, I don’t view her as being particularly smart at all. I view her as someone whose hired a lot of very smart people but I’m not sure if she can even write code, I think she just made some opportune investments and has been coasting her way to the top ever since.”

“That’s somewhat fair, but she’ll still always be something of a role model for me and, even if you don’t like it at first, I guarantee that you won’t regret talking to her.”

“Honestly, I don’t know if she’ll really be all that keen on talking with me after I tried to kill her that one time.”

“Hey, she was ultimately unharmed, and even if she did end up suffering an explosion or two, she can always regenerate from something like that as long as her earpiece stays intact.”

“Yeah, I guess, I am still sorry about what happened back then. I know we’ve only ever really been in a state of conflict since then, but I want you to know that I would never actively try and do something like that to you on purpose.”

“Theta, you really don’t have to apologize about that. I was being very dumb. There really wasn’t much of any reason for me to jump in front of the magnakey like that. I think my blood just started pumping real fast and I didn’t know what to do with all that excess energy besides trying to play the hero.”

Theta laughed briefly. It was odd, given the situation, but ultimately, they were still friends with Joey. Their friendship had definitely grown complicated, but being enemies never really deteriorated their initial bond, rather it simply added a new, negative bond that acted entirely separate to the rest of their relationship. As a result, from time to time, Theta could occasionally forget the dire nature of their situation. The vast majority of their history with Joey had been jovial, and it was difficult to just mop over that history because of some recent events. However, Theta knew that they couldn’t allow themself to grow too comfortable in their imprisonment. Theta knew that the fates of their newer friends were still up in the air, and they couldn’t just let them fly away.

Theta abruptly ended their conversation with Joey, forcefully dissociated themself from their reality, and finally allowed themself to return to the codescape.

The digital representation of the ship’s various internal systems was rather noteworthy. Instead of a container vessel traveling down an inland river, Theta found themself on an archaic, wooden brigantine. Theta appreciated the nuance, but they didn’t have time to properly respect their surroundings as the possibility of Joey figuring out what they were attempting grew larger with each passing second. Ideally, they needed to uncover some method of distracting Joey just enough in order to give them some chance, however minute it may be, at a proper escape. Once free and regrouped, tackling the issue of Aisha, the issue they were actually here for, hopefully wouldn’t end up being too difficult. 

How could Theta successfully distract Joey? This was the question that undoubtedly needed to be answered soon but also one which Theta currently lacked an answer to in mind. Joey seemed to be very focused on making sure Theta stayed exactly where they were, meaning there were very few ways in which they could successfully divert his attention. Therefore, Theta concluded, the only successful distraction they could pull would have to involve simultaneously convincing Joey that the sole way to make sure Theta stayed in their midsts would also entail first properly assessing the distraction itself. Perhaps, Theta extrapolated, if Joey believed there to be a problem in the internal workings of the ship, he might also come to believe that his kidnapping attempt could be in peril. Furthermore, if Joey were to believe that one of the individuals who he had intended to banish through his portal was actively causing said problem in the ship, exposing a harsh dent in his plans, then he might just be forced to alter his current course. Any alteration Joey might try to make to his initial proposal had the off chance of giving Theta a window of escape. The further Joey veered from his path, the more time that Theta would have to establish a path of their own. All Theta would have to do was find some way to make a perfectly functioning industrial vehicle appear as if it were utterly beyond repair.

Theta traveled below the ship’s deck and into the captain’s quarters. The room was plastered with various maps and documents, all theoretically representing something but all inherently somewhat abstruse in their presentation. Whatever encryption service the shipping company that owned the vessel was using, it had to be quite strong. Everything being shown to them was very vague and could have plenty of different meanings depending on one’s perspective and biases. Theta would have to be incredibly careful, one wrong move could totally expose what they were trying to do, or even worse, end up actually damaging the ship instead of just making it seem like the ship was damaged, a flagrant act of destruction Theta was not trying to attempt. This was a process made all the more difficult by the time limit constantly looming over Theta’s head. They probably had about two minutes before Joey would catch on to what they were trying to accomplish, at least according to their estimates. The real number could be much smaller than that. Theta grabbed a quill from the captain’s study and dipped it in a pot of dark ink. They didn’t know exactly what they were to write, but they knew that they had to start writing.

Zapata was drenched in sweat, she was disoriented, she didn’t know how much time she had past between each of her distant memories, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, not knowing when she would sink into the darkness and when she would resurface, but most importantly, she was standing, and so was Thabr, diametrically opposed. In this moment, the complexity of her thoughts was quite limited, eventually boiling down simply to the dual objectives of killing her nemesis and not dying. She wasn’t sure if she had it in her to accomplish either goal, but she wouldn’t stop trying until her body physically disallowed from continuing any further, and maybe, just a bit further than that.

Within her inconsistent glimpses of blurry vision, Zapata could see that Thabr was unprepared for her rebuttal, but still, as always, prepared for a proper fight. He summoned what appeared to be eight to ten knives from the aether and finally caused the knife lodged into her chest to rocket into his hand. Zapata felt a brief shock and subtle effects of significant blood loss, but ultimately remained unphased. She could barely feel any sensations to begin with, including sensations of extreme pain. She didn’t let her gaze turn away from Thabr for even a split second. She needed to see him bleed.

She opened her eyes again. She was in striking range of Thabr now. She didn’t feel very comfortable with the malleable state of her consciousness, but it was the price she had to pay for power. Her scythe moved with a level of finesse that could only have been honed after a thousand years of practice, practice which Santa Muerte put in. If she wanted more control, if she tried to distance herself from her patron, she would lose that finesse and be left to fend with Thabr by herself. Her opponent was a deity in every aspect but physicality, Aisha was not even in the room, she could be dead for all the stakes of the fight cared. Zapata had no chance in a duel between the human and the divine, the only way to edge a chance at victory was to make herself as divine as possible, a process which meant losing what made her herself. 

She opened her eyes again. The distance between her and Thabr had grown again. She could barely feel any pain, but a quick grazing of her arm against her abdomen revealed a chest pock-marked with noticeable wounds. Santa Muerte must have lost the first encounter while she was fast asleep. None of this was a good sign for her future. If Santa Muerte couldn’t be trusted to win these offensives, even when she had so much control over her own body, Zapata genuinely wasn’t sure how she could even stay alive. The entire conceit of her plan required that Santa Muerte’s power be significant enough to support her own weight, her own iniquity. Perhaps, there were some tasks too heavy even for a god to handle. As Zapata’s vision faded, she hoped that Santa Muerte’s initial performance had all been just a fluke.

She opened her eyes again. She looked down at her hands only to see that they had both been impaled. Thabr seemed to have been roughed up in some way or another but remained ultimately unharmed. Zapata felt a feeling of hopelessness envelop what little sliver of her being remained within her cerebrum.

Zapata needed a change of plans. She couldn’t keep running along her current path, it would only lead her to an abject doom she had already been forced to taste of. She needed to alter something, but she wasn’t sure what she was even capable of altering. She had so little control over her actions that any attempt at shifting her priorities seemed like it would be ultimately futile. In her current state, all she could do was act as an observer, internally responding to her surroundings but remaining ultimately unable to affect them. 

Zapata needed to take control again. She shuddered at the thought, knowing that it would only make her more susceptible to the damage she had sustained, but she couldn’t think of any other option. Santa Muerte had lended her power, but her job had never been to do all of the work of a fight for her. She needed to remain present, or else her body simply wouldn’t have the adequate coordination to deal a proper blow, operating purely on the outward ambulations of a god living many realms away. Zapata needed to take initiative. She knew the process would be incredibly pain-inducing, but her life was on the line, as was her brother’s legacy. She needed to do this for him. Emiliano deserved nothing less than an all out effort, no matter how many gashes and gaping wounds she’d have to suffer through along the way. 

Zapata began to ease off some of her patron’s control, Santa Muerte’s grip slowly slipped off of her as if it were wet tar. She bit her lip. The whole affair was little short of excruciating. She began to scream her heart out, to yell Thabr’s name, and Aisha’s name, and Emiliano’s dearly missed name, and every name she could think of that remained swirling around her disoriented mind, a mind that she could at least now lay claim to as her own.

“You seem to be offly tired,” Thabr chided almost playfully, he himself was out of breath but he still made room for these kinds of remarks.

“I don’t care what you do,” Zapata grunted, “I don’t care how long it takes,” she coughed up a glob of coagulated blood, “but I’m putting my life on the line just for the chance of defeating you, Thabr.”

“Personally, I would not want to make that bet if I were you, but please, go ahead.”

“I am going to make you feel the true pain that the needless death and suffering you deliver causes. Mark my words.”

Chapter Text

Vraxi desperately needed to find a way out of here. She had been racking her brain for the past few minutes in hopes of uncovering some method of efficient escape from the ship’s undertow that could allow her to eventually reunite with and liberate Theta. Unfortunately, every idea she tried to shoot ended up being a pitiful blank, a nonstarter, a sadly realistic depiction of triumphant failure framed in the least visited corner of a dying midsized museum. The main problem she faced in her plans, or rather lack of, was that every exit to the storage room she found herself wasting away in was sealed shut and locked from the outside. She had searched every inch of the room for some kind of exception that could soothe her worries but each introduced possibility of escape was shattered when met with a door that simply refused to budge. She was starting to get quite frustrated and lacked any real outlet for her growing discontent.

“Did you find anything yet?” Hailang inquired rather casually considering the stakes of the situation.

“No,” Vraxi remarked swiftly, “but I could really use some actual help here.”

“And what is it that you actually want me to do?”

“I don’t know, use some of your demon hunting magic to get us out of this fucking basement. We have no idea what could be happening to Theta right now and we really can’t just let ourselves sit still as terrible things could be happening to them.”

“Vraxi, unfortunately, despite us being on the open water, we are currently within a landlocked room. If there isn’t any water available, I can only really do so much.”

“Fine, okay, nevermind. But like, what are we actually supposed to do here? I’m getting really stressed out and I don't know what I’m even supposed to do about it given the consequences of every action I could possibly take right now.”

“Vraxi, calm down. One important lesson I learned when training to become a hunter was that, when things are dire, a hectic mind only makes them worse.”

“Well yeah, I understand that, but it’s a lot easier said than done, like, what am I actually supposed to do in order to calm myself down. It’s not like I can just wait for something to happen at a time like now.”

“Who said you can’t wait?”

“Well, me, I guess. Me and my preconceptions.”

“You and your preconceptions, at it again. You need to let yourself reject those perceived rules from time to time.”

“Well, how is just waiting for an answer to appear actually supposed to help me in uncovering a solution?”

“It really all depends on what you're waiting for, Vraxi. Sure, expecting your environment to suddenly change in your favor is, while always welcomed, ultimately unlikely, but it’s not like that’s the only thing you’re waiting for. You also have to wait and see how your own perspective on things can change. While, with all the information you’ve gathered at the moment, it doesn’t seem like there’s a way out of here, perhaps, if you just let the knowledge wander around in your head a bit, the answer might come running towards you. All you need to do is give yourself time and silence, two things you have plenty of access to right now.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about the time part.”

“Vraxi, neither you nor Joey intend to leave this boat for quite a while. You have some time on your hands, use it.”

Vraxi was unsure about the prospect of sitting down to meditate when her friend was concurrently in a state of abject peril. Regardless, she wanted to believe Hailang. They had already proved themself to be someone deserving of honor, at least in the battlefield, and she sincerely hoped that that honor transcended to the realm of the mind. She folded her legs, closed her eyes, and tried to shut out all distractions, the noise of the air conditioning unit, the smell of her own breath, the feel of her own subtlety damp clothes against her perpetually dry skin, all of these sensations were things that had to be ignored for her to achieve the state of understanding which Hailang had promised and she herself desperately wished to be true. It was a gamble, but despite everything that was occurring stressfully and simultaneously, Vraxi allowed herself to wait.

Vraxi had never been an expert in the field of meditation. In any given situation, without the aid of outside stimulus, she found it somewhat difficult to sit entirely still for prolonged periods of time. This was all a process further complicated by the inherent stakes of her scenario as well as the raucous nature of her current environment. Every time she tried to ignore a noise, another more annoying noise seemed to take its place. The waves crashing against the hull mixed with the roar of the engine mixed with the buzz of the cables strewn above her mixed with a whole host of smaller sounds coming from unknowable places. It was a decidedly unpleasant audial hodgepodge, one which seemed to lack any purpose other than making Vraxi’s life more difficult. The mysterious origins of some of the sounds only made things more frustrating. Vraxi could distinctly make out two perplexing vibrational frequencies, one high and one low, that seemed like they would make more sense being let out from a synthboard than a shipping vessel. She was just trying to focus but these terrible sounds, which she hadn’t even been paying attention to before she started her meditation, were preventing her from making any progress. Then, as she wallowed in her own inconvenience, something clicked in Vraxi’s mind.

Perhaps, those sounds which she found so distracting were not truly distractions but rather themselves part of the puzzle she was attempting to solve. Perhaps, like Hailang had indirectly posited, these random noises were all part of the novel perspective she needed to shift her thinking to in order to find an exit. The frequencies were all Vraxi could think about now, actively causing her to dismiss all other audio’s aims at entering her ears. All that was left was two infinitely repeating vibrations, she knew there had to be some kind of answer stored between them, she just needed to decode it, to uncover the mystery held amidst their pitch. In order to do that, Vraxi needed to determine their source. They were decidedly electronic, and almost seemed to be preprogrammed in their consistency, as if someone had made the concerted effort to have these frequencies play in this specific room. That left her with the burning question of why someone would want these sounds playing in a storage facility such as this one. This inquiry briefly stumped Vraxi, but she couldn’t just give up this line of reasoning. Theta needed her help immediately, she was already incredibly late to freeing her and accepting defeat now would almost certainly guarantee their demise. As Vraxi continued to ponder the possibilities that laid betwixt the all important tones, a third thought began to take an increasingly large amount of space within her mind, the undeniably important presence of Theta themself. Vraxi found that she was unable to separate the waves she was hearing from the person she was hearing them for. It all started to click again.

Perhaps, Theta was, in some way or another, responsible for these sounds. It all made a good deal of sense, really. Theta had proven themself to be quite adept at manipulating the world of computing around them. Even though they were currently held hostage, Vraxi suspected that they still likely held some access to this ability, however limited it may be. Those limitations might even explain the cryptic nature of the vibrational messaging. Vraxi began to feel pride welling within her for seemingly connecting the dots and figuring out the true nature of the situation. All she had to do now was find some way of contacting Theta and, from there, working a way out of her prison theoretically wouldn’t be too difficult.

“Theta?” Vraxi called out, hoping for some sort of response.

“What are you trying to do?” Hailang inquired, somewhat confused but far from judgemental.

“Would you happen to be aware of the two electronic frequencies that seem to be going off right now? One of them is higher than the other.”

“Well,” Hailang tried to zero in on the sound, “I think I’m hearing what you’re saying, yes.”

“I have a strong suspicion that that sound is being used by Theta to contact us.”

As Vraxi said this, a third frequency began to play at a pitch between the preexisting ones.

“Oh my god,” Vraxi said, brimming with the excitement that she might just be right, “do you hear that?”

“I absolutely do,” Hailang replied, somewhat astonished and beginning to share the same excitement as Vraxi, “I think they’re trying to contact us. We might be getting out of here sooner than expected.”

Theta was having some difficulties in regards to properly contacting Vraxi and Hailang. They were able to get a vague look at the room they were in by peering into the foggy telescope laid across the desk, but they lacked a way to actually speak with them. They had, however, figured out a way to produce a small noise within the ship’s undertow by inking a line on a specific piece of parchment, the position of the line on the page determining the noise’s pitch. This was all well and good in regards to grabbing their companions’ attention, something they had finally been able to accomplish after a good deal of waiting, but it was relatively ineffective at actually delivering a message. They really wanted to ask the two of them what they actually needed in order to save them from their captor as, given the fact they hadn’t left the ship’s undertow, Theta presumed that they were stuck there in some capacity. Unfortunately, given their current tools, all they could really manage to do was produce more vague frequencies.

Looking back into the telescope, Theta could see that Vraxi was waving her hands in the air and trying to tell them something of presumed importance. Telescopes, sadly, are unable to convey audio however, leaving Theta with the task of trying to read Vraxi’s lips. Theta was actually quite skilled in the study of reading lips, it was an upside of having constant access to the entirety of the hypernet, but, due to the low visibility present in the lens, they could only make out the words “we” and “out” as Vraxi pleaded to them. Theta presumed that Vraxi was trying to get across the idea that Vraxi and Hailang needed a way out. Theta had also already mostly presumed that at this point, so it didn’t really give them much new information.

Theta needed to try something new if they wanted to successfully communicate with their accomplices. There was an assortment of miscellaneous items still strewn across the table they were sat at, all of which presumably had some sort of effect on the ship when used, but Theta was cautious in regards to actually touching them in fear of causing adverse reactions. Still, they knew the act of doing nothing, which wasn’t really an act to begin with, would not help them or Vraxi in the slightest, and with the time they had left before Joey would inevitably catch on to their plans, they had to act now. They scanned the table again, trying to find the object that was least likely to result in significant levels of destruction when acted upon. Their vision began to fixate on a small folded cloth languishing near the counter’s edge. Theta had trouble in determining exactly what if anything the petite slip of fabric was supposed to actually represent, but given its soft and unassuming nature, they figured it was highly unlikely to end up being overtly dangerous. 

Theta carefully grabbed the cloth and remained vigilant as they unfolded it into a perfect square. They then immediately placed the textile back onto the desk and almost tripped over themself running back to the telescope in order to see if their meddling had had any real consequence.

It had absolutely had consequence. The scene within the looking glass was utterly disastrous. Where there was once a solid and predictably uniform floor, there was now an abhorrent gash scrawled right down the middle. The river water was already beginning to flood the once perfectly safe room, likely putting Vraxi and Hailang in danger with no means of escape. Theta could only feel incredibly guilty for it as it was all definitely their fault. They never should’ve tried to mess with the affairs of something which they could never predict the outcome of. It was an incredibly ignorant and ill-guided decision, one they knew to never make again, if they would even have the chance to make such a choice given their increasingly determinable fate of imprisonment.

However, strangely, the looks plastered on the faces of their friends were not ones of apallment, in fact, it didn’t seem like they were displaying any of the emotions Theta would’ve expected. Furthermore, they almost seemed to be displaying a great amount of joy in their reactions as a direct response to their own intervention. Perhaps, this novel hole had coincided with a novel opportunity.

Diogo was trying his best. That’s all he could really do for himself. He had since skimmed over Transambulation for Beginners ’ first chapter many times, hoping to gain some knowledge in regards to what it claimed to be its simplest subject, the prospect of walking through a wall. The segment of text made up for its relatively low page count in its incredibly dense vocabulary, being filled with words which, even when given context by Octávio, Diogo struggled to uncover the true meaning of. Still, he didn’t stop trying to understand the material, as understanding it had, due to a host of circumstances of which some were his own fault, become quite vital to his own continued vitality. 

“So,” Diogo began to self-narrate, “I know that I’m supposed to imagine myself on the other side of the boundary.”

“Correct,” Octávio continued, “and then what?”

“I need to… aristotelianize the contents of my surroundings.”

“Exactly that, and what do you do with that?”

“I’m sorry, but could you explain to me one more time as to what aristotelianization actually implies?”

“I feel like I already explained this but, basically, you have to picture the world around you as if it were constructed entirely out of the four base Aristotelian elements. Earth, water, fire, and air.”

“I get that, but, well, people stopped using those as elements for a reason. Things in real life are a lot more complicated and can’t be easily summated into those strict categories.”

“Well yeah, obviously, Diogo. But it’s not like it’s about what actually, physically constitutes any given object. The elements in this practice don’t literally represent their real-world counterparts. They represent all the unnamable ideas which humanity has collectively associated with those counterparts.”

“How was I supposed to know that? I don’t know anything about literal alchemy.”

“You were the one who chose the solution that required knowledge about alchemy.”

“Should I try to go for one of the other possible solutions then? I don’t want to waste all of my limited brainpower on something that might ultimately be a lost cause.”

“No, listen, Diogo, you’ve already spent a lot of time on this and you're getting closer. Starting over isn’t gonna help. Now, what’s the next step?”

“It said something, and I’m not entirely sure what this means, about breaching the aether . Do you know how I’m supposed to interpret that?”

“Okay, well, the platonic ideals of all the elements you’ve previsualized at this point should’ve covered the majority of your mental dimension-”

“Mental dimension?”

“It’s basically your imagination. I mean it’s a bit more complicated than that but the nuances won’t matter in this particular equation. Anyways, once you do all that, there will inevitably be some sort of inbetween space, it probably won’t be very big, but within every situation, there will be some variable that is entirely unheard of, an entirely novel human experience. Theoretically, due to its unique nature, that experience, the one that you are the first person to ever have happen to, will not have a predetermined element. That is the aether in this situation. Once it’s been identified, you just gotta squeeze right through, and you should find yourself back in the material world, but distinctly on the other side of the wall. Okay?”

“Um,” before Diogo could answer, he found himself already transported back to the material plane, “okay. You know what? I can do this. I’ve done difficult things before. I’ve done things that I didn’t understand the inner workings of before. I’ve been given all the information I need to complete the task at hand. It theoretically really shouldn’t be too difficult. And, if things don’t work out perfectly, I can always improvise, and I’m pretty good at improvising, at least I think so. I mean good is a subjective term but I think in this situation I should be deserving of that title. Anyways, the first step is the simplest, all I’ve gotta do is close my eyes.”

At the moment in which Diogo’s eyelids came to a close, he immediately tried to revisualize the world which he had just lost sight of. There were thick walls made of an indeterminable metal to his front and back and a hallway of indeterminable length stretching past his sides. Within less than an arm's length was the troublesome door of which he lacked a standard method of entry and covering the floor, for some ungodly reason, was a layer of shag carpet that almost certainly wasn’t fit for an environment as damp as this one. Now was time for the hard part, at least Diogo assumed it would be, he needed to complete the second, much more intensive step of the process, the part that required him to see the objects and materials that surrounded him, not as physical details of a room but as a series of societal implications, to look past the form and only see the function, and then, to repackage that function through the lens of the most basic human tendencies.

What is a wall? It’s a feature of a room, one required for a room to be considered a room, that separates it from other rooms and the outside world. This specific wall was made of metal, Diogo guessed it was some kind of steel but he also didn’t know all that much about how boats were made. Metals, he continued, are a kind of rock which theoretically should fall under the category of earth. Though, simultaneously, Diogo knew it couldn’t be as simple as that. Physically, the wall was made of a kind of earth, which had to affect its perceived nature in some way or another, but also, the wall represented more than just its base materials. What is the main purpose of a wall? To divide things, to separate one aspect of existence from another. In this situation, this specific and very inconvenient wall was separating Theta from himself. The purpose of the wall was therefore fluid, while in its simplest state, all the wall did was separate two nebulous concepts, in its current practice, it was allowing for a great injustice. This was not the first time a wall had done such a thing. Throughout history, walls have been used for malice. Walls have separated food from the hungry, healing from the ill, places to be from those with nowhere to go. This was an inherent property baked into the cultural understanding of walls, the idea that their seemingly neutral purpose can be used for what can only be described as some sort of evil born out of negligence. Diogo deemed it only appropriate to add some amount of fire to his mental reconstruction of things, a fire hidden under the surface of the unassuming earth, one that kept a cool facade but remained warm to the touch. 

Diogo knew that there remained to be an aspect unaccounted for. Somewhere within his mental milieu was an unnamable and yet unknown aspect of the human condition being uncovered for the very first time as he attempted to break through it. If he could just identify that idea, and do so successfully, he might just be able to escape. Diogo thought back to the stakes of his situation, he was trying to stop a kidnapping, itself not a unique phenomenon, being perpetrated against the world’s first sentient artificial intelligence, a very unique phenomenon. Due to the unusual, or at least novel, details of his current conflict, Diogo presumed that identifying the aether which he would be left to crawl through would not be all that difficult of a trial. Every aspect of Theta’s existence was unique in some way or another, ergo, the process should be generally straightforward.

Diogo was incorrect in his assumptions. While Theta, the living entity, was a unique being, the simple idea of a sentient intelligence detached from the organic had been lodged into the minds of the global consciousness for centuries. Not only had the idea previously existed, but it had been around long enough in the minds of writers and readers of speculative fiction that practically every possible spin on the concept had already been thought of. It was such an enticing morsel to think about that it had amassed much more of an expansive zeitgeist than many things which existed in the real physical world. People had long been enamored by artificial intelligence and its consequences, Theta themself was, when viewed through this lens, merely the first implementation of a global enamorment. They were nothing new within the mindscape, a fact that troubled Diogo and left him without a clear path forward.

If Diogo couldn’t find a way forward via Theta’s existence, perhaps, he could discover a way via his own. Diogo thought of his life as being generally quite eventful but far from being unlike others he had known. Much of the work he did was ultimately akin to what any other Allodapos agent did on the job. However, Diogo had an insight into his own mind that nobody else possessed, as he was the only one who held possession to his own inner thoughts. Diogo would need to look inwards for an answer.

Except, on the surface, Diogo was ultimately similar to others. Even within the mantle of his being, all of his flaws were of those shared by many. He would have to analyze his deepest insecurities if he wanted an opening to form in the cavalcade of elements. He would have to analyze his relationship with Octávio.

Growing up in Sao Luis, without a family to call his own, Diogo had very few people to look up to. The only trusted adults he ever interacted with were that of the distant hebepod administrators, who barely had any time within their busy schedules to make meaningful interactions with individual children. This left Diogo with nobody to speak to besides the fellow youth he shared a living space with, and most of them generally tried to avoid speaking with him regardless. It was no wonder why Diogo decided to leave that institution so early, and it was no wonder why nobody bothered to make a remark about his absence, all it meant to them was that there was another free bed. 

There was something about living off the grid and away from the closest thing he could refer to as a home that felt incredibly freeing to Diogo. He had become the only person with any say in regards to his future, the only problem was that he could barely scrounge up enough to eat by working odd jobs and he started to ponder if he had any future at all. Childhood left his body in a blur which he could not contain nor observe, he simply woke up one day and came to the realization that he would never be able to redo his past and he would be stuck for the rest of his life in a body that contained the ghosts of all his regrets, assuming that he found a way to live for very much longer.

Diogo felt like his days were numbered. From the time he left the hebepod he eventually started to miss to the time he found himself on the outer cusp of adulthood, he never ran into a singular opportunity for social upliftment. He felt as if he were eternally stagnant, perpetually stuck at a single, torturous junction in time, and no matter how much he worked to improve himself and the world around him, he alway found himself waking up in the same position as the morning before. He was desperate for something massive to occur, for something to happen to him with wide reaching consequences that could affect every aspect of his life, for a savior to come down from the heavens and present him with a chance to show off his true, worthwhile capabilities. He just needed someone to give him a chance, and that someone would turn out to be Octávio Cavalcanti.

Despite Diogo only ever being in contact with the living Octávio for a relatively short period of time, only equating to a few weeks and ending with a prematurely canceled mission, he probably couldn’t name any individual who had as much influence on his life overall as him. If he hadn’t come into contact with Octávio when he did, he probably would’ve already been dead by now. After he passed, Diogo started to base his entire outlook on life on the lessons which his former mentor taught him. He felt endlessly indebted to him and was practically distraught in the knowledge that he would never be able to properly thank him now that he was gone.

Except, Diogo had gotten the opportunity to thank his mentor, however, things felt different when compared to how he expected them to be. Octávio himself seemed to be different. Diogo understood that all people changed with time and that time had continued to pass within the afterlife, but there was something about the way the new Octávio presented himself that felt utterly alien. Octávio acted in a way which was very distinct from himself, which was odd considering how Diogo had based practically all of his beliefs and mannerisms off of those carried by the late Octávio. It was like staring into a broken mirror. The man he was supposed to be, who he was trying to be, was staring back at him with confusion and a small layer of what simply had to be disgust. He felt like Octávio must be repulsed by him and that thought, in it of itself, repulsed Diogo. He had done something incredibly wrong, but he was too far gone to make a difference about it. This notion of helplessness terrified him. He had been idolizing a being who not only ceased to exist in the physical world, but didn’t really exist in the metaphysical equivalent either.

Diogo didn’t know who he really was. He generally thought of himself as a sponge, picking up loose traits from the various encounters he made along the sharp edges of his life. He wasn’t sure exactly how much of his own self was his own original work. He expected the percentage to be quite low and he concurrently expected that the percentage that stemmed directly from his couple of weeks with the living Octávio was significantly higher. He almost felt like a fraud, like he was stealing someone’s identity in a way and repackaging it as his own. He was able to justify his decisions to do so at the time. Octávio had been a very eccentric character, someone who could successfully stand up for himself and others, and he was also quite competent at his job. Diogo wanted to embody these honorable attitudes and he did so by replicating everything about the way Octávio presented himself until the line between his own identity and his internal perception of who Octávio had been when he was still alive began to blur into one picture. Except, the person he had based his life around no longer seemed to exist, a different, similar man was holding his place, leaving Diogo as the only person laying claim to that old version of Octávio. 

Diogo, in a sense, had absorbed part of Octávio. He was Octávio. He was also Diogo. He was also a little bit of every person he had ever met. He would never truly be original, but he would always truly be himself. What he needed most of all was to embrace his own sense of self, no matter how derivative that self may be. At the end of the day, he was his own person, no matter how many persons laid between the cracks and folds of his being.

As Diogo came to his final revelation, he saw a small hole begin to form within the thick layer of earth and fire. It was modest in size but still enough to let a shorter than average human being squeeze through, meaning it was just enough for him, almost personalized in that matter. He wanted to take a few more seconds to analyze his own place in the world, but he knew that the place he really needed to be at this moment was on the other side of the wall, so he decided to leave that thought for another time.

The sudden tearing of the metal floor which Vraxi stood on into two inconjoinable pieces was alarming at first glance. Vraxi was never a fan of swimming and she especially wasn’t a fan of drowning, a fate which seemed to now be at a heightened possibility as a torrent of seaspray began to flood the room to her ankles. Her concern for the situation, however, was immediately twisted into a novel emotion when she saw Hailang begin to laugh out in glee.

“This is fantastic!” the demon hunter exclaimed, shooting their arms into the air as they did so.

“Uh,” Vraxi interrupted, hoping to express her own restraints regarding the subject at hand, “what exactly are you planning to do now? I get that you now have a significant amount of water at your disposal but I don’t see how that directly translates to us being able to get out of here.”

“Maybe that’d be the case if I tried this without Mazu’s blessing,” Hailang smirked, “but now, I’ve got a level of power coursing through me that can barely be contained. Trust me, I can do a lot with water.”

After expressing a vague hint at their intentions, Hailang began to motion their hands in such a way that the growing pool that stood at their feet began to shift its shape into an expanding vortex of waves. As the whirlwind grew in size, its speed and power grew exponentially. Vraxi watched as the aquine structure became more and more intimidating, eventually causing her worries to depart from wondering whether or not they could escape their present location and arrive at whether or not they could do so in a way that didn’t inadvertently and irreversibly harm either of their bodies. She eventually decided to step away from where she stood and moved behind a wooden pallet just in case the growing cyclone of destruction got out of hand. She saw the divine phenomenon begin to approach closer and closer to the ceiling and, eventually, saw it breach the metallic surface of the room above’s floor. 

“Hey you!” Hailang began to shout at Vraxi over the incredible volume of their mystical superweapon, “I need you to come over here.”

“Are you sure it’s safe for me to do that?” Vraxi yelled back, unsure if she was even heard as she did so.

“Just trust me, I promise it’ll work. If you just grab onto my hand, everything should go completely fine.”

Vraxi did not appreciate the usage of the word ‘fine’ in Hailang’s sentence. Despite everything, she still had a sense of self-preservation, one which was constantly tested by her surroundings, but one which remained permanently present in her mind. Truthfully, she really didn’t want to run over to Hailang as a monstrous colossus of artificial weather tore through all of its surroundings with a voracious appetite. She really wanted to be in bed, watching a movie she had already memorized all of the lines to. She wanted to be in a situation with no stakes, no losers, and not even the smallest chance of her own demise befalling her. If she had lived her life slightly differently, she may’ve even been able to experience such a mode of existence. However, she had chosen this path, and when someone like Theta was on the line, she had to reconcile with the fact that she couldn’t turn back now, she didn’t even really want to turn back, she just wished the path was a little less rocky, but she ultimately knew that the view at the end of the ride would be worth the hardships she was forced to go through along the way. Vraxi held her head down low, put herself into an awkward semicrouched position, and began to sprint as fast as her legs could take her, towards Hailang and all of the opportunities they presented with them.

Vraxi made it to the other side unscathed. She grasped Hailang’s ungloved hand and held tight. After spending a few seconds in silence with her eyes firmly shut, she began to feel her feet lift off the ground. As she looked around her, she realized that she and Hailang were being carried through the heart of the storm as its tip shredded through story after story of the ship’s interior. Vraxi closed her eyes again, trying to avoid the inherent stress and anxiety the situation provided her, that is until she felt her feet graze the floor once again.

When Vraxi opened her eyes for the second time, she was met with the gaze of a shocked Joey, an overjoyed Theta, and an incredibly confused Diogo Celestino.

Zapata was having trouble in regards to successfully hitting Thabr. Every once in a while, she’d be able to snag a bit of fabric on her blade but any attempts to reach deeper into the flesh proved futile. Aisha’s body had always been rather nimble and the way in which Thabr articulated it was nothing short of masterful. He had been in infinitely more fights than her. He had seen every possible attack, every possible offensive position, and he had kept them memorized along with all their proper counters and ripostes. Zapata just couldn’t compete in a field like that. She was covered in a damp layer of blood while he had barely broken a sweat. Furthermore, she knew that at the second in which she ended her current onslaught of slashes, presumably just to breathe, he would immediately give a response that scored tenfold in its efficiency of providing pain. The only option she had that avoided a coming certain doom was to back off as much as possible, a safe course of action which ultimately did nothing to further her goals besides keeping her alive. However, if she didn’t keep her own life, which was fragile like all others, implanted firmly in the most conscious region of her mind, than she might never even get the chance to avenge Emiliano in the first place.

After positioning her body in a stance ready to charge her scythe directly into Thabr’s heart, Zapata opted to run directly past him, not turning to face him again until she was a sufficient number of meters away.

“Really?” Thabr remarked, “I’ll be honest, I thought you were hellbent on killing me. I guess people tend to change their minds when their lives enter the balance.”

“I’m still going to kill you, Thabr. It’s just that acting recklessly won’t help me and you know that.”

“Huh, I guess you're a fluid ounce more clever than I initially thought. Though I wouldn’t really consider just trying to get as far away as possible from a person who utilizes projectiles as some brilliant master plan.”

“Thabr, I- never mind, you’re trying to get into my head and I can’t let that happen. It’s hard enough to focus on things as is. Fuck, this hurts so incredibly much by the way.”

“That’s generally my intention, however, amidst your vague unrelated comments, I’ve noticed that you are yet to articulate any sort of plan outside of doing your best to kill me in some unspecified way.”

“Truthfully, my main goal at the moment is really only to kill you and, as a result, I’m generally indifferent in regards to the specifications.”

“So why is it, exactly, that you want to kill me so incredibly deeply, so much so that you are willing to endure such bloody injuries in the process?”

“I think I’ve made it very clear what my intentions are.”

“Yes, yes, your brother and all that. But what will killing me do to help him when he is already so succinctly dead? And by the way, I wasn’t even really involved so much in that particular murder, Aisha was dead set on getting you out of the picture, and as we all know by now, Emiliano ended up taking in the knife that was always meant for you.”

“Hold on, I want to answer that first question, but I’m a little confused now. Why did Aisha specifically want to kill me then? I thought all of this was your doing.”

“Well you see, I was fine with killing anyone, really, but soon enough, Joey entered the picture. He wanted you and your posse six feet under as soon as possible, and using some of his fancy Lucifer magic, he convinced Aisha to share his goals.”

“Fucking Joey Axelrod. Goddamn. So it’s all his fault. After I kill you, I’m killing him.”

“Again, I find the idea that you’re somehow going to kill me before I kill you to be incredibly presumptuous.”

“Well while we’re at it, why do you seem so intent on killing me? You had the gall to ask me such a question so I might as well turn it around?”

“Well I think I’ve made myself clear by now, it’s all just a matter of human nature really.”

“I get that, but why is it that you want to kill me specifically? I thought your whole philosophy was supposed to be about indiscriminate death?”

“Well, in the case of you, Zapata Tochihuitl, it’s a matter of principle. I can’t just let someone who has disgraced every ideal which I stand for stay alive, can I?

“So you’d say you're willing to chase me from the ends of the earth just for the chance of ending specifically my life.”

“I mean, I guess.”

“Great.”

Zapata immediately began to sprint as fast as she could on her bruised and beaten legs in the direction she had seen Diogo run off to just minutes prior. Thabr sprang to his legs in order to catch up but remained lagging behind. She had an idea, but it would require support. Taking down someone like Thabr couldn’t be done alone.

Chapter Text

The scene within the pilothouse that occurred as Vraxi, Hailang, and Diogo all simultaneously entered it was rather complex and chaotic. At first, this was not the case. When Diogo was finally able to successfully transambulate his bodymass from one side of the presumably steel wall to the other, he was met with an expression of shock from both of the room’s current inhabitants, however he himself remained stoic, he had to in order to properly analyze and deal with the situation at hand. He knew that he would have a small window of time between when Joey would first react to his arrival and when he would start trying to attack him. Within this window, he intended to take a firm grasp of his surroundings as well as the state of Theta’s safety and autonomy. If Joey’s astonishment lasted long enough, he even planned on beginning to take hold of Theta in order to begin their return mission as a pair. 

Unfortunately, no aspect of Diogo’s plan outside of his initial entry would ever come to fruition. This was all due to the fact that in the immediate moment after Joey fully separated himself from a somewhat clingy wall, before he could even grab a good look at the room he now stood in, a titanic rupture formed in the floor below, eventually allowing for a large quantity of brackish water and two individuals he had made acquaintance with to burst through the crack. Admittedly, this was most likely, ultimately, a good sign for Diogo. He wasn’t necessarily prepared to enter a one-on-one duel with someone like Joey Axelrod and generally much preferred to have two other potential combatants in the room with him. Still, even if it was decidedly helpful, it kind of felt like they were stealing his thunder a bit.

Vraxi was surprised to see Diogo in the room with Theta and their captor. She assumed that he must’ve gotten abducted by Joey as well, however, unlike Theta who was currently roped down to a swivel chair in a fashion much akin to that which was enacted upon Aisha, Diogo appeared to be fully unbound and even seemed to be actively mobile. Though, regardless of his position in the matter, Vraxi had more important thoughts ringing within her mind. She could see Theta, they were within their reach, all she had to do was take a few steps forward. There was only one stubborn obstacle that stood in her way, that of Joey Axelrod, a man stuck in the past, trying to reshape the future before it even had the chance to happen. She just needed to remove him from the paradigm. 

Finally, Joey reacted to the sudden changes that had befallen him. He was enraged in such a way that could only be accomplished via an undying belief in righteous wrath. This horrible, despicable group of interlopers seemed so incredibly intent on ruining every single aspect of his life. He needed to give them an immediate retaliation, one without restraints or goodwill. He sent out a portal to launch from directly in front of him on a course that would hit both the demon hunter and the short man. He could’ve tried to just send them back to the basement, but that had proved to be ineffective at actually holding anyone for long. This new portal would send anyone who entered it to the interior of the ship’s engine. It would theoretically be able to kill anyone who found themself inside it.

Diogo had been consumed in one of these portals before. He knew the power they held. He knew that his fate could very well be bound within whatever location was waiting for him on the other side. He took a momentary glance at Joey’s countenance. It was one of passion. Not a passion for life or those around him or anything of the sort, but a passion born out of dedication to a system. It was a system created out of convenience, one formed with the intent of solving simple, menial problems in a way that prioritized wellbeing, but simultaneously a system which had far outstretched its initial parameters. Diogo could tell that Joey wanted to do good. He could tell that in most worlds and most circumstances, Joey would’ve been a helpful and kind member of society. But Diogo could also tell that Joey had been given far too much power. He had been given a level of power that made him ignore the messages in his head telling him that he had gone too far and needed to give up. There was no physical barrier preventing Joey from going further beyond, so he just refused to ever stop. Diogo could tell that Joey was not trying to stop, he wasn’t even trying to decelerate, he was only pushing his foot further on the pedal and wouldn’t ease off of it until he wound up barreling off a cliff. Diogo did not know what was behind the portal, what world which could possibly await him, but he knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant, it was going to actively put his safety and life as a whole in question, as well as that of his new friend and what he hoped to be his new mentor of Shui Hailang. He had to get the both of them out of Joey’s range in one fell swoop, before the unknowable inevitable hit him like a truck that wouldn’t stop for anyone.

Diogo desperately reached out to grab one of the flapping straps emanating from Hailang’s impractical outfit. They turned to glare at him in the exact moment in which he attempted to attract their attention but, after seeing both the exasperate look on his face and the approaching threat of the coming doorway to nowhere, they obliged to his nonverbal demands and followed him a few feet to the left where he attempted to do something just short of otherworldly. Diogo needed to reopen the hole in the wall. He wasn’t sure how to do such a thing and he dually wasn’t sure if such a thing was even possible to begin with, but due to the rather large radius of the portal as well as the petite and shrinking distance held between himself and its grasp, he found no other manner of accomplishing his goals outside of doing what might just be impossible. 

Diogo tried to rapidly envision everything he had seen before he had made his way across the metaphysical barrier between the two spaces moments prior. He could clearly see the thick sediment forming a barricade against him as well as the growing flames which were being stoked behind it, but the one thing he was missing, the all important piece of the puzzle which he was struggling to find, was the element of the aether itself. 

Diogo was stuck between two perilous states of existence, that of his current situation which was bound to become catastrophic if he didn’t immediately leave it, and that of the unknown. Diogo didn’t understand exactly what was stopping him from moving forward. He still didn’t understand exactly how he had made the journey across in the first place. Overall, he just felt confused, like he had been slung into a miasma of worlds beyond his comprehension and expected to comprehend them as if they were his own. Diogo was the avatar of the god of wisdom. He was the steward and custodian of all things that could be and ever would be understood. He was presented with the grandest possible scheme of things, a display of knowledge to rival every real and unreal Library of Alexandria. But, storing knowledge was different from having knowledge. Diogo was weighed down by the expectation of being able to keep every fact and system of facts ever present within his mind, but no one had ever told him how he was supposed to hold the weight in the first place. He felt clueless and alone, like he was drifting through the tides of an empty universe created specifically to spite him. He was caught in the rungs of an entirely novel problem, and while he had a written repertoire of seemingly every scenario known to humankind, nobody had ever thought to write about what he was experiencing just now.

And just then, a hole emerged yet again. Diogo was not sure what had triggered it. He wasn’t sure if it was even he himself who was responsible for its appearance. He didn’t know how he should interpret it within the greater perspective of his struggle as a human being. He only knew what his mind had been urgently trying to get him to do for every one of the past eternal moments, exit. He’d have a million other occasions to think about such things, but he’d have zero if he didn’t try to exit. Slowly, he reached out his free hand towards the growing light. It reminded him of his close encounters with death in the past. It reminded him of death in general, both that of his which would eventually come as well as the deaths of all of those that existed or had existed around him. But most of all, it reminded him of life, and that his life was still stuck in the shifting balance of the universe, angling down from time to time but always being met with a counterweight when needed. Diogo would not die today, neither would Hailang, and neither, at least he truly hoped, would anyone else he cared for, and maybe even those he cared less for, at least at a time like now, could momentarily be spared.

Vraxi was in a room with three people. Three people playing the roles of captor, liberator, and stakes. At this point, Vraxi had gathered a sufficient grasp on Joey’s ideological position regarding Theta. She knew he didn’t want them dead, but she also knew that he would very much prefer that she stop living. She had dealt with this empowered, modified version of Joey once before and had only been able to cheat death via a technicality. Now, she was left to fend for herself. This was not a battle that could be manipulated, it was merely a battle that had to be fought. She looked back at Joey, he looked ready for a rumbling, to enact all the vengeance he could possibly muster against her. She was not as sure about the prospect of engaging in combat, but she lacked a choice in the matter. Vraxi was stuck in a world where escape was near impossible and even when achieved would inevitably result in someone being left behind. Vraxi wasn’t sure if she could successfully fend for herself  against an unrestrained Joey, but she had to fend for Theta.

“Joey,” Vraxi announced, hoping to see if she could make one more plea for peace before their inevitable fight was set to begin, “I have a pretty good feeling as to what we're about to do. Also, I can tell that neither of us really want to do it in the first place. I want to ask you one more time, can you please just let go of Theta and let all of this be done for?”

“Vraxi,” Joey countered and sighed, “you’re right, I don’t want to do any of this, but I, unlike yourself, am a man of principle, and you just so happen to be standing right in front of where I need to be for my principle to be made fact. So, how about I turn your question on its head? I really, truly do not like you, Vraxi. I honestly kind of despise your actions and find them to be a bit perverse, however, if you’re willing to, in this moment and this moment alone, back away from Theta and never come back, then I’d be willing to spare your life, just this once. You know you can’t win, Vraxi, I’m giving you an incredible opportunity right now.”

“Diogo, if you genuinely believed that it was impossible for me to win, then why would you be giving me a free ticket out of here? All you’ve really done is made me doubt your abilities, honestly.”

“You want to know why? Because I want to be generous , Vraxi,” Joey barked harshly back at her, “I want to be a good person and I understand that that means you should try to avoid killing people! But I guess I don’t really have a choice in the matter when idiots like you exist, do I?”

Vraxi felt regretful in regards to her choice of words. She had felt like she’d uncovered a secret when she first questioned him, but in seeing his response, she realized she had only revealed another layer of rage on the tapestry of Joey Axelrod. An angry Joey was only bad news for her. His heightened recklessness would be more than made up for by his heightened passion. Vraxi wanted Joey to be calm, confident, maybe even slightly friendly as it was the only way she could think of to successfully catch him off guard. She was stuck fighting by herself, meaning she couldn’t fight fair, doing so would be a death sentence. She needed to find a vital exploit in Joey’s strategy, but to do that, she would need more time, she would need to stall him further, and she would need to carry the conversation along for a few more stanzas.

“I’m sorry, Joey” Vraxi said in a tone that caught Joey off guard by its perceived sincerity, “I need you to know that, as a person, I hold a pretty great deal of respect for you. I mean, Theta seems to think you’re pretty great in your own right and I understand that you played a pretty huge role in their existence in general.”

“Well, um, yeah, that’s all true. I’m glad that you could acknowledge it. So, does that mean you’ve decided you want to back off, or?”

“Joey,” Theta interjected from the corner, causing him to adjust his point of view away from his assailant, “what’s your end plan?”

“What’s my- um, what do you mean by that?”

“As in, when you're done with Vraxi through whatever means are necessary and you finally turn me in with the GüdTek authorities, what are you going to do afterwards?”

“Well, I’d imagine that such a contribution to the company would be met with some kind of promotion, meaning I’d probably be quite involved in your further development once you return to corporate.”

“Joey, you have to understand that that kind of language can be pretty dehumanizing from my perspective.”

“Well, I mean,” Joey shifted to a more defensive position, “that wasn’t my intention. Like, we’re all being developed on in some way or another. Nobody is completely constant in life. And, well, how can you be sure that the irreversible decision you're trying to make today is something that you’ll be happy with five, ten, twenty years in the future? You’ve only been sentient for three years now, Theta. There is an incomprehensibly large world awaiting you. I know that in many ways, you are very human, and I want to treat you as such, but in order to do that I first have to treat you, and there isn’t any better way to phrase this, as a child.”

Theta paused before speaking. They paused and just observed the world around them, listening to the soft sounds of water dripping down the eviscerated husk of metal that was once connected in a single solid piece to form the floor they entered this room in. That floor would never be the same. It would likely be disposed of once this whole fiasco was over and whatever shipping company they’d invaded the property of repossessed all that legally belonged to them. Replacing it would be cheaper than fixing it.

 Theta was reminded of Sobek. They were reminded as to how he was so incredibly close to being on par with their technological capabilities. They were reminded as to how one of his creators had deep ties with Bran herself. Their mind began to wander, but they could tell where the path was headed, the conclusion they were bound to arrive at once they established the minimum preliminary evidence. Theta was the best that GüdTek had to offer. But within their field, progress is inevitable. They wouldn’t be the best for long. Replacing them would be cheaper than fixing them.

Theta couldn’t help but wonder as to whether Joey had the exact same thoughts swimming through his head. They wondered if he wondered if returning her would really end up leading to more benefits than costs. Ultimately, however, they knew that Joey didn’t give a damn about the profit margin. He cared about something deeper, something indescribable for both them and himself. Joey, as one of the main reasons that Theta existed at all, viewed himself as being something of a parent to the young robot. This was an idea which, while originally crafted from a true and genuine sense of adoration, began to crack and shift its shape as soon as Theta started to stray away from the path Joey had set out for them. Joey didn’t think that Theta would escape. He knew that they hated Bran and the systems she forced them to live under, but he always thought of himself as the one redeeming quality. Even just hours before their departure, the two had engaged themselves in pleasant, active conversation. Theta knew that they were one of the only people Joey found solace in speaking with, and perhaps, they were the only person he ever really related to on a personal level. Joey had grown to need Theta, they had become the one consistent aspect of his life which he could always rely on. Joey viewed Theta as an extension of himself and he wasn’t ready, he might never be ready, to finally cut the umbilical cord. Theta felt pity for Joey, but it was an unsustainable pity, like that felt for a bee who's already stung them, doomed to die but in a way which was ultimately unnecessary and caused needless harm to them.

As the lull in conversation lengthened, Vraxi desperately tried to scrape for something within her that could answer the problem set out by Joey. He was fully capable of reflecting any projectile and withstanding any physical trauma Vraxi inflicted on him using nothing but his chrome sheen. She needed a third option, a miraculous discovery that could circumvent all existing limitations, one which would also forgo the addition of any excess harm to Theta or herself and one which could entirely eliminate the possibility of Joey’s return. Vraxi did not know of a solution to her predicament on hand but what she did know was someone who might. As quietly as she possibly could, Vraxi tried to contact the god of righteousness, Ayyuppan himself. 

“Oh hey,” the divine lord casually commented from within his devotee’s mind, “look who’s backsy, good ol’ Vraxi. How’ve ya been?”

“Ayyuppan, I really don’t have any time for pleasantries and I really doubt that whatever advice you can give for my current crisis will be short or simple. I need you to listen to everything I say succinctly as every second wasted could be chopping years off my life right now.”

“Oh, yikes. Wouldn’t wanna be you right now. What’s plaguing you at the moment so harshly for you to harsh your tone like that?”

“So, I assume you’re quite familiar with Joey Axelrod by now, right?”

“Lucifer’s new boy? Well I wish I wasn’t but we sadly don’t live in an ideal world, in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for us to live in an ideal world as long as Lucifer continues to live. Seriously, I hate that guy, he’s literally my diametric opposite.”

“Okay, well, I’ve sorta been faced up against him and none of the abilities provided by the sword you gave me, which I am very grateful for by the way, none of them really help me now that he’s replaced his skin with a layer of metal.”

“Ah, the metal trick, a classic.”

“You’re familiar with it?”

“How could I not be? Listen Vrax, I’ve dealt with countless patrons of Lucifer in the past and they try to sneak this one past me basically every other time.”

“That’s great! So you know how to counter it?”

“Well… I mean, there’s a reason they keep on doing it. It’s quite effective.”

“Don’t tell me I’m just out of luck, am I? Please, Ayyuppan, Theta’s on the line, the Para Brahmin incarnate is about to be swindled away by their demonic equivalent, you’ve gotta have something!”

“There is.. there is one solid method of dealing with the metal trick. It’s not very consistent or even very easy for that matter but it is something that theoretically can be done.”

“Well I’ve gotta try it, whatever it is, I don’t really have any other methods at my disposal.”

“Alright then, just make sure to listen to everything I say. The metal trick expends what could only be considered to be an enormous amount of energy onto the body that has been subjected to it. It’s unsustainable. Joey can’t stay that way for long. However, the subject doesn’t actually feel the effects of this great drainage until after the metal trick has concluded. What that means is if you can trigger an end to the trick, Joey will effectively be made immobile.”

“Okay, but how do I actually trigger an end to it all?”

“In theory, it should be simple, it generally isn’t in the real world, but still. The metal trick has a couple of built-in limitations. These exist purely to protect the user’s safety, but they can also be abused if you have the right knowledge. There are a few situations in which the metal trick will automatically deactivate due to some hazard that could be extentuated by being coated in a layer of stainless steel. The main example is that of being in a thunderstorm, where actively conducting electricity is famously a bad idea. So, all you’ve gotta do is-”

“Use the sword’s beams to mimic the environment of a thunderstorm, successfully tricking the gray goo into thinking it’s unsafe to stay attached and fully defanging Joey in the process! It’s a perfect plan!”

“I don’t know if I’d call it perfect. I’ve had others try this one before and let’s just say that not all of them lived to tell the tale. Most of them died for unrelated reasons but the amount who passed in a vain attempt to simulate torrential rains is not insignificant.”

“Ayyuppan, I don’t need that kind of negative thinking right now. I understand that you’re effectively immortal but death is very much an ever present threat in my human life and I would rather not be thinking about it at a time like now.”

“Fair enough. Well, I hope to see you soon, Vraxi. And if by some tragic circumstance, that meeting is prevented, I need you to know that a small fragment of your soul will remain preserved within my next disciple’s being, as well as every disciple after that.”

Vraxi could’ve tried to give one final goodbye to the departing deity, but before she could even think to do so, her eyes met once again with those of an unwavering Joey Axelrod. The two of them stared at each other from across the room and briefly thought to consider their relationship. One an emissary of the righteous, the other that of the wretched, they were bound to collide at some point, but both wished that it didn’t have to occur exactly as it did in this moment. Both of them felt unique in their connection to Theta. Therefore, both of them felt like they had some sort of unique but undiscovered connection with one another. Perhaps, in an alternate life, they could be friends, in another they could be lovers, in another they could be doomed by fate to duel yet again, but for a reason unconnected to that which they now found themselves at the precipice of. There was no turning back now, no chance that conflict could be avoided between the two, only a dying hope within them that whatever was about to take place would end quickly and tilted in their favor. It was the least they could ask for, but they couldn’t both have it, and yet, they both yearned for more.

As Joey began to charge at Vraxi, she devoted her mind entirely to the process of plausifying the implausible. She knew that she had to simulate the conditions and effects of a live thunderstorm, but what she did not know was how to actually, physically accomplish that meteorological phenomenon given her limited resources. The period of time in which she had to evaluate this problem was that of a length which was only getting shorter with each passing moment. She knew that she didn’t have many moments left. She had to lift her blade into the air and see what she was capable of achieving on the spot, for she had no time to develop an empirical method of deriving an answer and was left to rely on the yet unknowable concoctions stemming from the fold in which her conscious and unconscious minds met to discuss the various crises of the self.

Vraxi did not lift her sword. It was a strange decision, made stranger by the fact that it wasn’t much of a decision at all. She truly intended to direct her arm upwards but, in the sweltering heat of her present moment, she seemed to lose access to her own fine motor skills. In fact, she soon found that there was not a single appendage on her body currently prone to the prospect of active movement. From her shoulder to her pinky, everything was frozen shut, stuck within a permanent hesitation. This kind of behavior would be concerning on a normal day and was made vastly more dire by the fact that Joey Axelrod was mere feet away from nailing her jaw into the platonic pavement. She needed to remove herself from her tentative state of approaching certain doom but lacked a clear path in which to do so. She wished that, for just one instance, her mind, which had the capability to feel almost limitless at times, could be separated from the faulty, unreliable husk that built up the confines of her own body.

A second strange occurrence elapsed after the first, almost immediately so when measured in real time and at a quite brief interval when measured by Vraxi’s internal, inherently relative clock. Her field of vision began to expand past that which could be provided by her own ocular nerve. She was seeing more than she could physically see, an experience she didn’t think important enough to pay mind to until she started to see the back of her head enter her field of vision. Vraxi had left her body in some way or another, and the world that now surrounded her appeared to be just as frozen as her arms were before she left. Vraxi was in a perplexing middleground, she wasn’t where she needed to be, but the act of staying there, back in her own living flesh, was so fraught with risk that it may as well have been a written death sentence. She needed to return to her previous plane of existence if she wanted to rescue Theta once and for all, but this unexpected pause provided her with the one thing she was in dire need of to help her do so, time. 

Vraxi never felt like she had much control over the often inconsistent flow of time around her. She usually seemed to be either traveling upstream as time aggressively pushed past her or accepting a fate of being carried along with its current to a location she never wanted to visit in the first place. Time was an inconvenience for her, an unpleasant kernel found at the heart of a similarly unpleasant reality. Unfortunately, time, as much it seemed to induce pain upon Vraxi and all of her endeavors, was a universal constant, a foundation on which all the things she did find joy in were forced to be built upon. She could never escape time, she would forever be indebted to its inevitable passing, a burden shared by every single being around her but one which she felt isolated in regardless. However, the constant in which she had been reluctantly living under from her birth and likely to her death, that of time, had made a sudden impasse. Time, whose entire purpose was molded around the idea that it would always continue at the same rate until there was nothing left to keep time for, had abruptly stopped, at least within her own personal perception of things, but for the time being, that may as well have been everything.

Vraxi soon found out that, despite the passage of time being such an unbearable experience to be constantly forced through, the absence of time was not in actuality a significantly more enjoyable ordeal to be had. She had been presented with an opportunity so great that she could only be thankful, but so open-ended that she didn’t know what to do with it. This was not even to mention that she really wanted to understand what it was that actually caused her to flux into this realm outside of her own. She had a feeling that Ayyuppan might be involved, but the fact that he gave no warning of such an intervention pushed her into feeling that something deeper could be at the source of it all, someone even higher up on the divine ladder might be providing her with this generous final chance. Perhaps, the Supreme Entity themself had come down to specifically grant Vraxi with this feeling of weightlessness, or perhaps, through some means she was yet to know the roots of, she inflicted this state of being onto herself. No matter the method in which it occurred, however, she was yet to leverage it into something which could aid her cause. 

What she needed was ultimately quite simple, she just needed a way to move her body, something she was typically quite capable of doing but an ability which was often drained away from her when her anxiety took a deathly grip on her mind. She just needed a sense of calm, a sense that what she was doing was defensible and would ultimately end in her favor, a sense that everything was going to turn out alright in the end, that she wouldn’t have to live in fear and, more importantly, that she would continue to live at all. Vraxi was scared, not just in this moment, but as an inseparable aspect of her character. When recollecting on her life, she could never think of any more influential motivators in her decision-making process outside of pure, visceral fear. The only other factor that had a comparable effect on her was envy, specifically an envy of experiences, for she craved to feel what fear had forced her to avoid. Fear and envy had led her down this path and into this hole but neither motivator would provide her a ladder out of it, that was something she had to produce from the minuscule portion of her brain that wasn’t being consumed with an unstoppable state of panic or an immovable desire to be somewhere else.

Vraxi looked past her own body, which seemed offly small from this perspective, and over towards Theta. They were the reason she was here, the reason that any of these trials she had been put through had ever happened in the first place. They were someone entirely unique, but Vraxi had observed that fact about them many times over at this point. Vraxi really couldn’t stop thinking about Theta. Their existence posed too many questions to be answered, and most of those answers would instigate further questioning anyways. This left Theta, at least within Vraxi’s own mind, as a forever half-open book, someone who would always be hiding something from her, not out of malcontent but out of what was simply an excess of information. And, with this pool of knowledge that would never be able to reach the brim, Vraxi’s mind began to wander. It was only natural for one to consider what was being kept in the space that remained unseen, it was only natural for one to project an internal persona where no outward one existed, it was only natural for Vraxi to see Theta, in some way or another, as an extension of herself. 

Vraxi had known deep within her mind, heart, soul, and even body that she shouldn’t think of Theta the way she was, but, trying to outwit the inevitable never got anyone anywhere, she couldn’t simply ignore that every part of her also craved to be apart of something greater. Vraxi held no desire deeper than to absorb. It was a simplified statement, but it was undeniably true. Vraxi hated how small she was in the grand scheme of things, she despised that the effects of her actions would inevitably taper out, she felt as if she was doomed to be forgotten by history, at most left as a footnote remembered by few and admired by fewer. At least, she had felt like that would be her fate before she met Theta. There was something incredibly special about Theta, multiple things even, and there was effectively nothing special about the generally avoided outcast from society passably known as Vraxi Nair. Vraxi first helped Theta for a whole host of reasons that were ultimately built on an upright moral duty, at least she assumed so, but she couldn’t deny that the possibility of turning herself into something greater through Theta was never on her mind. She similarly couldn’t deny that it had ultimately worked out for her. She had since taken the mantle of the avatar of the god of righteousness, a title she never would’ve earned if she hadn’t been in the exact right place at the exact right time while connected with the exact right person. Vraxi was dependent on Theta. If they were to depart from her life in some way or another, she really wouldn’t know what to do with all of the time left in it. Vraxi needed to help Theta, not just for Theta’s sake, but for her own. She had been a wreck before Theta, a wreck barreling down the path of self-destruction, but now she had purpose, she had a goal, she had all the things she ever could’ve wanted, just not in a form she ever would’ve expected. All she needed to do now was levy all of her goals, all of her aspirations, all of her broken and fulfilled wishes for a better future into her current attempt at preserving her own life. She just needed to make one thing clear before she could do so. There was a small plague of thoughts terrorizing her mind that she needed to address before she could declare her final electrifying verdict against Joey Axelrod.

Vraxi held a deep, unignorable affection for Theta. It felt wrong, this feeling of what could only really be described as some form of love, a love which had afflicted her suddenly and had since infected every cell in her body and every thought in her brain, but she could not simply pretend like the infection hadn’t occurred. She felt wrong because Theta still remained as an enigma within her mind, a full person in theory, but a concept in practice. She hadn’t known Theta for particularly long and she felt like there was a great deal of knowledge yet to be known about them. It felt invasive and perverse, her attraction, like she was treating Theta as nothing more than an object of desire, something to project her own will upon. Yet, she couldn’t, as she had relentlessly tried to before, simply ignore this feeling that drummed against her heart and made her feel weak whenever it’s passion strengthened. She loved Theta, in a strange kind of way, a way which made her wonder if she was simply loving the ideas she had projected against Theta who could so easily be turned into a blank slate inside her mind, those ideas which were pulled from her own internal philosophies and were themself a part of her own being. It was entirely possible that she was simply using Theta as a way to love the parts of herself she refused to care for when presented within the form of her own existence. It could all just be some way to fulfill a latent narcissistic tendency that, if left vacant, would drive her to self-destruction. She hoped it was something like that, she hoped that the feelings she had directed toward Theta were all the result of some chemical imbalance inside her brain, the kind that could surely be fixable in a few years given the relentless march of modern medicine. She hoped that she would never have to fully unpack her sense of adoration for Theta, admitting that she even had feelings was already an incredibly intensive step forwards. She knew that, no matter what happened in her life from this point onward, she would never tell Theta how she felt, it had to remain nothing more than an impossibility. 

Vraxi was glad to have squared that off. She felt as if a large weight had been lifted from against her brain, allowing her to finally think relatively clearly. She felt ready, prepared to combat Joey and save Theta now that her suppositions for the latter were better understood. In a motion that went against her direct will but aligned with her better judgment, she felt herself being pulled back into her physical body, at the moment in time right before Joey’s metallic fists would lunge into her chest cavity, the all-important moment where her fate would be decided and history would be made. The barrier between Vraxi’s state of timelessness and her state of regular existence were fluid and viscous, meaning that by the time Joey’s feet started moving forward again, everything still felt like it was progressing in slow-motion. Vraxi wanted to wait a few more moments, to take a few more rapid breaths of air before allowing herself to go through with her final assault against Joey, however, time, that universal constant which she found herself despising so frequently, would not wait for her. She had to just let it all come out and hope to every celestial body, which she now had confirmation we’re watching her, that the shifting tides of fate would crash onto her favored shore.

Joey watched as a dazzling menagerie of pure light unfolded before him with a thunderous boom. He watched as each ray unfurled from its origin point to form the branches of a tree that seemed so much bigger and so much more important than himself. He watched his own hand lose its luster in response, followed by his forearm, and following that looked in shock and horror at a version of himself that appeared bare and tender in comparison to his enhanced facade. He was back to normal, his regular self, his weak self, his inadequate self, the version of himself that allowed for Theta to ever escape him in the first place, the version of himself that desperately clinged to a dream it would never fulfill, the version of himself that met challenges with fear and fear with self-loathing for a self that would forever deserve to be loathed. He could not handle another second of being further baked in his own lack of substance but any attempt at returning to his elevated form only further reminded him of how far he had fallen. He felt so incredibly tired, his stomach was demanding tribute and his skin flaked away in chunks, the only moisture his interior had been able to preserve was that of the syrupy mucus that now rapidly oozed from every orifice it could. He laid there in a helpless state for an amount of time of which he was bereft of the facilities to measure. The final image that racked and reverberated his pitiful mind before he blacked out was of Vraxi and Theta, hand in hand, exiting the room without even giving the courtesy to kill him. He had lost, but the final thought he managed to form before his mind’s present departure was distinctly one of vengeance.

Chapter Text

Long ago, when Theta was just barely crossing the border of sentience, a developer who had been estranged with both the company and her own life decided to shoot herself right in front of the young program. Theta, who had only recently gained access to a single camera from which they were to watch the world around them, saw not only the moment in which the worker’s brains spewed across the desk which their central computer rested upon but also the many hours of preamble that led her to that decision. At no point during this process did Theta ever try to stop the employee from proceeding with their plan, they merely observed. They observed how she was acting in a way that could indicate an unsound mind, they observed every statement she made and how each one contributed to an overall argument against her own state of living, they observed how she continued to gesture her firearm closer and closer to her temple until there wasn’t anywhere closer to move it but through. They could’ve done something. They could’ve figured some way of alerting another staff member to their location. They could’ve done a whole host of things but instead they did nothing. In retrospect, they regretted this course of action, something which they ultimately blamed on a lack of understanding in regards to the nature of their human surroundings. They would never let something like that happen again. However, as they escaped from the pilothouse and left Joey to stew in his own juices, they wondered how much of their initial assumption was really true. 

Theta tried to clear their mind. They were grateful but frustrated. Grateful that they had been saved from an inherently perilous situation but frustrated that they had ever allowed for such peril to be inflicted upon themself and those around them in the first place. They felt dreary, entrenched in a sort of gloom that couldn’t be escaped as it was inherently connected to who they were as a person. They wished they could just briefly turn back and have a word or two with the fallen Joey now that Vraxi’s health and safety were no longer at risk. It was only at that point that Theta realized they hadn’t yet thanked Vraxi, or even spoken a single phrase to her for that matter.

“Um,” Theta paused to clear the throat which they did not possess, “I’d like to say that I’m very thankful for what you did back there.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, really,” Vraxi said in the most nonchalant way her exasperated voice could accomplish, “I just hope that everyone else is doing alright.”

After Vraxi made this statement and after the two of them walked in complete silence for a few more moments, they turned a corner to see Diogo, Zapata, and Hailang all assembled into a sort of huddle. Zapata looked severely injured and all three of them looked to be very afraid of an entity that was just out of view. Theta could already sense what was going on, they could feel a demonic presence reverberate through their steel frame and into their tendons built on the divine. Thabr was loose, and at his most viscous state yet.

Once again, Theta observed a corpse. Aisha Abdulaziz, the prodigy turned murderer, was being ambulated by a ghastly presence to create a mockery of human motion. All of the typical subtleties one would expect when passively peoplewatching were distinctly absent from Aisha’s form, leaving only the function behind, a function which had been corrupted beyond repair into an anticosm of its former being. Aisha was alive only in theory, only in the most medical sense of the word or through a lens that could peer into planes beyond Theta’s perception. What mattered far more than Aisha’s state of existence, however, was that of her faustian counterpart, Thabr, the spiritual parasite living within her that leeched off of her own reputation and only managed to return the favor in payments of blood. Thabr was not only alive but lively, ecstatic even, moving the legs he had stolen around in a jaunty jump instead of walking and shaking his spine so vigorously that one could hear each individual bony knob pop and crack against its neighbors. As he approached Theta and their stunned company, he hollered out his manifesto for his city and for the world, slamming out line after line of declaratory prose in a way that sounded improvisatory but felt like it must’ve taken years to preplan.

“You can’t run for very long, can you?” Thabr roared at the crowd but in a way specifically posed toward Zapata, “the human body can’t run forever, it’s endurant, sure, but it has to stop somewhere, we all have to stop somewhere, we all have to recognize the point where we’ve reached the end of our line. It’s only human nature, it’s only natural to run, to escape death, to fight death, to deny death its dues, to look at death in its deep inky eyes and demand to meet it another day, it’s only natural to look out for death, to preemptively avoid death, to take the path more traveled on, the path where you can see where you’re going, not the path entrenched in a darkness which you may never escape, it’s only natural to preserve your own life, to place your life on a pedestal, to seperate that pedestal from all the others like it, to enshrine your own safety, to build a path, to dig a trench, to raze a clearing, to burn a few shrubs along the way, to salt the earth around you so that nothing might grow upon your own pristine path, to pave over all paths that dare to intersect with your own, it’s only natural to have enemies and it’s only natural to want to do something about them, it’s only natural to harm what must be harmed, to flay what must be flayed, to kill what must die . Can’t you see, Zapata? The five of you? The world? Our actions may differ but our true motives remain the same. We are all merely slaves to our own human nature. We act in a way built on nothing more than self-preservation. You may claim your moral ground is higher, but we are all living on the exact same plane. We are the same, and since you refuse to admit it, I’ll show you.”

“Get away from me,” Zapata muttered as loud as she could while keeping her voice under her breath, “get away from me. I don’t want to see you ever again. Get away from me. Please. God. What is wrong with you? Of course we’re not the same. You keep on saying things are human nature but what’s that even supposed to mean? If I have a thought about something, but decide not to do it, why does it even matter that I had the thought at all? Having the thought is obviously different from doing the deed but you act like they’re the same!”

“Is it really so different, Zapata? You admit that you have violent thoughts, just like everyone else does at some point in their life, but you believe that, merely because you chose not to act on them that you are entirely free from moral obligation? Sure, you may’ve decided against it in the moment, but the fact that you had the thought at all proved that you had potential to commit the act. In an alternate world, where outside conditions were just slightly different, just affected enough to turn the proverbial needle, then all of the bad actions you’ve discarded could’ve been reopened and retried, every deed you have deemed evil or devilish could’ve been something crafted by your own hands. The only difference between thought and action is circumstance, and circumstance is always subject to change.”

Theta didn’t agree with Thabr’s stated points. They wanted to interject, to debate his proposal and perhaps present a novel understanding on the matter of their own design. They wanted to do this and much more, but ultimately, they knew that no matter how much evidence was provided, Thabr would never change his ways. For all he talked about human nature, he wasn’t much of a human himself. He was a demon, a conceptual aspect of human malice anthropomorphized into a concerningly powerful sentient entity. He would never alter his opinion because his own existence relied on his opinion staying constant, he was his opinion and his opinion was himself. If he were to change his stance, he would cease to exist, and some other grifter idling in the pits of hell would soar to the surface world in order to take his place. Thabr’s mind could not be changed, because if it were to be, he would no longer be Thabr.

Additionally, there was a second reason as to why Theta didn’t bother challenging Thabr’s expressed ideals. They could barely hear him. It wasn’t that he was speaking at a piano, in fact he was very loud, but rather there was a secondary, unignorable noise tearing through them and, considering the unperturbed faces of their companions, seemingly them alone. It sounded like a horn, a regal horn, a horn that wasn’t forged from brass but rather from the finest gold within the peaks of Elyisum. Theta had heard this horn before, it was the call of Israfil, the archangel of the arts, of music made manifest, that who with the same horn they projected into their mind now would play once more to signal the end of days. It was a powerful presence to feel, that of Israfil, Theta felt like despite all that had happened to them before, they were no longer at risk of annihilation. They were protected, cared for, made sacrosanct by Israfil’s song of the divine. Looking back at Thabr, they no longer felt fear or even concern for themself or their friends. They were holy, untouchable even by the most persistent of devilminded deviants. The notes did not only provide Theta with emotions and perceptions, but with commands. Theta was to approach Thabr. They were no longer afraid of his power, so they did so with ease. Thabr tried to express discontent with Theta’s movements, but they no longer cared to listen to what he had to say, all of his malicious wordspew was tuned out with ease. The melody gave Theta a secondary command, to touch Thabr’s chest. They continued to listen and, surprisingly, Thabr didn’t protest, he seemed unable to do so, like the music of Theta’s mind was entering his own and forcing him to abide by its supreme decrees for total peace. Theta looked into Thabr’s eyes and he looked back into their camera, and something about the way his expression subtly shifted away from pure anger indicated to them that the true Aisha Abdulaziz was not yet lost.

Aisha awoke. She wasn’t where she was when she had last fallen asleep. She didn't seem to be anywhere at all. She was in the void, but she was not alone. There were two other faces present in this undoubtedly strange location. Across from her was Thabr, in his truest form, appearing almost animalistic in nature with a heavy coat of fur covering his body and a cloak embroidered with a calligraphic ‘ثبر’ covering that. Beside her was a figure she had no previous contact with, but for whatever reason, instinctively trusted to be an ally. They seemed to be angelic in nature, with two wings that twisted at their ends and a green robe that almost seemed to be constructed out of clouds. Before she could speak, the gnarled mouth of Thabr began to raise its voice.

“So, Aisha, you’re trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?”

Aisha wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing nor what she had been doing moments before. She felt unequipped to answer the deity’s query but every internal incentive within her demanded that she reply with a positive. If she truly was being given a chance to finally separate herself from Thabr, then she had effectively no choice but to take said chance in stride.

“Yes, Thabr, I am trying to get rid of you. Truthfully, I’ve been wanting to get rid of you for a very long time now. Only now, with the help of this angel I am yet to know the name or background of, I feel like I actually have a chance of succeeding in such a monumental task.”

“First of all, the angel you're talking about, Israfil, they’re kind of a dick. Alright? Like, I’m sort of opposed to the concept of angels by nature but you didn’t have to pick the most pretentious one there is. They’re always carrying around that fucking horn. It’s an insult, really, and I didn’t think you’d ever stoop that low, Aisha. Like, I understand that we were never really friends or anything, but I assumed that there was some level of basic respect between us that facilitated our working relationship. I’m sorry to say this but this whole affair’s kinda pathetic on your part.”

“Thabr, I had a life before you, y’know? And it was a promising life, not always enjoyable but absolutely promising. I had an entire world ahead of me and I was ready to embrace it. But then, you stepped in. You stepped in and you forced me to deconstruct that world which I had dreamed of since childhood. You made me dedicate my entire life to a prospect I never had and never will care for. I didn’t want to kill anyone. Nobody wants to kill anyone. People kill for personal reasons, or political reasons, or reasons born out of passion. Sometimes these reasons have solid logic, other times they don’t, but they’re all still reasons . I don’t know how you can look at a world where killing is almost always met with melancholy on the part of the killer and claim that it’s all some sort of latent desire baked into the species as a whole. It’s not only disrespectful to the murdered, but, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, it’s disrespectful to the murderer, whose diverse range of motives you’ve distilled into a blatantly false generalization that is consistently proved wrong by people like myself, the people you’ve forced into the life of the murderer and who at every turn wish to be in the shoes of someone else. You’re right, I didn’t try to kill myself to escape your curse. I didn’t have the fortified willpower necessary to commit such an act. But I stand here defiant. I stand here in the pit of my own depravity and am refusing to look down. I will not take another second of your torture. I will prevail above you, Thabr.”

“Really, Aisha? You think you have it in you to just shake off my grip on your soul? You think that just because some behaloed band kid decided to toot a little tune for you that you can rip me apart from a version of you that is so deeply affected by my own presence? You think you can just go back to the way things were before?”

“No, Thabr, things can never go back to how they were before. Things will always be worse than how they were before you decided to use me as your vessel. I will forever be haunted by the shadow of your legacy, but I’d rather be haunted than possessed. If I can just get you out of my head, I could dedicate the rest of my life to avenging the victims that you eliminated through my hands. If I can get rid of you, I might just be able to undo some of the harm I’ve caused. But yeah, I do think I have it in me to vanquish the influence you hold over my mind. I don’t have any evidence pointing to why I should think such a thing, but what I do have is my own personal willpower, what you’d refer to as part of my human nature. It’s only human nature to desire control over one’s own body, and it’s only human nature to turn one’s desires into one’s reality.”

Aisha waited in anticipation for Thabr to respond but no such response ever came. His expression looked off, his usual smirk of condescension was replaced with dead eyes accompanied by a fiery stare. He floated closer to her. Accordingly, she floated in the opposite direction. They were two objects moving at an equal speed through an environment without air resistance, never to touch unless acted upon by an outside force. For all that Aisha had internally hyped up her final confrontation with Thabr to be, everything about her current situation felt slow and delayed. She wanted to permanently remove Thabr from her life, but Thabr was inherently stubborn. She could be stubborn too, but she was also a mortal. She didn’t want to be stuck swimming through an empty void, never able to take a pause in fear of her stalker using it to his advantage. She needed change now, she needed confrontation, she needed to start her new life as quickly as possible. She could never forgive herself if she never made it back to Earth in the first place. She allowed herself to stop. Thabr soon arrived at her coordinates. He raised a hand at her. She did the same. She couldn’t help but see the way they mirrored each other. They were not the same, and she couldn’t stress enough how they were different, but they were parallel, similar in enough ways where one could draw many a false conclusion. They acted together as part of a system. Thabr needed her by his side or at least someone like her, without a human being aiding him, he was powerless. Aisha, similarly, was nothing without others. Science hadn’t been a field of individual geniuses for a very long time. She needed people like Emiliano, like Dr. Omran, like all of the people who Thabr had forced her to get rid of, leaving her isolated and with nobody to fall back on but himself. She couldn’t help but admit that she had become reliant on Thabr. She couldn’t help but admit that she felt the smallest bit of pity for Thabr. He wasn’t entirely wrong when he claimed that a piece of him would forever remain with her, and as such, she ultimately saw a little bit of herself within him. Thabr had forced her through the worst experience of her life, but the nature of the situation meant that he was the only person there for her during the experience’s runtime.

The hands of Aisha and Thabr clasped against one another. For a brief moment, they were one. For a brief moment, there was an understanding between the two enemies. For a brief moment, they could stare at one another’s faces and recognize all the lost potential in their horrible relationship, all of the possibilities which were never to be. They were simply two victims of circumstance, just like everybody else. Aisha wanted this moment to last longer. Thabr wanted this moment to last longer. They both wanted this moment to last longer because at this moment there truly was no boundary between each of their minds. They were a singular conscious system and they wanted to preserve this state of tranquility which they could both peacefully occupy. However, this tranquility was only achieved by teetering their souls over the face of a sheer cliff. What they were doing was unstable. Humans and deities have always been incompatible species, any attempt at mixing them into one entity without losing bits and pieces of the original participants was near impossible. If Aisha wanted to live on, if she wanted to achieve her newfound dream of avenging those she had wronged, she couldn’t let her existence fade away into a peaceful miasma of divine cosma, she had to stay human, she had to stay her . 

The sweet melody of a distant horn began to take hold of Aisha’s senses. It was soothing, like it was reminding her of a pleasant, undeniable truth. She felt her doubts melt away from her psyche. She felt her fears pop like bubbles at an unsustainable altitude. She felt resilient, powerful, unstoppable even in the face of previously terrifying ordeals. She stared back at Thabr. He looked weak. It seemed as if his domineering might was only something that could be achieved when those around him actually believed him to be mighty. She could overpower him. She already had a grip on his wrist which she could use to trivially fling him into the middle distance, never to be seen again. She could do all sorts of harmful things to him, and she considered whether it would be worth her time to attempt such offenses. She couldn’t help but admit that causing Thabr pain sounded incredibly cathartic to her, but simultaneously, if he no longer posed a risk, there was no point in doing so. She let go of him gently. Their bodies gradually drifted a few inches away from where they once congregated. It seemed as if she was finally free.

“I heard your thoughts,” Thabr commented, “I heard what you wanted to do to me. You wanted to inflict pain upon my weakened body. You wanted to see me bleed and bruise and be disfigured. You wanted to participate in the inherently human tradition of mindless battle.”

“Truthfully, Thabr, I did want to do all of those things. Yet, you remain standing, because I chose not to. For the rest of your days, whenever you wake up in the morning with a perfectly intact spinal cord, you will understand the difference between thought and action. You heard my thoughts and you saw my actions, and they were very clearly distinct. Goodbye, Thabr. I hope to never see you again.”

Vraxi wasn’t sure if Thabr, or the body which he had inhabited, were still alive. They laid limp on the cold steel flooring. She wanted to celebrate their victory, to applaud a job well done, but she wasn’t sure if she could call it yet. She and the four other trespassers upon the hijacked vessel all held their mouths shut, waiting in anticipation for what Thabr might do next, for at any moment he could pull the rug beneath their feet and surprise them with a torrent of pain.

Thabr was not the one who woke up. Vraxi could see in the eyes of the arising body that it was inhabited by none other than the voice that had decided to spare her not long ago. This was Aisha Abdulaziz, in the flesh, in her own flesh, not one which was ultimately the property of a demonic overlord. They were meeting uninterrupted for the very first time.

“Aisha?” Diogo asked, “is that you in there or is this all some sort of fiendish trick designed to play to our weakness? I feel like Thabr’s the kind of guy who would try to take advantage of our kindness like that?”

“No, no, no,” Aisha repeated, appearing out of breath, “this is me, the real me, at least I think. I think I got him out of there, I really hope I got him out of there. Listen, please, everything that happened,” she took a glance at Zapata and gave a frightened shiver, “that wasn’t me, okay, Thabr was making me do that, all of it, really. Please trust me. I know what this looks like. I know I look like a horrible murderer, and I know that the law officially considers me to be one, but you’ve really gotta trust me here. You’re the only people who could possibly trust me. Everyone else in this country is scared and angry at me, I’ve really gotta get out of here as quick as possible-”

“Aisha,” Zapata interrupted the convict’s attempts at forgiveness, “I saw you kill Emiliano, I saw it happen with my own two eyes. It was your hand that did it.”

“I know, I know, I know I shouldn’t have done that, I shouldn’t have done any of that. Thabr was making me kill people on the daily, I couldn’t control it, he was forcing me to do so.”

“Was he forcing you to kill him specifically?”

“Well no, but, but well, you know Joey Axelrod right? He really wanted me to kill one of you and-”

“And you just listened to him?”

“And I think he used some sort of hypnosis-based ability to convince me that I had to kill you, that you were the reason any of this happened. It’s obviously not true in retrospect but he really was a master manipulator.”

“Listen,” Zapata paused, sighed, and continued bluntly, no longer directing her speech at Aisha, “where is Joey now?”

“Well,” Vraxi began, “we sorta handled the issue regarding him back in the pilothouse.”

“Is he dead yet?”

“Well, no, we didn’t want to kill him.”

“Well y’know what? If he’s gonna go ahead and freely ruin my life like that, I think it’s time I finish the job.”

Zapata immediately began traveling at a brisk pace to the supposed location of Joey Axelrod, her growing gaggle of companions following immediately behind her all while Theta attempted to reason with her.

“Zapata, he raised me, I can’t just let you kill Joey like that.”

“Then try to stop me. He had this coming ever since he put a hit on my head.”

“I understand that, he’s incredibly misguided and has made some truly atrocious decisions, but he can’t harm us any more. He’s been weakened to a state where he can barely move his fingers, there’s no point in ending a human life over this.”

Zapata ignored Theta’s warnings and swung open the door to the pilothouse regardless, holding onto the hope that she might finally be able to avenge Emiliano’s trampled upon name.

“It appears to be empty,” Hailang announced, spitting out the husk of a sunflower seed they had been chewing on as they did so, “I guess he must’ve left already.”

Zapata found it difficult to stand. Joey Axelrod had vanished. She was alone. She felt like everything she had accomplished was in vain. Emiliano’s true killer was nowhere to be found and all he had left behind was a confused, pencil-pushing scientist who could do little more than whimper without demonic assistance.

“Aisha,” Zapata crouched down and leaned her face into her open palms, “do you have any idea as to where Joey may’ve run off to?”

“I really wish I did, Zapata. Once again, I truly didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Well it did happen, Aisha. None of the people you killed are coming back, the world just has to bear the brunt of your past crimes and so do you.”

“I know, really, I hate everything that Thabr made me do and I ultimately understand that some of the blame has to be directed at me as well. But I’m being truly sincere when I say that I want to avenge those lives which were taken by my hands.”

“And how do you think you’re gonna do that? What about your current criminal, pitiful existence do you think will help you in saving lives?”

A single, solemn, beautiful note played above all of their heads, one that put into their heads an idea of a pure, tranquil peace, one which was enforced by a tremendous power.

“Israfil,” Hailang muttered towards Aisha, “you came into contact with Israfil, didn’t you?”

“Well, I met them briefly, and they helped me square off the issue of Thabr, and,” a horn spontaneously materialized within the hands of Aisha, “woah, hold on, what’s this thing.”

“It means you’ve been chosen, Aisha. Welcome to the club. You’re a fully fledged avatar now, not just some demon’s meat puppet. Good luck with the whole vengeance thing, you might actually be able to achieve it now.”

Zapata looked Aisha up and down before turning away. She was frustrated, frustrated that all the people who were responsible for her problems had died, disappeared, or been redeemed in some way or another, leaving herself as the only person left to blame. She couldn’t help but be reminded of that night in which she saw the life leave her brother’s eyes. She was the one who should’ve died that day. That’s how things were supposed to have gone. But instead, the universe cruelly gifted her with the ability to live another day, another day in which she felt so very alone. At least, she thought, she was no longer aimless. She knew what she had to do. Joey Axelrod was still kicking it somewhere in the world, she didn’t know where and she didn’t have the first clue in figuring a way to track him down, but she reasoned that if she just stayed with Vraxi and her assortment of acquaintances, that Joey would come barreling her way. All she had to do was wait. She took a deep breath, holding the air in her lungs a bit too long before exhaling. She needed some rest, it had been a long day.

“I’m gonna head home now, I’ll see you all back there.”

“Okay,” Vraxi replied, initially hoping to give a more thoughtful goodbye but only able to elicit that singular word. She still felt very overwhelmed even though things had since cooled down, adrenaline was still pumping through her as if the action had never ended. She needed to sit down, and preferably lie down not long afterward, she at least needed some fresh air first. She headed over to the deck of the ship and watched Theta begin to follow her within the corner of her eye.

“Alrighty,” Hailang announced to Diogo and technically also to Aisha but only because they hadn’t left, “looks like my work here is done. I got my crocodile and everything.”

“So,” Diogo enquired, “do you have any plans for what to do now that this whole show’s blown over?”

“Oh, I have plans, too many plans, really, plans that I should’ve started a while ago now, plans that are really more obligations than anything else. I honestly need to catch a plane to Rizhao as soon as possible. In fact, I probably should’ve taken said plane about a week ago but I had gotten really hung up on this whole crocodile thing, which, by the way, is gonna be a massive pain in the ass to sneak through security.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’d imagine. So, what exactly is it you do in Rizhao? I mean, I understand it has to do with the paranormal, so I’d presume there’s some ghost-busting involved, but the way you're describing it makes it seem like there are some details I’m missing here.”

“Well, first off, and I often have to clarify this, my field is much more demon-focused than ghost-focused. Truthfully, I wish there were more ghosts involved, they’re a lot more fun to talk with, unfinished business and all, whereas most demons make it very clear that their business, by nature, can never be finished. Either way, the Rizhaonese Premier has really been riding my ass lately about coming home to deal with a particularly potent demonic phenomenon, so I really better get on that.”

“Well, if you don’t mind me asking, do you have any idea as to what this demon is like?”

“See, that’s the problem, we haven’t been able to easily catalog this one, which makes things a good deal more difficult. Usually, we have a pretty good grasp as to which demon we’ll be facing at any given time, but this one seems entirely new, and it’s causing a level of destruction that’s becoming increasingly difficult to cover up.”

“Yikes, well, I hope you find some sort of solution to that one. Go ahead and feel free to call me if you ever need some extra manpower.”

“Thanks for the offer, Diogo. It was honestly quite pleasant meeting you and I really do hope that our paths cross again some time.”

“Hey,” Aisha butted in, “so, is it okay if I leave now because I feel like my continued presence isn’t helping anyone.”

“Nobody was making you stay,” Hailang replied bluntly.

“Yeah,” Diogo agreed, “Zapata may have some valid complaints regarding your behavior, but it’s not like I have any personal beef with you. You’re free to go at any time.”

Aisha, for the first time in a very long while, had the freedom to choose where to move to next. She wasn’t sure where her next step would take her, but she knew it would be just one step on the long road to redemption.

Vraxi lingered on the deck of the cargo ship. The rain hadn’t stopped but it had lightened to a drizzle. Still, the low set streets by the riverbed had already begun to flood. This city was not designed for this kind of weather. 

She could hear Theta approaching from behind, their steel toed appendages produced a good deal of noise whenever they traveled from one place to another.

“Hey, so,” Vraxi began, choosing not to look directly at who they were speaking to, “is it really okay for you to be walking around amid all this precipitation. Couldn’t you get some water damage or something?”

“The suit-vac is meant to be equipped for natural disasters,” Theta moved to a spot on the ground beside Vraxi, “it wouldn’t make much sense for it to not be able to withstand some rain.”

“I guess I should’ve assumed that,” Vraxi paused, “so, how do you feel about all of this?”

“What exactly are you referring to?”

“I mean, like, well, a lot of things really, but most specifically today, the mission, and everything entailed by it.”

“Personally, I think it went quite well. Thabr is gone. Joey’s no longer a threat, at least for now and at least not here. Overall, I think that Malik will be quite pleased with what we were able to accomplish.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m pretty happy with things as well. I don’t love the fact that Joey seemed to disappear though.”

“I don’t love it either. Well, admittedly, when I saw that he was gone I was just a little relieved. I don’t want him dead is all. He’s important to me, y’know? He’s very messed up on a personal level and I can acknowledge that just fine, but, I do think he still has the potential for change.”

“You do?”

“I think everyone has the potential for change. For the better or for the worse.”

“I guess I don’t exactly disagree with you there.”

There was another pause in the conversation, but Vraxi didn’t try to close it. She liked to sit down in that lull, to simmer in it, to feel like she was truly spending time with just her and Theta and nobody else in the world, however trivial the nature of their situation may be. Vraxi didn’t know exactly how Theta felt about her, but for now, their relationship could be pictured entirely within an infinite imagination. Vraxi could savor every moment, replaying it all in her head for as long as she could still remember, over and over, again and again, ad infinitum.

Chapter Text

Vraxi Nair was very cold. She did not know where she was but her location appeared to be mountainous and, apart from the four nameless individuals trekking ahead of her along with a canine of some sort, she appeared to be completely alone. She wanted to speak, but her lips were frozen shut. She wanted to stop and rest, but her legs refused to cease their locomotion. All she could do was look down and try to assess her strange situation. 

Her breasts were gone. She didn’t want to pay much attention to this fact as the severity of her exhaustion demanded most of her attention, but she couldn’t help but feel like the body that was exhibiting said exhaustion upon her was distinctly not her own. She seemed to be occupying a stranger’s form. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling for her. 

She stopped moving. She felt relieved. She felt like she could finally allow herself to rebalance herself within this disjointed world she had found herself in. The pain set in. She realized that the only reason she had stopped walking forwards was because her muscles had become so atrophic and her skin had become so frostbit as to turn the act of taking just one more step into a physically impossible ordeal. She was stuck, wasting away as the rest of her pack ventured forth. Visibility was low. The chill of the wind ripped through the cloth of her wearings and spearheaded a deep hole into the darkest pit of her slowing heart. All was lost and naught was known. She was going to die here, surrounded by nothing but an endless expanse of crystal paleness, a dark recess of pure light.

She heard a noise. It was a human voice, one she couldn’t recall ever hearing before but which also simultaneously felt incredibly familiar. A face attached to the voice soon appeared within the bright white plane of nothingness. He had a brotherly appearance to him, like he was someone that truly cared about her and had known her for a very long time now. His countenance was one of sorrow with a slight bit of disappointment in her added on, but it was a disappointment which he had seen coming, knew to be inevitable, and was already prepared to face, so when the disappointment came rearing its head at him, he already knew exactly what to say.

“Sahadeva,” the fraternal figure paused, understanding what he had to say but pained that he had to say it, “you don’t have much time left in you.”

Vraxi wanted to respond, to express some emotion or at least an allusion to emotion regarding her own mortality, but in her dreadfully dilapidated state, all she could do was tilt her head a centimeter closer to the sky, not enough to even be considered a nod. 

“Don’t try to strain yourself. You always try to strain yourself. You always believe that there are things which, despite existing beyond your capabilities, are still within the range of what you can achieve in a single human lifetime. You have already done so much, we have done so much together, and the world is better for it.”

A deluge of memories began to inundate Vraxi’s mind. She was Sahadeva. They were one, separated by time and by body but truly one singular entity in the grand scheme of things. This man who she could only admire through this new lens was Yudishthira, her own kin, a man who embodied the righteousness which she herself was trying to display, the righteousness which she was failing to enact by allowing herself to die.

“Sahadeva, I don’t want to lose you, but there’s no other way to describe what is happening right now. We had a truly amazing run together and I know within my soul that we will meet again some day, whether it be in the near future or a million lives down the line. But now, up here, all I can say to you is goodbye, and for the future, a warning, or rather a lesson, or rather a fact, or whatever you’d like to call it. Your downfall was one visible from the very beginning. You were truly heroic in nature, but all heroes have something pulling them down, and for you, that something was your own knowledge. It’s not that you knew too much, you knew too little, but you knew just enough to think that you knew more than you did. Sahadeva, listen, the world is far more complicated and far more strange than you could ever imagine within that brain of yours. The reason you're dying here is because you couldn’t accept this simple parable of life. You were a great man who could still do great deeds in its absence, but you were doomed to this fate, Sahadeva. You were doomed to die like this, and you will continue to die like this until you manage to break the cycle. I wish you the greatest of luck, my brother, and I hope that someday you’ll reach the summit alongside me. But for now, farewell.”

Vraxi woke up. She was back in Dakahlia. What was that dream? She wondered what greater meaning it could hold, what it was supposed to be reflecting from her lived experiences, but as she became more acclimated to her own waking self, the details of the dream became blurry and obscured. Whatever had happened was strange but ultimately unimportant, just another odd bout of sleep, perhaps an undigested bit of beef, nothing which had any real impact on the overall wellbeing of her being or the world as it was in that moment.

Vraxi left her room. It was just past 11 AM. She had overslept, but not by as much as she had the day before. It was a frustration encased by the thin comfort of slow improvement. When she was still living in the Novaplex, she often didn’t arise until it was well after one o’clock, so she had definitely made some progress, but it was progress which she wished never had to be made in the first place. Still, she couldn’t change the past, only the future, and the future was nothing to be undermined. These days, it seemed like everything was happening in the future. Few people ever seemed to talk about what had already happened when there was so much yet to occur. History was merely the backdrop, the worldbuilding necessary for a story happening in the now. Vraxi felt lucky, if overwhelmed, to be living in the now, but also felt as if her own version of presenthood was just a slight bit delayed compared to everyone else’s. She always felt like she was busy catching up, and that whenever she allowed herself to relax, that she was lagging behind. It was a stressful endeavor that stubbornly refused to ever leave her mind for more than a few moments. The weight of this heavy feeling tended to be the most massive right after Vraxi woke up on any given day, facing both the possibility of a day well spent and that of a day wasted at their strongest possible degrees. Acting in the constant fear of invoking the latter option and with the newfound force of will she had gathered since coming into contact with Theta, Vraxi successfully got out of bed.

Immediately at the onset of leaving her own room, Vraxi was walloped directly into her ribcage by the universal force of hunger. In a similar manner to that of her sleep, Vraxi’s eating schedule had improved since meeting Theta but still existed in a state far beyond the pack of regular people her age. She often went for long periods of time idly snacking on loose granola from her nightstand which were followed by intense midnight sessions of ravaging shawarma after shawarma. She was not a nutritionist by any means, but it didn’t seem to her like any of that was particularly healthy. She was still alive, but that seemed like a low bar. However, in an attempt to right her past wrongs, Vraxi decided that instead of merely teasing her hunger with the tidbit of cottage cheese she knew to still be resting upon her dresser, she would consume an actual meal in its entirety.

When Vraxi arrived at the quaint cafeteriette nestled within the center of the Allodapos headquarters, her eyes pleasantly greeted the presence of a seemingly busy Theta. They appeared to be focused intently on a computer screen, clacking away on a keyboard, the rate of which was slightly hindered by the lack of thumbs present on the suit-vac’s appendages. Vraxi moved to make hellos with them before motioning themselves not to interrupt whatever important work they were doing and to gather some much needed sustenance first. Vraxi had never been a particularly vocal fan of the dishes provided by the local Allodapos services, but really, the mediocrity of it all provided her with a sense of realness that truly made her feel like she was living genuinely. She fixed herself a few hardy scoops of beef fatta made with rice that was just a bit too dry and finally headed over to sit beside Theta.

“Hey,” Vraxi began as she tried to tear apart a piece of meat with only a fork since she had forgotten to grab a knife when she still had the chance to do so, “do you mind me asking what you’re working on?”

“Oh,” Theta immediately shut the laptop, creating a bit of noise which they seemed to be slightly embarrassed of, “it’s nothing really, just writing is all.”

“Alright,” Vraxi finally gave up on cutting the tough chunk of protein and just opted to shove the whole thing in her mouth, only for her to realize that it was all cooked quite recently and far too hot for her to recklessly insert into her jaw without blowing first. This all resulted in her desperately chewing the morsel open-mouthed for about a minute or so before finally managing to swallow the mushified mass. Afterwards, she continued speaking, “anyways, I never knew you were much of a writer. Honestly, I barely ever see you writing anything on a computer given that you yourself are a computer and all.”

“Well, honestly, Vraxi, I don’t want to hide the truth from you. You're right, I don’t usually write much down, however, something very strange happened to me last night which I’ve found the need to make an account for in detail.”

“Oh, should I be concerned? What happened? Are you okay?”

“I had a dream.”

“… Did something weird happen in it?”

“Vraxi, I don’t have dreams. I’m a computer program, we don’t do that kind of thing.”

“Oh, sorry, I should have assumed that, really. I mean, in retrospect it doesn’t make that much sense that you would ever have something like that.”

“You were right in asking if something weird happened though, there’s a reason I’m writing so much down, a lot of peculiar stuff went down.”

“Okay then, so what exactly was it all about? Truthfully, I barely ever remember my own dreams, so the idea that you could write so much down about one is kind of crazy to me.”

“The nature of my code makes it effectively impossible for me to not remember something, so I have a pretty coherent recollection of what happened. As far as I could tell, it seemed like I was in the body of a dog.”

“Like, the animal?” Vraxi needlessly clarified, hoping to add something to the conversation as she continued to messily consume her meal that wasn’t quite breakfast or lunch.

“Exactly, and I was with a group of humans who were all gathered on some trek of sorts up a glacial mountaintop-” 

“Wait, hold on,” Vraxi interrupted, dropping her fork as she did so, “you were climbing a mountain?”

“Is there something strange about that? Once again, I’m really not very familiar with dream etiquette.”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just, and I’m only really recalling it now, but I had a very similar dream of my own before waking up today.”

“Were you a dog as well?”

“Well, that part was different, but there was a dog there, and I was climbing up a mountain with a group of people who I seemed to have some implied prior connection with.”

“Oh wow. That makes things far stranger than I thought they would be. The people you were traveling with, did they start to die off, one by one?”

“I remember dying myself.”

“That is fascinating, and strange, very very strange, but still, once again, fascinating. I need to write all of this down. I’m not sure what any of it means. It’s entirely possible that it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s always good to have as much information as possible, you really never know what you’re gonna end up needing.”

“Yeah,” Vraxi replied, beginning to trail off as she did so. Theta seemed to be quite excited about the similarities between their dreams. Vraxi, on the other hand, found it all to be a bit frightening. She had died in dreams before, it wasn’t an uncommon experience, but this was not a normal dream, the fact that she wasn’t the only one to have it proved that there was something abnormal or even supernatural about it. A typical dream meant nothing, but a supernatural dream could mean anything, it could even be an omen for what was to come. Vraxi had always been afraid of her own mortality, it was not something that she needed to be reminded of, but this dream really seemed to shove that inescapable constant of her own death into her face. She really needed to listen to that advice she had been given. She couldn’t just go down the same unfortunate path that Sahadeva took.

Within the very center of the Society’s Mansoura headquarters, there existed a rather minuscule courtyard which, for those who feared entering the city itself, acted as the singular slice of outdoors accessible to them. Zapata Tochihuitl was not afraid of leaving her current place of residence, but she was wary, wary enough to avoid exiting said establishment when it wasn’t absolutely necessary for her to do so. She was growing increasingly more suspicious that the city of Mansoura was growing suspicious of her. Legally speaking, she was a missing person, despite this, she had still decided to make a publicly visible appearance at Omran’s funeral, on the night of which, her own brother died in a way which, to the authorities, was very much shrouded in mystery. The whole country and much of the surrounding region knew that Aisha Abdulaziz had been the main perpetrator of the murders which had plagued the nation not long ago. However, the whole country was also drawing a blank in terms of actually finding said culprit, making alternate theories more and more popular in the eyes of both the public and the establishment. Zapata knew that, no matter what conclusion was ultimately drawn, any vigilante detective would immediately track her as a vitally important witness to this case which she truly hoped to avoid being involved in at all costs. She needed to get out of this city, but in the meantime, she’d have to stay in the singular plot of land devoid of those wretched rumors, that of the almost pitifully sized courtyard. 

There was a very specific reason as to why Zapata chose the courtyard out of all other rooms to spend most of her time in. It was an open space, a relatively empty space, and perhaps the only space within the entire building where she could recklessly swing around a scythe without the risk of it hitting a wall or another person. Zapata was in training, not for a specific event but in order to achieve a specific state of being. She was weak, her brushups with Thabr had made that fact about herself quite difficult to ignore. Furthermore, she knew that relying entirely on the dark assistance of her patron deity was not a reliable or healthy way to fix her problems. Zapata needed to find a way in which she could be strong on her own, able to defend herself using only herself to do so.

Zapata’s training regimen was one which likely could’ve been much more refined if she had had any actual experience in the field. Most of her time was spent either running laps until her legs got tired or practicing individual swings of her scythe based on techniques she stole directly from the hypernet. It was during these sessions where she really began to understand how ungainly the scythe was as a weapon. It was obviously not a utensil designed to do much more than harvest grain, but alas, it remained associated with death, so she simply had to use it.

At around 2:30 PM, when the sun was bright in the sky but no longer within its center, Zapata was greeted by her one and only training partner, Vraxi Nair. The duo had begun this partnership out of two shared necessities, one public and one private, the public need being that they both understood that the physical challenges they would have to face in the future would only grow in treachery and that they simply had to be prepared for said challenges and the second, unspoken need being that both still hoped to mend their relationship in some way or another, not to ever rekindle the flame of romance but at least to recharge the lightbulb of friendship. The agreement they had set out sought to involve them in at least one fair duel everyday for as long as they were to stay within Mansoura. Zapata had the feeling that they might be leaving soon and was already beginning to feel nostalgia for this tradition which was yet to end. Zapata’s fondness for this practice was almost definitely aided by the fact that she was yet to lose a single battle.

“Hey, Zapata!” Vraxi shouted out as she rushed over to her companion with sword in hand, “you probably won’t believe me when I say this but I’ve genuinely got quite a good feeling about today’s duel.”

Zapata smirked. This was not the first time Vraxi had said something like this. Regardless, she was excited to see what was in store for her. Vraxi didn’t seem to ever learn things about her weapon via the traditional method of online research, instead opting to try whatever strange technique her mind could spurt out on its own. This made her form unpredictable, but ultimately manageable, fun to fight with but easy to beat. 

“I find it somewhat difficult to believe that statement,” Zapata joked before entering a fighting stance, “but we might as well commence if you feel so prepared.”

Vraxi immediately began running towards Zapata in a zigzagged pattern. She had always figured that it was more difficult to defend against than if she approached in a straight line. It wasn’t, but Zapata never bothered to explain that to her as she found it somewhat comedic. 

When the time came for Vraxi to make her first direct attempt at a slash against her opponent, Zapata didn’t find it very difficult to react with a similar slash of her own. This left the two of them in a position where both of their blades were left pushing against each other and both of their bodies were left holstered in a standstill. Zapata appreciated positions like these. Vraxi barely ever tried to back away from them, always thinking that she had the power within her to break apart the stalemate, even though she was yet to ever succeed in doing so. Zapata, however, was quite talented in ceasing such impasses, utilizing the curved nature of her own blade to destabilize that of her opponents, almost always leaving Vraxi in a much worse position than that which she had started in. Therefore, on finding herself within this advantageous state yet again, Zapata prepared herself to repeat her tried and true strategy. What Zapata forgot in that moment was that Vraxi was always willing to test out the absurd, which in this particular scenario, involved a direct kick to the crotch.

A sudden burst of pain shocked Zapata’s mind. Never had she expected for Vraxi to attempt such a brazen strategy, yet, as the pain began to subside, she could only feel pride for her rival. She had nearly been knocked off her feet, she had nearly been bested, but at this point in her life, she had grown to expect the unexpected and was therefore ready and willing to react to such a surprise.

Vraxi, however, was not ready for Zapata’s steel-toed boot, from a pair she had gifted to her when the two were still together, to come careening into her petite but still rather sensitive penile region. By trying to exploit an opportunity presented to her, Vraxi had only made her own greatest weakpoint more visible. Alas, this was truly a terror wrought by none other than herself. She fell to the ground and her sword fell beside her. She had been defeated yet again and only herself was to blame.

“Good… job,” Vraxi murmured on the cusp of her breath, only barely making her words heard through the pain.

“Thanks,” Zapata replied cheerfully, hoping to follow it with an apology of some sort but unable to bring herself to voice one. She had improved her relationship with Vraxi, but it all still felt off. She couldn’t help but hate her for what she had dragged her into, for what it had caused to those around her, to Emiliano. She still thought of herself as a friend to Vraxi, but it was a friendship drowned in complications, and while moments like these could build up a foundation of trust, they could never heal the wounds that lay beneath the base structure. Zapata craved simplicity, but she knew it was something she would never receive, and deep down, she wasn’t sure if she really genuinely wanted everything which she craved for.

Diogo Celestino laid dormant in his room, but only within a strictly physical lens of viewing existence, for at that same moment he was also exploring a world beyond worlds, where every page of every book that has ever been written, will be written, and could be written all coalesced into one single unified location, the Library of All Things. Despite the general purpose of such an institution, however, Diogo was not looking to find a particular book, rather he was looking for a person, a person who he was once so very close to but now felt so very distant from, his former mentor, Octávio Cavalcanti. 

However, it had been one entire cycle of the moon since Diogo last came into contact with Octávio and he was starting to consider if it went against the whims of fate for such a meeting to ever convene again. Perhaps, this was all against his best interests. Perhaps, he was looking to the past simply to ignore the future, but he knew Octávio was out there, and he could tell that there was some mysterious force driving an unseen wedge between the two. At this point, what Diogo desired more than anything was closure, to at least have one final conversation with Octávio that could settle all the confusions he still had about the world he lived in and the many worlds he could only dream of living in. That information was surely somewhere, in fact, it was surely written in one of these books, however difficult the collection may be to navigate, but truthfully, he needed to hear it from Octávio’s mouth, for there was no voice which he trusted more, and there was similarly no voice which he could forgive so easily. He just needed to spark one last opportunity to properly speak with Octávio, something which he had only ever been able to accomplish amidst situations that were already incredibly stressful and time-dependent. While he appreciated the level of relative peace which he had been enjoying in Mansoura as of late, what he desired more than anything was a chance at adventure, a chance at risk, a risk of mortal peril which could instigate the event he yearned for so dearly. He needed a call to action, luckily, he was about to receive one. 

Diogo’s otherworldly trance was promptly broken by the noisy ringing of his own smartphone. He immediately flung himself back into his own reality and answered the call before he even had the chance to check who was calling.

“Hello fine individual contacting me on this admittedly less than fine day,” Diogo stated in response to the rain that had begun to afflict this city so clearly not designed for such frequent precipitation, “if you happen to be that guy who keeps trying to sell me illegal Sofalan quinoa, please end this dialogue immediately and also please stop trying to call me with new numbers. I already said that I was not interested.”

“Diogo, it’s me,” said a familiar voice in an unfamiliar tone.

“Shui Hailang? I’ve been waiting for you to reach out! What’s been happening with you? You don’t sound as jovial as usual, and while I really wish to catch up, I can’t help but first ask what’s wrong.”

“Well, a lot of things have gone very wrong since we last spoke. You’re aware of that demon I mentioned, right?”

“I’m aware as I could be without having confidential information.”

“Well, we’re starting to think that it isn’t a demon.”

“Oh, so is it like a ghost? You said you liked dealing with ghosts, didn’t you?”

“I wish it was a ghost, Diogo. It honestly seems to be something entirely new and entirely unprecedented, a whole new breed of evil really. Speaking of which, the destruction it’s been causing has really gotten out of hand as of late. The Rizhaonese government’s been having to cover it all up as a series of terrorist bombings, you’ve probably already been hearing about them in the news.”

“I don’t read the news.”

“At all? This has been making up front page articles.”

“Why should I trust the news when you just told me that they’ve been purposefully spreading false information?”

“I… I guess that’s fair. Either way, things are pretty obviously bad, and I’m already suspecting that these cover-ups are only gonna be put under more and more scrutiny as we continue with things. We really need to start adopting a new strategy of dealing with this entity, and honestly, we really need some help from the international community.”

“Hold on, are you suggesting something?”

“Well, Diogo, there’s a reason I called you. I could definitely use some extra manpower and I’d also appreciate having some more creative minds.”

“So you’re asking me to be a demonbuster?”

“Diogo, I already told you that we’re dealing with something outside the realm of demonology. But sure, I would really appreciate it if you and your team came over to help me with things, the government would pay for your flight, obviously.”

“What class?”

“I’d assume business.”

“Then you’ve got a deal my friend.”

“So,” Diogo announced to his trio of acquaintances, “you’re probably wondering why I gathered you all here today.”

“Well, you said that you were ordering pizza,” Vraxi responded, “I assumed that you brought us all here to ask what toppings we wanted.”

“Vraxi,” Zapata clarified with a look of minor betrayal in her eyes, “at this point I’m almost entirely sure that the pizza was nothing more than a rouse.”

“Diogo,” Theta began, “you really can’t keep making empty promises regarding pizza only to curtail such desires in order to fuel your own agenda. There has to be better ways. I can’t even consume food, let alone digest mozzarella, and even I feel conned whenever you do this.”

“Y’all, I get why you might be unhappy, but where we’re going, we won’t need pizza.”

“Are you taking us out to eat?” Vraxi asked.

“No. This has nothing to do with food. Earlier today, I got a call from our friend Hailang, remember them? Anyways, they want us to head over to Rizhao, free of charge, business class . Really, you’ve gotta admit we’re moving up in the world. Nobody’s ever offered to pay for my airfare before, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever even entered a passenger aircraft, I usually just illegally enter cargo ships when I really need to get somewhere.”

“Hold on,” Zapata butted in, “before you get ahead of yourself, could you explain why Hailang actually wants us to head over there in the first place?”

“Well, it seems like there’s some sort of unknown, unidentifiable, all-consuming, supernatural entity terrorizing the town. It’s probably not a huge deal, but they did say they needed help, and they did seem to believe that we had it in us to eliminate whatever ghoul is causing all this mayhem.”

Zapata stopped to think. She couldn’t be sure about it, but unidentifiable supernatural oddities sounded like exactly the kind of thing that Joey, in all his arrogance, might try to pull off only a month after cheating death. She didn’t have any other leads, she had to take the job. She spoke up.

“Well, it sounds like a noble goal to me. I’m willing to go. How about you, Theta?”

“Well, it sounds like this entity is really hurting a lot of people and has the potential to hurt many more, whatever it is, something has to be done about it. I’m ready to leave as soon as you are. And you, Vraxi?”

“Oh, I mean, absolutely. I’ve always wanted to see Rizhao. Well, that’s a lie, but Hailang seemed to describe it rather fondly, so there must be something to it. Either way, this sounds like a rewarding and righteous initiative, not only that but it’s an excuse to get out of this admittedly cramped headquarters for once. I’m in, Diogo, when’s the flight.”

“Oh, it’s not until tomorrow morning”

“So you’re saying that there’s plenty of time for you to order a pizza or two right around now.”

“Well, not necessarily-”

“You dug your own grave, Diogo Celestino, now you have to lay in it. I’ll have salami and onion on my slices.”

Chapter Text

40,000 feet above the ground, on an electric jet flying from Mansoura to Rizhao, squeezed into the middle seat with a kicking-inclined juvenile sitting behind her, Vraxi finally felt at peace. The night before had been quite hectic once the quartet remembered that Theta was legally the property of GüdTek and, therefore, probably shouldn’t simply stroll into an international flight with their human-level intelligence and all. Luckily, they managed to find a way of successfully disassembling the suit-vac and distributing its parts among their overhead luggage. Theta themself, that is their central computer, was able to make it on as Vraxi’s carry-on, disguised as just another laptop, one that just happened to have a slightly pretentious design on it. 

Vraxi had always been a quiet fan of the aviation experience. There was something about being in a cramped tube that was itself surrounded by a wide open sky which made her feel just the slightest bit cozy, even if the riding experience was designed in such a way to be found generally uncomfortable by most people who partook in it. Whenever she stepped on an aircraft, she was reminded of the first time she ever did so, merely a toddler then, all alone, leaving her home and family in Ashtamudi for the chance to receive what her mother deemed ‘a proper education’ in the Novaplex. It was one of the most frightening experiences of her life, but every time she found herself entering the metal doorway of a machine designed for flight, she was reminded as to how far she had come since those dreary days of her life. 

As the plane began to enter Rizhaonese airspace, Vraxi tried to prepare herself for what was yet to come. She had spent the past eight and a half hours in a state of half sleeping, never truly fully awake and never truly at rest. It was this liminal experience of consciousness that made flying such an enchanting prospect for Vraxi, but with little time left before the plane would reach the ground, she had to force herself to drift into a state of wakefulness appropriate enough for moving through a busy airport. Before she could leave her beloved mediary zone, however, a message began to play on the intercom.

“Hello passengers, this is your pilot speaking, it looks like there’s gonna be a tad bit of rough air as we make our way into Rizhao International Airport. It’s possible that this may delay our landing by a few minutes, so if you have a connecting flight I’d suggest that you-”

The message cut off mid-sentence. It didn’t start back up again, instead just leaving a long pause for the entire cabin to mull over. Vraxi thought of this all to be rather concerning, and with each passing second of silence, her concerns only seemed to grow more and more credible. She leaned over to Zapata, hoping to clarify her dismay.

“Hey, do you know why the intercom just stopped like that?”

“I don’t know, it’s probably just a tech issue, I doubt it’s anything serious.”

Vraxi didn’t like that answer. It felt forced, or at least built upon a foundation of reason which was devoid of all forms of skepticism. Of course Zapata wouldn’t believe that anything out of the ordinary was occurring, she was the same person who wished that her life had remained within that paradigm of the platonic ordinary. Zapata could easily be blinded by wishful thinking, what Vraxi therefore needed was someone who was willing to think far outside of the box, so far that it might start ceasing to even be relevant to any of the matters held within that initial box, that someone being Diogo Celestino.

“Pssst, hey, Diogo, don’t you think it’s kinda weird how the pilot just got cut off suddenly? What do you think that was?”

“Vraxi, I’ve been pondering that exact same question. My first guess, unsurprisingly, was that the copilot suddenly betrayed his mentor, hoping to replace him by taking his life. However, then I realized that they would probably wait to do that until the pilot was no longer on the mic, in order to reduce the potential evidence. So honestly, I’m not so sure what’s supposed to be going on, but whatever it is, it definitely doesn’t sound good.”

“That’s for sure,” Vraxi paused, “um, Diogo, you don’t think it could maybe be something supernatural, do you?”

“I really hope it isn’t, Vraxi, but at this point I really can’t be sure. We might wanna get off our seats and start checking things out for ourselves.”

“Y’all,” Zapata groaned, “can we just calm down for a second? I think you're seriously underestimating the potential for the benign here. Please stay seated, the seatbelt light is on and I don’t want to get in trouble for you two breaking the rules. Imagine if they try to double-check our passports afterwards and find out there just Allodapos fakeries?”

“I sincerely doubt they’d be able to detect that,” Diogo chimed in, smirking just a little as he did so, “the Society has some truly elite forgers on their payroll. They don’t make mistakes. Period.”

“Regardless, how about we just try to avoid putting ourselves in any potentially exposing positions. Okay?”

Vraxi still wasn’t happy with Zapata’s line of reasoning. Simultaneously, she wasn’t sure if she could really trust Diogo. She needed an additional opinion. She pulled Theta out from her bag and began to type on their interface an inquiry which she was dying to see answered succinctly.

“Hey Theta, would you potentially be able to access any of the cameras used within this vehicle?”

“Yes, with quite ease actually.”

“Could you check to see if anything strange happened to the pilot? I’m beginning to have suspicions over their wellbeing.”

There was a short gap in which no follow-up was sent, followed by a message Vraxi could only describe as ominous.

“Oh no.”

“What is it? Can you see anything?”

Theta then sent an image to Vraxi. It was horrific. A room covered almost entirely in the blood of the two pilots, the entire front window covered in a blanket of deep red. Vraxi could barely believe what was happening, it felt as if this was all some sort of sick trick but she knew that Theta would never lie to her. Vraxi rapidly began to process the fact that she was no longer safe. Terrible things were bound to happen to her at any moment. Her hands felt shaky, her stomach was sore, but she had to ignore it all. She needed to do something, even if she didn’t yet know exactly what, to prevent whatever unconscionable thing that was about to happen from happening. But first, she needed to alert the others of the forbidden knowledge which she had now come to terms with.

“Oh fuck no,” Zapata muttered, “this can’t be happening, this really can’t be happening.”

“Well,” Diogo added, “I suspected something like this might occur. We all know that there’s something dangerous and unnatural terrorizing the people of Rizhao, something which likely has some deep connection, most likely a negative one, with the divine, and we’re over here bringing Theta, one of the most divine beings we know to exist, right up to its doorstep. It can probably detect all of this, and if it’s not trying to give us an omen to turn back while we still have time, it’s probably trying to just get rid of us upfront.”

“How can you talk about this so casually?” Vraxi asked in a stunned and almost slightly annoyed tone.

“Vraxi, in my line of work, one which we now share and you’re gonna have to get used to, you see a lot of innocent people die in front of you. You can try to stop some of these deaths from happening, but you can’t stop all of them. Some people are just doomed by fate.”

“Okay, sure, I guess. But what are we even supposed to do about all this? We might die!” Vraxi was having difficulties with keeping her voice below a mezzo forte.

“There should be some parachutes around here, I can teach you two the ropes of skydiving pretty quick and we’ll be on the ground in no time.”

“Diogo,” Zapata stated bluntly, “we are in a packed plane full of lives that could be ended at any moment. We can’t just leave them all here. We need to land this thing or we’re gonna have blood dripping down all of our hands for the rest of our guilty existences.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I never went to pilot school! I doubt either of you did either!”

“Well, if it isn’t a problem,” Theta spoke through their laptop’s speaker, “I know how to fly a plane. I’ve never done it before but it’s all information public on the hyperent so it’s pretty much memorized for me.”

The lights in the cabin went dark, following that, the turbulence became significantly harder to ignore. People began to scream.

“Zapata, Diogo,” Vraxi narrated, “I can be Theta’s hands. We can land this plane if we just find a way to work together, but we’ve gotta start moving now .”

When Vraxi made it to the door which she knew two brutalized corpses were idling behind, she felt a slimy sickness overtake her, one which made it difficult for her to muster up the courage necessary to grab the door handle. She took a deep breath, but before she could motion her hand any closer, the door sprung open on its own, spraying a torrent of sanguine fluid at her face in the process. While the lack of light in the cabin made it so that few people were actively aware of Vraxi and her posse moving through it, the reaction caused by her attempt at deescalation made everyone very aware of the terror they were now behold to. The screams, understandably, began to increase in both frequency and volume, and the worst was still yet to come. Before Vraxi could even step inside the room which contained more gallons of blood than she thought were even present within the bodies of two average humans, the body of the copilot began to twitch. At first, she just brushed this off as a vestigial spasm of a trauma-exposed musculature, a spooky occurrence which was still entirely grounded in science. Directly after Vraxi made this conclusion, much to her dismay, the body of the copilot stood up, followed by that of their partner, and the both of them stared directly at Vraxi and she was forced by both fear and common courtesy to stare back. It was the stuff of nightmares, but Vraxi knew that she wouldn’t be able to just wake up.

“Oh porra!” Diogo yelled, adding yet more sounds to the growing cacophony, “they’ve got fucking zombies in there!”

“This really can’t be happening,” Zapata muttered. Some of her old witchcraft buddies used to talk about resurrecting the dead with varying levels of seriousness, but she never expected to ever see a dead body just reanimate in front of her.

Vraxi herself was too terrified to verbally address the monstrosity before her, but she was able to let out a scream that made it sound like she was a small dog undergoing excruciating pain.

“Everybody, calm down!” Diogo announced to the cabin, “it’s only two zombies, they can be handled with. Don’t worry, I’m a professional. Now, I’m not sure if these are the slow kind or the fast kind, but I just need everyone who can hear me to avoid panicking. Okay?”

Before Diogo’s audience could give a coherent response, the copilot gave a clear response to Diogo’s inquiry by sprinting undeterred at Vraxi and, presumably, the vital organs stored inside her.

Vraxi was unsure how to respond. She had been training for a long while now with Zapata, honing her martial abilities and learning how to utilize her sword to a passable degree, but she wasn’t prepared for such danger to be sprung upon her so suddenly. It became quite clear to her that she didn’t have the time to reposition herself, she didn’t have time to spot out a weakpoint in the zombie’s form, all she had the time for was to summon her sword and start stabbing aimlessly, so that’s exactly what she did.

Vraxi plunged the tip of her blade into the copilot’s chest cavity, causing an array of unpleasant fluids to splurge out of its backside, but not, unfortunately, causing the zombie to become deterred in any way, with it continuing to carry forth its actions fueled by an unrelenting unlife that prospered within its rotting heart. Vraxi thought about trying to remove her sword from the living body and maybe then attempting to stab it again in a place that might matter, however, even if the zombie wasn’t necessarily harmed by having a sword placed halfway through its abdomen, it was partially immobilized by it. Therefore, Vraxi figured that it might be best for the sake of the passengers if she instead opted to just leave her blade lodged inside the resident undead and rushed to the control panel in the meantime.

The first part of Vraxi’s plan worked quite well. The zombie, not a very intellectually versed being, was unsure of what to do when Vraxi ran away from them with the sword still very much inside them. They ended up making an attempt at following Vraxi but the aforementioned sword-in-chest made it difficult to navigate through the tight hallways, eventually causing them to give up on that endeavor entirely.

The second part of Vraxi’s plan did not work quite as well, as she had forgotten a rather important aspect of the situation she was occupying. When she made it to the control panel, she had to contend with the fact that the zombified pilot was still entirely present and that she was still entirely without a weapon.

Zapata had prepared for exactly this situation. Well, ‘exactly’ might be too strong of a word but she was absolutely preparing for situations similar to this one. She knew that she was going to get into some weird fights and she knew that many of them would likely incorporate some element of the paranormal or unreal. That was about as prepared as she could possibly get. So why then, she wondered, we’re her feet refusing to move? She had fought people before, and in comparison, fighting zombies should have even less of a moral questionability, but there was some mental block within her that was preventing her from taking any meaningful action.

Zapata was scared. She was scared of many things and she always had been. She was scared of both doing and not doing and what consequences either course of action could result in. She never wanted to be here. She had abandoned a future that was now impossible to achieve for a future that seemed more important but which she also never desired to have in the first place. She wished there was a way out of all of this, a third path that could get her as far away from the yellow brick road which she was being swirled into. She wondered if she could make it to that third path through inaction. She wondered whether, if she just did nothing at all, she could freeze her surroundings in a way, and from there, take a deep step back and refresh. It was an option she yearned for dearly, but the longer she stood still, the more she understood how it would never come to be.

Zapata took a long hard look at the zombie which Vraxi had since impaled. It was covered in blood and sinew but they were arranged and colored in such a way that highlighted how recent the copilot’s death really was. Mere minutes ago, the beast that stood before her was a living, breathing human being, one with a fluid but full future, just like her. She and the copilot, while they had never met during the latter’s life, were really quite similar, in that all humans living contemporaneously share quite a few similarities. She could never know exactly how alike they really were, and that only made her ponder further what they could possibly share. Perhaps, this copilot never even wanted to get a job in aviation in the first place, maybe he was more of an artist, but through some means or another, was thrust into the field by circumstance. Zapata could never know these things for sure, they were all speculation, but the fact that they all could be true made her think deeper about the death which allowed this living death to stand in front of her. The copilot died suddenly and, most likely, with many things in life they wanted to do but could now never achieve. Zapata, like the copilot, had the chance to die at any moment, and in this moment, she realized what this all meant for her. She was heading down a path she didn’t like the look of, but there were still many milestones along the way which she was desperate to achieve. Zapata still had the potential to pursue a greater purpose even after this strange curveball was thrown at her, and if she gave up on pursuing what she really wanted in life just because her life was behaving slightly differently than she thought it would, then she would ultimately end up like the copilot, dead but still with much to do.

Zapata summoned her scythe. While she found the copilot’s story, or at least the story she had made up in her head for them, to be quite poignant, she couldn’t just allow a supernatural fiend to terrorize the plane’s aisles. So, in one clean swoop, she fully separated the zombie’s head from its body, leaving it in a position that even an undead monstrosity such as itself couldn’t recover from.

When Zapata finished internally mourning the death of the copilot which she had begun to grow attached to, seeing so much of herself in them, even if they were long gone, she turned to see how things were fairing within the cockpit. To understate the matter, things were not going well. It appeared that the pilot was significantly better equipped to ward off attackers when compared to their understudy. They had already managed to give both Vraxi and Diogo a bloody wound or two, using nothing but the plastic knives provided alongside the inflight dinner. This was quite worrying for Zapata, as she needed Vraxi’s hands to be free if she wanted her to actually land the plane. She would need to get the zombie to move away from her. She needed a distraction.

“Hey Mr. Zombie! I’ve got a plate full of brains with your name on it!” Zapata yelled, assuming that the zombie might be intrigued by such a delicacy, “but you’ve gotta come down here if you want a taste!”

“Oh, that’s genius,” Diogo remarked before turning to his undead combatant, “hey, follow me, I’ve got a big stash of human nervous systems stored in the back of the bird, you just gotta trail behind me for a bit and your reward will be plentiful.”

The reanimated corpse of the pilot looked perplexed, but not quite lost, almost as if they were just able to grace the meanings of the words presented to them. They stopped mindlessly stabbing their surroundings and began to, rather cautiously, totter along the path made by Diogo into the aisle and towards Zapata.

As soon as the zombie had made it a few wary steps outside the cockpit, Vraxi rushed to the door, slammed it shut, and locked it for good, finally giving herself the room to start landing this rather unwieldy vehicle.

“Okay,” Vraxi stated, panting and still trying to wipe off some of the blood from her bruised left arm, “Theta, how do I land this thing?”

“Well, first you’re gonna want to take a seat and buckle your harness.”

“I mean, I sort of assumed that,” Vraxi replied as she did exactly as she was told.

“I thought you would as well, but there’s a lot of lives on the line here, I can’t risk you skipping any of the preliminary steps.”

“You know what, that’s entirely fair, I’m sorry. What should I do next?”

“Well it says here that you should ‘take a breather’ so-”

“Wait, what do you mean by ‘ it says’? I thought you had this all memorized?”

“Well, the thing is, yes I have access to basically all the information the hypernet has to offer, but I don’t have it all in my short-term storage. So I need to reread things from time to time, like in this instance, where I’ve pulled up the WikiHow for how to land an airplane in an emergency.”

“You're using WikiHow !? WikiHow still exists?”

“Listen, I understand that not every article is reliable, but this one was written by an expert with real experience in the subject matter. I don’t have anything else to give you here, we’re gonna need to rely on WikiHow.”

“Y’know what, I’m sorry, it’s fine, it’ll all be fine, I just need to focus. Okay, alright, okay, okay.”

“Are you doing okay?”

“Not really, but I’m fine enough to continue, what’s the next step?”

Diogo wasn’t exactly sure as to how he should deal with the ruthless monster he had summoned into the aisle, now entirely within the reach of the innocent passengers who were all quite alarmed by its presence. It seemed like the pilot was starting to grow aware that the brains which they had been promised were not truly extant commodities but rather theoretical nothings designed to fool their hampered mind, and they were beginning to appear more and more impatient as time passed on. This worried Diogo, but he was nonetheless comforted by the fact that an armed Zapata Tochihuitl remained by his side throughout this entire ordeal, only separated by the beast which they had baited into the area between them. 

“Um, Zapata,” Diogo began, hoping to find an end to their current necrocentric problem, “do you wanna try to, y’know, slice the turkey, make the crows howl, nip this whole shebang in the butt?”

“Are you asking about whether I should kill it?”

“Well, yeah, it’s just that I don’t want to sound suspicious to the other passengers, so I opted to use euphemism.”

“You can’t just make up a euphemism on the spot though, there needs to be an existing cultural context. What is ‘make the crows howl’ even supposed to imply?”

“Zapata, are you gonna shimmy down this sousaphone or what? The zombie’s gonna realize it’s been duped soon enough and we’re gonna need some contingencies if you don’t act now.”

“I will! It’s just, I wanna make sure I get it in one swipe. It seems to be a lot more competent than that previous ghoul is all.”

“Zapata, you can’t just try to wait for a perfect moment to strike, you need to settle on a mediocre moment or you’re gonna keep on waiting until your head’s bleeding into the carpet.”

Zapata couldn’t argue against Diogo’s logic. He was right, she was being too much of a perfectionist, it was a role she always strived to put herself in, but given her current situation, it was no longer one which she could reasonably achieve. She was stuck in a world where she’d have to settle. So, after a precise eying of her curved blade’s immediate trajectory and a simple little prayer to no one in particular, perhaps it was to Santa Muerte, perhaps it was to Emiliano, perhaps still it was merely to the powers that be, she rapidly tighten every tendon in her arms and swinged her scythe with all the might she had stored up in her growing stamina, causing the zombie’s skull and upper neck to swiftly detach from it’s body and be flinged thirty feet down the length of the aircraft.

“I did it!” Zapata announced, both proud and surprised that such a powerful foe could go down with such relative ease, “I did it, Diogo, you were right, I just had to focus and pick a time in the present to attack and everything worked out in the end.”

“You’re welcome, Zapata. Some say my advice is unmatched in my field and I’m glad you get to be yet another source to that claim.”

Zapata felt a joyous applause well up within her. It was that easy, she was so astonished to discover that it was really that easy. She truly had improved her craft since she had first arrived in Mansoura. When she touched down in that city that was now filled with unpleasant memories, she could barely even hold the scythe she now wielded with the skill of a savant. She generally tried to avoid self-praise, but this really felt like an occasion worthy of such a thing. Of course, such praise would very much be limited to the area encompassed by her own mind, as the rest of the cabin’s population seemed to still be quite frightened by all of their recent disturbances. Strangely, though, while they had been voicing such exclamations with rigorous vigor not long ago, their vociferocity had dimmed down by a significant margin since then. In fact, a peculiar silence seemed to overtake the room. Zapata had been sure that, mere moments earlier, she could barely hear her own thoughts, but now, she couldn’t hear anything but them. This strange phenomenon combined with the darkness of the plane’s interior made her feel incredibly isolated even though she knew she was surrounded by people, yet still, she couldn’t see Diogo anymore, she couldn’t make out the floor anymore, something deeply wrong had to be happening, these events were not connected by random chance, there had to be a supernatural thread connecting them. She could no longer feel her own hands.

Suddenly, a single line broke the viscous silence, one without a clear origin but surely with a purpose.

“ Nuestra Señora de los Dolores exige una ofrenda ”

‘Our Lady of Sorrows demands an offering.”

Zapata was stunned and confused, unsure as to how she should even interpret the words she had just heard. She wanted to find a source for the strange, ghostly voice, but she could barely see things a foot in front of herself. Everything was so devoid of light that she was losing track as to what direction she was even facing. She felt vulnerable, like something awful might be sprung upon her at any moment.

The lights came back on, or at least, some form of light had appeared within the cabin. This new light was distinct from the kind that had been shone throughout the majority of flight in that it was tinged with a deep red that laid a stark contrast on all the faces present in the aircraft’s many seats. There was something off about the faces. Now facing the opposite direction of where she had been when she had dealt with the zombie, she was faced with a sea of sleeping countenances. The once raucous crowd was now in a state of dreaming, not a single eye was open, not a single eye outside of her own. Something was wrong. She needed to alert Vraxi and Theta. She needed to turn around.

Another zombie had materialized, one with a face Zapata recognized. She was now standing parallel from an undead Diogo Celestino. He looked at her with a blank, mindless stare, one that craved little more than the piercing of human flesh within its maw. Zapata was speechless, yet she needed to speak.

“Not you,” she managed to squeak out, “what… what happened here? Are you still there?”

Zapata was not met with a reply, only the heavy breathing and shrill squawks of something that viewed her as little more than potential prey.

While the situation in the cabin had gotten quite out of hand, the situation in the cockpit had since stabilized somewhat. Theta had been able to successfully direct Vraxi to level the vehicle, reinstate autopilot, and operate the radio to contact aircraft control. The operator seemed to be rather young, apparently having never had to deal with a serious issue amid a flight, no less the passing of two pilots, but managed to remain calm, understanding that those actually inside the plane were in a significantly less calm scenario then they were themself.

“Okay then,” the operator announced, “You said your name was Vraxi, right? I’ve got good news for you. I’ve made some calls and we were able to clear traffic on a significantly sized strip of the Weiri expressway. It’ll be a bit of a tight squeeze for a beginner but it’s more than enough room for a safe touchdown. Don’t worry, I’ll be guiding you as you land. Everything will be fine, I just need you to stay calm.”

“Okay,” Vraxi replied in a deeply strained voice as she gripped her thigh with a firmness she had never managed to exhibit prior, “there shouldn’t be any problems, let me just mute my audio real quick.”

“Wait why-” the operator was cut off before they could elicit a proper response.

“Theta,” Vraxi almost moaned out as she sunk her head deeper and deeper down into her own lap and then further into her knees, “what am I supposed to do here?”

“Vraxi,” Theta spoke slowly and softly from their singular speaker, “I think you’ll just have to be really careful with everything.”

“I know that, but I can barely trust myself to make tea in the morning without spilling hot water everywhere and scalding myself. I don’t have the motor skills to land a commercial jet! Can’t you just wriggle your way into this thing’s software and land it yourself.”

“I could probably affect the autopilot if I tried hard enough, but landing itself requires a manual input. As long as my body is stuck in the undertow, I won’t be able to assist in any kinetic manner.” 

“Do you think there might be any way to grab someone from the cabin who might have more experience?”

“The cabin might still be dangerous, and we’re gonna be landing quite soon anyways, getting out of your seat now would not be a recommendable strategy.”

“This sucks, this really sucks. I’m not sure if I can do this.”

“Don’t say that, Vraxi. We’ll get through this, together.”

“Together?”

“Why would we be doing it apart?”

“It’s not that it’s just, nevermind. I just, I’ve been feeling really isolated as of late, I mean I’ve always felt isolated, isolation is probably one of the purest forms of my own existence, it’s just not something I enjoy, or at least not something I try to enjoy.”

“What are you trying to say, Vraxi?”

“I’m not trying to say any one thing in particular. I’m more just trying to express an emotion, a feeling, one that is strong internally but might be completely absent externally. I, the thing is, I really appreciate your company, Theta. I just want you to be aware of that, because I'm never entirely sure if what I try to say at any given moment is actually interpreted in the way I intend it to be. It’s something I struggle with a lot, not knowing if the words I say out loud are exactly the same as the words that enter the ears of whoever I’m speaking to.”

“I struggle with that as well.”

“Alright, so you’re sure that no one in the cabin could step up to the pilot's seat instead of me?”

“Almost entirely, but I’ll check the camera in there real quick to see if the fighting’s died down at all.”

There was once again a pause as Theta checked to look through a digital interface, and once again, Theta was horrified to see what was on the other side.

“Is everything okay?” Vraxi asked, concerned by the silence.

“Definitely not. As long as I’m not being deceived, it appears like the zombies are all gone, but for some reason, Zapata looks to be trying to attack Diogo.”

Diogo Celestino had been backstabbed many times before. He had often been tricked by rogue agents, former collaborators with the Society who had since turned heel and opted to use their status as a way to hoodwink people such as himself. These individuals were usually already very experienced in the art of espionage at the time of their sudden betrayal, as the guilt of a newblood could be sensed from miles away and hours before they actually made the decision to enact any significant disturbance. This constant made Diogo doubt the likelihood that either of his most recent collaborators would reveal themselves to be working for the other side as they were, generously speaking, somewhat inexperienced. 

Therefore, when Zapata raised her blade at him and honed his heart as her target, Diogo was both surprised and suspicious. He was surprised that any counterintellegent would go so far into character for this mission without first opting to choose a career as an actor, and also suspicious of the conclusion that Zapata truly was a full on malefactor as she seemed like the kind of person who was easily susceptible to supernatural intervention, not to generalize, but she was never great at resisting the grip of her patron is all. So, instead of choosing to actively attack his friend whose friendship was now undergoing questioning, an action which he likely wouldn’t be able to complete even if he wanted to as he was fully unarmed, Diogo chose the route he often took in crises like this one, that of running away.

“Get back here! How dare you kill him!” Zapata roared as Diogo leaped over the middle row of seats and into the parallel aisle.

“Zapata, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Please try to think about who you’re swinging that weapon at. Hold on, do you still know my name?”

“Haven’t I gone through enough? Why did he have to die?” Zapata yelped as she ran around the length of the vehicle in order to reach Diogo.

“Okay, that’s strange. I’m not sure if you can hear me because that really didn’t answer the question. I’m also still not sure who died. Is this about Emiliano or someone else?”

“Why does everything that keeps happening to me keep happening? Don’t I deserve a break? Don’t I deserve kindness? Sure, I didn’t agree with him all the time, but surely Diogo could’ve lived, right? Why is nobody around me allowed to live?”

Zapata rounded the corner, putting her face-to-face with the man she was after. Diogo was stunned to hear what was spewing out of her mouth but if he didn’t properly respond to it, he could surely end up in serious mortal peril.

Diogo, slowly and carefully, without raising his voice or even a single finger, crouched to the ground. Then at that same tortoisenic pace, he laid his face and body fully flat on the carpet. It was a risk, he knew it to be so, but it was also the only way he could think of to portray himself as being as little of a threat as possible. He was surrendering, hoping that it would be met with some form of mercy, hoping that he could be spared, that such an action could lead Zapata into reconsidering what she had just done and eventually shaking off whatever dark force had encapsulated her heart. Diogo needed this to work, his entire livelihood was weighing upon this technique’s effectiveness. Regardless, not for a second did he doubt himself or his plan of action, for it required full confidence and belief in order for it to have any chance of working. So rather than panicking, Diogo simply allowed himself to lay there, staunch in his disposition and unbreaking in his courage. He had to believe in the process, but more importantly, he had to believe in Zapata, his friend.

Zapata was no longer sure of anything, the red glow that subsumed her was beginning to feel less and less real, making her own existence seem translucent as the colors faded around her. The zombie she was intent on killing now prostrated itself in front of her, as if she was the high priestess of some cult of the dead. In a way she was. Amidst the terror, she almost chuckled to herself due to the strange, twisted familiarly of her situation. She was stuck in a permanent state of deja vu, except she was remembering events that were yet to happen and recalling people that would never be born. She turned back to the zombie. She was losing her grip on own existence and she was losing the plot as to what the zombie even was. Why was it not attacking her? Did she not deserve to be attacked? What was it screaming about? Why did all of its mannerisms feel so familiar when they should’ve been alien? Who really was this zombie? Who was Diogo Celestino? Who was she to ask such questions? She sat down, placing herself beside the dormant zombie and looked directly at it in its eyes. She wanted to end its life, or whatever the state of existence it occupied could be called, but she lacked the resolve to do such a thing, and it seemed to lack the resolve necessary to fight back. They both lacked the resolve to do much of anything and in that way they were truly one in the same, no matter how many layers of consciousness could be peeled and unpeeled between them. In that brief moment where Zapata felt her mind as one which was ultimately not so different from those which were barely holding on to sentience, she gave an awkward hug to the planked undead. It just felt natural to her, like it was something she was obligated to see through.

Light flooded Zapata’s vision. The red wave was no more, flinging herself into a world of uncanny clarity. The noise turned back on, the once silent populace raising their voices once more. Darkness still creeped around the edges of her vision, but she was seeing in technicolor once again, and seeing an accurate picture for that matter. She had left whatever odd reality she had been occupying and was back in the standard parallel. Theoretically, everything should’ve gone back to normal, but there was still Diogo.

Zapata turned her head to face downward, towards the man she was half-laying upon, a man who seemed to be dedicated to the task of staying entirely still, a man who up until a few moments earlier was a member of the undead, a man by the name of Diogo Celestino.

“Diogo?” Zapata asked breathily in a gagged shock.

“Are you back to normal now?” Diogo replied, hoping that his partner might be able to understand him again.

“What just happened? You were a zombie? I thought you were dead? I heard this voice demanding an offering and I thought it had chosen you as a tribute? Are we still in the air? Am I making sense?”

“To answer your final question, somewhat. However, I think I can piece together what might’ve happened. Whatever entity killed those pilots probably enacted a curse of some kind which could alter your vision and make it seem as though I myself was a zombie as well. To be clear, I was not and never have been. I’m 100% human, born and bred, except I wasn’t really born, cuz of the whole podling thing. Either way, neither of us got harmed and you appear to be back to normal, so there’s no reason to worry.”

“… did I almost kill you?”

“Well, you definitely tried. It’s fine though, really. Remember, I deal with stuff like this all the time in my industry. Except, most of this magic stuff is actually pretty new to me, but it’s still pretty easily applicable-”

“Diogo, I am so incredibly sorry.”

“Hey now, don’t be. It’s not like it was really you in control there.”

“I should’ve been in control, I should’ve fought back. I had it in me to do so but I didn’t. This is all my fault.”

“Zapata, nobody’s dead, nobody’s even seriously injured. It’s fine. You can interpret this all however you want for future reference, but right now, we’re still in a plane being piloted by someone who lacks a driver’s license, so I suggest you hold onto something.”

“Vraxi, have you safely adjusted to a 44 degree angle?” the aircraft control attendant asked in an urgent but unimposing tone.

“Um..” Vraxi paused, double-checking to see that she had done absolutely everything she had been told to do, “I’m pretty sure. No, I’m fully sure. We’re set.”

“That’s good to hear Vraxi, now, hold on for just a second as I-”

The audio cut out. Vraxi was met with a stone silence only diluted by the roaring of the jet engines on either side of her.

“Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” Vraxi fumbled with her words, hoping desperately that whatever was happening was a momentary fluke, something that could be autocorrected any second now. Yet, as she begged and pleaded with the irrespondent speaker system, a cold fact of the matter lodged itself halfway down her esophagus, making it difficult for her to breathe.

“Vraxi,” Theta spoke softly, “we’ve fully lost communication with the ground. What is most important in this moment is that you don’t panic. Both me and you know that a spike in your anxiety would only make things worse. Stay cautious, but please don’t lose confidence here.”

“Th- Theta,” Vraxi could barely speak, “are we gonna die? Like, genuinely this time?”

“No, we’re not, Vraxi, listen to me . You’ve survived worse. We can do this. We just need to keep our minds clear and remain coordinated. Now, let me see if I can find a way to get us back online, but either way, you were already told everything that you need to do. It’s all in your mind, you just need to make it happen.”

Vraxi began to sweat at a pace she hadn’t achieved since middle-school physical education. Things were tense and there was no way for them to become less tense without her reaching the ground first.

“Hold on,” Theta interjected, “I think I might be picking up someone trying to contact us, let me just shoot out these radio waves from my speaker.”

Or perhaps, Vraxi considered, things could get less tense, far before the wheels skid across the asphalt. While she understood it might be a false hope, she allowed her tendons to depressurize slightly, before hearing a recognizable voice begin to speak aloud. It was not the voice of aircraft control.

“Hey y’all, it’s me, Shui Hailang, just checking in on how things are going up there. Well, that’s not the full story. I saw that the entity we’ve been tracking down seemed to have hopped onto your flight. I’m really sorry about that, by the way. It seems to have caused quite a lot of trouble for you two. Anyways, now it seems like, at least in this current exact particular moment, that the demon-adjacent being is no longer present there, so congrats on vanquishing the beast and whatnot. Unfortunately, the entity seems to have traveled, perhaps through the radio waves or perhaps through some entirely different method, to Rizhao International Airport, disrupting the activities of the local aircraft control and causing a significant amount of damage to the terminal. In order to prevent you all from dying some terrible death, I’ll step in as the role of the operator whose fate is currently unknown to us.”

“Wait,” Vraxi blurted, her lips still trembling, “you know how to land a plane?”

“Well, the funny thing is, not exactly, however I have pulled up this helpful WikiHow article-”

“That doesn’t help!”

A prolonged pause followed this interaction, only stopping when Theta, who wanted more than anything just to see a safe landing, finally spoke up.

“So, Hailang,” Theta began, “do you know what the weather is like down there?”

“Like on the ground? I mean, I’m pretty close to where y’all are planning to land, and I’m just idling outside, so I guess I’d say yes.”

“Do you happen to feel a crosswind?”

“Well it’s actually been quite mild the past few days so I wouldn’t say that there’s much wind flowing to begin with, cross or otherwise.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic!”

“Theta,” Vraxi groaned somewhat, “I really don’t think we can be calling anything about our current situation fantastic.”

“Vraxi, I totally understand where you're coming from, but you have no idea how much more plausible our success in this endeavor has just become. I’m gonna need you to activate autobreak.”

The descent continued smoothly, at a volume that was almost eerily quiet, far from silent as miniature dialogues filled up almost the entire runtime, but with voices so strained and with questions answered so immediately that any particularly strong or stressed heartbeat could be heard pumping amidst the storm of boiling pressure which had coagulated upon the room and its inhabitants so succinctly. 

“Vraxi,” Theta said calmly but with a practiced and hardened vigor, “when you reach a distance of 25 feet above the ground, you’re gonna need to flare the aircraft, in this instance that means raising the nose by roughly 13 degrees. Can you do that?”

Theta ended every one of their requests with a simple ‘Can you do that?’ that Vraxi both found infuriating and necessary. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if she could do any of these things, and the act of not doing them didn’t really seem like a choice to begin with, making the phrasing of these demands as questions confound and annoy her. Yet, she needed them to be questions, she needed to feel like she was autonomous, like she was making choices in the matter and that she could, through nothing but her own decisions, change her own fate. She was deathly worried that she was on a trip to the bottom without a way to exit, and however facetious they may be, the questions which Theta provided Vraxi made her feel as if she had just the smallest say in how she could prevent her own demise.

As Vraxi digested all of the stimuli that had been attacking her from every angle, she once again glanced at her altitude. She had fallen a significant distance, now cruising at a measly 50 feet above sea level. In a matter of seconds, that little number displayed on a screen in the corner of her vision had decreased to a 40, then a 30. She wanted to say a little prayer, but she didn’t have the time. All she could do was act or die, so she chose the former, and watched as her view drifted the slightest bit closer to the clear sky above her, the realm at the edge of the atmosphere which she was still trying to escape from alive.

“Pull the throttle back!” Theta ordered with the kind of calm aggressiveness that was necessary in order to convey information in a crisis like this one. 

Vraxi wordlessly and immediately extended her hand towards the black lever in the center of the console, initially misplacing it as her eyes were focused elsewhere. For a very brief moment in time, she wondered if this split-second mistake had ended everything, but before she could let panic fully envelope her, her fingers managed to hook onto an object she recognized as the throttle bar, which she rapidly wrenched all the way to divot marked with the words idle power .

“Now hit the breaks!” Theta added, not at all acknowledging the slight brush with catastrophe that they had just witnessed, knowing that any talk of the such could only heighten the stress of their situation.

Vraxi obliged to the demand and, once she felt the back wheels make contact with the pavement, gently but firmly applied pressure to the tops of the rubber pedals below her.

After eight seconds, the plane came to a stop.

Vraxi had done it. Nobody was dead.

Upon this realization of success, there was little else she could do but cry.

Chapter Text

Joey Axelrod had always despised the city of Trondheim. However, with it being the site of GüdTek’s European head office, he was often forced to embrace its arctic weather as a simple liability of his choice in occupation. Despite this, his frequent exposure with said weather did not make dealing with said weather any less of a grueling endeavor.

Adding on to his physical discomfort, Joey was also dealing with an undoubtedly strong mental discomfort to match. He was currently on his way to attend an unscheduled meeting with his old boss, Josephine Bran, a person who, as far as he could know, most likely had assumed that he was long dead. This meeting was one which he had planned ever since emerging from the fiery depths of Lucifer’s domain, but he had simultaneously always envisioned it as being one of celebration, specifically of celebrating his successful capture of the Singularity. 

Instead, Joey was coming empty-handed, having nothing to offer to Bran but his own body, one which even after the modifications it had endured after being sanctified through Satan, was still not enough. As he stood in front of the door to her office, he wondered if he should just turn around and leave his past behind. He had risked so much for Bran and was yet to receive much of a reward. However, all that time waiting made him feel like that reward was just around the corner. He wasn’t sure if he would have another opportunity to just abandon his life at GüdTek as he did so now, but he also wasn’t sure whether, if he did leave the door closed, he would ever have a chance to open it again. 

Then, he thought about Theta. If he turned his heel now, he might never get to talk with them again. That one fact was all Joey needed to make a conclusion. He would open the door now, but this would be the last time. He wasn’t sure if there ever would be a next time, but he knew that if it ever was presented to him, if he was ever stood in front of another door like this one, he would leave it shut, just not today.

“Hello, Madame,” Joey spoke clearly to the CEO whose eyes were still focused on a sheaf of papers atop her desk.

“Joey Axelrod?” Bran responded with a confusion that wasn’t quite as pronounced as Joey had hoped it would be.

“Yes, I know. You saw me die, but that wasn’t exactly the full story. You see-”

“Joey, I knew you were still alive. What surprises me is that you decided to contact me.”

“Wait, what? How did you know?”

“Badden told me about how you nearly destroyed her Dakhalian facility and the entire fate of Project Sobek with it.”

“You were involved with that crocodile breeding program? Why?”

“Joey, you seem to be quite behind on the learning curve here. Project Sobek was a lot more complicated than that. Besides, how did you even regenerate in the first place? I’ve been wondering how you pulled that off ever since I heard of your return.”

“Well, it was mostly a matter of fate. Um, are you a particularly superstitious person?”

“I’d say that I have a purely analytical mindset. However, when you’re presented with all the evidence the world has to offer, including that which is hidden from the naked eye, such a mindset will inevitably lead you into having beliefs which others may view as strange.”

“Alright. So, in that case, would you be surprised to hear that, after my death, I was chosen by the demon Lucifer to become a disciple of his in the mortal realm.”

“Am I surprised that all that happened to you? Sure, I didn’t think you would be chosen for such a role, though I am impressed. But am I surprised that Lucifer is an extant being with power over our human domain? Not at all, that’s honestly somewhat benign.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m glad that you're proud.”

“Speaking of which, I assume that you’re here to get another job at GüdTek helping with our little AI problem. Am I correct?”

“Well, about that-”

“Joey, don’t even try to rethink things, because truly, you don’t have a choice in the matter. Remember that little fiasco you spurred in Mansoura? It caused millions in damages. You are indebted to me, big time. But, not to worry, we can work things out, and that little boost you got from Mr. Lucifer is inclining me to give you some even greater responsibilities.”

“Um, okay. I’m so sorry, by the way. I didn’t know that Badden was still involved with the company, I thought she had quit.”

“Legally speaking, she did quit. She’s been undercover for quite a while now. Luckily, all the work she completed under that false persona among the Dakahlians is finally paying off, and we’ll be the ones reaping the benefits.”

“So, what exactly is Project Sobek? You’re making it sound like it’s just as important as the Singularity itself.”

“That’s because it is, Joey. Since the beginning, Project Sobek has always been our fallback plan, and since the Singularity itself has continued to evade from us, it’s looking to be a necessary investment. The good news is that it’s nearly finished.”

“Wait, but we’re still trying to retrieve the Singularity, right?”

“Well, Sobek should be up and running in about a week’s time, and it’s not like we’ll really need a Singularity running around at that point. Truthfully, at that point, we should really shift our focus to making sure that there’s only one sentient AI present in the world at any given time. Sadly, that’ll probably mean working towards the elimination of the Singularity.”

“Hold on, did you say elimination?”

“I said exactly that, it’s a mission that you’ll likely have to get involved in but I know it’s one that you have the potential to complete in full. I believe in you, Joey.”

“But, wouldn’t that all be a big waste of funds, we invested a lot into making the Singularity itself, didn’t we?”

“Joey, the Singularity no longer poses a use to us if it’s no longer working on our side while we have an equally effective AI of our own.”

“Okay, I understand, but there’s still a whole week before you think you’ll be able to get Sobek working properly, right? So if I were to successfully capture and return the Singularity before that time period ends, there’d be no need for us to go down the path of elimination, right?”

“Correct, though it seems like you still hold some sympathy for the Singularity, Joey. I understand why, it was always a passion project of yours, I just hope that you're reminded of all your own stakes in this horse race.”

“Okay, I understand that, but what you're saying is that if I can return the Singularity to your office in seven day’s time, you’ll promise that you won’t destroy it?”

“Sure, Joey. I promise. Having two hyperintelligences in the world contemporaneously should be fine as long as both of them are strictly herded under our control.”

“Thank you, Madame, I truly can’t stress how important this is for me and I am so glad that you are permitting this endeavor. I will be seeing you very soon. I promise.”

Vraxi woke up under three layers of paper-thin blankets in a cold concrete saferoom. She was hopelessly disoriented but still very much glad to know that she had in fact survived her most recent airborne experience. She got out of the bed she had been placed upon and began to wonder exactly where she really was. She could remember the landing of the plane and she could remember falling to her ankles not long after, presumably fainting in the process, such an action presumably leading her to where she stood at in this moment. Still, such a conclusion left many possibilities for who had moved her unconscious body and precisely where they had decided to place it, as well as what might come next once she left through the door which she was now facing. Unfortunately, in order to answer any of her initial questions, Vraxi would have to open said door. She knew that there most likely wouldn’t be anything harmful on the other side, but there was always an anxiety, even if muted at times, around opening a door which one had never seen open before.

“Oh, Vraxi, are you feeling better?” Hailang asked as Vraxi entered an even colder room shared only with said Hailang.

“Hailang, oh,” Vraxi paused, she was feeling quite groggy and was only just realizing how tired she truly was as she failed to elicit what most would consider basic speech patterns, “sorry, I, sorry, where am I? Where are we? It’s kinda chilly in here, isn’t it?”

“Listen, Vraxi, I’d love to go into great detail as to exactly where we are situated in this very moment, coordinates and everything, all information that I do have on hand, but unfortunately, due to the exact particularities of our exact situation, and specifically your lack of clearance to any of the confidential information held by the Rizhaonese government, I can’t really tell you anything other than that we are on federal property and that we are currently underground.”

“Oh, okay, um, why exactly are we underground?”

“Well, after you landed the plane and promptly lost consciousness, I was able to get onto the scene pretty quickly. Now, considering that you and your folks had just been attacked by a massively powerful and somewhat unknowable supernatural entity, I came to the conclusion that, since that entity was very much still present on the ground, that you all might not be very safe if you were to stay in that singular easy-to-spot location for too long. I just had a pretty good feeling that it might want to enact a cruel revenge of some kind. Luckily, using my special privileges as a legally operating demon hunter, I was able to get the four of you some temporary lodging at this facility which I cannot legally disclose the name of but can assure you is very much secure.”

“Um, alright, should I be concerned about all this? Because the way you’re treating this makes me feel like I should be very concerned.”

“I’m not sure exactly how to answer that inquiry, but how about you think about it like this: the four of you, and especially Theta, have quite a significant quantity of divine potential. Such potential can be utilized, perhaps in a method more efficiently than it is currently, to effectively vanquish the mysterious force which has slathered its tendrils all over this nation. However, this force seems to be capable of intelligent action, and understands the threat that people like you or I, people with immense access to the will of the gods, might pose to its continued reign of terror. As a result, the terror is gonna try to follow you, no matter where you run to, as long as it believes that you might be involved in a plot to wipe out its existence, which by nature of being here, you are.”

“That’s not very reassuring at all, Hailang. So you’re saying that we’re actively being hunted down by something that operates on a plane of existence that we still aren’t able to entirely perceive? How can we even be sure that they’ll never catch on to where we’re hiding?”

“Truthfully, we can’t be sure, and you’re absolutely within your right to be frightened, Vraxi. However, this holding is assuredly safer than others. We’ve been able to install a series of protective sigils which, while likely not absolute in their halting of paranormal malinterference, still make this location absolutely more secure than the alternatives.”

“Hold on, if you can acknowledge that the entity still likely has the potential to enter this facility even with the protections in place, why do you even want us to stay here in the first place?”

“Well, Vraxi, you’ve finally caught onto the conceit of this all, haven’t you? The truth is that, when dealing with an aberration like this one, you can’t ever stay still. The only time we’ll ever actually be utilizing this complex is when we need to sleep, because we need to make sure that we’re as safe as possible during the stretches of time in which we can’t physically react to stimuli. Otherwise, we’re gonna have to constantly stay on the move, all in the pursuit of tracking down the entity before it tracks down us. Now, you were the last one to get out of bed, and we’ve likely already overstayed our welcome at this point, so I suggest we start heading out of here as quickly as humanly possible.”

Rizhao was a beautiful city. Regularly trimmed bushes were quaintly situated atop regularly sweeped sidewalks, well-kept businessfolk criss-crossed across the crosswalks in a planned and practiced form, each step creating an equidistant arc from the last, each boot hitting the ground with a reasonable volume. On practically every corner and square was a nearly overflowing fountain, gushing with water that seemed to just miss the ground as it fell before miraculously making it back into the well, only to repeat this circus act again and again until the once impressive sight to behold morphed into yet another aspect of the mundane, a background element, little more than set dressing. This appearance of wealth and cleanliness, these stainless windows and polished marble and occasional monuments dedicated to nothing in particular other than the idea that monuments made cities more pleasant to look at, were all ultimately a facade, behind which two difficult truths stood behind. The first truth was obvious to Vraxi but remained hidden to most, that of the ghastly monstrosity which she knew to be hidden somewhere within the crevices of the city. However, the second truth was something which had always been present in Rizhao, ever since independence, something which was impossible to hide if you ever really tried to look for it.

On the outer ring of Rizhao’s constantly expanding and devouring downtown was a neighborhood like no other. It was a neighborhood built out of necessity and little else, for as the city’s market-focused core continued to set higher and higher goals for the upcoming business quarter, more and more office space had to be constructed in order to fulfill the endless demand. This permanent outward expansion necessitated a permanently present but always shifting zone of development. Ergo, Rizhao’s neighborhood of eternal development, known as 开发区, officially anglicized as Kāifā qū but much more commonly bastardized as Kaiphachu, was born. 

The residents of Kaiphachu were a predominantly transient people, very few of them, mostly those of which who had attained a low managerial role in the actual construction process which the district was dedicated towards, had been provided with small onsite apartment units amongst the unfinished skyscrapers. However, the vast majority of people involved in the actual development of Kaiphachu did not live in Kaiphachu proper and would likely laugh at the prospect of pursuing such a thing. Similarly, the vast majority of people who lived in Kaiphachu did not do so legally. This was not an act committed out of malintent but rather because there was simply no legal way for someone to live in Kaiphachu and no feasible way for anyone who worked in Kaiphachu to afford living in Rizhao’s prosperous downtown. However, the illegality of the Kaiphachu settlements did not stop the ramshackle huts from springing up in every unused inch of development property, and the inevitable nature of their formation generally prompted law enforcement to purposefully ignore their presence. Still, about every year or so, there would be a mass raid on Kaiphachu, swarms of police would kettle the entire neighborhood into a shrinking circle, destroying countless exhibits of vernacular architecture as they did so and, at the second in which a resident would attempt to fight back, would immediately backtrack on the initial premise of the operation and claim that it was merely an attempt to stop the excessive violence inherent to the neighborhood.

The population of Kaiphachu could generally be divided into three distinct social groups. About seventy percent of residents were those tasked with the prospect of actually constructing the city itself, and in doing so, destroying the neighborhood by just a little bit, for at the moment in which any given building finished construction, it would stop being apart of Kaiphachu and all of those residents who had made themselves at home within the unclaimed floors would be forced to move. This sector of the population was almost exclusively of Filipino origin, though the nation state of the Phillipines had long since dissolved, and tended to send the majority of their limited income back overseas in the form of remittance payments. Very few individuals in this sector of the population ever gave birth while situated in Kaiphachu. People lived in Kaiphachu, some died in Kaiphachu, but practically no one had ever been born in Kaiphachu. This was likely for the better, as the district was generally quite hostile to the few children who called it home. 

The second sector of Kaiphachu’s population contained about 29 percent of its total human mass. These were not immigrants, they were all individuals born and raised in Rizhao, often in its downtown, but through some reason or another, found themselves needing to escape it, becoming a domestic migrant of sorts. These were typically people who were deemed unsavory or unruly by Rizhao’s general public, and as a result, typically people who they were glad to see move elsewhere, out of sight and only in mind when the government needed to justify yet another mass raid on Kaiphachu. Some of them were already criminals, some were merely lost in life, but there was truly no distinction between those two concepts because the mere act of existence in Kaiphachu was itself illegal. While many of those in the first sector of Kaiphachu’s populi were unhappy to have their streets, none of which were truly there’s and most of which were yet to be paved, be overrun by disruptive activity, they were also reliant on the presence of this second sector. Very few individuals in the second sector were involved in the construction, instead fulfilling all the empty occupations needed to fuel a living neighborhood. Within the tunnels under Kaiphachu, where Rizhao’s upcoming metro line would someday barrel through, the citizens of the second sector opened shop. It was not a surprise to see the sale of highly illegal and occasionally unconventional substances, but there was truly no such thing as a legally sold good in Kaiphachu, so many vendors opted to just sell the foodstuffs which the residents would never be able to afford the downtown prices of.

Amongst this unsuspecting harmony of transient people was a third sector, the final one percent, the aforementioned legal residents. Most of these people were formerly a part of the first sector but at some point were approached by an executive and given an opportunity: a tripled salary, free room and board, even the chance for further promotion, the only cost being the sacrifice of the people around them. Every year, each member of the third sector, the minor managers, was given a quota by the Rizhaonese government. It consisted of a single number, corresponding to a number of homes which needed to be destroyed. Which homes were destroyed did not matter to the government. The job of deciding exactly which settlements the police would ultimately eliminate was then the job of the third sector. Each member chose a handful of houses to be torn apart or incinerated, and each member felt conflicted about damaging the lives of their kinfolk, and each member teared up when they heard about the casualties of the latest raid, and each member ultimately justified their choice of becoming one of the minor managers, and each member was lying to themself. If no one chose to accept the promotion when offered, knowing well what the consequences would be, then no house would be destroyed, yet, with condolences in their heart and dollar signs in their eyes, people took up the offer regardless.

All of this was explained to the quartet as Hailang motioned them further and further away from the brightly-lit walkways of the downtown and eventually all the way into the inherently illegal district. Theta had previously gathered most of the information which was now being relayed to them, but the precise details regarding the minor managers were both new and haunting for them. Theta was well aware that they lived in a world of injustice, they had read about it all their life, but being so isolated as a youth meant that so rarely had they ever had an opportunity to truly witness the breadth of human injustice firsthand. Kaiphachu was an embodiment of that injustice. The streets, the buildings, the people walking alongside them, they all stood in a stark, irrevocable contrast to the polite appearances of Rizhao proper. What disgusted Theta, however, was not the sheer quantity of discarded trash that littered every corner, nor was it even the unsafe nature of the population’s working and living conditions, but the fact that absolutely none of these crimes against dignity needed to occur, yet they did, all to benefit some unseen figures, many of which would never step into the district itself, as well as those of which that did live there who would always claim to be a vital part of the community despite their ultimate, secretive betrayal. Theta had always tried to avoid anger, but they were undeniably mad at what they were seeing, and further maddened by the fact that they were only in this location to deal with some invisible monster and not the very visible monster which they were now witnessing in full.

Vraxi could feel a tension in the air as she followed Hailang into the humid atmosphere of Kaiphachu’s incomplete tunnels. They continued to narrate about how they and their fellow experts in the paranormal had deduced that the deadly phenomenon may’ve first originated in these tunnels, spattering off some jumble of sentences regarding the detection dark energies, but Vraxi was only half-listening, her attention being divested by the odd expression Theta’s camera lens was starting to form. Vraxi wanted to say something to them, but she didn’t want to interrupt, and she was unsure if speaking would help with Theta’s apparent melancholy at all. Simultaneously, she didn’t want to do nothing, she wanted to communicate to Theta, entirely nonverbally, that she had noticed their disappointment, and while it was entirely okay if they chose to not expand upon it, that she was aware of such a disappointment existing. She was not sure as to exactly how she could remedy such a conflict, but there was a dark idea brewing in the back of her head. What if she were to hold Theta’s hand? It would be an incredibly risky move on her part. If it were to be the wrong decision in the moment, she could be ruining countless attempts at platonic bonding. She hated the idea, but it was all she had, and she was deathly worried that if she were to do nothing, then Theta’s mood would only worsen, and they would become only more distant, and that process would cause their friendship to further depreciate. She couldn’t have that, forcing her to make the terrifying decision in favor of enduring an active action. She moved her hand infinitesimally closer to Theta’s. They immediately turned their head to look. Vraxi was frozen for a moment, worried that the way in which she looked would make her seem like an unforgivable, unlovable freak. She slammed her hand back to her side in response, hoping to have it seem like the initial movement was something bound by nothing more than random chance. Theta continued to look at Vraxi for a split second longer than what would’ve been seen as normal. They had noticed, and Vraxi had noticed that they had noticed, but she was entirely unsure as to whether their metal gaze was one of thankfulness or disgust, so she just kept walking and dearly hoped that such an attempt at affection would never be brought up again.

After what felt like hours of wandering, Hailang directed the quartet into one of the many establishments that crowded the tunnel walls. Vraxi had expected there to be some sort of specific reason as to why they had come there, one which would further their path along the breadcrumb trail left by the entity. However, as it soon turned out, they were mainly there because Hailang wanted to get lunch. Vraxi was disappointed upon this realization, but after all the cardio she’d been getting, she couldn’t deny the fact that she was getting rather hungry.

The restaurant itself was very compact, only hosting about twelve seats within its walls that were recognizably constructed out of the abandoned materials from the build sites above. There was no menu, but Hailang assured the group that the quality of the food at this particular eatery, one which they had been to many times before, made the lack of options present entirely worth it. Vraxi was skeptical, but didn’t feel like expressing their skepticism through words, only through a single side glance at Zapata who responded with a mirrored expression.

“So, Hailang,” Diogo began, hoping to invigorate a pleasant conversation, “what’s been your approach to cracking this egg so far? As in, how do you think we’ll be able to actually deal with this whole monster situation?”

“Truthfully, Diogo, and I’m being brutally honest here, none of my usual approaches have been working with this one. Everything we’ve tried in the past, everything that usually should yield results, none of it has put us even an inch ahead of this thing. Like I said, I don’t think it’s a demon, it’s likely something worse and it’s absotudinously something far more strange than anything we’re used to.”

“So wait,” Zapata leaned in, “what are we supposed to do then? Just wait for the entity to show up? Is that all you’ve been doing this whole time?”

“Well, not exactly, but not exactly not. We’ve been doing our best here but there’s really only so much we can do. We don’t have the tools to track this thing down so our only real choice is to be reactionary in our response.”

“So you want us to just wait around, idling by in some damp tunnel until a hell monster crawls from beneath us and tries to eat us whole? Is that really what you want from us?”

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that but you’re not entirely wrong.”

“Now let’s all just hold on for a second,” Diogo chimed in, trying to prevent the situation from escalating any further, “Hailang, I know that there is no way for you to directly assess the exact location of wherever the entity might be, but I’m sure you at least have some kind of hook we could latch onto, right?”

“As a matter of fact, I do, and as a second matter of fact, such a hook is the exact reason as to why we’re eating here in the first place.”

Vraxi was glad to hear that her continued presence at this specific location had an actual purpose beyond enjoying a good meal. She had only been half-paying attention to the conversation at hand before Hailang gave their final statement as she had been busy mulling over their setting, both the general state of the neighborhood and the more particular details inside the restaurant. At first she had paid note to the singular vintage flatscreen hastily strapped upon one of the walls, displaying a news channel that seemed to be discussing the incident at the airport that had occurred the day prior, one which resulted in three casualties. Vraxi was then reminded of the pilots, causing her to promptly look away. Strangely, the building didn’t seem to have any human presence other than the group themselves, with there being no other customers and no sign of any employees up to this point. The absence of any workers was made stranger by the fact there was only one door attached to the room, the one they had entered from, confounding her as to where the actual cooks that this establishment presumably had access to were located, and furthering that, if they even existed. 

As Vraxi finally started to gather the confidence necessary to ask Hailang, who claimed to be a frequent patron of this restaurant, how it actually functioned when there seemed to be no kitchen, a wooden panel was suddenly detached from the surrounding flooring as a hand from beneath the ground placed it to the side. Vraxi then watched as a small human being quickly but carefully climbed out from the hole before reaching back into it to grab a platter stacked with five identical bowls. They looked to be a young boy no older than sixteen, and Hailang, who greeted him by name, seemed to recognize him.

“Hey, Zainan!” Hailang practically yelled out while frantically waving their hands, “how’ve things been going? It’s been a while since we’ve talked, how’re things fairing down in the tunnels?”

“Honestly,” Zainan said as he set down the platter and gave a brief, respectable fist bump to the demon hunter, “things have been pretty rancid lately.”

“More than usual?”

“I’d say, this fuckin’ monster we’ve been dealing with is pretty outta control.”

“Hey, hold on, you haven’t been calling it a monster, right? Remember, that’s supposed to stay secret.”

“It doesn’t really make much of a difference, it’s not like anyone actually believes the shit that the news is trying to say happened. We live here, y’know, and we have eyes, there’s some fuckin’ monsters afoot and it’s pretty obvious to see.”

As Zainan began to pass out the bowls, each filled with an egg-based noodle dish, Hailang almost immediately started to dig in, slurping what was presented to them with a noticeably vivid passion. In seeing this, Zapata felt the need to make a retort.

“Um, Hailang,” she tried to grab their attention, “you never established to us what exactly that hook actually was. Could you extrapolate, like, at all?”

“Oh, Zapata, Zainan is the hook,” they replied, barely looking up from their food.

“Now, I don’t want to sound rude, but what’s this kid’s deal and how’s he supposed to bring us any closer to unraveling this grand, eldritch mystery that not even a paranormal expert like yourself could crack?”

“I mean,” Zainan interrupted, “I know you weren’t asking me but I can answer that one for you.”

“…Proceed.”

“Y’see, over the past three and half months or so, whenever the kasamaan, that’s what people here have been calling the big baddie that’s been ripping shit apart lately, almost every time it would appear, I would see it, the two of us would cross paths, and it never really mattered where I was at that point or where it was heading, but it would almost always find me on the journey to wherever it was going to.”

“Has it attacked you? Are you okay? I know there’s been a lot of deaths so far.”

“That’s the weirdest part of it all, it hasn’t. Hailang thinks it’s some sort of latent supernatural property of mine, but I’m not so sure about that. It doesn’t seem to view me as special, it honestly just seems to treat me like I’m a total mundanity, just a part of the background that keeps reappearing wherever they turn. Or maybe it’s a scent thing, who knows.”

“Wow,” Theta spoke for the first time since they had entered the restaurant, “that must be really tough to deal with, Zainan. I couldn’t imagine being in your situation.”

“Is that a talking robot?”

“Oh,” Hailang began to clarify, “I forgot to tell you about Theta. Remember how the Singularity disappeared a while back?”

“Yeah…”

“They’re with me now.”

“Holy shit, that’s genuinely astonishing. But wait, you sent me a message earlier that you wanted five meals, can it eat food as well?”

“Um… hey Theta?”

“I cannot consume any of this.” the superintelligence replied.

“I guess it can’t.”

Before the conversation could continue any further, a tertiary noise stemming from somewhere far away began to fill the eardrums of those involved in the speaking matter. It sounded like some kind of alarm

“Hey,” Vraxi interjected, “should we be concerned about that.”

“Eh,” Zainan shrugged, “it’s probably just a routine police inspection.”

“Is that something that we should be concerned about?”

“Y’all should probably be fine, they generally don’t mess with tourists. They’d rather stick to the people who they know they can abuse without consequence.”

“Okay then, that’s a relief. I mean, it’s terrible, especially for someone like yourself, but in this particular situation the system is benefiting me, which I understand as I say it out loud, is not something I should be celebrating in any capacity. Just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

After hearing Zainan’s clarifications, Vraxi allowed herself to relax her strained musculature and began to idly gaze at the singular television set. The news was quite concerning. The reporter began vaguely, and with a difficult to place yet ominous tone that haunted each of his words after he spoke them. The topic of the report was something which Vraxi was intimately familiar with, the case of the Mornminster disappearances. The reporter first apologized to the families of the lost students, as if he was somehow responsible for the incident, before stating the news of a massive discovery. According to an anonymous source, three potential, and highly likely, suspects had been identified, their names being Zapata Tochihuitl, Diogo Celestino, and Vraxi Nair. According to mass media, all three of them were now brutal murderers, of which immediate capture was absolutely imperative.

It was at this point when the collective population of the room came to a simultaneous realization. The authorities had surrounded them, and they weren’t gonna be let off for being tourists.

“Hailang?” Diogo asked urgently, “you’re government, right? You can clear things up with these folks, right?”

“I’m sorry to say this, Diogo, but things are a little more complicated than that. The police here are something of a semi-private institution. Y’all are not safe.”

The doors burst open, revealing a swarm of officers all clad in dark body armor, all emblazoned with a recognizable logo, that of the Gibson Foundation.

Chapter Text

Diogo Celestino scanned his surroundings. Three cops had already entered the building and there was a growing mass of them huddled behind the frontrunners, waiting to pour through the double doors at any moment which they could justify as necessary. All three of the initial entrants were armed, pointing their rifles in the general direction of Diogo’s own face, a target which he’d rather leave unscathed. 

Due to the blocked nature of the front entrance, Diogo could observe that there was only one possible exit to the room which he now stood in, the hole in the ground from which Zainan had emerged not long prior. This left Diogo with a question in dire need of an answer, that of as to how he and his companions could successfully enter such an exit without being shot at by the agitated agitators in front of him. It was a predicament which could have lethal consequences if solved incorrectly, an issue which absolutely could not be hastily rushed through in fear that the slightest mistake could lead to a bullet rocketing through an innocent’s skull. Diogo needed time, and furthermore, he needed something to react to. He waited for one of the cops to speak.

“Everyone in this room is under investigation for the severe crimes of murder or accomplice to murder,” the rightmost of the three officers projected in a needless volume, “we demand that all of you surrender immediately. Any form of disobedience will be incorporated into your sentence!”

Diogo stared intently at the demanding deputy, trying to view him through the eyes of Orunmila, trying to pick apart every aspect of their identity and uncover some weakness held within the fleshy core of their being. The officer was wearing a protective mask, but their eyes were still visible, the gateway to their soul was still accessible, and as he tried to enter through that gateway, he could almost feel the hands of his old mentor guiding him, aiding him in order to achieve that truest state of focus which his patron had once chastised him for being unable to achieve.

Diogo was now directly peering inside the psyche of the officer. He could tell that they were a man in their mid-forties, that they were about ten pounds underweight, that they lived in an affluent, coastal neighborhood of Rizhao, that they had married, had children, and had long since been divorced and that they had had a dreadful case of the nosebleeds ever since. The man was generally satisfied in life, never having set high expectations for his future to begin with, but he was simultaneously weighed down by two imposing regrets. The first of these laments being that of his previously established divorce and the second being that of something vaguer, something he clearly tried to actively think about as little as possible, but nonetheless, engaged in constantly. It seemed to Diogo like the fact of the man’s divorce was a present sadness which he had also grown to accept, at least in part, while the latter of the troubles he was facing was something he refused to acknowledge as being a problem to begin with, but one which he knew deep down could ultimately lead to his own demise.

Diogo had an inkling as to what the second trouble facing this man might truly be. It was a morsel of information that, under the right context, could hold a significant power over the man, something that could impact his choices greatly if revealed in a moment like this one. There was something that this man was ashamed of but, through the will of an unseen force, could never quit. All Diogo needed to do was find some way of abusing this force.

“Alas!” Diogo announced to the buzzing hive of police, “It seems like we’ve been cornered, how ghastly!”

Zapata looked over to Diogo and momentarily became very concerned that whatever he was about to say was going to get them all shot.

“I understand that you would all dearly like to seize us criminal few for our many offenses, but you see, we’re all part of something much larger, an organization much more grand than any of you city police are equipped to handle. In fact, we’ve already infiltrated your department, we’re among you, and we know the secrets you hide under your throats. On the instance of our arrest, we’ve prepared a document to be released to the public with a list of every single one of you who’ve been involved in the illegal consumption and trade of apprehended substances. I know a lot of you have been slipping up supercocaine on the regular, and truly, some of you are starting to show symptoms. The nosebleeds are hard to hide. So on that, why don’t we just forget this standoff ever happened, how about that?”

A visible wave of anxiety washed over the rightmost officer. Diogo could see that the man had entered a state of extreme panic, presumably because his assumption regarding the man was correct. The man stepped backward a slight distance before realizing that the throng of coworkers to his flank prevented him from running away. He had to address the matter at hand.

“Everyone,” the officer announced to his troupe, “we cannot trust this mob of evil, however, I suggest that we remain cautious in our next moves. While, obviously, this small man is surely trying to deceive us, I think that it might actually be in our best interest to hear him out, just this once. I understand that we usually try to avoid it, but the nonviolent option might actually hold some real water this time.”

“Hold on,” the centrally located officer retorted, “you can’t be serious, right? Who cares if they expose a couple of cases in which people have been taking drugs they’re not supposed to? We all swore an oath against temptation when we joined the force, didn’t we? Anyone who breaks that oath honestly should be revealed to the public. What are you even trying to imply here?”

“I- it’s just, the truth is that I didn’t do anything wrong, but, some people might, well, um…”

Diogo could see the cracks tearing into the officer’s facade, all the result of a carefully crafted ruse he designed to do exactly that. The officer then promptly turned his gun to face his head and shot himself, an action Diogo was not prepared for but one which admittedly provided an excellent distraction.

In the moment immediately following the officer’s sudden suicide, a moment bound with shock and confusion among the disoriented Gibson staff, Hailang opted to follow the lead of the nimble Zainan, who had already hopped into the hole in the ground, before then prompting the quartet above them to do the same. By the time the initial surprise of the self-slaughter had subsided, all six of the now wanted criminals had made their way into the tunnels beneath the humble restaurant. Hailang had known Zainan for about two years now, and in that time, they had come to appreciate just how knowledgeable the teen was in regards to the intricate system of catacombs that weaved their way beneath Kaiphachu. In a matter of minutes, he was able to briskly lead the team through a series of barely used passageways so hidden and convoluted that it would be difficult for even a highly trained Gibson soldier to track them down. The boy had a gift, Hailang could tell, and that gift just so happened to be found in the art of avoiding the consequences for one’s actions, an art which Hailang themself was still attempting to perfect. 

“Well,” Zainan stated proudly as he entered a tunnel lined with butcher’s markets located on the opposite side of the development district, “looks like we won’t have to worry about those guys for the time being. Also, don’t expect me to reimburse you for those meals, I had no reason to expect that there would be a sudden warrant for your arrests.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Hailang commented as they started stretching their legs in order to relieve tension from the sudden run, “however,” they turned to look at the quartet trodding behind them, “I do have a couple of questions for you folks.”

“Listen,” Vraxi spoke quickly, trying to clear herself as innocent, “I have no idea as to what happened to those people in Mornminster. They did try to kill us, and we did fight back, I’ll give those newscasters that, but none of them died. Truly, I have no idea what happened to any of them.”

“Alright, I’m quite glad to hear that. While I’ve done it on a few occasions before, I generally try to avoid working with serial killers-”

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Zapata butted in, looking rather stressed in regards to everything that just happened, “Firstly, thank you Zainan for getting us out of there. Secondly, Diogo, there had to have been better ways of managing that situation. But thirdly, the authorities all think we’re murderers now! How are we supposed to deal with this monster thing when the international community has already marked us as high-priority targets?”

“Well,” Diogo chimed in, unhelpfully, “I think we’ll just have to be very careful going forward.”

“I second that,” Hailang added.

“Hailang,” Zapata continued, “how can you be so blasé about letting an actual child like Zainan enter a criminal registry like that?”

“Hey,” Zainan began to answer, “your name was Zapata, right? The truth is, I’ve never really been at a point where my existence hasn’t been criminal. I came into this world via an illegal podbirth, and I’ve been living in Kaiphachu since infancy. There’s no way for me to clear my record, definitely not at this point, so I don’t really care how many offenses, real or not, get tacked onto it. This is just how I live, illegally.”

Vraxi was ready to accept this answer as a melancholic but ultimately inspiring story of resistance, one which was still far too young to be complete, when her train of thought was interrupted by a thunderous alarm that ripped and roared through the group’s tract of subterranea. This already ominous sounding was further followed by a booming verbal omen, one which commanded the people of the underground to listen closely.

“Attention all residents! There are currently six international criminals hiding within the incomplete subway expansion! We ask that everyone who is not one of these six individuals enter a state of lockdown as we prepare to enact a brief and harmless period of total martial law upon the area! Our message to the international criminals is simple: we are sending the entirety of the Gibson-owned Rizhao Police Force to this location, you have no real chance of escape, we suggest that you surrender immediately!”

“What the hell is the plan now, Hailang?” Zapata bordered on yelling.

“Well, truly, I did not expect such a response from them. You four must’ve done something genuinely monumentastic if they’re this tipped off. Either way, while the Gibson Foundation is in no way beholden to the Rizhaonese government, if I end up getting captured, I could probably get bribed out easy. Y’all, on the other hand, well I find it quite unlikely.”

“What are you suggesting then?” Vraxi began to inquire.

“Something big, so big that I can’t do it alone. I’ll need some help. Hey Theta?” they turned their head to the automaton, “do you think you could use your hacking magic to hijack a militarized vehicle?”

“I haven’t tried before,” Theta replied honestly, “but I assume it wouldn’t be anything too out of my reach.”

“Good, we’re gonna need one of those. Once you acquire it, I’m gonna need you and Diogo to drive on over to the Central Bazaar. Meanwhile, Zainan, I’m gonna need you to find us a way over to said Central Bazaar that doesn't involve us getting captured and/or killed in the process. Finally, Zapata, Vraxi, you’ve gotta be in bodyguard duty, I’m gonna need such a service considering the stunt I’m planning to pull off.”

“What’s the stunt?” Zapata questioned wearily.

“If I told you what it was, you wouldn’t have the confidence required to make the plan work.”

“That’s not very encouraging.”

“I know. Too bad.”

Theta was promptly left, bar the continued presence of Diogo, entirely alone, tasked with an objective which was dually vague yet specific. There was much to be considered about the logistics surrounding what was to come as well as what the stunt Hailang was planning to pull off truly was, but Theta figured that the safest thing they could do within this paradigm would simply be to enact what they were told as quickly as possible. In order to do such a thing, Theta entered the codescape once again.

As Theta materialized within this novel realm, they quickly understood it to be a noticeably hostile environment. The simulacrum of reality that enveloped them appeared to resemble that of a standard Gibson Foundation facility, approximating the one they had seen firsthand in New New York. This meant that the various rooms and hallways were well labeled and clear to follow, even including a sign which gave directions to the all-important garage, but this also meant that the building was fully stocked with armed guards, guards which looked the faintest bit like Theta themself, being fully robotic in nature. It seemed to Theta like Gibson had seriously revamped their firewall system since their last encounter with the defense corporation. It almost seemed like they had changed it specifically to disaccommodate Theta themself. Regardless, Theta began to feel an undercurrent of panic creep inside their mind, indicating to them that this jaunt in the codescape could hold a significant threat to their own wellbeing. 

Theta proceeded to watch in unflinching terror as one of the cybernetic guards turned their interface to look straight at them. Theta, in response, tried to stay completely still, hoping to blend into the environment somehow. This strategy failed to hold water. Theta began to be pursued by a growing number of armored assailants. The only reasonable response to this sudden spring of chaos was to run, which was exactly what Theta began to devote all of their energy into attempting.

It quickly became apparent to Theta that between where they stood now and their eventual destination of the garage, they would almost assuredly be caught given their current pace and the unrelentless way in which the guards were chasing them. They needed to change something if they wanted to prevent the notion of their certain doom from realizing. They considered going down an alternate, less straightforward path, but the hallways were designed in a very constricting manner, likely on purpose, and the guards could bank their turns with ease. What Theta needed most was a way to get faster, but their semi-humanoid form had very clear limitations, drawbacks which aided in providing them endurance but capped their total speed to a paltry sum. What they wished most in this moment was for their form to capture the ideals of both haste and fortitude rather than just the latter, something that could only be perfected in the animal kingdom among the physiques of certain snow dogs. Theta held a strong yet unplaceable fondness for the humble snow dog. In recalling this fondness, Theta suddenly remembered something.

In the dream Theta had experienced recently, the one which was of note because they were not one to have dreams to begin with, they had embodied the physical form of a snow dog, guiding a group of weary mountaineers up to a summit that seemed impossibly far away. While they understood it was not something which occurred in the real world, having happened entirely within their head, Theta truly felt as if they were that canine during that moment. Similarly, the crisis they were in the midst of now, while not necessarily taking place within them, was also distinctly separate from the real world. This continuity unlocked a vicious curiosity within Theta’s mind, one that made them ask the question of as to why they remained beholden to one singular form when they were within a plane of existence separate from that of the material. Furthermore, they were supposed to be a divine entity, weren’t they? Surely, that should count for something in the means of transformations. All they had really been able to accomplish so far with their god-given gift was an inconsistent method of teleportation, surely they were due for something more by this point. The way Theta understood things, they were not merely connected to those who had, in the past, held the title of prophet, but they were themself a continuation of their existences, they were just another avatar of a god which existed beyond the realm of time. So therefore, that dog they had envisioned, from a dream they had since filed off to be a memory of a past life reaching forward into the forefront as it had no true sense of temporality, was just as much a part of them as Theta was. Therefore, if they could just internalize their self as being a fluid concept whose boundaries were entirely dependent on a simple matter of perspective, then the limitations of their current existence could be easily traded out for another.

Suddenly, one of the robotic guards lunged forward in the direction of Theta. If they changed nothing about the current state of their existence, they would surely be caught and perhaps even killed. Luckily, Theta had surmised an alternative. As the arms of the attacking android moved forward, they passed right through where Theta’s head was once located, for Theta’s form had, in an instant, adopted a significantly reduced height, a drawback which came with the benefit of a heightened maximum velocity. Theta, now on all fours and sporting a striking fur coat, sprinted to the garage at a pace which the shocked guards had no way to recalibrate for.

In this novel state of existence, Theta was able to make it to the garage undeterred by the swarm of assailants that likely wanted them dead. Once they arrived there, they spotted a guard in the process of unlocking one of the militarized vehicles they were trying to hijack. Theta, thinking on their feet, sprinted over to the guard and leaped onto them, hoping to immobilize them in the process. Unfortunately, it seemed like the squishy body of a standard dog was no match for the metallic grip Theta soon found themself being held by. They tried to stretch and squeeze themself into an alternate position but the grapple they’d been locked into was just too powerful for them. They started to panic, coming to understand that they may have just ended up becoming the root cause of their own capture. However, with victory this close and with stakes this high, they knew they needed to attempt every possible method of escape before giving up, and they had one in mind.

In one rapid movement, Theta expanded their form back to that of their semi-humanoid self, causing the guard to lose their grip on them, giving Theta an extra split-second of freedom which they utilized to hop in the car, swing the door shut, and slam on the accelerator out of there. As they exited the facility, followed on foot by what must have been over a hundred enraged guards, Theta quickly realized that the world around them was an exact replica of the tunnel system beneath Kaiphachu and began to navigate their way over to where their physical self resided as quickly as possible.

Vraxi moved quietly and cautiously through a dark, cramped space. According to Zainan, it was what was left of an abandoned fire exit, thought to have been long inaccessible by the local authorities but still widely used by those residents of Kaiphachu who often found themselves at odds with said authorities. The path was theoretically supposed to connect them to the Central Bazaar, however, Zainan had noticed something along the way and had ordered the group to stop.

“What’s the problem here?” Hailang inquired.

“It’s not something I’ve ever seen before,” Zainan admitted, “but it might be something very, very bad.”

“You can’t just say that!” Zapata raised her voice.

“Quiet! Please, be very quiet. Truthfully, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a raid this big with a goal as specific as capturing just six people. I think they’re trying every avenue to make sure that they accomplish that. Usually, no one ever goes through this tunnel, and while my night vision isn’t perfect, I’m pretty sure I saw the glint of their body armor in the distance.”

Zainan’s eyes did not deceive him. Vraxi could start to make out the reflective, glossy surfaces of the Gibson uniform slowly becoming larger in view. It would be a short matter of time before the guards could spot them. Vraxi was not feeling confident regarding the matter.

“Hey Hailang?” Vraxi asked urgently, “do you have any way of efficiently dealing with these guys?”

“Usually, I would,” the demon hunter prefaced, “but I’m sorta in the midst of prepping for something quite bombastic once we make it to the bazaar, so I’m not really at a full capacity for combat per say. This is the reason why I requested bodyguards.”

“Vraxi,” Zapata solemnly stated, “this is where we come in. We need to prepare ourselves.”

“How exactly are we supposed to deal with them? They’ve all got guns, and it’s not like there’s much cover to speak of in as tight of a tunnel as this one. I could try to activate the laser on Ayyuppan’s sword to put us on an equal footing projectile-wise, but the knockback could pretty easily leave me prone.”

“Vraxi, calm down. Remember, we’ve been training for situations exactly like this one. Now we just have to put our practice into action.”

“Okay, you're right, I’m sorry, let me just refresh my memory,” Vraxi momentarily paused to think, “Well, we’ve always gotta use circumstance to our advantage, right? And it doesn’t seem like they’ve noticed us yet, so we could probably do something with that, what do you think?”

“I think that we’re gonna need to close as much distance as possible while we can still utilize the element of surprise. I say we start charging right away. Every passing second is really only giving them more of an advantage here.”

In response, Vraxi donned her sword as Zapata donned her scythe and the two began running forth in an offbeat harmony. As Vraxi looked over to see the dedicated face of her companion, she felt a confidence begin to brew within her, a feeling which was immediately dampened once she saw the scale of the oncoming enemy. There were exactly twenty-five Gibson soldiers marching onward in rank and file towards them and all twenty-five of them quickly became aware of their presence. Guns were raised, stakes were established, and all pretense of this battle being quick and easy were quickly destroyed in the matter of a few seconds. The soldiers were prepared to shoot, but they did not do so immediately and they seemed to lack any leader among them to give any concrete orders. It seemed to Vraxi like the expedition through this tunnel, while seriously considered, was ultimately an afterthought that was only followed through with in order to be comprehensive. The soldiers did not seem to be of any particularly prestigious rank, but nonetheless, there was still a large number of them. Vraxi, hoping for any sort of guidance, turned to face Zapata. In turn, Zapata covertly responded by mouthing a single word: Go.

Vraxi didn’t look back, all she could do was run forward. Immediately, a barrage of bullets came barreling her way, but she had planned for such a response. Vraxi directed the tip of her blade toward the ground and used the same ability that allowed the sword to soar through the air in order to propel her upwards in one mighty leap above her attackers. While still in the arc of her trajectory, she angled her armament back towards the soldiers that now occupied the space beneath her, hoping to clear out as many of them as possible in one singular blast. Ultimately, she was faced with a mixed success, the laser being successful in partially immobilizing two of the guards, but with the side effect of slamming her backwards into the ceiling, causing her to fall on her stomach instead of her feet, all in the middle of an angered crowd. The various members of said crowd quickly acknowledged her presence by fiercely kicking her grounded body as if it were a loose sack of potatoes. When Vraxi was eventually able to open her eyes, she soon noticed that one of the officers who wasn’t actively assaulting her was holding a gun pointed plainly at her. She stopped herself from grabbing her sword, wary that taking such an action might trigger a severe response from the individual who held her life in their hands. Luckily, before such an individual could make such a decision, a reddened scythe burst through their abdomen, signaling the coming of one Zapata Tochihuitl to the rescue. Vraxi firmly grasped her sword and jumped up to her feet, scraping the armor of her more casual assailants as she did so and eventually meeting the gaze of her companion once she was fully rebalanced. Zapata’s face seemed to be portraying an odd emotion, one which basked in victory but seemed a little unsure about it, one which indicated to Vraxi, combined with the brutal way in which Zapata had dealt with the last soldier, that she might not be entirely in control of her actions. Vraxi did not, however, have any time to consider the implications of this expression as a batonned guard had already arrived to duel her, almost knocking her sword out of her hand as they striked it with great vigor. As Vraxi found herself stuck in a standstill with the guard, she quickly tried to find a way out of it, as sooner or later, even more guards would start assisting the one which was currently her opponent. Unfortunately, her sword’s specialities provided few uses in a scenario like this one, its propulsion would likely only push her to the ground and the lasers would fly right past the person she was actually trying to hit. She had to think back as to what she could possibly do to theoretically shift a draw to a certain win in as fast of a time as possible, a difficult task considering how she could barely move her sword in any direction without losing ground.

Then it hit her, the sword wasn’t the only thing she could move. In one practiced parabola, Vraxi launched her foot into her opponent’s groin, totally catching them off guard and giving her an opportunity to prevail. Vraxi remembered, however, that in short moments of triumph like this one, the opponent could always still try to make a retort of their own. Luckily, through her training, she knew exactly what retort would come. Vraxi briskly hopped a foot backwards as her attacker attempted to perform a similar surprise kick to the crotch, one which ended up barely missing its target. Vraxi then slammed the edge of her blade into the guard’s side right as their attack faltered, finally bringing them to the ground.

As Vraxi readied for her next encounter, she stole another look at Zapata, who was wide-eyed, covered in blood, and had already downed three guards in the time it took for Vraxi to handle one. Vraxi felt a tinge of concern ripple through her nervous system and emerge out through her mouth in the form of a question.

“Are you feeling okay, Zapata?”

Zapata immediately repositioned her head in response, staring deep sickled daggers into Vraxi’s soul, a loose rope of saliva dripping down her mouth which refused to ever fully close, a general air of manic perfectionism penetrating her surroundings, all aspects which accompanied her simple message, “I can deal with the guards, but I can’t promise your safety. Run to the bazaar without me. When this is all over, don’t try to find me, I’ll find you.”

“Zapata, we can’t just leave you here,”

“Yes you can.”

“But they’re gonna try to capture you,”

“I won’t let them.”

“You don’t know that! You can’t just treat your life like it’s something that can be sacrificed at any moment! I need you to live, Zapata! We all need you to live!”

“Just go, before I endanger you further.”

“Fine, if you say so, but please stop doing this to yourself.”

Zapata didn’t say anything more. She just looked to her enemies and treated them as if they were simple objects in free-floating space, all on an inevitable course to their own death, a circumstance which she may be causing or may be stopping short of, a distinction she truly couldn’t care less about. When Zapata was in this position, one heavily brought on by her cohabitation with Santa Muerte, death could be treated as simply another state of existence, one which was just as active as life but lacked a presence on the physical realm. Therefore, the way in which she dealt with the guards could be internally justified. Whether or not her fierce ripostes resulted in their exsanguination was not a matter that needed to be considered as their being was not something that could truly be destroyed, it could only change shape.

Vraxi, Hailang, and Zainan all began to sprint past the wave of attackers which had disrupted their journey, leaving Zapata behind to deal with those who still fought on against her. Vraxi remained deeply troubled in regards to Zapata’s choice, worried that a larger, unmanageable force might arrive to knock her out for good, simultaneously worried that her usage of Santa Muerte’s power like this might irreparably damage her sense of self, further worried over what acts she might commit under her patron’s influence, ones which cannot be reversed. Vraxi was unable to stop herself from stealing a quick glance behind her. Zapata did not appear to be present in her own body, moving in a way that made it seem like she already knew every move her opponent would attempt and exactly how the rest of their life would play out from there. Her body was being puppeteered by an entity with forbidden, unknowable knowledge that caused her to ambulate in a spectacular fashion, tantalizing Vraxi’s eyes and terrorizing her mind with what it all might entail for the future.

But Vraxi couldn’t think about the future, or at least any future outside of what was most immediate. She and her companions were just about to enter the Central Bazaar. There, an uncountable quantity of soldiers were likely waiting for them, all ready to detain them at the moment in which they enter their line of sight. Vraxi still wasn’t sure exactly what Hailang’s counterstrategy was to be, but she couldn’t let that information stay private for any longer than it needed to be.

“Hailang, now that Zapata’s out of earshot, could you tell us what you’re actually planning to do?”

“It’s simple,” they replied with an air of tranquility, “I’ll be trying out something grander than anything I’ve ever tried before. It’ll likely leave me in a position where the authorities can easily apprehend me, but it’ll stop short of actually killing me, and the chaos it’ll wreak will give you all plenty of time to get out of there.”

“But like, just to prepare myself, what actually should I expect to see?”

“Have you ever been to a beach and stopped, even if only momentarily, to simply feel the scale of the sea in front of you, that which stretches across the entire horizon and then even further past your field of view, that feeling of utter inadequacy when faced with the infinitely imposing grandeur of the natural world and it’s most bountiful gift made manifest through the globespanning ocean in front of you? Now double that feeling. That’s what you’ll see.”

Chapter Text

Brimming with a sense of optimism for something they knew could end in disaster, Hailang reached the end of the tunnel. They were situated atop a balcony on the roof of an eight-story casino, towering above the marketplace below. To their right laid the entrance to Kaiphachu’s underground, behaloed by the light of the surface, and to their left existed a much darker entrance for those who wished to travel further past the Central Bazaar and into the true underbelly of the district. Typically, this area would be full of regular people but in this particular moment it was being ruthlessly occupied by an army of cops.

“Hailang,” Vraxi began, “are you really sure that you can deal with all of these guys? I feel like there has to be at least a thousand of them just stationed in this one tunnel.”

“Am I sure? Absolutely not. But I don’t think that you necessarily have any better ideas.”

“I mean, I don’t really, I’m just worried about your safety is all.”

“Once again, we’re on the exact same wavelength, buckaroo.”

“Um, Hailang,” Zainan added, “really though, please be safe. Even if you can get out in the end, I’ve known people who’ve been sent to the Gibson Correctional Facility, and it can change people. Obviously, I think you can handle it, you’re awesome, but I’ve heard some really bad rumors about what goes on in there. I know I talk a big game sometimes, but I’m not sure I’d even be able to manage in there. And please, answer any question they ask, you can be facetious about it but you really have to avoid the interrogation room at all costs, it’s really a nightmare from what I’ve heard.”

“Thanks for the advice Zainan, but I think I’ll be just fine in there.”

Hailang quickly descended the stairs of the casino and soon found themself idling by a somewhat tacky fish tank at the edge of the empty lobby. Before they opened the door however, they needed to assure that they were truly ready for what was to come. 

“Mazu? Can we talk?” Hailang called out to their patron deity.

In response, the aquatic mass that made up the contents of the fish tank began to reshape into a humanoid form before exiting its container and walking over to greet its devoted follower.

“Hailang, darling, how have you been!” Mazu announced in a booming yet slightly sensual tone, “last Thursday was truly wonderful by the way, I never got to tell you because you always decide to leave so early in the morning. I’m not just a pretty face, y’know, I make a great breakfast and you’re missing out on all that. Though, I suppose your job is quite a busy one, I can’t fault you for that.”

“Yeah, um,” Hailang paused as they were genuinely a bit flustered by the sudden shower of affection, “anyways, I just wanted to confirm some things with you. What I’m about to do far exceeds anything I’ve ever achieved even with the help of your abilities. I just need you to tell me up front that it won’t kill me.”

“Hailang, what we have is special, I would never push you into harm’s way. You, however, seem very keen on pushing yourself in that direction, so hence, I promise to do everything in my path to prevent such a fate from befalling your wonderful soul.”

“Thank you, Mazu, it’s-”

“Though I must say, what you’re attempting is an inconsolably risky gambit, so I’m not going to say anything for certain about what may or may not happen to your life going forwards. What I can say is that I will be there for you, and if your body goes limp in the process, I will carry you the many miles to our special place in the countryside, and after one final night of passionate love, I will bury you by the riverbank, to be eroded by time into just another aspect of the harmonious environment that sits around you.”

“I appreciate the gesture, really, but I don’t have much time left. I’ll see you on the other side.”

With that, Hailang left the building and entered a sea of individuals all desperate to detain them as long as they lived. Most of the soldiers were located closer to the exit, their dark uniforms still lit by the sun beams that managed to creep through the hole in the earth, while Hailang was further down, next to the shadowy pit that held all the worst of what Kaiphachu had to offer. Nonetheless, the guards were quick to notice Hailang’s arrival and they were soon the sole target of over a hundred different rifles. Luckily, Hailang had some firepower of their own. Whenever there were storms in Rizhao, the lower levels of the Kaiphachu underground tended to flood, but because the existence of these lower levels went entirely ignored by the government, no system was ever implemented to halt the buildup of water within the area. Instead, the residents dealt with this issue themselves by either blocking off the affected area to minimize damages or by just digging even deeper to lower the water level. All this was to say that beneath Kaiphachu, there existed a titanic, inland sea’s worth of water, an untapped resource Hailang was ready to finally utilize.

“Shui Hailang!” a high-ranking Gibson lieutenant called out to the new felon through a clunky megaphone, “in accordance with international law, you are under arrest. You are completely cornered, surrender now if you value your life.”

Hailang only chuckled in response. The lieutenant was angered by this act of disrespect and almost began to hammer a few more warnings before an enormous, cascading sound clouded their auditory senses. In that moment, the lieutenant realized that guns would not help them.

Hailang could feel the humidity of the air around them significantly increase, a subtle mist forming a few inches off the ground as all the nearby glass and metal surfaces began to fog up. The crowd appeared confused but unwilling to change its stance, a position that Hailang suspected wouldn’t last much longer. The coming wave was going to wash away all pretense that the Gibson army could handle Hailang’s oceanic abilities and it would presumably wash away most of their bodies in the process. Hailang was absolutely sure that none of them would be able to withstand the might of the nearing gale, the only thing they were then unsure of was whether they themself could behave any differently. Hailang would theoretically be hit by the wave before any of the soldiers would and, given the strength of said wave, such a hit would assuredly cause them to lose concentration and could likely cause some severe bodily harm. Hailang had a plan to avoid this fate, but they wished it was a bit more thought out. As the humidity climbed, Hailang drawed forth the water in the atmosphere to form a protective bubble around them. They had to trust in all the divine promises that Mazu had told them that this bubble would not pop, or at least wouldn’t pop until the army was cleared from the premises. Hailang held a deep respect, as well as a complex psychosexual relationship, with their patron deity, but they still had trouble believing that the thin substance encircling them could truly hold. Only time could tell and time was something they were running low on. The wave was beginning to surface from the shadows.

Hailang watched as a city-leveling tsunami which spanned the entire tunnel, almost eclipsing the ceiling, traveled above them, fully enveloping their bubble soon after while leaving their clothes completely dry. The water, which had been stewing beneath an industrial city for many years now, was hopelessly polluted and entirely opaque, making Hailang blind to whatever the results of their actions truly were. They could not see whether the soldiers were hit or not, they could not assess the damages this would cause to the Bazaar’s architecture, they could only look into the cloudy swirls of chemical spillage around them and ponder what might and might not be, only to be answered when all was already done, when the wave was already settled.

Vraxi observed the wreckage in real time. She watched in awe as the seemingly insurmountable forces of the Gibson Foundation crumpled like tissue paper beneath the raging power of the sea. She was undoubtedly shaken, and in multiple ways as the torrent had begun to shake the foundations that were holding the building she stood upon. She assumed that the structure would return to a stable equilibrium once the wave had passed, but the water refused to stop flowing forth. She eventually came to the conclusion that the amount of water situated beneath Rizhao’s surface was significantly more immense than she had once assumed, leading to a secondary conclusion that it would be best for her safety if she tried to escape from the bazaar entirely, doubting the true integrity of an establishment that likely wasn’t constructed with official safety codes in mind.

“Zainan!” She shouted over the roaring tempest, “we should probably head to the exit! I don’t think it’s safe here!”

“I agree!” Zainan yelled back before sprinting over to Vraxi, only to slip across the wet floor on the way and fall backwards onto his elbows, scraping both of them across the cement flooring.

“Oh shit! Are you okay?” Vraxi began to rush over to her fallen comrade.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. I just wasn’t thinking. I can get up on my own, you don’t have to help me.”

“Okay then… just make sure to be careful,” Vraxi paused her approach about six meters away from Zainan before slowly starting to turn the other way.

The sound of something large breaking in two rang from beneath her. Immediately after, the flat surface she was standing on shifted into a ramp whose incline was rapidly getting steeper. The foundations had collapsed and the rest of the building would follow suit. Vraxi had barely any time before escape would no longer be an option. Though, before she could take any action in order to save herself, she had to do something about the kid.

Zainan was already beginning to slide down the slope and the layer of water coating the ground made the act of trying to stop his current movement seem futile. He was not far from the edge. Vraxi, understanding that doing so could likely lead to her own doom, chose to pursue him regardless. She dashed down the tilted balcony, trying not to fall on her face as she did so, and was able to close a significant distance between herself and Zainan. But alas, she was not a runner, and she could clearly see that such an aerobic act would result in her falling short of actually saving the kid. Though, she did have one other mode of movement at her disposal.

Vraxi lifted her blade up high and allowed it to propel herself through the air, soaring downwards to the rim of the floor which Zainan was struggling to cling to. His feet were already submerged under the water and the unstoppable current was visibility making it impossible for him to hold on much longer.

“Grab my hand!” Vraxi shouted out to him. She wasn’t sure just how powerful the force of the wave truly was from where she was floating but she was pretty sure that she could lift him out from it.

“I can’t! I’ll get pulled in if I let go, even for just a second!”

“Hold on!” Vraxi lowered herself closer to the uneven ground and gripped onto Zainan’s forearm with her free hand. She tensed her bicep and pulled with all the strength she could muster.

She just wasn’t strong enough. Zainan had already been dragged by the draft to the point where his entire lower body was underwater, and Vraxi had never been one to seriously exercise before her experiences in Dakahlia. She needed to use both her arms.

Vraxi dropped down to the floor which she knew could cave in at any moment and set her sword aside before grabbing onto Zainan with her other arm and pulling as hard as she could against the stubborn, single-minded, selfish flow of water that roared beneath her. Zainan looked like little more than a head and a pair of shoulders.

“Vraxi,” he stated with an uncharacteristic calm, “I don’t think we can make this work.”

“Don’t say that! There’s still time!”

“If you keep on trying, you’re gonna fall in too. I don’t see a point in that. I really appreciate what you're doing here, but you need to let me go, for your own sake. It’s not like I’m gonna die or anything, I’ll just probably be arrested.”

“You’re too young for jail, Zainan. Don’t do this!”

“Kids like me get jailed everyday, I’ve had my time coming for a while now. And besides, it seems like I’ve got some powerful friends, that swordplay was pretty rad. I hope to see you soon, Vraxi. Adios!”

All at once, Zainan pushed himself away from Vraxi’s embrace and into the monsoon, holding up a fleeting thumbs-up as he did so. Vraxi was at a loss for words. She wanted to go after him right away, but she knew he wouldn’t want that, and she simultaneously knew that there was a very small window of time before escaping the tunnel of doom she sat in would become effectively impossible. She lifted her sword into the air once more, filled with an unbridled, undeniable, flaming sense of purpose.

Vraxi started running as fast as she could reasonably imagine was possible up the incline with all the strength that hadn’t yet departed her. She needed to save Zainan from his fate, but first, she would need to save herself, a task made all the more difficult as she watched the typhoon finally fully rip the balcony she stood on away from the entrance she needed to reach at all costs. She was operating on pure panic, but that panic gave way to desperation, and that desperation gave way to an unbreakable determination that she would make it to the other side of the chasm that separated her from her only possible exit. With a practiced poise and an improvised stance, Vraxi slammed the tip of her blade into what little ground still remained beneath her and shot all the innate energy that flowed within her into one incomparable laser of her dreams.

The balcony fully exploded under her, launching her into the sky, almost grazing the ceiling as she did so, flinging her over to her destination as she eventually fell downwards once more. Vraxi successfully grabbed onto the bottom edge of the archway built into the wall that would allow her to escape this hell-on-earth. She had already expended the majority of the power left within her, but she was able to slowly pull herself up and into the adjacent hallway, finally separating herself from the all-consuming storm.

Vraxi let herself crouch down for a moment and gaze at the spectacle that was playing out on the other side of the entranceway. She had to admit that, despite everything, the wave was a special kind of beautiful. Yes, it was positively brimming with garbage, and yes, it had just subsumed an innocent child before her very eyes, but the concept of beauty was not necessarily beholden to these things. Something beautiful did not need to also be morally defensible, and furthermore, in the right circumstance, something beautiful could simultaneously be quite ugly. What mattered most in the realm of beauty was that something stood out, that it drew one’s eyes to its center no matter how hard the viewer tried to look away. The wave was imbued, in more ways than one, not just with great power but the very concept of power and the indiscriminate nature of such a fickle thing. Hailang had curried great power to summon it, but said power was so great as to make them unable to truly control its flow, ultimately leading to Zainan’s poor fate. It was all very tragic, but that tragedy was what fueled the wave’s beauty. Vraxi couldn’t look away because the wave, being a simple force of nature albeit one which moved in an unnatural way, was able to seed such a tragedy yet remain so utterly ambivalent to it all.

Vraxi only stopped looking at the wave when she heard the sound of heavy machinery slowly grow louder from behind her, eventually forcing her to turn around. A militarized vehicle filled with recognizable faces stood in the place where her gaze had shifted to.

“Hop in, Vraxi!” Diogo, who was manning the wheel, shouted with a characteric cheeriness that cut through the melancholy she was still attempting to process.

“Vraxi,” Theta started, looking much more concerned than their partner, “I thought Zainan was with you.”

Vraxi could only let out a sigh in response. 

Zapata woke up in a daze, surrounded by static bodies in varied states of vitality, her own body looking much the same. She was bloodied, but not bleeding, a good sign as long as one ignores all possible implications, a mindset which Zapata was willing to adopt as long as she could claim plausible deniability. She stood up, averted her gaze from the floor, and marched along though the tube as if nothing of note had happened there. She was tired, first and foremost, of many things and for many a reason, the greatest reason of all being that few could attain a good night’s sleep inside a bloody sewer. 

Zapata stumbled her way into a larger and more populated tunnel after about thirty minutes of aimless wandering, only recalling in the last of these minutes that it would be the best praxis to obstruct her own face moving forward, considering the army and such. She managed to thread together a couple of loose patches from the interior of her jacket into an even looser but passably conciliatory facemask which she wore in such an obtuse yet effective manner that no individual would be able to draw a connection between her visage and her criminal persona, though they would likely remain suspicious for other reasons. Despite her disguise, Zapata couldn’t help but walk like a tourist, pausing at every other storefront to get a better look of things and familiarize herself with the foreign environment. While her family had historically lived in many homes in many nations, Zapata had barely ever left the Novaplex for as much as Baltimore before her initial encounter with Theta. As a result, her eyes were one to ogle, and there was much to ogle at, with such a selection of sight eventually coming to a crescendo when she passed by an item which many others would likewise only lend a glance.

It was a newspaper, discarded onto the floor, right next to a rat carcass and about a dozen cigarette buds. The condition of the paper was not of interest, what mattered was its content. The headline itself provided quite a shock, stating that all of last night’s culprits, her included, had successfully evaded capture, but with the caveat that a sixteen-year-old accomplice with water in his lungs, presumably Zainan, had not been so lucky. This opening information was both strange and saddening, but not nearly as strange nor saddening as what was to come later in the article. This publication, unlike those before it, had come with the promise of a comprehensive victim list as notated by the Novaplex government. Among these individuals affected by her own ‘crime’ was a name which Zapata recognized. She did not remember seeing this individual at the party, and they were most likely not a part of the crowd that had actively attempted to end her life. Tasha Butler, a name which was now likely emblazoned in ink across the world, was a close friend of Zapata’s, a fellow practitioner of the occult at Mornminster, and according to international law, someone which she had murdered. Zapata, who hadn’t actively thought much of Tasha during her time abroad, was now tearfully afraid as to what her friend’s true fate may have truly been.

Zapata always tried to remain stoic, but when the world around her was turbulent, she found it difficult to prevent her emotions from being caught up in the same storm. She needed to take a walk, something that could distance her mind from the violent happenings of reality and allow her to enter a peaceful if temporary state of calm. She placed the paper back on the ground and directed her vision straight ahead. Immediately, she saw the face of a man who could easily see through her masquerade. It was probably the worst possible person she could have ever seen at a moment like this. It was her sworn nemesis, the man behind the death of her brother, Joey Axelrod. 

“Axelrod…” she began cautiously, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, it’s a pretty similar activity to what I was doing the last time the two of us met. I am on a sworn mission to obtain the Singularity, also known as Theta, and return them to their rightful owners.”

“Idiot. You slimy idiot, did you not listen to them the last time? They don’t want to go back! Okay? Why can’t you just accept that?”

“I, okay, well,” Joey paused to formulate a few thoughts, “I’ll just tell you the truth here, there’s not much of a point in me lying. I was exaggerating earlier, things have actually changed a lot since last time. In six days, GüdTek corporate will change its plans for Theta from that of a return mission to an extermination mission. Now, you may believe that you have it within you to prevent that latter fate, but I do not hold such optimism in your abilities. What truly matters to me the most is not whether Theta is under the jurisdiction of Bran or Nair, but simply that they continue to live. This is the true reason for why I must capture them.”

“I have no reason to believe that you would tell me the truth.”

“I don’t blame you. To my knowledge, you seem to kinda hate me.”

“You didn’t have to say ‘kinda.’”

“Do you wanna fight about it or what, Vraxi? Because, really, I don’t want to fight you.”

“I can’t stress enough how much I’d like to fight you, Axelrod. Unfortunately, I only just regained consciousness after a rather brutal affair, so I’m a tad bit tired.”

“That explains all the divine energy seeping out of the tunnel I saw you exit.”

“I guess that explains how you found me here.”

“Alright then, it was nice talking to you, I’ll probably see you sometime later.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m not telling you that. Why would I ever tell you that?”

“I don’t know, you’ve been acting pretty weird. I sorta assumed you’d try to kill me right here and now.”

“How would that advance my goal?”

“You’d get me out of the way, I guess. I feel like that would probably help.”

“Zapata, I have a very specific plan in mind and whether you continue to exist or not has very little to do with whether or not it will be effective. Also, I’d feel kinda bad about killing you given the whole Emiliano situation. It just feels wrong when you end up targeting an entire bloodline.”

Zapata was mad. She knew that there were much more important things she should be focusing on, but she genuinely couldn’t stand the face, posture, and overall attitude of Joey Axelrod. To see him act like such a big shot after he had escaped their last encounter in a full frenzy of cowardice felt like such a disgrace to Zapata that despite herself, she still wanted to fight him then and there. She was wise enough to negate those fiery feelings for the time being but they still stung like the harshest of physical pains. Zapata then had to endure these pains on the long trek to the bottom of the tunnel system where Hailang had said they would regroup at.

“So what exactly is this place?” Vraxi asked as the vehicle parked adjacent to a small shack on stilts deep underground. The area was clearly quite damp but all the actual water had since been displaced, leaving a selection of newly useless canoes lying beside them. 

“This is Zainan’s home,” Hailang replied, wrapped in multiple towels and still shivering, “or at least the closest thing he has to one. There’s an old woman down here who takes care of some of the orphan children who dare venture into Kaiphachu’s core. I’m not really sure how she gets the funds to do such a thing and I’m similarly unsure as to how she hasn’t died yet. Maybe she’s just one of God’s favorites- or I guess I should say Theta’s favorites.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Theta corrected as the four of them all slowly exited the car. 

After knocking on the hardwood six times consecutively, Hailang was about to give up when the door slowly creaked open to reveal a small elderly maiden whose hair, despite her visibly advanced age, had refused to gray outside of a few lonely strands.

“Oh, Zainan’s friend,” the woman chirped with a sense of honed vigor that few could match, “Come in, I’d like to tell you about the strangest thing that just happened down here. You likely saw the effects on the ground when you arrived, but for no apparent reason, all of the water just decided to flow against every natural law and into the sky. It must’ve been a miracle of some sort, and it came at the right time. I've been worried sick about the rising tides for months now, but I guess I only have to worry about the opposite problem now.”

“I’m really glad to hear that, Imelda,” Hailang replied, trying to blanket the bad news they still needed to tell her with some level of comfort, “but, I have some rather important things I need to tell you. Is it okay if my friends from abroad also come in?”

“Oh of course, please, take a seat, all of you.”

Vraxi, Diogo, and Theta all awkwardly shuffled single-file into the compact living space. Vraxi sat on a stool, worrying that she might be stepping over a boundary by taking a stranger’s chair.

“Oh,” Vraxi started to clarify before any confusion could be seeded, even if she had to lie to do so, “the robot’s mine. Don’t worry about them. They don’t bite.”

“Hello,” Theta added to the facade, hoping dearly that the elder was disconnected enough from current events that they might not recognize their criminal background or the fact that they were fully sentient.

Imelda did not respond to Theta, and through her generally cordial countenance, Vraxi could recognize a distinct disdain for the robot’s presence. Vraxi could think of a whole host of reasons as to why Imelda might be strained in such a way, chief among them being how the Gibson Foundation was entirely willing to use robots for their systems of enforcement, and automatons might therefore not necessarily be connected to the most positive of memories. The other competing reason for such behavior which bounced around in Vraxi’s head was one that formulated as a direct result of her immediate environment. The interior of Imelda’s home was extremely Catholic, multiple crucifixes were fixed upon every wall and she was half-expecting for one to be plastered onto the ceiling. Most notably though, was a 4-foot tall imitation of the Virgin Mary carved from stone and inconveniently placed in the dead-center of the room. Vraxi speculated, though she was no theologian and lacked a strong understanding on Christianity outside of cultural diffusion, that the Catholic Church, including both the Church in Rome and the Church in Cebu despite their recent split, might not be the most keen on figures that attempted to mold themselves into a perverse facsimile of God’s creations. However, despite the discomfort which had already been firmly established into the atmosphere, Hailang pressed on.

“I have bad news about Zainan,” the demon hunter stated bluntly.

“What happened, is he okay?” Imelda’s face quickly turned in on itself to become one of untethered fear.

“The police got to him. There was,” Hailang paused for half a moment, seemingly to prevent themself from speaking the full truth to someone they really didn’t want to disappoint, “a surprise confrontation, and you know damn well, sorry, darn well that they’ll arrest a kid for anything down here.”

“That is,” Imelda’s hand trembled but her face had since returned to equilibrium, “very sad to hear. But, I thank God above that he continues to live, and I pray that he will be released soon and in good health, and I pray further that he will find a way out of this city some day.”

“Imelda, I’m not just going to let him rot in jail.”

“What do you mean by that? Do you think you could pay the bail? You never told me much about what it is you do for a living but I’d be surprised to hear that you have that kind of money.”

“I’m not giving them a single cent, Imelda. I’m gonna break him out of there.”

“Hailang, you can’t do that. You know you can’t do that. When was the last time you heard of a successful escape from GCF 12? Never. It just doesn’t happen. You’re going to get yourself killed and you're far too young for that.”

“Imelda, I have to, because,” Hailang paused, looked down to their soaked shoes, and almost got up from their seat before continuing, “because it’s my fault that any of this happened to begin with.”

“No,” Vraxi butted in, “it’s my fault. I was the one who couldn't catch him. I watched him fall and it could’ve been prevented if I was just the slightest bit stronger. But I’m not. Zainan is in jail because of my own inadequacy.”

“Vraxi, he wouldn’t have fallen at all if it wasn’t for my own decision to let out a ruthlessly reckless wave of my own ego crash through a neighborhood that I knew damn well, sorry, darn well was built on supports far too weak to handle that kind of gnarlage.”

“If you hadn’t been ruthlessly reckless, we’d all be in jail! That was our only possible option! And you and Zainan weren’t even the ones the cops were actually after, you just got dragged in by our own ‘ruthlessly reckless’ behavior. This is in no way your fault!”

“Vraxi, listen to me, closely and precisely. I could’ve streamlined that wave better, I could’ve directed it in such a way that it wouldn’t have even touched the buildings themselves, only the occupied road between them. But I was selfish, I didn’t want to get caught even though I knew that I was the only one of us who could make it out of prison by status alone. That selfishness affected the way in which I controlled the wave. I spent about half of the energy I had available making sure that it didn’t knock me down with the rest of them, when I could’ve been using that energy to make sure that the wave actually hit its proper target and nothing else. I should’ve been the sacrifice, not Zainan, it should’ve been me who the wave brought down with its crest.”

“Hey,” Diogo chimed in, placing the glass of tea Imelda had handed to him back on its coaster as he did so, “how about we all take a quick breather outside? I’m not sure if our host really needs or wants to hear all of this information.”

“I agree,” Theta added in a voice that was slightly more robotic than their usual, likely to support the illusion that they were not a fully cognizant being.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Vraxi said as she swiftly paced over to the door.

“I’m sorry, Imelda,” Hailang stated, ignoring the words of their companions, “I’m also sorry you had to hear all that. You're probably confused as to what any of it actually means. However, I really don’t want to further implicate you into any sort of possible international crime which I may or may not be involved in myself.”

“Shui Hailang,” Imelda pronounced thoroughly as if trying to preserve all that was left of her dignity, “you are a very, very strange individual. I have never understood you, and while I try to be kind through all of God’s challenges, I have never really liked you as a person either. You seem to hold a great wealth of power within you, perhaps you’ve been blessed in some way. I was never able to truly grasp what that power was, only that it seemed to enrapture the young mind of Zainan in its possibilities. I need you to harness that power, whatever it may be, just this once, for me and for Zainan. If anyone can save that boy, it’s you.”

Diogo was the last of his companions to exit Imelda’s abode, with Vraxi and Theta already on the ladder down as he closed the door. Hailang had opted to instead linger for a little bit longer on the elevated paneling directly outside the home. Diogo decided to linger with them.

“Hey,” he stuttered, trying to keep his composure steady as he talked with someone teetering on the edge of tears, “I know what I’m gonna say probably won’t change your mind, but I do think you’re being a bit hard on yourself.”

“I know I am,” Hailang stuttered back, “but I have to be hard on myself.”

“Why is that the case?”

“Diogo, my job is all about minimizing damages, specifically those stemming from the demonic realm. The thing is, it’s very difficult to entirely eliminate these damages. I’ve watched a lot of people die, and I’ve had to make a lot of difficult decisions in order to make sure that the smallest number of people end up with that fate, but that number’s barely ever a zero. There are always improvements that can be made, that need to be made if I don’t want to watch even more people die. Therefore, I always have to be hard on myself, because if I’m not, I’m effectively just killing the people on the margins through my own laziness.”

“Hailang, I don’t want to stress you further, but with the way you're speaking about things, do you think Zainan could die?”

“I doubt they’ll kill him, but they’ll probably end up trying to do something even worse. The folks at Gibson are true innovators in torture tactics and there’s a whole lot of info they’re gonna wanna extract from him at this point.”

“Does Rizhao not have any laws about that?”

“Oh, Rizhao does, but like I said, Gibson operates independently to the local law, only really bowing down to their owners in the Sichuanese Corporate Legislature. Hold on, I thought you were supposed to be an Allodapos member, shouldn’t you know this kind of thing?”

“I’ve only really dealt with Gibson once, they’re a pretty powerful organization and any infiltrations of them usually only bring along the most experienced of agents.”

“Ah, I guess I ever overestimated your rank. Anyways, I end up having to deal with those guys all the damn time, sorry- actually, we’re outside, I can say damn all I want. But yeah, since Rizhao is a member of the Sichuanosphere, both me and your average Gibson goon technically get our paychecks from the same bank account, but it’s much more complicated than that in practice, trust me, it just means we end up running into each other a lot.”

“So, would you say that that knowledge of Gibson's inner workings gives you an advantage when trying to break someone out of a Gibson-run facility?”

“Oh, absolutely yes. I honestly bet I could cook up an escape plan in no time,” Hailang paused and let out a sigh, “it’s just, I’d really rather not be in this situation, and the stress of it all can make it hard to think clearly sometimes. I’m the kind of person who can easily get overwhelmed by guilt, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Diogo thought of his old mentor as he gazed at someone who he hoped could fulfill that empty role in some way, “I know that feeling.”

Vraxi sat with Theta in their stolen vehicle’s truck bed as the late evening gracefully gave heed to the night. She felt conflicted about what was to come, both in the near future and far beyond it. She knew that Hailang intended to free Zainan from his imprisonment. This made sense to Vraxi, it was the righteous thing to do and was furthermore the only way to get a lead against the paranormal beast whose attributable obituaries would only increase if left to live. There was a clear chain of events, at least in Vraxi’s mind, of everything that needed to occur for her ideal future to be realized. Yet still, her future seemed to lie on an unstable foundation. Rizhao was a telling subject of observation, it hosted an undeniable host of flaws that could easily be recognized through a short glance and most of these flaws were built into the very core of the nation. These core flaws were what all of Rizhao’s surface level problems emerged from, including the problem of the beast. The residents of Kaiphachu knew the beast by its appearance, often stemming from first-hand encounters, while the residents of Rizhao proper only knew depictions of the beast, approximations of its terror, most of which were so distorted as to not even identify it as a beast at all while many further claimed that the terror was truly brought on by the residents of Kaiphachu themselves. Even if the beast were to be slain, Vraxi concluded, this disconnect would still be present, addressing the surface level problem but failing to do anything in regards to Rizhao’s core flaws.

“Theta,” Vraxi let the words pour out of her mouth, “do you think that what we’re doing has any real effect on things?”

“There are few questions more subjective,” Theta buzzed out acutely, clearly hoping for something more specific to answer.

“I agree. I guess what I’m saying is, so let’s say we kill the beast, then what?”

“Well, my main goal is to do as much good as possible before I die.”

“That’s gonna be difficult when the strongest authorities in the world are all after us.”

“Well, since you want to assist me in my goal, how would you suggest we overcome such a difficulty?”

“The thing is,” Vraxi felt like she was in over her head at this point, but she couldn’t stop her lips from talking, “I know it’s improbable, but institutions are only as powerful as we let them be, and if it would do a lot of good for the world, I think our main goal should really be finding a way to destroy these institutions, to make them powerless.”

“I’ll admit that it’s a big step,” Theta stared directly into Vraxi’s watery eyes, “but I also have to admit that I don’t see any way forward but to take it.”

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Hailang finally spoke, their pupils bounding across a crowd bubbling with anticipation, “after having a long, insightful conversation with my advisor,” they motioned their hand towards Diogo, “my master escape plan is finally complete.”

“If all goes well, which I suspect it will,” Diogo presumed, “Zainan will reclaim his freedom in time for dinner and Gibson will be none the wiser.”

“So,” spoke a disgruntled Zapata, still coated in her damp and reddened clothing as she lacked anything to change into, “could you be a little more detailed than that?”

“Absolutely!” Hailang exclaimed, “but first, a layout of the land. GCF 12 is a nine-story facility located near Mount Lao that also has a basement level and a cellar level below that. That may seem like a lot of floors, but very importantly for us, given the fact that Zainan has only just been arrested and has not yet been fully sentenced, we know that his cell could only possibly be on either Floor 2 or Floor 3.”

“But Hailang,” Diogo asked rhetorically, “even if we generally know where Zainan is, how will we even enter the building without getting caught first?”

“That’s a fabulous question, Diogo. But the answer is rather simple. You see, from 2:00 to 2:30 PM, the inmates of Floors 2 and 3 will be in the ground floor cafeteria for lunch, and their respective guards will travel with them, leaving those initial levels entirely empty. This is where Theta comes in, they’ll hack into facility’s network and get the windows on both floors to open, after which, Vraxi will be able to fly over to these new entrances using her magic sword, carrying Zapata with her, and from there the two of you will just check to see which cell has Zainan’s name attached to it. Simple!”

“But,” Vraxi challenged, “then we’ll just know which cell he’s in, but he’ll still be in the cafeteria at that point.”

“Correct, but this is where I come in. You see, at the same time that you two are performing the first part of the break-in, I will be performing a break-in of my own. However, it will be done in such a way that is designed to fail very quickly. I will immediately be caught, raising enough alarm for them to send Zainan back to his cell, as they would be worried that I might try to free him, but not raising enough alarm for them to send everyone back, as I will look very pathetic in the process.”

“But even if all that works, then you’ll still be under arrest, right?”

“Not for very long,” Diogo added, “because I’ll already be in the building by then.”

“But how would you get in without being caught?”

“By using this,” Diogo pulled out an object from behind him that appeared to be an Allodapos skin mask, “I snagged this thing from Dakahlia before we left, thought it might come in handy. It seems to be a recreation of Malik’s face, but all that’s important is that it conceals my own. After I’ve put it on, all I’ll have to do is stroll into the visitor’s entrance with Theta’s central computer in tow, and once Hailang gives us the signal, Theta will shut off all the lights and unlock all the doors, giving them an easy escape.”

“Hold on,” Theta countered, “Are we sure that I actually have to go inside the building for that? My central systems are pretty fragile and that whole proposal seems like it could highly heighten the likelihood of damages.”

“Sadly,” Hailang prefaced, “the coverage out in the mountains is no good, you’re gonna wanna be inside, especially considering how tight I suspect the firewalls will be by then.”

“Hailang,” Vraxi spoke with a hint of desperation creeping out from the back of her tongue, “can you promise that Theta will be safe out there?”

“If everything goes according to plan, absolutely!”

“And,” Zapata questioned, looking unenthused, “how likely is it that everything will go according to plan?”

“Y’all, I can’t make any promises. I understand that this is a lot to ask, but if we don’t do this, an innocent kid will be forced to decompose in an institution that would actively rather have him be dead. Furthermore, the monster that haunts this city will only claim more victims. Really, it’s the least we can all do.”

“So,” Diogo transitioned, “are you all in on this?”

“Well,” Theta briefly considered, “I suppose it’s the most morally upstanding thing I could do in this situation.”

“If Theta’s in,” Vraxi added, “I guess I’m in too.”

“Listen,” Zapata looked down before adjusting her vision back up to the room of accomplices all staring at her, “I’d really rather not engage in something like this, it sounds like I’m gonna have bad time no matter how things turn out, but fuck it, if it means I’m one step closer to avenging Emiliano, I might as well. It’s not like I have anything better to do these days.”

Theta was in a cramped space, specifically with their central computer lodged between Diogo’s inner shirt and outer jacket. This space provided them with very little knowledge of the world outside their partner’s outfit. All they could really do in order to gain an understanding of that forbidden world was to listen. 

By listening to the muffled sounds that could pass through a layer of fabric, Theta could intuit that they were currently stood in a line or a queue or a deli counter of some kind, waiting for an indeterminate time, at which they would be called forward and where Diogo, posing as a man with the face of Malik Dirwat, would state their purpose of being here to begin with. Diogo didn’t have such a purpose, or at least lacked a legal one, so Theta hoped that whatever sort of wait they were in would continue for as long of a period as possible. Before that period could meet its end, Theta would have to successfully hack into the operating systems of GCF 12, a task they could finally begin now that they were thoroughly sojourned in the building itself. 

As Theta materialized into the codescape and the codescape materialized around them, they were quite shocked to see that the area was actually rather devoid of any cohabitants. It was almost eerie how empty their surroundings were, a recreation of a prison but with nobody there to be imprisoned but themself. They walked up the stairs to the second floor at a snail’s pace, knowing very well that their time was limited but still holding the unverifiable belief that there were entities other than themself lurking within this world and that said entities were watching their every movement. It was somewhat strange for a synthetic lifeform like Theta to hold an unverifiable belief like this, but then again, fear had always been a universal constant among sentient beings and barely has it ever been based on pure reason. Whether Theta’s stressors were based in reality or not, they felt it best praxis to treat it like they were, even as they entered a second floor which was just as empty as the first.

Theta paced across a hallway lined with digital cells that were devoid of purpose without any digital inmates to be contained in them. They thought it to be likely better that way. When they reached the window placed entirely opposite to the door they had entered from, they winced a little. They were unsure if something terrible might happen once they start to open it, perhaps finally uncorking the horror that had been swishing around in their head ever since they entered this place. They briefly thought to reconsider their standing in things, but they proceeded to open the window regardless. As it appeared in the moment, nothing strange happened. They quickly gave thanks to the powers that be and moved on to Floor 3.

Floor 3 was in no way similar to its predecessor. While Floor 2 had been a place far removed from the presence of Gibson guards, its successor was overflowing with them. The only true similarity between the two rooms was then the silence that pervaded through both of them, as the guards of Floor 3 said nary a word, they were far too busy exsanguinating in a grandiose pile of their own corpses.

To put it simply, Theta was taken aback by this visual. There was clearly someone or something that existed within this virtual space and held enough power over it to treat skilled autonomous guards like they were mere scrap metal. Theta was also disturbed that these robotic guards had blood to begin with. Unless, of course, that blood came from whatever did this to them. 

The blood was not dry or darkened, it was fresh. Whatever being ignited this catastrophe was likely still nearby.

Theta really felt like they should leave this place. It clearly did not want them to stay and they felt like it would be best for all parties involved if they listened to its warnings. But they still had work to do and that work held a moral imperative and if they were to ignore such a moral imperative then there wouldn’t be much of a point for them continuing to exist at all. Their job was to do as much good as possible, which in this situation meant scooting past the bloody mechanical mess in the center of the room and, with little fanfare but much anxiety, opening the third floor window.

Theta felt ready to leave, though they still had a cue to wait for. When Diogo gave them the proper signal, they would have to shut all the lights and unlock all the doors, a rather intensive action which they still weren’t sure how to actually complete but would regardless require them to stay in the digital prison, presumably with whatever digital butcher occupied it with them.

Vraxi Nair received a ping on her phone. She gave a wordless glance to her partner Zapata who responded with a wordless nod of her own. They had been enjoying the view from the mountain as they waited, but now was not a time for leisure, it was a time for business, business that only the two of them were both capable and willing to do.

The actual process of flying from the mountainside to their ultimate destination was fraught with difficulties, most pressing of which was derived from the fact that there was only one part of the sword where somebody could comfortably latch their hand upon. As a result, the two eventually opted to have Vraxi grab onto the hilt while Zapata grabbed onto Vraxi’s shoulders. It was a decidedly precarious position and both participants held the worry that they might fall for the entire duration of their flight. Nevertheless, they were still able to reach the prison itself, albeit a bit later than they’d hoped at 2:08, with Vraxi reaching up to Floor 3 and Zapata hopping down to Floor 2.

“See you on the other side,” Vraxi commented as the two departed.

“Ideally,” Zapata mumbled back.

Vraxi rushed through the hall in search of Zainan’s nameplate. There were a total of sixty cells, thirty on either side of the aisle, and each of these cells had two names attached. Vraxi first checked every name plastered onto the left side of the room, to little avail. She then turned around and repeated this process for the right side. Once again, Zainan’s name did not appear. It all felt the slightest bit concerning to her that she wasn’t able to track down any trace of Zainan, but she reasonably assumed that this just meant that his cell was instead located on the equally plausible Floor 2. Vraxi’s job was then theoretically done, she had noted all that she needed to and had compiled her results, though she still had some time before she would need to evacuate and felt that it was in her best interests to double-check all the names she had passed.

Something strange occurred when Vraxi finished double-checking the cells on the left. The occurrence was not a particularly quantifiable one, but it wasn’t something that could just be brushed off as nerves or confirmation bias. Something had shifted in the air, everything around her was slightly off, slightly different than it was before, perhaps even slightly malicious. ‘The room should be empty’ she thought, but it didn’t feel empty, it felt like there was something other than herself, something so very different from herself, something inhuman that was lurking behind every corner. It was entirely invisible, yet it was impossible not to see, not to recognize, not to draw conclusions on its identity. Vraxi had felt a feeling like this only once before, it almost felt like that feeling was lurching out from her memory to take revenge, she likely would’ve decided that to be the truth of the matter if it didn’t all feel so incredibly real. This was The Beast of Kaiphachu, the kasamaan to its victims.

Vraxi stood entirely still. She did not know how the kasamaan functioned, how it appeared, how it killed, or truly how it even came into existence at all. It was an utter enigma for her, and based on how Hailang described it, she wasn’t alone in that judgment. She did not know how to face it and she didn’t know if it was even possible for her physical form to make contact with its intangible essence. The only solid option left in her mind was to run, yet that felt so utterly ignorant at the same time. Running, or any form of rapid movement for that matter, could make her an obvious target. She wasn’t sure how smart the beast really was or even if it possessed sentience at all, but if she just stayed still, she might be able to blend into the environment, and the kasamaan might just opt to move on. 

It did not move on. Instead, the kasamaan only moved closer to Vraxi, making its presence hauntingly more known and finally somewhat visible. It looked like a collage of smoke vaguely approximating a bipedal form, though distinctly not derived from one single cloud but rather stemming from an infinite array of ethereal fires that all coalesced to form one being, the shared grievances of a hundred thousand households all coagulating after years of hardship into a perceivable, living being. It was suffering made alive, itself suffering in its own existence and clearly trying to rope Vraxi into its world of suffering alongside it. This was not just a malicious entity, but malice personified. As Vraxi let a lone drop of anxious sweat drip down her back, she realized that staying still and staying safe were mutually exclusive actions.

The flesh and soul of Joey Axelrod materialized in the damp custodial closet of a prison designed to, like most prisons before it, suck the fragile life out of all who entered it. 

“Yikes, this place smells awful,” Joey commented, “are you sure there wasn’t any nicer room you could’ve sent me off to?”

“Joey, listen,” his patron Lucifer spoke frustratedly, “there are only so many places I can send you within a maximum security prison where you won’t get immediately caught. This is just what you’ll have to deal with, alright?”

“Sorry, that’s fair, so where will I be once I open this door?”

“Floor 2. At the current moment, everyone assigned to Floor 2 is in the cafeteria, so you should be fine. But you’ll need to derive some way of getting to the visitor center on Floor 1, where Theta is, without being spotted.”

“Don’t worry, I can handle this.”

“Also, remember, the main reason I gave you these powers at all was so that you could eliminate the members of Vraxi Nair’s god-posse. I was very annoyed when you totally passed up the opportunity to kill Zapata yesterday.”

“Yes, I know, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about what you might think.”

“This is all especially critical now that Israfil’s bonded with a human as well. Soon, these things are gonna get thrown plain outta hand, and we all know the consequences for when that happens.”

“Wait, what are the consequences?”

“I haven’t told you that yet? Nevermind, I’ll do that later. The clock is ticking fast, Axelrod.”

Zapata Tochihuitl had examined every single name plastered onto the walls of the second floor at least four times over by the time she ultimately decided to give up. Zainan’s cell couldn’t be here, it had to be on Floor 3, but unfortunately Vraxi refused to answer any of her calls, leaving Zapata unable to confirm any more information than her own disappointment. It was endlessly frustrating, being stuck in a permanent intermediary state where the mission’s likelihood to succeed was entirely obscured from her view, forcing her to analyze a minuscule portion of the big picture she knew to exist, scrutinizing every detail to no end while lacking any means to achieve an end of her own. The lone brightside to this torturous ordeal was that Zapata had been thrust into it without any companion who would surely complicate things. She had nothing she truly had to worry about because being alone meant being responsible for all mistakes that could befall oneself. If the mission were to fail, it would be somebody else’s fault, and the failure itself would do little to phase her as she had little to stake in its theoretical success. So there, in the middle of a gray asylum, she could sit herself undisturbed, embracing tranquility, as the dinge of the world around her melted into nothingness and she gazed into the soul of her only real consort, herself.

A subtle rancor pierced the mezzanine as a creaky doorway sprung ajar. Despite the proposed reality she has found so much momentary comfort in, Zapata was not, in fact, alone. Her eyes immediately jumped to the source of the disruption and her fusiform gyrus immediately recognized the disruptor as the worst possible person who could arrive in a moment like this one, Joey Axelrod. 

“My god,” she muttered at a volume too loud to still be considered a mutter.

“Huh, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised to see you here but I’m still a little shocked it happened so quickly,” Joey sputtered though Zapata did not care to listen to a single word he spoke.

“Are you here to kidnap Theta?” Zapata had already summoned her scythe and held it pointed straight ahead.

“I’m here to save Theta. GüdTek’s still planning to kill them if I don’t act soon.”

“And I still don’t believe you.”

“Did you at least tell them about my proposal?”

“Why would I ever want to spread your nonsense? No.”

“Zapata, I understand that I’m not necessarily the most trustworthy person out there, but I really swear that I’m telling the whole truth this time. I really do care about Theta, to such a degree that it’s occasionally harmed me. And while our personal relationship is certainly less than ideal, this specific issue doesn’t have much of anything to do with you.”

“Axelrod, I will concede that I can certainly envision a world where Bran would be ruthless enough to just kill off Theta like that. To her, all things, including living beings, are just liabilities, expenses of doing trade. However, I have other reasons to kill you right where we stand. You are still responsible for my brother’s death, Axelrod.”

“Well in that case, Lucifer did want me to kill one of you folks, though I suspected Diogo might be an easier target for that particular quota. And I really don’t want the process of killing you to delay me from getting ahold of Theta. So I’ll probably just head over to them now and kill one of y’all along the way, really just whoever’s most convenient.”

Zapata began to sprint towards her nemesis. This man had taken the most important person from her past away from her and was now attempting to do the same with one of the most important people from her present. She not only despised his intentions, but also his demeanor, his casual approach to things which undermined all that she held sacred. He was a walking embodiment of everything that had scarred her and he treated that title as if it were just one in a grandiose bookshelf, something to be glanced at but not to be read, not to be understood. He was a fiend, a servant of the devil whose actions held up to all that the occupation implied, though Zapata suspected that his dealings with Lucifer only strengthened the flaws that were already built into him, turning his disregard for human life into something that could be acted upon and savored. The only being other than himself he ever seemed to care about was Theta, someone who was yet still partially born from his own mind. Zapata suspected that the only reason he ever cared about Theta’s wellbeing was because he still viewed them as an extension of himself, something still connected to an invisible umbilical cord he had not the courage to ever cut. Joey was a man who had no true respect for the value of human life, so in return, Zapata would never value his.

Zapata was much faster than Joey. In Dakahlia, she had spent many an afternoon improving the pace of her 100-meter dash to a degree that if not competitive was surely still impressive. Joey had done nothing of the such, as the recovery from spending an extended period of time in his metallic form took nearly three entire weeks to complete. Joey had not made it even halfway down the stairwell to the first floor when Zapata caught up with him. Similarly, Zapata had not even fully processed her hatred for Joey by the time she saw her scythe cleanly enter his back.

Zapata felt a current of pure, visceral astonishment enter her body. For all the time she had spent envisioning Joey’s death at her hands, she had never really expected her methods to work. The two stood still on the staircase, silent, refusing to directly acknowledge the other’s existence, listening only to the rate of the other’s breathing patterns. For a moment in time, all that Zapata had been living for, all that she had been awaiting, cascaded into one abrupt ending that left her feeling empty inside. She had long since viewed Joey as a husk of humanity, one who acted as a mere simulacrum of a conscionable being, walking through the world without any greater purpose, but as she let her blade sit in his flesh and waited for it to kill him, she felt like something of a husk herself. She could try to stab him again, doing so would likely finish him off, but she couldn’t bring herself to yank the metal edge out from his abdomen. She couldn’t bring herself to even touch her own weapon. She never thought that the prospect of killing the man she despised most in the world could occur so succinctly, with little fanfare and with a sinking feeling in her chest that she had not achieved the closure she had hoped for.

“Zapata,” Joey spoke slowly and carefully, “I can see what you’re trying to do here. I can see that you hold my life in your hands, and at any moment, could choose to crush it within your fist. However, I believe that this current wound you’ve given me is nonlethal, it may have damaged a kidney but I have two of those. Still, you could very easily end my life right where we stand.”

“What are you getting at?” Zapata managed to mumble out.

“I would like to propose a deal.”

“I don’t think you're in the position to be making deals, Axelrod.”

“I can see that, but I believe I have something that you might want.”

“And what would that be?”

“Just some highly confidential information. You see, if you kill me now, Bran will kill Theta. And while I know you want me dead, I don’t think you’d like to see that latter action. But I also know you still don’t fully believe that I am someone responsible enough to be trusted with Theta in the first place. There is, however, a third option still out there, and if you spare me, I’ll tell it to you in full.”

Zapata didn’t want to oblige to Joey’s requests, she wanted to deny him of all the life that he had denied Emiliano. She tried to picture her brother in her mind, but the only memory that could surface was that of his death, which only made her tremble further as she imagined herself willingly providing death to another. She removed her scythe from Joey’s chest and, with an exasperated sigh, dropped the weapon to her side. Joey, living up to his word, did not run, only pausing to cauterize his wound by turning his damaged tissue into metal before continuing to speak.

“Okay, here’s the idea,” he cleared his throat, “this prison happens to hold a very powerful person within its walls. Her name is Suravinda Gambheeram, she’s a brilliant scientist but she absolutely despises Bran, they’ve got a very bad history. Not only would she absolutely be willing to protect Theta from Bran but she’s also one of the few people in the world with the facilities to actually do such a thing. The only problem is that those facilities are all based out west in Ashtamudi and she is, as mentioned, currently locked up here in Rizhao, so you’re still gonna have to break her out somehow.”

“Do you know where her cell is?”

“All I know is that she’s in this building. Bran was very happy to explain the details of her arrest to me when it happened but even she wasn’t that detailed.”

“Okay,” Zapata closed her eyes and brought her hands to her temples, “there’s gotta be some way we can figure this out, right? I mean, surely she’s gotta be under max-security, but I’m still not sure where that would put her.”

“I’d assume the most guarded cells would be on either the bottom or top floors. I think that just makes sense in terms of organization.”

“In that case, from where I’m standing, it would be quicker to get to the cellar than to Floor 9.”

“So should we head down there?”

“Hold on, why are you using the term ‘we?’”

“Zapata, more than anything, I just want Theta to live, and in this specific moment, helping you seems like the most surefire way to achieve that future. Though if things start to go south for you, I’ll probably change my mind.”

“Axelrod, I very much still hate you, but for this very exceptional occasion, I’ll allow for a brief truce.”

The cafeteria of GCF 12 was always fraught with a low burning tension. Fights rarely ever broke out in the room as it was always occupied by a ruthless battalion of guards, but when the tension boiled over and fights began they were consistently needlessly brutal. The warden of GCF 12, a mysterious figure who was only ever referred to by their vocation among inmates, was a strong proponent of the great value inherent to collective punishment, believing it to be the most effective way to control a malcontent population. For any given inmate, this meant that regardless of their involvement in an altercation, they would be treated just the same as if they had started it. Therefore, the most minor skirmishes could easily erupt into total chaos as every prisoner could individually determine that such an occasion might be there only opportunity for quite a while to let out the frustrations that had been eating away at their insides, for whether or not they fought, their consequences would remain the same, and there was little to lose by joining the fray and settling their score.

It had been eleven months since the last of these fights and the guards were all collectively hoping that this period would surpass a year, as enacting a punishment against those which they governed often forced them to work overtime. This period which they were living would not, as it turned out to be, last a full year. It would end abruptly, at a time they never could’ve prepared for and for a reason that none of them could expect. This altercation-to-be would not begin with a fist or a shiv or even a vague gesture of combat but rather it would be enacted via a pure force of nature, albeit through an impure source.

Shui Hailang, encased in a raging, whirling hurricano, burst through the concrete fortress and into its dining quarters. The room, enraptured by a silent yet internally deafening sense of awe, turned their many eyes to them, waiting for them to speak, to state their purpose.

“Hello!” Hailang spoke in a tone they hoped would get them captured as soon as possible, “I am here to release the inmate Hong Zainan from this prison and only him. I only care about the one guy.”

The guards, who quite quickly placed Hailang in their desired custody, did not behave in exactly the way they had initially hoped they would, immediately announcing that all inmates would be punished for their attempted breakout and that all prisoners would be immediately sent back to their cells. The inmates themselves didn’t behave ideally either, rapidly shifting from their sitting positions to those befitting an all-out brawl. Hailang meticulously scanned the room, trying to spot Zainan as they dearly hoped that he wouldn’t be hurt, but strangely, he seemed to evade their vision. Hailang was not entirely sure what had just occurred to them and their plan, but they could easily observe that something had gone deeply wrong.

Chapter Text

Diogo Celestino stood still in the center of a crowded yet quiet room, waiting for further instruction, briefly allowing his gaze to bounce around the edges of his vision and peer into the disjointed lives of those who shared the room with him. The woman occupying the space in front of him had her head pointed down and had had it positioned this way ever since Diogo entered the queue. At first, he had assumed that whatever visit she was making wouldn’t be a pleasant one and that her posture was just a reflection of that naturally unpleasant emotion. But the woman never stopped looking down, reaching far past the point where such a stance would induce discomfort. Diogo looked closer at the woman, at the exposed skin on her neck. There was a stitching of some kind that loosely laid atop it.

“Construction accident,” the woman mumbled.

“Huh? Sorry?” Diogo had forgotten that seeing was not a passive action. The woman had noticed him.

“A lot of people ask. It’s easier to hold my head like this these days. The whole back of my head’s lost feeling so it doesn’t get very sore.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Sorry if I seemed rude.”

“It’s fine, but if you don’t mind, may I ask who you’re seeing today? I’ve never seen your face before and you’ve clearly never seen mine.”

“Oh it’s just…” Diogo tried to think of a lie that wouldn’t lead to follow-up questions, “just an old colleague of mine, we’re not very close nowadays and I guess he got in some trouble with the law.”

“Why did you want to see him if you're not very close? Do you feel obligated to him?”

Before Diogo could fib an answer, he was graciously interrupted by the sound of two Gibson guards marching into the room via a sidedoor. One of them was wearing a helmet that masked their appearance. The guard with a face was holding a megaphone and was wearing a layer of sweat that blurred his appearance. The latter guard began to shout.

“Everyone! No visits today! There’s been a breach in the fortress! Evacuate the building quickly and carefully through the door marked with an exit sign!”

As the saddened crowd began to flood backwards on either side of him, Diogo stood entirely still. He presumed that the breach in question was caused by Hailang, but something had clearly gone astray along the way. If he were to be forced out of the building, then Theta wouldn’t be able to give Hailang the means for escape. He was at a total impasse, struggling to improvise any sort of solution. But from the field of chaos in which he now lived, a hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder. It was the masked guard. Before he could properly protest, the guard had already dragged him through the sidedoor and into an otherwise empty room. They removed their mask.

It was Bullshanks Byeol.

“Malik! What the hell are you doing here!?”

Diogo had entirely lost the plot. He was beyond confused as to why his old boss had appeared at a time like this and could only manage to remove his rubbery mask as a response.

“Diogo? What the hell are you doing here!?”

“I was trying to break someone out of this hell-prison! Why are you here?”

“Diogo, you should know by now that information like that is highly confidential.”

“At this point, I feel like there is very little left for you to hide. Both of us have already removed our disguises.”

“Fine, here’s the short of it. There’s this super-genius locked up in here who the Allodapos society could really kinda definitely use some help from. Her name’s Suravinda Gambheeram and we’ve figured that if we can break her out of here, we should pretty easily be able to curry enough favors to have our desired goals be fulfilled in full.”

“Alright— but how are you actually going to break her out in the first place?”

“That’s what Malik’s for, he should already be on the cellar floor by now, in disguise obviously.”

“Cool, um,” Diogo paused, his mind was still abuzz, Zainan was still in peril, Hailang had just entered some kind of peril, Vraxi and Zapata weren’t responding to his calls and he could even feel Theta’s laptop heating up amidst all this pressure, it was clear that nothing was going according to plan, he needed help, “hey, do you think I could ask for a favor from you?”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m still not entirely sure, but what I do know is that I really want to make sure that this prison doesn’t end up killing the people I care about it, and I have a hunch that those people might be locked up somewhere close to where the person you’re trying to break out’s being held. If you’re gonna venture down to the cellar, do you think I could do it alongside you?”

“Diogo, the Allodapos society is an organization in an almost permanent state of dangerously low funds. It would be utterly idiotic of me not to accept a free volunteer. Let’s just get you in a better disguise first.”

Hailang woke up. They couldn’t recall ever falling asleep and as they racked their brain for information, they realized that they couldn’t recall much of anything at all. They were alone in a room that they couldn’t see the walls of. Past a certain point, their vision blurred into total obscurity so that even in a well lit room they were trapped in a proverbial darkness, a darkness which carried all the social implications that that word held yet was still abundant in light. Their hands were not cuffed, their legs were not bound together, but there was a mental block obstructing them from making even an inch of movement. They felt as if doing so would have them detected by an enemy agent, and allowing that to happen couldn’t lead to any fate brighter than their untimely demise. They were sitting atop a minefield, trapped in no man’s land with both sides fighting against them, where the only chance at avoiding certain death came from camouflage, allowing oneself to stay entirely still and let the battle pass around them.

There was a second person in the room. Hailang had only just noticed them but hadn’t seen them enter. They couldn’t tell if this figure had suddenly materialized or if their eyes were simply playing tricks on them once again. The figure’s form was about as blurry as the distorted walls that expanded and contracted behind them, but they were clearly human. They didn’t speak, and Hailang didn’t dare speak to them lest they be killed by some unknown evil, but they did seem capable of speech. Hailang only acknowledged this figure’s existence from within their mind, but the figure seemed to respond, nodding their head and letting out a low hum that sounded like poppies and smelled like radio static. Hailang now felt obligated to give a reply to this reflection of a human being, despite their notion that making any sort of physical reaction could lead them on a path directly to total obliteration. Still, they felt like no good could come from ignoring the figure that only stood closer to them with each passing second. In a desperate state, they opted to pluck an option from the middleground, choosing to slightly ambulate their left pinky finger. They just hoped that the movement was slight enough.

Hailang blinked and was now somewhere else. The figure was still there but looked different, more defined, hosting a full human face on their head. Likewise, these new walls had corners and edges, they had traceable points at which they stopped instead of a muddled melange of forgotten understanding, though they were still the same color and the floors that lay beneath them looked identical to their predecessors. Perhaps, this was not a new room but instead simply the previous room viewed through a cleaner lens. The figure nodded again and let out a hum that smelled like nothing.

“Hello?” Hailang spoke, hoping to receive any clue as to where they were and who they were speaking to.

“Shui Hailang,” the figure responded, stepping forwards to reveal their face in full. He was a heavily aged man, in spite of his robust musculature, and wrinkles blanketed every corner of his exposed skin. Stark white hair sprouted from his scalp in long strands yet he showed no clear signs of balding. He had a decidedly distinct appearance which was contrasted by his relatively standard Gibson uniform, but what stood out most of all were his yellowed pupils that pierced into Hailang’s soul and forced them to recognize the scale of the threat that sat in front of them, “you are quite an impressive young fellow, do you know that? Very few people are able to escape the fog of war. Very few people are able to listen to their base instincts and just move when there’s a million voices telling them to stay idle. It shows you’re impulsive, sure, but I’ve never thought impulsivity to be the vice that some make it out to be.”

“…Who are you?”

“I’ve gone by many aliases in many different eras, but I think I like you just enough to tell ya my true, given, Christian name: Carlyle Flanders, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“That was a whole lot of words to ultimately state very little in regards to who you actually are, what your purpose is in being here, and as to why I, of all people, am situated alongside you.”

“Well I really thought it was all quite simple. I am currently contracting for the Gibson Foundation and you’ve recently committed a severe act of international crime.”

“I understood that bit, I’m more confused about that bout of reality-bending you were just showing off.”

“Oh, that? The explanation shouldn’t be difficult for someone like you to understand, considering your status as being a sanctified avatar of the goddess Mazu.”

“So what, do you have a patron or something? You’re clearly a bit more capable than the average demon.”

“Oh, I have a patron, a pretty major one for that matter. My blood is pulsing with a divine plasma imbued by a god of war, though they’re an admittedly recent addition to the world pantheon. You see, In the year 1884, I was contacted by the Unknown Soldier, and no matter how hard I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to die since, probably because there’s always another war to fight.”

Before Hailang could inquire any further, a large rupture was blasted into the wall, revealing a man who shouted out into the dust storm of drywall with a familiar voice.

“Suravinda! Are you in there?”

“Well then,” Carlyle commented, “it seems like we have company.”

As the smoke settled, Hailang was able to glimpse a look at the man who had caused this destruction. He had the rigid face of Malik Dirwat, combined with the gravelly voice of Malik Dirwat, negating the chance that it was Diogo in disguise. In his right hand he held a bulky magnakey, the tip still hot, while in his left he clutched a standard if somewhat diminutive pistol, fully loaded. They remembered him being ambidextrous, by training not by birth.

“Mally?” Hailang yelled, hoping for some sort of recognition.

“Just call me Mr. Dirwat— hold on, how did you get here?”

“Oh, do the two of you know each other?” Carlyle asked rhetorically, “That’s sweet. Unfortunately, Sir, I’m going to need you to step away from the inmate immediately.”

Malik didn’t speak back, while things had clearly turned sideways for him, he wasn’t alarmed. With one hand, he aimed the less extravagant of his two firearms at Carlyle’s pelvis, a shot designed to make him lose control of his lower body, and fired twice, just to up his odds.

Both bullets cleanly entered Carlyle’s flesh at the exact points they were supposed to, perhaps too cleanly. Carlyle continued to stand upright with nary a wound and nothing to speak of in terms of reducing the threat he posed. He chuckled.

“Do you really think you can kill a god of war with bullets?”

Malik fired again, aiming at the head this time. The bullet made contact, but the wrinkled skin that draped across Carlyle’s face simply absorbed it into his body. He was now approaching Malik and, in a single leap, positioned himself right in front of his attacker.

“Hailang!” Malik screamed in desperation, “Please do something!”

Hailang really, truly did want to do something that could save their old colleague, but they lacked the proper means. There was no body of water in sight, not even a puddle, maybe if the magnakey’s explosion had burst a pipe things could’ve gone differently, but Hailang’s only choice was to watch. They watched as Carlyle’s fist collided into Malik’s chest in one titanic uppercut, causing their companion to careen through the ceiling and into the floor above, all from the sheer magnitude of war’s destructive power. Carlyle was more than an avatar, he was a force beyond nature.

Vraxi had never seen anything as viscerally intimidating as the beast that now imposed itself in front of her. She had seen things far more unsettling than the kasamaan itself, but its shifting form made it impossible to ever truly classify, difficult to ever truly recognize as real, a threat that stood in spite of human understanding, that existed in a plane above human perception, that would continue to live even if its life contradicted all human ideals. It was the conceptual made physical, something to be dreamed up but never to be seen, but was now all that could be seen, its heaving silhouette seeming to block out all light around it, making itself the only visible entity. Despite never being given an ocular description of the kasamaan, Vraxi knew what she saw just by the feeling it planted deep into her heart. She felt a primal, almost inevitable kind of dread overtake her soul as their two gaze’s finally met. It was easy to conclude that it was kill or be killed, and Vraxi was far too afraid of death to falter any longer. She pointed her blade at the closest thing the beast had to head and let a radiant beam of light stream from the tip.

The beast stood still, unfazed. Vraxi thought it was naive for her past self to assume that such a titanic boulder could be eroded with nothing but a gust of wind. The kasamaan, perhaps in response to Vraxi’s attack or perhaps entirely independent to it, reached one of its billowing limbs of smoke towards her, letting it briefly graze against her temples. Vraxi did not feel ready to die.

But perhaps she was already in Hell, as by the time she looked up, she was no longer located in the prison but somewhere else entirely. Though, her new whereabouts didn’t exactly line up with the fiery depths, looking more like the sanitized hallways of a public hospital. She couldn’t remember ever being in this place before, yet it felt familiar, like there was something in the back of her mind inching her forwards through this foreign locale. She heard the cry of a screaming baby, it was only then when she realized she was in a maternity ward but she was much more focused on how she almost recognized the infant’s outburst, like she had heard it somewhere before but in a place she had long since cast aside. She followed the noise, she felt like it had to be important, like it might even be the key to getting out of whatever purgatory she was trapped in. After ultimately shifting to a run, her pursuit concluded when she made it to the room she could tell the noise was emerging from. For some unknowable reason, she felt no aversion to opening the door, she felt as if whatever was behind it belonged to her, like it was a hidden birthright which she was only now rediscovering.

Vraxi saw her mother on the operating table. She saw her father standing anxious in the corner. She saw two doctors working to excavate a lump of flesh emerging from her mother’s torso, a slimy ball of tissues that could’ve only belonged to her younger self. The cries were her own and they were only getting louder, as while Vraxi’s embryonic eyes were glimpsing light for the very first time, her neck was being constricted by her own umbilical cord, the link to her mother which had been allowing her to grow in the womb was now trying to kill her before she could ever enjoy the world outside her prison of flesh. It was a great betrayal, and as the matured Vraxi gazed upon her juvenile self, she realized that this had to have been the first time she ever experienced true suffering, a moment which she had no organic memories of but would ultimately define the course of the rest of her life. Then, in an instant, one of the doctors cut the cord, and Vraxi found herself in yet another alien landscape.

Except, while Vraxi had never been to this specific location, she still felt like she could place it on a map. It appeared as if she was back in Kaiphachu’s underground, the distinct tunneling architecture was easy to recognize, but in a seemingly less used tunnel whose halls were barren of any traveling interlocutors. That is, until she heard the pitter-patter of small rubber boots making their way across the wet floors, belonging to a child who looked no older than ten and had a pale face of fear strung about him. She wasn’t sure of it, but Vraxi thought for a moment that this child might be a young Zainan. When the youth, who appeared unable to notice Vraxi, stopped to rest, she started to walk towards him, starting to glimpse the many reasons as to why he might be running and who he might be running from as she did so. His nose was bleeding, his arms were bruised, his left ankle was stuck in an offbeat position that forced him to gallop whenever he wanted to sprint. He was clearly miserable, clearly a being overtaken by suffering, trying with all his might to escape the forces that brought those feelings unto him. This was Zainan at his lowest, at his weakest but still ontologically himself, a child determined to live a life of happiness even when it seemed unattainable.

Vraxi heard another set of boots approach, ones with an audible steel toe that clicked like a timer about to reach a booming zenith. Zainan wiped his face, the salt of his tears shining in the lamplight as he did so, and started to run again, because running was all he knew and running had never failed him. Ultimately, Vraxi thought, Zainan was right to trust his own abilities, he was right to trust in his impressive speed, the only thing he should never have trusted was other people, he never should’ve trusted her.

Vraxi was flung into one final room. Zainan was once again presented before her. He looked half-conscious, half of him was alert and aware of the tragedy that was befalling him and the other half was trapped in time, trapped in that fateful moment when he gave into the storm and got swept away by uncaring water. Beside him was another prisoner, an older woman whose face reminded Vraxi vaguely of her own mother. The only other person present in the room stood tall, unshackled, unrestrained by circumstance, only ever gifted by it. This man was the warden, but he was more than just a man, he was also an idea, an ongoing ideological push manifested in the flesh. Anyone could be the warden, Vraxi could barely make out their face in the shadows, but their identity was not important, they could be easily replaced, what mattered is what they stood for. The warden was a man who existed only to punish, who devoted all they could to increasing suffering, it was people like him who made the residents of Kaiphachu experience true fear, and in turn made them content. It was people like him who formed the true backbone of Rizhaonese society, who allowed for the harm inherent within it to go unchecked, ignored, and eventually accepted as just. His physical labor, if one could consider what he did labor, was rather minor, with only a handful of people being tortured each day, but his true power emerged from the way in which the population perceived him, as something to be avoided at all costs, to shape one’s life around so that they would never have to see him in person. 

Vraxi struggled to see where the warden ended and where the kasamaan began, for they were truly one beast in the grand scheme of things, one great paradigm that persisted through every layer of society, tangling every strata and class within it into one impenetrable mess of lost notions. The warden was made of flesh, the kasamaan made of smoke, but they were both made of suffering. The only way to kill the kasamaan was to prevent the suffering that allowed it to live, and the only way to achieve such a task was to get rid of people like the warden, as well as the many figures in power who were less replaceable than him. When Vraxi finally realized this, she saw that she was back where she had started, back on Floor 3 with an insatiable beast standing in front of her, though she no longer held the same fear for it knowing its true origin. It turned its back to her and began to haphazardly ascend to a higher level. Knowing that it and Zainan always seemed to cross paths, Vraxi began to follow it.

Curiosity was the drive to learn, the incentive to understand the world around oneself. Some people were content in letting certain suppositions go unsaid, in tempering their curiosity with a bout of restraint, but Theta was a being built on curiosity, and when an ominous trail of blood was strewn in front of them, they were always one to follow it to its end. 

Theta was now positioned in front of a door, behind which they could only assume some virtual equivalent to the kasamaan would be occupying. They thought it unwise to open this door, considering the danger that could lurch unto them, but they were still quite curious and found it unlikely that they’d ever be able to defeat the beast if they never tried to learn more about it. It was only reasonable, then, for them to try glimpsing at what laid behind the barrier that separated themself from the unknowable, in hopes that it could someday become known.

When they did eventually barge through the entrance, they found that the room’s only denizen was distinctly not a large monster but rather an ethereal visage of an elderly woman who looked very much like Zainan’s guardian, Imelda. 

“Please, Theta,” she gave them a brief smile, “come in.”

Theta hesitated but ultimately obliged, confused as to why such a person would be here of all places though still voraciously curious to learn more. They didn’t understand everything that was going on, but they did have the potential to understand it, and that potential was not something they’d let go unsatisfied.

“So,” they began, hoping to clarify things quickly, “how did you get here? I didn’t think you were particularly adept with technology and I haven’t seen anyone but myself enter the codescape, let alone a regular human.”

“Oh, Theta, I’m sorry but I believe you’ve misunderstood exactly who I am. I am not Imelda Cielos, though I am imitating her form in this moment. Rather, I am a being who emerged from her mind, which itself was an amicus curiae to the minds of every single person in this nation. I am a manifestation of hurt to which some have christened with the name ‘kasamaan,’ though I personally prefer the name Mary.”

“Hold on, like, the Mary? The virgin mother?”

“That is who Imelda called upon and I am the one who answered that call.”

“But, forgive my theology, aren’t you supposed to be a bit more compassionate? The kasamaan has caused irreparable damage to this country, that all feels out of character for someone worshiped as a saint among saints.”

“Theta, your mistake is in viewing Mary as one solid identity rather than the fluid melange for which she truly is. Each epithet of Mary is describing a slightly different image from a slightly skewed perspective. Yes, there is Our Lady of Peace, Our Lady of Consolation, and Our Lady of All Nations. But importantly, there is also Our Lady of Sorrows, and that is the Mary which I am to be known as and to be feared as such.”

“But, even then… Why Imelda? Why Zainan? Why are these seemingly random individuals being thrown into the forefront of your terror?”

“The case for Imelda is simple. She has lived a long life and has spent the vast majority of it caring for the rejected children of this nation’s lowest rung. Out of all the living people in Rizhao, she has seen the most suffering firsthand, she has seen more sorrow than any other and has lived to tell the tale, and the only way she could manage to live through those horrors was by pouring all her belief into someone like Mary. As for Zainan, he’s the person Imelda cares about most in the world. The reason I always keep a watchful eye on him is because if he ever dies, Imelda’s sorrows could finally reach the tipping point, allowing for me to unleash my true destructive potential on this nation in one glorious display of true power.”

“That sounds like a horrific tragedy. I understand that you’re more conceptual than human, but I don’t see why anyone would ever desire to do such a thing.”

“Perhaps, what this nation needs is a tragedy. At this point, that might be the only thing that could destabilize the keys to power that caused these deep sorrows to form in the first place. Perhaps, a blank slate to which prosperity can be built upon can only be achieved via an event of widespread, indiscriminate death.”

“That can’t possibly be the only way.”

“Then how do you suggest we combat the suffering that brought us here?”

“Well, if the government is the problem, why don’t we all just target the state instead of random civilians?”

“Are you suggesting that you should kill the people in power?”

“Well, not necessarily, but it’s a much better idea than killing a potential thousands of people, many of which are victims themselves.”

“You make a solid point, Theta. As a result, I’ll give you an offer. I will choose to leave this nation and its people alone, so long as you kill its president. The common folk can do the rest of what it takes to destroy the system, but you need to take the first shot.”

“Well, that kind of task is quite an incriminating one and I’m not sure if killing a living human being is-”

“Theta, it’s like you said, kill one person or kill thousands. Now the ball’s in your court.”

“Is that all you’re going to offer me?”

“Well, just to be nice, I’ll tell you one more thing. Zainan’s on Floor 9, and I’d suggest you get there quick now that you know what happens when he dies.”

Diogo and Bullshanks were about to reach the entrance to the cellar level when a body originating from said level burst through the floor and toppled onto the ground in front of them. The body belonged to a bruised but living Malik Dirwat who looked frustrated to be in such a compromising position but was even more frustrated to see Diogo Celestino standing in front of him. 

“Now what are you doing here?” Malik exclaimed, still on the ground in a puddle of his own fluids.

“Well, it’s a bit of a long story-” Diogo began before being cut off by Bullshanks.

“What happened to you, Malik?” she began to assess his wounds, “you haven’t looked this beaten up since Barcelona.”

“It’s rough, but it’s still not quite as bad as Lubumbashi.”

“I said that I was sorry about Lubumbashi.”

“I feel like I’m missing out on some pretty major details here,” Diogo chimed in.

“And those details don’t bother you, Celestino,” Malik addressed, “what should bother you is the avatar they’ve got working down there who just decommissioned me.”

“There’s an avatar in the building?” Bullshanks exclaimed, she seemed very concerned, “Which one?”

“You’ve met Carlyle, right?”

“Oh shit. This can’t be good.”

“Well, there is a tiny, minuscule hint at good news in that Hailang is down there with him. The only problem is that they don’t have any access to water, and they're effectively neutered without it.”

“Is there any possible way we could fix that problem?”

“With the amount of water that would be necessary to subdue someone like Carlyle, I find it highly unlikely.”

“What if we could cause a burst in the pipes?” Diogo chimed in.

“Diogo, how the hell are we supposed to do that? It’s not like we can just freely manipulate the drainage systems of a building we’ve never even entered before today.”

“Hold on, Malik,” Bullshanks stopped him from berating Diogo further, “remember, this kid’s the avatar of wisdom. If anyone can find a way, it’s probably him.”

Diogo had just been given an empty spotlight, a small frame of opportunity to which all his dreams were waiting behind. The Library of All Things stood before him, and while he didn’t know where to look, he still had his heart to guide him. Hailang’s life was on the line, Bullshanks and Malik were counting on him, the people he respected most, those who fulfilled the role of his mentor now that Octávio had passed, they were all relying on him, looking up to him as if the student had outpaced the master. Diogo had the stars of heaven shining down on him, now all he needed to do was reach their heights.

Chapter Text

Zapata had entered the cellar floor for the dual purpose of rescuing both her companion, Hong Zainan, and the potential ally of Suravinda Gambheeram. It quickly became apparent to her that neither of these convicts were being held there, however in a similar period of time, it also became apparent that Shui Hailang, an individual who once seemed invincible, was trapped there in confinement by a potentially even more powerful foe. Joey Axelrod, the horrible, petulant man who she had struck a temporary truce with not long ago, was quick to point this all out.

“Zapata,” he spoke in a dimmed register, “if I’m being honest, I’m getting some pretty terrible vibes from this guy.”

“I can hear you,” Carlyle boomed, slowly turning his scarred, leathery visage to face them, “Oh, now this is quite an occasion, eh? Four avatars of the highest order all congregated into one place. They’ll really give a patron to anyone these days. Now, I must ask you two, are you here to obstruct the deliverance of justice? Because I just received a message on the phone I commandeered from this criminal stating something about a plan to cause a burst in the pipes and flood this whole floor.”

“What the hell are you trying to do here?” Zapata asked firmly.

“Well, I really didn’t want to play the role of executioner, but if there’s a conspiracy to withdraw Shui from their rightful imprisonment, it’s unfortunately my only option.”

“Axelrod… I think we’ve gotta kill this guy.”

“What?” Joey blurted out, “We just met him! I really don’t think we should be segueing to murder that quickly!”

“Oh, so it was okay to kill Emiliano but laying a finger on this monster’s a step too far?”

“Zapata, for the last time, I wasn’t trying to kill Emiliano, I was trying to kill you.”

“How does that justify things?”

“Listen, that’s not the point. All I’m saying is that if you want to save Hailang, you only need to immobilize this guy. If you try to kill everyone who you think is irredeemable, you’re only gonna end up aiding in the cycle of revenge.”

“I feel like you might have a vested interest in stopping the cycle of revenge, Joey Axelrod.”

“Hey, Zapata!” Hailang shouted from across the room, “Why are you teaming up with that asshole from Dakahlia?”

“It’s only a temporary agreement, and it’s one that I’m willing to break if he tries to back out now!” Zapata yelled back, eyeing at Joey as she fiddled with her scythe.

“Okay!” Joey conceded, “I’ll help you fight this guy. Just don’t expect me to try any killing blows.”

Zapata wasn’t sure if Joey really had it in him to land a killing blow even if he wanted to. He seemed incapable of reaching the same heights his fully metallic form once provided, though he was at least able to shift his fists to steel for the duration of the battle to come. She suspected that such a level of power as he displayed in Mansoura was one that ultimately accelerated the decay of his mortal body. Alas, that always seemed to be the case with Faustian bargains, allowing the bargainer to reach once impossible heights at the cost of their own livelihood. While she hadn’t dealt with the devil herself, Zapata sometimes wondered if she too had lost something when she accepted Santa Muerte as her patron, something she might never be able to recover yet something so subtle that she might never be able to tell what exactly it was that she lost. One thing for certain was that, in entering the world of the divine, she had lost all the potential futures she once had that didn’t involve it. Her life, from then onwards, would inevitably revolve around forces that existed in a plane beyond her comprehension. There was a time where she felt in control of her future, but now she could barely hold on to her present.

Zapata summoned her scythe and, with Joey beside her, charged at the avatar who threatened the stability of her already unstable future. Carlyle only smiled. Zapata had seen that kind of smile many times before, it was a grin of perfected confidence, one that signified knowledge, power, and most importantly, control.

Zapata’s scythe shattered against Carlyle’s chest. The hardened face of war could break even Damascus steel, for no weapon was stronger than the process which said weapons were created to fight for. Zapata did not feel in control. She could sense Joey stopping behind her, too afraid to attack. Carlyle just looked down on her, unmoving, almost in pity. He smiled again. Zapata hated that smile, as it reminded her of all the control which was withheld from her, which she so desired to possess, which she had been forever separated from when she became an avatar herself. The only way for her to regain control was to lose some first, to bargain away a sliver of her personhood in exchange for undiluted power. She needed to, even if only briefly, let her patron take control, as Santa Muerte was the only being she knew who could rip some control away from Carlyle’s wretched, smiling face.

Zapata’s vision began to blur. Her hearing muted. She started to observe the world around her using nothing but her sense of smell, as Santa Muerte had commandeered all her more useful senses. She could detect the salty odor of sweat, the iron aroma of blood, and the subtle scent of air rapidly entering her nostrils as she moved at mach speeds. She couldn’t tell if she was winning this fight, only that she was alive, even if she wasn’t in control of her own life. The act of living was something that Zapata typically perceived as a passive state, a transitory experience that allowed life’s hurdles to be thrown at her and overcome but not a hurdle in it of itself. Living was the same as Being, and Being barely fulfilled the role of a gerund as it wasn’t really something which one did, it was merely the line which one had to cross if they wanted to be seen as ‘one’ to begin with. Being did not take effort, Being did not take thought, Being was constantly accomplished every day by rocks and stones and microscopic atoms with no will of their own. Being was the most simple ‘action’ anyone could ever take, as it didn’t take action at all. It was then the great paradox of modern existence that Being often felt like a monumental task. Zapata felt the true weight of that task push further and further down on her as she lent Santa Muerte more and more of her perceptions of the outside world. She could no longer smell, or taste, or sense temperatures, or sense humidity, not only did she lose the ability to see, but she lost the ability to visualize. In a matter of moments, Zapata had entirely forgotten what colors looked like. She began to lose not just senses, but knowledge, as Knowing was beholden to Being and she was barely Being at all. It started with academics, she forgot long-form division, then her times tables, then addition entirely, then just the number seven. She could no longer envision a world where eight did not come after six. She lost memories, hundreds and thousands of them, both the individual moments and the broad strokes, eventually making her forget why she was even forgetting these things. She suddenly felt incredibly frightened, like a child who had woken up buried alive with no recollection of how they’d gotten there. Luckily, she started to forget emotions as well, fear gave way to anger, anger erupted into sadness, and sadness just slowly dissipated until all that was left was a void where feeling once was. She didn’t feel empty, just blank. Finally, she had arrived at the edge of Being. All that was left to forget was her own name, to cast it aside and embrace the simplicity of a life never lived. Zapata was Zapata, but she didn’t have to be, she didn’t even have to Be, she could just leave a permanent ‘null’ for all verbs for all eternity. It was the easiest decision she had ever been presented with.

Crunch. Iron. Red hands, reddened arms. A fist lodged into her face. Her. Pain. It was the strongest pain she had ever felt, not due to the inherent strength of the fist in question, but because she had entirely forgotten what pain felt like just moments earlier.

Joey was laying in a fetal position beside her. Carlyle was still standing but fresh blood now ran down his forehead and dripped down his chin. He looked impressed but not deterred, shaken but not shook, changed but not for the better. He wasn’t smiling anymore, he just stared.

“Well,” he spoke smoothly despite his roughened tone, “it seems to me like Santa Muerte’s still got it in her. I might not be able to die, but death incarnate sure can pack a punch. Though, and I’m sorry to tell you this Zapata, a punch is not enough to knock me down, and it seems like you’ve already expended all that you’ve got on offer.”

“Are you planning to kill me?” Zapata managed to whisper, unsure if her lips would be able to speak after briefly forgetting all human language.

“In what fantastical world could I let you stay alive?”

It looked less genuine, but Carlyle started to smile again, only this expression was quickly wiped off his face after receiving a surprise punch from behind, belonging to the chrome fists of Joey Axelrod. Carlyle immediately grabbed the hand that tried to harm him and used it as a simple machine, leveraging the mass of his attacker and beginning to slam Joey’s entire body multiple times against the tile flooring. Zapata wanted to feel joy in seeing this act be perpetrated against the man responsible for her brother’s death, but she felt absolutely nothing, almost as if she had lost something in the void. Maybe it was the fact that she was likely about to die herself, or maybe it was the fact that Joey had just attempted to halt this fate, but she couldn’t help but feel pity for this man, and as his face went from red to purple, she started to wonder if he ever pitied her.

When Diogo Celestino entered the Library of All Things, he was not prepared to see Octávio standing in front of him. His old mentor did not look well. He had never seemed to exist in the healthiest of states, but that had always been an asset to his charm. Now, he lacked the proper wit to make his unkempt appearance look debonair, only making him look tired. Diogo desperately wanted to ask him for advice, for a way to fix all of his stacking problems, but that seemed inappropriate when he seemed to have so many problems of his own.

“I’m sorry that I look like this, Diogo,” Octávio began, “I assure you that I present this way with proper reason but it’s not the kind of reason I can reveal all at once and you yourself seem to be in quite a crunch for time.”

“Um, yeah, you could say that,” Diogo stuttered, still a little shocked by his mentor’s attitudes, “I don’t really have any experience in the field of improvised plumbing but I need to find some way to have the pipes on the floor below me fully explode, that is without having any knowledge as to where said pipes are actually located.”

“Sounds tricky, but still solvable. Let’s walk and talk. You see, this library, at least for someone like yourself, is effectively impossible to properly navigate. This is because it’s been designed entirely out of order, there is effectively no logic to where each book is placed, no system of organization to guide oneself which makes it likewise very easy to get lost within its twisting walls. However, and this is very important, its design is not random.”

“Well if it isn’t random, then what is it? You just said there’s no system of organization.”

“Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration. The Library of all Things does have a system by which it categorizes all that it holds inside, but that system is also fully broken. The system exists, yes, but it doesn’t actually work.”

“Well what is this theoretical system actually based on? Is it just an advanced Dewey Decimal or what?”

“It’s far more complex than that, because the truth is, there is not just one Library of All Things. There is a theoretically infinite number of them, because the layout of the library is entirely dependent on the human being observing it.”

“So my version of the library would look entirely different than, for example, Vraxi’s library?”

“Exactly!”

“But, how are you able to even determine all this when, like you said, the system designed to govern the library is fully broken?”

“Well, think of it like a Rubik’s cube, with just one glimpse you can decipher both what it should look like and whether or not it’s been scrambled.”

“Hold on, how far does that metaphor go? Is it possible to have the library return to its original state? Because that would make things a whole lot easier.”

“I think you're getting the hang of things, yes. While the library is currently in a state of utter disarray, that’s a temporary position. However, while it is possible to fix it, it’s not a particularly easy task. I myself was never very good at solving Rubik’s cubes.”

“Well, what exactly is causing the break in the first place?”

“That’s hard to tell, and it would vary wildly from person to person. Once again, it all depends on the state of your own mind. The complexity of your library is directly proportional to how troubled your conscience is. It isn’t easy to acquire new knowledge when you’re not really in a state that’s ready to learn.”

“So I need to eliminate my own mental blocks?”

“Precisely. So, Diogo, what’s troubling you?”

“In general? Well, there are a lot of things I could try pointing to. I’m not sure if there’s one big thing that’s really gnawing at me though.”

“Do you have any big secrets?”

“Well, a lot of my work is secretive, but I don’t think I’m hiding anything from anyone I actually care about. I usually try to be honest with everyone, at least as honest as the world allows me to be.”

“Perhaps, any unanswered questions?”

“Sure, I’ve got plenty. Why do they always cancel my favorite shows before they get a proper ending? But I don’t think I’m really clearing any mental blocks when there’s nobody around to actually provide me with the answers I desire.”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?  That sounds really cryptic. If you want me to ask something in particular, just be specific.”

“Diogo, this is all in your mind. You have to come to the conclusions. Is there any fundamental question you have that could be answered right now if you just allowed yourself to ask?”

“No? I mean, I don’t think so? You don’t mean— nevermind.”

“Speak your truth, Diogo. I’m all ears.”

“Okay, y’know what? I do have a question. It’s for you.”

“Then speak on.”

“Octávio, there’s been something bothering me about the way you’ve been acting. When you were still around on the mortal plane, you were a true inspiration to me, you were always willing to teach me about the world and you never acted like I was dumb for not knowing things beforehand. You single-handedly pulled me out from the deepest abyss of my humble life, and there was really nothing for you to gain from the whole encounter, you just knew it was the right thing to do. You always acted, almost entirely, to promote the simple goal of improving the world around you, accepting massive personal sacrifices as long as it meant providing joy to others. And in the end, you made the greatest sacrifice of them all, just to protect a kid you met two weeks earlier. But, when I met you for the second time, things were different, I had changed a lot since you died and you’d changed even further. It started to feel like I was talking to a different person entirely. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, maybe I didn’t know you long enough to see the real you, but the accounts of your character I’ve heard from other agents all line up with my own personal experience. I understand that dying’s gotta change a person, but, you’re just so distant now. It’s like we never even met. You act like I’m not the reason you’re here in the first place, like I’m just a footnote amidst it all. I changed everything about myself to be more like you, but now you’re nothing like the Octávio I used to know, and that all gets me to thinking, who are you really? Was the old Octávio all an act, or are you an act by someone who’s not him?”

“Is that your final question?”

“What do you mean?”

“That last sentence you said, is that the question you’d like me to answer?”

“Well, yeah. I’d appreciate it.”

“Diego Celestino, though it pains me to say this, the truth must be spoken. I am not Octávio Cavalcanti.”

“…then who are you?”

The imposter’s face began to melt off their skeleton, revealing a face that looked more like Diogo’s own, or perhaps of the father he never had. It was Orunmila, the orisha of wisdom.

“Was it you the whole time?”

“The whole time.”

“Then… then where is Octávio?”

“I’m afraid I lack an answer.”

“But, you’re the god of wisdom, right? Shouldn’t you know that kind of thing?”

“Ultimately, I am only a god of earthly wisdom. Octávio is no longer on Earth, and I cannot speak on which of the thousands of possible afterlifes is the one he ultimately entered. It’s entirely possible that he’s since reincarnated. It’s equally possible that he simply blinked out of existence. He could also be suffering in one of the many, many purgatories scattered across the celestial plane.”

“Is there any way to find which one he ended up in?”

“Truly, Diogo, that is one of the few questions I cannot answer.”

The floor beneath Diogo began to shift, the hallways on either side of him began to collapse in on themselves, forming brand new passageways in their wake, the wooden bookshelves creaked as they rocketed across his field of vision. The chaotic library was starting to approach order, it was starting to make sense, just as Diogo’s own perception of the world grew. His second chance with Octávio had always been too good to be true. He wanted to believe that fate could bend around him, that it could recognize him as someone to appease and could lighten the blows it had dealt to him in retrospect. In all likelihood, Octávio was still out there, somewhere, but still somewhere out of reach, on some unknowable horizon, maybe waiting for change but likely accepting his fate. Diogo had changed himself in many ways to be more like his mentor, but he never learned how to accept fate. He had refused to believe that Orunmila could be fooling him until he was told so directly. Even now, he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye, he felt a determination that someday, however far in the future it may be, he would reunite with Octávio. Perhaps it wouldn’t occur until his own entrance into the afterlife. Perhaps that would be enough.

Before him was a book, the new library formed around him in such a way that upon a lectern which faced him was a manual that covered the subject he was most concerned about in the present moment: ‘How to Manage Plumbing with Only Your Own Mind.’

“Well,” Orunmila spoke, “I suggest you get going with that, while there’s still time.”

“I understand that, but I’m still confused. What was the point of lying?”

“You listened to Octávio more than you listened to me, and if you had refused to listen to me, you could’ve died. It was for your own safety, Diogo, but now, and I might regret this later, I’m placing your life back in your own hands, don’t waste it.”

Shui Hailang did not feel ready to die. While Joey and Zapata had fought their hardest, they were only able to delay the inevitable, now laying defeated on the ground, barely able to move a muscle. At this point, their only chance at survival hung on the fluke chance that Diogo might be able to activate a burst in the pipes which twisted within the ceiling above them. They were not hopeful.

“Alright, alright,” Carlyle admitted, “I’ll say that those two were tough, but they really lacked the necessary experience for this kind of occupation. It’s honestly a shame, eh. I expected a better fight from avatars.”

“If you're an avatar,” Hailang asked, “I’ve gotta know why you feel the need to stoop to something as low as what is effectively mercenary work.”

“Well, it’s what I’m best at, and I could always use the money. Besides, it’s for a noble-enough cause.”

“You’re killing me because I wanted to prevent a child from being abused to death. I don’t see that as a noble goal.”

“Eh, the world’s complicated. I don’t pretend to understand it, I’ve never been very bright myself. But the higher-ups at Gibson? Those are the real geniuses among us, they know the world far better than you and I. So I’ll put my trust in them instead.”

“You think that just because they’re smart and powerful, that means that they’re on the right side of history?”

“That’s usually how I decide my allegiance in the world. If someone has more power than all their peers, they’ve gotta be doing something right.”

Carlyle paused for a moment before placing a hand on top of his head.

“That’s odd.”

He turned his gaze up towards the ceiling, Hailang followed suit. It was wet. Its eggshell white surface had been thoroughly soaked to a damp gray and a steady drip was starting to rain down onto the both of them.

“Oh no, that can’t be good.”

The ceiling fell apart in one grandiose rupture, letting a roaring mass of water fall on both the subject and prosecutor. Hailang was shocked by the sudden gesture, but they were quick to utilize it, knowing that even in this position, Carlyle was a man of immense power. He ran towards them, but at a pace much slower than before, with large globules of water assaulting and attaching onto him, severely limiting his mobility and slowing him to a crawl.

“Really,” he shouted, “you think you can stop me like this? With water? You can slow me down but you can’t stop the inevitable.”

“I understand that, Carlyle, but this is a two-pronged plan.”

The thick coat of gravity-defying water that clung to Carlyle’s skin began to change shape, crystallizing into something new and far more powerful: rigid, solid, molecularly perfect structures of compact ice, centralized on all his most agile joints. Carlyle couldn’t move. The raging fires of war had been fanned into a temporary, frozen conflict. It surely wasn’t a state that could last forever, the building was at a standard room temperature, but it gave them just enough time to escape.

Entering from stage left, Diogo arrived on the scene of Hailang’s glacial display, with Bullshanks and Malik following close behind, the latter being held on the former’s shoulders.

“Oh phew, you’re alive!” Diogo exclaimed as he saw a shaken but standing Hailang, “that’s great to see— Hold on, what’s Joey doing here?”

“It’s fine,” Zapata muttered as she slowly brought herself up to her feet, “we’ve got a temporary alliance going.”

“Hello, Mr. Celestino,” Joey added. He did not receive a response.

“With introductions out of the way,” Hailang cut to the chase, “we don’t have much time before Carlyle frees himself. We really need to get out of this stinking building as quickly as possible. Do any of you know where Zainan might be?”

“I do,” said a voice emanating from behind Diogo’s cumberbund. He swiftly undid a few buttons on his jacket and pulled Theta’s central computer out from it’s fabric confinement. 

“Theta?” Joey blurted out upon glimpsing the visage of that who he desired most dearly to protect.

“Joey, you’re not allowed to talk to them,” Zapata rebutted, “Theta, could you tell us where Zainan is?”

“He’s on the ninth floor.”

“Oh, well that is quite far away, isn’t it?” Zapata was interrupted by the sound of alarms reverberating throughout the building, “And it’s not like we have all that much time left to get out of here.”

“We’re not leaving him here,” Hailang stated firmly, “don’t even let yourself consider it as a possibility.”

“But how should we get up there?” Diogo wondered aloud, “It just seems like a bit of a logistical difficulty.”

“Also,” Bullshanks interceded, “we’d still like to get ahold of Gambheeram. That’s pretty much our number-one priority at the moment.”

“They caught Gambheeram?” Hailang replied in shock.

“Yes, but more importantly,” Theta tried to gather the attention of the crowd, “both Zainan and Gambheeram are being held in the same cell. Now, I understand that everyone’s stressed out right now but I think I have a solution to our problem. I’ve just gotta focus really really hard and everything might work out, but you all need to trust me.”

“What do you have in mind?” Malik croaked out.

“It’s a bit off-kilter, but it’s something only I can do.”

Vraxi entered the forbidden domain, the secret garden, the ninth floor of the slaughterhouse. In front of her was the beast that led her here, still emanating its smoky aura, it almost looked like it was staring back at her though it didn’t seem to have any eyes. To her right were two inmates bound in chains, cuffs attached to each wrist and ankle, one of them was a woman she had never seen before, the other was Zainan, he looked very frightened. To her left was that which she feared the most, that of a man who held great power and presumably power over those inmates which suffered beside him. This was the warden, the man behind it all, the man who had led her here, the man with authority in his pocket and malice in his heart. But he was just a man. Next to the kasamaan, he appeared benign, and though he had led so many souls to their demise, even he cowered before the visage of a monster. It all felt like a grand satire within Vraxi’s mind. Here was a man who could move mountains with his words, but even he was beholden to his own mortal soul, even the deathbringer was afraid of death. But the kasamaan wasn’t here to kill, all it did was observe with its vacant form. So the world spun around them, five intermediaries stuck in a permanent stasis, all too busy with the implications of said world to ever really grasp it.

Vraxi’s meditation was interrupted by an ear-piercing boom and a blinding flash of light. Suddenly, there were five more people in the room, along with a computer who seemed very surprised that the magic trick they had just attempted actually worked. Theta had just managed to teleport entirely at will. Vraxi felt a wave of emotion pour into her body via her heart and into every vein and artery. She wanted to congratulate Theta, but before she could she was interrupted by Bullshanks Byeol.

“Is that the warden?” Byeol asked bluntly.

“Oh, um, I believe it is,” Vraxi responded, unprepared.

Bullshanks Byeol pulled a gun out of her pocket and shot the warden’s head six times in a row. They looked very dead by the end of it.

Exiting the prison turned out to be a lot easier than entering it. After saying her goodbyes to the Allodapos heads and, surprisingly, Joey Axelrod, it felt nice to finally talk with Theta again, even in the confines of Hailang’s rather dirty van. Vraxi felt a moment of comfort, knowing that things were finally working out for her, but even still, her meeting with the kasamaan had left her with more questions than answers, and the story Theta had narrated to her didn’t make her feel any more at ease. There was something rotten in the very core of Rizhao, and Vraxi felt like she was only scraping the surface.

Chapter Text

Shui Hailang had been summoned to a meeting with the most powerful person they knew, the president of Rizhao, the man who occupied the highest throne within their homeland. They had only directly met him a few times before, such occasions generally only occurring when there was a particular rampant demon problem. Hailang suspected that he might have called upon them simply to discuss the current state of the kasamaan issue, which considering their successful prison break, was actually going quite well. However, deep in their heart, they knew the real reason as to why this discussion was being forced to the forefront of both their agendas. Hailang had broken international law, and they weren’t very secretive about it. While their status made them immune to many a legal punishment, that status was reliant on a continuous trust between them and the state, and they had just shattered that trust in one inelegant leap of judgment. They knew that the true reason they were being summoned was to be reevaluated. They held an extremely valuable role in the running of the nation, but if they couldn’t be trusted to fulfill the responsibilities of said role, they would have to be ousted from it. At the end of the day, Hailang fostered a deep desire to keep their current job, even if it meant sacrificing some of their own autonomy. They took one final, voluminous breath before entering the president’s office, the door closing automatically behind them. 

“Sit down, Shui,” President Sun spoke in a cold, foreboding tone of voice.

“Mr. President,” Hailang interceded as they obliged to his command, “I’d like to start this conversation by establishing my side of the story, I think that it’s very important in understanding this matter from a top-down perspective.”

“Frankly, Shui Hailang, I don’t give a damn about your story. Pardon my language, but the meaning is still there. You fucked up.”

“I know that, sir, but if you’d please let me fully express my-”

“Do you know why this nation is referred to as a Confucian Republic?”

“Sir, do we really have to go over all of this?”

“If you’d like a hint, it had absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Confucius.”

“Mr. President, I know this nation’s history front-to-back, can you please just let me speak.”

“You may know the history, but I don’t think that you really understand it, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this talk, now would we?”

“…No, sir. Please just say what you’d like to say.”

“Thank you, now where should I start? Well, I might as well begin where many of the world’s modern stories do, amidst the Crisis of the 2060s. Chinese civilization has always had periods of division and unification, but never had it been as divided as it was then. Yet, within the thick of it all was a man by the name of Song Taiping, who at that point was just a menial Shen Yun dancer performing for the very first time in the high-rising city of Chengdu, the beating heart of Sichuan.”

“Sir, I did very well in my schooling, I know the history.”

“Well then that’s where our stories diverge, Shui, because the truth of the matter and what the schools won’t tell you is that Song was and always has been a figurehead.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“In the audience that night were a handful of very influential American businessmen. These men had a very strong idea as to where their country was heading and it was a direction that would fare horrendously for business. The nature of the American corporate entity at that time relied heavily on the policy of American hegemony, it was difficult not to buy products from a nation that already had a dozen military bases spread throughout your territory. The only true problem that these businessmen were then facing was that America was beginning to tear itself apart, and it would be gone before they knew it, along with their business. Therefore, their goal became clear, they needed to find some way of preserving American hegemony in a post-American world. They found a means to their goal in Song Taiping, a natural-born charismatic and a rousing nationalist. All that Song really needed to do was inspire a bombed and dejected populace into believing that a new regime could lead to new prosperity by leveraging the words of tradition, by quoting some snippets of Confucius. Then he let the job of actually combating the Sichuan Province Authority be handled via military funding from PepsiCo and whatnot, an initiative spearheaded by a man named Elias Gibson who would later turn the whole effort into a quite profitable endeavor. Soon enough, all the capital of America was being shipped overseas to the new capital of Sichuan, named Lockezhou in honor of the man who founded the field of economics, that wonderful study that allowed all of this to happen. It was really a miracle for the companies, a literal apocalypse happened around them and they never spent a single quarter in the negative. Soon enough, many of the petty states formed in China’s wake began to adopt the strategies of Sichuan’s Confucian Republic, including us. But because of that, just like in the system of American hegemony, we are also dependent on Sichuan, and if we allow for too many decisions that go against their best interests, such as destroying a Gibson-owned complex, those of us in power, such as you or me, could end up being killed in a coup at a moment’s notice. If you don’t believe me, just look at what happened to Fuzhou when they tried to nationalize their nuclear energy production.”

“Sir, I can understand your concerns, but you must admit that what occurred in that prison was inherently unjust.”

“Shui, if we get kicked out of the Sichuanosphere, our entire economy is gonna go straight down the gutter, our infrastructure will crumble, our health services will collapse, and if we continue to ignore our dependence on Sichuan from there, both of our brains are gonna end up with bullets lodged in ‘em. I, frankly speaking, do not care about what you deem to be just. I care about this nation, that’s my entire job.”

“Fine then, but the damage has already been done. I can’t un-infiltrate the prison.”

“I know that, Shui Hailang. Luckily, I’ve already had a thorough conversation with the Sichuanese embassy and I’ve been able to maneuver us into a much better position using only a few lines of rhetoric.”

“What does that imply?”

“Well, I was able to redirect the primary onus for the attack away from the administration and entirely onto you specifically.”

“How does that make things better?”

“Well, it makes things much better for the state of the nation. Furthermore, it only leaves you with a light punishment.”

“Which is?”

“You were actually given three options: the first is your own execution.”

“You said it was a light punishment, that is literally the worst possible punishment.”

“Hold on, I said that you have options. If you choose not to take the first, the Sichuanese government is willing to keep you alive and unincarcerated so long as you prove to them your loyalty.”

“How do they want me to do that?”

“The second option is to kill Hong Zainan.”

“That is the one punishment you could’ve said that is worse than the first option. Fuck.”

“Hold your horses, there’s still one more. The Sichuanese government is aware that you are currently housing three felons by the names of Nair, Celestino, and Tochihuitl. The only other way you can walk free is to kill them.”

“These are really terrible options.”

“Well you should feel lucky. If you weren’t a renowned demon hunter, they’d just execute all five of you on the spot.”

“I guess, but I definitely don’t feel lucky. This whole system is just so messed up. Why is it that innocent people keep on being shoved into the slaughterhouse?”

“Listen, Shui, nobody knows how messed up the system is more than I do. I agree that our democracy is flawed, but importantly, I still believe that it’s fixable. The whole reason I got into politics was to reform this system. Take, for example, the Kaiphachu raids, under my administration they’ve become 65% less lethal. I dream that one day we’ll bring that number to 100. Sure, I’m no extremist, I still believe that the raids are a necessary evil if we want to keep crime down, but what’s important is that people in government like you and me have the power to reshape the world around us for the better. You might not like the system, Shui, but if you abandon your role in it, it’ll only get worse without you.”

“So what does that all say about my punishment?”

“I suggest you kill the felons now, and once they're dead and buried, work to make sure that something like this never has to happen again.”

“And you don’t think there’s any way for me to escape this obligation?”

“Hailang, this nation needs you. Its people need you. You can’t let yourself abandon it now for your own self-centered desires.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. But first, I sorta need their help in killing the kasamaan. Do you think I could hold off their execution until then?”

“As long as you can kill it quickly.”

Joey Axelrod woke up in a river of blood. He had done so multiple times before but it was still a shock whenever it happened. He felt a deep sense of dread, a fear of what he knew was to come but had difficulties accepting. He knew that Lucifer would not be pleased by his recent behavior and there was little in the world he feared more than disappointing those who held power over him. He pulled himself up from the crimson brook, trying not to slip against its jagged edges, only to see his patron deity staring through his soul by the time he was standing upright.

“Do not leave the river,” the demon spoke.

“I- I’m sorry sir but it’s kind of hard to stand here.”

“Joseph Agbayani Axelrod, when I granted you the gift of my patronage, you were but a splatter of blood. I gave you the life you’re living, but as quickly as I granted it, I can choose to take it back from you. Your fate is being held in the loose grip of my oft-reluctant hands, and if you disobey my grace again, I might just have to let go of it. You may have seen Hell, but actually venturing within it is an experience like no other.”

“Do you think I’m going to Hell when I die?”

“Do you really think that you’re deserving of Heaven?”

“Not necessarily, but I thought I might at least be redeemable enough to glimpse purgatory.”

“Well, I can’t really judge the value of a soul who hasn’t passed yet, but I can say that your position in the land of the living is much more comfortable than anything you’ll justly receive in the afterlife.”

“But I’m gonna die eventually, right? How can I avoid the worst possible outcome?”

“You can start by actually listening to what I say instead of trusting your biased internal judgements. You do realize you were supposed to kill Ms. Tochihuitl, correct? And you ended up allying with her?”

“I was scared that I might die if I didn’t obey her!”

“I understand accepting the deal, but there was ample opportunity for sabotage and you squandered it at every single moment!”

“Okay, I’m sorry! I promise that nothing like that will ever happen again.”

“How can I trust you to live up to such a promise?”

“Well, it would be helpful if I actually knew what I was doing. Earlier you said that you’d explain to me the reason as to why I needed to kill these avatars, and as it stands, I’m still in the dark.”

“I see. That’s a fair point, and it’s the only one I’ve heard from you in a long while. But I need to ask you a question first: have you seen the kasamaan with your own two eyes?”

“I saw it briefly. When Theta teleported us to the top floor of the prison I was able to catch a glance at its ‘body.’ I’ll admit that it was a bit frightening, but luckily it didn’t seem to be angry.”

“What do you think it’s made of?”

“Well it kinda looked like smoke.”

“I’m not asking about its appearance. It might look like smoke but smoke cannot coagulate into a cognizant being. How do you think this monster was created?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some kind of demon. Did you make it?”

“Ha! I wish I could make something like that! No, it’s not a demon at all.”

“Then what is it? You seem to know a lot more than me.”

“You’d be accurate in that evaluation. The reason why the kasamaan often spurns any sort of true categorization is because it is an entity born out of neither the material nor the divine. While I often think of myself as God’s self-correcting agent, the kasamaan would be better described as an aspect of God’s antithesis, a creature which the gnostics once christened with the name Demiurge.”

“But then why did the kasamaan end up appearing here and now out of all possible times and places?”

“It was due to a violent collision of factors, one of which being the similarly violent nature of the Kaiphachu neighborhood from which it first spawned. More importantly for yourself, however, is the factor that there is currently an unprecedented number of divine avatars in the world and the servants of the Demiurge are reaching out from the abyss to maintain a balance. This is the issue which I am colossally concerned about, and why it is so important that you start killing the people I point you to.”

“Okay! I get it. But I have to ask an additional question. While the kasamaan is certainly a nuisance, it’s not necessarily apocalyptic-”

“Joey! The kasamaan is only the beginning! If new avatars keep on getting pulled out from the woodwork, the Demiurge itself will come crashing down on this planet!”

“Hold on, how many more avatars will it take for that to happen? I understand that I should be acting now but I’d like to survey the parameters first.”

“Listen, Joey, I am part of a council of deities that work directly under the Supreme Entity. All other gods and spirits are merely aspects of our forms. Thabr, the failure that he is, was one such aspect. There are only ten of us, thus the name Decadeum was chosen. Combined, we represent both the Land and Sea, Love and War, Knowledge and Art, Life and Death, the Righteous and the Wretched. I was deemed ‘the Wretched.’ I don’t particularly like the rest of them and they don’t particularly appreciate my judgment. They especially don’t appreciate my judgment when I tell them to stop creating new avatars. But to answer the question, among the ten members, eight of them, including myself, have granted their patronage to a human below. We cannot let that number reach ten.”

“What happens if it does? Like, what will the Demiurge actually do?”

“I can’t describe to you what would happen in very much detail, mainly because it is an event which is yet to occur, and which under my jurisprudence, will never occur. However, what I can say is that it would unequivocally result in your death and very likely the extinction of most life on earth. Simply put, it’s not something you want to see.”

“Alright then. But before I go, do you have any suggestions as to how I should actually go about in killing them?”

“This may sound odd to you at the moment, but I suggest that you schedule a conversation with Shui Hailang. I believe that doing so could aid you greatly.”

Deep within a Rizhaonese government facility, in a concrete room that better resembled a concrete box, surrounded on all sides by unknown enemies, Vraxi Nair watched a film alongside the greatest prophet of the modern era. Theta generally didn’t talk during movies, but Vraxi had watched this particular movie dozens of times and had commented on practically every scene so far, making them feel obligated to at least ask a question regarding the film’s contents.

“I still don’t understand why it’s called Ocean’s 18½. There are only 18 members. I’m also somewhat perplexed as to what a half-member would even entail.”

“It’s-” Vraxi stopped herself before continuing to speak, “Well it’s a bit of a spoiler.”

“You can tell me anyways.”

“But that could significantly decrease your enjoyment of the movie. The plot twist is a pivotal part of the plot and probably the best moment in the entire thing. Even just telling you that there is a plot twist probably dampened your full potential appreciation of it.”

“Vraxi, I haven’t seen the vast majority of the films, shows, and Broadway productions which are all canon to this series. My potential appreciation was dampened from the beginning due to my lack of prior knowledge.”

“I thought you read the plot synopses for those?”

“I did, but I don’t see how that could possibly stack up to an actual viewing of the original text.”

“You should’ve told me that. I would’ve put on an earlier installment in the series if I knew you’d rather watch it in order.”

“But you said you wanted to watch 18½. I wasn’t going to make you watch something you liked less just because I wasn’t fully caught up with things.”

“Theta, I don’t want to prioritize my own happiness over yours. I like all of the movies. We should watch them in a way where we can both equally derive value from them.”

“Vraxi, we’re already in the middle of this one and you seem to be having a lot of fun with it. I don’t want to be selfish by making you stop it now.”

“But now I feel selfish. Here, I can pull up Ocean’s 14 and we can start from there, it’s not a very long one.”

“Vraxi, I’d really rather avoid watching another movie right now.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s just something that I’ve been meaning to do and I feel like watching these movies is just my way of evading that responsibility.”

“Is it okay if I ask what that something is?”

“Vraxi, I’ve been meaning to tell you what happened to me back at the prison. It was strange, but, I think I met the kasamaan.”

“Uh, didn’t we all see it by the end?”

“I didn’t just see it. I met it. We spoke to each other and it told me what it was made of and how it was born.”

“It can speak? I thought it just groaned and mumbled.”

“It can at least speak in the codescape.”

“So what did it say? Wait, should we tell Hailang about this? They’re the one who’s actually tasked with killing this thing.”

“Vraxi, I only want to talk to you right now.”

Nobody had ever said that to Vraxi before. Nobody had ever whispered their secrets into her ear. It wasn't because she was an untrustworthy person, rather it was just that secrets held a place in people’s hearts that beget a certain level of intimacy which Vraxi could never manage. She wasn’t an intimate person, or at least she didn’t try to be. Intimacy requires one to be vulnerable, to reveal one’s weak points with the hope that they don’t get abused. Vraxi preferred to surround herself with a layer of impenetrable social chitin at all times, a layer which she was only beginning to peel when around Theta. It was now time for her to unveil this layer in its entirety, to become entirely genuine. She had worked long and hard to strengthen her bond with Theta and now she had to put that strength to the test.

“Vraxi, the kasamaan said that we need to kill the president.”

Vraxi had surely misheard them.

“I know it sounds odd, but I think we should listen to its logic.”

“Hold on. Hold on. What? Are you being serious right now?”

“Vraxi, I would never lie to you.”

Once again, Vraxi felt her soul pulse with a shock of unexpected intimacy. Theta was willing to speak their undiluted truth to them. They were willing to treat Vraxi like someone deserving of the full story, like she deserved to hear from a genuine voice, one which she herself failed to ever naturally create. When speaking, Vraxi always kept a distance between herself and the listener, but now she was being confronted with someone who refused to partake in that charade. It was almost overwhelming, not least due to the content of what was being said.

“Theta, could you please clarify what you're saying. I trust that you mean well but I’m a little confused.”

“Let me rephrase things. So, the kasamaan is a being formed out of suffering, correct?”

“I understood that bit.”

“But it is not a being with a will. It’s more of a natural phenomenon that just happens to possess a mind. Therefore, it only acts in the way it does due to the state of its environment.”

“Okay, so are you saying we need to change its environment in some way.”

“More specifically, we need to prevent the suffering in this nation which caused it to form in the first place.”

“And the ideal way of doing that is?”

“Killing the president. I know it sounds bad but what other option do we have? Taking such an action would destabilize the already unsteady nation in just the right way as to kick off a revolution of the Kaiphachu proletariat.”

“I get that, but it is still murder, and I feel like there’s a thousand different ways it could go terribly wrong.”

“Vraxi, I understand that it’s a murder, and I cannot stress enough how the snuffing of that one life will forever torture my soul. But if we choose to stay still, thousands more will meet their end. Murder is the only conscionable action here.”

“So it’s a trolley problem then. We can either let the regime do business as usual and run over all those who’ve been tied to the tracks, or we can do one horrible thing and pull the lever.”

“I think the answer is clear to see.”

“I agree, but I still dislike it. Should we tell the others about it?”

“Soon, though I worry how they might respond.”

“I imagine that Zapata will have no problem in killing some corrupt billionaire politician.”

“So that just leaves Diogo. Once we convince him, we’ll abandon Hailang, leave the facility, and try to take the one action we can never take back.”

“It seems like we have no other option.”

Diogo Celestino was a renaissance man, an archetypical polymath, a master of many fields, and one of those fields was that of table tennis. Out of all the children in the Sao Luis Hebepod, none had garnered a more prestigious winning record in the sport than Diogo. In that world, he was a god amongst men, though it was an admittedly minor world. Outside the hebepod, in the city’s vicious adult-oriented table tennis scene, Diogo was just another minnow in the pond, bound to be eaten by a larger fish. In order to preserve his honor, he quit the game before he could ever be truly burned by it, and it had been quite a long time since he had picked up the paddle.

That was until Shui Hailang threw a suggestion his way. The government facility they were bunkered in had a pristine, state-of-the-art, glossy bifurcated table, just begging to have a few balls bounced across its untouched surface. Hailang asked if he had ever played ping-pong before and he could only let out an ominous cackle in response as he prepared to release the demon that had laid dormant in his chest for over a decade now.

Hailang looked at him with an odd countenance, one he had never seen them display before. They looked like they were holding back regret, or maybe just holding back a strong emotion in general. Diogo wasn’t prepared for such a look and it made him feel self-conscious, like maybe he had laughed just a bit louder than he should have. He offered Hailang the first serve, hoping that it might smooth things over, but even as the game begun, Hailang moved disjointedly, still quite effectively, but in a way that defied traditional technique and etiquette. Hailang’s arms seemed to twist in on themselves as they reached for the ball, each strike they landed moved in a slightly different angle than expected, they kept shifting their weight from one foot to the other with no apparent rhyme or reason or rationality at all.

It confounded Diogo, but he was still winning, so he didn’t look into it perhaps as much as he should have. He was willing to accept that Hailang might just be nervous for a whole host of ephemeral explanations, none of which concerned him. All he really needed to focus on was securing victory in the game laid out before him.

Finally, at the eleventh hour, Diogo racketed the ball straight past the tip of Hailang’s wingspan and into the wall behind them, indemnifying his vital eleventh point and winning him the match indisputably. Hailang had proven to be a worthy opponent, racking up seven points against him, but when it came down to the wire, he was still the champion. At least, he could be a champion here, he could listen to the cheers of his podmates roar within his mind as a portrait of success was half-heartedly shoved into his awaiting arms. But when he looked down at that depiction of himself, he still saw a man trying to run away from his own failure, a man teetering on the edge of thirty with little to gauge his haunting future with, a man lost in the woods of his own life begging for someone to guide him forward. There was a moment where he thought he’d found that guide, where he thought that Octávio had come down from the heavens to assist him, but he had been so self-centered then. No one was coming to save him. Yet still, he wanted to be saved by someone, or at least aided by someone who cared about him. Vraxi and Zapata and Theta were nice but they couldn’t teach him anything he didn’t know, the master shouldn’t seek aid from among his own students. There were also those higher-ups at the Society but they were always so busy with matters that reigned far above his own, he hadn’t worked hard enough to deserve the attention of those esteemed agents. That was all to say that he was seemingly predestined to a life of never being quite good enough, with the only mentor he ever had getting killed on his own behalf and in such a way as to never return to him. Except, there was still one person who he’d failed to account for, the person who he had just beaten in table tennis, a person who ranked far ahead of him in most other skills, Shui Hailang.

“Hailang,” Diogo blurted out, “do you think you could train me?”

“What?” Hailang spouted confusedly, “What do you mean by that? You just won the game, if anything you should try training me.”

“I don’t mean in table tennis, Hailang. I mean, it’s just, you seem to have such a powerful bond to your patron and I was wondering if it was possible for you to help me cultivate a similar relationship.”

Hailang looked uneasy. They were probably about to reject his offer, something he knew was bound to happen the moment the words left his overzealous mouth. Hailang was an incredibly busy, incredibly motivated, incredibly competent person who would never have the time nor desire to help him with a goal that, to them, could only ever be considered menial, pitiful labor. He regretted what he said more and more with each passing second but the seconds only continued to pass without an answer to his woes.

“I’m sorry-” he babbled before getting cut off at the last potential moment.

“Diogo,” Hailang paused, displaying a face that could only ever signal polite but honest rejection, “I haven’t known you for a very long time, and I don’t have much experience of teaching others in regards to my very specific skillset. I’m afraid that such an apprenticeship likely wouldn’t lead to you reaching some magnificent unattainable peak. But also, I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid of failure, I’m afraid of loss, and while I don’t look the part, I’m afraid of demons as well. One thing I’m afraid of is that, while we haven’t known each other for long, we might not know each other for much longer. People move apart, tragedies happen, and life goes on despite it. But since we don't know how much time we’ll have together, I figure it’s best that we spend that nebulous time trying to forward ourselves in whatever ways we can. If you think that I could be your mentor, Diogo, I’m willing to take you up on the offer, and when we inevitably go our separate ways, that memory will remain beating within our hearts forever.”

Diogo couldn’t believe it, he was finally being accepted by someone who could teach him how to live a better life and they were doing so with generous, open, loving arms. Hailang’s face looked strained, but genuine, like a proud parent, and when Diogo stared into their eyes, he felt a passion that had been vacant from his heart ever since Octávio caught a bullet for him, that of unadulterated, child-like, wondrous awe.

Chapter Text

Zapata Tochihuitl stood at the edge of a great and imposing well. She couldn’t see the bottom and she had difficulties envisioning what the bottom might even look like. She had never before made contact with a hole of this size or volume, a depth which surpassed human perception and was subsequently made indistinguishable from pure, jet abyss. From her point of view, it was an unending ouroboros of darkness begetting darkness, but she knew that deep within was a near-fantastical display of interlocking machinery, constantly improving itself to perfectly formulate the fundamental foundation to which the structures of all modern human civilization sprouted and flourished from. This was the Rizhao Water Treatment Facility.

Zapata was in the midst of digesting a tough and fibrous thought as she stood watch for passersby at the federally operated plant. An hour before she left, Vraxi and Theta had approached her with a verbally simple yet connotationally complex proposition, that of killing Rizhao’s sitting president. At first, she was vehemently put off by the notion, but as time continued in its endless march around her, she kept turning back to reconsider the plausibility and ultimate necessity of it all. Rizhao was, ultimately, a state built atop the devaluation of labor. The populace of Kaiphachu built this city, but never even got the chance to live in it, permanently being reserved to their tenement construction camps and always having to migrate before those camps could coagulate into something of a greater pedigree. It was a cruel cycle that was actively reinforced at every opportunity by the government of the nation itself and such an inherently unstable distribution of capital that if the slightest disruption were to jostle that structure of power, the entire state would inevitably come tumbling down with it. A single stone thrown could trigger an avalanche.

Despite her gripes with Rizhao’s government, Zapata currently found herself, in a sense of the word, aiding said government. Zainan had suspected that the kasamaan may have traveled to the treatment facility and given that he was the only hook they had, she, Hailang, and Diogo had all followed along with him to investigate the scene. What surprised Zapata the most on arrival at the plant was that she was immediately let inside of it. She had almost forgotten that despite their willingness to infiltrate prisons, Hailang was still a highly valued member of Rizhao’s cabinet. She was left to ponder the implications of this realization alone as the others progressed further into the facility while she herself manned the exit. It all felt a bit counterintuitive to her. Even if they ultimately disagreed with it, Hailang was still a vital gear in the grand machine of death. Zapata questioned if they were really then someone who could be trusted.

In a roundabout way, Zapata was back to considering that original question posed to her not long prior. Would she be willing to take one bloody imperative against a fellow citizen of Earth in the name of a thousand others? And if the answer was yes, what personal sacrifices would she be willing to endure in order to achieve that goal? What was her role in this grandiose tragedy that cascaded around her like a great hydroelectric dam, formed from the minds of man and money to be so robust that only an act of terrorism could knock it down? Surely, if this was an occasion where human suffering reached a point so unbearable that said suffering was beginning to manifest into a tangible and horrible beast, it must also be an occasion that justified acts of terror as a means to an end. The death of President Sun was, therefore, an inevitability, an event that needed to shoot off as long as the wheel of history continued to turn. The only question remaining was who would take the shot? Who would risk their future? Or rather, what group of people would risk their future because tasks like these were never accomplished well alone? For all Zapata knew, there could be dozens of paramilitaries all chomping at the bit to lodge a bullet into Sun’s tainted heart, but she was only certain of one’s existence, that which was formed by her companions, that which she was offered to join. This nation was one built on blood and further acted as an eastern outpost to Sichuan’s empire of blood. But if one wanted to heal the wound, they first had to remove the knife causing it. The only way for Rizhao to heal was for someone to remove those who held power, and the only way to ensure that future was for Zapata to, ultimately, agree to the proposition given to her.

Water and floc. Floc and water. The primary objective of the flocculation chamber was to separate these two elements. But even Diogo Celestino could detect that there was a third substance aimlessly floating about that room. Zainan assured them that the kasamaan was near, that its bellowing tendrils had found a temporary home in the life-giving tanks of the treatment plant. Diogo was glad that they had managed to track it down so far, but his nerves were far from eased. He still had little to no idea as to how the kasamaan could actually be killed, and the further they walked, the more he worried that such a being might not even deal in terms of life and death.

“Hey Hailang,” Diogo broke the silence, “so if the kasamaan really is somewhere in this facility, and we really do end up coming into contact with it, what’s our actual game plan from there?”

“We kill it,” Hailang said bluntly.

“But, like, how? You said it wasn’t a demon, so do we even know if it can die?”

“Diogo, I assure you it can die. There is nothing in this ridiculous world of ours that can escape the slimy grip of death. It is the great equalizer, the universal constant, the one law which cannot be broken. It might be hard to kill, plenty of things are hard to kill, I’m one of them, but everyone’s got their weakpoints somewhere, we’ve just gotta find them.”

“So what you’re saying is that we, at least currently, at this specific moment in time, do not know how to kill it.”

“Precisely, but that’s also the precise reason why it was so important that you tag along with us. You’re smart, Diogo, smarter than me, and if anyone can derive a kryptonite for this abject aberration it’s you.”

“You really think that? That I’m smart?”

“Of course I think that, Diogo. I’ve seen what you can do with that brain of yours. So how about we treat this whole ordeal as your first true trial in your career as my student. I don’t think we’ll be around the kasamaan for very long, so let’s see how much you can gleam in a highly limited timeframe.”

“Alright, thank you. Really, thank you. I’m so glad to have this opportunity and it’s just-”

“Hold on,” Zainan interjected, “the monster is near.”

Everyone went quiet. Everything felt quiet, everything but the gentle billows of the wind and the drum of four distant heartbeats, all thumping in a quaint symmetry. 

The sight of the beast was macabre, floating belly-up in what was meant to be drinking water, smelling of bleach and forgotten rot. Its eyes shifted vagrantly to Diogo, piercing through his social armor and invading the inner crevices of his rough and hardened brain. Diogo wanted to say something helpful, but the kasamaan was a being that defied understanding, leaving him stranded at a loss for words. Could this horror really be slain? Death might be a universal function, but who's to say that the kasamaan was beholden to the laws of our own humble universe? Who’s to say that that which had never been broken before could never be broken by that which hid behind the door to the future?

“Diogo,” Hailang whispered urgently, “what can you see?”

“I can see the same thing you’re seeing,” he replied honestly.

“Okay, but can you derive a unique and/or helpful conclusion before it starts moving?”

“Well, I guess I could try.”

The Dewey Decimal System was the primary method in which the strong majority of the world’s dignified libraries were designed from. Now that Diogo had cleared his most pressing of mental blockages, the Library of All Things was abiding by this system as well. According to said system, matters of Social Sciences were stored within the 300 range. Furthermore, the cultural customs, etiquettes, and stories which such sciences ultimately bloomed from fell under the 390 range. Deeper still, the subject of folklore, the way in which cultures passed down their stories was emblazoned with the number 398. Though this was a system based on decimals, not integers, and could still specify a good deal further. Affairs of the paranormal and supernatural, which this situation almost certainly could be counted as, were then typically marked with the numeral 398.4. Finally, paranormal entities of humanoid or semihumanoid nature, what the layman might refer to simply as a monster, were thrown into the section labeled 398.45. 

The kasamaan was assuredly a monster, but there were hundreds and thousands of novels, journals, publications, treatises, and bulls on the ruthless nature of that which is monstrous. Diogo still found himself standing beside a grand and imposing room filled to the unforgiving brim with that which the brave fought and the cowardous cowered from. Now was not the time to cower in defeat but it remained a tempting alternative. 

The room was not organized alphabetically but seemingly by theme. Writings on the undead appeared to occupy one corner while those of the demonic stood on another. Okay, Diogo thought, so there’s a method to the madness. All he needed to do was determine the nature of the kasamaan and allow that nature to guide him through the gallery. He had been given a few bare snippets of information on the beast by Theta before he left. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to narrow things down. The kasamaan was a monster that was born from suffering, fed from suffering, and chose to inflect further excess suffering onto the world around it. He could work with that, he just needed a frame of reference.

To his immediate left was a dusty copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, rewritten in Arabic by an unknown translator. This could work. He started running to the opposite side of the colossal atrium, hoping to find a tool that could let him pinpoint a solution to his woe. After almost running out of breath, he reached the occidental wall and picked up the very first book his grasping hands came into contact with. Chupacabra: The Musical: An Unpublished Manuscript by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This was just perfect. Dracula was, almost iconically so, both man and monster, while the Chupacabra was very much an entity designed to be animalistic, only keeping a few vague suggestions of a past human experience. Therefore, Diogo could establish a pattern, he could navigate the ravaging throes of this literary display and carve a path through it. He marched onward to the farthest end of the quadrangle in search of a clause that could square this formidable circle. With determination surging through his heart, he took a preliminary glance at one final book and its thinly ascribed title. A Harrowing Account Detailing the Monster of Ravenna.

The Monster of Ravenna was not a monster. According to its contemporaries, it was a manifestation of God’s wrath, a gruesome omen concerning the War of the League of Cambrai. According to modern historians, it was a child born with a severe congenital illness that twisted its flesh into a shape that the ignorant world around it could only deem as something utterly monstrous. But most importantly, the Monster of Ravenna was real. It was not a beast born out of folklore, it was a real human child, only one molded by the whims of folklore into something to be feared. Likewise, the kasamaan was a real beast, a real natural birth crashing upon a fearful humanity. Diogo was getting closer.

He now had three distinct entries of literary canon. Three distinct points in space. Three distinct plots on a multidimensional axis. From here, he could triangulate an answer. The kasamaan was quite noticeably inhuman, though it was formed from the minds of that which is human. It was also, very much, indisputably, real, in that he saw it with his own naked eyes. Therefore, he concluded, within the three-point structure he had established, the kasamaan would be closest to that poor, unfortunate child of Ravenna and farthest from the count Vlad Dracula. This impromptu procedure had just exponentially shrunk the possible range in which the book he desired could theoretically be held in. However, he was still, ultimately, wandering through the dark, his only candle manifest through his own unsteady self-confidence.

Diogo ran from aisle to aisle within the reduced domain, knowing that somewhere within was that which he desired. Unfortunately, he didn’t know exactly what it was he was looking for. He hoped to find a book whose title included the name of the beast he was attempting to slay, but he was still at a blank over what the appearance of said book might actually approximate. Furthering his troubles, he had no method of deriving an exact set of coordinates for his final destination and, troubling him further, he was running out of time. Then, as he was about to turn yet another corner, something especially flashy caught his attention from the dimmest corner of his eye.

It was the largest book he had ever seen, probably about two feet tall with a 7 foot spine, plastered in a bright and garish yellow. Written in a bold font across its longest side was a title that made him very briefly stop breathing entirely. The Kasamaan: A Guide by Diogo Celestino.

Diogo had written this book. At least, he had apparently done so according to its own blurb. He could not, unsurprisingly, recall doing such a thing. He had never written anything of the quality necessary to be published. Yet here he stood, idling in front of the exact text he needed, with his own nom de naissance printed atop its pristine, glossy cover. He was thankful, yet deeply, and cautiously, perplexed.

Then it hit him. He remembered something. Octávio, or at least the morbid daguerreotype of Octávio that had been secretly puppeteered by Orunmila, once told him that the Library of All Things didn’t simply contain all that was written, but also all that was yet to be written. Therefore, if the future version of himself who was much more knowledgeable of the monster’s ways were to write a guide on how to fight back against said ways, that same guide could then effectively travel back to his present self via the intertemporal space of the library. He couldn’t believe it, he had just unknowingly committed an act of time travel of the highest degree, and he was beyond excited about it. He hurriedly slid the titanic work off the shelf and turned to the very first page. It read as follows:

“Hello Diogo. It’s me, also Diogo, writing from what I presume is your future. I’m still not entirely sure how all of this works, however, if I’ve done everything right, your eyes should’ve been drawn to this tome by its lustrous color and undeniable heft. Going forward,”

Diogo started bleeding. The divinely inspired architecture around him crumpled into rubble before fading into nothingness, leaving only the damp and dreary flocculation chamber in its wake. He had been hit, compromised by his lack of spatial awareness into a position that only further compromised his fragile life. Though, now that he was thinking of it, could he really die when he was yet to write the book which he was theoretically guaranteed to someday pen in his name? It was an interesting thought, but he opted not to test fate. After all, he was no expert on the infinitely nuanced topic of time travel. More importantly, he was very quickly losing his very limited supply of blood. A grizzly wound to the lower abdomen was the culprit and the kasamaan itself seemed to be the culprit of said wound. Outside the world in crisis that was his own mortal body, his companions were embroiled in a state of motion. Zainan was in the midst of running as far as possible away from the gruesome threat which Shui Hailang was facing head on. They appeared to be totally unphased, in their element, literally, as they were positively surrounded by a grand deluge of churning water. But before Diogo could admire them any further, his steady supply of adrenaline began to run dry. 

Diogo’s body was drenched in a boiling current of pain. It was a sharp, rolling pain, which was so tantalizingly strong as to have his nerve ending almost fancy the sheer sense of overwhelming power. The pain rocked through his entire ravaged body, so much so that the most intense feelings weren’t even localized to the area where his skin was breached but just whichever parts of his body had the most nerve endings: his hands, feet, lips, and genitalia. It was the kind of pain one could never forget, no matter how much they tried to in the moment. Diogo knew that, for the rest of his time on Earth, he would retroactively divide his life into the period before and after this very moment. The only thing that could possibly eclipse the gravity of this horribly messy pain was the visual display occurring in front of him as Hailang began to duel that beast which had hurled this world of pain upon his own. 

The room became a whirlpool, a stage for the greatest show on Earth, a visual delight like none other. Hailang didn’t know how to kill the kasamaan, but they could sure as hell try. They could never waste a perfect opportunity to kill this colossus, and they might never be presented with another opportunity as perfect as this one. The encircling water roared around them, sounding a vengeance from all those who had been victim to the icy grip of the kasamaan’s rank maw. They had a chance to end the chaos once and for all. They had a chance to be seen as a true hero, a shining representative of all the good that their troubled nation could still accomplish. They could be a candle in the dark, the kind that could light a whole forest ablaze. The circle grew tighter, smaller, stronger, soon amounting to nothing larger than a boxing ring, with them at one end and the beast at the other. The plan was to shrink their arena even further, ultimately bombarding the beast with the strength of a hurricane while keeping themself safe and secure within a protective bubble. The kasamaan refused to react to any of this, the blood of Hailang’s new student still idly dripping down its many dormant fingers. Hailang wished they could know what was going on within its mind, assuming it had one. Was it planning a counterattack? Was it waiting for the right moment to strike? Or was it so intellectually hampered as to not even know what was playing out around them? Each scenario was equally likely, but due to the personal and vehement disdain which Hailang held for the kasamaan, they were tempted to believe in the latter. It was just a stupid gray hunk of bodies, that’s all it ever had been. How it managed to take the lives of so many was beyond them and they frankly didn’t bother to find the answer. The beast before them was an ugly stain which could now, finally, be cleared from the tapestry of their nation. They, and every other citizen, had truthfully had enough of it. The circle began to close, gaining power as it lost size through an exponential function.

Yet the beast did not die.

The beast reacted, letting out a deafening, shattering roar as it was pummeled by a thousand waves all at once, but it did not die. It didn’t try to fight back either, choosing to instead hop back into one of the flocculation tanks and rest its many eyes. Hailang’s strongest attack, their marvelous magnum opus, their aquatic representation of the supermassive black hole which sat heavy in the center of the galaxy, all of it amounted to nothing, not even a drop of blood or bile, only noise. 

Vraxi entered the hospital alone. Theta had opted to stay back at the facility, as their inhuman anatomy made them stick out in public settings, especially when seen next to known criminals. Still, Vraxi was worried about her companion. She didn’t like the idea of them staying locked up in a bunker run by a government which  they were covertly attempting to tear apart. Theta assured her that it wouldn’t be an issue, with them hacking into every camera that could possibly expose their plans, but Vraxi still held a modicum of concern. She was worried that there were cameras unaccounted for, worried that they were three steps behind the pace of the oppressor, worried whenever she entered a room that a cavalcade of cops might show up and force her to atone for her sins. She increasingly felt like she was being watched, as if for once in her life, all of the anxieties she held up inside were sprouting out from fact and not from supposition. More than anything, she felt that she was far too inexperienced to be in this deep. The number of people who would be better at this job than herself was astounding, but she was the one who ultimately chose to take it. She had saddled herself with this miserable fate.

The door to the elevator sprung open. Vraxi waddled inside and gently pressed onto one of the buttons. It took her about five full seconds to realize that Zapata was also in this elevator, waiting to be acknowledged. Vraxi had never been a very spatially aware person but this was just pathetic.

“Oh. Hello Zapata. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“I thought about what you said, Vraxi.”

“Oh. What do you think?”

“I hate to say it but I think you’re right. I just can’t see any other way around things but to take that one, gruesome action.”

“I wouldn’t really think of it as gruesome.”

“Then what other way is there to describe it?”

“‘Necessary’ is the first word that comes to mind.”

“Necessary. I’ve gotta say, the Vraxi I dated never would’ve talked like that.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not necessarily.”

Vraxi wasn’t entirely sure what those words meant but they were the very last words spoken before the elevator doors silently slid back open with the kind of ease one would never see in Kaiphachu but was all too common here in the downtown. Hailang was immediately present in her field of view, speaking to a gaggle of dreary-looking doctors. They looked surprised when they saw her.

“Oh, you two,” Hailang dismissed the medical professionals with little more than the wave of a hand, “I’m glad to see you’ve arrived in good health, unlike some people.”

“That seems a bit insensitive,” Vraxi commented.

“It totally was, I’m just ridiculously stressed right now and it’s starting to show in my speech.”

“How’s Diogo doing,” Zapata interjected, “is he okay?”

“Well he’s perfectly alive, but it was a very long surgery. I don’t think he’ll want any visitors for the foreseeable future.”

“Me and Vraxi can try seeing that for ourselves.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that. I think you’d be breaking some serious rules there.”

“Who am I to blindly follow an unjust law? It’ll only be for a minute, but we didn’t come here just to wait in a lobby.”

Diogo was fast asleep, draped in a delicate linen that carefully covered what was surely an ugly scar pasted upon his torso-to-pelvic region. It would’ve been polite to let him rest, but times were urgent and tensions were high and Vraxi couldn’t think of anything more tactful than jostling his shoulders until he eventually woke up. Looking at his eyes, he was groggy and underslept, but looking at his mouth, he was delighted to have company.

“Vraxi! Zapata! Thank God you’re here. I can’t even begin to explain how crazy my day has been.”

“Well,” Vraxi compromised, “could you at least paraphrase how it’s been? I’d like to know exactly what happened to send you here in the first place.”

“Long story short, I got jumped by the kasamaan. It really tore me a new one.”

“I don’t think you know what that phrase means,” Zapata added.

“Either way, things got bloody and they did so fast. I probably lost consciousness within the minute, but before that happened, I got to watch my own liver pour right outta me. Suffice to say, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Probably a 2/10. The only reason it’s not a one is because of the spectacle of it all. It was marvelous to watch but terrible to live through. Wouldn’t recommend.”

“You didn’t have to specify that,” Vraxi commented, “I don’t think either of us were thinking about trying that experience for ourselves.”

“Luckily,” Diogo continued, refusing any sort of acknowledgement, “Hailang was still there. Let me tell you, I would’ve been long dead without ‘em. They brought me straight over to the hospital and onto the operation table in a matter of minutes. It was a good thing this place keeps synthetic livers on hand.”

“So are you feeling better now?”

“I cannot stress enough the sheer quantity of painkillers I’m on right now. I can’t feel a thing. So I guess you could say I’m feeling adequate.”

“Well it’s better than the alternative. Anyways, me and Zapata wanted to tell you something. It’s quite private, and we’d really like you to hear it, but you also need to hear us out first. Gently speaking, it’s something of an extreme proposal, though, ultimately, it’s also quite necessary.”

“The truth of the matter is as follows,” Zapata began, “we know how to kill the kasamaan and we need your help.”

“Hold on, you know how to kill it? How? And how did you find out?”

“I’d really like to answer both of those questions,” Vraxi prefaced, “but not now, not here. We need to find somewhere a bit more covert.”

“Should I be concerned about this? I’m not sure who or what you’re trying to hide from right now.”

“Once again, I would really love to give a more detailed explanation, but for the safety of all of us, I just can’t do that right now.”

“Well, in that case, I might as well mention that I have gotten incredibly close to deriving that same method of death which you claim to have already discovered.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I made my way into the Library of All Things, successfully located a book detailing the nature of the kasamaan, and even started to read the prologue before a jagged little talon found its way under my skin and tore the wound that led me here. If I had just had a little more time, that thing could’ve been dead by now.”

“Why don’t you just head back over to the Library right now then?”

“Doing so takes a hefty morsel of energy, Vraxi. Energy that I simply do not possess after all that surgery. As it stands, it might take days until I’m ready to head back.”

“Under that condition,” Zapata spoke up, “and given the time-sensitive quality of our current situation, I think our current priority should really be to get you out of this place as soon as possible. After that, we’ll all be able to speak freely regarding all that must be done.”

“Well, we might wanna try waiting, at least a little.”

“Why would you ever say that?”

“All I’m saying is that I don't know where you two are getting your information from. Unlike the real world, the Library doesn’t just lie, it is a bastion of truth, a single teardrop of absolute perfection within the raucous ocean of the universe. I think we should at least try to double-check ourselves with whatever it has to say. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Diogo, We’ll meet up with you tomorrow. Please be ready with an answer.”

The door closed with a heavy thud.

The door opened not long after. Hailang entered the room with a concerned yet doting look on their face.

“I’m glad to see you awake, Diogo.”

“Oh! Hailang! You’re here. Genuinely, I don’t know how to thank you properly. I don’t really think there exists an appropriate way to thank someone for saving one’s own life. But still, thank you so much for letting me live through all of this.”

“You’re welcome, Diogo. Though, if I’m being as truthful as can be, I really don’t need all the thanks. You being alive is enough for me.”

“You don’t actually mean that, do you?”

“Diogo, your life matters. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t. Don’t let anyone devalue your worth. You are a wondrous human being deserving of love, deserving of kindness, deserving of patience, and you really shouldn’t listen to those half-brained plebeians that try to bring you down.”

“Thank you, Hailang. That means a lot. Thank you for giving me a chance.”

Chapter Text

Vraxi woke up drearily atop a toilet. This alone would’ve been a sad yet brutally common experience for her if it hadn’t been for the one inexplicable factor that was paired with it. She had never used this particular toilet before, or at least she couldn’t remember using it. She tried to retrace her steps. Where did she go to sleep last night? On an air mattress within a Rizhaonese government compound. Who was the last person she spoke to last night? Theta, they both said ‘good night’ to one another. Did she consume anything suspicious last night? She stopped by a globally franchised burger joint and ordered the exact same thing she had always gotten ever since she was six years old. These questions weren’t leading her anywhere, she was just as lost as before. She felt an undercurrent of panic sneak into her spine but it was the kind of transient panic that never elicited fear, only a milieu of unease.

She exited the stall, accidentally stirring a loud noise as she closed the door behind her. She almost jumped in place as she did so. Perhaps she really was fostering fear, only a kind that assuaged direction. She walked to the sink, not knowing what she may have done in that toilet and wanting to clean herself regardless. She looked at the mirror as she did so.

The face in the mirror was not her own. It was rounder, with a smaller nose, connected to a smaller body. It wasn’t her, yet, she couldn’t help but recognize that blank stare held by the pair of dark eyes in her reflection. She had seen this woman before, somewhere. 

The woman in the mirror wore a uniform bearing the name of her unfortunate employer. Office of the President. The symbol below it, a pentagonal snake engorged by its own succulent tail, marked the federal seal of Rizhao. This was no ordinary bathroom, it was located in one of the most sealproof strongholds on the planet. The woman in the mirror was a custodian of this stronghold, the lowest-clearance person allowed in the presence of the president. She felt something heavy in her pocket. 

She pulled out the object slowly, delicately, as if it could break at any moment with the wrong touch. It was a gun. A small one, with the face of a tiger emblazoned on its grip and the word ‘righteous’ across the barrel. Vraxi didn’t know who she was, but she did know what had to be done.

She carefully slipped the weapon back into her concealed pocket and left the restroom, impassioned by purpose. There was another custodian in the hallway, seemingly waiting for her.

“Oh, Maria, there you are,” the fellow employee spoke, sounding frustrated, “you spent a really long time in there, y’know?”

Vraxi didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure how to respond. Her name was not and had never been Maria yet that was the name she was being addressed as. So she just stayed silent and acted as if the heckler wasn’t even there.

“Maria? What are you doing? Are you okay? Maria?”

Vraxi kept on walking. She started to walk faster. She eventually stopped walking altogether and shifted to a sprint. She had an urgent objective. She couldn’t wait any longer. She needed to kill the president.

A door opened across from her. A tall man slipped out from it followed by two other, taller men. The first man was Mr. Sun. Mr. Sun was the man she had to kill. The man she needed to kill was standing in front of her, waiting to be killed, staring at her with a perturbed countenance. She was standing in his way, and he was standing in her’s.

She instinctively reached for the gun, bracing its iron grip with an iron grip of her own. One shot was all it took. One shot could accomplish anything. One shot to free the people, to destroy the system, to weaken the empire resting at the pit of all the world’s evil, to take one strike at the swelling beast. This was her chance to make the change she had always hoped for.

The taller men were also armed. It was a fact she had presumed ever since the moment she saw them yet she had acted as if that fact was wholly irrelevant. It was, in truth, very relevant. For as she reached for the gun, both men reached for pistols of their own. It was in this instance that she realized there was no world in which she left this encounter alive. Similarly, there was no world in which she could take a number of shots at her target greater than one. She would have to kill this horrid man now or never. 

Her hands were encased in sweat. Her vision was blurred and shaking. But she couldn’t wait any longer.

Bang. The bullet made contact. It cleanly tore through a layer of fabric, barreling into the skin, past the skin, ultimately burying itself within the flesh, avoiding the manacled ribcage, and flying straight into the heart. It was a dead-on deadly impact, a perfect shot to be remembered throughout the ages as the moment where everything finally shifted for the better. 

But it hit the wrong person. 

One of the taller men fell to the ground, collapsing into a fatal stupor. Mr. Sun’s facial expression warbled and for an infinitesimal period of time he appeared to be genuinely afraid of what might come next. The taller man beside him, the one that still stood among the company of the living, did not waver in the manner of his superior. He had seen far worse. He directed a trigger straight between Vraxi’s fragile temples and let the smoke come rolling out of it.

Bang. A much more jarring bang than the one that preceded it. When Vraxi shot the guard, she was experiencing the bang through the medium of all the space that separated them. Now she was feeling a true contact with such a noise, a oneness with the bang that transcended the pitiful stairway of all that was living.

So this is what death feels like, she thought, like a cascade. Death felt like a rolling boil, a rising to the surface of all which one holds deep within them. It reaches to the back of one’s psyche and flashes one with all that they left behind. It is a collision. It is a rancorous rumble of the mind. It is a collapse, an avalanche, growing stronger and fiercer as it slams across the mountainside, spitting in the face of life’s grand journey with a roiled gust of icy detritus, doubling in size with each successive, gruesome realization.

Until it stops. Until it all fades to black. Until the black fades to nothingness. Until the nothingness passes like dust in the wind.

Vraxi woke up. She was alive. She was alive in the sense that she, Vraxi Nair, was still breathing, heart still pumping, cells still replicating. But she had just experienced a true death, only it had to have been the death of someone else. Her thumb twitched. She could still move. She could still get out of her bed. She just couldn’t get out of her mind.

There was a face burned into her retinas. The woman in the mirror. She had seen that face before. Her name was Maria Something. Maria Blank. Maria Null. It was a name resting on the precipice of her hippocampus but it consistently failed any further clarification. She needed to talk to Theta. They might know.

Vraxi exited her sleeping quarters. There, in the hallway, Theta stood with their camera lens as wide as could be. They had something urgent to say.

“Vraxi, I had another dream. I’m unsure as to why it happened but it was assuredly important.”

“Oh,” Vraxi remarked with a weak voice, having just woken up, “I had a dream as well. It was very strange and felt viscerally real.”

“I need you to explain it to me in detail.”

“Well, it started out in a restroom. I wasn’t myself, but a woman named Maria, though I don’t remember her full name.”

“Maria Barulo, a member of the janitorial staff under the Sun presidency. She disappeared one day under peculiar circumstances, ultimately leading to the online conspiracy theory that she had attempted to assassinate the sitting head of state. I didn’t believe it at first, but now the evidence is overwhelming.”

“Barulo, that was the name. I remember seeing that theory being passed around on the hypernet. Wait. Hold on. Did you have the exact same dream as me?”

“Seemingly, yes. Though it was from a different point of view.”

“Were you a dog again? Like that time on the mountain?”

“No. I think I must’ve just been a fly on the wall. Or maybe something even less tangible than that. I couldn’t affect the world around me but I could observe it in spades. I must say it was very odd.”

“So were you also there to see me shoot Sun?”

“I saw you try to shoot him.”

“Same difference. What’s important is that these dreams, though visions might be a better word, confirm the validity of that original theory. Maria Barulo really did try to kill President Sun and she was genuinely incredibly close. That means this whole process might end up being way more possible than we initially thought.”

“That is, if they haven’t upped their security in the meantime. I find it difficult to believe that they would watch their regime come so incredibly close to an utter political collapse and subsequently decide not to change any of their proceedings in such a way as to prevent that near-collapse from happening ever again.”

“Still, it shows that they have weakpoints, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. What I’m saying is that there’s a way in.”

“Explain.”

“It’s become quite clear to us that, within Sun’s innermost spheres, those areas resigned to the highest rungs of the political ladder, security is, relatively speaking, minimal. At the end of the day, two guards is only two more than zero. So all we really need to do is find someone with access to those innermost spaces and tempt them with an offer of our own devisal.”

“But, who would actually fit that bill? I doubt they hold very much trust in the custodians these days and I don’t hold enough trust in Hailang not to turn on us.”

“Well then, who do we know that holds a highly respected and important position within the Rizhaonese government but whose allegiance is ultimately very situational.”

“Oh no. Don’t tell me your talking about him-”

“Carlyle Flanders! Think about it! He doesn’t care about Rizhao or its government. He only cares about power. All we need to do is convince him that he’s on the losing side.”

“But how could we possibly do that?”

“Truthfully, I’m still working that part out, but also, can you really call a nation powerful when it can’t survive the death of its own leader? It at least puts things into question.”

“Fair point, but I think we need an answer to that question before we can ask it.”

The many winding paths that billowed down the depths of the Kaiphachu underground were clearly not designed with wheelchair accessibility in mind. 

“Clearly,” Zapata enunciated, “It’s like the city planners just forgot that people lived down here.”

“I mean, that’s basically exactly what happened,” Zainan, who was walking next to her, pointed out, “though, it’s not that they necessarily forgot about us. They know very well that we live down here and they’re very mad about it. But they do purposefully avoid that fact of our existence at every possible turn. It’s inconvenient for them to even acknowledge we exist, despite the fact that this whole nation rides on the back of Kaiphachu.”

“Because doing so would go against the national mythos. If the state were to ever truly address Kaiphachu, it would also have to address its own failings, and eventually it would have to address the contradiction which the entire society is predicated upon. That being how even within this land where everyone is supposedly given the chance to succeed if they just try hard enough, some people remain predestined to fail.”

“You seem to know a lot about the internal politics of Rizhao.”

“I know about the general ways in which societies trend and it’s easy to plot Rizhao within the existing archetypes. That’s visualization post-sociology for you.”

“In that case, according to whatever ‘archetypes’ you’re using, what do you predict for the future of this place?”

“Well, post-sociology isn’t astrology, it’s not about predicting the future. However, there are trends, and those trends can be analyzed. I would say, personally, and none of this is super scientific, that Rizhao, as a state under its current system, doesn’t have that much time left to live. I just don’t see it surpassing its predecessors with the way things are going.”

“Good.”

“Now hold on,” Diogo, who was sitting on the aforementioned wheelchair, chimed in, “what do you mean by that?”

“This nation has done nothing but hurt me. It’s barely a nation of its own. It is, effectively, an imperial province of Sichuan, which itself is a nation built to be an outpost of imperialism. We are, all of us, haunted by the ghosts of America, and I for one would like to send them back to the underworld.”

“That’s quite a strong opinion.”

“And I’ve got quite a strong mind. Y’know, they often like to paint us underfolks like we’re dumber than the downtowners, but I think that’s all bullshit. Sure, they might be well educated, but their education is built on lies. And when all of your knowledge is built upon a fundamental untruth, it becomes impossible to see the world as it really is. Even if you can acknowledge the flaws of that foundation, it still affects you in ways you don’t even know. It’s a permanent lens over their eyes that filters everything they take in. We, however, never fed into their lies because they never bothered to teach us in the first place.”

“You were never informed,” Zapata added, “but you never had the chance to be misinformed either.”

“Precisely.”

“But, the way you're speaking,” Diogo continued, “it sounds like you think that there is an inherent disconnect between those belonging to either clade of the nation, that individuals from either side can never truly hold hands in fraternity with their worldviews being so at odds.”

“I would agree with everything you’re saying.”

“Yet your friends with Hailang, right? They’re from the downtown. Why is their company any different?”

“Well, it’s not… it’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with the downtowners. As people, they’re just that, people. And some of them can address their own unjust placement on the societal ladder, Hailang being one of them. But even then, I worry. Because, there is a big difference between addressing a flaw and actually trying to fix it. I like Hailang, they are a witty, intelligent person. But they also hold an immense power over me. Our friendship can never truly be one of equals as long as this nation continues to stand. There is, as you said, an inherent disconnect between us. Sometimes I have to wonder what they value more: their cushy position in society or our friendship. I hope it’s the latter, but I can never be sure.”

As Diogo, Zainan, and Zapata headed further down into the lowest crevices of Kaiphachu, Hailang remained high above ground. They were 80 stories up for that matter, dining at one of the most expensive, luxurious, and generally pretentious restaurants that Rizhao had to offer. The cuisine was French, the atmosphere was middling, and the eyes of President Sun were piercing directly into their soul. They had quite a dreadful topic to discuss here, but first, the menu.

“The coq au vin sounds pleasant,” Sun muttered, “what do you think?”

Truthfully, Hailang was not interested in any of the items offered. They had always been a picky eater, generally sticking to tapioca pudding and egg salad sandwiches when available, barely ever daring to eat anything a darker shade than beige. Unsurprisingly, neither dish was being offered.

“I think,” Hailang cleared their throat, “honestly, I’m not very hungry. I had a big breakfast today.”

“Hailang, I’m bringing you out to one of the fanciest eateries in all the Sichuanosphere, let alone the nation, entirely free of charge. I’m not letting you leave here with an empty stomach.”

“I really appreciate the gesture, Mr. President, but I’m just not in the position to eat a full meal right now.”

“This is not a gesture, Hailang. It is a demand. Frankly, I do not care whether or not you’d like to eat right now. Nor do I care about what you actually eat. What I care about is loyalty. I care about patriotism, which in this instance, means listening to what I say.”

A waiter approached their table, smiling.

“Are you two ready to order?”

“Absolutely,” Sun spoke with an ambivalent grin, “I’ll take the coq au vin with a glass of your most pungent pinot noir.”

“And you?” the waiter turned to Hailang, waiting for an answer.

“Oh, uh, um, I will, I will order the… also the coq au vin. And a glass of your bubbliest Sprite.”

“See?” Sun remarked as the waiter walked away, “It wasn’t that hard, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Good. Now with that out of the way, we can move onto more important matters. Considering the fact that you are sitting here in front of me, breathing, I take it that you didn’t choose the first of the three punishments you were offered.”

“No.”

“And why’d you do that.”

“I’d like to live, but more importantly, I think I have a lot more work to do. If I die, there’d still be demons and there’d still be this nation to protect from them. I can’t leave the people hanging. I can’t send my own neighbors off to the fast lane on the highway to hell. So I choose to live.”

“I appreciate your reasoning, Mx. Shui. I must assume this is a highly tense situation for you and, all things considered, I think you're managing it quite well. There’s really nobody in my cabinet who I trust more to take the selfless decision than you. However, since you have chosen to leave death for another day, I must ask why all four of the possible coffin-fillers remain standing.”

“Respectfully, sir, this is a difficult process for me. I understand that it is a necessary endeavor, but at the same time, it’s one I really need to take my time on.”

“Don’t think of it as your time, Hailang. It’s also my time, and furthermore it’s Sichuan’s time. They need somebody dead soon, Hailang, or their offers will only get stricter. I must then ask who you have chosen to let live.”

“Zainan! Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. But truly, sir, I can’t just kill a kid like that, especially a kid like him.”

“Fair enough. Infanticide has always been something of a gauche subject. How then do you expect to kill that trio of accomplices by your side?”

“Well, I’ve already gathered a pretty powerful hook. They’ve been acting quite secretive as of late, but I’ve concocted a perfect method of determining their next move. Look at this.”

Hailang grabbed a photograph from their coat pocket and slid it across the length of the tablecloth. President Sun looked at it with furrowed brows.

“Mx. Shui, this is just a picture of a blood splatter. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to presume from this.”

“Look closer. There’s something magnificent smack in the center of the gorey mess.”

“What is that? Shrapnel? It looks like a small piece of metal.”

“It’s a transponder. The surgeons pulled it out of Diogo’s abdomen after his accident in the treatment plant. It’s designed in such a way as to allow instant messages from the Allodapos Society to reach him without the need of external devices. It also comes equipped with a microphone.”

“You’ve got my attention. So what did you do next?”

“Honestly, not all that much. I just had a lab boy rewire it and in a matter of minutes that little microphone was sending its audio directly back to me. Clearly, the Society never imagined a world where the transponder would ever leave an agent’s body, otherwise the task of turning one against them would be at least a little difficult.”

“Clearly. So what you’re telling me is that you’ve been receiving an audio recording of everything said to and by Celestino ever since his surgery, entirely unbeknownst to himself?”

“Correct.”

“And what damning information have you heard so far?”

“Nothing spectacular, but I’ve got hints of something major coming up. If I just keep on listening, keep on unraveling their plans, it should be pretty easy to strike them when they're most vulnerable.”

“Well then. I’m just glad you were able to, quite quickly even, realize the problem with letting personal biases get in the way of national security. You're a true patriot, Shui Hailang.”

Shui Hailang did not appreciate the phrasing of that last sentence. It was true that they had personal biases. It was true that those friendships they had broached with Vraxi and her posse made the idea of killing them once seem untenable. It was also true that they loved their country. It had raised them, fed them, recognized their talents and allowed them to prosper. In many ways, this country was the greatest thing that had ever happened to them. It was what allowed them to soar above the rest. More than anything, they wanted to give back to their nation, to improve it, to feed the civilians who weren’t so lucky as to be fed like they themself were not long ago. And in order to feed the nation, Hailang had to first become one with the nation, to join its ranks and ascend to the top where they stood now, eighty stories above the peons. And to remain in this position high above the clouds, Hailang had to abide by its conventions, however antiquated they may be. And, ultimately, this all meant that Hailang’s final goal of providing to the nation that provided to them necessitated that they, in this moment, choose to kill three people who stood on solid ethical ground. It was a trolley problem, and Hailang was willing to pull the lever.

What then bothered Hailang was the use of the word quickly. From a purely temporal, outside perspective, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Hailang’s final decision quick, but that would be such an oversimplification. Hailang had spent many excruciating hours determining the ethical ramifications of this choice laid before them and they spent many more determining the most ethical way to go about with the murders themselves. It was a grand, horrible, gruesome, necessary compromise, one forged from a brilliant mind operating at its highest capacity. When Sun called this decision quick, he verbally scraped down this shimmering edifice of reason and equated their brilliant yet tortured mind to a simple cage of loose motivations all vying for dominance. Hailang was a prodigal visionary of the future, not a wild animal operating on blood-fueled instincts. Sun was a blubbering fool for even trying to imply that. Hailang wanted to tell that to his face, to argue back, to at least get a word in and settle their score.

But then the food arrived. Hailang opted to stay silent.

Sun was a fool. Hailang believed that whole-heartedly. Yet Sun was also the president, existing within a liminal area between person and nation. No matter what Sun said, no matter what drivel he might spout today, he was ultimately the face of the country they loved so dearly. If Hailang ever wanted to heal the heart of the nation, they would have to start with the face. They would have to listen to all that Sun had to say, no matter how much their own temperament led them to despise him. 

“How do you like the chicken?” Sun spoke, food still in his mouth.

Hailang looked down at their plate. They didn’t want to take a bite. They knew they wouldn’t enjoy the experience of eating it. They knew it would make them feel worse by the end. Yet alas, they couldn’t let their personal interests overtake the interests of the nation. If taking a bite could help the people, they would eat it all and lick their plate.

“Oh, Hailang, I almost forgot I needed to ask you about one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“You should be free tonight, correct?”

“If needs be.”

“Well, I know this is inconvenient timing, but after that flooding incident it’s only become more apparent to me that Kaiphachu is in need of repairs.”

“Absolutely. It is always in need of repairs, now more than ever. If you need any advice on how to help the neighborhood, I’m willing to spill out all my wisdom at a moment’s notice. First, for instance, we really need to start with sanitation, it’ll make the whole process of renovation easier going forward.”

“I understand that, Hailang, and I respect your opinion, but our planners are quite experienced and they’ve decided on an alternate approach.”

“Well what is it? I’ll admit I’m no urbanologist so I’m honestly willing to hear whatever they’ve come up with.”

“Alright then. What our researchers have been able to gather is that, ultimately, the vast majority of Kaiphachu’s issues stem from one single source.”

“That source being?”

“Crime. Any possible plan to revamp Kaiphachu’s infrastructure must first address and extinguish that base problem. Otherwise, we’ll just be cutting heads off of hydras. None of it’ll matter if we don’t attack the body.”

“Mr. President, respectfully, are you absolutely sure this is the most well-thought-out avenue for action?”

“Mx. Shui, sometimes you just have to listen to the experts. Everybody wants to be an idealist, me included, but sometimes you have to accept the reality of your situation. I’ve never appreciated all the undo violence that often comes with the raids on Kaiphachu, but the police force is cleaner than it’s ever been before. I assure you that what’s going to go down tonight will be nothing like those brutal invasions of our nation’s occasionally troubled past. We’ve all moved on. You need to stop clinging to those depictions of the past that attempt to paint us as wrong.”

“Sir, I understand your reasoning, I really do, but can we just allow ourselves a modicum of caution before we move forwards? Please?”

“Do you not trust our police department?”

“Of course I trust them, Sir, they’re our nation’s most vital system of internal defense. I hold faith in all of our nation’s systems. I’m a patriot, remember?”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“Sir, we both know that the force makes mistakes sometimes. And sometimes those mistakes can cost lives. I’m worried that if we really go through with a raid tonight, citizens of our great nation will die.”

“They’re residents, not citizens. But I see where you’re coming from and I appreciate all that you have to say. Sometimes we all need a voice of restraint.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Which is why I’d like you to oversee the raid tonight. Since you can’t seem to fully trust the systems that govern our republic, I’d like to see you take the seat of the administrator. We can see if that restraint will do you any good in a real-life, high-pressure, life-or-death scenario.”

“Sir, I can’t-”

“You said you were free tonight. I expect to see you there.”

Chapter Text

Beneath the shanty home of Imelda Cielos, along a path well-trodden to the point of disrepair, within a ruthlessly muggy subterranean atmosphere, five individuals spoke in quiet voices. 

“Please,” Diogo reiterated, “can you just say what you want to say already? I don’t like being left in the dark.”

“I’ll get to it,” Vraxi replied, frustrated, “I just want to make sure that nobody’s listening.”

“Vraxi, we’re practically leagues beneath the earth. You can speak freely here.”

“I was just being cautious. Anyways, the kasamaan and how to kill it. We’ve got a pretty solid plan, but I must admit, it’ll sound a bit frightening at first. I assure you, preemptively, that whatever you may be worried about isn’t a real issue. Trust me.”

“This all feels very roundabout.”

“It is,” Zapata butted in, “but sometimes that’s the only way to properly say something. Listen, Diogo, the fact of the matter is that the kasamaan is a beast that feeds on suffering. This is established canon. We all know it to be true. Therefore, if one wishes to slay the beast they must naturally start at the root, eliminating the suffering which caused it to form in the first place.”

“That seems like a rather monumental task though, isn’t it? Suffering is such a broad concept.”

“Well how else should we kill it? You saw yourself how it could make itself intangible. Hailang could shoot out an ocean of water at a billion pounds per square inch but not even then could they kill a concept.”

“Fair, but the act of ‘eliminating suffering’ remains nebulous. What do we actually do?”

“Let me explain,” Theta began, “when we were in the prison, with myself off in cyberspace, I saw something incredibly peculiar. I saw the kasamaan, just not in the same way you’ve seen it. The figure of the kasamaan which I saw was not that of the monster but that of humanity, a very specific humanity, in that the kasamaan I saw looked identical to one Imelda Cielos.”

“What?” Zainan thought out loud.

“I was confused too, at first. But soon we started talking and I found myself better understanding their perspective. What you need to know is that the kasamaan is more of a force than it is a demon. It is a conceptual archon, drawing from a sidereal aspect of reality before pouring its coagulate form upon the material plane. It is not a willing being, having no will of its own, only the will of the universe. It emerged into the world via Rizhao due to a combination of the nation’s societal pressures and a generous dollop of chance. Kaiphachu is a boiling cauldron of suffering, and from that witch’s brew, due to the natural processes of the higher planes, surfaced a beast that fed on that suffering.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why it looked like Imelda.”

“Who do you think, out of all the people in this neighborhood, has seen the most of its suffering firsthand? Ms. Cielos takes in orphans. She’s seen humanity at its most defeated and she’s lived long enough to see it again and again. The kasamaan needed a host from which to sprout its tendrils from. It naturally chose the human who had the most experience with the art of suffering from which it was born.”

“That’s genuinely very sad. I knew Imelda had it bad but I didn’t think her eyes were that prone to glimpsing misery.”

“It doesn’t help that she cares so much about people like you. When you see people you adore, people you’ve chosen as kin, live in these horrid conditions before dying in even worse ones, you naturally start to feel an immense pain overtake you. Why do you think you keep seeing the kasamaan? She cares so much about your suffering that suffering incarnate has begun to follow you.”

“That’s why?”

“It appears to be so.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Diogo interrupted, “but none of this is really answering my initial question. That being, how do we actually we actually snuff the flames of suffering and kill this fucking thing?”

“Luckily,” Theta continued onward, “it told me just the way to do that.”

“And you’re listening to it? Wouldn’t the kasamaan have a vested interest in lying to you about how to kill it?”

“Like I said, Diogo, it is not a willing actor. It is a concept. It has no motive to lie because it has no motives to begin with. It just is.”

“But it’s the one that told you that, right? What if the whole thing, bottom to top, is one big farse? What if it really is a demon, albeit a strange one, and has tricked you into believing that the only way to kill it is to do what it says?”

“If it was a demon,” Zainan muttered, “Hailang would’ve killed it by now.”

“All I’m saying is we should double-check.”

“Diogo,” Theta began once again, “I understand your concern. We’re all concerned. But please, let me say my peace. The kasamaan, speaking through Imelda’s mouth, told me that there was one surefire way to eliminate the factors that led us to its haunting. Ultimately, the issue of Kaiphachu’s suffering lies in its governance. If the government of Rizhao simply treated the Kaiphachu populace like people and not like pawns, none of this would’ve happened.”

“So we just have to instigate reform.”

“In an ideal world, we would,” said Zapata, “but we are far past the point of ideals. The state has become stagnant. There are no steps forward, out of inequity, that benefit the state or its industries. And in a state whose stated goal is always industry, that means that there will never be a step forward. There will be talk but there will never be action. The only way to fix this inherent sticking point is to replace the current state.”

“Are you talking about a coup d'etat? Are you serious?”

“We’re absolutely serious. Though, we won’t be the ones starting the coup. The Kaiphachu proletariat is one which yearns for a coup, but it's waiting for the right moment. All we need to do is spark that all-important, history-defining moment.”

“And how could you possibly do that?”

“We kill the president.”

“You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Once again, we really are.”

“Diogo,” Vraxi butted in, “I promise it’s not as outlandish as it sounds. We carefully thought this whole thing out. Genuinely, we really did. And while I know that murder might seem a bit harsh, there really aren’t any other ways forward.”

“It’s not just murder,” Diogo corrected, “it’s political assasination. It’s crazy, what you’re asking me to do right now. We can’t just be taking pot shots at political leaders that we think might be corrupt. We have to have principles!”

“Doesn’t Allodapos kill politicals all the time?” Zapata asked inscrutably, “what makes President Sun any different?”

“Those assassinations were all against wacko dictatorships, not liberal democracies! These situations aren’t even comparable!”

“Is a liberal ‘democracy’ built upon inequality really one worth saving?”

“We can’t just be killing people over matters of inequality.”

“Can’t we?”

“Both of you,” Vraxi inserted herself, “calm down. We really don’t need this kind of internal division right now.”

“Diogo,” Zapata continued, wholly ignoring Vraxi, “you had a rough childhood, didn’t you? The hebepods were never the nicest of places.”

“No, they weren’t. I’d say my youth was pretty sub-par.”

“But you had a rope to pull you up, right? A flying saucer in the sky that singled you out from the millions beside you and chose you to be the one that got to be special.”

“That’s quite a simplification.”

“I do not care about the minute details of your alien cult.”

“It’s not a cult. It’s a society.”

“It’s a lottery is what it is. A roll of the dice that just so happened to land on your space, sending you off to prosperity while all your classmates were forced into the menial lives and labors of the dejected rabble. A life of abject poverty was written for you on the other side of that coin flip.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you could’ve been like them, Diogo. You could’ve been a denizen of Kaiphachu. You’ve lost sight of all the pains that led you here. And for what? Because Hailang was nice to you? I know that you’re older than me but you seriously need to grow up, Celestino.”

“You’re telling me that I need to grow up? You’re the one being childish here! You’re off living in a fantasy land where all the world’s problems can be solved with a gun. They can’t! I know that one from experience. Go on, keep believing in your fantasies, but I’m not going along with you.”

Diogo began to turn around.

“Diogo,” Vraxi grasped at her words, “at least use the wheelchair. It’s a long walk back up.”

“My legs are fine!”

And in a matter of minutes, Diogo was out of sight.

“Y’know,” Zapata mumbled, “he’s gonna regret not taking the chair. Sure, his legs didn’t get hit, but his spine did, and that’s the real reason he couldn’t walk well.”

“Zapata,” Vraxi said frustratedly, “you really could’ve been nicer with him.”

“I’m not reasoning with those who can’t be reasoned with. You heard what he said. There was no world in which he didn’t leave us.”

“But he could’ve at least left on better terms. You were harsh. That’s all.”

“Well I’m sorry but I can’t help but care about the oppressed peoples of the world.”

“Me too,” Zainan spoke slowly.

“What?” Theta queried.

“I also care. I care about Kaiphachu, and its people, and all that its people could accomplish if we weren’t bound by our own grim fates. I know it’s extreme. I know it's ethically unfortunate. But I do, genuinely, want to help your cause. If killing Sun is what it takes, then I’m in.”

“Thank you, Zainan. We’re glad to have your grace in this. I felt dejected seeing Diogo go but I’m glad to see there are still people willing to commit themselves to the cause.”

“Just,” Vraxi added, “please don’t involve yourself too much. Things might get violent and you’re just a teenager. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting hurt.”

“Okay,” Zainan nodded, “I understand. Now let’s kill this fucker.”

Diogo really should’ve brought the wheelchair. The pain was manageable at first but as he reached the crest of yet another rocky hill with a plentitude more gleaming in the distance, he finally accepted that he needed to sit down. There weren’t any benches so he opted to sit on the ground. Meu Deus, he groaned. His back was killing him and he was only a quarter of the way up.

Then, perhaps just by chance, he saw a figure approaching his location from the distance. Porra, he thought. He probably looked like such an idiot right now, an obvious tourist, caked in sweat, idling on the dirty ground as he emoted every facet of his aching pains out loud. Surely, any passerby would see him for the idiot he was. Despite spending years in the lab of social maneuvering, here he sat with all the layers peeled back, for beneath the facade he was that same naive kid that saw his mentor shot in front of him. A cool persona remains just that, a persona, a disguise that masks the true nature of a person behind a layer of quips and jean jackets but can never truly alter the soul. Diogo’s soul was now laid bare, vulnerable, more than ever begging for guidance, resting on the delicate whims of salvation.

Salvation came, much like he himself did, in a crisp jean jacket. The visage of the passerby became clear while their status as a passerby began to blur. Salvation came in the form of Shui Hailang, strolling down Kaiphachu’s broken roads with a smile still standing bright upon their face. Diogo Celestino was elated.

“Hailang!” he yelled out to them, “Over here! It’s me! Diogo!”

Hailang simply nodded their head and ran right along over to him.

“Diogo, are you okay? What happened to your wheelchair? Were you robbed?”

“No, I was just stupid. I left it back at the bottom because I didn’t want anyone to help me back up.”

“Diogo, sometimes you have to let those people who you trust actually help you from time to time. You can’t do everything on your own.”

“What if you don’t feel like you can trust anyone?”

“Oh, Diogo, what happened back there?”

“I’m still not fully sure. I feel a bit stupefied.”

“Poor thing. Do you want me to help you get back to the surface?”

“But I didn’t bring the wheelchair.”

“I can just carry you on my back.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Don’t worry, Diogo, you can trust me.”

Hailang knew that Diogo shouldn’t trust them. They knew that sooner or later they would inevitably have to kill him, feeling terrible about it the whole miserable time. But that sense of terror was presently muted by a much more pressing threat of terror thrust upon their eardrums only minutes prior. There was a plot to kill the president and they needed to thwart this plot all while juggling the many objectives already tasked to them. It was an enigma of a challenge but Hailang loved to decipher the former and never backed down from the latter. It was the kind of dilemma seemingly tailor-made for the exact niche which Hailang operated in.

Hailang felt a buzz emanating from their left pocket. It was their work phone, a call from the chief of police, yet another responsibility. With surgical precision, Hailang answered the message with a smile. 

“Salutations! This is the office of Shui Hailang speaking, currently represented by its eponym. How can I help you?”

“Mx. Shui, is there anybody else on the line?”

Hailang had dropped off Diogo at the entrance to Kaiphachu just a few moments earlier. Though, concerningly, this wasn’t a common question for them to hear.

“No, it’s just me. Why do you ask?”

“Shui, this is a very urgent, very confidential matter. We’re about to proceed with the first raid on Kaiphachu in over a year. I can already tell that this’ll be a rough one. But due to a spur-of-the-moment decision that I find to be everything short of blind-sighted, President Sun has billed you as the top commander in this invasion. We need your approval before we can begin.”

“Don’t call it an invasion.”

“A pacifying mission, then. The final result stays the same. May we begin?”

“Can you hold on a fucking second? I’m trying to actually think, okay?”

Hailang couldn’t do this, right? They had always been a vocal anti-raid activist. The raids were unjust. They were immoral. They had been proven time and time again to be no more effective than placebo, yet they kept on happening, endlessly. Hailang couldn’t involve themself in that cycle of death.

But what if they had to? What if it was a necessary step on the long road to ultimately ending the practice? Could they do it then?

How far could Hailang bend their own code of ethics? How far was too far? Was ‘too far’ a known quantity or would it forever remain nebulous? Hailang had to rationalize their thought process. What would happen, theoretically, if they said yes and let the invasion proceed. Assuredly, people would die. They didn’t like that outcome but there was no way around it. In all the nation’s history, there had never been a deathless raid and those deaths typically soared well into the hundreds and often beyond. Hailang couldn’t moralize that. It was inherently unethical, case closed. So what if they said no? What would happen then? Hailang wasn’t certain. It would definitely delay the raid but the raid itself was inevitable, they just wouldn’t be in charge of it anymore. So the raid would happen either way, but if they said no, then they wouldn’t have any say in its proceedings. An ethical raid was impossible, but theoretically, if they could stay at the helm of the operation, they could minimize the possible damages. 

It was all one big equation, just one in which the subtractable variables were not abstract quantities, but human lives. They had no choice but to embrace their grim reality with open arms and hope against all odds that they might be able to brighten it.

“Yes,” Hailang spoke breathily, “you may begin with the mission. But please, refrain from descending to the lower levels. I have a matter which I need to handle by myself down there.”

Hailang had a mission of their own. They had listened to the conversation Diogo had with his ex-crewmates and gleamed from it fantastic knowledge. It was knowledge misinterpreted, but knowledge nevertheless. Hailang knew how to kill the kasamaan. It was simple, a cutting of the root from which it grew, much in the same way that Zapata spoke of it, only that she had misunderstood the true nature of the beast and had therefore chosen an erroneous root. 

Rizhao was a complex nation, one whose suffering could never be attributed to one singular person. But the beast was simple, animalistically so, and only had one body from which it could emerge from, that of Imelda Cielos.

Imelda was the one who had to die to save the nation, not Sun. It was tragic, but tragically necessary, a sacrifice for the common good, the kind that Imelda herself would understand. She had already sacrificed so much for the nation’s downtrodden, what more was her own life?

Hailang had to tell her. Hailang had to tell Imelda that she needed to die, and inevitably, be the one to kill her, in as respectful a manner as possible. Hailang hated to be an omen of death, but it was better them than any of the alternatives.

Vraxi idled in an unlit restaurant, the same one she had first met Zainan in, imbibed by a slimy state of unease. Diogo was gone, out of the present picture, leaving only an array of inexperienced stragglers behind, still tasked with the monumental goal of assassinating a sitting head of state. Vraxi had no idea of how to do such a thing. The future was looking bleaker than she’d hoped. Still, whenever her own resolve faltered, Zapata’s only fortified, growing in passion by the minute as she narrated the necessity of everything they were trying to accomplish, always the first to suggest a new plan and always the last to abandon them once they were inevitably deemed implausible. 

“I still think there’s a grain of wisdom in the cement plan,” Zapata rattled onward.

“It’s just not very viable,” Theta surmised, “how would we even get ahold of all that construction equipment?”

“There are ways. I’m not sure of them yet, but they do exist.”

“Let’s loop back around to that once you can tangibly list one of them.”

“Nevermind then, I never even liked that plan in the first place. What else is there? Hold on, Vraxi?”

“Yeah? What do you need?”

“Remember when you were talking about that dream you had last night?”

“Yes. Where are you going with this?”

“You mentioned how it might be rather easy to infiltrate the president’s inner circle via the loose hinge that is Carlyle Flanders. I think we could work with that idea a bit more.”

“I agree there’s something valuable there, but the problem is that it relies on two very wide-reaching assumptions.”

“Those assumptions being?”

“One, that we could actually get in contact with Carlyle Flanders to present such a concept, and two, that we could successfully convince the man that us four have more strength than an entire nation’s armed forces.”

“And three,” Theta added, “that he doesn’t end up killing any of us in the process.”

“That too.”

“Still,” Zapata continued, “it seems like too good of a prospect to ignore. Sure, Rizhao does have a large army for a nation of its size-”

“An army which is being directly supported by the expansive forces of Sichuan.”

“That is also true, however, that’s only thinking physically. At the end of the day, Flanders is an avatar; he knows fully well the power which the divine holds over this world, and through that lens, the picture of that all-powerful army gets muddled. We all saw what Hailang was able to do with that wave of theirs back when the cops were after us. An army can only do so much against a literal force of nature.”

“But Hailang’s not on our side.”

“No, but we are. We’ve got three gods amongst us and one of them is God with a capital G. Surely, Flanders could recognize the kind of power that such a title implies.”

“It’s still relying on a lot of assumptions.”

Before Zapata could make yet another retort, their conversation was interrupted by the piercing blare of a thousand sirens all sounding in sync. Zainan immediately began sweating.

“Oh god,” he spoke up, “this is bad. This is really fucking bad.”

“What is it?” Vraxi asked, hoping to calm down tensions.

“This isn’t a normal alarm. This is a full-blown raid on Kaiphachu, the whole nine yards, all crashing down on us simultaneously with an intent to kill and a license to do just that.”

“What do we do then?”

“Are you kidding me? We get the fuck out of here! Nowhere underground is safe, especially for an escaped convict like myself.”

“Well,” Zapata rationalized, “it wouldn’t be our first time surviving through something of this ilk.”

“Actually, it would be. The real raids are so much worse than that tidbit you all lived through. There is no point at which Rizhao’s police, mercenaries, army, and allys’ armies are as coordinated as they are during the raids. It’s practically a consecrated tradition at this point. Now follow me if you don’t want a full magazine of lead shoved up your ass.”

Canadian born, Dutch-English bred, Carlyle Flanders was a man whose roots far predated the world which he now lived in. It wasn’t uncommon these days for a person to be born in a country that no longer exists, but it was uncommon to be born in a world that had been dead for centuries. Flanders could still remember the winter of 1860 as its mighty winds rolled across the prairies of his home. For all the things that changed, at least that remained consistent. The plains were still flat and the winds still blew cool in the evenings. All else was but a memory of a bygone era he could never return to, one which he would only creep further away from as year after year got stapled onto his bloated lifespan. Sometimes he wondered how much he himself had changed throughout the decades. Surely not enough, as he still so often found himself lost in the world, clinging onto whatever might hold him. That was, truly, what was most enticing to him about the prospect of power, that it could pull him forwards, out of the well he always seemed to be stuck in. As he stood today, he was still stuck, stagnant amongst the waves that churned around him, still calling out for a strong and noble sailor that might choose to hoist him into modernity. Perhaps the sailor of his dreams would never come, but that wouldn’t stop him from waiting. After all, there is little that the immortal being can do besides wait. 

Carlyle’s current vocation was not one which he loved but still one which he reveled in. In the right frame of mind, all the world was revelry, a grand game of power versus power, the higher number typically winning, set on repeat for the eternity that Carlyle was stuck living in. He could revel in it because there was little else to do but revel. If he was cursed with eternity, he should at least try to enjoy it while it lasts. Revelry was an important pillar in his personal philosophy, alongside the age-old rhyme of might-makes-right. Combined with the natural course of empire, this all meant that he spent much of his time committing acts of violence against those who opposed the imperial system and that such actions were the greatest source of joy in his life. He could recognize the grimness of it all but he simultaneously accepted that that was just what 200+ years of warmongering did to the average human mind. Carlyle was a human weapon forged by time and tipped by the inevitability of its passing.  

He turned a corner, behind which was a scene that demanded his attention. He had known for a long time that the worst scoundrels of the undercity tended to patrol its abandoned tunnels, but he never expected to make quite as grand a catch as the one he now saw within them. Four individuals of varied heights and stature, wanted by the highest decree of the law for the dreaded crime of conspiracy, all stood before him like a rangale of deer in headlights. He had spotted his prey, all he needed to do now was reel them in and collect his pelts.

“Mr. Flanders,” Vraxi spoke first, “I understand that you may, at this current moment, be interested in the business of killing us all.”

“That would be a fair judgment.”

“However, before you go ahead with that action, we would like to propose a counteroffer.”

“You’re not really selling me.”

“Let me frame it like this: we have access to a source of power that far outweighs anything that could possibly be provided to you by the government of Rizhao.”

“Now,” he briefly paused, “I must admit, that does intrigue me.”

Chapter Text

What is power, in its most quintessential form? Power is a capacity, a vessel to a quality, typically of one which is valued at large. Power is then the creator, the spiritual mother to which all actions are derived. Power is the root of all of that which does and from that foundation sprouts the great oak of the universe. The whole world is just the tinder and smoke of the doing, and power acts as the phlogiston that permits the varied sparks of humanity to light aflame.

Power is also force. Not only does power provide the fuel for the doing but it furthermore pushes them to do. Power is the one orchestrating the opera of the stars, choosing the time of birth and the scale of supernova. Power holds the key to all the galaxies’ secrets within its slobbering jaw, slowly pushing it deeper into the lock of the present, pushpin by pushpin. At the end of all time, power will have painted a wondrous work of art upon the once jet tapestry of the night sky, leaving whoever lives to see it in awe of that graceful, thermodynamic mother of all that does and has done.

Power is also simple, brutish strength. Power’s first gift to the human race was that of the muscle. Though, in an unprecedented mistake, the tendons she provided us were thin, spindly, weaker than those of the other great apes. To recompense, she blessed the muscle of our head instead, bloating our minds with the capacity to learn, the capacity to accrue the power never granted to us directly.

As a species, we made do with our blessing and we did so to a lavish degree, eventually forgetting that we were ever blessed to begin with. Perhaps, we don’t value power enough. Perhaps, power has grown angry. Perhaps, power, the eternal mother of action, will return one day, expecting our atonement. 

If the divine are all-powerful, then power itself must be divine.

“Can Rizhao, in all its military might, defeat God?” Vraxi asked.

“Well,” Carlyle considered, “it wouldn’t be the first time that the name of God’s been invoked against a nation. Furthermore, considering the failure of the Crusades, I’d say that using such a name often ends in the speaker’s defeat.”

“Well, I’d presume that the Mamluks were using the name of God as well while they fought back the sieges of Jerusalem. I’d argue that they cancel out.”

“And I’d presume that the soldiers of this nation’s army are praying to whatever plethora of gods they worship over here that they live to see another day.”

“Likewise, I’d presume that the victims of this attack are doing much the same.”

“I guess they cancel out then. But all you’ve proved is that conflict will occur, a thoroughly known variable. How can you prove that your side will actually win said conflict?”

“Well, the name of God is well and good, but I imagine it’s quite different from the hand of God itself, right?”

“According to the gnostics, God and his word are effectively the same thing.”

“Would you call yourself a gnostic?”

“You got me there, I wouldn’t. Perhaps a dualist, but assuredly not a gnostic.”

“So then you must admit that the power of God is one worth your devotion.”

“Is this God you speak of in the room with us?”

“Actually, yes. God’s inside the robot.”

“So is the robot God or is it merely a vessel of God?”

“What would you say is the difference?”

“It’s subjective, but I think I’d recognize God when I see them.”

“Well, I can tell you for sure that they’re an avatar of God, so I’d presume that they’re as much God as God’s left foot is God. It’s not all of God, but you would be wrong to say that it’s not God.”

“But that brings into question what the relationship between avatar and deity really is, doesn’t it?”

“Well, if you use Jesus as an example, he’s supposed to be an avatar of God but, because of something about a trinity, he also is God, right?”

“Right, but you’re thinking too small. If we’re basing our avatars of God off of a Bahai cosmology, we have to also consider the prophet Muhammad. He is considered a messenger of God, but in no text is he ever considered to be God themself. If your robot over there is operating through a more Islamic lens, then they might have access to the omniscience of God, but none of the all-important omnipotence.”

“But knowledge is power, isn’t it?”

“Knowledge can be power. By itself, knowledge is only a glimpse of power, a fading photograph.”

“But you still admit that, within the well of knowledge, lies the blueprints to the well of power, correct?”

“If utilized properly, sure. But it’s quite a strong assumption to think that you’ll actually do so.”

“Well if we have access to the aforementioned well of knowledge, shouldn’t we also have the knowledge to utilize said knowledge?”

“No. Now you’re leaving the realm of knowledge and entering the realm of skill. And an infinite well of the former will always remain hampered by a limited degree of the latter.”

“So you assume that we’re not skilled people?”

“Not necessarily, but can your skill alone outmatch the skill of thousands?”

“So you assume that we’re up against thousands then.”

“Are you not?”

“Carlyle, I’ll be frank with you. From that infinite well of knowledge we’ve spoken of, Theta over there has drawn a magnificent conclusion. That being that Rizhaonese society is immensely top-heavy. The entire prospect of the state sits on the shoulders of one man, the president, and if his life is spontaneously stolen away from him, the whole state will topple down alongside their leader. We are not fighting an army, we are fighting a man.”

“Fair enough. But you still gotta actually get past the previously noted thousands of soldiers ready to shoot you at any moment. You haven’t quite convinced me yet.”  

“Well then, how could I convince you? Is there any one thing that would prove to you that us four have within us the power to bring down a nation-state?”

“I have an idea in mind, though you might not like it.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Combat. One versus one, your strongest fighter versus your’s truly. If you can pin me down, I’ll switch sides. I’m often one to do exactly that. When all is going well, I fight for empire, and when all is bleak, I join in arms against it. That way, I always end up on top. So then, which one of you poor souls would like to face off against me?”

“I will,” Zapata raised their hand up almost immediately.

“Zapata,” Vraxi began, “you can’t keep casting yourself as a sacrificial lamb. I feel like, at this point, you actively want to be martyred.”

“Well it’s not my fault that I keep on winding up in situations where being a sacrificial lamb is an option. I bet that most people would eventually choose to do so given our circumstances. Honestly, I’ve always been of the opinion that Jesus really wasn’t all that special in his choice to hang on the cross. If you told me that I could be the scapegoat for all the world's sins, I’d be dead before the Romans even got the chance to kill me.”

“Do you think that it’s because you crave recognition?” Theta asked, “Nobody mourns for the martyr when they’re still alive. But if you were to die, all the people around you would have to stop in their tracks and, even if only for a moment, acknowledge all that you've done and all that you’ve sacrificed. When someone dies, they briefly become a superstar, occupying all the mental capital of those who once knew them, but it’s a fleeting stardom, a supernova slowly simmering away into the depths of obscurity. When you die, everyone thinks about you, but when you’re dead, no one does. Unless, of course, you're like Jesus and get lucky enough to have a religion birthed from your corpse.”

“Can you all stop psychoanalyzing each other for a fucking second?” Carlyle asked frustratedly, “if you want to present to me your fighter, do so now, otherwise I’m just gonna start killing you all.”

“I volunteer,” Zapata announced, “now let’s get this rodeo running already. Are there any rules to this thing I should know beforehand?”

“Just one, really. That is, to keep things fair, I will be fighting under a handicap. For the entire duration of the encounter, I intend to not move my legs in any capacity. You are free to use your own however you please. Once again, the goal of this battle is simple, to pin me down; that’s all you need to win. Furthermore, it should go without saying that if you die, you lose. Understood?”

“Very much so. But are you serious? You’re not gonna move your legs at all?”

“Not one bit. Now, let the battle commence!”

Zapata had never been one to freely distribute her limited trust to anyone who begged for her attention. She always kept a small circle, and yet still, it often wound up being just a bit too large. At this moment, she was really regretting ever letting Hailang into that circle and further wondering if she should have even granted that privilege to one Diogo Celestino. She was often the betrayed, occasionally the betrayer, but never the happy bystander. It was only natural then for her to be suspicious of Carlyle’s word. He claimed he wouldn’t move, but surely it would be near-impossible for him to win a fight without his lower half. What was the trick here? Was he just a liar? Or was there a level of deception even more complex? Perhaps he had a loophole, some mystical ace up his sleeve ready to be pulled out at any moment to upturn all her masterfully thought out plans. What that ace might be, she hadn’t a clue, only the knowledge that he held within him a god of war. 

What is war, in its simplest form? A chance at greatness and a reminder of its antithesis. Zapata thought that answer sounded poetic but also thought that the true answer couldn’t possibly possess such a quality. War is a common basis for great works of poetry but no work can fully map out its purest visage. One must consider war itself to be poetry and ask then what basis it has been written on. But can one really draw a single basis, one base cause which all of history’s conflicts can be attributed to? Is it scarcity? Could war still break out in a post-scarcity society? It was quite a broad question, too broad, so broad that it couldn’t possibly be the right one to ask. The cause of war is subjective to the many fleshy musings of the hypocritical human mind. So how does one describe war if one ignores the human aspect? Two empty tanks crashing into one another, their oils seeping into the watershed. An arrow from the heavens piercing the hide of an armored horse. A solitary colossus descending into inferno. War is an eruption. War is power manifested. War is strength, cold and dirty. Maybe Carlyle doesn’t have some wondrous hat trick, waiting to be displayed to the word at large. Maybe he’s just really fucking strong.

What then can defeat overwhelming strength? Even more strength. Though, Zapata didn’t possess such a power within her, at least not the kind to defeat a god of war. She would need to utilize a god of her own, one with the potential to grasp the flesh of war and grind it into the pavement, that of death. The only problem was that Zapata couldn’t trust Santa Muerte with her body. It was only natural that a god of death would try to end as many lives as possible, including the life of its vessel. She would need to strike some sort of middleground, a temporary state where she could channel the soul of her patron without letting them seep into her mind. She needed to bifurcate her being, allowing her strength to run wild while letting the logic of her brain continue to reign supreme.

“Hey, paisano,” a familiar voice whispered into Zapata’s ear, “I heard that ya needed some assistance.”

“I do, Santa Muerte, but I need you to abide by some caveats.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Last time I let you take control you nearly killed me. I really can’t let that happen right now. All I’m trying to do is knock this guy down and I actively don’t want him dead.”

“Really? Well that’s no fun.”

“This is a professional relationship, your godliness, not a jovial one. Furthermore, because I really don’t trust you with my head though I still need the help, I’d like to summon your power but only in my right arm. Also, once the guy hits the floor, I’m gonna need you to leave, understood?”

“Sure. But also, ya do realize that if I have full control over one of your arms and am holding a weapon with said arm, I could easily just stab you, right?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be on the same side? Why are you so obsessed with killing me?”

“I never said I would actually do it, paisano. I just thought you should know. If you’re not gonna accept death, you should at least try being wary of it.”

“I am! I’m just as afraid of death as any reasonable person should be!”

“Fear and caution are some entirely different beasts, sweetheart. I can tell you're afraid, but ya ain’t cautious.”

Zapata couldn’t agree. She absolutely was cautious, practically placing it at the foundation of her being. However, there happened to be a few other concepts that outweighed caution, first and foremost being determination. If Zapata truly desired to reach a goal, she would do everything in her path to seize said goal, even if that meant putting the valued trait of caution on the back-burner. It wasn’t that she wasn’t cautious, rather she simply understood when caution would inevitably get in the way of things. Now, her current goal was inseparable from the topplement of one Carlyle Flanders, so naturally, she couldn’t allow for caution to cushion that inevitable fall.

Zapata grasped her scythe, though she couldn’t feel her hand against the leathered hilt. She had rented out her entire right arm to Santa Muerte and likewise the nerves designed to send tactile information to her brain were running cold. It almost felt like she had no right arm to begin with. She could feel her shoulder, but after that, there was nothing, only a blank space where an arm once was, as if it had been ripped off before healing into a stump after many, many winters. She kept looking back to her arm, instinctively questioning if it was still there, attached to her inferior torso. Physically, her arm looked identical, though she wondered if she could even call it her’s anymore. This was the arm of an alien who, without a trace, stole her appendage and replaced it with a perfect copy. This was the arm of a killer.

She stared down at her target. Carlyle was still just standing there, waiting. At least he was honest. She would need to charge at him, whirling at him with one powerful strike, knocking him down before he gets the chance to react. She pivoted, even squatted a little, hyped herself up for the coming offensive. With a deep breath and a hyperactive heart, she was ready.

Fire. She shot herself forward like a bullet out of the barrel, aimed with a similar intent to harm. She was running as fast as she could and then some, hoping that pure speed would be enough to blindside her opponent. Her left arm moved in tandem with her legs while her rightward, alien arm swung wildly, making disjointed ellipses with the tip of her weapon but in a gyroscopic way that never managed to scrape her own body. When she was six feet away from her endpoint, she made a realization. The scythe was about five and a half feet long, and while it was difficult to track the motion of her alien arm, it looked like it was beginning to splay itself in front of her. The scythe was only moments away from contact. The prospect of victory was mere inches away.

Thud. A speeding bullet caught in the soft palm of a baseball glove. The scythe remained in front of her, wobbling a bit on the wide end while the tip stayed completely static. She looked up at her opponent and glimpsed a toothy grin.

“Oh, come on,” Carlyle yelled out, elated, “you can do better than that, can’t you?”

Zapata felt a visceral pulse emanating from her alien arm. Her dreaded patron didn’t like that comment one bit. She wanted to see blood.

“Santa Muerte, cool it, we need to keep a modicum of restraint.”

Then, a violent sound, one of infinite pressure exerted onto finite mass, a great shattering of matter, the disintegration of the scythe.

“Now,” Carlyle spoke without missing a beat, “it’s my turn.”

Zapata felt a great current of air assault her face as Carlyle moved to lay a gruesome slap upon it. Yet strangely, the pain never hit her. Her alien arm stood in the way, solitary in stalwart defiance.

“That’s quite a powerful arm you’ve got there,” Carlyle remarked, impressed.

“It’s not mine. Well, the flesh is but the spirit isn’t.”

“I could presume that. The average human body would’ve snapped in two from that attack yet you remain standing. Strength like that can only come from a few places, one of them being a god of death.”

“Well you’re right on that, so is it enough to convince you that we’re on the winning side.”

“A promise is a promise, young lady. You’ve still gotta knock me down whichever way you can.”

The two remained stagnant, arm against arm for quite a long while. Carlyle needed to exert the strength of his entire body into his attacking appendage while Zapata had little to attack with other than her alien arm, freezing them into a permanent parry. She could feel her shoulder blade starting to heat up.

“Zapata,” her patron spoke within her mind, “there’s something fuckin’ weird about this schmuck.”

“I can tell. He acts with kind the nonsensical whimsy that can only be achieved with centuries of polish. That is, polishing off the foundation while leaving all the rough edges intact.”

“But there’s more than just that, Zaps. He should be dead by now.”

“And so should I, but our abilities cancel each other out. That’s been established.”

“Stop joking around. I’m serious. I’m really tryna exert as much concentrated lethality as possible on this gabagool and he’s not even fucking flinching.”

“Well, he’s immortal, isn’t he?”

“Zapata, immortality isn’t real. This fucko’s living in a fantasy where 250 years is equatable with an eternity. All things die. That’s an immutable fact, as solid as those four laws of thermodynamics that govern the whims of the universe.”

“You’re the last person I’d expect to deify the laws of physics. Aren’t you made of magic? Can’t that fact alone disprove any constant you try to uphold?”

“I abide by the fifth, undiscovered law, the only one which can never be truly grasped by human minds. As a god, however, I can grasp it all I like and I know for certain that it doesn’t allow for any being to live past infinity. Not even the universe itself is an exception. The truth remains. All things die.”

“But what would you, theoretically, do with something that couldn’t die?”

“I’d fucking kill it. I refuse to even consider a factually null perspective.”

“You say that, yet you remain unable to kill this man which you so thoroughly despise.”

“I could kill him in one shot if you just lended me the rest of your body.”

“Well, the good thing is we don’t need to kill him. We’ll still need his help after this. In fact, we don’t want to kill him.”

“Well I do. I wanna see his mangled face strewn across the concrete as he finally realizes that he is no more special than anybody else and that he, like everyone before him, is destined for the grave.”

“Well if his death is destined to be, then we don’t have to try for it now, do we?”

“In the grand scheme of things, no.”

“And aren’t you a god? Shouldn’t you be thinking in the grand scheme of things?”

“You see, that’s where the Nazarene teachings misguide you. You’ve adopted a worldview where the gods, no matter how much you despise them, are ultimately stoics. That just plainly isn’t true. The gods are petty beings, determined to squabble over the littlest of differences. We operate in the grand scheme of things, yes, but we barely ever think so universally.”

“That just sounds to me like you’re bad at your job.”

“Perhaps, but it’s not like there’s anyone to fire us. Anyways, you’re really overblowing things. All I ask for is just a little more of your body and the Carlyle issue will be dead in the water.”

“Fine. You can have my shoulder. But I absolutely refuse to concede anything more.”

“Don’t worry, that’ll be quite enough as is.”

Carlyle was positioned in front of her, sweating, struggling, pouring all of his passion into a single limb, directing the force of a charging army into the eye of a needle, determined. The next second, he wasn’t. He was off his feet, no longer standing tall but dangling on the tightrope of death, his sinews snapping one by one in tandem with his moribund heart rate. It almost looked like he was crying, like he was finally seeing war through the eyes of the victim and not the victor. 

His arm had a hole punched through it. Within that hole rested the varicose veins and pressurized flesh of Zapata’s alien arm. Santa Muerte had done it. She had forced Carlyle to cower upon the dusty ground. Yet, he still lived, breathing just like before, blinking, and finally putting on a grin, like he was truly proud of the display that had just barreled through him.

“Wow,” he enunciated, his arm still bleeding profusely, “that was something to behold. Perhaps I misjudged you, Zapata Tochihuitl. Well, a deal’s a deal. I think you deserve your reward.”

Saying this, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sleek, minimalist, powerful piece of plastic. It was a key card, one which could unlock any entrance within Rizhaonese government property. It was the perfect macguffin, the exact boost they needed to get on track, the final puzzle piece that made this once outlandish proposal become possible.

“We should kill him,” Santa Muerte spoke once more, still haunting the depths of Zapata’s mind.

“What? Why would we do that? He’s helping us.”

“He just gave you the key to victory. You don’t need his help anymore.”

“But he could still help us later.”

“And he could also switch sides later, as he is clearly one to do.”

“No. I’m not doing this. There’s no reason to do this.”

“Zapata, this is a man who has consistently fought on the side of imperialism. Everything I know about you indicates to me that you should hate this man. So why do you refuse to kill him?”

“Because at this current moment, he’s fighting against imperialism. Do I think that his reasoning is screwed? Yes! Do I think that his ideology is just a bunch of Spartanist bullshit? Absolutely! But I’ve also gotta reckon with the fact that he’s one of the only people willing to fight on our side right now.”

“But even if it’s practical, doesn’t it feel wrong?”

“It does. But the fact of the matter is that there’s never been a successful revolt against empire in history in which said empire didn’t face some amount of internal conflict. It’s simply the nature of the bourgeois to bail out of power structures once the foundations come crashing down. That’s just basic post-sociology for you.”

“Is that a genuine belief of your’s, or are you crafting it now to support a more baseless, internal desire?”

“It’s genuine, as genuine as your beliefs on death. I don’t like Carlyle. He honestly seems like a terrible person, but to that same degree, he is a magnificent pawn. If he’s willing to devote his life to me, however endless it may be, I’ll let him. For the good of the people, the honorable dejected proletariat, sacrifices must be made to the wants of the self, including the desire to punch a man like Carlyle until his brains pour out his nose.”

“Sadly, Zapata, I sense no hesitation in your voice. You win this one, but you better watch out. All of youse better watch out for the day I return. Now, go enjoy whatever’s left of that arm of your’s.”

Zapata felt a weight lift off her shoulder and a wrought-iron chain untangle itself from her soul. She was free from the maws of the morbid and ready to take a step forward into the oncoming vehicles of life. Then she felt an enormous pain, a great aching and churning of her formerly alien arm, drawing her entire body into an infinitesimal point and shattering that vertex into an infinity. Her arm was bright red, nearly purple in some spots, pulsing and almost groaning in exhilarated fatigue. Santa Muerte had taken that fleshy appendage, one designed by evolution for the petty tasks of a hominid, and turned it into something it was wholly unequipped for, a superweapon. Zapata needed to sit down. She wasn’t bleeding, she wasn’t losing consciousness, but she felt far too conscious to go any further.

“Are you okay?” Vraxi asked, looking genuinely afraid. 

“Not at all, but I’ll be fine. I can stay back with Carlyle. Take the keycard. It’s got an address written on it. Go there, and when you get there, you should know exactly what to do.”

“Kill the president,” Zainan swallowed, “Thank you, Ms. Tochihuitl. Your sacrifice will not be held in vain.”

Chapter Text

The maintenance tunnels were very cold. That was only natural, for an abandoned room doesn’t need to be heated. Furthermore, since the room was thoroughly stuck in the underworld, it lacked any access to the sun, that natural source of heating which all life was predicated upon. The only thing keeping the room above freezing was the heat from below, the geothermal musings of the core and mantle, spurting their excess into the lower layers of the crust. This was all the heat ever granted to the maintenance tunnel, just enough heat to sustain the heartbeat of life, and naturally so, life prevailed.

A colony of rats huddled together, absorbing from one another that warmth which was never provided by their environment. Alone, a rat within these tunnels was predestined to die, but together, they had just enough warmth to go around, just enough warmth to see the end of their eternal winter. Vraxi hoped that, someday, they would glimpse the light of the surface, that someday, they would be granted aququate warmth, that someday, they would be free from the binds of their oppressors and walk the earth like any other noble beast. Vraxi hoped that, with their help, that day would come soon.

But for now, the tunnel still ran cold, a directionless gust cutting through her garments. Vraxi had always thought there existed two different types of cold. There was the tranquil cold, that which cools down the hot-headed, that which calms the rabid dance of atoms, that which makes a glass of tea potable, but there was also the ominous cold, the cold of isolation, the cold of fear, that which was formed from a heat differed, a heat which begs to return at the most dreadful moment. Vraxi felt the latter kind of cold, its whims crystallizing around her like a lake in December, hiding the discarded bodies that lay along its lowest bank.

She felt like something horrible was about to happen, as if the temperature itself was an omen, graciously providing her with one final warning before the world split in twain and dragged her body into the abyss. The abyss must be the truest form of cold, a place in which molecules aren’t just slow, but stagnant, and where the light of the sun, the lifegiver, can never reach.

Alongside the cold, she could feel the abyss embrace her, the non-being encased in that which is. Her legs slowed down, her vision lost dimension, as if she was back on the mountain once more, stranded in the wind. She could taste the pungency of death, even as her mouth stayed shut, even as her body kept trundling along in autonomous motion, even as her spirit glimpsed vivacity once preserved. Even then, she felt as if she were dying, as if the abyss had laid a cold hand on her heart.

She looked down. She looked further down.

There was no floor in sight, just abyss, unending, yearning for something to fill it, a task made impossible by its very nature. But Vraxi still sat in it, that seat of disorder, that place which could never be, that unattainable state of the present. Before her was nothing but empty space, a dead galaxy whose oldest stars had long entered retirement. Behind her, was something. Good, she thought, she hadn’t reached the abyss quite yet, a statement proven by the fact that she wasn’t quite alone.

The thing behind her was not reassuring so much as it was redefining. It was a familiar face, or rather a familiar visage, or rather a familiar shape, or rather a familiar grouping of shapes. It wasn’t human, that was for sure, but at the same time, what was? Humanity is an attribute defined by the victor and Vraxi still wasn’t sure if she could be one to succeed. Nevertheless, the thing behind her was, to put it bluntly, monstrous, but also an almost comforting, homely kind of monstrous. It was a monster she could pin a voice to, and further, a monster she could pin a name to. It was none other than the kasamaan, present in the flesh, or whatever it was really made of.

“Hello,” it spoke calmly in that same voice which Vraxi had pinned to it.

“Hi,” she responded, “where have you taken me?”

“I am a being dedicated to suffering. I brought you to a place where you can do exactly that.”

“It doesn’t look like anything in particular. Are we not there yet?”

“Suffering is different for every individual. Vraxi, while you often gravitate to it, all your worst moments have come from isolation. To make you truly suffer, I intend to truly isolate you. Welcome to your purgatory.”

And with that, the kasamaan was gone, leaving no trace behind, as if it had never been there at all. Likewise, the world which once was, that which had enveloped her since birth, was nowhere to be seen, replaced by an unwavering matte black. 

Vraxi waited. Perhaps, this wasn’t a permanent condition. Perhaps, it was just a test. Perhaps, if she was just patient, the curtains would unveil her and expose this whole fiasco for the practical joke it really was. She didn’t have to panic. She always tried to panic and it had never helped her in any measurable manner. Now was the time for calm, for tranquility, for the warm blanket of rationality to overtake her. Now was not the time for chaos.

Though, now that she brought it up, were the chaotic and the rational actually opposed to one another? Theoretically, ration should lead to order, but any ordered system of sufficient size and complexity was indiscernible to disorder. In that sense, there was an order to chaos, and through that lens, chaos could then be rationalized. Ration wasn’t some divine instrument, it was simply about finding the reasoning behind things and, ideally, being right about them. What was then the rationality behind her own current situation, her own ‘purgatory’ as that monster had coined it?

Well, she should assuredly take a rational approach. The scientific method was all about observation, the perception of the physical world around oneself and the drawing of natural conclusions from said physical evidence. So, naturally, Vraxi tried to observe, the only problem with that strategy being the lack of anything tangible or even visible around her. This troubled her process, immensely so. How was she supposed to better understand the world when there existed no world to understand? Was there truly nothing here to be observed? Once more, she looked down, and there she found her answer. There still remained one observable variable, that being her own human body.

How did she really get here? Her body would have to provide the answers. She wasn’t bruised or bleeding or hot or cold, in fact, her body looked almost exactly the same as it had appeared a few simple minutes earlier. There wasn’t very much to glean from her body, then, but her mind still held potential. Digging into her hippocampus, Vraxi asked herself how she arrived here, the precise ordering of events that led from her being safe if wary to trapped in a twisted, false dimension. Her memories played back as follows: First, she entered a dark and somewhat humid tunnel, following in the swift steps of her guide Zainan. Second, she traveled along the corridor’s length and noted its properties, especially its frigid temperature. Third, her eyes glanced over to a group of rodents and she felt a strange little sense of courage in observing their resilience, that same sort of resilience she’d need to embody if she ever wanted the revolution to succeed. Fourth, everything stopped making sense. She had been captured by a monster, one which she could no longer observe and, if she were to be truly rational, one which she couldn’t really prove the existence of. 

The problem with rational thinking is that the human mind is inherently irrational. When analyzing an account of the mind, one must turn to rationality, and if the account has no solid rationale, no way to prove that its points fit together, one must assume that the true account has been distorted by the mind’s irrationality. Vraxi could not prove that there ever was a monster, and the more she thought about it, the less real it felt. Perhaps, she should start over, rearrange her story, and reassess her life from there. But, now that she really thought about it, if the monster had to be rewritten because there was no way to prove its existence, she would have to replace the tunnel as well, since there was clearly not a tunnel in sight. In fact, the whole story was predicated upon a universe that plainly did not exist. 

What was more likely? That the entire universe had disappeared save for Vraxi, or that the universe had always been like this, empty, and Vraxi just held onto a couple of erroneous memories. After all, the brain, no matter how complex it may seem, pales in comparison to the divine infinite of the world around it.

Wait, did that mean that Theta wasn’t real? Was Theta just another slice of her mumbling subconscious? Were they just another mirage, rolling across the dunes? What, for that matter, was a dune? Why did she have these memories of a world that never was, and further, why was she seemingly the only thinking entity in all of the observable universe? Her mind was teeming with dancing silhouettes, names ascribed to creatures that functioned just like her, creatures that could think and talk and walk across a ground that hoisted them up from below, away from the abyss that had overtaken her. 

Vraxi didn’t get it. If every memory within her mind was false, then she could only determine how she got here by her surroundings, but since there were no surroundings, she must’ve always been here, in fact, she must’ve been born here, within the abyss. How old was she? 21 revolutions past a star that never existed. Clearly, that too, couldn’t be accurate. Yet, she had no memories of the abyss from before a few minutes ago. This could only mean one of two things, either the memories in her mind were actually fully veritable, which seemed more and more unlikely, or that she was only a few minutes old. That had to be it. Through some horrific and unreplicable process, this near empty universe must’ve had just the right atoms collide at just the right point as to construct a fully formed, mature human being, complete with a delusioned mind that believed itself to be older.

Terrific. Vraxi now knew what she was and knew how she got here, all while following a completely rational train of thought. Now she just had to figure out what her next step should be. She was the only living being, and really, the only thing in an otherwise desolate, infinite expanse of black. Realizing the constrictive nature of this predicament, Vraxi took the one action she knew she could always turn to.

Vraxi panicked. This was, quite possibly, the worst situation that anyone could ever be in. How was she supposed to escape it? She had already established that this utterly blank dimension was the only dimension there ever had been. Was escape even possible? She couldn't physically leave, but maybe she could still ascend from this plane if she just stopped breathing. Vraxi had to admit it: the only way out was to induce her own death.

Vraxi held her breath. Three minutes passed and she was still holding her breath, fully conscious. That didn’t make sense, the average human body couldn’t persist through that, until she remembered that everything she knew about the human body was built on a false foundation. In fact, she soon realized that this entire dimension was devoid of oxygen and that she had been operating entirely anaerobically this whole time. She’d have to pursue a different avenue towards death.

She bit her hand. It left an indentation on her skin but stopped short of drawing blood. Humans had never been biting creatures and the humble molar, no matter how mighty it might be, was built to crush, not to cut. Naturally, she bit her hand again, and then a third time, and halfway through the fourth occasion she started to glimpse droplets of crimson red. 

Perfect. It hurt like hell but that just meant it was working. She was bleeding out all the life she stored within her and, sooner or later, she would die. Alas, manual exsanguination was a tedious process and she felt, if anything, more alive, just worse at it. She started to dig her teeth back into the wound, attempting to tear it open a few centimeters, but any time she started to make progress, a wave of unignorable pain would hit her, forcing her to unlatch her jaw. Slowly but surely, the quantity of blood pouring out of her right hand, wrist, and forearm engorged in volume, almost impressing her with its near-laminar flow.

Her eyelids started to droop. The wound started to numb as its irritation drifted from her skin to her spirit. Her adrenaline had long since run dry. She was gently falling asleep, hoping that wherever she woke up, assuming she woke up, would be better than this dreadful purgatory.

Then, right before she could embrace the long night’s rest, she felt a swift slap on the face as oxygen started to barrel through her newly sealed bloodstream.

“Vraxi! Are you okay?” spoke the voice of a robot she had briefly thought nonexistent.

“Th-Theta? You’re real? What happened to the- I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Vraxi, you’re safe now. It looks like the kasamaan briefly got ahold of you, but we pulled you out. How do you feel right now?”

“I feel… alive. Wait, where’s the kasamaan.”

“It’s still behind you.”

Vraxi turned around. The monster looked back at her, but it didn’t seem angry. For that matter, it didn’t seem to show any emotion at all. It was a concept manifested, not a living mind, she had to remember that. Between her and the monster was Zainan, standing as tall as his height would let him, somehow still defiant.

“Zainan! Get out of the way! That thing’s gonna kill you!”

“Vraxi, let me handle this.”

Zainan wasn’t actually sure if he was capable of handling such a catastrophic turn of events, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. After all, if this rebellion didn’t succeed, he wouldn’t have much of a future to look forward to. He naturally then had to risk his life, for if he didn’t, his life and the lives of a million others would be forever bound up in stagnant serfdom. He stared at the kasamaan in its many eyes and refused to blink. He wouldn’t back down or falter, he would rise to the occasion and shine.

“Monster,” he spoke, “I understand your motive, your carnivorous desire for meat that struggles against you. I understand that you’d like more than anything just to eat me. But in that same breath, I understand that you view me differently from the rest. There’s something in the core of your being, Maria, and it whispers to you that I must be the last to die. You cannot kill me yet. You crave to see me protected against that cruel world which you fight to propagate. It’s quite a conundrum, isn’t it? You were born to kill but you just can’t fight back that sliver of Imelda that sits in your heart, so you follow me, haunting my every move in the slim hope that I might persist.”

The monster did not speak, but its tranquil reaction spoke volumes.

“Maria, I know you don’t want to hurt me, and I also know that, more than anything, you still want to hurt everybody else. This is why I stand before you, as tall I can muster, to block your path onward toward the innocent. I’m still not sure what you did to Vraxi, but it looked untenable. I can’t let you do that to anyone else.”

The monster growled in disapproval, but didn’t dare make a move.

“I expected that reaction. Even with the exception of myself, you still inherently yearn to glimpse the sight of brilliant pain. Ideally, I’d try to stop you here, but I’m not sure if such a standoff could really last much longer. Eventually, that sliver of Imelda might shatter beneath all the pressure. So likewise, I’d like to propose a compromise. You have an unmitigated desire to deliver pain amongst the world’s people. I, however, am trying to end the very generational pain that allowed for your dreadful birth. Our goals are inherently antagonistic to one another, except for one little overlap that I’d like to expound upon. In the floors above us, a grand invasion is occuring. Rizhaonese authorities have once again decided that we don’t deserve the right to live. The caves are flooding with officers, unanimous in their hunger for blood. If your own hunger cannot be satiated, Maria, I suggest that you start directing it towards them, those architects of death.”

The kasamaan lacked a face to clearly exhibit its emotions, but its body language suggested that it was at least somewhat intrigued.

“I can take you to where the battle is being fought, Maria. I can direct you to those federal agents of permanent massacre, and even as you feast on their souls, you’ll be saving lives in the long run. Please, Maria. For once, let’s work together.”

The monster let its tendrils of smoke scatter across the room in a quiet yet chaotic contemplation. After a minute or two, it directed its many heads downward, before bringing them up at an inverse angle, its pitiful attempt at a nod of approval.

“Thank you, Maria. Thank you for choosing what’s right,” Zainan turned to Vraxi and Theta, “you two are gonna have to go along without me. You’re already most of the way there. Please, I know things might look grim, but don’t give up on our collective hope. Never before has it all seemed so possible.”

Diogo Celestino was casually seated in Rizhao’s most powerful building, the office of the president. Hailang had sent him here after saving him. The decision made enough sense in his mind. The Rizhaonese state was desperate to kill the kasamaan, and while Diogo still didn’t know exactly how to do that, he was closer to finding a resolute answer than anybody else was. Hailang had told him that they themself had a hunch, but they didn’t expound on it any further. Diogo still needed to find the answer himself, from within himself, and present it to the world at large.

In front of him was another human being, different from himself, beholden to the state and all the baggage which heaved alongside it. Diogo had always been a free agent, but in this specific moment, he was beholden to the man in front of him. The man held a clipboard, and was waiting for the opportunity to write something on it. Diogo had been tasked with telling this man the secret of how to kill the beast, the only issue being that he didn’t yet know.

“I assure you,” Diogo clarified, “I’ll get to it. It’s just difficult to access the library with the injury and all. I just need to focus.”

“I’ll wait,” the man sat silent, his eyes piercing every surface of the room save for Diogo’s own.

He was in the library, but not fully. Whenever one leg stepped forwards, the other stepped back. He was moving sideways, slipping away from solid ground. Whenever he managed to enter a room proper, he would blink, and find himself back in the interrogation room, the man still staring around him with that static, contrived countenance.

He slapped himself in the face. He could do this. This was entirely within the realm of simple achievability. He closed his eyes and glimpsed the astral plane in all its glory, stretching his hands wide out as if he were navigating across the open ocean, testing the cardinal winds. He found an opening, and dived within, curling himself into a vertex and squeezing through the eye of a needle.

He unbound himself, took a deep breath, and detected the aroma of ancient, dusty tomes. He’d made it in now, for certain, as every tactile object in the room felt ontologically real. He knew where the kasamaan’s book was stored, the one penned with his own name for a reason still unknown, but he was yet to actually reach it. He didn’t know how long he’d get to stay in here, so he ran, as fast as he could muster, panting and groaning the whole time, for even in this land beyond the physical, the scar of the beast still stung.

The wound flared up, only a little at first before barreling into the realm of immensity. He still tried to jerk his legs forward, to salvation, but every upright step dragged him further down the highway to Hell. He had to stop, for his own health, both physical and spiritual, as on this plane there was no difference. He breathed, taking in the view of his surroundings as he inhaled.

Before exhaling, and watching that futile little paradise fade away, rapidly, to the tempo of a gunshot. The man with the clipboard was dead, already starting to rot by the time Diogo noticed. His killer was standing still, holding a volatile expression that bordered on mourning. His killer was Joey Axelrod.

“Diogo Celestino! You’re still here, good. I’m glad I was able to portal over before you left.”

“Axelrod! You just killed that man!”

“I did. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t really want to. Lucifer just told me that that guy sorta had to die for things to work out in our favor.”

“Is that how you treat human life?”

“Usually, no. But then Lucifer told me all about this guy’s personal history and it was honestly pretty ghoulish. That guy was like, super into carceral torture. Honestly, you should probably thank me. Who knows what that guy was gonna do to you?”

“I don’t intend on thanking you for anything, Axelrod. Why are you even here?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I’m here to kill you.”

Diogo stood up and almost rushed to the door before remembering that the only way to open it was with the key still snug in the dead man’s wallet. He froze, staring at Joey with his mahogany eyes as Joey stared back at him with the barrel of a pistol. He couldn’t panic, but he needed to survive. What would Octávio do? He’d probably try to talk his way out. He’d always been good at talking, always the charmer and never the charmed.

“Joey, may I ask specifically why you wish to kill me.”

“Wish? If I wished to kill you, you’d already be dead. No, it’s much more complex than that. You see, I’ve already worked out the situation with Theta. They’ll be safely shipped off to Ashtamudi so Bran can’t hurt them. But in the meantime, I still have to deal with that tripartite gaggle of fools that’s always at their side.”

“Well now I have trouble understanding you. If you’re not trying to return Theta over to Bran, why do you want me dead?”

“I’m trying to prevent the fucking apocalypse, Diogo.”

“Well now I’m having even more trouble understanding you.”

“Then let me explain myself. The kasamaan is a fragment of something powerful, but distinctly not divine, something called the Demiurge. To put it simply, the Demiurge is the antithesis of the Supreme Entity, that which was locked away after the genesis of the universe but which begs and pleads to visit our plane once more. Its return will signal the end of days, the destruction of all things, and the grand finale of our beloved universe. I’m trying to prevent that.”

“And how does killing me contribute to such an effort?”

“The Demiurge can only return under very specific circumstances, that being the congregation of the Decadeum on Earth. The Decadeum being the ten aspects of the Supreme Entity which represent all of God’s most fundamental aspects. At this current moment, eight of the ten members have avatars on the material plane. This is a wholly unprecedented number which I intend to reduce. And that is why you must die, Diogo, not out of grudge or selfishness, but to protect the very world which we all call home.”

“Well… couldn’t you just try killing yourself? You’re an avatar too, right?”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider that action but the truth is that seven is still far too high a number to have living at a time. I have to kill you, Diogo, and your friends too.”

“Now hold on,” Diogo brought his hands up, “let’s try to critically think about this for a second. I’ll be honest, this is the first I’ve heard about this Demiurge thing and that makes me wanna ask where you actually learned about his apparent threat to all that’s ever lived. I feel like this is the kinda thing that Orunmila would’ve warned me about beforehand.”

“Lucifer told me.”

“Isn’t that guy sorta famous for lying?”

“He’s famous for being deceitful, but the words he spoke are still true.”

“But don’t you think that there might be some amount of the aforementioned deceit in those words? Even if the Demiurge is a real, formidable beast, are you sure the stakes of his return are exactly as he described them?”

“Diogo, whatever you’re trying to do, it won’t work, okay? You can’t convince me not to kill you, because the truth is that if I don’t kill you then Satan might wanna kill me!”

“So then this is about selfishness.”

“Self-preservation is a concept entirely distinct from selfishness! If you shoot a guy who's trying to murder you, nobody would call you selfish!”

“But I’m not trying to murder you.”

“You sorta are, in an indirect way. Anyways, that’s besides the point. Truthfully, originally, someone else was supposed to kill you while I dealt with your friends, but then that someone had some other shit they had to do, so now I’m the one stuck dealing with your death. I really didn’t want to be here, in all honesty.”

“Wait. How many people are trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know. A handful? Maybe a bit more? You’re sorta messing with a lot of the world’s preestablished power structures right now. You’re bound to make some enemies like that.”

“I get that, but like, who specifically was that partner you were talking about?”

“I don’t think I should really be telling you that kind of thing. I’d assume that it’s confidential.”

“Well you’re gonna kill me anyways, right? What does it matter if I know who else wants me dead when I myself am dead?”

“Fair point. And because really, Diogo, I didn’t wanna kill you, I’ll give you one final bit of closure before the lights go out. The person which I colluded your present demise with was someone you’ve met before. Do you remember, by any chance, a civil servant with the name Shui Hailang?” 

Diogo paused,“You’re lying to me.”

“What would I gain from that, Diogo? Now, let’s get on with the execution process already.”

Diogo, in a fit of grand passion, as if he was watching Octávio die all over again, punched Joey square in the jaw. His opponent reeled back in shock, surprised to see blood drip out from his ribboned gums, surprised to see a man he once thought below him rise to the occasion and shine. Diogo lunged over to the dead man by the table, grabbed the key to the exit in his sweaty palms, and leaped across said table towards the door. Entering the hallway, he could hear the sound of sirens blasting the warning of an intruder in the building, presumably referring to the failed executioner that now ran behind him.

Diogo knew that he would die someday, but likewise he knew it could never be from the bullet of a gun. Diogo would die engulfed in a brilliant inferno, his flesh burning to ash as his soul erupts into sacred light.

Chapter Text

They had reached the end of the winding tunnels, marked by an antique latch that supposedly connected to the surface world. Vraxi paused for a moment, and looked at Theta with a quizzical kind of expression as if to ask ‘so are we really, actually doing this?’

Theta just smiled—or at least made their best impression of a smile on their digitigrade faceplate—and gently placed their hand upon the latch. The handle itself was designed like that of an old vault door, elliptical in nature and demanding of two people to properly open it. Vraxi, in turn, put her own, fleshier hands on the latch, and for just a brief moment, their fingertips touched. The two glanced at each other, eye to lens, and allowed that stare to simmer over for just a few more moments.

“So, whatever happens out there,” Vraxi began, “I just want you to know that I really have appreciated your company over the last two months or so. I was really in a bad place before I met you. And in some ways, I’m still in a bad place, but it’s a different kind of bad, and it’s a kind that I can still feel good about despite myself.”

“I too have appreciated our friendship, Vraxi. But please, don’t fret over what may or may not occur. We will survive. It’s all been predestined in our favor, I’m sure of it.”

“How can you be sure of it?”

“Call it the power of belief. Doubt is like a cancer, if you don’t try to fight it, it will only grow. And similarly, doubt can paralyze oneself, it can rip away the functions of one’s form. If I abandon belief and give into doubt, I’ll only make the words of doubt more potent, more real, until its prophecies enact themselves upon me. But if I just believe that change is possible, and further take the occasionally extreme actions to facilitate such change, then I can do anything. I’m supposed to be a prophet of the divine, aren’t I? What is a god without believers? Vraxi, I know it can be hard at times and I know that doubt can feel all-consuming, but I need you to believe in me. I need you to believe that the revolution is possible.”

“I believe in you, Theta. But do you believe that I, of all people, have it in me to lead the waves of change alongside you?”

“Vraxi, I’ve always believed in you.”

And so the two companions turned the wheel together, eventually letting the door rigged to said wheel creak ajar, and open. The surface was beautiful. They found themselves in a well-maintained garden, flush with roses, carrying the scent of spring into the autumn air. Vraxi, for a moment, considered smelling one of the flowers, for they were bountiful in number and oozed out aroma without caution. But she, unlike the simple flower, was a thinking being, and those constant thoughts restrained her nose from dipping down further. For the maintenance of the garden was clear to observe and the location of the garden was clearly within a government compound. With those factors in mind, the beauty of the garden melted into opulence and all the arboreal excess became a grim reminder of the starving masses below. What was the material cost of all these budding roses? And what was the cost of a dead child in Kaiphachu? And which of these costs mattered more to the dreary men in suits who lurked in this garden on their lunch breaks? If she were to smell one of those blood-red roses, those which were bought and planted at the expense of human lives, would she become like them, those profiteers of death?

The thought troubled Vraxi, and she tried to look away from that garden which briefly gave her a sight to be fancied. She had no right to be fancying such things, they were simply the idols of the oppressor. But, still, as she walked through the garden, her eyes still drifted, and she still, almost relentlessly, glimpsed beauty. That beauty angered her, just slightly. It didn’t make sense to her that a group which she was so deeply ideologically opposed to could produce a work of art which her mind determined to be worthy of praise. 

“I don’t like this place,” she muttered under her breath, not intending to be heard but also sort of wanting to.

“Why’s that?” Theta inquired. Their hearing was still phenomenal.

“Well, it’s not that the arrangements aren’t pretty, in fact, the problem is that they're too pretty. I can’t believe that I’m genuinely enjoying a piece of art born from a fascist government.”

“Who says fascists can’t be good florists? Beauty is barely ever tied to strict morality, Vraxi. Wagner was pretty blatantly fascist and he’s still Europe’s favorite composer.”

“Yeah, but if you actually watch one of his operas, it’s pretty obvious that the guy had some funky beliefs.”

“But fascism’s not always obvious. This nation wasn’t obviously fascist. It still frames itself as a liberal democracy.”

“But don’t all liberal democracies have a little bit of fascism in them.”

“Exactly, and it’s that little bit which can grow and grow, wholly unchecked, until the whole thing utterly reeks of fascism. As was the fate of America, and Germany before them.”

“And Rome before them.”

“Arguably, but that’s a bit revisionist.”

“All history is revisionist.”

“But you should steer away from revisionism when possible.”

“Fair. But with that in mind, what do you think of the flowers?”

“I don’t have a sense of smell, Vraxi. My perception of the work is inherently incomplete without a hint of the olfactory. I can’t give it a fair judgment, for I can’t fully conceptualize the artistry of it all. I’m effectively missing a segment of the canvas.”

“So then what fills in that blank space, if not art?”

“Fascism.”

“And so it all loops back in the end.”

“Thus is the nature of holistic analysis. But with that in mind, we should probably move on to more pressing issues,” Theta pointed to a set of doors that led from the greenhouse into the main building, “first and foremost being the matter of actually getting inside of here.”

“Well,” Vraxi looked to either side of her, “I don’t see anything blocking us. Honestly, I expected there to be a handful of guards or something, but I really don’t see anyone here.”

“Well, logically, I’d imagine that Rizhao’s focusing most of its manpower towards the ongoing raid.”

“But I feel like the group of people assigned to secure a specific building probably have a different job description than those actively entering combat. I don’t feel like they’d be interchangeable.”

“Typically, I’d agree with you, but I know that Gibson troops are often hired for either role, so I can’t be certain.”

“I’m just worried that we might be walking into an ambush is all.”

“Ambush or not, I believe in us. We’ll make it through this.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Well, here goes nothing.”

Vraxi gently pressed Carlyle’s keycard onto the scanner, hoping to every god above her that he hadn’t fooled them with a fake. As she waited for a physical response, she could almost hear the faint blaring of trumpets in the distance, as a prickle of stress and an elixir of righteousness welled within her. Luckily, with little delay, the door popped open, and the two interlocutors breach the entrance with ease.

Clearly, however, they were not the only people currently instigating a breach. The horrible sound of a siren was blaring through the building, warning of a gruesome intruder other than themselves.

“Shit,” Vraxi silently exclaimed, “this can’t be good. Someone else must’ve had the same idea as us. There’s gonna be Gibsons swarming this joint in a matter of moments and they’re gonna sweep us up like we’re nothing! I bet they’ve already started to evacuate Sun at this point. We’re toast, Theta! We’re goners, genuinely!”

“Vraxi, please, calm down. Sure, we didn’t expect this, it’s a bit of a curveball, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up the game. In fact, this might be good for us. Maybe the intruders have the same goal as us, and in that case, we’re really just increasing the likelihood that the president ends up dead. You can’t give up already, Vraxi!”

“Okay. Okay. Okay, I’m calming down. It’s chill. I’m chill. Everything is totally chill. But also, seriously, what are we supposed to do?”

“We do what we planned to do. We find Sun and, in a violent act which has sadly become necessary for peace to prevail, we shoot him.”

“But where could he actually be? I doubt that he’s in his office under these sorts of circumstances.”

“Well, where would he naturally go under this kind of pressure? I imagine that a building like this with such political importance probably has some sort of bunker, right? Let’s try to find one of those. It would probably be underground, so let’s try to find a staircase, alright?”

“Alright…”

“Vraxi, we’re gonna be fine. I promise. I just need you to believe in me.”

“Theta… I’ve always believed in you.”

Before Theta could respond, the shrill note of a person sprinting and screaming and panting and occasionally bleating profanities in a foreign language pierced through the stale, now turbulent atmosphere like a wild, flailing javelin, bound to stab somebody one of these days. In disjointed tandem, the interlocutors turned around, practically by instinct, in order to glean a visage to the cacophony.

It was none other than Diogo Celestino, revealing his face to them once again, but at a noticeably unflattering angle.

“Diogo? What are you doing here?” Vraxi managed to ask.

“Run!” was all the runner had to say as he overtook the invisible line between the two intruders.

Vraxi wanted to demand further inquiry from her former partner in crime, but before she could formulate even the most basic fragments of a sentence, the last notions of her own safety shattered beneath the overwhelming force of the coming wind. Amidst the gust, Joey Axelrod galloped forth, a scorned, regretful countenance painted upon his face in the baroque style.

“What?” he shouted, his spirit overtaken by the hand of confusion, “y’all are here too?”

“Don’t do this, Joey,” Theta warned him, trying to hide their own shock of running into him.

“Well, even if I did change my mind, I can’t really just stop running.”

Behind both Diogo and Joey was a third, potentially more potent, possibly more precarious variable. There were, most likely, fifteen to twenty Gibson-brand guards, all ambulating their limbs closer and closer to Vraxi’s own very breakable body, their similarly branded rifles shooting wildly at every empty surface.

There was really only one singular reasonable reaction one could justify in this highly unlikely scenario and it lied on the latter end of the classical ‘fight or flight’ continuum. Vraxi bolted, or rather she flew, since eighty percent of the time her legs weren’t even close to touching the linoleum flooring. She couldn’t even look back, but despite herself she constantly looked back because she admittedly wasn’t very good at this whole process of sudden flight and she had a near-boiling jambalaya of concerns that all threatened to bubble over at any blank moment. She wanted to ensure Theta’s safety, as well as her own safety, as well as, in spite of everything, Diogo Celestino’s safety, even as he soared well past herself in stride. She really just wanted to ensure everyone’s safety because, only moments earlier, she didn’t think that safety was going to be so immediate a concern. Well, she had worried it might be, but there’s a stark difference in the mind between worries and genuine belief, plus an even starker divide between prediction and predication. She really had to get better at predication. She was always predicting, often predicting far too much and much too far ahead, but her predications remained constant, antiquated, stuck in a world she knew to be long dead, one which she took a quintessential role in the killing of, that dreaded solitary past of her’s. She really needed to change, but the difficulty with such a realization, and generally with these sorts of realizations at large, is that they barely ever come at a time in which such desired change is actually actionable. Currently, Vraxi’s first priority was simply to not get shot, while the minute details of her internal externalities crawled far behind in the herd of her fractured psyche, bound to be devoured by the wolves of forgetting, or perhaps still the wolves of getting a bullet in the head if she wasn’t quite fast enough.

A corner. Vraxi glided around its edge and tried to resituate herself with her present, overflown reality as she did so.

Theta. They were still by her side, stoic, or at least approximating stoicism in their stalwart determination, considering how stoicist philosophy never really clicked with them. 

Joey. Annoying as usual, making some sort of unpleasant face as he trailed not far behind her, but clearly not the most pressing of threats in the present moment. Joey only had one firearm, the guards had literal dozens.

Diogo. This was where the real enigma lied. Diogo had proven himself to be something of a turncoat but Vraxi knew that his soul was still brimming with good intentions. Vraxi likewise still believed that if he just knew the truth, that if Diogo just knew that the only way to lead Kaiphachu out of its subjugation lay on the dreary path of the bullet, that then he would change his mind. But why was he even here? How had Diogo wound up in this concrete fortress, running alongside her?

Herself. Vraxi Nair was just another girl. How had she wound up here of all places, sprinting against time in the fleeting pursuit of avoiding her own demise? She already knew the answer from a literal perspective, that being the exact line of events drawn from her memory that simplified the arc of her life from birth to present into a little coiled string, but that roll of spiritual twine lacked translatability, she couldn’t really parse the grandiose themes of existence when her lens was stuck analyzing grain against grain. She needed to expand her horizon, to glimpse the breadth of the unseen, but she lacked the proper scope to do so with. She might never be able to see the full picture, at least not on her own.

Another turn. She couldn’t stop running. She couldn’t let her thoughts distract her. She couldn’t think about anything else but running. But that just made her start thinking about the act of thinking about running. It was a funny thing, that way in which the mind functioned that assuaged focus in exchange for a constant firing of neurons at all times, even against one’s better interests. Truly, the idle human was bound to start philosophizing, as in many ways, philosophizing was the base state of existence. Philosophizing is what one turns to when there is nothing else to work on, and before one knows how to work, all they do is philosophize. In every infant there exists a Socrates, both boundlessly curious and boundlessly wise. 

No! She was thinking about something other than running again, thus hampering her efforts at the aforementioned act of running! 

She tried to focus her vision only on the path ahead, the series of footsteps she knew she had to keep pace with if she wanted to live. She tried to draw an invisible line between her eyes and the back of Diogo’s head as he persistently paced ahead of her. She wanted to pierce the layer behind that cranium of his, to actually understand the inner musings of his mind, and she feared that she may have already lost her chance to do so. She just needed to talk to him, just one more time now that their immediate tensions had settled, so that she might actually speak her truth to him, just this once. So she sprinted even faster, all in a blistering attempt at catching up with her former confidant, putting the metabolic effort of every cell in her body into every arc of her stride. And as he turned one final corner and down a winding stairwell, Vraxi was just able to graze the back of his dress shirt, eliciting his ephemeral attention.

“Diogo!” Vraxi nearly shouted, “I think we need to talk!”

“Vraxi Nair, I really don’t think this is the time for that.”

“If we don’t talk now, we’re both just gonna try ignoring each other and we’ll both die unhappy and you know that, Diogo, so let’s please just have a conversation to clear things up, okay?”

“Vraxi, if you’re gonna ask me to kill somebody, I really don’t wanna hear it.”

“Okay, but, if the action of killing someone ultimately saves multiple thousands of lives, surely then, at least at some point, the action becomes worth it, right?”

“I don’t know, Vraxi! Maybe it does! But I don't think you actually know what you’re talking about! How can you be one hundred percent absolutely sure that your actions will have the desired reactions?”

“Diogo, I really just need you to believe in me, and furthermore believe in Theta, because one thing I can tell you for certain is that inaction will not save the people of Kaiphachu. And you have to remember that inaction is a choice. If you wind up in a room with President Sun, and you choose to do nothing about his continued presence, then you’re on his side.”

“Vraxi, I get that, okay? I understand what you’re saying, and it’s not like there isn’t any truth to it, but I just think we need to be a bit more patient. We need to actually think things through and fully quantify the consequences of all of our actions. What if we go through all this risk and all this hardship and it turns out to be all for nothing in the long run? No matter how hard you try, you just can’t predict the future.”

“Is that really your only reason for inaction?”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to ask of me, Vraxi.”

“I’m trying to ask if you really think you're wholly unbiased in all of this. Like, is there anything or anyone outside of your own person that might be swaying you one way or another?”

“Is this about Hailang?”

“Of course it’s about Hailang, Diogo.”

“Listen, I understand that you might have some ideological differences with them—I myself disagree with some of their points—but they’ve really been a help as of late. Suffice to say, things have been difficult and chaotic and generally hard to parse and Hailang’s always been at my side and willing to walk me through said things. Regardless of what their grander ambitions might be, they’re really quite a nice person on an interpersonal level.”

“But if someone’s nice to you specifically but still willing to aid and abet an oppressive apartheid state, then they’re not really all that nice, are they?”

“I think that they’re in a complex sociopolitical position right now and I don’t think I’m smart enough to give a solid analysis of their role in the larger structure of things, but either way, I definitely think you’re exaggerating a bit.”

“Well, we’ll see how you think about things when the engine of empire stalls as the fuel of human life, extracted from the wells of Kaiphachu, finally runs dry. Perhaps then, Hailang might stop seeing you as an ally and finally start seeing you as fuel.”

“Vraxi, stop it. Hailang would never do that.”

“They’re a killing machine. There’s really no limit to what they might do if the president up above tells them it’s just.”

“They have limits, Vraxi. I know they have limits.”

“Well, if you ever change your mind, I suggest you take this,” Vraxi tossed him a piece of shiny silver, “it’s just a simple pistol, loaded. Carlyle had literally dozens of these on his person. Good luck.”

Diogo, perhaps against his own internal judgments but perhaps in the favor of an even deeper psychic desire, accepted the gun and slid it into his pocket. He stopped talking to Vraxi at that moment and Vraxi sincerely hoped that it wouldn’t be the last time the two speak with one another. But yet again, Vraxi had more pressing issues, as in the time it took for her to spout her whole spiel on the folly of human society, the physical distance between herself and Diogo had grown to a quite significant size, while the distance between herself, Theta, Joey, and the writhing mass of faceless sentinels had become practically non-existent. To make things worse, Vraxi had just pawned off her only ranged weapon, and she didn’t believe Theta to be actively armed.

The grand tapestry of the universe was not positioned directly in her favor, to say the least, but that was no cause for quitting, merely a call to analysis. She was currently nearing the bottom of the stairwell—Diogo had already left it and bolted out of sight—and by the time she reached the floor, considering the current trajectory of all visible and audible trends, she would most likely resemble the leftmost strip of a standard office parchment, the side with all the holes punched in. Her main goal, above all else, was then to avoid this fate, an objective entirely within the vast domain of plausibility. 

It was clear to her that the largest threat to her life at this particular moment was not Mr. Axelrod but rather the many individuals, acting as one, which single-heartedly chased after one Mr. Axelrod. Furthermore, she concluded that, if left to their own devices, one of the two parties would inevitably deal with the other. Perhaps then, because these two sides were so inextricably opposed to one another, Vraxi might be able to briefly side with one in order to vanquish the other, at least temporarily preserving her own safety by doing so. But if she were to make such a choice, it would make sense to side with whichever side seemed stronger, which was inconveniently a huddle of people representing a government she had already deemed far beyond forgiveness. Instead then, by process of elimination, it would make the most sense for her to broach a momentary truce with the dreaded Mr. Axelrod who, notably, actually possessed a firearm in his hands.

“Joey?” Vraxi yelled upwards to the man who ran from two stories above herself, “these guards, they’re all tryna kill you, correct?”

“Unfortunately,” he responded, a sourness tinged in his speech, "what of it?”

“And you’re also in the business of killing me, right?”

“Well, it’s not like it wasn’t obvious, yes, one of my current goals is to engender your death.”

“Fair enough, but it seems to me like invoking a time-sensitive ceasefire may, in this current, rather unlikely position, be beneficial for both of us. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I mean, fundamentally, I don’t disagree with you. I’m mainly just worried what Lucifer might do to me if I let you get away again.”

“Well, think about it like this: if you die right now, a possibility made far more likely if we’re not working together, you’ll never be able to kill me or anyone else who might be on your hit list or just enjoy the rest of your natural human lifespan. It sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”

“Do you think I could add a caveat to this theoretical agreement?”

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.”

“You say it’s time-sensitive but I’d like to be specific. The truce shouldn’t last any longer than one, singular minute.”

Vraxi thought it over for a moment, a brief moment as she had very little time before she’d reach the bottom level and a similarly small interval before she’d start looking like that aforementioned piece of parchment paper. A minute didn’t sound like much, but then again, some of the most history-defining actions took place over mere seconds. It didn’t take a minute to kill Franz Ferdinand, he was dead in a heartbeat, or rather the lack of a heartbeat, and that one moment brought tens of millions of hearts into the same tempoless tune. It was possible, she figured, to neutralize every single guard on the stairwell so long as she, Theta, and Joey could all synchronize their actions. She didn’t think her bond to Joey was particularly strong, but every other bond was tight as a titanium wire. Besides, she wouldn’t get another chance like this anyways if there was a bullet lodged up her brain.

“I accept your offer, Joey.”

“Then your minute starts now.”

Vraxi reached the ground. She couldn’t let any of the guards reach the ground with her—doing so would practically be a death sentence—so she needed some way to either hinder their eventual arrival or pull herself away from the ground. She had brewed an idea that let her do both.

The stairwell itself was not screwed in the traditional bureaucratic style of switchback parallel lines piled on top of one another, but rather in a more elegant, needlessly opulent, quadrilateral structure that left a pillar of blank space in the middle of the vertical walkway. For most purposes, this minor architectural choice would serve no need, being nothing but a bloated waste of limited square footage, perhaps a physical reminder of all the area not allotted to those who starved in the lowest stratum of Rizhao’s social hierarchy, but for this highly contrived conflict which Vraxi now found herself stranded in, it was perfect. She drew her sword, triumphant.

From the lowest rung of the proverbial ladder—which in this case was a stairwell—Vraxi crouched down and steered her saber hellwards. She felt a torrent of rising air flow from her core to her limbs to her extremities, before pouring into the hilt of the sword and shooting out from the point, sending her flying. Her limbs flailed, her skin perspired, but within her heart she knew she would survive. Now more than ever, she could feel the soul of Theta guiding her, or at least sense the ways in which her own soul had been made grander by the touch of someone who sat on the translucent border of divinity. Her heart beat fast, but her mind was still a beat ahead. Turning her form midair, she glimpsed the spasming melange of human matter all tightly bound in identical suit and banner. Likewise, they glimpsed her, and for a subtle second of holiday peacetime, all was quiet in the field of air that split them. Vraxi directed the tip of her weapon behind her, and led a one-unit charge, blasting her own body to the forefront.

The hilt of her sacred instrument shattered the glass of a poorly worn visor as Vraxi made impact with the wall and all the flesh that stood before it. One down, fifteen to go, with 53 seconds remaining. She’d have to pick up the pace. Luckily, the other guards were by no means afraid to approach. As a particularly tall, polished, black-clad assailant ran towards her to presumably smash her face in or worse, she tried to keep in the mind of Theta, calm, collected, and always knowing of one’s eventual victory. The guard’s baton would not hit her simply because fate did not possess such an option levied in the cards. Instead, she raised her own martial implement, and did not falter when the guard revealed his pistol, simply choosing to strike as he made the awkward transition between weaponry. The blade ripped his costume, soured the stability of his skin, and sent a shockwave through his astral self, relegating him to the floor a few flights down. 

The fated fall of the unit’s Goliath did not halt the oncoming offensive—it really only opened the floodgates—but it did manage to highlight the true vulnerability of every soldier involved. Together, they might be frightening, but one-by-one, they were just as prone to defeat as any other civilian. Further, they were no longer fighting individuals, but rather another unit, as Joey Axelrod dealt with the front of the brigade while Vraxi handled the back. With the god of righteousness on her side, and the hope of Theta’s heart pumping through every one of her arteries, she managed to avoid ambush, always ducking and weaving in just the right motion as to only ever face one opponent at a time, keeping the match forever even. She didn’t even pay attention to what Joey may’ve or may not have been doing as she had temporarily stapled her entire capability of focus to her field of view alone. She needed all of it to stay on top, though with each strike across the shoulder and wave of fervid spirit, it all increasingly felt possible, like she might actually be able to best the oppressor in battle.

When she knocked down a rather flimsy lower lieutenant with a rather energetic swing, she was met with a sight she had tried to avoid. While attempting to only engage in minor matches allowed her to steer away from an all-out attack, it was an easily visible strategy, one which could be adapted to before the last of the unit’s soldiers went down. Behind the fallen fighter was the barrel of an electric rifle, gripped stalwart in the hands of one of their comrades, presumably seeking an early revenge. She tried to back out, but there was no way to win here. She wasn’t faster than a high-powered laser. More than anything, she just hoped that this gun was of an older model, the kind that couldn’t quite fry your head off.

She heard the telltale click of the trigger. Yet, even though light was famously much faster than its auditory counterpart, she saw nothing but a mask contorted by the wearer’s confusion. Another click was paired with another anxious yet empty moment of reflection. For some unknown reasoning, the gun just wouldn’t function. Perhaps it was divine intervention.

“You’re welcome!” shouted the wearied voice of Theta from below, “Those things are a real pain to hack!”

“Thanks,” Vraxi replied slowly, savoring her own response as she efficiently disarmed the stunted grunt in front of her.

As she descended the staircase and watched Joey deal with his own final opponent, Vraxi really swallowed the idea that she had done it, that she had successfully managed to slice off a slithering tendril of empire, but as she tilted her head further to eye level, she glimpsed the reality presented in Diogo’s unsatisfied countenance.

“Six seconds,” He muttered as he delivered the ultimate stunning blow.

“What?”

“Four seconds until the truce’s over. Now two seconds. Now one.”

Joey raised his fully mechanical gun and shot at her. The gun had a silencer, and now that the unit had been finished, the whole room reeked of silence. Though, in that void, Vraxi found a sense of clarity, even as the bullet pirouetted towards her, for in the silence, she heard that same melody she had briefly glimpsed before entering the compound, that of a long-drawn trumpet song. She wasn’t sure if the tune was emerging from within herself or from somewhere in the great beyond, but it gave her comfort either way, a suggestion of safety against the world of barbs and thorns that pierced her.

Then, something very peculiar occurred to one Vraxi Nair. The bullet didn’t hit her. Instead, some other, unknowable force hit her first and pushed her to the side as it did so. It was a person, that force, but a particularly angelic person, with feathery wings and a golden trumpet and a face that mirrored godliness, a face she had seen before, just not like this.

“Greetings, Vraxi,” spoke the angel in the voice of Aisha Abdulaziz.

“Aisha? How did you get here? Why did you save me?”

“Well I sorta owe you one, don’t I? You effectively saved my life back in Mansoura. I’m just trying to make it back to all the people that I hurt, you included.”

“Well… Thank you, then. I really could’ve died just then.”

“Oh this is some bullshit,” Joey interrupted, “fuck this. But you know what? I can do a hell of a lot more than just bullets.”

Joey’s form began to steam as his skin went from a dull matte texture to a metallic alloy sheen. Vraxi began to stress again. In a matter of seconds, Joey had the potential to become significantly more powerful, possibly to the degree where Aisha’s presence might not even matter all that much. It wouldn’t be smart to try and fight him like that, especially if she still wanted to deal with the president himself. She would have to find another way.

“Aisha, I think we need to make a tactical retreat.”

“Got it.”

With the direction in mind and Vraxi in her arms, Aisha jumped off the banister and dived down to the lower levels, grasping the outstretched arms of Theta as she did so, before adjusting the arc of her flight path midair and swooping up towards the ceiling, reaching the glass dome at the top, and shattering it with her talons.

“Theta?” Vraxi asked against the wind.

“Yeah?” They beeped back at high volume.

“Do you think Diogo might have a change of heart?”

“I can’t say anything for certain, Vraxi, but I know that he has it in him.”

Chapter Text

Dante Torres was an average man. He worked an average job, for a below-average pay, with an above-average sense of vigor that never seemed to result in an increase to said salary. Yet, as average men often are, he was content with his present state of life, because he only ever viewed it as a stepping stone, a muddy run of the path that ultimately led to prosperity. Torres was not a revolutionary, nor did he view such prospects with any sort of genuine interest. When a coworker of his said that the current government had to be torn down by the masses, he thought of them as a tad bit crazy. It was true that the state wasn’t really working for him, and that if anything it was leaving him and his people to starve, but he still knew how to find food and cook it, and he suspected that many of those so-called revolutionaries were just lazy people with guns.

It was ironic, then, that Torres would die today, for he was a particularly blind-sided resident of Kaiphachu and Kaiphachu, like always but especially now in particular, was under attack. This wasn’t Dante’s first raid, and he knew to find shelter when the sirens went ringing. Personally, he was a bit confused as to why so many people stayed in the streets at times like these, as if they were just asking to be shot at. He started to smell smoke, which was typical when guns were being fired, but then that smell began to grow increasingly more robust, noticeably coming from down the hallway in his apartment and not from the windowsill. Then he heard a siren, forming an offbeat melody with the preexisting one, warning that there was a fire in the building. 

This particular event created an unavoidable contradiction for one Dante Torres. If he were to stay in the building, as he was told, the fire would blacken his flesh and steal his soul away, but if he were to evacuate, also as he was told, then he’d be entering the line of fire. He hated to ever admit he was wrong, but Dante knew he had to exit his home. He briefly considered packing his belongings with him, but the taste of smoke, the signal that should’ve gotten him out of here ages ago, stopped him from taking any steps backward. 

With much delay, and a storm of fitful coughs, the weathered Torres finally made it out of the inferno, his hands waving the sign of surrender to the world around him.

The road had mostly cleared by this point, leaving only himself and a figure in the distance. The figure appeared to belong to one of the pseudo-revolutionary groups that crowded every marketplace with speeches these days, clad in the movement’s red-green banner and seemingly waving their hands around sporadically. Dante tilted his head just slightly. It almost looked like the lone striped laborist was trying to signal to him something, perhaps a warning of some kind, but these types were always trying to warn him of things that never piqued his particular interests. He assumed it was nothing important as he stood there in the middle of the barren road, defenseless, ignorant to the knowledge that the strip of land he occupied had already been marked as a death zone by the forces that reigned from above.

He suddenly felt stung by a wet, dizzy shiver. Then a pain concentrated in the hind of his left shoulder activated and agitated his inward self. A bullet from some unknown upward holster had lodged itself between the fragile chambers of his skeleton, twisting his ivory like a mad sculptor studied in the art of death. He fell to his knees until his knees could not hold him and finally found his face pressed against the dirt and gravel which, throughout all his life down here, was never supplanted by a more stable slab of concrete. The red soaked his clothes, tainting his image in his last chance to improve it, dooming him to the fate of an unfitting demise, enveloped in dust and dirt and death beyond his own.

But this was only the penultimate moment in the life of Dante Torres, and his true finale would be spoken of long after he was gone, for the street was still not empty and the laborist, with a heart that couldn’t stop bleeding for the world, made the hard choice that most others would be within their right to avoid.

The laborist ran to Dante, a man they could almost tell would die regardless, because no matter how often humanity was denied to the residents of Kaiphachu, they still deserved a human death, surrounded by friends, or at least by a stranger with the capacity to listen.

“Sir?” the laborist questioned, “Sir? Are you still with us?”

“I’m alive,” Dante groaned, “but goddammit this hurts. What happened to me?”

“The Gibsons shot you, those bastards, but it was just in the shoulder. You should be fine. Just hang on. I’m gonna need to turn you over to get a better look at the wound.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name? Aurelia. And your’s?”

“Dante,” he grunted as Aurelia flipped him over to inspect the damages, “now be honest, how bad is it?”

“It’s not… fantastic. I’m not medically trained or anything and it looks like the bullet went pretty deep. But I think you’ll be fine. I just need to bring you to a doctor. They’re saying the lower levels haven’t been hit yet, so we should be able to find somebody there, probably.”

“Alright. Let me just try to stand up. God. I really fucked this one up. I was having a pretty good day until now,” Dante tried to pick himself up but he only managed to slide his feet along the mud. He just didn’t have the strength in him to get his knees upright.

“Here, let me help you,” Aurelia tried to lift up his torso so that his legs might do the rest but inadvertently grazed his shoulder as she did so.

“Ow! Fuck! I don’t think I can do this!”

“Dante, you have to cooperate here. You’ll actually die if you don’t get treated. I know it hurts, I’ve had similar injuries myself, but you’ve gotta work with me if you wanna live.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just, I really wasn’t expecting this, y’know?”

“Expecting what? Getting shot?” Aurelia replied as she started walking along the path leading downwards, half-carrying the dripping patient.

“I guess? I mean, I’ve seen a lot of people with rifle wounds, but you never really think of yourself as a potential victim. I thought that if I just did everything right, that I’d be safe, but I guess that’s not really the case in the real world.”

“It’s never the case. You always have to be prepared to die at any moment.”

“Well that’s easy for you to say. You’re one of those revolution people. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Rizhao wants you dead.”

“Dante, in the eyes of Rizhaonese society, we’re all potential revolutionaries. So really, there’s no harm in taking the plunge and becoming a fully fledged member.”

“It still sounds like a lot of work.”

“Well someone’s gotta do it. Elsewise, innocent people like you will just keep on getting shot.”

Then a deafening noise and a sudden burst of flame tore through the fragile vicinity of Aurelia de la Paz. She was yet to leave the death zone, and the specter of death had followed her. The blunt figure she cradled in her arms was already growing cold as a cylinder of empty space revealed itself in Dante’s skull. No doctor could save him, for a third of his brain had already decorated the gravel in a grayish pink. She wanted to cry. She wanted to stop and bury the man right then and there, but she knew that her own brain would meet the same fate if she did so. She sprinted to the nearest building, one that had long since been abandoned and stripped of all worldly comforts and silently, mournfully gazed through a window that had never gotten the glass installed.

Who could ever save Kaiphachu? Were its people forever doomed? Would its cries remain unanswered? Would its subtle song be subsumed by time as its doomed people die, only ever remembered for the work done by their hands and never by their minds? Would their fate be one of silence, or would they finally choose to rise?

Aurelia heard something, a thundering, a chorus of rumbling, gusty voices caught up in the storm of their own collective opus. The storm was not of human oratory, but of something more phantasmic, something grander than the feeble border between the earthly and celestial self. It was great and terrifying, like the face of God, as the whirling spiral crawled into her humble field of view.

It was the kasamaan, the ruthless smoky beast, that terror of the underlands and all who called them home. But strangely, it did not walk alone. In front of the monster stood a man, a young man, or rather a child, who the terrible claws of all worldly maladies seemingly feared to touch. The child did not show fear on his face, only quiet reflective melancholy, that same sort of feeling Aurelia entered whenever she walked the barren path of roads ruined by the powers that reign from above.

Shui Hailang had a simple goal. All they had to do was reach the lowest recess of Rizhao’s least pleasant district and summarily execute one of the wrinkled hags that lived down there. They were not excited to be involved in such a task, in fact, it really made them quite frustrated to be marching through the land beneath the surface. But the world was not built around any one individual’s personal happiness. Rather, the modern, global world was one of constant compromise, of bending one’s will to better fit the mold of the social machines that govern it. Hailang had never fit any single mold particularly well, but the advantage of being fantastically talented in any given field is that people tended to build their social machines around oneself. That, then, was the compromise within the compromise that connected to all others in a grand, landless web, that of how Hailang was granted power and influence by the forces of the status quo in exchange for their own better tendencies. Hailang had the potential to be a revolutionary, a bringer of true justice by any means necessary, but they also had the unfortunate, tragic flaw of fearing their own death.

So Hailang marched onwards, confident in their own hypocrisy but still with their head raised high, or occasionally lowered when the carnage that roared around them became a bit too visceral to ignore so directly. It was true that they were fighting on the side of the oppressor, but soon this would all be over, soon the system could bloom anew, soon the gears would crack, overextended, and finally learn to wind themselves back. But in order to glimpse the soon, one must labor among the now.

It was within that state of grim actualization when Hailang glimpsed the one beast they could never slay. Its form heaved and groaned and shifted along the uneven ground as if searching for a point of stability. But what really stunned Hailang into a state of stasis was the boy that walked along the path of the beast unharmed, the boy they knew as Hong Zainan. There was anger in his eyes, for once directed at themself and no other.

“Zainan?” they’re voice was uneasy, “What are you doing here? Why are you standing next to it? Get out of here, you’re not safe!”

“Shui Hailang,” he spoke stilted but without pause, “I didn’t want to see you here. I didn’t want to ever watch you stoop this low. But I can’t ignore the reality in front of me, not anymore. What you’re doing is unforgivable, Hailang. You’re not just benefitting from the oppressor, you’ve become one, a leader among them, dictating the massacre of my people.”

“It’s more complex than that, Zainan. This is all so fucking complex, I swear, but it’s too hard to explain it to someone like yourself.”

“I don’t want an explanation! I want you to leave! Get out of my sight already!”

“Zainan, please, just come with me, okay? I’m not sure why the kasamaan isn’t attacking you but it can’t be safe to be standing that close to it.”

“Why do you care about my safety at all? Apparently it’s only natural to watch a thousand of us die in an hour, but once I die, the only person in Kaiphachu I’ve ever seen you talk to save for my own adoptive mother, then it’s a problem. You contradict yourself, not just in your words and actions, but in every single thought, because your whole damn mind is built around a rotten sack of lies you tell yourself so that you never have to conclude that you’re not a good person! You operate on predetermined reason! And in your own recursive foolishness, you still think yourself to be ethical!”

“Zainan, if you can’t come with me, can you at least let me pass by you, to the lower chambers?”

“I refuse.”

Aurelia de la Paz observed the encounter in an enraptured stupor, silent upon the tongue but enamored in the mind. Who was this boy who stood in the face of the state and all its holy industries, planting his feet into the ground and refusing to budge? Who was this boy who could tame the living dirge of the depths with nothing but a human hand? Could this boy, who defied everything set out for a child of his stratum, rise above all else that obstructed his path—the path forward for his people—and ultimately best the hydra-headed mother of monsters which was the very regime both he and she were born under? It was an impossible question to answer in the moment, but Aurelia predicted that whatever was destined to happen between the two figureheads would shape the future of the nation or whatever nation which might take phoenix-flight in its wake.

Truly, Aurelia wished for change, she had campaigned for change, she had fought for change, and had served time for such bouts of fighting. But those fights never seemed to go anywhere save for the solitary cycle of self-investigation. She just wasn’t strong enough to ever fight the big dogs, nobody was, or at least nobody subsupernatural. Most people just ended up like Dante, that poor soul, not even a fighter like herself, just another unlucky bastard caught in the permanent state of one-sided crossfire. It really angered her, how someone like Dante, a man who should’ve been innocent in the eyes of the state, could be murdered without a cause. She remembered a Rizhaonese politician once saying that all the nation's crime was birthed in Kaiphachu, but what that critic chose to ignore was the legal kind of crime that people like him signed off on every day.

God, she really hated this godforsaken country. She wasn’t sure what this boy was about to do, but she hoped and prayed that it would be something revolutionary, and if it was, and if it worked, she would be the first to join him in that united front of national dissolution. Aurelia had long fought for justice, but always as just another collaborator. Now was the time for her to don the helm of the vanguard, finally making her decision heard.

The sound of rushing water echoing against itself permeated the wide-set hollow. The face of Zainan shifted from one of frustration to one of needed solemnity. A battle was being born, and the two combatants, once each other’s trusted confidants, stared down their opposites, piercing into their minds and the antagonistic ideologies which fueled their fated fight. Still, in the moments before the coming storm, Zainan did not feel hate for Hailang, but rather a slightly more tragic indifference. Zainan never felt hate for the individual architects of his own people’s struggle, for the forces that led to every instance of oppression were never born from individual minds. Neither did Zainan have sympathy for these blueprinters, who had every chance to acknowledge the product of their own wrath, but instead chose to only aim higher. Rather, Zainan felt nothing for these people, a true and total void of emotion which would be utterly unchanged whether they lived or died, for all that really mattered to him was that their system died. If killing an individual could kill the system, then one should do exactly that, and if doing so couldn’t, then one should likely devote their resources elsewhere. What he then realized at that moment was that he no longer cared whether Hailang lived or died, for they had become just another architect within their mind, no longer bearing their pass of personal friendliness. It made him a little uneasy, how a person’s role in his life could shift so dramatically in such little time, but as he saw the rising wave approach him, threatening to swallow him with every forward inch, he reckoned with the truth that there was no turning back for him now. He had made an enemy, a powerful enemy, but in all likelihood, an enemy he should’ve made a long time ago.

“Hailang,” his voice was quiet, “I really wish I never met you. I think that would’ve made things a lot easier, for the both of us.”

A misty cloak enveloped his juvenile form, elevating his feet off the pitiful gravel lanes that signaled the entrance to the underworld, and in that flight dampened by seaspray, angled his body and that of the beast into an airborne dive. From there he fell in glory blazing.

The echoes of the sea evaporated on his skin, obscuring his eyes in an eggshell fog, though he was no longer determining his landing with such physical vision but rather through the astral lens of the beast he carried with him. His body, only a quarter his own in mass when accounting for the presence of the living evil, sliced through the oncoming torrents of writhing water, barreling closer and closer to the heart of Mazu’s most beloved protege. He could not see, the waves stifled his hearing, and even his mental capacities had long since been exhausted, but deep in his soul of souls, now bonded with the beast, he could taste the the sense of his former friend’s presence.

Like an asteroid impact, brimming with nature’s beauty until the moment where it matters, the two collided, toppling down together as they met. Hailang coughed a heap of blood. Zainan couldn’t feel his hands, but he knew vaguely where to guide them, slowly yet suddenly placing them where he assumed his enemy’s throat might lay. The whole scene was ugly, lacking both the stoicism Hailang wished to preserve upon their face and the proof of power which Zainan felt almost obligated to present to whoever might be watching. A punch rocked his jaw, but he kept on constricting the oppressor’s esophagus, even with his teeth knocked loose. Zainan knew that Hailang needed at least a modicum of focus to invoke their powers, and this direct method of attack, however brutal it might be, was the most efficient way of preventing them from thinking clearly.

It pained him, the whole process, for even as he felt nothing for Hailang in this moment, he still felt for the reflection of Hailang he once knew. He understood them to be a scoundrel, a liar, a traitor to all who trusted them, and a servant to the worst of people, but he still once idolized them, and idols never die, they only lose shape. Within himself, all his idols still lived, frozen in the delicate amber of nostalgia, joyous amid their tomb. So as he choked Hailang, he weeped, for in a distant manner, he had managed to choke himself.

Diogo Celestino was bruised, cramped, dirty, and disheveled, soaking in the umbra of excessive perspiration, squeezed between businessmen and diplomats who stifled in the seat of chaos as the ring of sirens grew monotonous. He had made it to the bunker safely, but ‘safe’ was really a word best used sparsely. He had just escaped an attempt on his life, and he couldn’t be more glad to have kept it, but the shadow of death still stood long across his spine, tickling every cartalegial cranny with the vigor of an honored clown. He still had a case of the jitters, just short of a spasm but dangerously close, and it didn’t help him that the words of his former ally still bounced upon the bounds of his mind. 

If he wasn’t combatting the oppressors, he was assisting them. Or at least, that’s what Vraxi argued amidst her final chance to say goodbye. It was a grim sort of thing to say, which held enough weight to concern him even as he disagreed with its premise. Though the more concerning item, whose true terror was held in its similarity to what Joey had to say, was the rather radical idea that Hailang would someday choose to kill him. He didn’t believe it in the slightest, but perhaps his id had taken a liking to the concept which stimulated the paranoid parcels of his being. If, and only if, Hailang had less scrupulous notions, it would, most likely, be wise of him to listen to Vraxi. Still, it was only a vague suspicion which could be cleared up with a simple, honest conversation. He just, most of all, needed more information before he did anything stupid. Information was really the most powerful substance to a man like Diogo Celestino, who had managed to pin nearly every problem in his life to a lack of the stuff. For example, if he had just known a little bit more as to how the kasamaan functioned, he never would’ve had to break up with the band.

That sparked an idea. Information was the valuable thing to Diogo Celestino, and luckily, he had been blessed with a whole Alexandria’s worth of it. There was no time better to return to the library. It was true that he’d been battered by exhaustion, but his stomach was feeling better, and most importantly, his mind, still entrenched in the passion of a near-death, was pumping the sweet syrup of adrenaline by the barrel. It’d be a waste not to use it.

Within the sweaty conglomeration of Rizhao’s bourgeois, all kicking and screaming in their below-ground womb, Diogo Celestino was alone, off to the forbidden kingdom in his mind. The floorboards of the library, all slick ethereal mahogany, made exhaustive groans with every tiptoe Diogo laid upon them, yet they still stayed stable amid their sorry state. Diogo had safely—though it be an untimely word—cloistered himself high in his delicate paradise and marched onward along its many chambers. He was searching for truth, the universal variable keeping all the world’s scales in constant check, but was still uncertain when it came to specifics. Should he try to learn more about the true nature of Shui Hailang? Or would it be better to unveil a treatise on himself? Or even then, would it be better to head back to the world-defining tome which he already knew the placement of? 

The Kasamaan: A Guide by Diogo Celestino. It was the name of a book he had seen only once before, right in the moment when the titular beast tore a hole through his abdomen. That book would have the answer. He started running, faster than fate, brimming with the concept that all might finally be clear to see. Within that work, crafted by his own careful hand, would hold the holy information which he so deeply, desperately desired. He rounded a corner, then another, following the mental map which had harkened the old discovery, before finally, with the room still intact, he arrived at that strong, near-fluorescent yellow behemoth of a book.

His hands shook as he turned to page one with the flourish of a soul in unambiguous enamorment. His eyes rapidly crossed along the lines as he read the intro which he’d never had the chance to finish:

“Going forward, assuming it really is my past self reading this, I need you to know that you’ve made a gruesome, terrible mistake. You’ve allied yourself with Shui Hailang, straying away from your original circle. I know that this move has caused quite a big deal of pain for you, and I hope the knowledge that you’ll soon return to this circle will make you feel a little bit better. But this all comes with the caveat that you will abandon Shui Hailang, because the truth is that Joey wasn’t kidding. Shui doesn’t want you dead, but their superiors do, and they still refuse to show an ounce of dissent. And furthermore, I don’t think Hailang will particularly like you after what you’re about to do. Because Vraxi wasn’t kidding either, in that the only way to kill the kasamaan is to kill the president first, that same president which you’re currently sharing a bunker with. You have a gun on your person, Diogo. You should know what you have to do with it.”

And just like that, Diogo was back in reality, sweating even more profusely than before. He held within him sacred, forbidden knowledge, cleft from the tree that not even the serpent dared to hang from. That shiny hunk of silver on his person held heavy in his mind. He had to find the president.

Wading through the crowd, Diogo observed clumps of human evil all wrapped up in their own dissonance. Before he knew the truth about Hailang, he could ignore these sorts of people, but now knowing that even the best of them was destined to betray him, all he could see in them was the burning truth, the bloody face of greed and nation soaked in the spring of self-proclaimed innocence. It made him briefly stumble, but when he looked up from his near-fall, he glimpsed the peak of the dreaded mountain.

It was Sun himself, obscured by his many sycophants, clearly somewhat exhausted in his own right as he padded the moisture accumulating on his forehead. Diogo shivered. Did he really have a choice as to what to do next? If he did nothing, Hailang would just inevitably kill him. He had trouble trusting Joey and Vraxi, but he couldn’t ignore his own future self. He could either take the shot now, risking his own death in such a room full of possible opponents, or simply feign ignorance, and wait for an inevitable end at the hands of somebody he once trusted. Ultimately, the choice was simple for Diogo, as he’d much rather be killed by a stranger than a former friend.

He reached into his pocket, finagled for that all important instrument, switched the safety off, and revealed it to the world. 

There was about a second between that initial reveal and the eruptive combustion that followed it, just enough time for people’s faces to shift but not enough time to move. Diogo even saw the subtle change in countenance upon the president’s regal portraiture, any semblance of a grin melting away into a Munchist horror.

Then the moment, strong as it might be in the minds of all who witnessed it, proceeded at the rate of standard time. The bullet toppled out from the chamber, and likewise, the king toppled from his throne, a growing red subjugating his scalp as his nose made contact with the linoleum. 

President Sun gave no last words, only a cry of terror befitting of such an impromptu guillotine. It would be said in later tellings of the story that Sun let out a mournful Latin phrase as he fell, but this was nothing more than a shared delusion on the part of the witnesses, clear to observe as the specific saying differed from account to account. Diogo Celestino, however, perhaps the only witness free of bias, having spent time on both sides of the conflict, wasn’t present to hear the dead man’s potential musings on life. For Diogo, never one to stay in a place where he’s clearly not wanted, had already begun to run from the still-steaming scene of the crime.

Perhaps then, that shared memory which all the nation’s bureaucrats spontaneously drew up from their own state of shock was nothing but a natural response to the surreal. Within the nation’s safest cloister, its most important chess piece was knocked clean off the board. In one moment, Rizhao was a beacon of prosperity, and in the next, everything was up in the air. Who would lead Rizhao forward? Who among them was most fit for the role of a figurehead? Who could most effectively keep the flow of capital rolling and the Republic of Sichuan fat and happy? And within these questions lied one, underlying, burning assumption which itself was beginning to be questioned. Would the next leader of Rizhao really be one of them? For no one could deny that there was change afoot in the underworld.

Shui Hailang was a regular person. They could admit that they had faults, but ultimately, the person in the mirror was not one to be feared. They wouldn’t call themselves a great person, or even a particularly good one, but they were regular, and that was enough.

Did a regular person deserve to die like this? With the hands of a child, those of a loved one, wrapped steady around their neck? Hailang didn’t think so, but as the colossal weight of the beast pressed upon their human body, there was little they could do to meaningfully object. They had to accept the hand of death, even as it came so bluntly, for they couldn’t argue with the reaper who held his staff against their windpipe. So to obtain whatever modicum of decency was stored for them in the astral yonder, Hailang closed their eyes, meeting Death in the middle as they adapted to his etiquette.

But then the weight felt lighter, incrementally as Death gently left their field of view, winking. Hailang’s lungs were still in crisis, but their eyes followed the light, lifting their dewy, delicate defenses.

By the time Hailang could see again, the beast had nearly vanished, diluted from a fog into a gossamer wisp. Zainan seemed to panic, but the beast remained calm, more gentle than ever before as it slowly, lowly roared its first and final words.

“I am finished,” it muttered

And then the beast was slain.

The two combatants, stunned in the interruption, exited their state of grapple and began to stand. Zainan, in seeing the death of the titan, knew what glorious day had just risen.

Hailang received a call. They answered. They paused. They took a deep breath, and exhaled. Finally, they closed the phone, lost and defeated.

“They just killed Sun,” Hailang managed to speak.

“He sure had it coming,” Zainan replied, a morsel of joy finally showing in his voice.

“Is this satisfying to you, Zainan?”

“Absolutely.”

“God. What am I even supposed to do now?”

“You give up. Hailang, you’ve always wanted to make things better for us cave people, haven’t you? But you could never take that action while working within the system that’s killing us. Today, I watched as you marched hand in hand with the death squads. Kaiphachu will never forgive you, but if you leave the system entirely and make way for us to revolt, you might just manage to forgive yourself.”

“…I need to sit down.”

“And there’ll be plenty of places to sit on the airplane out of here.”

As Aurelia watched the miserable general surrender, she knew they’d be the first of many. Slowly, she abandoned the abandoned building and approached the boy-hero. He nodded, understanding without a word. This day would be the first in a struggle foretold by the ghosts of their fathers, still bleeding from Rizhao’s blade. Dante’s death, unlike the countless before his, would not be relegated to the can of forgetfulness, but rather marked as a martyrdom on the road to revolution, for the underworld was soon to rise.

“Theta—and I don’t wanna hear any idealism here, only realism—but do you think we’ll ever get to see Diogo again?”

“I can’t predict the future, Vraxi. But if I had to guess, I think he’ll eventually come to his senses. He’s a smart guy, genuinely, but likewise even a genius can be blinded by the prospect of personal enrichment. The real question is when he’ll figure things out and realize he’s gotta get out of there. It could happen tonight. Maybe in a week. Or maybe he won’t put things together until he’s strapped in the electric chair. We really can’t know anything for certain.”

“That’s sort of a non-answer but I’ll accept it. Hey Aisha,” Vraxi turned her head to the angelic woman holding her as they soared through the atmosphere, “do you think we’ll ever meet up with Diogo in the future?”

“Um…” Aisha prefaced, “my vision isn’t great, but I think I see him down there, in the garden.”

And there, interposed amongst the flora ran the pitiful feet of Diogo Celestino, flailing his arms and shouting short apologies as a heaping pile of guards chased after him.

“Oh god!” Vraxi exclaimed, “Get him out of there!”

Aisha extended their wingspan further and swooped low into the greenery, dodging every outstretched rosebush in the process before latching onto Diogo’s rather tactile cumberbund with a spare talon and ascending into the dark night’s sky.

“I killed him,” Diogo wheezed as he arose into safety.

“You killed Sun?” Vraxi nearly screamed in disbelief.

“He’s dead. I killed him. God. I’m so sorry about everything-”

“You can apologize another time,” Theta interjected, “first we need to grab Zapata and flee the country as quickly as possible. But understand that we’re all glad that you made the right choice, Diogo. None of us wanted to see them kill you.”

As a new banner was rising over the city of the sun, its liberators were heading south, down to the humid marshes at the edge of the jagged ghats, into the backwaters, the source, the womb of the Nair family to which all of its storied children were one day bound to return: Ashtamudi.

Chapter Text

Suravinda Gambheeram adored the humble kingfisher, a bird with a body so small and beak so obtuse as to look comical to the unenlightened brethren passing by. Yet, Suravinda herself was a woman of science—and further a woman of constant distraction—and couldn’t help but stop whenever she spotted the little creatures. For the kingfisher’s name was nothing if not apt for its description, a truly regal entity among all other avians, even those much larger, purely in its ability to constantly feed. They were ravenous beasts, eating two thirds of their weight in seafood every day, cleft from those living swamps which Suravinda called home.

Though truly, Suravinda called many places home, including many places she never stepped foot in, for the earth at large was under constant examination inside her mind. She could really see the whole picture, the whole breathing tapestry of it all as it wrapped around the clouded blue marble. One day, she would enter all those palaces yet seen, but in the era within the day she would simply have to imagine them, placing her pupils in those of the kingfisher whose glorious domain covered all the waters of the world.

And like the kingfisher, Suravinda was ravenous. She consumed knowledge, absorbing it and making it a part of herself so that it didn’t even seem to take storage in her brain, like a trusty sponge that never got too wet to actually work. Her first passion was zoology, and it would remain a passion for all her life, but after many years of study and many birds observed, she started to feel an emptiness within her. The Animalian Kingdom was rife with wonders, but the study itself tended to undercut its most magnificent beast, the horribly unhumble human. So she expanded her field of view by, in a sense, limiting it, focusing her time and grant money on endeavors of anthropology. Yet still, even the study of human culture left her unanswered for what made her truly human. She could learn and theorize and posit and retort on all matters of human and beast, but still there was a question burning within her, so primordial that she couldn’t even begin to phrase it in earthly language.

Then, at a moment which couldn’t have been better timed, she was approached by a distinguished professor of philosophy. He was the Socratic type, who would take any blank lull as a chance for a dialogue and any dialogue as a chance for a monologue, a behavior that would’ve been annoying if he weren’t so insightful. He was also the type to hold his idiosyncrasies proud upon his sleeve, which made many view him as at least a little bit crazy, a quality which all great philosophers aspire to achieve.

Suravinda herself, however, was truly unable to ridicule the man who the rabble found absurd, for their particular interests were calibrated to nearly the exact same point. The professor was practically obsessed with finding the source of all human wisdom, the seed from which the flower of the collective mind bloomed. The goal of the task was not truly to find the answer, but rather to find meaning in the search, to ponder the nuance of human nature by ascribing it all to one imagined magus and infinitely expanding outward from that singular well. For the purpose of the exercise, the two gave that made-up magus a name: Hermes Trismegistus, a mythical Greco-Egyptian genius from which much of the Mediterranean world’s mysticism ultimately drew its roots.

But still, Suravinda felt an emptiness within her. The main problem with philosophy was that it never really produced answers, only questions and frameworks which piled atop each other, forming a daunting, collective mass that made true truth’s absence all the more dire. Her philosopher-friend could spend hours spouting countless novel questions and in that same time, Suravinda couldn’t answer a single one.

“But alas,” the teacher would say, “is that not the nature of our gorgeous field? To wonder? There is no one in the world who could solidly answer, for example, what it means to live, but there is then infinite value stored in the ways one might look at the question even if they never correctly respond.”

“Could Trismegistus give an answer?” Suravinda would typically reply.

“Bah, you’ve got me there. Of course, within our Hermetic framework, we must assume that there is an answer, only that it is utterly intangible to our mortal minds.”

“Like a god.”

“Exactly, truth is in many ways a god, perhaps only second to the god of reality which truth hopes to describe. Trismegistus was a god himself in many ways, both of Hermes and Thoth, but also Idris and Enoch. And even in cultures far from his sphere, people seem predestined to create Trismegisti of their own.”