by wildbow
It can use its strengths, the Warrior’s strengths, and the hosts’ natures to explore new ideas and tactics for approaching the endpoint.
Already, this entity is forming a model, a simulacrum of the host species, mapping out how things might unfold. While the Warrior is preparing to shed its shards and litter the world, this entity is plotting a strategic approach.
It cannot make out what form it or the other entity will take, but it can still view the situation in part. It sets the criteria for an optimal future, for optimal study, and then it looks to a future that matches this criteria.
* * *
“Thank you for coming,” Partisan said.
The entity nodded. Its expression was stern.
Partisan touched his computer terminal. Monitors lit up, showing a series of images.
A figure, fifteen feet tall, pale, with a lion’s head, a mane of crystal. Muscular, brutish, it was perched on a massive floating crystal, with more crystals floating about it. Here and there, the crystals touched ground. They turned what they touched into more crystal, which soon uprooted themselves to join the storm around it.
A woman, even more brutish in appearance, had a reptilian lower body. Steam rolled off her in billowing clouds, taking uncanny forms as it coiled and expanded through the area. Faces, reaching claws and more.
And on the third monitor, flecked by static, was a naked man, beautiful and long-haired, his face touched with a macabre grin. He perched on top of an ocean wave that was frozen in place, his body too flexible, moving with the wind as though he were light enough to be carried away.
“They’ve released three more of the superweapons,” Partisan said. “But of course, you know this.”
“I do,” the entity responds.
“This makes nine. Four are at the Divide. We’ve got one to the far north, poised to flank us. Four more spread out over the world.”
“Maybe more we don’t know about,” Arsenal speaks.
A power the entity held in reserve identified something wrong. The entity turned and looked at its partner, standing slightly behind it, taciturn and silent. They exchanged the smallest of broadcasts.
A consensus was reached between them. Arsenal knew something about the superweapons, or he suspected strongly enough for it to matter.
“What is it?” Clarent asked.
The entity responded, feigning emotion, “…There are eleven more.”
It could see the reaction among the gathered heroes of the Wardens. Fear, alarm, a kind of dawning horror.
For Arsenal, though, there was another reaction. He was upset, yes, but was a little relieved at the same time. He knew about the others, and he had been testing them, to see if they would lie.
But suspicions remained.
“Eleven?” Partisan asked.
“Stationed around the world, at the borders of the stronger nations,” the entity informed the Wardens. “Like yours, they’re remaining more or less stationary, only attacking when they see weakness.”
“And you believe it is the Shepherds who are responsible?”
The entity shook its head. “I can’t know. You’ve seen for yourself, the powerful blocks they’ve put in place against powers. But enough clues point to the Shepherds.”
The expressions of the three men are grim. The other heroes, at the edges of the room, seem equally concerned. A woman with a great cannon that constantly changes, expanding and contracting like a living thing. A hulk of a man, laden with muscle, was muttering something to people around him.
“If this goes any further, we’ll be forced to submit to these terror tactics,” Partisan said. “I don’t like to say it, but…”
“War,” Arsenal said. “It’s our only option.”
“I don’t like war,” the woman with the gun said. “It’ll cause as many problems as it fixes, and with stakes this high, that’s a lot of new problems.”
“Doing nothing is just as dangerous,” Arsenal said.
“I’m not so sure.”
“We know they’re projections,” Arsenal said, his eyes on the monitors. “Someone or something is projecting them. We cut off the head, the superweapons fall.”
“Yes,” the entity agreed. It didn’t miss the curious glance Arsenal gave it.
“We’ll need your help,” Partisan said.
“You’ll have it,” the entity said. “But there are other places needing our help, too. Against these, and against other things. Some are in the middle of full-scale wars as I speak. We’ll assist you, we’ll stop these superweapons—”
“If these ones can be stopped,” Partisan said.
“…If they can be stopped. That touches on my next point. You’ll need to do as much damage as you can, give it your all. We’ll be arriving late, and if they’re strong…”
The entity trailed off. It could see Arsenal’s suspicions growing deeper.
“You have your hands full,” Clarent said.
The entity nodded. It feigned a moment of weariness, assuring these individuals it was merely human.
“Thank you,” Partisan said. He extended a hand.
The entity roused itself from the mock-exhaustion, straightening, and shook the hand.
“We need to go,” the entity said.
“Before you do,” Partisan said. He reached into his belt and withdrew a small device. “Here. It has good days and bad, but on a good day, we get a range of about a thousand miles, which is maybe four or five times the usual. With luck, we’ll be able to tune it and cut through the blackout effect. Get international communications going again.”
“Arsenal’s work?” the entity asked, though it already knew. It could trace the design to the memories in Arsenal’s shard.
“Arsenal and Richter,” Partisan said.
The entity nodded. It had no pockets, so it held the device in one hand.
“Good luck,” Partisan said. “Whoever you’re helping.”
The entity’s expression remained grave. “I should be wishing you luck. If you succeed here, you’ll be saving a lot of people. Here and elsewhere.”
“Easy to forget elsewhere exists,” Clarent said.
“We defend our borders, keep the peace within, and we hold out,” Partisan said. “It’s all we can do. We have enough powers that get stronger over time, yours included. We have Richter, too, we just need the resources. Things will get better.”
Clarent nodded. Arsenal clapped a hand on Clarent’s shoulder.
The three tapped the ends of their weapons together. Partisan’s heavy spear, Arsenal’s guisarme and Clarent’s longsword. Then they parted ways, attending to their individual groups and squads.
But Arsenal watched out of the corner of his eye, tracking the entity and the Warrior as they approached, walking towards the room’s exit.
The woman with the gun made her way to Partisan’s side. She whispered, but the entity could hear it, as it heard all things in the vicinity. “War?”
“We’ll need our Black Knight, Hannah,” Partisan said. “We bait them into a fight, then sic him on them. He’ll be able to win as long as it’s parahumans he’s fighting. Colin’s squad flanks and infiltrates, my squad scouts and Clarent maintains a defensive line.”
“And if these superweapons attack while our forces are elsewhere?”
“They aren’t attacking. They’re just… there.”
“But if they do attack? If they’re there for this exact eventuality?” the gunwoman asked.
“We’ll push on, striking for the Shepherd’s headquarters, and the rest hold out.”
“It’s reckless.”
“It’s the only option. We’ve got two of the strongest parahumans around on our side,” Partisan said, his voice a little louder. He glanced at the entity and the Warrior.
The entity glanced his way, acknowledging him. Its focus, however, was on Arsenal. Hearing Partisan’s words, Arsenal’s suspicions had reached a climax. He would say something.
That is, he would, if the entity d
idn’t intervene. The entity passed by him, and it leveraged a power. Wiping a memory, setting a block in place. The same blocks that prevented accord between the Wardens and the Shepherds. The same blocks that prevented Partisan’s special sight from seeing the entity’s power at work.
With that, the task was done. The entity stepped out onto the balcony, then took flight, the Warrior flying behind it.
* * *
Destination, the Warrior entity broadcasts the idea, interrupting the simulation.
Agreement, the entity absently responds.
An optimal future. It is an unwieldy future because it gave up a part of its ability to see the future to the other being. There are holes, because this entity does not fully understand the details of what happened, and because this entity’s future-sight power is damaged. Above all else, it is an incomplete future because this entity has only the most minimal role in things, and the shards it saw were all the Warrior’s.
The fact that it did not is a part of that future. This entity will arrive at the destination, and it will deploy shards to complicate a situation and break stalemates. Losing sides will be granted reinforcements through maturing shards. A different sort of engagement, a different way of testing the shards.
This entity continues focusing on converting, translating and relocating the shards. It is frail, fragile.
Hive, the Warrior broadcasts. A set world, with a set population density and degree of conflict.
But this entity has already decided on that world, seen it in a future. It responds without consideration. Agreement.
They are more engaged now, as they close the distance. They negotiate who can place shards where, and this entity now holds its shards in reserve.
The Warrior is focusing on refining the shards, and this entity is, in turn, focused on refining the future. A set goal, a reality.
Too complex to convey to the other.
The communications continue, and they approach the galaxy. This entity begins altering its own powers, but it is not a great concern.
The gravity of the planetary bodies pull at it. It loses great clumps of shards.
It loses more. Its focus is now on holding on to the shards critical to making this future it has seen a reality. A world perpetually in conflict, the groups and factions kept small enough that none can challenge it.
All energy it can spare goes towards the reorganization. Shards must be discarded, or it will dwarf the destination planet. It casts shards off, and it retains shards that will allow it to draw power from those shards.
Danger, the Warrior broadcasts.
Confident, this entity responds.
It picks a reality. Up until the moment it hits ground, it works to reorganize itself.
In the doing, it alters one of the third entity’s powers, replacing its own ability to find the optimal future.
In that very instant, it recognizes that it has made a grave error. The simulated world and the glimpse of the optimal future are already gone from its grasp. Too late.
The perspective changes, breaking away, distant, confused, detached. The impact was too hard.
* * *
A girl woke from a dream.
She started to scream, but a man, her uncle, placed a hand over her mouth. It was the hand, as much as the full-body ache she experienced that silenced her.
“Hush,” he said, in their language. “The monstrous ones are out there.”
She nodded, still delirious, lost in the magnitude of what she had seen.
The memories were already slipping away, like sand through her fingers.
Have to remember, she told herself.
The answer snapped into place. A way to remember.
Nine steps, and she could do it. Step one was to avoid thinking of the memories. The moment she acknowledged it, she found herself slipping into a different mindset.
“She is touched,” another man said. One of her uncle’s friends.
She could dimly recall something happening to her parents. A cataclysmic event.
Except she couldn’t allow herself to start remembering.
“She hasn’t changed,” her uncle said.
“We both saw the phantom, the night-thing, leap out at her.”
She needed to dream. The next steps would achieve that.
Step two, standing up.
Step three, a jab of her hand at her uncle’s elbow, to stop him from grabbing her.
Step four, a little push of her foot against the ground, to keep her ankle out of reach of the friend’s clutching hand.
Step five, grabbing the medicine bag from behind her uncle.
Opening it was step six. Walking to the bench was seven.
Her uncle was only getting to his feet now. Every action was mechanical, spelled out by this surety in her mind’s eye, helped along by a complete, exacting knowledge of how and where to move every body part.
Seven involved uncorking the right bottles. Eight involved obtaining a specific amount of powder, moving her hand in a careful, precise way, so the exact right amount piled up in her cupped palm. She dashed it into a half-full mug and drank, just as her uncle reached her, putting his hands on her shoulders, shaking her.
Step nine was to wait for sleep to reach her. She only needed to dream, and she would be able to escape the forgetting.
* * *
When she woke, her body was a ruin, but her mind was clear.
It had started three days ago. This disaster. People becoming monsters. Madness. Others getting sorcerous abilities. Their community had scattered, fleeing to the wilderness in small groups. Any friend or family member could become a beast at a moment’s notice.
Being alone was safest, but being alone meant being in the dark wilderness with the wolves.
It had been a hungry season for the wolves, many sheep dying.
The taste of vomit filled her mouth, but her face was clear. When she moved, her stomach felt like it had been hit with a club.
She turned her attention to the subject. One step to minimize the pain.
Swearing was one of them.
“Wolf-fucking horseballs,” she muttered, groaning as she found her footing.
She remembered, though. She knew what they were up against. This thing, this godling monster, it was going to orchestrate a conflict that spread across an entire world. When it had gathered whatever it was it wanted to, the results of tests, studies and whatever else, it would consume this world, her own, and everything else to spawn the next generation of its kind.
If she had any conception of where to look—
The answer was given to her. A thirty-nine step plan.
She felt a chill.
If I wanted to kill the monsters and save everyone from this madness?
Three hundred and seventy-four steps.
She could see each individual step, looking forward to see what it entailed. She could see it evolve as time passed, accounting for her starting it later.
If I wanted to do both?
Five hundred and thirty-three steps.
“Forta,” her uncle spoke. “You’re awake.”
She spun around.
He kept his distance. “A madness possessed you. Has it passed?”
Had it passed?
Five hundred and fifty-four steps. Why more than before?
She couldn’t bring herself to respond.
“You moved like someone else was inside you. Escaped Ruggero and me like we weren’t even there.”
“I remember,” she said. She remembered so much. She understood it all, and she couldn’t explain it—
Ninety-two steps.
She could explain it. Could she explain it and save everyone? Explain it and find the strange god-beast, and save her hometown from this chaos?
It was possible. It would require two thousand, one hundred and seventy-four different actions. Statements, movements, decisions at precise times.
But she hesitated to carry it out.
There was another q
uestion she had to ask. Like the fable of Luisa and the black-furred man, she had to ask very carefully.
Could she do all this, explain to her uncle, find the thing that was at the heart of this chaos, and save her people, and handle the other essential crises she run into on her way?
No.
A fog was creeping over her eyes, and the number of steps were growing too numerous at the same time. Two differing things, denying her.
The chill and the general sense of unease crystallized with the realization that she’d have to choose between stopping this monster and helping the people she’d grown up with.
“Fortuna, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” her uncle said.
I might have, she thought, without taking her eyes off him.
She shivered, but she steeled herself, picking the path she wanted to take. It was the haze of fog that scared her most. If she chose to do something else, and she lost sight of the path where she could kill the godling…
Her uncle stiffened as she approached, but she laid a hand on his arm. She tugged on his sleeve to get him to bend down, then kissed his cheek.
Saving him?
The answer appeared in her mind. “Go, uncle. Run as far away as you can. Don’t eat or drink anything for three days. It’s all tainted. Poisoned with the same thing that is making people into monsters.”
His eyes widened. “You will come with me.”
She shook her head.
Then she broke into a run.
She could outrun him. She knew. He had a bad leg, and it was worse since he’d had to fight off Ruggero.
Into the hills, up the mountain.
Her body ached, but it was easy. She knew how to move, how to place her feet so the branches didn’t catch on her or trip her, to avoid the patches of lichen which would break away and make her foot slide on the rock beneath.
She knew the most efficient way to climb the rock wall.
She paused to catch her breath, doing her best to ignore the horned man’s corpse at the foot of the wall. He’d tried to escape this way too, but he’d been pulled down or shot when he was partway up.
