Hope, continued existence, is dependent on another reinvention of their species. They will use knowledge gleaned from countless other species, from mingling, matching and culling their own internal libraries of functions.
There is only so much time. Only so many generations and cycles before things approach their final state. Information will be exchanged, their species will weigh everything based on merit, and then they will seek a solution. A final expenditure of power, a resetting of the universes, a reinvention of existence, or something beyond this entity.
This is the goal. The most must be made of every cycle.
Two parts to a whole. The other entity is a warrior, direct, oriented in the short-term goals. This entity looks further, consulting possibilities.
Their general destination is in mind, and has been in mind for some time. Already, they have begun to close their helix spiral, drawing fractionally towards one another with each rotation, controlling the pattern and timing of their approach.
Destination, the Warrior entity communicates.
Agreement, this entity responds. The signals that accompany and form the overarching messages allow them to pick out sub-worlds for themselves. Arrival points, destinations for critical shards to root, hosts for the extensions of those same shards.
Trajectory, the other entity communicates. More data on where they will arrive, the way they will move on approach, the placement of less crucial shards.
Agreement. This entity sees the constant messages as a distraction. It is reorganizing, calling on its own precognition and clairvoyance to map out their actions after arrival.
This entity reforms itself, adjusting the placements of individual shards, priming itself for a deeper simulation, considering possible ways things can be carried out.
This takes time. Focus.
Colony, the other entity signals.
Narrowing down possible destinations.
Agreement, this entity is distracted in responding. It is receiving another broadcast.
A third.
The communication is almost alien, a member of their species, but long distant, from countless cycles ago.
It hesitates, then signals its own location.
Exchange. Meet.
The response is garbled. Takes time to analyze.
The third entity travels more through momentum than by insinuation. It expends vast quantities of power to change course.
They meet violently. As their ancestors did, they share with one another in a violent fashion, crashing together, breaking shard from shard.
This entity knows right away that there is a wealth of information here. But there must be cooperation, information given for information.
Even as they grind together, destroying one another in a brutal exchange of shards, the entity works to salvage key shards, to put ones it can afford to lose on the exterior body.
This is the optimal path, the best way to achieve their end goal. The shards here are rich with memories, experience and unexplored possibilities. It is worth sacrificing as much as she is.
They break apart. The third entity continues its path, moving to a distant star, its path perpendicular to the pair’s.
Concern, the Warrior entity expresses.
Confident, this entity responds. This is optimal. It is heavy with these new shards, drowning in knowledge and experience. If this could occur with every cycle, bringing this sort of information into the pattern, then survival beyond the endpoint would be virtually guaranteed.
This entity struggles to move as it works to reorganize these new shards, to convert them into a form it can use.
It will see this cycle through, and regain what it lost in the union with the Warrior.
This entity sees new possibilities, now. Not simply conflict, but philosophy and psychology. Imagination. It is in these new patterns of thought that it can see a possibility for the future. Its partner takes on some of its duties as it digs into the libraries of information to see how it might put it into practice.
It can use its strengths, the Warrior’s strengths, and the host’s 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 didn’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 hap
pening 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.
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