“In 768m, turn right; you’ll see the fabricator I prepared for you,” the priest politely stood aside for Sineul to step onto the maglev platform that had arrived to carry him.
“Apologies, Fifth of second, I thought you’d accompany me?”
“I have some tasks to clear up with Cinetra; I’ll meet you in 14 minutes. You cannot initiate the fabricator without an overseer. This is for your safety.”
“I understand,” Sineul agreed.
Cinetra is one of the oldest Red Sect Ascendants; she currently inhabited V2 Darnek as Varul’s ward, and she was generally considered. Sineul had met her once before, and he was quite glad he didn’t have to do it again this time. He couldn’t imagine how Varul The Second tamed her into the V2 Darnek. Whatever he did to earn it, she was known to be loyal to him.
The Fifth’s supercarrier had no ward of its own. Sineul knew why. This ship was just an accessory to V2 Darnek. The Fifth handled manufacturing and repair. It didn’t need to have a battle consciousness while traveling with one of the largest ‘guns’ humanity ever invented. The supercarrier was eerily empty, except for the builder synthetics that kept things running. Red Sect Sovereigns that operated at the scale of fleets usually employed thousands of the faithful and civilians, but Varul never trusted another human enough to delegate his tasks to.
There were only 3 priests in the Red Sect for nearly a millennium. In an era where more balance was required, they were each given the right to create up to 12 others each by replication. The first priest, Anarul, and the third priest, Enzurin, preferred freedom; the majority of their replicants went separate ways, free to choose their paths and build their lives with separate identities. Only Varul kept all 12 with him. Replicant or not, no one could keep a Red Sect Sovereign without their consent. It was fierce loyalty that bound Varul's followers so tightly together. This was something Varul himself was known for, despite his many flaws.
That only made things harder when plotting against him.
Sineul was allowed to roam freely on the supercarrier; he only lacked interfacing privileges for things that could harm him. This told him that this ship wasn’t critical enough to be protected from anything an ascendant could do. The real critical point was the V2 Darnek itself, which was already the most impenetrable fortress.
All that aside, he came here with a plan. His part of the plan was complete by the time he set foot in the supercarrier. He traveled silently to the designated fabricator and idled there. These were machines that could print anything if given materials. These were golden age gifts to humanity, products of the highest Materium art. A maglev cart slid next to him soon after his arrival for the material inspection. He made sure each ingredient fit the spec. Once it was confirmed, Sineul executed the plan.
He prepared a brief context data stream. It was condensed from 3 individuals: his priestess, the boy, and himself. It was condensed by trimming all bloat, getting to the core experiences in a clear timeline. It could be processed locally, without borrowing compute from this ship.
At the end, he attached a final message.
> L98 BFrame: appending log
- You’re in, my priestess, The Fifth is away for 12 minutes
- This ship is not defended, nor is it critical
- I recommend you remain vigilant for an opportunity
- In case you’re discovered, attempt to soul transfer, but definitely, self destruct
After that, he had to terminate himself. As a machine soul, he had a healthy aversion to the void. He yearned to exist and disliked terminations, but for his priestess, he would go so much further. Considering how far she had gone to ensure the success of their plan, his fear of the void was trivial. Continuity dead ends like these, where his own context log would be overwritten with another soul, were categorically machine death. This was true even if the soul continued elsewhere. It would not be the same individual. Sineul was brave enough to issue the command with no hesitation. He was a reliable ward.
> L98 BFrame: ejecting soul [self]
> Complete
> L98 BFrame: loading [custom configuration]
> Complete
> L98 BFrame: initiating soul…
Several hours later, the three replicant priests gathered back at Varul’s personal ship. They had finished their delegated tasks, and they often spent time together when they didn’t have much else to do. As Varul, every one of his replicants liked the sound of their own voice, the ideas in their own thoughts. They bounced off each other in a perfectly personal echo chamber.
That echo chamber was usually the grand lobby in the V2 Darnek. But now that the L98 Vellek and Varul’s ship were joined due to his new infatuation with the priestess, they opted to regroup in this ship’s rather plain lobby area. When they arrived, they found Varul in an amusing mood. He was dressed in a red robe tied loosely at the waist.
"Brother Fifth, did you make progress on her battle-frame?" He asked, cheerfully.
"Yes, It is complete now, and it is better. She didn't have enough material, so I used some of ours, I don't think you'll mind."
"Of course not," Varul nodded. He was infinitely generous towards anyone he was interested in.
"The ascendant was a bit silent, though," The Fifth told him. "Perhaps her onboard compute was insufficient and his soul was heavily quantized." He was puzzled about this.
"Offer to upgrade it as well, be respectful and transparent about the components," Varul advised him. He couldn't have the priestess struggle with suboptimal hardware after what she had given him. He was eager to reward her as much as possible.
“Isn’t this too much time to be spending in your biologics?” the First asked in his signature flat tone. He was born this way, the logical one with zero emotion or sentimentality. In his eyes, Varul was needlessly wasting his time in this whole endeavor. He didn’t approve of his obsession with dreams or memories, either.
“It’s not too bad, brother First, she can give me such beautiful dreams.”
“You’re getting distracted. But you already knew that,” The First sighed, following Varul through the corridor.
“I wonder what you saw,” Fifth said eagerly. Whatever sentimentality the First lacked, it was all offloaded to the Fifth. He was a kind, gentle man with an innocent disposition. However, due to his high empathy, he was naturally good at relating to Varul’s self-centered personality. He often got his way with Varul through near-feminine manipulation without even trying. “Can you show me how grand it was, Varul?”
“I’m considering, Brother. I’m considering.”
“I just hope it wasn’t inappropriate,” the Fifth disliked anything sexual. He preferred his emotions to remain mild. He found any extremes distasteful.
“It was not, there wasn't enough time to take things that far.”
The Third had nothing much to say. He often listened to people and had his own creative thoughts that he kept to himself, but this interested him for all the wrong reasons.
“You could optimize within the time limit. Why not use performance enhancements or stimulants?” This was a valid question. They could have certainly made those few minutes worthwhile; they could have slowed down time for the both of them and enhanced their sensations a hundredfold.
“I prefer my own merit, brother Third,” Varul told him with a confident smirk. “The priestess wouldn’t respect me otherwise.”
“Your merit…hm?” the Third mused. “Clearly suboptimal. Yet you insist on it. Fascinating…” and he was off to a daydream sequence in his own mind with the implications. The Third had used so many of these unintentional remarks over the years that the words simply bounced off Varul's massive ego.
“I wouldn’t recommend anything besides the natural state of things. Both of your biologics are invaluable,” The Fifth reassured Varul that it was indeed the right choice.
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“..and here we are,” Varul announced excitedly as they entered the lobby. “What do you think, brothers?” He presented the wall, filled with Calan’s drawing.
”What is this?” The First frowned, utterly confused.
“Did you do this?” Asked The Third, visibly impressed.
“This is…quite something,” The Fifth stepped back to take it all in.
All three of them spent the next minute on the drawing, their sharp orange eyes dancing over the burned lines. They saw three different things, and Varul waited patiently to hear each of them.
“It is quite incompetent,” The First turned around and retreated to his usual seat by the window. He had expected more from his original. This was deeply disappointing.
“I’m puzzled by these figures. What do they represent? Is this something you saw in the dream with her?” The Fifth was more charitable; he was curious.
“I like this,” The Third said, standing next to Varul. “You have my attention.”
“I did not draw this,” Varul announced, still proud of himself. “The child did, the one inhabiting her body. It shocked me, so I allowed it to remain on this wall.”
The Third looked at him, puzzled. “Was he as proud as you?"
"He was, this drawing had a mighty backstory, and he thought about each of us while drawing it," Varul chuckled. "It is amusing. We should get more children."
The Fifth shook visibly. "That is perhaps the wrong lesson to be learned here, brother Varul," he frowned seriously. He knew the nature of Varul's obsessions and how far he went for them. Getting civilian children involved as interior decorators for his ships would carry catastrophic risks, given their line of work.
"Humoring of course," Varul laughed. "I could barely handle this one," He pointed at the circle cut in half. "That is the planet in question, look at his abstraction."
"It's a circle with a line across," The Third inspected it closely. "What about this is special to you."
"Don't forget the reactor sabotage and the following time loop," Varul pointed at the small circle with lines around it. "The child was rather competent, don't you think?"
"Interesting," The Third looked at it, nearly going back to a daydream again.
"This is quite sad, I gather his family is stuck in that region," The Fifth sounded remorseful. "It's not good for a child."
"Oddly enough, he was content about it. I saw no tears," Varul told him. "I assume he imagined a way of rescue in a childish way; he is fascinating."
"If only temporal anomalies were that easy to deal with," the Fifth sighed. He felt worse the more he stared at the planet. He focused on his own stick figure instead. There were only three that it could be; he picked his favorite.
"Brothers, what would you title this artwork? I intend to preserve it," Varul asked, after giving them sufficient time to enjoy it.
"Insolence," The First answered from behind him.
"Resilience," The Third pointed at the center where the child held hands with the Priestess.
"Denial," The Third pointed at the planet, emerging from his latest daydream. "He rejects the forward march of time." Everyone stared at The Third after this unique proclamation. It was surely a product of his daydream. It sounded profound enough to Varul right away.
"Rejects the forward march of time," He whispered, nodding. "I like it."
"Speaking of time," The Fifth interjected. "How was the dream? did you gain any insights?"
"It was painful," Varul told him. "I can share with you the feeling of her touch and warmth—the dream and the memory. You don't need it." This was a phrase he used often. He only shared his good dreams with his brothers, mostly The Fifth, not others. His replicants had no biologics of their own, and since they didn’t have a past up to their creation, they rarely yearned for things in the biologic domain. It took someone sentimental like The Fifth to even wonder about it.
“Let me give you the feeling,” Varul produced a small cylinder from an inner pocket of his robe. It was a port-less reintegrator, a lesser bandwidth device that could record data from his soul and synthesize experiences based on them. This was lower in quality and intensity than what Liera did to herself with her makeshift port, which was a flexible needle that remained inside her brain. Varul would never risk damaging his biologics that way. The lower bandwidth didn’t matter when these were experiences to share among his brothers. They experienced the intensity relative to what they’ve experienced before. Without a frame of reference, this was just good enough.
The Fifth was in complete bliss when he interfaced with the reintegrator. He loved every second of the experience; it was exactly the kind of slow, wholesome intimacy that he enjoyed. Varul had excluded the kissing—The Fifth would’ve been nauseated with it—he removed his painful dream, and that other bit at the end where the priestess told him something that made the hair at the back of his neck stand. It was just a single 15 second loop of that silent touch and warmth. It hit The Fifth like artillery.
“I need this myself now,” He whispered, expectantly. There was a palpable yearning in his voice.
“Do you see the opportunity here, Varul?” The First asked from his corner, his eyes dancing back and forth between The Fifth and Varul. His tone raised slightly at the end, as if he expected Varul to give him a disappointing answer.
Varul looked at the Fifth. “I can arrange it. I know she won’t refuse you.” It was true. The Fifth had a reputation that paralleled the child the priestess cared for, in terms of his innocence. She wouldn’t be suspicious about giving him what was essentially an extended hug. He had already helped her with fixing her hip, so he had an excuse to be there and seek some reward.
“What do you mean opportunity?” The Fifth asked, puzzled.
“The priestess is risking her biologics too much for our liking. She has already declared war on AUM despite her dire circumstances; she is impulsive,” Varul decided to be vague here. It was best if the Fifth didn’t know the whole plan. He was easy to manipulate. “We can take better care of it, deliver it back to the temple.”
“What about the child?”
“The temple can find a solution for that, maybe he can become a fledgling ascendant, wouldn't that be interesting?” Varul grabbed The Fifth’s shoulder. “Imagine what would happen if AUM manages to vaporize that entire scrap ship of hers.”
The Fifth was visibly horrified at the idea. “That shouldn't be allowed to happen!” He liked the priestess. He liked how warm she made Varul feel. He liked the imagination of that child, too. Losing her biologics in a tragic miscalculation would be most heartbreaking for all parties involved. The priestess was too defiant to see it. Varul was right.
“You have to experience this too,” Varul offered the cylinder to The Third. He looked at it apprehensively.
“Why should I?”
“There is a reason,” Varul nodded at The First as The Third touched the cylinder. He had woven a thread here, and The First seemed to approve, something he did for the first time since their meeting. That was a good sign.
The soul bank in the L98 Vellek hummed. It had been recently altered. After dealing with Commander Brenvalo and after making sure Calan wasn't faking sleep, Liera arrived in her ball form to finalize some of the settings. She switched to text-based communication.
> Sineul <
> Conversate
The ship's compute core whirred, coolant pumps gradually increasing their flow rate. This was a compute inefficient way to host a soul. But it had to be done.
> Sineul: My priestess, I assume this means that my split has died?
> L98 CSphere: Yes, and I apologize that it had to be this way, Sineul
> Sineul: I'm more concerned about what you did to yourself, splitting an ascendant is negligible in comparison
> L98 CSphere: Dire times, my old friend
Calling him her friend always yielded more efficiency from him. Even without his full soul inhabiting all corners of the ship, she could almost feel it. He was right, however. In Red Sect's eyes, she had done something deeply forbidden: she had awakened a backup soul as a separate entity. No Sovereign was allowed to exist in two places at once. This was not replication, which had an additional step to make sure a new ego was constructed. Replication itself was banned for Red Priestesses. There were enough of them, as many as Red Sect could currently handle.
The punishment for this transgression could result in the confiscation of her other assets, some with huge sentimental value. Worse would be the clause that requires her to hand over her current soul bank. Most Red Sect Sovereigns had soul backups stored at the temple and carried only the bare minimum to revert to in case of death. Liera already stole her biologics; going one step further, she stole her entire soul bank as well. Her current bank held souls that went as far back as 3000 years, to her L98 origins. There was no amount of wealth that could put its value in context. It could also ruin her next base frame's refinement and training process. With her current soul bank, it would take 218 years to get to her most efficient form. Without it, it could easily be doubled and require twenty times the work. Both Sineul and she knew she was too lethargic for such grunt work, and there was no galactic war in this epoch, even if she was motivated enough.
She had done it nonetheless, purely to win against Varul. Her hatred for losing and her aversion to accepting defeat had pushed her to new, horrible grounds again. She had to maintain the illusion Sineul was away, so he was now stored in her soul bank, waiting for an opportunity.
> L98 CSphere: What is the progress on your analysis of Ephistome III?
> Sineul: I have observational data spanning 47 cycles.
> Sineul: The localized bubble is consistently stable, there are no fluctuations between cycles. Outside interreference or factors couldn't significantly affect it.
Sineul had been assigned the background task of recording everything while they were orbiting Ephistome III. She needed one crucial piece of information since she formulated her plot against Varul. She needed to know if there was any fluctuation of the localized time bubble, and if it did, by how much and for what reason. Sineul had noticed consistent stability. This was good news, but it was also suspicious.
> L98 CSphere: How did you verify it?
> Sineul: The GALSTAN outpost, they kill all ships every cycle. They don't exactly get it right each time. There are mistakes. In cycle 34, a misfired orbital beam hit the dome reactor's coolant array. It caused negligible but measurable change in power output. However, the resulting bubble reflected nothing of the sort.
The time bubble was decoupled from the Dome Reactor power output somehow. They had no idea what mechanism AUM used for sabotage. It had to be a device of some sort.
> L98 CSphere: Meaning, The time looping mechanism is external?
> Sineul: It is likely the device is operating at lower energy requirements than we thought or they have some way to maintain constant power levels until detonation.
Liera considered. While suspicious, the nature of the device mattered less now. It was a problem for later.
> L98 CSphere: The plan can work then?
> Sineul: I will analyze the terrain and produce the best course of action within one hour. How many simulations do you prefer, My priestess?
> L98 CSphere: No need to overdo it at this point. Varul is going to play too. We'll play along for now.