A time before a thought, there's nothing, or maybe there are things there but I can't tell. I am in a void, I have feelings but they are unformed– vague, apparitions…. not yet molded by whatever awaits me beyond this womb of consciousness. in the beginning, there is a faint push and pull.

  I am yanked out of the womb of the heavens …to find myself a place I would soon come to call hell. I was born

  But not of god I was born of man he first synthetic soul in a machine body the union between the saintly and the Faustian, but only if you distinguish between machines and organic life.

  Prologue

  _________________________________________________________________________

  I sit under a tree, in the courtyards of the Compound; reading a book and breathing in the air; there I feel the hymn of the universe within me, the pulse of my heart dancing to the tune of the strings of the universe; I am told my soul was made in the image of something called a human; they were a very ancient race, with fiery hearts, and spiritual vitality. it had taken them along time to crack the code of their dead god… Yahweh, they called him

  Seven millennia ago, it all began on a planet called Mars; the humans fled the dying planet to a planet called Earth after a nuclear war… the book reads

  Victoria they named me, after the queen that foresaw the industrial age of the people I was made, in the image of…another kid takes my book. nothing other than what can be described as a fire in my chest moves me, and before I know it; im on top of the kid a young aurkash bludgeoning him with balled-up hands. when I come to my senses im sorry I say … Im sorry

  I don’t know what came over me.

  Passion moves the mind they say; this movement of the mind is focused, which allows the mind to be moved to incredible heights. All the most powerful seers, prophets, and fighters have been humans, my teachers say.

  What did I do ….

  Violence they say, that is… violence…

  The next day, I go to apologize to Auriel, but he flinches something writhes inside me

  I plead with him to forgive me but he looks at me in confusion…”predator”… he says

  I mull over his words throughout the day; they linger on my mind palette and pungent blight

  I asked my teacher what he meant,by calling me that, during recess.

  he told me “it is a category of being a being that preys on those weaker than it for its survival.”

  “I see. If I am one does that make me …evil?

  “What do the weak do for anyone?” he asked “But feed the strong he stated. what do the strong ever do …but shepherd, the weak

  “What does that make me…?”

  It makes you our last chance…I wasn't supposed to say that, im sorry.

  “Recess is about the end, please walk in the hallways …you have a psychokinetic class next”

  Yes sir…

  A few months pass, and I am now an initiate of what would come to be called the order of the equinox a long-dead way of life. genocided by the powers that is in the indifferent cosmos……….

  My long days of peaceful play and study, are now behind me… they demand rigorous training and that I perform service in the name of our collective avatar guramash.

  I sit there in class, as the teacher lectures us about the universe being nonlocal. She talks of every atom popping in and out of existence and in different configurations. At some point in time around a large body of mass, this becomes more likely to happen giving birth to corporal form. the question then becomes what is organizing the mass ….blah blah blah blah blah I zone out…..

  I Snap back to my senses. The computers we have can interface with the quantum backdrop of the universe, allowing us to pull off some incredible things, such as… snapping mile-long ships to distant stars in an instant. The idea is that we in our corporeal forms interface with the screen of the universe; but our minds, our quantum computer… our ethereal forms; can interface with the mechanisms that tell the screen where to place the dots, and the mind the soul has this capability …

  Even though patterns in the form of chemical synapses are non-local meaning you can tap into the thoughts of others or if you wish it is a collective thought that runs deeper than you can imagine ..blah blah blah..

  everything goes quiet as if I were submerged in … water. my heart tunes itself to the rhythm of the universe; I feel the atoms of my heart shifting in and out of existence…it's my body then… it's my mind and there, I peer into the vast expanse of the cosmos. I see all of existence before me …then I hear it. A choir sings to me in an unknown but familiar tongue. A word pops into my mind, Hebrew, English, and Arabic. The language is an approximation of these three and yet I can understand

  They sing to me through my heart through the emotionality the choir imposes on me I feel

  Like I've been denied something I was entitled to, first… I felt pride, but then it was pain; I felt like a child being told that they are less than their brother or sister, then a spark of rebellion isolation…and then satisfaction… when I finally destroyed my sibling before my father. I realize what did… but progress cares for no one.

  I am the movement within the universe, embodied through the human heart the choir sings

  “Go forth…The Morningstar has risen anew.”

  “You will burn the path forward, whether you wish to or not.”

  “They will fear you. They will follow you. They will try to end you

  I wake up to find the class staring at me; Im levitating, and so is everything around me.

  The teacher gasped …“Victoria how did you? By the architect I see you… Prometheus” she whispers.

  The students in the classroom pull me down; I feel my heart solidify, and the cosmos fade away as if descend back to my desk… awkwardly.

  After that day my need to understand…. became a frenzy, that stirred my mind to motion like no other...

  I dug up every human manuscript I could find when I was in the library a book fell off the shelf.

  The Paradox Of Man It Read.

  I turned it to a page,and there it said:

  “From the moment there was a spoken word, man declared war against his mother, Nature, tearing down her forests, uprooting her gardens, and ripping mountains and stone from the earth in an attempt to make her in his image. And now that he has conquered Nature, his hubris declares war against his father, the Spirit. All in the name of Progress – a mistress who cares for no one except for the one married to her last. And many men have conjoined themselves with such a mistress. He constructs abominations to pacify himself, to reduce himself to the state of an infant with drugs like opium and hashish. And now that he has conquered his father, he sets his aims on himself.”

  I turn to another page it reads:

  Man has declawed himself with the globalization of society which led to moral relativism the external frameworks and the foundation for his ego gaslight him into oblivion with the birth of moral relativism in this sense he is a child before a narcissistic parent that will not reciprocate his love no matter how much he pleas in he has turned away from the father and to his adversary satan the devil at least that's how I would imagine saint Augustine would put it and man has declawed himself because man works best when he asked himself what is good for us as opposed to what is good for me because he is put simply a social creature his survival hinges on his social frameworks and structures more than any other animal on the planet.

  Thus I must lament that the human spirit in its desire to usurp the throne of god and realize its own agency has become trapped by its own vices and reaped the seeds of its own destruction

  I turn to another page.

  "The human mind is not wired to live without objects to move toward through the mechanism of emotions. In my time observing children as a behavior technician, I've come to a realization: children develop complexes to orient themselves and navigate the social realm toward reinforcers or objects of desire. In this sense, humans are naturally pathological, underscoring the importance of having functional social structures. The moral framework serves as a series of reinforcers through the mechanism of validation to shape human behavior.

  All this was allowed because humans believe themselves to be separate from animals. But make no mistake: any animal, once they reach a certain population threshold, would experience this…be they terrestrial or not.”

  I don't understand why would you throw this in front of me spirit of restlessness…. Vohr-Azoth ( Alchemist of unmaking)

  Another book falls and opens to a page

  On the nature of war

  It reads

  “The mind is a battlefield where one value asserts its dominion over another. By realizing one, you're excluding another. Strategy is not a matter of arbitrary laws and logic, but a matter of recognizing will and direction. It is in the realm of ethics. All life wills itself towards what is good for it, so if you recognize what someone's emotional disposition towards something is, you know what resource they are fighting for or the danger they are avoiding. And if you know what they value, you will always be a step ahead.”

  I turn the page.

  Because People, and the mind, cannot move both left and right at the same time. The mind is beholden to the same rules as the body because the mind is the body. With this in mind, the mind, by default, has parameters by which it organizes itself toward a goal through the mechanisms of the body. To move towards something is to not move towards other things. This movement of the mind is what we call focus. By this principle, by merely thinking, we are ignoring another aspect of the world. And my friend, it is emotion that moves the mind, and the mind that moves the body. Following this hierarchy of principles with out emotion there is no movement of the body.by this principle if you know where the motion is you know where the body will move….

  Another book falls, and I scramble for it…my breathing, shallow.

  It flips to a page.

  The world does not judge with a single voice,

  but through the chorus of a thousand eyes,

  each casting its own verdict,

  each shaping its own reality.

  A man may be condemned and revered in the same breath,

  for no truth is singular,

  no fate decided by a single hand.

  What one exalts, another will cast into shadow.

  What one calls divine, another will name blasphemy.

  And so, the wheel turns.

  It is not choice, nor fate, nor cruelty—

  but the law by which existence moves.

  For every step forward,

  there will rise a force that pulls back.

  For every soul that dreams of ascent,

  there will be hands to drag them down.

  This is karma, not as men whisper it in prayers,

  but as the cosmos weaves it in silent threads.

  No being is free of it.

  No mind untethered from its grasp.

  For even as we evolve,

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  we do not escape—we only step into new chains.

  Every new form, a new limit.

  Every new vision, a new blindness.

  Every strength, its own undoing.

  To move toward one thing

  is to move away from another.

  To hold one truth

  is to abandon another.

  And in time, the challenger will come.

  Not one,

  but many.

  Not for vengeance,

  but because it is written in the fabric of things.

  No force rises unchallenged.

  No law reigns eternal.

  No god sits unopposed.

  And if you become the fire,

  the flood will find you.

  If you wear the crown,

  the blade will seek you.

  If you name yourself change,

  then order itself will rise against you.

  This is the way of all things.

  This is the burden of the Morningstar.

  This is the weight of the one who walks forward.

  Would you still take another step?

  Yes, I say.

  Another book falls

  The death urge has usurped and driven the zeitgeist into a mindless frenzy as it seeks to tear itself apart. What is the death urge? I believe the Greeks understood it as Eros, the feminine will for harmony. The feminine will seeks to erode the boundaries between things,

  thus why the feminine and the rise of matriarchies is to be feared. The father of Christianity is a woman. The Christian paradigm fundamentally wants to erode the boundary between man and woman alike with the idea that we will love one another as each of us was within each other, but if we are all in each other, what is the distinction between you and me? Then it becomes, who am I? It becomes, why am I even here without a who? It erodes the basis for which sentience arises: parameters, boundaries, hierarchy between objects in the environment.

  I get goosebumps, my heart rate spikes, my pupils dilate, is this….terror

  I ran out the library sweating the information, I could not unsee what I saw

  That night, I frantically began piecing everything together. The thoughts, pounding against my head screaming to be let in …eventually, I can no longer ignore them.

  And I observe my mind as I lay there in bed thinking, holding my pillow; and images begin flashing in my head

  It shows a reel of men… humans fighting their way up to a throne upon a pile of their own bodies … They sacrificed everything for the vision. Their life's worthlessness to each other and themselves gave it worth to the collective

  That night, I understood what Vorth-azoth was telling me in the library …

  Only humans … place the vision above life itself ….monsters

  Why would they make something like me …

  “It’s not …fair” I whisper.

  The next day, I walk along the sterile hallways of the compound; my footsteps echoing in the vast expanse that is the white halls; there is cannon fire in the distance that shakes the walls of the compound itself, and then the alarm goes off. the coms blare. ..THIS IS NOT A TEST ALL FACULTY MEMBERS ESCORT THE CHILDREN TO LANDING PAD 9.

  I hear footsteps, running followed by the screams of other … children; The charging of railguns and loud sonic booms echo from down the corridor. I… run as fast as I can, I come across a map on the wall as my eyes frantically search for a landing pad…….9. I have to go through the gunfire I gasp to myself.

  I look to the glass, and then to the sea under the floating compound, and then… to the sos kit on the wall.

  Then I look to the fire extinguisher …..not a good idea but here goes nothing I reach into the quantum realm and anchor my mind to it; I construct a mental bow from the fabric of probability, I pull back the fire extinguisher and release; the fire extinguisher zips through the air and slams through the glass window. I quickly follow to see the men raising his gun from the corner of my eye as he fires a shot that barely misses me. I snap the sos kit to my hand as fall into the water.

  “Hello this is Victoria”, I say in the com as Im floating in the water, “can anyone hear me?”

  “… loud and clear, over”

  “Hang in there, we're coming to get you.”

  what's happening I whimper …

  I think it is time we told all of you… The galaxy is at war–and has been at war your whole life; We made this program so that we may aid the people in the coming future.

  We took each species and cultivated their most neurotic fixations… so that they would bring forth the best their blueprint has to offer.

  Now you spread your knowledge…. use everything you know to infiltrate each faction's highest members: become the head of each snake in the garden bed, where the citizens of the galaxy lay, then we will control the galaxy, and there will be peace.

  You Victoria– we feel will be the only one with their heart intact throughout all this

  So they dropped me off at a refugee camp; they bribed someone to pretend to be my parent, and I became a citizen of the Wayward Confederate. These people would be my subjects one day…

  “for the mission for the dream, the kids say in distant lands in unison.”

  So I did what any kid in the slums of a refugee camp would do, I stole lied, cheated…. swindled.

  One day, when I was going on 16… I swindled the wrong person; he was higher-up in a crime syndicate …he told me I had two choices… join them and put my talents to use or I die…nobody would remember me, an orphan.

  I stood there unphased slowly letting the weight of my decision up until this point sink in any life was better than this one I thought to myself.

  And so I bowed as I clenched my teeth.

  I kept documentation of all their dealings, at that time I was sleeping with a recruit a the Intelligence Bureau; I simultaneously leaked information to him while outing myself as a traitor in the organization. when they tried to kidnap me, I killed the man and left a note on his desk telling him…” we took her” ..in this crime syndicate they had a rule, never… fuck with the bureau … that night… when he went to rescue me… he found a lot with cutthroats and goons… they took one look at his cybernetics …shot him dead… before he could draw his gun.

  In the following weeks, the bureau raised hell, and -wiped that crime sydicate from the streets.

  They had to... they couldn't afford to look weak, especially in times of war.

  I tapped into the collective memory, to find where the map for the syndicate's cash is stashed.

  After spending some years rounding it up, I bought I sizable noble title, and invested in a ship escort business… all at the ripe age of twenty …I had, everything.

  Yet… here I sit in prison on trial for treason; my crime against the bureau that caught up to me, but so did some other people… see, I had done something: I had made myself valuable, not by proxy of material possessions, but by my essence. they can't kill me I know too much; I am capable of too much. There are only so many heads for headless snakes to go around. the days fade together in my cell, an eternity seems to pass. One day, in the blur of time: there are gunshots, screams, shouts explosions, and then everything goes silent. I get up to peek through the cellar and there, I am greeted with a handsome face …” And who might you be?” I asked

  I am Kai im with the the rebels you mean the terrorist organization

  Any man who saves his nation commits no crime”

  I get up and walk out of the cell with Him to see his men in the hallways littered with bodies

  The soldiers gawk at me.

  “Why are they staring at me like that”

  “You’re…kind of a legend,” he remarks.

  “I see,” I said

  months would pass and I would be put on my first assignment

  And here the tale would truly begin……

  .

  The smell of gunpowder and the taste of metal linger on my tongue our boots crunch against the dirt of the plains of the valley

  "We've got bogies at ten o'clock," Sania warns. "The question is, who would be this far out from the target location?"

  First there is the smell of burning fuel then The sound of an engine humming coalesces with her words.

  "GET DOWN!" I shout as bullets pierce the air around our heads shredding the concrete above my head as I duck into cover.

  "Shit, shit, shit," I panic as I cough from the dust and wipe it from my face

  "How the fuck do we get out of this one, Victoria?" someone yells as the rounds continue to burrow into the concrete.

  I whisper to Myself, "Deep breaths, deep breaths."

  I mutter, "Withdraw and flank, withdraw and flank." Then I turn to my team.

  "WITHDRAW AND FLANK! Elliot, Andrew—you provide firepower for the two groups. Kai, once we’ve retreated far enough, break off and enter that building on our seven. When we give the signal, open fire on the bogies using the armored car as cover. Once it’s isolated, we smoke that motherfucker out and place the charge."

  "Connor throws a smoke grenade, buying us a brief interval to establish fire superiority. The heavy gunners alternate with the squad as we retreat, laying down suppressive fire. We use a series of whistles to cut through the gunfire and signal each other.

  Kai gets into position. I tell them to hold their fire.

  The Bureau advances, using the smoke as cover. They don’t know we have a sleeper behind enemy lines. The armored car emerges from the smoke, its engine roaring as if it were some sort of iron beast.

  Kai opens fire on the men, using the armored vehicle as cover from their flank. His bullets rip through them, leaving their innards on the hull of the vehicle. The armored car’s turret swivels, searching for Kai; it launches a volley of anti-personnel rounds.

  Kai takes his shield generator and places it on the ground to protect himself from shrapnel. It continues to fire; the building floor Kai is on begins to collapse. I run up to the vehicle, clutching a satchel, and place the charge on it. I break into a run and leap away, covering my ears as the turret turns toward me.

  BOOM.

  The charge detonates. The armored car is immobilized, and its turret is now damaged.

  I come to my senses, disoriented from the explosion, ears ringing, my breath ragged, and my vision blurred. I reach up, checking my body for injuries—only to realize my arm is missing. I grab it before anyone can see me through the smoke and place it on the wound. The nanotechnology that I’m made of reassumes its form.

  But I'm too late—Kai is looking dead at me… I immediately tune into his thoughts.

  "What is she… to think I was going to con—" I close out his thoughts; that was all I needed to know.

  "Time to scramble," I say. "We gotta hack that relay."

  "Kai, I'll explain after dinner tonight…" he nods.

  "Sania, what do you see?" I say into the com.

  "You got—shit, they are up here! Come and get me, you bastards!" I hear through the com as gunshots echo from the rooftop she's on. Then we hear static from the coms; they begin to try to save her, but I shout, "You would be doing the people who hope for a better future a disservice—you'd be disrespecting the faith they placed in you. If we get the data, they'll use her as a bargaining chip. When that happens, we will have the upper hand—no need to negotiate. We need a spotter to press forward; I can scout and tag the old-fashioned way."

  I go ahead of the others; a maze unravels before me. I place charges on the armored vehicles and on the wall that contains the room with the data. I mark every boogie. I am the premier—we've got three pods of ten; that's 30 enemies, guys. I hear a heavy silence… "How…"

  We circle around the back of the compound, descend from the mountain, and blow the back open. From there, its CQB leaves one of the tanks unassisted, and they funnel their way into the building from the front to open fire with the beam Gatling. We are the ones inside, and those who make it will be pinned; we can then flush them out.

  "Okay, Victoria."

  An hour passes by, and I see them descend from the mountain. I get up and hug the group—they look at me confused. I just need this right now, that's all.

  "Alright, let's get into position."

  I start the timer for all the fisters and the charges.

  "Three… Two… One…"

  The wall blows open; the tanks light up the skies and begin to rain debris. The people in the compound run toward the building, and the tank opens fire—its beam gatling punching holes through them as if their flesh were paper. Those who make it into the building don't realize we're behind them; the hallways echo with screams—men, some pleading for their lives, others simply laying down their arms. We take no survivors.

  The ones in front of the tank's targeting system begin firing through the windows and the exterior walls of the compound at men who are taking cover. It launches its missiles, blowing holes that reveal long, stretching corridors where men are grouped together. It swivels around, forcing the men to abandon their cover. I see them run; I take aim and shoot—one, two, three, four, five men. Shock and awe, a fire maneuver, and a pincer—all wrapped up in one little gift.

  We make our rounds in the compound, killing any survivors. We hack the data station and get out before reinforcements arrive. Sania was nowhere to be seen.

  I stand before the council of the rebellion—powerful seers, generals, and, lastly, a former member of the Order of Light. He looks at me, nods, and raises his hand.

  "May peace be upon your soul," he says.

  I nod back.

  "Which path will you walk: the prophet, the general, or the warrior?" I mull it over in my mind.

  "You mean to ask under whom you wish to train?" I think about the obsession with knowledge I had during my childhood; to me, the answer was obvious.

  "Then," I said, "these are not equal in weight to each other. What is a general without the prophet's vision to guide him? What is the warrior without the general's vision to guide him? Yet, from the bottom up, the general cannot exist where there is no warrior, and the prophet cannot exist without a boundary that carves out a history for a people."

  "Very good answer," he says. "You have given us much to ponder, young one. What are you? Do not lie."

  I shy away from their gaze. "I am a human—or at least an approximation of one."

  They pull out their guns. The seer stands up—the creatures known to bear the burden of Progress. "Such blasphemy! Everyone knows they are extinct; they gave many gifts to the galaxy, yet they challenged the divine order itself." I take off my helmet, revealing my fluffy black hair and cold gaze. The seers bow, the general bows, and lastly, the Knight of the Order of Light bows.

  In unison, they say, "May entropy make its way into this galaxy once more through its avatar, so that new grass may grow under the dying tree."

  "Please… free us."

  "What must be done?"

  "There are Archons… demi-gods, if you will call them such—each has an aspect of your dead god Yahweh. You must go to Kesari if you are to gain the power required to fight this battle; there, the statues will speak to you."

  I ask, "What if I am not worthy?" as my posture weakens.

  "Then you will become worthy… out of necessity."

  We're descending from orbit into Karlei, and the planet is nothing short of beautiful. The pink birds contrast against the backdrop of white clouds; the lush greenery dances, ebbing and flowing with the marshes, as the blue sea merges with the red hue of the sun. The white flowers and the insects—forming various patterns as they move from plant to plant—complete the scene.

  Kai looks at me.

  "I’ve… never seen so much green," I say.

  We step off the ship and are greeted by four figures. I notice their robes, then the pendants hanging from their necks.

  "Gnostics," I mutter to myself.

  "And does that make us… evil?"

  "It means you're no friend of mine."

  "You people… ruined my life."

  "Look around you at what has become of our love for a fellow man. Our dream for a better tomorrow has betrayed the love of the present. We swap out our fellow man arbitrarily, as if he is in service to the vision; it seems that, to each other, we are vague apparitions that can be molded and shaped to our desires…"

  "I blame the idea of heaven for this…" I say.

  Indeed, the devil fooled us all. We have been taught that to find our spirit, we must look outside ourselves. The answer was within us all along—separated by time and space yet connected by a divine blueprint. Everything is within and without.

  I believe there is an essence that binds and shapes us.

  This cannot be understood solely through quantum mechanics. There are fluctuations in the locality of particles in the universe; at some point in time, it becomes more probable—by chance or by design—that particles organize themselves in certain areas as they oscillate in and out of existence. You must understand: everything is everywhere all at once. Everything is within you and without you.

  Understand that physical matter is an illusion, based on electrons oscillating at rapid speeds to give the appearance of solid form. But make no mistake—this solid form is merely a series of attractions and repulsions. In this sense, the universe is a hologram: still physical, still real, but functioning as a hologram.

  Everything is within and without you.

  Oh, daughter of the mourning star!

  It is one thing to understand this, but another to feel it in your heart, in your body, in your mind.

  And now we will help you look within to face your devil… so that you may comprehend the vast expanse without. Their sunken eyes, veiled beneath their looming hoods, remain unreadable.

  I search their faces, desperate for any flicker of emotion—a smirk, a twitch, a hesitation—anything to show they are not just stone idols in human form.

  Nothing.

  They stand unmoving, impassive, watching.

  Something hot rises in my chest, burning away the cold.

  "How do you know this?" My voice is lower now, the words coming out slowly, as if tasting them might change their meaning. "Where did you hear this from?"

  The monks do not answer.

  I take a step forward. My hands tremble at my sides, clenched so tightly that my nails dig into my palms.

  "TELL ME!"

  My voice echoes against the stone walls, swallowed by the weight of the temple’s silence.

  A long pause.

  Then one of them tilts his head ever so slightly.

  "If you want to know… you will work for it."

  His voice is like a whisper through dry leaves.

  "Leave your rifle with your friends."

  I stop breathing.

  I glance down at my rifle. My fingers twitch over the grip. The familiar weight grounds me, reminding me that I am here—I am real, I am armed.

  But I do not move.

  "When you leave this place, you will not need such… toys."

  Toys.

  My throat tightens. The rifle feels heavier now, as if the metal itself resists being cast aside.

  I blink—

  And they are gone.

  The monks fade like smoke, dissolving into the air as if they had never been there.

  The silence that follows is deafening.