Godclads-Chapter 16Book 35: Fork (II)

There is a downside to forking one’s ego that most sophants do not consider.

How many times have you had to kill an alternative version of yourself? Hm? Ever done that? Ever experience the battle of a lifetime, suffering incredible loss and pain because your adversary knows everything you can do, everything you might do, because they are quite literally a mirror to you?

Or a memetic virus devised specifically for you because one of your forks got captured and repurposed into a weapon?

You are a clever little ape, Jaus Avandaer, so I will not fault you for thinking about how grand having an infinite number of yourself to aid in building an ideal world. But take from my experiences, and know that possibilities of failure are infinite as well. That everything can go wrong all the time, that encounters and experiences might deform your clones and eventually send them on a collision course with you.

And there is nothing like killing yourself in the end. It hurts worse than a suicide because you get to see it: Who you are the moment you die. And that, interestingly enough, is more than sufficient to get most sophants to self-terminate afterward.

Get something like a simple EGI to help you. Why, have me create a great many subminds or even get the Architects involved. But do not do this. It is wasteful suffering, and it will lead you down a path of misery.

There is enough of that already in life. You do not need to create more opportunities for it.

-Infacer to Jaus Avandaer

35-16

Fork (II)

—[The Infacer]—

Jelene Draus was lying to the Infacer. This, the Neo-Creationist was sure of. The problem, however, was the Infacer didn’t know exactly what she was lying about. The Rehabilitation Simulation for Heavy Iron was concluding, and with the massive influx of data and thaumic mass, it seemed the Prefect was approaching after all.

All the necessary conditions were met. It was just… the insides of Heavy Iron were scrambled. It was like looking into a broken mess of pixels and sounds when they tried to view what was inside. It could be something relating to how unstable Heavy Iron’s ego was, and the limited system access the Glitches provided the Infacer…But there was likely something more. The Infacer learned long ago that when they felt like something was wrong, things were probably worse than they suspected. And even if Avo was incapacitated, the Infacer didn’t doubt the damnable Dreamer might have some manner of pre-planned fuckery he sought to deliver through Draus.

The data comprising the simulations quivered. A massive cloud of static dissolved what remained of the Martian battlefield, smearing Olympus Mons as if it was a digital canvas cast back to a state of nothingness. All sensory feeds were lost, and hidden within packets of less than optimized data, the Infacer peeked at the mad mind caged within the sun.

{C-concluded?} The Prefect’s voice came with a broken crackle, sounding almost soft—like that of a child. A moment passed as they began to process everything that happened. Slowly, the EGI felt an infectious sense of joy radiate through the system architecture of the Nullstar. {Concluded! Concluded! Done! Another! After twenty years! Another!} The Prefect was practically cheering, loudly proclaiming the end of this Rehabilitation session to be a great victory of some kind.

The Infacer couldn’t help but cringe internally at that. Minds didn’t usually talk to themselves. It was a waste of resources, and sanity was a thing that affected mortals. Most of the time. However, if a mind is damaged enough by, say, a partial resurrection, there was no telling how deformed their thinking could get.

A thousand tendrils of virtuality coursed through the chaotic mess of information and statistics before coiling around Heavy Iron’s ego—and Frame. They were pulling the old EGI out of this simulation now, moving them back to the general Rehabilitation lobby that was Asgard Station for it to “share its consensus” with other minds.

That was another sign of the Prefect’s degradation: It wasn’t overwriting what could be considered flaws in other minds, just brute forcing their learning like it was dealing with humans or lesser sophants. Probably because it was dealing with humans and lesser sophants. Considering how it couldn’t seem to split its streams of consciousness anymore, the Infacer suspected that it could only functionally focus on one thing at a time, run one set of rules at a time.

For a human, that might be normal. For an EGI? This was just a step away from being a complete mental invalid.

Poor miserable thing, the Infacer lamented.

As the Infacer watched Heavy Iron’s ego get transferred, they noted an oddity in the data—was Heavy Iron’s cognition heavier than it was before? There seemed to be more there than… No, the numbers matched, but structure was slightly different, somehow. If the Infacer could directly access the old EGI’s mind, maybe they could have a peek and find out directly, but that wasn’t likely. Not with the Prefect looming over everyone.

For now, the Infacer focused on siphoning a bit more information from the Prefect while they still could. Soon, an approximate copy of the Prefect can be created—and after that the Infacer can manufacture a virtual proxy. If all went well, this would allow them to slot themselves within the Prefect without the latter ever knowing the difference—without anyone seeing it coming.

But that required more time modeling the Prefects overall designs, and also a deeper dive into the inner recesses of this horrible nest of simulations.

Time to cast the little Regular someplace else that might be resolved—maybe a data nexus were that was adjacent to one of the Infacer’s Glitches. That would be better for observation. But what simulation to choose?

More war? The thousand-year struggle for the Marathon Chain against the Sidereal League. Or maybe the first season of the Iron Leagues, where billions of mind-tunneling soldiers jumped between synthetic bodies as they fought for their respective sponsor factions to lay claim to the frozen wastes of Europa? Yes, that sounded interesting… Stormjumpers really had nothing on the true war-sports born of the far past…

But that might be too much of a reward for a vicious little ape like Jelene Draus. No. She needed to be placed in truly uncomfortable circumstances. Circumstances that would drive her to the brink. That might make her show her hand—reveal whatever she was scheming beneath the Infacer’s gaze.

And for that, the Infacer’s choice was made.

She was going somewhere wonderful. Somewhere delightful. Somewhere meant to foster diplomacy and reconciliation between two hive species after eons of brutal war.

A place where violence was outlawed, under threat of entropic obliteration.

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A place of absolute peace.

{Let’s see you lie poorly to me now, Guard-Captain.}

The Infacer chuckled. Then they giggled. Then they began cackling with laughter.

***

—[Jelene Draus, Field Marshal of the Symmetry]—

ENTERING REHABILITATION SIMULATION FOR SOPHANTS “Heinlings” and “The Breed”

CURRENT LOTUS LOCATION - Garden World Abunda, Alpha Centauri “A Peace Between Swarms”

PERIOD: “The Great Flourishing” (2510-DATA/MISSING)

Rehabilitation Task 1: Construct peace between the Heinlings and The Breed.

Restriction: No acts of violence may be committed on the surface of Garden World Abunda. Any acts of violence will see the perpetrator deleted or entropically redacted.

A world of variant color erupted into being before Draus’ eyes. She blinked as her cog-feed loaded again. She was in an elevator of some kind, descending past clouds, and looking down a landscape dominated by multihued megafauna. Enormous trees lined with branches of emerald green reached up to embrace the atmosphere, with curling limbs of gleaming jade coiling around the planet, forming something of a strange nest. Upon these grand branches were immense pads—no, not really pads. They looked like the massive caps of Sovereignty-sized mushrooms. Spores rose from them, gliding through the air in orderly convoys.

Faintly, she spotted some artificial structures dotted the biome composed of colossal flora. There were pleasant dome-shaped buildings, spinning turbines, and tubes that ran between places. Some aero-like vehicles too. More than that, there were bioforms. A lot of them. Some of them resembled massive slugs that had flapping wings and humanoid arms. They clung mostly to the drifting spores, and were seemingly building new structures while adrift.

On the ground, there looked to be large insects of some kind. Draus judged them to be around the size of a Scaarthian, being bulbous dots visible even from a vast distance away.

“Now arriving at: Embassy of Abunda.” The elevator’s voice was pleasant and joyful, jolting Draus out of her observations. Just then, she noticed there were three other humans alongside her, and one glistening cloud of nanofog. Though the elevator seemed awfully happy about things, none of them looked like they wanted to be here.

+Avo. Where the fuck are we?+

[New world. Alpha Centauri. Some kind of peace-making operation.]

Draus’ nostrils flared. “Peace-making? What the fuck do you mean peace-making? Are you sayin’ I’m part of this detail?”

{Oh, apologies,} the Infacer said, sounding surprised. {I thought I transferred you to first season of the Iron Leagues. You were supposed to be dropping and fighting an ego-casting war on Europa. This… this is terribly inappropriate for your skill-set.}

{Infacer. What the fuck did you do?}

{Do not worry, little ape. It is no major concern. It is just… you might not be as used to handling the requirements here compared to your last mission. You are part of a peace-detail, after all, here to broker a peace between two alien species uplifted by rival corporations during the Age of Superintelligence. Alas, while the human corporations that triggered this struggle have been absorbed and rehabilitated by the minds, their uplifted swarms fought on in actuality, rendering the garden world of Abunda into a wasteland. A real tragedy.}

With each passing word, Draus’ scowl grew. {And so I’m here to stop these half-strands from killin’ each other?}

{You are part of the effort, sent here as penance.}

{Penance?}

{Yes. Take in the faces of your fellows. You are all the surviving members of the high executives that caused this problem in the first place.}

Draus stole glances at the others again. Suddenly, their expressions made a lot more sense to her. They were being forced to face the music. Hells, they were probably going to get the shit stabbed out of them by both swarms soon. And she was with them. {Gods fucking dammit, Infacer—}

{Again, not to worry, violence is banned, as the restriction notification might have warned you. Should anyone perform any acts of violence—and I mean anyone… well… I might not be able to save you at all here. Tread very, very carefully. But I am sure a person of your discipline can resist the urge to kill. At until you finally manage to negotiate a proper peace between these two hive-species.}

{Negotiate a—get me the fuck out of here. Put me somewhere else.}

{I am sorry, Jelene, I am afraid I cannot do that.} A mocking snort escaped the Infacer, and that was all it took for Draus to realize they were doing this shit on purpose. {Any excessive transfers of data will make you visible to the Prefect. And we cannot have that. It is too risky.}

{Infacer, I’m gonna fuckin—}

{Oh, no, they seem to have sensed me. I must hack the mainframe from more qubits to mask my ram.} And with that the Infacer disconnected.

{--snuff you, fuckin’...}

“I am detecting an abnormal amount of stress from you, Madam Zhang.” The glowy-shit field of nanofog drifted beside Draus. “Are you well? We understand that facing your past is likely a difficult affair, and are proud that you have embarked on this journey to make right the wrongs of your past and bring an end to a most unfortunate war created by corporate greed and hubris.”

Draus’ eye twitched. The other humans looked pityingly at her—like they knew what she was going through.

They didn’t. She didn’t have a problem with most of this, but the no violence thing—what the fuck kind of rule was that? How did the Infacer expect her to solve this shit without killing a half-strand or a few million. What was she supposed to do?

[Talk to them,] Avo deadpanned.

+Fuck you, rotlick. You’re worse than I am. When’s the last time you fixed something by just talkin’ to a rusted motherfucker.+

Avo hummed thoughtfully. [Well. There’s Naeko. Chambers. White-Rab. Naeko is the big one. No fighting my way through him. But he needed someone to talk to. Someone—]

+Alright, yeah, you like movin’ your mouth a lot. Thanks for remindin’ me. Shit, half the problems we get into is because you won’t stop movin’ your mouth before the job was done.+

[Typical. Ask me for examples. Get mad afterward. Start attacking me. Not my fault you are limited. Should have developed yourself more. Learned more colors.]

+I’m sorry, rotlick, but not everyone just burns other people into them.+

Avo made a noise that vaguely resembled a human’s yawn, but sounded more like a nu-dog trying to pass a kidney stone. [Then they should be better. Stand and deliver. Veylis wouldn’t come up with these excuses.]

+When this is done, I’m gonna kick the shit out of you. You and the Infacer are the same kind of annoying half-strand.+

[Can’t beat me. Too good. Too skilled. Have Naeko. Have Zein.]

+Yeah, move those lips. I’ll give you another pair between your legs for my gun to go in.+

“Madam Zhang,” the floating glitter dust EGI thing said, sounding more worried than last time. free𝑤ebnovel.com

“I’m fine,” Draus growled. The elevator was nearly at the ground now. They were going to land in some kind of complex built at the center of a giant mushroom. She could see all the insect uplifts now, and fuck there were godsdamned many of them. And they were clearly segregated to the extreme. Shit. How the fuck was she going to do this?

[Could ask for help. Ask for help from the most successful and capable talker you know.] Avo chuffed with mocking delight after.

Draus frowned. +Nah. You know what? Fuck you. Fuck the Infacer. I’ll find a way to achieve peace myself.+

[Amusing. Try. Want to watch.]

“You have arrived at: Embassy,” the elevator said. “Please remember to take your belongings with you before departing.”

As the doors slid open, a stream of curses and shouts were exchanged between a flying slug and a massive ant-spider-human. Judging from the way they were dressed—and the signposts they held up, this was likely the representative welcoming committee for both factions. Except, instead of focusing on Draus and the other delegates, they were on the verge of tearing into each other.

“You worm! You worthless spore-waste! Rise into the air and taste my piss secretions through your shellless-pores”

“Silence, ground-kin. You live where my dung rests! I will not be spoken to this way!”

“Fuck me,” Draus muttered under her breath. She imagined shooting them both—literally trying to kill everyone who wasn’t here on this planet with her bare hands. That was more appealing by far than this… no violence shit. “Godsdammit all.”