Godclads

Chapter 3-18 Instruments of Memory

Memory is a weakness; memory is a weapon; memory is a place; memory is water.

Memory, ultimately then, is a thing of modularity and malleability. But still–and do not forget this–memory is matter incorporeal.

And it must be the will of the Necrojack that infuses it.

-Forge of the Fallen

3-18

Instruments of Memory

Ved was lying about the state of the Galeslither. First, it wasn't in the motor pool, it was rotting away in a quarantined cesspit. Second, the golem wasn’t just broken–its Heaven was outright missing. Upon approaching, Avo tasted no resonance ebbing from its shell, no shine of the dismembered flame that once burned within all gods. Instead, the narrow combat platform lay in three jointed segments some thirty feet long. It looked almost train-like in its design, with a roundel-shaped head and a deflated lattice made from unknown materials clinging to its back.

Rust coated its exterior as well. A sign of decay and negligence. Truly, Conflux kept their treasures like trash, leaving something that could still be salvaged to languish instead. A picture began to form in his head regarding the Syndicate’s woes. Lingering hisses of whispering ghosts trailed in the air–the unmistakable presence of decaying mem-contagion strands snaking uselessly against Avo’s wards.

Someone was targeting Conflux. And nigh constantly. Might even be the same group that jocked those missiles after him just as he left the Crucible and entered the gutters.

Producing his mem-marker, Avo held up the small stick-like device as it pulsed a spray of memories from its micro-locus. The ghosts it cast out splashed over the golem as it began to groan, a door on its side hissing and grinding open with a squeal.

Looking around to ascertain there was no one else visibly or phantasmally tracking him, Avo studied the room. Shredded tarps and sloppily poured plascrete were the aesthetic of this floor. Clumps of hardened matter sealed former breaches while the light shone through the tears on the tarps. A large gate was fused into the walls; its metal frame melted in pools that spilled into webbed fissures.

This might’ve been where aerial vehicles could launch from. Or it was, before the block was made so destitute, so damaged.

Stepping into the golem required Avo to dip his head. Clearly, this was not designed with ghouls in mind. The primary control module was located in the middle segment of the golem, which itself was split into an upper piloting gimbal and two lower auxiliary stations. Neither gimbal nor stations would serve his purpose; he simply wouldn’t fit. However, the walkway between the two stations offered eight feet of room.

Activating the marker again, Avo laid down upon the soothing chill of the ground before closing doors could even shut away the outside lights. Between two dormant loci–now seated at the center of concentric slots–he settled his head and embraced the comfort of darkness. It might’ve taken promising Chambers a favor for the marker to sleep within this golem, but at that moment, it was absolutely worth it.

No noise.

No distractions.

No Mirrorhead.

Just him, his Metamind, and the darkness.

Good enough conditions to begin reconstruction.

Stretching out his neck one final time, Avo plucked mem-data from the local locus and looked at the time. It was five in the afternoon. Which meant that he had been awake for nearly eighteen hours now since the night before.

He didn’t know how much time he would have to himself for his sequencing, but at least for now, it seemed that his use to Mirrorhead had run its course for a day. Still meant that he needed to prepare and modify his essential phantasmics before anything else.

Best that he got his sequencing completed before someone else got the drop on him. Avo preferred to hold the initiative instead of reacting. And these days, he had done a lot of reacting.

With a thought, he set a timer for six hours. Six hours wasn’t much, but he wasn’t in his workshop and didn’t have the tools he needed to tune complex constructs. Thankfully, what he needed right now wouldn’t require anything too complicated, though he could do with more ghosts.

GHOSTS - [42]

Forty-two was workable, but not ideal. Much like with his Liminal Frame, he needed to claim more victims. Two hundred offered a much vaster expanse of options. That was where a Metamind went from a mere tool to being a phantasmal operations platform.

Avo shook his head. Ifs, buts, and coulds. Those didn't matter. He needed to focus on the now.

“Prepare dive,” he said to his Metamind.

RECEIVED

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INITIALIZING META-DIVE

He could have done the command mentally, but it was better enunciated. More brain activity for the Metamind to pick up; sped up the descent of his consciousness. A white flash splashed across his cog-feed, spilling over his vision like stretching needles.

And suddenly, as if a blade had cut him free from the strings tethering himself to the weight of his body, Avo plunged into his own mind.

Like a raindrop of pure color, he fell into a vast grey expanse. The horizon around him was factory setting, barely adjusted. This Metamind must’ve been new. Just recently forked from a clone of his mind, but not tuned into a palace yet.

Guiding himself down like a tungsten rod from the Heavens, Avo envisioned the memory that would form the foundations of this place. The memory came to Avo clear and solid, refined and shaped through years of visualization. And with this memory swelling inside him like a seed, he plunged into the greyness of the land. Out the clay-like depths, he rose, pushing free from the shapeless nothing as around him the megablock of his youth rose, a bright “thirteen” shining on its side.

With four arches running across its corners and an open-air lobby, detail began to bleed from Avo’s mind into the building around him. Doors, columns, and spiraling jump-tubes spread through the building like veins. A single blackdred tree stood, three hundred feet high and half again as wide, its spear-like branches expanding from the tumorous growths that domed its bark. Next to the tree, a web of tubes splashed, bodies flitting to and fro across the entirety of the block. Slowly, the lobby took shape, spreading until the light began shining through between the dancing holo-ads of the entrance.

Shaped from the matter of thought itself, Avo pulled himself loose from the soil of his mind and made to leave his still-growing home.

Much of the palace was only surface deep. He knew that beyond the doors and walls, in places where he hadn’t imagined or remembered, there would be only greyness again. But that was unimportant. The lobby; the tree; the jump-tubes; the holographic advertisements. Those were the things that rooted his mind and helped serve as a junction to join the other ghost-made memory constructs.

And with that in mind, Avo left, stepping beyond the threshold of his Metamind’s new central nexus to see his current inventory of phantasmics.

Stepping past small food stalls and the neuro-cade game consoles, he descended the steps of the block and found himself standing before an empty street, shining a resplendent hue of opal beneath the violet gaze of the darkstar.

On the horizon, a grand vortex of ghosts swirled, their etheric forms filled with the shapes of objects and people spinning, shrouding the insides of Avo’s mind behind a veil of roaring traumas. Out of everything, at least the wards were begrudgingly acceptable, though they were functionally simple to pierce if the opposition had enough pressure.

That was as far as his palace could stretch for now. The total space that the total cog-cap forty-two ghosts could simulate, anyway. It would do for now. But he would need to expand, both vertically and horizontally soon. In the meantime, Avo turned his attention to his phantasmics and immediately found himself wincing.

Dead gods. The structure sequencing of his phantasmics was horrible.

Bleeding into the street, five crude lanes of featureless grey extended outward, connecting the ordered design of his megablock to five very different structures that stood waxen with chaotic memories dolloping from their structures. So poorly held together they were that Avo couldn’t even tell what he was looking at.

Memories had structures and ghosts enforced them–molded them. But there was a limit to what they could do when the design wasn’t clear. The cost of bad sequencing was either an unusable construct, a self-corrupting construct, or a construct that demanded far more attention from the ghosts than it needed.

With a command, he rematerialized high up into the air. With another, he called upon all his ghosts, and, despite the risks, momentarily drew as many ghosts away from his wards as he could without collapsing them outright.

Forty rippling visages descended down on strings of thought, bound to his Metamind. Forty floated there, just staring at him, their faces attentive, the fragments of their minds shining, his will flowing into them through sinews of thought.

Each of these ghosts offered tithes of memories to provide the architectural composition of the phantasmics below. As he scanned his gaze over each of his constructs, his Metamind filtered the requirements directly into his mind.

Normally, he would have spent hours to months just working a single ghost, tuning and pruning the memories until there were no flaws left in the structure. Now, with what little time he had, his need was going to be more focused on his goals.

Presently, he needed two things: more meticulous wards and more distance should he need to assail an enemy mind. Something that could let him attack from beyond visual range.

And thankfully, Avo already had an idea about how to deal with the latter.

[GHOST-LINK] COG-CAP: 6 SEQUENCES (FIXED)

  STRUCTURE: “A LETTER DRIFTING, CHASED BY A SCRAMBLING NU-DOG AS AEROVEC FLIES IN THE DISTANCE”

  FUNCTION: DELIVERS COG-DATA TO A CORRESPONDING WITHIN VISUAL RANGE.

[SPECTER] COG-CAP: 15 SEQUENCES (BASELINE)

  STRUCTURE: “A BODKIN DRONE FALLS TO STRIKE A COUNTRYSIDE HOME, KILLING A MAN EATING ALONE AT A TABLE

  FUNCTION: ALLOWS THE EXTENSION OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS BY 60 FEET; CAN BE EXTENDED BY MULTIPLES SHOULD MORE SEQUENCES BE USED

In total, both would occupy twenty-one of his ghosts, as each ghost could only simulate a sequence of memory at a time. And to make matters worse, since he didn’t have the time to spend weaving all his ghosts together using points of symmetry, all he had were individual circuits instead of a proper network. This meant that only certain ghosts could fuel certain phantasmics: not every ghost had the right memories to draw from to flesh out a structure.

Very inefficient.

Sorting through his current inventory, Avo saw that he actually only had twenty-eight ghosts that could offer the requisite memories to run the Specter. Forty could feed the Ghost-Link though, so there was some overlap.

Most people died knowing what an aerovec, nu-dog, and letter were. The scene was easy to create.

But not every ghost knew what a bodkin was, nor had the memories to approximate its design.

Such were the limitations of cognition. You couldn’t create what your ghosts didn’t know, after all. To this regard, phantasmics were much like blueprints more than anything–specific constructs mined from someone bearing enough mental significance to ripple across a plane of thought.

Fortunately, Avo knew enough of the art that he could reduce the required upkeep.

Dismantling the structures of both the Specter and Ghost-Link, he began to line them based on points of memetic symmetry. Generally, the flowing winds and backgrounds could be left to be simulated by a single ghost. That reduced the total sequence required by one. He could probably get another off. One of these minds was able to simulate both a Bodkin and a standard aerovec.

Slowly, he merged the two memories and planted them back in his mindscape.

Before the road in front of his megablock now sprinted a six-legged nu-dog, yapping at a flying letter while behind it, a flitting vehicle snapped down, striking a villa before expanding into a ball of fire. The memory stuttered. The memory looped. The dog had five legs this time.

Avo frowned. There was probably a memetic bleedover happening between the memories of his ghosts–two different ghosts were remembering two very different morphs of nu-dog and the simulation was getting confused about which one to simulate.

Part of Avo wanted to dive in and prune the mistake now. His better sense told him not to. Once he started, he wouldn't be able to stop. This would do for now. He renamed his newly merged phantasmic and moved on.

[WHISPER] COG-CAP: 19 SEQUENCES (BASELINE)

  STRUCTURE–

Avo skipped that. He could already see the structure. It looked like it could simulate fine. Wasn’t clashing with anything else in his mind.

  FUNCTION: ALLOWS THE EXTENSION OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS BY 60 FEET AND THE DELIVERANCE OF COG-DATA WITHIN SAID FIELD OF AWARENESS; CAN BE EXTENDED BY MULTIPLES SHOULD MORE SEQUENCES BE USED

This would allow him to thought-shiv someone through a wall, at the very least. Saved him the trouble of getting close. Of course, he was still burning a ghost due to using them as a fragmentation weapon. But there was no easy way to replicate the functions of an offensive phantasmic like a Ghostjack.

Of course, he probably didn’t want to build something that ghost-intensive or sequence-demanding either. Not unless he wanted Mirrorhead to get suspicious and trigger the cortex bomb, that was.

With his new phantasmic made, Avo grouped the ghosts that fed its sequences into a specific area of the palace. It would make pruning them easier when he had the time. Always better to have a stable of ghosts specifically dedicated to keeping a phantasmic functional.

Turning his attention to his other constructs, he passed by the Phys-Sim without too much attention.

[PHYS-SIM] COG-CAP: 18 SEQUENCES (FIXED)

  STRUCTURE: “A MISSILE LOCKED TO AN AEROVEC, EVER INCHING CLOSER, DODGING INCOMING POINT DEFENSE FIRE”

  FUNCTION: CALCULATES THE ACCELERATION VECTORS AND IMPACT LANES OF UP TO TWELVE DYNAMIC OBJECTS

He could probably improve on it, but that was going to require more components. Better design. Best to leave it for now. Focus on his wards. With his current cog-cap limitations, he doubted he would be running the Phys-Sim and the Whisper at the same time anyway. He just didn’t have the sequences between those two and his wards.

Uninstalling his Whisper for a moment, he let his Phys-Sim run. Overhead, he watched as the missile chased the non-descript aerovec, bullets tracing through the air in a ballet of violence.

Good. No issue.

He moved on to the final modification he wanted to make this night: the wards.

[OSARAI MEMGUARD] COG-CAP: 20 SEQUENCES (BASELINE)

  STRUCTURE: “A HURRICANE TWISTING AND HURTLING SCREAMING FIGURES AND BROKEN STRUCTURES”

  FUNCTION: GUARDS THE MIND USING A LAYER OF TRAUMATIC MEMORIES: CAPABLE OF WITHSTANDING AND REFORMING AGAINST HEAVY-MASS PHANTASMAL INTRUSIONS; VULNERABLE TO NARROW-BUILD INVADERS.

Avo frowned. No reason that should have eaten up the attention of twenty ghosts. The only good thing was that pretty much all his ghosts could simulate the structure needed. Still, the enhancement here was simple but time-consuming.

He would make the storm thicker–he would bind the trauma of the ghosts into a lattice where he could. There was another thing all Necrojacks could do, but few mastered. Linking symmetrical memories together.

For the remainder of his time, he worked, binding similar traumas together from ghost to ghost, weaving what used to be mere milestones along the storm's border into a net. From his mind, he stitched memories. The first two he joined were between Hap-Tat and Little Vicious. Turns out, both had lost nu-dogs in their time. The only difference was Hap-Tat lost an actual dog and Little Vicious watched her ten-foot tall dog-looking bioform get turned into paste by a gauss-cannon fired from a block over.

He was about to connect another two when a dull ringing sounded from on high. Avo froze, stopping his work as he waited, wondering if it was a secondhand memory bleeding over into his mind, or if he was actually–

The ringing grew to a hammering then. Definitely not a memory.

EXTERNAL PRESENCE DETECTED

RETURN TO CONSCIOUSNESS?

Avo stared glumly at his wards, barely fractionally strengthened. No time. Never enough time. At least he planted his foundations down. Let him continue building his palace next time. Make things easier for himself.

“Yes,” he said, turning to stare at his megablock. “End dive.”

Light suddenly flashed into Avo’s eyes. His body still felt tired and sore but his mind was refreshed; ghosts drained most of the cognitive burden while he worked, Metamind lucid while his brain slumbered.

Blinking, he heard the hammering sound thumping against the door to the golem again. Turning, he spotted a glint of thoughtstuff shining through the wall.

“Mornin’, consang. Sleep good? Did you dream any ghoulie dreams?” Chambers said, voice muffled by the plating of the Galeslither.

Didn’t look like there was anyone else but Chambers. Did he want the favor back already?

“No,” Avo said, grunting as he felt a tension headache begin to build. His ligaments were screaming. It felt like his joints were on fire. His body was still punishing him for abusing the Celerostylus.

“Asked you two questions; you just gonna answer with no.”

“Yes.”

“Real sociable. Do I need to lube your conversational bits up with a daily hostage incident so that I can get a full sentence out of you? I think I can still find the flat. Hand him an actual gun this time. See how many techs he takes hostage and how many he kills.”

“No,” Avo said, rubbing his head. “You. Why are you here?”

“Gotta take you to go rig-fitting. Time for you to put the Nightmantis on. Take it for a test run. Mirrorhead’s orders. Turns out, since ol’ Chambers is the only one willing to deal with you, so you might’ve just got my ass a promotion. Looks like I’m your personal nanny now, Moonblood.”

The enforcer laughed his hyena-like laugh. Avo stared at the ground and sighed in annoyance.

At least he was getting a plate of armor out of the deal.