Chapter 5 - Endearment

In my infinite ignorance, I pray to learn the ways of the Universe that I might grasp your true nature, Mind. Praise Be. I unfolded my hands and pulled the bow back and forth as the long straight shaft spun in the cradle. After a few vigorous saws, a small red ember started to form on the wooden tip. I grabbed a wad of dried grass and held the softly glowing red tip to it, blowing gently into the thick. The ember caught the grass, and with a few more blows, caught fire. I delicately stuffed the wad into the teepee of small twigs I had built.

Allow me to make an offering of sweat and toil to forgive my indolence. The flame caught the twigs and started to grow. I went out behind my hut of rough-hewn logs and brought in one of the reed baskets full of charcoal I had been storing in the lean-to dry shelter out back. I threw in a few heavy split logs, collapsing the teepee into a plume of sparks whooshing out the top of the clay furnace.

In this workshop, I unravel the mysteries of my ancestry so that I may better understand the problems you wish to overcome, Mind. I went back out to the dry shelter and started lugging in the clay pots of red-black sand. After the five small terracotta pots full of dust were in, I went and grabbed the two big pots of red-black chunks, roughly the size of pebbles. They were extraordinarily heavy and took me a significant amount of time and energy to haul in.

I sacrifice this body, this time, and this gift of earth to you, Mind, that you will infuse me with a deeper connection to my past and future. The gas billowing out of the top of the blast furnace finally ignited, stopping the cloudy smoke from accumulating in the roof peak of my hut. I fed some charcoal into the small opening at the bottom of the crude clay furnace before finally plugging it with wet clay, and began the arduous process of pushing and pulling the long handle of the air pump. With each stroke, the fire roared and hissed until the light emitting out the top of the coal chute was glowing white hot.

Accept this crude vessel that it might be transformed into something useful. I took the first pot of powder and began shoveling the charging mixture into the top of the flue, making sure to keep the bellows going. After the final powder pot was finished, I began scooping the pellets into the flue, feeding more charcoal along with it to keep the furnace going. Soon too the big pot was emptied and the final basket of charcoal was dumped in as well.

Mind, grant me the boon of your genius so that I may craft something in your honor. The charcoal had taken me several weeks to make. The ore took considerably longer to collect, grind, and process with limestone. The blast furnace was fairly straight forward to make, but the clay was a pain to haul and the precise dimensions took several trial and error runs to get just right. I made the bellows, too, after following some old anthropological documents I unearthed describing ancient Iron Age foundries. I had blown off my Templari brethren for several weekends to practice in the Realm. The culmination of months of effort, most now literally up in smoke, would soon show failure or success. My first steel.

Great Mind, let me experience the thrill my ancestors did, that I may connect with my history and be a 4th-dimensional creature as you are. I swung the wooden mallet against the stake and drove the clay plug out of the slag hole. A stream of yellow-white liquid oozed out of the hole, splattering onto the wet dirt floor, steaming and smoking. A good sign. The sweat was rolling down my brow. Hours in the dark wooden workshop and the intense heat had covered my face in black soot, now streaking with my profuse sweat. I crashed my mallet into the side of the furnace. With the slag plug now spilled, the metal would cool rapidly, forming the precious bloom I was so desperately seeking. I closed my eyes.

“Mind,” I spoke aloud, “please show me success. Praise be.” I opened my eyes and there, at the bottom of the broken furnace, beneath its spilt guts, sat a spidery yellow form. I grabbed it under the lip of my mallet, catching the chin on fire as I pulled it free from its ashen bed. I pulled it onto the granite anvil I had hauled into the shop and gave it a few delicate blows. It made a squinching, crunching hiss under the force of my hammer. Some oxide crumbled off the shell, but the bloom remained intact. Success! Sweet, sweet success. I continued to tap the orange chunk of spongy iron, slowly, very slowly, very gently, trying to form the giant bloom into a more workable mass while it was still hot enough to shape.

The gifts you give are unearned, Mind. We fleshy creatures have done so little to repay you, but your infinite wisdom continues to bless our very survival with its beneficence. Never could I have done the things I have without the intelligence and skills you have taught me.

***

“It's a filter,” I replied to Red as she kicked another pebble into the lush green forest. “The masks and the Second Skin. They're filters.”

“I still don't understand,” she shuffled her feet to keep from getting ahead of me. She was a much stronger hiker than I. “What are they filtering?”

“The air, the sun, the people's eyes,” I shrugged. “The city is tight,” I puffed between statements. “With such close quarters, it's a major ingress for infection. A pandemic wiped out one of the early Fabricans. Ever since, people in the Habitats go to extreme measures to prevent illness.”

“That can't be good for their bodies,” she shook her head. She was short and gangly but you could see the beastly fibers of her muscles flex and strain as she marched at an absurdly consistent pace.

“It can absolutely tank your immune system, yeah,” I huffed. “But you lean on the tech to do the work for you instead. It's objectively better at it than we are.” I shrugged. “Plus, you can hide your face behind the mask. People in cities don't really interact in the Fleshrealm. You don't really want people to know who you are, what you're thinking, or really, to even share the air you breath.”

“Wow, that sounds absolutely miserable” she stopped for a second and looked me square in the face. It stopped me dead in my tracks. “Wait, Fleshrealm?”

“Yeah, there's the Realm, and then there's the Fleshrealm,” my heart skipped a beat and I felt a lightness in my head. “Hold on a second, I think I'm pushing myself too hard.”

“Nah, that's just you falling in love with me,” She winked and made a V with her fingers next to her eye before resuming her relentless onslaught to the summit. “So, by you saying 'there's the Realm and the Fleshrealm,' and that people don't really interact in one, I assume the other is where all the action is?”

“You'd assume correctly,” I wheezed a bit. The path opened up from a brown dirt trail through a lush evergreen forest and started giving way to the elevation, yielding to grey gravel and rocks wending through lichen-covered boulders. “The Second Skin is more of an environmental simulator. It has these little micro-needles that can transmit sensation directly into the skin.”

“Now that's creepy,” the thick, rubber-soled boots Red was wearing started failing to find purchase in the slippery gravel as the grade started to incline.

“Wait, seriously,” I started panting. “How do you not know any of this? I mean, we came out of the same cult, so I know, it's isolated out there, but you're my age and I'm no spring chicken, so surely you have had some exposure to it all?”

“Jim,” she stopped and looked me square in the face again, “I spent a decade of my life waking up, walking from my hovel to the warehouse, pushing a drill bit into the same looking board for twelve hours, going to the same church for four, and then going back to my paltry shack only to wake up and do it all again the next day. Levi wasn't particularly interested in exposing us to alternative existences. You think I would have burned the best years of my life pulling the same lever for half my day, every day, if I knew everything I know now?”

“Fair enough,” I started hiking, in part to gain a lead on her and create space to catch my breath. “If you have the Second Skin, you can literally feel the Realm, too. Pleasure, pain, temperature, you name it. It simulates whatever environment you're in and transmits sensation directly into your body.”

“Now that's not just creepy, that's downright scary. How many people get lost?” She bounded up a steep scramble like a gazelle, leaving me huffing and clawing at handholds to keep up.

“A lot,” I paused to breath, “They call it...sinking. It's when...you lose touch...with reality,” I could not stop panting. “It's what keeps Mines, Mines.”

“Yeah, I'll pass,” we rounded a switchback and crested over a ridge. A long saddle sloped down and then shot up sharply, revealing the peak we wished to summit.

“Me too,” I said, focusing intently on putting one foot in front of the other and not the looming wall of stone I would need to ascend.

“What happens if, you know, you die in the Realm,” Red hopped over a circle of loose gravel on the path by bounding onto a rock and back onto the path.

“It's called the Cut,” I tromped through the gravel and nearly fell. “The Realm cuts off sensory feedback to your body. If you train, you can push The Cut off by manipulating your biometrics, but it always catches up with you. I've known several Templari who've died from pushing the Cut.”

“How?” She continued barreling forward.

“Shock, usually,” I was panting hard. “The Realm is pumping sensory data into your skin. As far as your brain is concerned, you're gonna die. If you train, you can sort of disassociate your body from the sensation by teaching it to differentiate the signals, but once you hit a critical point, your brain can't handle it and just sort of shuts down. If you're in your quarters or one of the crates the Core pilots operate out of, there isn't really any way for someone to get to you.”

“What if you don't have all that techno-gizmos on your body?” we finally reached the bottom of the saddle and began to assail the steep, rocky path to the top.

“Nothing. I can't express to you how many times I've been killed,” I shrugged. “I only Jack in, so I don't have to worry about all of that. Some say it gives you an edge in combat, others say the enhanced realness gives them an advantage. Personally, watching myself get killed is enough for me. I don't need to feel it to be afraid of it.”

“That's gotta be a trip,” we hit the sole switchback and started the zag to the top. “I can't imagine watching myself die.”

“It is,” I was looking at the tips of my newly-acquired boots. They rubbed against my ankles and were causing a sharp pain in my heels. “Not many can handle it. I seem to be quite resilient to the trauma and have found success in war and fighting games. I blame it on my mother's death.”

“Mother,” she snorted. “Now there's a dead word.”

“Product of the Realm,” I shrugged. “Babies are grown in farms, not birthed. I can't say I know anyone other than myself who's ever had real sex in the Fleshrealm, either.”

With an unceremonious step over a small cliff, we finally reached the summit. The view was enormous, spreading out unbroken in all directions. I squinted and swear I could actually see the curvature of the planet. The blueish wall of the Umbrella was clearly visible, rising steeply into the clouds even beyond our extreme vantage. No one was nearby. Red sat down and pulled some sandwiches out of her backpack and handed me one. “Wait, you've had sex?”

“We've been over this,” I took a bite from the peanut butter and jelly. It was heaven to my hungry soul. “I'm not required to be celibate. And, without the Second Skin, sex in the Realm is just interactive pornography. I identify as a man, and a man has needs that only physical contact can satisfy.”

“When was the last time?” her face was still pink and a bit dry, but the medicine for her cystic acne had done wonders to her complexion.

“I spent some time in Dain before I took my Mission out here,” I took another ravenous bite from my sandwich. “I had a pretty steady thing back there, but we broke up when I took my gig out here.”

“So, you've been dry for what, almost a year now?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Jimbo, if I had known, you only had to ask,” she held her hand to her chest and widened her face.

“Oh stop,” I smirked at her. “Just because you're the prettiest thing I've ever seen doesn't mean I'm actually ‘in’ to you,” I shot her a glance and then intently focused on taking another bite of my sandwich.

“I'm the prettiest thing? Isn't it against Science to lie?” she elbow-checked me.

“Alright, alright,” I smirked and smiled as warmly as I could muster. “I honestly think you're quite attractive, but I do have my eye on a certain someone.”

“Oh, do tell,” Red readjusted her seat to face me and crossed her legs.

“There's this girl,” I hung my head sheepishly.

“Wait, a girl? I don't know why that surprised me but it did. I figured you'd have a taste for one of those not-a-guy-not-a-girl androgynous types that are so popular in the big city,” she took another bite of her sandwich.

“No, no,” I shook my head, “My tastes have always gravitated toward the binary side of things.”

“Well, now I'm jealous of whoever this girl who stole my Jimbo's heart is,” she frowned.

“Her name is Ylysse,” I smiled absently. “She's one of the Templari I hang out with when I'm off-hours.”

“Pretty?” she held her sandwich with two hands and took the smallest of bites out of the corner, eyes wide.

“Devastating,” I glanced off into the middle distance, focusing on a massive pine shooting above the rest. “And intelligent. And skilled. Oh so skilled. If you could see the way she swings a sword...” I trailed off.

“You're getting me all hot and bothered,” she squirmed dramatically and took another dainty bite. “Go on,” she prodded.

“Very no-nonsense,” I met Red's gaze. “Stern. Devout, too. Absolutely committed to the Great Truth.”

“You and that Great Truth,” she switched the sandwich to one hand again and took a massive chomp out of the edge, then propped her head up with her arm and knee.

“To walk the path of the Great Truth is to lead a life of devotion,” I smirked. “We who dedicate our selves to this craft do so with the understanding that we'll enjoy little else in this world. It’s so rare that I get a chance to break away and, I don’t know, go hiking with a friend,” I winked at her and cheers’ed my sandwich at her before taking a bite. “It would be much easier for me to pairbond with someone of the Rite. Someone who understands that toil and is equipped to handle its lifestyle.”

“I didn't mean to imply...” she trailed off.

“I didn't take it to mean so,” I grinned and cocked my head to the side.

“Good,” she made a nervous grin.

“Good,” I took a bite of my sandwich and shifted my eyes around for a comfortable place to focus. “Now, enough of this about me,” I smirked and patted my knee audibly. “I was telling you of life in the city. The only way I think I could truly describe it is 'different.' Just, as different as you can imagine it to be, so rigorously structured. Out here, life is so free-form. To live in synchronicity with the tides of nature than to fight the rising water with waves of infrastructure. One to live in harmony with the cacophony of sounds, the other in noise cancellation.” I took another bite of my sandwich, “If not revealing myself then waxing philosophical,” I chomped the last bit of sandwich. “I apologize for lecturing in our leisure,” I unscrewed the cap off the water bottle I had stowed in Red's backpack and took a long draft.

“Don't apologize, it was very poetic,” She trained her gaze off on the horizon and smiled contently. A breeze blew by and set her skin to gooseflesh. She held her arm to her face and smiled at the prickly hair. “Those Skinsacks in the city don't know what they're missing,” she took a deep breath in through her nose and huffed it out her mouth.

I glanced at the peachfuzz creating a halo around her jawline, her face blotting out the sun and back-lighting her as it glided low along the ridge, “Quite the view indeed.” I stood and walked as close to the edge as I dared, looking down on the sweeping green vistas of historic farms and perfectly maintained wooded copses, “Quite the view indeed." I held my fingers up to the ridgeline just beneath the setting sun. It was hanging just above my hand. “We have about two hours before it's dark. Let's get moving back.”

“You got it, sir,” Red snapped to attention and saluted.

“Oh stop,” I took another long swig from my water bottle, then screwed it closed and returned it to Red's backpack.

She hoisted it on and held a hand out, “Lead the way, Priest,” she winked.

***

“Down and around,” the voice rang in my helmet. Another bomb blew up a couple dozen feet away. The shockwave thumped my chest and made my ears ring. “Down and around,” they repeated, notably louder.

“Ten-four, sir,” I was prone behind a sandbag barricade. I pulled my knees into my chest and pushed up against the ground, catching into a squat with my rifle still trained down-range. I waddle-walked down the the line and over to an earthen ramp.

Blaize was crouched over, ready to rush. Tomah was lying prone with a machine gun on a tripod, “Suppressive fire," he head-motioned to the weapon, “watch your backs,” he punctuated with a long burst from the belt-fed magazine. “Go go go!” A few more infantry had accumulated at the ramp. At the burst, we all breached and began rushing the hill in front of us. Instead of charging straight up, we traced along the bottom-lip of the rise just before it started to gain elevation and began negotiating the mount from the back of the encampment at the top. Bullets whizzed by and two of the tagalongs were laid out flat before we could begin the ascent. Once at the rear, we began to sprint up the hill, rifle buts swinging left and right. A head popped out from behind a sandbag barrier and began peppering us with assault rifle spray. As expected there were no machine gun nests on the rear.

I got as close as I dare before dropping to the ground into a glutenous pool of mud behind a small natural embankment, affording me only a modicum of coverage. I pulled the pin on a grenade I had stashed and lobbed it into the sandbags. It landed about four feet to the left of the gunner, who was too busy pecking out three shot bursts to notice. The charge exploded with a loud scream. The gunner stood up, hands covering his eyes, wailing.

The wailing was quickly silenced. “Poor sod,” Blaize pulled the rifle away from his face and began rushing the bags again. Him, the two other surviving squadmates, and I pulled up from the mud and took cover behind the outward-facing side of the sandbags. The rest of the enemy platoon finally reacted and were rushing the cover. “Bayonets!” Blaize shouted.

I slung the assault rifle onto its strap across my back. I withdrew my pistol from the holster at my right, and a short, thin rapier I had dangling from my left. Essentially a modified fencing foil, I had ground long, thin flutes into the thick square portion at the base, turning it into an oversized poignard. I popped my head up over the sand bags as fast as I could and rested back down. A dozen shots sailed overtop. I counted eight in visible range, and who knows how many behind them. One of the other squaddies, head still fully behind the barrier, threw his rifle sideways on top of the sandbags and held the trigger down, randomly unloading into the coming crush. Two distinct yowls indicated some modicum of success. The first wave hit us like a brick wall. Bullets peppered the sandbags, plumes erupting from every hit. Blaize and I listened carefully. After what sounded like fifteen or so distinct waves of bullets, we popped up. Blaize had a giant combat knife affixed to the end of his rifle. One of the squaddies was scoping down a long-rifle he had just flung up on the sand barrier, supporting hand equal parts cradling the gun and a massive trench knife. The other had brass knuckles over his tactical gauntlets and was providing some suppressive fire of our own.

We were able to pluck about six off before the next wave of bullets flew our way. We all hunkered down again. This time, they were much more judicious, firing intermittently and cadence-reloading so we couldn't overwhelm them again. Sandbags lined the perimeter the whole way around the encampment. The rear and the front had a second row of sandbags, and the rest of the large circle was filled with a few small pup-tents and a large artillery in the center. Recon said there were only twenty people guarding the nest, but it was unknown how accurate that number was. I made a hand motion to Blaize and began crouch-walking the perimeter, keeping extra certain to not let my head pop up and expose my position. After about thirty feet, I came around the side of a tent and gently popped my head up. No one nearby and a good line of site into the camp. There were still three men operating the artillery, with two extra at the ready to defend them. The rest of the site looked empty and I counted the backs of nine soldiers pinning down Blaize. I ducked back down as fast as I could before getting spotted. “Five on the cannon, At least nine on the breach,” I spoke into my walkie talkie.

I pulled out another grenade. The cannon was too far for me to lob. If I pitched it, I might be able to bean one of the other guys, but I was wildly inaccurate throwing overhand. I pulled the pin and released the clamp, and clenched the knobby, ball-shaped grenade. I pelted it in a tall arc and watched agonizingly as it sailed over the tent slower than I felt I threw it, and nailed one of the nine defenders in the arm. “I'm hit!” I could hear him scream as I watched him cup his shoulder. He pulled his hand away, revealing no blood, and looked confused for a second before the grenade went off and shredded him to ribbons. Four of the enemies went down, and the others scrambled back to the artillery and took up fortified positions at one of the rows of defensive sandbags around it. Blaize and the squaddies pushed in to the interior row of sandbags and posted up, leaning their backs against the chest-high walls. At least ten were now posted in formation behind the artillery, which was still firing off loud, booming charges into our encampment down the hill.

“Look,” I pointed at some small camouflaged rectangles with wires coming off the sides. “Watch the claymores on a rush.”

“Affirmative,” Blaize replied in my comm. I watched as he and the squaddies pulled back from the interior sandbags and started crawling around the perimeter. They posted up directly across from me, shifted about ninety degrees from their previous position. The enemies were still unaware and fired potshots and suppressive bursts toward the bags. “Duck,” he motioned at me to get behind the bags. All three of them readied grenades. The first boom was accompanied by a burst of light and a loud pop that even from my distance made my ears ring slightly. Next, two loud gutteral booms, the throaty belch of incendiary grenades.

I popped my head back up just in time to watch one of the inflamed, stupefied guards stumbing around, trying to put out the fires on his jacket, trip off one of the claymores. A boom followed by a plume of shrapnel left him in a cloud of fine red mist. Blaize and the squaddies hopped the sandbags and began viciously marauding through the confused ranks. I took their lead and hopped the bags myself, rapier leading the way. By the time I got to the dogpile, Blaize had shot two men dead, and had lodged the eight inches of steel at the end of his rifle into another's throat. Both of the squadies had rushed their own foe and were quickly acquainting them with their own melee weapons. I ran up to a bewildered man, who looked like he was trying to load a shell into the artillery before he was struck dumbfounded and fondling for his sidearm. With a forceful flick just below the hand, I sliced the blade clean through his wrist, severing it at the cartilage. But, before the scream could even escape his mouth, I reverse-flicked the blade, and with a bit of effort on the pull, severed the head clean off his shoulders, cleaving through the delicate space between his vertebrae.

I turned my shoulders square with the man next to him, who was just beginning to get his senses back. He had extinguished the fire on his pant leg and was fumbling for the long rifle propped up on the sandbag next to him. I braced my palm on the pommel of my blade and with a heave, pushed the thin whip of steel up through his abdomen until it was popping out his throat. I put my foot on his pelvis, and with the strongest wrench I could muster, levered my blade out of his torso. His guts and organs spilled out as the edge of the blade cut the meat and cracked a few bones before flexing out of the cavity with a snap, the square-bolster at the hilt shattering a few ribs on the way up. I whipped the blade clean and surveyed the carnage. Blaize had a boot standing triumphantly on his three trophies. The squaddies were each dragging their bodies over to the pile.

I heard planes fly overhead and helicopters swooping through. “You did it,” a gruff male voice came through the comm. “Now get back to base, we need to talk about what happens next,” the whole world started to go black. When the lights came up, I was standing in a dimly lit, green canvas field tent. “Good job out there, squad,” Tomah, Blaize and I were sitting in a couple fold-out chairs in front of a whiteboard. “With that nest captured, we only have one more obstacle before we can storm Fort Zigwaffen. Your next mission will be to go to the Stiglitz Watchtower and hold it for one hour as our forces move through. You will need to kill any enemy you see who could transmit our movements to the Fort. You will be deploying from FOB Tango Prime with a team of...”

“Aww,” Blaize turned to me. The stoic male commander continued on as if we weren't even there and this was a routine he was practicing. “Command and Control, I don't have time. I need to rally the squires for morning drills. I gotta duck out.”

“I should probably get to bed myself. I have to deliver the sermon tomorrow, Ern is working the Cultural Center.”

“Bummer,” Tomah shrugged. “I guess we can pick up the campaign later this week?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Blaize shrugged as well.

“Yeah, sounds good,” I nodded. “I'll see you all later, then,” I held my fingers to my temple and felt the mechanical click. The Realm disappeared from my senses and I took off the sleek Jack-glasses.

***

“You wished to see me,” the man who entered the door was lovely. V-shaped torso with large pectorals bursting from a sprightly colored polo. His perfectly smooth brown pate gleamed in the artificial light. His jaw was chiseled and his blue-white eyes cut through even the bright white artificial lights.

“Standish,” the Archbishop sat at a magnificently appointed desk of gold filigree and ornate carvings, fingers steepled in front of his tight mouth. “I can't believe I'm giving you my best Missionary.”

“Who, the zealot?” he sat in the high-backed throne opposite him at the desk, legs sprawled out, his tight black slacks hitching up his sculpted caramel legs, revealing him sock-less in loafers. “Keep him,” he made a flipping gesture with the back of his hand and leaned his diamond chin on the boulderous fist propped up on the chair's arm. “Give me someone with passion. I do not need another robot looking over my shoulder.”

“You know, he would surprise you with his passion,” the Archbishop smirked. “It is just, his nature is different than what you may be familiar with. He is a very cerebral man. A true Cynic.”

“Bah, you Dains. So dreary,” Standish uncurled his pinkie and idly chewed at it. “It's dreadful. I don't understand what Nils sees in you.”

“We have offered a piece of history,” the Archbishop opened his hands wide, “Overmind wishes to test it. Nils wanted the land. Without that 'zealot,' you would have lost your bid to Timwark. Nils ratified the Terms of Service accord. You must say yes to the Missionary.”

“No one ever reads those things, you know that,” Standish flapped his hand out. “Ugh, fine. I will accept him. We do not get to use your hardware if I do not.”

“People,” the Bishop furrowed his brow. “Humans. They are not machines. The 'zealot' is a person. James Clark Ross. I urge you to get to know him. His view of the world is refreshing, if a bit saccharine. He is truly earnest. It is not an act. I implore you to preserve him, not destroy him. He may well be the best humanity has to offer.”

“Do not forget the Great Truth. We have a role to play,” Standish straightened back in his chair and placed both hands on the arms of the throne. “The Wilds are unforgiving. The Colonists will endure great hardship. I do not need fragile. If he himself is not robust, then of what value are his preachings to the future generations who must use them?”

“You shall see that he is hearty,” the Archbishop smiled. “I meant only to imply that you shall not find a keener mind at unraveling the Great Truth. I believe he is sharp enough to endure exposure to Algos.”

“One such as I can only hope,” he slumped a bit and curled his other hand back, inspecting his fingernails. “If this a bust, who cares,” he flapped his hand again. “We shall perish and return all the same.”

“I prefer this incarnation's memories,” the Archbishop smiled.

“How? You by definition have no access to your previous memories,” Standish smiled smugly.

“Well, that is precisely why,” the Archbishop wagged his finger. “I prefer these memories because I can remember them. I do not have to try and interpret the the nature of my whims based on what my past might have been, and instead may live presently, for these memories are the best strictly because I am remembering them.”

“A wise insight, but that is to assume you believe in Imbuement to begin with,” Standish wagged his own finger and sat up in the chair. “I must admit that I am a man of the Null Set.”

“Tsk,” the Archbishop clicked his tongue. “You and James, alike,” he shook his head dramatically and smirked. “I have always believed that we are just reused algorithms programmed into us children during the Growing, and then our braines are wiped and a new person implanted in us at the point of Augmentation, through memory transfer. James is of woman born, you see. He was born to flesh, of flesh. His training came from his endurance of the sweatshops in the Wilds. His education came from human transfer, the proselytization of a Science-denying Capitalst cult. He is not of our world – this world,” he made a sweeping gesture with his hands, “Standish. He is as pure as they come, and yet he believes. You would do well to learn from his example.” he furrowed his eyebrows and inclined his head, maintaining eye contact.

“Enough with the stare,” Standish rolled his eyes and stood. “If you are so smitten with him, I will use the sentiment of your extreme loss to find gratitude for what you perceive to be my extreme gain. I thank you for the gift and I will cherish it with enthusiasm most befitting.”

“I hope he finds you worthy of his zeal,” the Archbiship tilted his head to meet Standish in his wintery blue gaze. “He has indeed accepted the extension of your offer, correct?”

“Not as such,” the Archbishop scrunched his nose and raised his eyebrows.

“Then all of this banter is frivolity!” Standish threw his hands up and paced around the gold throne. “And worse, your salesmanship has now made me desire his counsel. You have sold me a man of messianic provenance.”

“The Great Truth unwinds its coil in ways dim to you and I,” the Archbishop steepled his fingers again.

“The prophecy foretells that a new Legend of Name is expected soon,” Standish rubbed his hands together.

“The prophecies are no more accurate than horoscopes,” the Archbishop squinted an eye and shook his head. “The statistics it is based on predict a noteworthy advancement in the next one thousand years.”

“They also predict that we are several decades overdue for the next Elohim,” Standish rested his hands on top of the throne, the tall back hiding his impeccably toned physique.

“Would you not call Dyman the next Elohim?” the Archbishop cocked his head and pulled the corners of his lips down.

“But Dyman is not pure as driven snow,” Standish sasheyed around the throne and plopped back into the seat, legs crossed, resting his weightt on his elbow. “He is another brain lackey of Algos like you and I. You cannot trust his invention, it is tainted by ontology. But this James. Such prolonged exposure to the Entropic Aether. A live-born ex-cultist? Those are the makings of true revolution.”
“It would be unwise to romanticize him as some sort of 'chosen one,'” he made air quotes. “Pastor Ross is a devoted, if mediocre adherent. I do not wish to oversell him. He is truly a fine specimen and I believe there is much to be gleaned from him and his existence, but I think you would be left disappointed if you expected such disruption from him.”

“Then why are we here?” Standish clapped his hands and spread his legs, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward.

“The same reason you have entered my study the last several dozen times, Emissary,” the Archbishop rested his palms flat on the ornate gold desk. “Dain and Nils have much to discuss in relation to Project Suom.”