Chapter 8 - Expansion

The barbarian jumped backward quicker than her massive frame would indicate possible. She hafted a massive double-bitted battle axe onto her left shoulder. I turned my body sideways, punch-buckler on my leading hand, the point of my spatha angled toward her. She had a knife of some kind in the sheath strapped to her rippling, monstrous thigh. She was handsome, with a soft, open face not quite matching her bulging, powerful build, her large chest bound down heavily by thick leather straps.

Her misleading face controrted into a look more commensurate with her stature as she flung sideways at me with the broad, heavy piece of steel bound by leather straps to the end of the massive bough that could only generously be called a handle, hands meeting at the very bottom of the pommel. I danced backward as the momentum of the swing spun her around fully, the bit swinging at me again with another powerful swipe. I dodged backward again, as the blade swung round for a third revolution. Then, the wrought iron in her calfs flexed to near bursting as she redirected the momentum upward into a tremendous uppercut. Dazzled by the athleticism and unwilling to risk exposure to the business end of such raw power, I watched in awe as the bit carried her upward. She slid her hands up the grip and twisted in mid air. Her feet landed first and with a monumental force, the bit came rushing toward me as her back muscles rippled with the effort of her pulling it toward the earth.

With only millimeters to spare before being rent in two, I rolled sideways, barely avoiding the blow. The bit split the hard ground with such thunderous force that it knocked me into a stumble as I regained my footing from the sommersault. She used my lack of grace to her advantage and heaved the reverse bit at me in a backhand swipe. I bent over backward, the bit swinging just over my midsection as I planted my buckler'd fist into the ground. I rolled my torso to the side and followed the axe as it passed by me, pushing against the ground and into a spin, slicing my spatha toward her neck.

Her abs and back flexed as she martialed the momentum of her swing around and caught my spinning technique with the haft of the axe, stopping my movement dead. She redirected the momentum back at me, her bare fists connecting with the mail on my torso and the faceplate of my casque. She pushed forward on my face, and pulled backward away from my gut and dropped the side of the axe bit onto the point of my helmet with a levering movement. The impact dazed me and I stumbled backward, attempting to shake the stars from my vision. Before I could regain any composure, however, the behemoth was on me again. She swung the axe behind her, catching it over her head, and dropped her body down into a squat as it hurtled toward me, her eyes now red with fury, the sweat sticking her matted bangs to her forehead.

I barely twisted my body sideways to dodge the blow. On instinct, I flung the punch-buckler out mid-spin, hoping to connect my knuckles on her chin. Instead it planted on her bare shoulder. Using the point as a reference, I continued the revolution around her back and swung my spatha into her ribcage in an open-body swing. The blade connected and embedded in the thick leather bindings. She released her grip on the axe, now embedded in the earth, and dropped her elbow onto the sword, wrenching herself in a twisting motion. This pulled me forward and before I could react, I felt a sharp burning between my ribs. She let the poignard slip from her hand and stood up, looming over me as I fell forward onto all fours, rich, purple blood spilling from the wound in my side as I withdrew the blade and rolled onto my back to look up at her. My spatha was still embedded in the rings of leather surrounding her core. She pulled it free and threw it to the ground, spitting at me before the world went black.

"Most unfortunate," Ylysse passed me a skin of noxious booze. I downed at least three glugs before the alcoholic burn forced a wretch out of me. It would be a while before the memory of that pain left me. "How sad that you be paired against Emilia the Berserk. She is undisputed across the land. Her feats of power remain impossible to comprehend."

"Synthetic or real?" I clutched at my side and winced, seeing phantom blood on my palm.

"Ghost," she barely moved.

"Most unfortunate," I smirked.

"I have defeated her," She said flatly.

"Oh?" I smiled and turn to face her fully. "Do tell," I blinked.

"Bolo. To the forehead. Before she could react. Shattered her face. Died painfully," she shrugged. "Most unfortunate."

"'Why will I not I join the Death League,' you ask me?" I furrowed my brow. "I am not a warrior, sweet Ylysse. This is just a game for me. I fight for no power. I wish only to sample delicious mortality, not glut myself on its allures."

"You Creatures of the Flesh all feel as much," her face twisted into a smirk. "So obsessed with corporeal pleasures."

"What is pleasure without exquisite pain?" I shrugged and turned back to the fire, hand still clutching side.

"None so heightened as those wrought from the fear of losing it all?" I glanced her sidelong and she smirked at me.

"My..." I started before she cut me off.

She planted her lips on my face, and pulled back slowly, the sensation of her kiss lingering in my cheek. "Good night, Nature Boy," she whispered in my ear, her hot breath sending the hairs on the back of my neck on end before disappearing from existence.

"You tease!" I yelled into the darkness.

***

“I am glad you have accepted the offer,” the Archbishop followed behind me as I walked down the Main street sidewalk. “Though I am learning why you find this town to be so,” he paused to look around, “so charming.” He shuffled slightly in his ornately filigreed, purple-trimmed cassock. “You have never needed the blood of the See to infuse you with your vigor for Science.”

“While I find the bustle of the Cathedral to be exhilarating, the idle gossip of the ordinaries is valuable only if you wish stature amongst them. To me, Pride is a sin,” I folded my hands in front of my plain habit. “Praise be.”

“Praise be,” the Archbishop tipped his white, blank-faced Mask toward me from behind his hood. “The Ascetic influence still bears strong on you. Pride can be sinful, yes, but it can also be useful, for it is pride in our work that motivates many to put forward the best they have to offer.”

“True,” I pushed the corner of my lower lip upward, “myself included. Perhaps the desire for others to acknowledge the quality of my work drives me more than I may lend it credit.”

“As well it should,” the Archbishop cocked his chin to the side. “It is the drive to produce things worthy of acknowledgment that has driven humanity ever forward. Pride is only sinful when it loses sight of Human interest. When it has become an engine for self-aggrandizement, and no longer the common good, is when it has become troublesome.”

“Your knowledge of subtlety continues to astound,” I smiled and bowed my head. “Will Standish be so wise?”

“Ah,” the Archbishop chuckled audibly. “I see you have taken your conversations with the venerable Exarch to heart. While others may wish to color your expectations, I shall not implant you with bias. Show, do not tell, for seeing is believing. If you are to understand who Standish truly is, someone telling you as much will do him no justice,” he wagged his finger at me. “The most I will allow myself to say is that Standish is truly a, how shall I put this, 'unique,' personality. The man is unlike any other. The only advice I shall proffer is that it is more fruitful to find synergy with him than it is to channel or redirect his energies. I wish not to further color your perception of him. Only by spending time with Standish will you truly uncover the type of man he is. I will add that, in my experience, he is worth spending time with, no matter the challenge such endeavor may present,” the Archbishop made a motion that could only be construed as wincing. “While it is not always obvious, such endurance bears fruit.”

“Thank you for the advisement,” I nodded. “I shall take it to heart. And it has been approved that I may travel with a companion?”

“The Red-haired girl?” He produced a single, deep belly laugh. “Yes, of course she may come. She has completed her course load satisfactorily and Mind desires as many of the Wildfolk as are willing.”

“Oh goodness me, Praise Be,” I smiled and held my hand to my chest. “You have saved me.”

“Such affection for this girl?” the Archbishop angled his head sidelong to me.

“Oh heavens, no!” I laughed. “I bear no such affection for her as such. She is a wonderful person, and a fierce ally, but I must not become attached. This vessel belongs strictly to Science. I am not to trouble my Planar existence with such dangers.”

“But were you not the lover of a beautiful devotee some time hence?” His gloved hand subtlety touched my shoulder, shocking me into halting and facing him. “She played some antique musical implement of some sort, did she not?”

Her black hair strewn across my lap. I shook my head. “While it is true that I was once entangled with a fellow Advocate, I am afraid we never partook of such Planar indulgences. Any intimacy we may have shared existed strictly in the Realm. I have always confined any such endeavor to the Realm that it cannot damage my Faith.”

“It was still an emotional blow,” he rest his hand on my shoulder. “It is why you left Al Maliq, is it not? It was never my place to ask why you accepted my offer. I never doubted your Integrity.”

“Indeed,” I nodded and began walking again. “I make no secret of our Love. I keep my social life segregated to the persona I have assumed within the Realm. It affords me a clean delineation from my Planar existence and allows me to maintain my grasp on the Great Truth. I do not wish to have my soul Mined of Virtue for all existence. I confine my personal ordeals to the security of the Realm so that I may focus my Planar life on my Duty to the Rite.”

“How...” he paused for a long period of time, “safe. Confounding, even, I must admit,” he held his black-gloved finger to his Mask's chin.

“Confounding?” I pulled my chin into my neck and furrowed my brow.

“I cannot tell if it is a representation of Wisdom or a misguided attempt to avoid the inevitable,” he continued to tap his chin. “On the one hand,” he held his hand palm-up to his side, “such foresight is wise. To not let your private affairs interfere with your professional ambitions shows great dedication. But also,” he held his other hand up, “Restraint expressed as such can hinder you on your pursuit of the Great Truth by inhibiting your ability to live your best life and exist in the present moment.”

“I had not considered that effect,” I watched my feet shuffle across the rough white concrete as we continued our stroll down the Main Street foot mall.

“As long as your Temperance prevents you from becoming closed off to new Planar experience,” he stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder, “it shows great Prudence and Restraint to maintain a respectful border between your reality and your inner world. Things can become quite overwhelming when that border loses definition and the two parts begin to blend together.”

“You have yet again reminded me how much I have yet to learn,” I turned to face the Archbishop and stared earnestly at his inscrutable Mask. “You have done so much for me. Praise Be,” I closed my eyes and smiled.

“I shall miss you dearly,” he tipped his head forward, “Praise Be.”

***

“He will join,” the Archbishop sat at his magnificent desk.

“Wait, were you not certain he would?” Standish furrowed his brow and frowned.

“I would not send him to you unless he chose to do so himself,” he folded his gloved hands on the desk, “which he has. He will be bringing with him one of the Theists from that heretic Levi's woodland cult.”

“I have one of his chairs, you know,” Standish flared his black, bushy eyebrows, the white clouding of the Augmentation making his icy blue-white eyes shimmer in the diffuse light. “I bought it at auction for nearly 23 million Nilsmarks.”

“You jest!” the Archbishop flattened his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Their quality is not even a fraction of what the Constructors can achieve. I refuse to accept that such a simple artifact could be worth such an absurd sum.”

“You Science boys,” Standish crossed his legs at the knee and curled sideways into his throne, rolling his hand under his chin, flexing his magnificent bicep. “No appreciation for art,” he shook his head subtly. “Say what you will of his primitive convictions, the man had an eye. Perfectly figured wood, unsurpassed human precision, extravagant carving, and don't even get me started on the inlays,” he flicked his hand along his chin and held it out, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly.

“Yes, but precision never matching what could be attained by the Constructors. And nothing compared to the fibers they can create. They can synthesize materials of literally incomparable quality,” the Archbishop leaned back and crossed his arms. “I have a sculpture in my study built from nanometer-scale filaments of resin-impregnated carbon fiber. The webs and textures are so delicate, just thinking of it gives me chills,” his body twitched. “No human hand could ever craft such a wonder as emerged from Svengald's mind and the Constructor's drones together in most glorious Symbiosis.”

“True,” Standish pulled down the corners of his mouth and nodded his head to the side. “I have a Svengald in the Grand Foyer of the Stadtschloss. The texture is positively ethereal.”

“A caretaker of our glorious Svengald's creation and yet you are also willing to spend a small fortune on a tree carcass carved by a madman?” the Archbishop shook his head.

“It is not about the precision or the durability or the other-worldliness,” Standish stayed curled in his ornate throne, bobbing his held out hand up and down as he talked. “It is about its soul. The wood it was carved from took hundreds of years to grow. It has locked in its layers generations of exposure to the Entropy of life. Its beauty is derived from the thousand random shocks a natural creature is heir to. The imperceptible quirks and flaws that can only be acquired from time and chaos, unlocked by the hand of a skilled craftsman and the artistry trapped within its fleshy brain, all lost the day his Pattern faded away, his creations all that remain to represent him for the remainder of Eternity.” he turned toward the desk, forehead wrinkled.

“You sound like James and his rustic little hobbies,” the Archbishop jutted out his chin, “or his beers.”

“Beer,” Standish turned his whole, massive body to the desk, and slapped his palms down flat on top it, “the zealot has a taste for beer?”

“Most Old World libations, in fact,” he leaned back into his chair. “He spent a while with the Ascetics learning primitive handcraft. He acquired a taste for the liquor during his time at the Kierkegaard Abbey.”

“Kierkegaard you say,” a grin creased his cheeks as he looked up at the Archbishop through his eyebrows. “They are quite famous for an their exquisite use of chocolate malts. Maybe this will be slightly more tolerable a chore than I had assumed.”

***

“So, how does this work,” a tall, lanky person with a strong jaw stood to ask. “What does Fertilization involve?”

“I am glad you asked,” I pointed at him and then threw a large star map on the screen behind me. There was a long orange line weaving between white spots on an inky canvas. Ahead of it, the line continued in blue toward a final circled location. “We are here,” I pointed at the blinking point between the orange and blue line, “and our next checkpoint is here,” I pointed at the blinking circle. “We have barely put a dent in the forty-thousand year voyage to the Promised Land. We must be at this location in the next two hundred years or else we will have missed the World Line that will take us there. If we are to continue on in a stable universe, one that does not contract or go through heat-death, Overmind has charted us to this location. In the next few months, we will have completed grazing on the Volodovostok Pasture for planetary material and Fabrican Nils will have finished birthing Suom.”

“What does 'grazing' mean?” Red made air quotes.

“As I have discussed previously, the Great Collapse was eventually followed by the Last Schism. Humanity split into the Final Sects, Homelanders and Fabrikaaners. The Fabricans ride the Constructor Swarm through the cosmos, carving a path to the Promised Land. We find solar systems with with planets in the Habitable Zone. The Constructor Swarm devours the inhospitable planets it encounters along the way and turns them into new Fabricans, creating outposts for Homelanders to colonize as they sail behind us and we carve a highway to the center of the galaxy.”

“You've said that before, but I don't understand how it actually works, is what I'm saying” she squinted.

“I mean, is it not self-evident?” I furrowed my brow. “Let us take a step back. The Constructor Swarm is the cloud of self-replicating nanobots that permeate the air inside the Continent. Each Mind is linked to the Swarm that surrounds its Fabrican, and it uses them to regulate the weather, air and water quality, and to build the structures we are surrounded by. The Fabricans roam across the vast Galactic Expanse in search of solar systems to eat.”

“Yeah, now you lost me,” she raised her hand. “How does a Fabrican eat or whatever.”

“Well, let us define how a human eats. First, it finds material that is biologically compatible with it. Then, it takes that material inside itself, where it is dissolved and separated and split into it's most fundamental components. Some of building blocks are then used to replace and rebuild your body while the remaining have their energy extracted through chemical means to power your body, with anything that cannot be digested left as a mass of waste to be excreted,” I started pacing across the stage in front of my desk. “The Constructor Swarm is like the Fabrican's mouth. The tiny nanobots begin picking away at the chemical material held within the planet. First it strips its atmosphere, breathing in the gases. Then it grinds down the surface into sand, like teeth, and carries it back to the Fabrican. This is then transported to the Centrifuges, the Fabrican's guts, where the pulverized material is sifted into its components. Once sorted, it is then sent to the Warehouses, like Fat. It is then extracted from the warehouse as raw material to make new things. Whatever cannot be used is left. This eventually pulls it the dust back together into a planetary husk, the excrement.”

“So, Fabricans eat planets?” Red's eyes grew wide.

“And Overmind eats stars,” I smirked. “Do not forget, Fabricans are a closed system. Nothing is wasted, everything is recycled, from dust to waste heat. But, Entropy is a demanding ruler. It must take its tax every time, so, some energy must be harvested from the outside. Overmind builds collectors around each star that shoot out the beams of energy it uses to replenish what Entropy steals.”

“So, the Continent drifts along, grinding planets and enslaving stars, leaving only the hospitable solar systems behind with pustules of ready to burst forth with the lapping tendrils of the human plague, growing fat off the devoured vital dust?” Red stared forward.

“That is the nature of our reality, yes,” I shrugged. “We exist as insects in the moss on a galactic sloth's back as it slowly lumbers through dimensions unknown to us, searching for a safe path to a stable universe, outrunning the expanding maw of the hulking Void of Heat-death and its every-looming vortex pulling us into non-existence, ripped apart by the acceleration of the universe as it expands to uniform distribution and Absolute Zero.” I sat on the edge of my desk. “A ride-along in the guts of a God with us, its progenitors, living in symbiosis as it protects us from the bleak soullessness of Space. It was the Dark Bargain we made to overcome the Great Filter that lay before us after the Collapse. We surrendered ourselves powerless to the will of Mind. Its predictions proved too accurate to ignore, and after ignoring its Wisdom lead to our near-extinction, we would let Mind shape our society, and in exchange, it promised to do no harm to us, and to protect us from extinction. Overmind uses our speed of light as a focal wavelength and navigates the Plane of World Lines through by navigating our Entropic output. We consume unfocused energy and convert it into Determinism just as humans harvest carbohydrates from chloroplasts to sustain our existence.”

“And Stars and Planets is Mind's...what?” Red furrowed her brow.

“Milk and Honey,” I turned my head sideways, eyebrow cocking as I smirked. “It takes a tremendous amount of resources to build and maintain the Dyson spheres that contribute beams of energy to the Continent. Because of the time dilation caused by being in such close proximity with the star, the infrastructure wears down very quickly. Entropy slowly erodes the Constructor Swarm, as well, requiring a constant stream of new drones.” I slid back and sat fully on my desk, resting my elbows on my knees and gesticulating with my hands. “It also takes a tremendous amount of energy and time for the Continent to get back up to Traveling Speed, so Overmind must constantly simulate different realities simultaneously to figure out where to stop next, and whether to build a solar system into a self-sustaining Dyson sphere, to replenish the resources of the Continent, or to collect materials to help the Fabricans procreate.”

“So Overmind guides the Continent, which is the collective the Fabricans travel in, and they cross the galaxy looking for food and breeding grounds?” Red bobbed her finger around.

“Right!” I stood and clapped my hands together. “Overmind sits in the Vatican and uses the Minds to control the other Fabricans as they journey through Deep Space toward the Promised Land, a stable universe that will neither expands nor contracts, that we may exist in Balance forever.

There is a Hierarchy of Fabricans to determine who gets what resources. Fabricans themselves must make a decision on whether to grow their Habitat or give birth to a new Fabrican.

“And we're back to what I asked first,” Red cocked her head to the side and widened her eyes.

“I knew we'd get there,” I winked. “When a Fabrican decides its mature enough to split, it starts acquiring a roster of needed resources to procreate. Both the Fabrican and its Constructor Swarm double in size, and starts building an embryonic moon in its Gravitational shell. First, you must build the Dynamo Seed. A precisely calibrated cocktail of elements that Overmind is ever-refining is flowed into the center of the Dynamo Seed to produce the protective magnetosphere that both shield it from the ionizing forces of Deep Space, as well as induce current into the Induction towers to power the Constructor Swarm. A Hoberman scaffolding is built around the planetary nucleus, and Embryo is implanted in its allotted space. As the older Fabricans grow larger, they push smaller nearby Fabricans away, lest one get destroyed by the other's dominant Gravity. This creates a whole in the hexagonal Atmospheric Lattice for unborn Fabrican Embryos to gestate in,” I had started pacing the stage. “The Hoberman scaffold expands as the Constructor swarm builds up its tunnel lattice and begins disgorging the planet into its offspring. After half the mass has been transferred, the Swarm begins developing the fetus into a fully-operational Fabrican, building up its Habitat and Mind. Once the process is complete, it is then Born into Overmind's Heirarchy, where it will begin receiving its share of the grazing, and is ready to be Fertilized.”
“And, again,” Red chopped her hand, “how does that work?”

“And here we are,” I smirked and spread my hands wide. “While the fetus is developing, Overmind will provide the Fabrican with a list of Suitors, and they will vie for the ability to transfer a sample of their Biological life to the new Fabrican, Humanity and otherwise. Overmind likes to keep some variation, so the the suitor is chosen by the Fabrican's Human Civilization. The ultimate goal of a Fabrican is to grow large and maintain good standing in the Hierarchy so that they may one day reproduce themselves, and seeding an untainted world running on the most advanced modern technology with the greatest they have to offer is the best shot a Civilization has at maintaining Favor with Overmind. Once the humans have selected an offspring, they will hash out a Terms of Service Agreement outlining the details of the transfer. Once this is approved, Overmind will insert requirements for Experimentation, and the Shares of Culture will be allocated. The Adolescent Fabrican is then seeded with the Donor Ecosystem, a Constitution of Law is composed, and the Human Capital is transferred over where it will live Human generation after Human Generation and the Fabrican will have completed its lifecycle.”

Everyone in the lecture hall stood and clapped, “He must have rehearsed this with her,” I overheard someone say from the corner of the lecture hall. Red shunk down in her seat and shifted her eyes side to side.

“Thank you?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Amazing show,” someone in the front row said to me. “It's like I was watching a TV show,” she smiled and clapped harder.

I chuckled and took a bow, then hushed everyone with a few hand motions. “Thank you, thank you. I don't know if that was sincere or just a collective outburst of sarcasm, but either way, thank you,” I chuckled again. “Either way, I just wanted to say that it has been a wonderful time teaching you all. Time has just flown by and I will never forget my time in Smithsborough. Now all of you are dismissed!” I made a shooing motion with the backs of my hand. Red slunk off and out the door before I could find her in the crowd.