Book 8 – Chapter 1

I’ll start off with a side tangent about birds.

And by that I mean I’ll start with a tangent about the surface: Generally tents were single-person things, but within airspeeders people would gather around the center heater to play cards or gossip, and it was always a good wind-down ritual.

The Odin on the other hand/feather did not have huge heaters or anything to sit around and bask in from of. Apparently those tiny little black feathery blobs were better adapted to cold weather than humans were. They found technology to be less hearty when it came to temperatures; their heaters were built solely to help keep water flowing within pipes and some electronics from being damaged.

Generally it seemed like all they needed to do was puff up their feathers and they’d be warm as can be. I asked one of them about their exposed feet getting cold, and they’d looked at me like I was asking if trimming nails or cutting hair hurt. And then had the audacity to say I should just alternate legs. As in, stand on one leg and pull the other up to keep warm. If anything, being too warm was more difficult to handle than too cold. They then started to explain how they had to keep their mouths open, and drink a lot of water or take deep baths to cool off.

I later explained to them that I came from a place that was so cold that simply walking outside without preparation would see me dead.

They thought it was some kind of weird out-of-season human joke.

Nevertheless, when I suggested having a bonfire started up to huddle around with the team here, celebrate our victory, go over strategy, and so forth – they’d gotten terrified. Started screaming about the outpost having seen enough fire for several decades, and other odd complaints I couldn’t understand. Highly unreasonable folks.

When I joked about just setting everything on fire again instead of a nice self-contained bonfire, they compromised by having these tiny hand-warmers brought out, and then copious amounts of food as bribes. Much more reasonable folks now, all it took is a little bit of threats and fire.

And speaking of, the civil war happening back on the Icon was mostly resolved, with the Icon herself stepping in to inform everyone about her new deals and new… er, boss.

To’Orda.

Yeah that one came as a surprise to me too, but turns out that Feather had actually gone ahead and basically freed the Icon from everything. Everything. She could speak like a normal person, scheme like a normal person, and even plan out elaborate means of cold blooded ruthless murder. Like a normal person.

That’s how To’Naviris bit it in the end.

She’d claimed she’d even picked out a lot of To’Orda’s backdoor programming, as well as handled any outside viewpoints in. She and Wrath were getting along quite well, with the Icon being a perpetual source of accurate information on humankind, along with a voice of reason to help guide Wrath along.

This was somewhat of a bittersweet bag of goods, since my latest attempt to get Wrath to eat things she shouldn’t be eating was foiled far faster than expected – all because of the Icon whispering sweet nothings like ‘He’s lying.’ and ‘No really, ask him to rephrase his answer in a way that cannot be misconstrued.’

Ruins my fun.

But there was one thing more important than all these revelations, and as we ate through the entire Odin stockpiles, much to the horror of Septimus and his logistics officers, we were in deep discussion:

“We need a name for him.” I pointed one finger right at the culprit egging me on. “I refuse to keep calling him ‘The pet rock’ all the time. It’s unnatural.”

“Oh hell no. I ain’t getting named by a goddamn human.” The rock hissed back at me, eyes narrowing down with contempt on its projected doodle. It had a nice little comfortable looking spot on top of a pile of cloth, right around the center heater.

I’d just finished eating some kind of seed-filled dense flour cake of some kind, which left a lot stuck all over my teeth to pick off. “Don’t worry, I have a long tradition of naming machines.” I gave the little rock a thumbs up, then started thinking through possible names.

“Is there not a matter more important than this?” Wrath asked. “The rock is an engram, not a true intelligence. We should be discussing Drakonis and the Deathless currently causing havoc on my city. I would like hostilities settled as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, what the toots with the tits said.” The rock said. “Except for the part about intelligence, that’s just a crass and uncivilized statement.”

“I would recommend you switch your focus to Relinquished instead.” The Icon spoke from her own mini-speaker, placed next to the rock. “I have attempted to scrub all alternative sources of video, audio or direct footage she may be using beyond your… ‘unity fractals.’ An entity of that size would surely be using multiple redundant systems to keep track of events.”

“I don’t disagree with setting contingencies just in case. Relinquished has a lot of narrative rules she needs to obey, if you can figure those out, you’d be able to run circles around her. Tsuya might be who we should get you in contact with. She’s probably come up with a few thousand different techniques by this point.” I took another bite of the seedcake before setting it down to start picking at my teeth. “She’d probably be the best mentor when it comes to fighting Relinquished. A few thousand years of fighting off the entire machine empire in their domain and surviving through it all is a strong feat in my opinion.”

“That sounds like a good addition.” The Icon said, “Old age means many iterations of combat and built up history between the two. I am, admittedly, a newcomer to all this. The field I see does not match what should exist.”

“Come up with the countermeasures you can for now, keep a focus on staying unseen by Relinquished over outright beating her back, and let’s focus on getting you in contact with Tsuya. She’s got the brains to work around Relinquished, and you’ve got the raw processing power she can’t get a hold of. Together, you might actually have a solid chance at beating her down.” Then looked over to To’Orda, “No offense, your mom sucks.”

To’Orda grunted.

“Agree to disagree.” I said, humming, then turned a finger back to the rock. “And I’ve got a few options I’m thinking of for you, don’t you worry.”

The doodled eyes narrowed down. “Your little schemes of naming me won’t work. I don’t have a soul fractal built into this thing, I’m an honest to god actual program and nuthin’ else.”

“How’s about Bou-”

“You have no power here!” The rock hissed back before I could finish my attempt. “I ain’t owing you jack squat.”

I was about to start the attack when Septimus arrived with actual business to run through to To’Orda, and the rock was forced to serve as a translator.

Superior, got any clever naming ideas? A pet rock going without a name is a sin.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

You owe me one Wrath hug. Keith Superior sent, completely ignoring the entire question I had, and making me cough out my drink.

“Are you okay?” Wrath asked, watching as I half-choked and coughed my way back to normality.

“Yeah, just had an intrusive thought. Please, don’t stop on my account.”

Superior, what the scrap?

Also I want your finest ration bars and enough jewels to fill my empty heart. He whispered like the evil advisor next to the clan lord’s deathbed.

You treacherous weasel. I hissed back, coughing my throat clear before setting aside the food. Is that really what you’ve been thinking about this entire time?

Yes and no. Go a month without eating and I oddly don’t feel much more about it. Even the strawberry flavored ration bars just sounds like it’d be good in theory, but no real desires.

And the jewels?

Protection from Ellie. Duh.

You make a solid point.

Ah, so Keith Superior has ascended beyond worldly needs. I could tell just from the soul link it wasn’t only in terms of food.

Eh, spend a month with only a massive incomprehensibly huge god-like entity to talk to and you come up with some new thinking. Now, where’s my hug? I was promised one hug.

At least one thing that wasn’t going to change about me was my core sense of identity as someone who will pester even god if I get the chance at it. Somehow, I felt a surge of pride about that.