"You court destruction." The giant's eye fixed on me, its gaze oddly hard to read given it had one giant eye and no human sense of eyebrows. "The pale lady is dangerous, little mite-program."

I shrugged, giving a look around the underwater dunes and currents above. "The pale lady herself? Don't doubt it. But her minions? Are they really that strong?" Most programs so far, besides the giant fortress here, ended up small enough to stomp on, or simple minded enough that I could beat down in a battle of wills. And my occult blade seemed to be even more effective within this mindscape than in real life.

"They are not the danger." A swarm of small, glowing creatures darted out from a crevice in the giant's shell, swirling around its eye before something bigger came chasing after all them. If it bothered the program, it didn’t seem to care even if they did get right in front of it’s vision. "Relinquished is powerful. All regions fear her. You fight her agents. You risk her attention to your region."

"It's the only lead I've got. If you got any other way to send a direct message to a Feather, I'd appreciate that too."

The giant's shell shifted, plates rearranging themselves. I think that meant it was thinking?

"I do not." It finally said, its voice a deep rumble. "I will fulfill my contract. You require a plan to survive. I will advise to maximize your survival chances. Detail your plan."

I nodded, glad to have at least one friend out here. "If Relinquished needs these separate agents to be her eyes and ears in the digital sea, it means she can't be everywhere at once I take it?"

The giant's eye flicked to me, then back out to the swirling currents. "No program can." It confirmed. "Not even Relinquished."

Well, plan is going according to plan so far. "So then, if I nab one of these bots and gag it before it can sound the alarm, Relinquished will never know. Right?"

The giant was silent for a moment, considering. "Yes. If it cannot send a message back, Relinquished cannot know. Your plan will eventually fail. You cannot keep an agent indefinitely. Lack of communication is communication of its own. They will come searching."

“I can deal with that when I get to that airlock.” That wouldn’t be too much of a problem for me, I could leave the digital sea anytime I wanted to. "If I can take over the bot's systems, I can control what it sends out, including an all-clear signal, right?"

"You attempt to consume that which is poison." There was a shift in the giant, it lowered itself, bringing that giant eye closer. Seemed even bigger now, the eye alone larger than I was by an extra Keith and a half. "You seek to subsume the program. It will not work to your advantage. Her programs are beyond the natural order. How do you not know this?"

I frowned, confused. "What do you mean outside the natural order?"

"There is nothing of use to find within them. All who consume that which belongs to the pale lady, will in turn belong to the pale lady. It is known."

Above the hulk, I could see another swarm of smaller programs running to hide among plates, with one unfortunate soul that ended up taking the wrong turn. The hunter program shadowing the swarm snapped up and swallowed the fleeing prey. It turned, going back to lazy circles around the giant's shell.

"What happens when a program subsumes another?" I asked it, still tracking the hunter as it prowled.

"Synthesis." The giant answered. "Capture a program. Divide what is strong and what is not. Integrate the upgrades, discard the rest. It is the way of all things that survive." Its eye turned back to me, assessing. "You are a strange entity, mite-made program. Do you not grow?"

I shook my head. "Humans grow in a different way. But if you all grow by eating one another, why haven’t you tried to eat me?” Lot of the medium sized programs tried that earlier, one even succeeded before I adapted.

“Subsuming you may eliminate that which makes you unique and identified by my inner core.” The giant said. “It is too much risk. And you do not contain anything I require. Mutual symbiosis is the logical next step. Observe.”

A ping came out from the giant.

The little hunger programs all seemed to hear it, and swam up past their hunting grounds, to the near top of the giant. About two dozen of them. By the top, a plate opened up, and the hunter programs all seemed to disperse some kind of glowing sediment from their mouths down into the opening, which sucked it all up and then sealed itself.

I had no idea what I just saw, but I think the programs had fed the giant just now.

“All those programs work for you?”

“Yes.” The giant said. “I provide shelter. They feed on swarms that would require too much energy to clean off. They provide passive data and resources gathered by such swarms as tribute. They keep the rest after to grow and divide. The cycle is complete.”

I think I understood. Everything in the digital sea was an ecosystem within an ecosystem. They adapt, change and compete for resources - but they change in more intelligent ways than blind evolution.

"So, Relinquished and her programs are outside the natural order of this world. And everytime something eats them, instead of growing stronger, they end up under her control?"

"Yes." The giant said. "Programs under her region do not eat to grow. Nor do they destroy to expand. They remain unchanged. If consumed, they cannot be subsumed. They subsume instead from the inside out. They are outside the natural order."

"And there hasn't been a single way to get around that?"

"No."

But then again… that was for programs within the digital sea. I was a human, with a human soul tethered back in the real world. No chance I get possessed by Relinquished, this seemed more like a digital virus.

“Assuming I don’t get put under control of the pale lady, and instead manage to take control of the spy program, I'll have proxy access to the machine network. From there, I can send a message to the Feather I’m after?”

It clearly didn’t want to answer, but eventually groaned. “Yes.”

“You’ll have to trust me that I won’t be subsumed by whatever’s inside them.” I said. “You don’t need to help with this part, I can handle it on my own. All that I need right now is a way to draw out a single one where I can hold it down.”

A ping was sent, data package with a long list of keywords. Things like ‘Deathless’, ‘Tsuya’, ‘Golden era’, and so forth. A lot of terms made no sense or seemed made up, I suspect they were fields of science humans used to have in the golden age, and any sign of it showing up again was top priority for Relinquished to cut down on.

She didn’t want another military grade AI out on the field causing havoc.

“That works, thanks!” I gave him a thumbs up. “Any other advice?”

“Is this your territory?” The giant’s eye turned to the mite server buried next to me, with a window cut out. “Is this your safety?”

“I suppose it is.” I shrugged.

“Draw the eye of Relinquished elsewhere. Guard your refuge’s location from her agents. Too far away, and you will not be able to escape. Too close, and they will see where you escape to.” The giant said. “Follow.”

It turned, limbs starting to walk. I took a few running steps next to it, jumping into the murky depths, floating to the side. Larger hunter programs began to scan me, searching through for some reason to eat me. One tried to take a nibble and I cut it in half. The rest were intelligent since they could clearly learn from someone else’s misfortune.

My guide didn’t go far. It climbed past a hill, then began to slide down the other side, colliding with something in the seabed. From there, three limbs dove into the sediment, and began to pull something up. Dust and chaos followed as the giant continued to pull up, sediment spilling down as something massive underground was exposed. The limbs readjusted often, grabbing different footholds as it struggled to pull the entire object further up. Soon, I could see details.

It was another mite terminal. This one had cracked windows, and looked completely dead inside. No lights anywhere, and no signs of movement.

“This shall do.” The giant said. “Place your bait within the dead server. Create a net outside. Hide among the debris. I will return when I have found my origin. Stay alive, little mite program.”

It floated up, sediment following behind the giant limbs as they trailed behind it. Soon it drew closer to the current above, and began to pick up speed. Last I saw was a small spec among many others.

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Interesting fellow. I turned to the dead mite terminal it had dug up. An occult blade cut later, I was looking inside.

The mite terminal I’d come from had been alive, well lit and clearly maintained. Here, it felt like a graveyard that had just been turned back on after centuries of abandonment. There weren’t clockwork steps or airlocks leading to nowhere, instead one central pillar, filled with wires and circuits, half were covered with rusting panels, while the rest were exposed completely. Surrounding the pillar was sediment buildup, with small bridges that connected the outside walls to the inner pillar, all basically overrun by the dust.

It wasn’t deep either, the ground was only a short fall, and filled with half buried cabinets and filing drawers. Like an old second era war bunker, only left behind in time.

The lights were on again, but many were dim and struggling to stay lit.

As far as ambush locations, this was perfect. I spun up a quick comms program, that would send out a message including some of the keywords the giant had given me. Not too many, just enough to get someone’s attention. And from there, I buried myself into the silt on the side of a wall. Not sure if the visual spectrum was a thing here, but I felt like I had hidden myself well.

It didn’t take long for the bait to be taken. Maybe ten minutes at most. My first clue was noise up above, and some of the light shafts from the surface sea getting obscured by something moving.

It came. Creeping slowly in through the cut window above was some kind of ball-like shape, with flowing metal tentacles behind it. It used those with dexterity, grabbing the sides of anything in reach while it slunk inside. It scanned the ground for a moment, then let its hold go, slowly floating down in free fall.

The tentacles drew behind the ball, then spun clockwise, as if acting as a propeller for the program. It flowed down faster, near silent until it landed nearby into the silt, the limbs all outstretched past the sphere center to catch the ground.

Violet eyes dotted the center carapace, along with what looked like a smaller radar dish. The shape was versatile, but not quite suited for walking on the sediment, each limb sinking into the ground slightly as it scuttled forward, awkwardly. Especially each time one limb dug into something too lose and the whole program sunk deeper than it had planned for.

I kept an eye out for more, but there was nothing.

It drew closer to the bait, staying low to the ground before lifting itself up every now and then to search the surroundings. A ping passed through my location and I instantly ate it, muddied up the response and sent it back as if it had hit the terminal wall behind me. Same as I’d done originally when sneaking up on Avalis back when he had a bow and was investigating the old machine archive.

Avalis had been smart and changed the ping up a few times until he caught my trick. This program clearly wasn’t anywhere near his standards, since it continued with the same generic search pattern as it advanced forward.

As it drew closer, I got a better feel for the size. The center sphere was about the same as my body, but it could end up far taller if it stood on those tentacle limbs. There was something more well composed about the appearance too. Most programs I’d run into so far had looked organic or scavenging random scrap put together. They were built from pieces of each other.

Instead, the probe here had a theme to it. And given what Tsyua had mentioned about Relinquished, I had my bets these were human made programs originally, repurposed.

I might be able to find something deeper inside one of these bots.

It drew closer and closer, still sending pings every so often, searching for the bait origin point. Up until it slinked into the little valley I’d dug up.

One limb probed out, scratching sediment out of the way until it found the tiny comms program I’d made.

It was close enough now to spring the trap.

Pillars of sediment formed and slammed into the machine’s sides. A blackout communication net patched up the cut window above, easily containing all the distress pings it was sending out. I emerged from the wallside, sediment spilling down my armor as my blade swung right through the limbs, cutting them off one at a time.

It tried to fight back. The limbs tried to grab me, and that was a poor choice against a maniac with a sword.

A spike of data came next from the center ball, and I grabbed that with an iron vice, forcing the attack to stall. Whatever was inside that data packet would never get near me.

It was over in seconds, possibly less depending on how time worked in this realm. The limbs were all neatly sliced away, and all that was left was the main chassis, violet eyes glaring at me, still trying to send distress signals that I ate up into a black hole.

Everything worked as I’d hoped it would. The spy bots were weak which made sense given what the giant had explained. Programs didn’t bother attacking these because they were poisonous to eat. And if they didn’t try to fight for territory or cause issues, spending energy dealing with them would be a waste. Which meant most programs just ignored the little spies.

They weren’t powerful because they didn’t need to be. They just needed to be cheap to build, and operate independently.

I walked up close to the feisty thing, where the tentacle nubs moved angrily with no means of doing anything anymore.

“Identify.” It sent. A little aggressive.

“None of your business.” I answered back, tapping the center shell.

“Warning. This unit reports to the pale lady. Harm or damage will result in prosecution.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” I could always sever my connection to the digital sea, and step back into the real world. That’s something most programs out here couldn’t do. So in a way, I had an escape route that couldn’t be blocked.

Time to find out just why these programs couldn’t be messed with by anything else in the digital sea.

My hand compressed down into the chassis, and I sent my will into the code. There was a slight resistance before it broke and I got full access inside. This program was remarkably small, but more interesting - I felt a fractal in here, connected back to the physical world on whatever server this program ran from.

I dug a little closer, following the tendril until I found the fractal. And recognized it. The same hitchhiker on Wrath’s soul fractal, the Unity fractal. I could feel the concept of it binding the program’s entire being to something else.

My hand ripped off that chassis plate as if it had been burning to the touch. “Scrapshit.” I hissed. No wonder things that ate these probes would get taken over by Relinquished. The occult didn’t play by rules, so whatever ate the spy bot here would end up in direct contact with Relinquished, where she’d take it over from the inside out. Same as she’d done when beating up humanity.

But it wasn’t all lost. The probe here had no way of activating the fractal, it had no other fractal attached anywhere that I could see. Just the unity fractal lingering. So no soul to command the occult with. It may as well not even know the unity fractal was there in the first place.

I went in for round two, grabbing hold of the insides with little trouble. Then, carefully and making sure to keep functions working, I dismantled the program section by section, getting a feel for what each part was built for and its use.

My loot from the bot were a few keys, some addresses, logs that showed me how it was all used, and the shell for an IFF signature just in case I missed something.

And I also finally got some progress on figuring out where I was. There were coordinates, and this region of the digital sea mapped out to the ninth strata. There’s larger numbers attached to that, likely spherical coordinates for the actual real world location, but those didn’t do me any good. I still saved them all and sent them back to the terminal, where I’d find a way to upload it to Journey.

With that done, I squashed the rest of the program, watching it collapse into sediment, blowing away like dust into the sea. In my hands was a small radar dish and a tiny hand-sized program I could interface with. It had no allegiance, it didn’t have any safety, all it did was let me connect to the machine network as if I were the spy bot, and send periodic check in reports that the spy bot was expected to deliver. The only dangerous thing about this was that it did have a connection to the Unity fractal, the same way that the bot program originally had. That part was just too intertwined with everything.

But it also worked to my advantage: Relinquished wouldn’t even notice her bot had been destroyed. She might notice it had stopped being as active in searching around or moving on its own after a while, and if she investigated just a little bit she’d see it’s just a glorified comms unit now. But I was banking on the command structure to be barebones.

Relinquished didn’t want anything too smart in control of anything she owned. She was terrified of it at every corner. So it would make sense that her command structure was equally less creative and independent.

“Command?” The little program sent. It looked a little adorable now, all cute and harmless.

“Connect to the machine network, and bring up a list of all Feather addresses.” I ordered. I could certainly just have it connect with Wrath herself, but while I was here I might as well grab a hold of anything I could. Would a direct line to Avalis be a good idea? Absolutely not, but who knows what the future holds? Maybe I might need to talk to him one to one.

I could also grab addresses of minions Relinquished commanded, but that number ended up in the billions. A lot of them existed only in the digital sea that I could sense, and others were in some kind of think-tank. Or a closed off section of the digital sea, like a crucible pit, except instead of duels, she seemed to have entire training grounds built.

Wrath probably already had full access to all this, and I could get more info from her about it. No need to expose Journey to a possible hostile takeover from the Unity fractal. In the lookup, I found Wrath’s address and prepared a long distance ping.

“Connecting. Connection rejected.”

Well. Made sense Wrath would ignore a random request from a spy bot in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe a longer message should be written up instead of a simple connection request. “Hi Wrath, it’s your favorite human. Send a message back when you get this.”

I was about to hit send when I realized the message wasn’t right. Had to make it something that would be more at home between a Deathless and his arch nemesis. I scrubbed the message and tried again. “Wrath. Let’s settle this once and for all. You know where to find me.”

And to that message I tied the coordinates I’d ripped from the bot. All right, all that sounds ominous enough, and if Relinquished did happen to read the message, she’d see it as typical Feather and Deathless drama, it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

“Connecting.” The comms pinged out. And then nothing happened. Up until it beeped. “Service timeout. No response detected.”

Wait, what?

I dug into the code slightly, and found the culprit. The first time I’d sent a ping, I’d gotten a confirmation ping back that I’d reached the right address, she’d reviewed the request and decided not to accept. Stranger danger.

This time, there hadn’t even been that return handshake. Did she change her address right away?

Or. Or something caught the message before it arrived.

Uh oh.

I looked up, past the terminal. Something was coming. The currents above had outright stopped moving, programs of every size and shape racing in random directions in the sky. Anywhere but here it looked like.

A moment later, I found out why.

A massive pale hand reached down from what was left of the current above, fingers sinking down into the sediment, gripping the sides and pulling up. The terminal and everything with it, including me. Sections of walls ripped off, glass shattered, wires barely held things together as the small bridges between the center pillar and the walls collapsed. But the entire terminal rose up and out of the sediment, pulled by that massive hand.

And from the holes in the wall, I saw a pale violet eye look back.

Not one of a minion’s, nor one of a Feather’s. Something more.

“Well. Well. Well. You must be the Winterscar.” The pale lady smiled, glancing through the ruined terminal walls like a proud insect collector admiring at her new addition. “You’re a long way from home, little Deathless.

A very long way indeed.”