What inspires us to kill our gods?

It is one of two mysteries that bother me to the point of obsession. A question revisited every morning and evening, haunting me in every moment of passing silence.

Humanity through its many ages has had more gods than can be accurately counted. They are born from stories, ideas, and ideals, but always and without exception they lose their importance to us and they die by our mortal hands. At times we may even re-dress the corpses, clean the blood and cover their pale complexion with coloured powders to make them look fresh and new, all so that these lifeless puppets can flesh out a new pantheon.

Eventually, either the smell of rot overpowers the sweet perfumes or we simply grow tired of them, as we finally let them fade to nothingness with the fickle nature of a spoilt child tossing out their old toys, always coveting that something new.

How many gods lie dead in our wake, not even leaving behind a fossilized husk? How many more are we to forget like a fading dream?

Does the answer even matter?

We’ll always find new gods to replace the old.

New gods to serve us, and for us to serve.

New gods for us to slay.

“The recent attack on the SynnTech building has left three employees in critical condition and caused roughly 45 billion silver merits in damages.”

SynnTech; a corporate entity that has come to replace the gods of old. The deity, to which my family owes our fealty and not one so easily felled.

“The criminals were subdued at the scene, but the search continues to locate any conspirators they may have been working with.”

The news report—the first of Dad’s early morning rituals—resonates through our household’s network, the data streams echoing in my own ports; interrupting my own thoughts.

A quirk of technology?

Or something more insidious? A propaganda attack on my subconscious mind?

Its biting nails digging into the flesh of my mind, looking to claim a beachhead from which it might war for my soul. Yet, even knowing it for what it is, I will not pry those clawing fingers free.

SynnTech is my family’s patron after all, and it wouldn’t do to act so unfilial in view of judging eyes.

Which leads me to the other mystery that my obsessive mind cannot let be.

You.

I can feel you here hiding somewhere in my mind, I would call you a parasite but that doesn’t quite fit, does it? You do not take and you do not give, you only… observe.

Is there something so interesting about me that you would crave my every other thought to scribble them down in your diary? Or I am but one of many to you?

Can you not answer?

Or do you choose not to?

Does it make you uncomfortable when I reach out to you?

…

Is it strange to think that we might be friends, of a sort?

It would be, wouldn’t it? But I hope you don’t mind. I’ll believe that you’re okay with it until you do finally answer me.

Discordant humming echoes from the kitchen as Dad burns his morning coffee, the second step of his rituals. By the time I finish changing and washing my face, he’s sitting at the dining table, smiling to himself as his eyes flicker through the morning news.

“Have you caught the news?” He asks, shifting to take a bite of what technically passes as toast, smothered in enough jam to almost forget that no ingredient involved could be legally advertised as bread.

“The attack?”

“Is there anything else worth talking about?”

“The broadcasters would be out there making a story if there wasn’t, and the reintegration of the rebel colonies in the fringe systems is always big in the news. It’s hard to believe that they managed to survive for a whole generation out there after their software was bricked.”

“That’s just old news repeating itself. An idiot seizes control of a colony, calls himself a CEO and makes up his own corporation or something equally stupid. In the end, the survivors sign back on with a real corporation after he inevitably gets himself scrapped,” Dad shakes his head. “The only ones that matter are those that sign a contract with SynnTech after.

“All in all not worth talking about. This attack, though…” His smile deepens, the creases in his face darkening as a shadow passes over him. “That these people would so willingly spit in the face of those who have given them so much.

“They should be begging SynnTech for forgiveness for their own uselessness, but instead they sell their flesh to the competition for a few cheap favours.”

“Not everyone has the privilege of working for SynnTech, Dad.” I meet his eyes but he doesn’t meet mine, there is a light of foreign influence building in there.

“It’s Vulcan industries,” jittering hands lower his toast, jam sloughing off onto the table, as the weapons loaded into his shoulders peak out at the world. “They’re behind this, conspiring to bring us all down.”

“Dad?”

“The attack, Vulcan industries are pulling tricks again. They didn’t learn their lesson after rebranding from the defunct Hephaestus Forges.” His hands quake as he clutches at the table.

“The only parts on the attackers that weren’t pitted with rust and acid wear were from the old Hephaestus production lines. Gear that should have been bricked when they restructured into Vulcan Industries. Someone over there has been handing weapons and tech to every rust-plugged synner ready to throw themselves at us. It’s cost us 11% efficiency this quarter already. Eleven percent!

“Every year it’s getting worse. If we could just push the other corporations out of this city, SynnTech could fix everything. Until then, everything we do to make this city better just gets exploited by groups like Hephaestus and the jobless scum of the scrapheap that crawl out from under the streets.”

Just like the good employee he is, he barks on command.

How much of this is him playing along with what they want of him, and how much is something else stepping in to tell him what to think and how to feel?

I feed him empty words of agreement, just as a good daughter should. The words themselves matter little, they’re just a sign to show that I’m paying attention, even though I’m not. One phrase does stick, however, prodding at my own obsessions.

“What do they think they can even do to us?”

Of course, describing SynnTech as ‘us’. Attaching ourselves to the skirt of the corporation that killed the divine, as if children hiding behind the legs of their mother. A shame that she is but an empty shell that we crafted to comfort us in the absence of the parents we killed.

SynnTech; a name meaning ‘synthetic technology’ on the face of it while trying to be cute with the reference to religious ‘sin’. A clear and open rejection of the past gods and religions, yet with them gone the play on words has lost much of its meaning.

Can it still be called sin to go against the will of a dead god? Or is it sin now to betray the new god that stands over their bloodied remains?

These naïve new age rebels, sinners that resist the corporations; what goes through their minds as they throw away their lives for a hopeless cause? Why do they dedicate so much of themselves to slaying the immortal?

The body of a god is not found in temples, warehouses, or office buildings. Nor in any single body not even the possessed priests, managerial officers, or vaunted CEOs. The body of a god is found only in faith, and even should the impossible be done and faith in these gods plummet with their stock value, our desperate human need for another will see them replaced.

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The chunks and giblets that remain will be sewn back together, renamed and rebranded; nothing will have changed.

So, what is the point in fighting?

What inspires these naïve fools?

I need to understand.

“Isn’t that quite enough, dear?” Mom crashes into the conversation as she pulls the crushed toast from Dad’s hand and wipes away the spilt jam. “Isn’t there a better way to spoil the morning?”

All of Dad’s momentum stalls out as he tries to find something to reply with, only to delay by helping her with cleaning up. His awkward smile to her does nothing to ease the tension between them.

“Good morning, darling,” he gives up on any follow-up, realising that any victory would be pyrrhic. “Did you sleep well?”

“Fine,” she says shaking her head in contradiction. “Work was filling my dreams, as always. I just want to forget about it.”

Her eyes move with the distinctive look of a person scrawling through optical feeds, distracted even as she talks. Though that’s not unusual for her.

“Well… ah…” Dad fumbles, his eyes glazing over faintly as he tries to think of a topic of conversation that doesn’t centre around his work or employer. “My new arms are taking well, and they look impressive don’t you think? You always complained about the last ones…”

“I’m sure they’re very useful for your work,” Mom replies, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Just be careful, please… I… I don’t want to see you on the news… just come back home.”

“This isn’t some throwaway metal,” Dad chuckles as he reaches out for her, even as she steps back away. “I know you’ve always been anxious about my work in security but SynnTech has invested in me. I’m not running around breaking rust-eaten synners as they crawl out of the gutters anymore. There are so many layers of security surrounding me that I haven’t had a real fight outside of training in years. Most of our job is just to look intimidating for the boss.

“You don’t have to worry anymore.”

“I know, I know… it’s just…” Mom shakes her head. “It’s nothing.

“The corporations do as they will, and we do as we must,” she whispers as a quiet curse under her breath.

“That true, Dad? You haven’t even gotten to test those new arms you’re so proud of?” I ask, picking at the tension in the air born from a thousand words left unspoken.

But that’s normal for a family, isn’t it?

For arguments to hang unspoken and ignored, as we pretend not to care about the things which bother us most and give false importance to the things we couldn’t care less about.

How much would be broken if someone were to cut through the Gordian knot and say aloud the feelings that we hide?

“Didn’t I just explain that my job isn’t about fighting anymore?” his smile returns as the topic becomes something comfortable for him. “It’s about intimidation, appearance, and deception. Most idiots on the street are so focused on the bits that shine that they even don’t notice the parts that don’t. A little better-than-real skin is enough to hide subdermal armour plating, plasma casters, and cannonettes for long enough to scatter any idiot that makes a move on the boss.”

He cycles through a few weapons, the skin pealing back on rails or lifting up on hatches to reveal the hidden weapons. He clicks and whirrs with mechanical motion as each weapon cycles through before folding back inside of him; a living fortress hidden within false flesh.

To me, he’s just my dad, a smiling old man who loves his job a little too much, but it’s easy to forget just how much 7th circle kit he has packed into his frame. As personal security to SynnTech’s current head of city operations, he’s been installed with the sort of combat gear that’ll let him make a stand against a small army and survive everything they throw at him.

“Remember, you’re more than just the metal you have plugged in,” Dad says, lowering his voice seriously. “Strategize, plan, and take every advantage you can scrape together. You won’t earn a promotion if you can’t use your mind to beat out the competition.”

“I didn’t realize your job had that much thinking to it,” I lie, shifting in my chair as I try to get ahead of the conversation. “You’re never this serious, you usually just make a joke about it or something.”

“That’s part of the deception,” Dad replies, with a simple shrug. “Everyone thinks that they’re smarter than a meathead, and killers have repeatedly targeted me as a weakness in the security team because of it. It makes them predictable, and easier for us to counter or even catch them out before they make a move.

“Remember, Art, we are always being watched and we never know what sort of spiders are listening in on us at any moment, or who they serve. You need to be careful what you let them see.”

“Should you be telling us all these secrets?” His honesty is both unnerving and refreshing, and I’m leaning forward over the table before I even know it.

“We’re phasing the strategy out, and anyone with ears able to reach this table already knows it. So, it’s not worth the effort of hiding it,” he dismisses the thought. “Just make sure to take the lesson to heart.”

“I will, Dad.”

“Moving onto something more exciting, have you decided what you’re getting for your first proper synn, yet?” He leans back and turns his gaze into our ‘secure’ home network searching through the options for himself not at all bothered that the spiders weaving data threads through our home would already know more than him.

Strangers closer than family.

“I have an idea…” I reply, picking through the familiar options just one more time.

Synns.

Synthetic flesh, bone, organs, and then there are the things that we don’t naturally come equipped with; the pistons, and gears, and things that go boom. There is an almost impossible number of options available if you’re able to pay the price, all sorted into various circles that define their user.

From the 1st circle of limbo, for the spiders who weave their webs through the digital worlds to the 9th circle of treachery where the very imitation of humanity is betrayed for more efficient alien forms.

I find my own wish list filled with 4th circle ‘greed’ synns. Not an inaccurate label since I wish to steal time itself from the world.

“First synn subsidy eats a percentage of the cost, so I’m going big for the best savings,” I tell both my parents, though Mom isn’t paying attention. “And as you said, my mind is the biggest advantage I can get over everyone else, so I figure I’ll go for a spine-trap.”

Dad's smile cracks as he bursts with laughter, slapping at the table, and Mom just freezes in place for a few moments before getting back to cleaning with a barely perceptible frown lingering on her lips. Another thread silently wound into the Gordian knot, another worry that isn’t going to be spoken of.

“You’re going all out, eh? A smart girl just like her Dad. Looking to get into some fights, are we?” Dad eagerly leans closer, smiling brightly as he thinks only of the aspects that would affect his own work.

“No, but I need to get ahead, and I can’t do that when my worth is measured by the steel that I’ve got plugged in. A Spine-Trap will speed up my thoughts and reactions. If I can think at twice the speed, I can study twice as much as the other students and I can adapt to new synns twice as quickly. I’ll have a full synn-set in a couple of years, and have you ever seen a full-body synner kicking up rust and plugging numbers at SynnTech? Or any company for that matter?”

“Glad to know my favourite daughter is aiming for the top floor.”

“Your only daughter is going to be your boss one day,” we share a smirk.

I got my smile from Dad and Mom always used to refer to it as ‘charming’, though I’m sure she was talking more about Dad than me. It used to be a catchphrase of hers whenever we get like this, but she hasn’t said it in years.

“Azra has a full spinal refit, so I’ll ask him about it, see if he wants to talk,” he continues. “Heard it’s a hell of a thing on your head to live in slowed time, but if anyone can work that metal, it’s you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I punch his shoulder, the fake skin is a soft cushion, but I can still feel the hardened armour underneath. “He’ll be with us tonight for that thing, won’t he? That meeting with your boss is still good, right?”

“Your boss, the CEO?” Mom asks, snapping up straight as if this is the first she’s heard of it. She’s finally looking past her feeds to see us both, still wearing her frown.

“She’s head of operations in this city, not quite SynnTech CEO,” Dad chuckles, but it dies quickly as he realizes that his mirth is not shared. “Don’t worry too much about it, in public she’s a hardass but in private she’s not so bad.”

“Mhmm,” Mom hesitates for a moment before the words slip out of her. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“You’ve seen her on the feeds, haven’t you?” Dad asks, chuckling. “She’s rich enough to be as pretty as she wants to be.”

“I’m asking if you think she’s pretty,” Mom says pressing her lips together into a tight white line, not doing much to disguise her concerns.

“Sure,” Dad shrugs. “Her personality is… something else, though. Trust me, honey. You have nothing to worry about.”

She slouches and clutches at her head for a moment before looking away.

“I’m sorry it’s just everything is always SynnTech and… Just remember our promise, part of you belongs to me as well.”

“And you, me,” the imitation of a smile breaks apart as something real peaks through for the passing of a heartbeat.

“Yes, yes. You both love each other very much. Now, am I getting a meeting with the most important person in this city, or what?”

“Yes, it’s still happening. Don’t be afraid of asking her whatever you want to know,” Dad tells me, leaving Mom to retreat away into her own digital world. “See if you can’t sneak into her contacts. Just being competent isn’t always going to be enough, connections get you ahead at her level.”

“Thank you so much for setting this up for me! I really can’t believe it, you’re the absolute best, Dad!” I reach out, hugging him tight, playing it up a little in case this conversation ends up reaching her ears. At least one of the little spiders listening in is certainly working for her, after all.

I need to make an impression on this woman, and hopefully, I can use her to lock in a contract with the company before graduation and the official hiring period begins.

Dad’s not wrong either, being competent without connections is a good way to get yourself used, or worse, scrapped by someone who sees you as a threat. If you even want to dream of a real promotion, then you’ll need someone high up looking out for you.

“Azra will be with us, I’ll let you know if he’s good to talk,” Dad says, a difficult smile on his lips. “If you do go through with the spine-trap, you’ll need a couple months of recovery but I’m sure that your Mom can look after you until you’re on your feet again.”

“Mhmm,” Mom mumbles in the background, barely pretending to be a part of the conversation.

“How much real flesh does Azra have left at this point? He hasn’t gone full metal, has he?”

“Full? No. He’s still got his brain, but he does most of his thinking through his implants, the organics are mostly there as a hackproof backup,” he explains, though everyone listening knows it’s a lie.

“He doesn’t even wear BTR skin anymore, it makes him fucking terrifying to look at, and it’s been years since anyone has had the steel to come at him from the front. Some rust-pluggers are pissing oil just at the sight of him. But I figure they’d all lose their damn minds seeing him at home with all his ‘puppers’. Still can’t believe he calls ‘em that.”

“I’ve seen the pictures,” I snort back a laugh, unable to repress a smile.

He could become a minor star on the open net if we set up some live cams through his house. The contrast between a metal killing machine and the man doting on his fluffy little Shiba babies is just so unbearably adorable.

Flicking my feed over to Dad’s boss, I get back to planning my approach. How do you impress a woman standing at the top of the world?

“I think I’ll wear my new dress tonight,” I mumble with a frown, going over my plans yet again.

“She won’t care,” Dad smirks. “Just… look confident and don’t show her any weakness.”

“What is she, a wild animal?” Mom asks, returning to the conversation.

“Worse, she’s corporate,” Dad pats me on the back.