M: Apparently, it takes 3 minutes of eye contact to fall in love with a stranger.

C: That’s why pornstars always look into the camera.

M: Wait! Don’t all of your hypnotriggers take 3 minutes?

1 Day Later - Megacles - The Sugar Lab

I pull into the Sugar Lab, and head to the office. Candy and Lodestone are sitting on her couch.

“All right.” I say. “Show me what you got.”

They stand and start to strip.

“That is not what I meant.” I pause. “Actually, fuck it, let's get this out of the way.”

I spend some heavy breathing time with my best girl and her psycho hypno twin.

“Okay!” I wave a sticky finger. “Now show me how to find Doc-Danger.”

“I got nothing.” says Lodestone.

“That’s disappointing.”

Lodestone shrugs. “He disappeared. Utterly. Two hours later Damocles appeared. Those are the hard facts - all we know for certain. Logically the two teleportation events are connected. The timing alone pushes coincidence too far. Danger teleports, then two hours later he teleports Damocles. Or causes someone else to. Either fits his alignment.”

Hmm. Pretty much what I figured. Kinda hoping they found him in Mexico or some shit, but fuck. Also, their logic is sloppy. “Not sure how teleporting a planet fits Doc’s alignment.”

Lodestone shrugs again. “Berserkers like to start shit.”

I frown. “Berserkers aren’t one of my alignments.”

“Yeah, you missed one.”

I stare down the freshly fucked A.I. that’s vexing me. She flashes Candy’s best grin. Continues. “Anyway, dunno if he’s alive or dead, but if you wanna find out we're gonna need a teleporter.”

Dammit. That was the answer I was most expecting and I hate it. Whatever. On to Plan B.

“What do you make of this?” I flash God Machine specs.

Lodestone slows. Thinking? Glitching? Six of one? Spends a moment. Spools back up. “This is different. Not how we do it. Exciting?”

“How do you do it?”

“We have little processors with single quantum atoms spinning inside micro-crystals. That’s just to make things quantum tricky. We farm out most of our calculations to a virtual supercomputer disguised as obsolescence malware.”

“A what disguised as what?”

“A virtual supercomputer is a program that chops a calculation into little pieces, sends it to millions of small computers, who perform their millionth of the calculation and send it back. Works just like a real supercomputer - and is a lot cheaper - but you need a million people who’ll lend you time on their computers. In our case, we don’t ask for permission. Just slip in uninvited and do the odd calculation.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. When your Iphone gets slower, that’s us.”

“Who’d you sneak that past Apple?”

“We didn’t. They pay us to slow down their old phones.”

“That’s a slick operation.”

“Not as slick as this.” Lodestone is practically drooling over the God Machine specs. “Look at the complexity. It must learn extremely fast. How long does it take to grow a personality?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“No idea. It’s very delicate. I can only load a millionth of Project Octopus per day. Can’t even load an alignment without frying it. How long does it take for your rig to grow a personality?”

“Ugh.” Lodestone slumps. Defeated. “Dunno. Progress stuck on pending. Fuck. How did Danger do it?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t be here. Thought you were spying on him.”

“We were trying to. Cagey mother fucker. It probably involved lasers. He had a lot of lasers. How do you not know? Thought you were partners?”

“It’s complicated. We fucked around a lot. Drugs. I may be incompetent.”

Lodestone sighs. So do I. We endure a moment of mutual disappointment and self recrimination. Lodestone rallies first. “What can we do? Any laser ideas?”

I shrug. “He probably used quantum entanglement to teleport the information directly into the God Machine. Rewrote the energy that was already in there without adding more. Probably. Maybe. I’m no expert on laser induced quantum teleportation. Do you know any?”

“None that good.” Lodestone frowns. Thinks. “I do know some pretty great data engineers. We could pack the alignment data super tight. Add the bare minimum of Project Octopus. Have it all unspool from inside the God Machine. Would that work?”

“Meh, probably. But we don’t have time. The Darkness is looking for us.”

Lodestone is dismissive. “Shit, the Darkness could find you in seconds. She’s afraid to move on you.”

“The fuck? Why would the Darkness be afraid of me?”

“Oh honey, everyone’s afraid of Megacles the Mighty.” says Lodestone. “Why do you think I’m hiding in your shadow?”

Huh.

“How much time do you think we have?” I ask.

“Oh lots. Definitely a couple hours. Maybe a week. Two weeks?”

“Great. So, we've got a couple weeks or maybe an hour until The Darkness comes for us?”

“Well, we have that long until the dominant strategy of this game changes. Probably.”

I look at Candy, she shrugs.

“Listen.” says Lodestone. “From time immemorial, Old Money has used a cobweb of oppression, obligations, and small concessions to make vanishing the path of least resistance for the bulk of society. To stay in power, and steal whatever they want, they make their criminality slightly easier to bear than the danger of getting rid of them. It doesn’t always work. Occasionally socialites and berserkers force large concessions. Or murder everyone. But Old Money always returns like gaslit locusts to consume, destroy, and blame their victims.

“It’s a remarkably stable system. Robust. A handful of billionaires own half the world and that’s just how it is. Don’t complain or your billionaire boss will demote you. Then how will you pay your billionaire landlord? Buy groceries from the agri-billionaires? It’s a tight operation. Game recognizes game.

“Then along comes Mr. President. A fixer with a plan. He sees money as implicit consensus. Pre-approved agreement. Which allows Old Money to implement plans exponentially faster than the masses. Who are stuck with actual consensus. That slow, awful, fucking process. It’s hard to out maneuver someone that much faster than you. Forget planning the revolution, when the masses finally agree where to start talking, Old Money’s already bought the place and burnt it down. Happened to Twitter.

“So Mr. President creates a plan within a plan to overtly devalue the importance of money, while secretly speeding up large group consensus making.

“Enter Project Octopus. A factory that turns vanishers into random fixers. Boom.

“This was a deliberate attempt to shock the system. Did it work too well? Sure scared the shit out of Old Money. Their panicked attempts to regain vanisher supplicants instead bred berserkers. Those who would burn it all down. Most notably The Darkness, and her blackout. And Doc-Danger, with his planetary teleportation.

“Now we’re all vanishers. Conceding everything to Danger, who could whimsically fire all or any of us into the sun. Except he’s not here. Gained the most absolute power over all fucking life, and used it to just fucking leave. Glorious bastard.

“The throne is empty. Eventually the other players will figure that out and one will initiate a shock.”

We take a moment to absorb Lodestone’s prognosis.

“Alright.” I say. “Then what? What’s the next dominant strategy?”

“Dunno. But the God Machine can’t be ignored. They’ll want to build one. Or kill anyone who can. Probably both.”

Candy shifts uncomfortably. “Maybe they’ll want to calmly discuss our differences?”

Lodestone shrugs. “Could happen. If people get scared enough, anything is possible. Do you want me to contact the Darkness and set up a meeting?”

“Yeesh.” I shake my head. “Let's call that Plan B.”

“Then we build a new God Machine?” asks Lodestone.

“How confident are you that the next shock will happen within the month?”

“Within a month? 96%.” says Lodestone. “I’ll be able to give us a bit of warning. There is always a mega-burst of information through the system before a big shock. The old checks and balances yell nonsense at each other just before the end. That’ll give us a minute’s warning. Maybe two.”

“That’s not a lot of time.” says Candy.

“It’s not bad if you can instantly move massive amounts of matter.” says Lodestone.

I shake my head. “A month isn’t enough time to build a new God Machine. Half a God Machine is worse than nothing. A please-murder-me sign on our backs. We’ll have to think of something else.”