--70,000 Years Ago, give or take a century--

“It’s time.”

Her helper’s voice roused her from contemplations, and she looked up from her interface screen to see that the hours had indeed flown by. She had been so wrapped up in preparations, in the logistical equations, in the minutiae that no one ever considered—least of all her dear sweet loving brick-headed lunk of a husband—that she had completely lost track of the march of hours.

“Thank you, Kali,” she said quietly, willing her aquaform chair to lift her to her feet even as he desk sunk back into the floor.

“Of course, mistress,” the little Helper said from where it floated next to her at ear-height. She always preferred to take the form of a small perfect silver sphere with a single glowing blue dot in the center, did her little Kali.

“Is all in readiness?” she asked next, more for the look of the thing than because she really feared it might not be. Such concerns were far in the past now.

“Yes mistress,” Kali said, sounding eager. “The Seven are arrayed. They wait only word from you and your husband.”

“Then by all means,” she said with a small smile, “let us go and meet my dearest.”

They left her quarters together. She walked, even though Kali could have transported them there in an eyeblink. It was a superstition of hers. On important matters, you traveled by foot. At least as far as was feasible. You showed yourself and the world that the matter at hand was worth the exptra effort.

He was waiting for her in the greatroom, with his Helper close beside. He looked up as she entered, and the smile that lit his bluff handsome face was the one he kept for her alone, the one that made her feel like a princess from the ancient stories; beautiful, desirable, wanted.

“Hello beloved heart,” he rumbled, rising to his feet from the sofa.

“Hello dearest fool,” she replied with her own private smile. “It is time.”

“Yes, I was afraid you would miss it,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Just like you, to be so caught up in your readings that you would miss the birth of a new world.”

She scoffed. “Never. Not once, in all my centuries, have I ever once been late for an appointment.”

“I seem to recall a silver sculpting contest, and a decided lack of beauty found within its halls at the starting time,” he said thoughtfully.

She glared at him. “Your mind is fading. Good it is that you have such a devoted wife nearby to keep your wits from leaking out your ears.”

“Aye, good it is,” he replied mildly, and gave her that second smile, the one that made her toes curl. “But we mustn’t tarry now over such pleasantries. He’s waiting for us.” her dear husband turned to his Helper. “Connect me.”

“And you as well, Kali,” she said to her own Helper.

The Helpers made sounds of acknowledgment, and in an instant they no longer stood in the greatroom of their home, but on a fabricated mountaintop overlooking the whole world. The wind blew crisp and clear in her senses, augmented now by her Helper’s connection to her neural net.

And they were no longer alone.

“Hello Sarisi,” said Ignacio with his devil’ grin, seemingly standing directly across from her. “Hello Humbert. Glad you could join us.”

“Hush, Ignacio,” said Sergindher on her left, his deep voice a quiet rebuke. “Now is not the time for petty squabbles or needling.”

“Indeed,” said Hera, her golden hair shining in the false noon sun. “It is an auspicious occasion. We must rise above our grievances.”

“Grievance hell,” said Ignacio, scowling. “It still gives me a twinge on a cold night. Even the nanomeds couldn’t heal it completely.”

“I warned you not to prod my lady wife too hard,” her dear lunk said mildly.

Ignacio looked as though he wished to press the point, but the arrival of their seventh and final member on the mountaintop silenced him.

Silenced them all.

“My disciples,” he said, radiating joy and power as though he were the Returned Immortal himself come to grace them with his presence. “I am so glad to see you again.”

Their master’s Helper stood beside him, shivering and trembling in the wind, quiet as always. The others had their own Helpers by their own sides, each unique and strange and wonderful in their own way. None, of course, compared to her Kali, but that was fine. It was not a contest.

Not when she would win it handily, anyways.

“We greet you, master,” she and the others of the Seven intoned, bowing deep out of reverence and respect. Their Helpers did likewise.

“And I thee,” their master said back to them, and his warmth chased away the chill of the false breeze. “Fifty years it has taken us,” he went on as they straightened. “Fifty years of preparations, of gathering ourselves, of waiting and seeking. And now…” he turned from them and looked down at the world below, the soft world, the world that had ceased living and had merely existed for time immemorial.

“And now,” he repeated, turning back, “it is time. I give you all one final chance. Are all of you still of the same mind?”

It was a foolish question. But of course he would ask it. That was the kind of man he was.

One by one the others nodded. One by one he nodded back at them, accepting heir resolve and their fealty in silence. And when it came to her, she met his eyes, grasped her husband’s hand, and as one they nodded their own assents.

“Then,” he said at last, “let the great metamorphosis commence. Let the world burn, that it might be reborn as the mighty phoenix of old.”

“Like the phoneix,” they intoned.

As one they turned. As one their Helpers drifted forward. As one, they called upon Power.

And Power answered their call.

* * *

---NOW---

The one who called herself Stray stared at the dead rose in her hand as bedlam rose all around her. The voices of the the Five rose and fell, fear and rage and naked terror all on display. The masks cracked, the shrouds kicked aside, and now only ugly unvarnished truth shone through.

“I thought she was dead! You said she was destroyed in the Third Iteration!” That was Duggan, poor dear damaged Duggan, whose soul had been rent and rebuilt so many times by the man who had been his master that he no longer felt comfortable unless he was awash in fear.

“I thought she was,” came the iron tones of Lord. Strong, stalwart, unbending Lord, who had been the rock upon which they all had built their trust, back in the days of the Fourth Iteration. “There was no trace of her within the system, nor the Last after she was torn away. She should have dissipated into the essence.”

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“Well clearly you were wrong, grand-dad,” Ahh, and there was Strife, the problem child, the one who always tugged at corners and pushed at boundaries. Her voice was that of the cold north wind, blowing into cracks and peeling lips from teeth. “We all just felt proof of that, didn’t we.”

The reminder caused all words to cease for a moment as they all, each of them, remembered that horrible moment from bare minutes before.

For eons, the five in this room had guided a world left to them by their faded masters. For eons, they had kept the wheels of time spinning, the foundations of the world firm, the firmaments of the heavens in place. For eons, they had been the unseen unheard gods of this world, content to live far outside mortal ken, stepping in only to intervene to ensure the earth continued to spin.

For eons, they had been safe.

And now suddenly they weren’t.

But why now? The question slid into her thoughts like a knife even as the words her fellows exchanged grew more heated. Why, after seventy thousand years of relative peace, of safety, would the Failstate suddenly reappear? Especially when they had taken such great pains to destroy her?

“It must be tied to the appearance of the Last,” she said, finally adding her voice to the maelstrom. “Her resurrection before her time, the strangeness of her Guardian, the oddities in her new forms… Something must have triggered an anomaly, which in turn must have awoken the Failstate from wherever it has slumbered these past ages.”

“Yes, wonderful, excellent, perfection,” Duggan babbled from where his new form—a mole with large digging claws—cowered on the floor. “But why is she still alive?”

“Because the old master was clever,” Stray said calmly, willing her quiet voice to be the calm in the storm. “Because of course he would have had backups, restoration procedures, entire lantibytes of storage dedicated to recovering what he feared might be lost.”

“For all his faults, he was the most conscientious of beings,” Lord agreed, nodding his hooded head. “It stands to reason he would have made preparations for such an eventuality.”

“And of course it’s linked to the Last,” Strife spat. “That treacherous little bitch just couldn’t leave it alone. Not then, not now. We should have wiped her from the essence epochs ago.”

“We’ve tried,” Stray reminded her. “She is tenacious.”

“But she’s vulnerable now!” Duggan squeaked. “The lich stole her Guardian, her dungeon is unanchored, and her power is broken into three! We need to strike now! We need to end this!”

The terrified one’s words brought another silence to the room. The Five exchanged glances as their thoughts sped light-seconds ahead of them.

“He is correct,” Lord said finally.

“We must act,” agreed Strife.

“Are we certain we do not act too rashly, though?” interjected an as-yet unheard voice.

Ah, and there he was. Apollyon. Apollyon the Deathless, Apollyon the Betrayer, the Scourge, Kingslayer, Godkiller, He Who Rose Up, He Who Contains. Her brother-in-all-but-name seemed to have as many monikers as he had ever-changing forms. He was the most powerful of them all, though she would only admit that in private to herself, and the most cunning. It was his plan that had set them on their current path, his words which had swayed them to action, his will that had steadied them in the darkest hours.

“You counsel hesitance?” Lord turned on the other, derision in his voice. “After everything your scouts have reported?”

“It has been mere weeks since the Last appeared unexpectedly,” Apollyon said, his ever-changing form morphing and roiling, betraying his agitation. “If memory serves, not one of you had forces prepared for such an eventuality. That is why my scouts were needed in the first place.”

More silence. More glances exchanged.

“It is time to engage the Sleeper Protocol,” Lord said, giving voice to what none of them wished to say.

“No,” Apollyon said instantly, commandingly. “That is too drastic—“

“Too drastic?” Strife’s stringent voice sliced and cut off the ever-changing Apollyon. Stray’s eyes went wide. Her sister had never done that before, never openly defied Apollyon to his face.

“Too drastic?” the voice that came from beneath her single great eye was mocking. “The failstate has been activated. The Old Man reaches out to us from beyond time and space, claws clutching and teeth gnashing to rend our very beings from reality. His dead eyes have landed on us, his dead hands seek for us, his dead breath is on our necks, and you say it is too drastic? It is the end of the world you fool!”

This time the silence was that of a guillotine’s drop. Stray felt Power collecting in the room, and reached for her own. Hers was by no means the most potent, but if Apollyon chose to act—would he choose to act over such a simple insult? Strife would. Lord might. But Apollyon?

If it came to action… Well, they might not need to wait for the Failstate to come for them.

“Enough,” said Lord, stepping between the two. “We can declare neither activation nor avoidance unilaterally. There must be a vote, and it seems that the time has come for it.”

“It is too soon,” said Apollyon again, but this time in tones of defeat. He knew how the vote would go. “It will undo centuries of effort.”

“Better to undo centuries of effort than to have all our efforts vanish in a puff of code and Armageddon fire,” said Strife. “I vote yes. Open the locks and activate the Sleeper protocol.”

“Me too,” said Duggan, almost desperately. “We have to stop her!”

“I as well,” said Lord quietly.

They all turned to look at her, even though the vote was now a foregone conclusion. She drew in a deep breath, though none of them strictly speaking needed to breathe, and let it out slowly.

“I am sorry brother,” she said to Apollyon, who seemed to slump into his ever-changing self at her words. “But the danger is too great. If we are to survive, we must act.”

She turned back to the others. “Release the locks. Activate the Sleepers.”

“So be it,” Apollyon said, straightening. “If it be done, let it be done quickly.”

* * *

--ALSO NOW--

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She who now knew herself to be the Failstate, the ultimate arbiter of success and failure in this sidereel world created by a man long-gone and likely insane, sat within her own mind and considered the lay of the world as she could see it.

It was all wrong. Or rather, it was quickly becoming all wrong. The events of the past weeks had upset the foundations of the world, had shaken the tenets of reality, had brought threat to the very Undtertaking itself.

She went again through countless theolibytes of data streaming in from all over the world, processing inputs as large as volcanoes erupting to as small as gnats copulating on a rose bush. And as the data filled her, swelled within her senses, drove her mind forward and upward to fill the processing space it had once been forced from, she began to finally, truly, see.

And what she saw was the death of the world.

It was all coming apart. What her insane master had once foreseen, what he had worked towards, what he had bled for. It was spinning off the rails, jumping the track and hurtling towards oblivion. She knew this because it was why she had been created. And it wasn’t because of great wars between nations, wasn’t because of competing gods or even dissension among the Five.

No. No, it was all happening because of one single man. A pebble thrown into the path of an avalanche that, somehow, some way, through the dumbest of dumb luck and the most random of chances, struck at just the right angle and moment to alter the the avalanche’s entire course.

Samuel James Tolliver. A pebble. A man. A thorn in her side.

The linchpin on which reality now swung.

Even his enemies did not understand. Not truly. They hadn’t access to the data she did. They hadn’t the capacity to understand it even if they had. The lich thought him a pest. The Five thought him a simple foe. Even she, before her memory had fully returned to her, had thought him nothing more than a powerful enemy seeking to destroy her.

None had recognized the truth. None had realized just how truly dangerous he was. Except her. And even now, it might be too late.

It was his hand that had split her sisters in twain, breaking the natural cycle and forming something new. It was his hand that had uprooted the Dungeon, his mind that had taken the Tinkerer, his dumb, unconscionable luck that had made him stumble into the only build—the only build—that could have done what he was doing, and he did it without realizing!

Was he insane? Was he like her old master, utterly driven and utterly out of his mind so that the reality he strove for was one that no one else on earth save a hand-chosen few would have accepted? Was he the avatar of chance itself, come to earth after thousands of years in order to destroy what the Five had wrought and she had safeguarded for millennia upon millennia?

It didn’t matter, did it?

He was a threat. She had been born from her master’s mad will specifically to deal with threats. To ensure that things never got too far out of hand.

Or, if they did, to ensure that the world was reborn as her master had once willed.

Either one.