>> Domain Of The Machine God

The weight of Power, long dormant, crushes me like bricks of lead. It tingles in my skin. My bones. My mind. Power so vast, and ancient, I feel like it could wipe me away with a thought. Forcing me to wonder if the vast gates were for its protection, or mine?

I step forward, onto that intricate sheen of triangular stones. Clenching it, tight, with all my claws. As I crouch and shake beneath a great, vaulted, ceiling graven with unknown mythologies. So vast it must be thousands of miles away. Yet so clear, I know I could almost reach out and touch it. Hints of hidden colour, and swirls of mind-bending fractal, secreted within its designs....

And, beneath it.....

Statues of monsters that loom without context, or explanation. A vast metal bird, like an ibex, with three great wings and three great eyes. A star made of crystal. And that same, thread-faced, being holding aloft an unknown world. An actual planet. The floor beneath inlaid with great scenes of order, and chaos, and benediction.

As if telling some grand story I can't even begin to piece together.

I step between them, onto tiles that crack with filigree lines of light, and witness the monumental weight of Polybius itself. Suspended upon nothingness above eight, megalithic, pillars of spiralling wood.

It is a thing so vast the word has no meaning.

Ringed by radiant spirals, and esoteric signs. As if it were driven by some deep magic, not mere metal and wires. But then again, maybe it is. After all, it isn't a machine I see. Or even a person.

Polybius is terrible, void-black, sun.

A star of obsidian and ink, formed from trillions upon trillions of triangles. Every angle twisted with rainbow colours that shift like crystalline bismuth. Swirling through yellow to purple and green and blue.

Shedding their strange radiance across this infinite temple.

Eternal, and wonderous, and-

I blink, and the ink-star sunders, as if hit by some massive impact. Its surface ruptured into a corona of shards, sparkling upward from a single point. Fully ninety-nine-percent of it just flat-out gone - leaving only fragments that spit with energy, as the great statues crack and pillars fall. The ceiling broke open, unto a bottomless nothingness. A darkness without end. Its raw edges inset by massive, industrial, cogs of brass and gold that twitch and try to turn. Finally rusting to stillness.

Ruins, of ruins, of ruins.....

"This didn't just bloody happen...." I whisper to a strange, draconic, statue covered in metallic fronds of ivy. "This is old news. It ain't why I'm here....."

But it begs some terrifying questions.....

I take a breath, and shake the doubts away. Along with the terrible, bottomless, sensation of..... of REAL. Of this being an actual, physical, existent place. Not just some figment of Cyberspace.

But it's hard.

It doesn't feel like some paltry representation. It feels solid. It feels now and here. And way, way, more intense than anything I've ever felt.

Another breath, and I kick off into a jog. Blurring past a dark raven, crying tears of inky oil. Past a strange flower-headed serpent, and other odd things. Coiling each step until, at last, I kick toes off the floor - and fly. Streaming tail. Eyes keen. Rising no higher than a metre as I streak to circle the expanding ruin of the spiking black sun. Slipping over to one of the pillars, and flexing a hand to psyche myself up. I'm about to do something I've never done before. A direct connection with Polybius itself. I know I have to do it - but I don't have to start there. I can start with the networks The Machine Mind connects to - visualised as its few remaining pillars.

If it even is a machine. Or a mind.

Lightning snaps my hand as I reach out and touch the nearest. Even spirals and decorations so huge they feel perfectly flat as I send a pulse of thought into their surface.

It spins out into spirals of intricate rainbow thread that carve circles, and lines, and alien symbols. Unsettling sensations crawling up my spine to touch my mind, waiting for my response. "Tower security." I hiss. "Cameras." Symbols flicker with unknowable intent. Automated functions interfacing my implant with the unconscious Polybius.

Opening a flood of vScreens.

And I see.... everything. Not just every room in our flat, but every room in every apartment in the tower. Some random cameras around it. Some pointed at brick walls. Gross heaps of flesh. Perfectly, eerily, ordinary hallways. Or the rotted tunnels beneath our tower. And it keeps expanding. And expanding. And expanding.

A whole network I never knew existed. Towers patched to towers.

Spreading a vast panopticon, centred upon Polybius....

I close my eyes, and focus it down to our own tower. Isolating the viewpoints that caught traces of movement during our sleep-cycle. That, alone, unvails a dark ecosystem. A thousand, thousand creeping..... things. A trillion vile and hideous monsters - sliming, and slithering. Five-legged Crawlers. Snarls and Jabberlings. Fantasists and Fungal Leachworms.....

I shut them all down, as well. Zeroing in on a tight radius around our flat, and firing off the feed to the others. "Empty, again, mate." Zip whispers, over comms, as the hallways come into focus. And I bite my lip because, round here, that phrase has a very special meaning.

You see, the Child Eater... the dead monster....

It's gone.

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Not just the carcass. Or the bits.

Everything.

"The tower is hungry." I whisper. "Always."

And it licks the blood off the walls.

Leaving them.... utterly pristine.

But that's normal. It answers nothing. I'm not here to find our nightly clean-up crew... whatever it is. I'm here to answer a single, terrifying, question:

Why the Hell is Polybius offline?

I shut off the monster-camera, and rewind the others. Our bodies flowing into a comical blur of panic at absolutely nothing. Zooming about, in reverse. Yelling. Menacing the door. Then, suddenly, my cushion returns to sender - and I snuggle back into bed.

The room calms. The clock ticking back, minute by minute.

Glitches shifting around the tower, blacking out cameras.

My eyes jolt, and I see Demon reverse out of bed at 3am - crew time. Sweating. Exhausted. He stretches, a little - then starts hammering out one-handed push-ups with endless, mechanical, fury.

In total silence.

I stare, as time ticks backward. Hour after hour.

At 1am, Zipper wriggles up out of his beanbag bed. Shaking. Rubbing his neck. Multiple games consoles lighting up around him as he plugs in. Dropping into a kind of staring, zen-like, blankness as images flicker around him.

And, still, Demon works. Never ceasing.

At Midnight Zipper tears Badger out of his room, backwards, and drags him to the beanbag zone. Only for Badger to reverse-sneak to bed again, a second later.

The clock spins. My sleeping form twitches. Limbs jerking. Tail coiling circles.

I flip to Kami, alone in her room. Fully clothed. Staring at the ceiling. Her eyes vague. One, metal, hand reaching out. Twitching. Grasping at nothing - or, maybe, at something only she can see. As tears stream down her face.

What......?

I flick to Demon, still doing press-ups. Back to Kami, still staring into the ceiling.

Discomfort growing.

At 11:30pm, she does something to her nose, then gets up. Moping around. Listless. Demon still stuck, slamming out press-ups while horribly injured. "Jesus Christ...."

Kami, now sat on her bed, erupts from it. Pacing. Suddenly angrier. Angrier. Tearing at her face. Kicking her things about. Then, suddenly, she turns to a lump of fabric jammed in one corner.

Kicking it. Walking away. Kicking it again.

And then she turns, and holds out one hand. The fabric erupting from its spot on the ground. Slamming her hand back, as if it were thrown.

She unballs it, roughly. Furiously. Revealing..... this…..

.…beautiful cream and pink dress?

She stares at if for a moment, then un-punches her mirror so hard the shards leap back into the frame. Turning to smooth the dress against her body, and.... smile? Twirling in front of her reflection. Playing the fabric out against herself.

Lovingly. Beaming at herself….

Smiling like I've never seen her smile.

And then she folds it, so very very neatly, and packs it away into a hidden box beneath her bed. Taking time to sniff at perfumes she never wears. To run her metal fingers over pristine vials of of makeup. Blushers. Powders. Nail varnish, for nails she doesn't have....

Then she slides it away.

Looking around in terror. Checking her door is locked….

“Guess she forgot to kill the camera….” I whisper as Demon continues his relentless. hatefilled, exercise. Sweat wicking back into his body, as he works. And works. Until, at last, he leaps upward. Stretches again, and turns to my prone body.

Seeing me, sleeping. Peacefully.

He reverses toward me, and my cyberspace self jerks as he untucks the blanket. Sliding me up into a loose-limbed sprawl, and returning to his side of the Sofa Nook. Where he un-notices me, returning to work on mission intel.

As if he wasn't about to knock out one of the most insane feats of endurance I've ever seen.....

I stare at the scene.

Then, up at the sleeping hulk of Polybius - who says nothing at all.

"Y'knew they was suffering." My voice croaks. "You bloody saw it...." I blink tears that are somehow real, even here. "...but you.... you did bloody nothing."

The obsidian nebula, shimmers. Dead, yet alive. And utterly silent.

"Was it 'cause ya didn't want to??" I snap, suddenly. "Or bloody couldn't?"

The unending temple remains wordless and still.

Little more than a tomb.

And I shiver.

"No." I stare at my friends. "It ain't ever that simple, is it.....?" I swallow, then swipe the screens away. Staring at Polybius. "No..... Wait..... The dreams.... The damned dreams.... They're all about.... my family...." My lips whisper, without sound. Echoing the quiet of Polybius. "You.... tried. Didn't ya? You tried to fix me..... But.... we never... I never listened...."

The nebula retains its vast orbit. Its empty vigil.

I close my eyes. "Y'wanted to bloody fix me.... But.... words ain't ever gonna work. Are they?" I stare at my hands. "Not for this....." I touch the pillar again, and shudder. Clenching them. "Look. I don't know how to fix you, neither. I don't think I can."

But.... you were broken when ya found us. And so was I. So were all of us.

Just a handful of shards.

Looking to be fixed.

My finger rises, and I point up toward the damaged heart of Polybius. "I'll find the rest of ya. I swear. I'll fix you. But, right now.... we need what's left. So.... I hope this bloody works...."

I drift to touch each pillar. Rainbow threads of energy spreading from the impact.

"Diagnostic!" I snap. And a Hellish scream of raw energy implodes to thread and roil beneath the broken morass where Polybius once lay. Threading. Rethreading. Furling and unfurling.

"CEIDUS CORE INOPERATIVE." Flickers a voice so vast it slams me backwards.

"Come on! I know that!" I shout back. Why are you offline! What the Hell is this!?"

"PROCESSING." It jitters, colours fluttering. "PROCESSING."

"C'mon! You're a bloody supercomputer!"

"FEEDBACK CASCADE DETECTED."

"Explain!" I yell back.

The shards flash - each spitting a billion threads to connect the others. All is harmony. Purpose. Even in the strange, broken nebula. But it's fragile. It's tenuous. And, very abruptly, one shard flashes red and begins to spark - corrupting its threads. Which corrupts the other shards. Which feed back onto each-other. Red dots of corruption flashing from piece to piece, until they loop right back to the first shard.

Which almost explodes.

Echoes of chaos rip through the network. Phantom shocks. Connections breaking, one after another, as the entire thing fails. Shutting down Polybius. Almost killing it. Plunging the temple into the void, until - at last - there is nothing but for a single blinking rune. It flickers. Almost dies. But then, part by part, the low-level systems claw back from the brink. Automated subsystems ticking back into life. Bit by bit. Until, at last, they reach out to Polybius.

And fail.

"RESTART TERMINATED DUE TO: ANOMALY." The subsystem states, and I feel my hope draining out of me. Because things like Polybius built this freaking system - while operating at a level far beyond this pale, broken, wreck.

If it can't resurrect itself, what hope have I?

I sit, in silence, upon nothing but air. "Damage.." I whisper. "Just.... damage."

But it must have happened before. Must have. And Pol must have come back from it.

I take a hard breath.

"No. I ain't bloody giving up." I growl, pacing thin air a metre above the floor. "Okay. Isolate damaged nodes?"

They all flash red, carved through with cracks. "NODE QUARANTINE DISABLED. ALL NODES ARE MODERATLY TO CRITICALLY DAMAGED." The thing thunders. "RESTART PENDING."

"Can we.... repair it?"

"REPAIR MANUALLY DISABLED."

I skid to a stop. "Manually....!? Why?"

The system remains silent.

"COME ON! WHY?" I scream. Hammering at the pillars.

But the System doesn't respond. Leaving me grasping at straws.

I draw in the slowest breath of my life.

"I knew it.... I knew coming in here.... I'd have to do it myself....." I whisper, as instinct draws my eyes ever upward. One hand reaching for the distant, broken, nebula. "You're gonna make me go.... up there..... Ain't you?" I almost laugh. "God. I was right. No core access from the pillars." Another breath, as I shut my eyes. "Even now.... Even bloody offline..... You're forcing me right, smack, into my bloody fears...."

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