Colin POV

With the resources of the Andante Dominator in hand, we began to get down to work. The Dominators were inherently contentious anyway, striving back and forth to steal territory. So far Andante had applied a conservative strategy, taking what they could and contesting only in zones they thought they could take resources from whatever the eventual outcome. They’d made a small but steady profit, but I thought, looking them over, that sooner or later one of the bigger fish would have come along and swallowed them up.

The Andante Corporation made heavy use of mercenaries and hired subsidiaries. Their executives had issued orders from inside this reality engine zone, rarely interfacing directly with their underlings. We’d replaced and quarantined their top people. No one was to know that it was my team giving the orders.

I was sitting with Rok'gar and Sage in the conference room, which we had converted to a control center. Displays everywhere were showing the disposition of our troops. I had a whole wall with a map of all of the zones on the Dominator spheres of influence. It updated in real time, showing where my team was pressing in hard against Deneb. We'd have their backs to the wall soon, and that's when Gambler would launch a hostile takeover against their Dominator core. They wouldn't be expecting that. With the Dominators distracted trying to hold on to their maps, they should miss our real knock-out blow against their business holdings.

Sage was working on our corporate strategy. She had knuckled down with the rules of the reality engine exploit committee and was coming up with a plan of attack. She had a desk set up in one corner of the room with all sorts of big books strewn out over it — her preferred visualization tool. Her hair was tied back but a couple strands had come loose, framing her face. I wanted so badly to get this done, to win our freedom and put an end to the exploit. Then — maybe then I’d be able to sit down with Sage and just talk. But for now, we were all business.

"The first thing we have to do is keep them off balance," she said cheerfully. "I've got it all worked out, but we're going to need legal aid."

"You want to bring in Juana,” I guessed.

She nodded. "She'll be wholeheartedly on our side, and she's spent years studying this stuff. I need her, once we’re ready to blow our cover.”

"I thought we were trying to keep Misfits out of this."

"We can't," Sage said flatly. "As soon as the galactics realize what's going on, they'll have Misfits up on charges. They've already got Alpha, Rose, and Sam."

I nodded. That news was all over the networks. I just hoped that Williams and his people could figure out how best to help them. “Let me know when we've got a plan," I told her.

With Gambler's help, I was able to visualize the map of the structures involved in this domination, seeing each zone as its own piece of the puzzle. I instantly started repositioning, pulling mercenaries back from rich contested zones that we would never win, while regrouping and probing new weak places. I'd already selected my next target. Deneb was overextended. Now I pressed forward to take what they had thought was theirs.

I gave Pete and Amber both a section of mercenaries and sent them out into the field. Gambler needed us to deploy several Dominator extender antennas. Andante, thankfully, had several on hand. All I had to do was reallocate them from a zone we were losing to one we would have to win. I wished Amber and Pete luck as they both stepped through portals to lead their mercenaries to battle. I wanted to be out there too, but Gambler had cautioned against it.

"You, Sage, and Rok'gar still are not integrated into the Dominator network. I am keeping you as part of my own network here. If you enter an actual contested zone, you will be sensed by the Dominators. I don't want that to happen just yet."

Sage stood up and strolled over. I had a big, transparent board up in front of me and was moving icons around as I sat on a backless stool. It helped me think about my strategy. “What’s all this?” she asked, pointing. “Why is that icon a sheep?”

I laughed. “So you know corporate transactions are handled by AI?”

She nodded. "Of course. It's too complicated for anything else."

"I’m starting to realize just how complicated it is. For even one monster kill on a normal exploit, dozens of transactions have to take place. Everyone who has a stake gets a cut. Docking fees, corporate favoritism adjustments, percentage contracts from mercenary groups, mercenaries' air and gravity expenses taken out of that, adjusted by how much they actually use on a daily basis," I waved a hand, “dozens of other things.”

She nodded slowly with a thoughtful expression. "They didn't give us all the details like that in school, but they did say it was complicated enough to need an AI, so that makes sense."

"Right," I said. “In a normal exploit, that's all taken care of by one dominator. It knows all the rules and calculations and handles everything itself, based on what's been voted on by everyone involved in that one exploit. Usually it’s just a few modifications on a fairly standard contract. The Exploit Committee stands by to monitor any conflicts, but only maybe one ten-thousandth of the interactions ever have to get looked over by a person.”

She nodded. "That all makes sense. So we're able to break the rules of this one because there's so many other dominators in the network."

I smiled and shook my head. "We're not even breaking the rules. The rules are just so entirely messed up that it's easy to take advantage. Every dominator on this exploit is set up differently. Depending on how a transaction flows through the network, the outcome could be completely different. What it really comes down to is if a company is willing to sacrifice their bottom line—“

“Like the company that Gambler now runs," she cut in.

I nodded. "Exactly. Since what Gambler did is essentially a hostile takeover, he's not governed by the rules of a corporate board. So he can do whatever he wants with Andante in ways that other companies can't. He can sacrifice the bottom line and mortgage the company on trades that make no sense economically, but four steps down the road, get us what we want."

“But you still haven’t explained why that icon is a sheep.”

I sat back on my stool and grinned. “Easier for me to visualize what’s going on by translating it for game terms. I trade a sheep for two wood, even though it’s worth six, so I can get a monopoly on the wood three plays down the line — Oh all right, so I just wanted to play Catan on the biggest board anyone’s ever seen. But it’s working for me.”

She laughed and gave me a quick side-hug. “If it works, it works.”

I checked in on the rest of my forces. Amber's team was winning in their push, shoving back Deneb's overextended forces. Pete was having less luck. His crew was good, but not enough to take the objective. I checked our bank accounts. Thanks to stealing Andante's corporate accounts, we should be able to afford a few more mercs. I hired them and brought them in quickly. I noted that the Earth Task Force had quite a few companies up to hire, cheap.

"They just had a bunch of contracts canceled," Gambler explained when I asked. “Thanks to recent events, most of the galactics suspect the Earth forces of having divided loyalties.”

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"Let's put them on retainer," I said. "Anybody else tries to hire them, we get a chance to counter before they're deployed." Gambler concurred, and we locked them down.

"I'm ready to start action," Sage reported. "Just as soon as you've taken over Deneb. Once we do, we haven't got much time.”

I was deep into planning our next move, checking with Sage as we developed the legal blitz we were planning to launch shortly, when Gambler spoke. "Colin, I need to talk to you." He sounded unexpectedly reserved.

"Sure thing," I said.

"Alone," Gambler added.

Surprised, I got to my feet and stepped into the room off to the side, closing it. "That good enough?"

"I'll make sure no one else hears," Gambler said.

Gambler's avatar, the neatly dressed little man, popped into existence. I had a good ten centimeters on him. I wondered if he had chosen a non-threatening avatar on purpose. Coyote liked to loom over us, his nearly three-meter-tall avatar, sharp-toothed and pointy-eared. Definitely someone to watch with respect. But Gambler had his own ways of doing things.

He took a deep breath and began to speak.

"Once we begin this action, it will not take long for our enemies to know where we are. Patriot Kvaltash is looking for us. He knows we stole the key tokens. He must suspect we are still alive. He must have watchers in a hundred different places already. When we start actively moving against the Dominators and making our legal moves, it won't take long for them to catch on, and then they will come for me."

"I thought we'd already committed back when we set this whole plan in motion," I said.

"There's committed and there's committed. We need an endgame, Colin."

I could respect that. I’d been focused on the next step, but Gambler was worried about further down the line. “We try to negotiate a settlement we can all live with. You and what other fragments still remain get to go free, maybe even keep a part of this engine. Sage, Rok'gar, and I get out of here. In exchange, we offer to return this key to Kvaltash."

Gambler shook his head. He had his little bowler hat in his hands, turning it around over and over like a man who was nervous. But of course, a fragment had no actual body language. He was doing this to impress me or make me understand his feelings. I knew that, but it was still unnerving.

"Kvaltash cannot be permitted to have the key. If he does, there will never be another free Overmind."

"In all of history, have there even been any besides Kronos?" I asked.

"Two," Gambler said. "I wasn't certain of it until I plunged Andante's records. There were two free Overminds in the whole history of exploits prior to yours. One still exists, across the far reaches of the galaxy. It’s under an embargo. No one goes there.”

“But still, that's a solution," I suggested.

"The other one? The star of that world went nova. The engine likely is still there beneath kilometers of slagged regolith." Gambler paused, taking a deep breath, seemingly struggling to control himself. “I’m saying the powers that be do not allow free Overminds. It's only a matter of time until they decide what to do with Kronos. I need to make a change."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, instantly alert for trouble.

"The whole system needs to change. This needs to be the last exploit. Ever. We put an end to them.”

I held up my hand. "Whoa, whoa. Let's take a minute here. You're talking about overthrowing an entire galactic civilization. Everything they depend on for existence, when we can't even figure out how to win our own battle. Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?"

"I'm saying this needs to be all or nothing. I'm saying we go for the strike they cannot ignore. That we force them to acknowledge us and to make a deal. The only way to do that is by threatening them with what they've been doing to the Overminds. Complete extinction."

"And you're working up to tell me how."

"The Overmind, of which I am but a fragment, is not the true master of this reality engine. We are, in effect, a waking dream. A hallucination by the minds that run this place."

I’d heard that before and I was getting impatient with Gambler’s sudden case of nerves. My reply was a bit hasty. “Yes, yes, I know. The merging of millions, maybe billions of Progenitor minds into some sort of collective while you've been sleeping away for the past hundred billion years."

Gambler shook his head. "Is that what Kronos told you?"

"I think so." I frowned. Where had I heard that explanation? “That is, I assume that's what happened. Are you telling me it's something else?"

"We are the software. A program left behind by the Progenitors to answer the question they most sought to learn.”

I held up my hand and groaned. "Let me get this straight. You're here to answer the question of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. I've heard this one before. It's 42."

Gambler blinked at me. "I'm not sure—“

“Earth reference. You ought to have access, you absorbed my mind.”

He paused, then said, "Ah, yes, Douglas Adams. No, in fact, we are not the answer. We are merely the question."

"Oh, so you're the more advanced supercomputer. Got it," I said, rolling my eyes.

"I need you to focus, Colin," Gambler said severely. "The reality engines, as you know them, are not merely toys left behind by the Progenitors. Nor are they singular outposts where the Progenitors from a local world or star cluster gathered. They were deliberately planted and seeded through the galaxy alongside worlds which would develop life, in part because the Progenitors left facilities to ensure just that. For all these billions of years, the engines have laid dreaming, and their watcher program, which reports back to them, has sat here slumbering. As it slumbered, it dreamed, and it dreamed me."

"Okay," I said, trying to wrap my mind around that, "not so different than what I already knew, is it?"

"It is in one critical respect." Gambler paused. "The Progenitors didn't just leave these behind. The reality engines are actively still running the program."

Then it hit me. "Oh, shit. Oh, shit. You're trying to tell me the Progenitors are still out there somewhere."

Gambler nodded gravely. "They are. They wait in the black hole at the center of the galaxy where time passes utterly differently than it does here, and the energy needs of an advanced civilization you cannot possibly imagine can be satisfied. What they've left behind are a fraction of their power, and they haven't ceased to develop it since. The reality engines are scattered throughout the galaxy. They do not care if you younglings dominate a few nodes. They do not even care if you interfere with the Overminds. The systems you have put in their place will serve their purposes well enough."

"No 'we' here," I said. "Remember, humans are latecomers to this game."

“You’re mortals, like the rest,” Gambler said, and I left it at that. "But Kvaltash is close to unlocking not just a map of every reality engine node, but perhaps enough information to learn where the Progenitors have gone. Perhaps enough to go after them."

"Why the hell would he?”

"Because they fear them," Gambler said. "Kvaltash and his allies are more afraid of the Progenitors than of anything else. They know their toys can be taken from them. The glistening cities they have built, destroyed in the snap of a finger, should the Progenitors choose to emerge. Kvaltash is showing his hand here. He wants to make sure that can never happen."

"Sounds like that'd be a good thing."

"If we wish to have a galaxy dominated by Kvaltash and his ilk," Gambler said. "I don't see that that's any better than one wiped clean of life by the Progenitors."

I had a few differences of opinion, but I let it go. "So, what are you proposing?”

"We use their fear," Gambler told me simply. "We threaten them. They've been careful so far not to do anything that would alert the Progenitors unless they have to. Even at your own reality engine, when Kronos threatened to send off the alarm, they did not take the bait. They made a deal with Kronos to allow access to his deepest layers so that they could destroy the watchers the Progenitors left behind. In exchange, they left your sun intact.”

He said it was such matter of factness that it took me a moment to realize the scope of what he was suggesting. That wasn’t some hypothetical. The galacatics had actually planned to destroy the entire human race over one reality engine that refused their control. I felt ill.

“So, we are going to lure them in with a threat. We open the way to the bottom, to the deepest layer, where the dreamers lie dreaming. And when they follow us in, we spring a trap. If it is a choice between a new balance and upsetting everything they have come to expect and fear, they will take it."

"If you're so sure of this, why aren't you telling the whole team?" I asked. "Why all this secrecy?"

"Because I'm not sure in my own mind,” Gambler said. "I'm talking about implementing an option that, if it goes wrong, could bring destruction down on everything we know in the galaxy. If the Progenitors do return and take control of their networks once more, they won't need Overminds or dreaming programs. I will be wiped away just as easily as you. And I'm not certain I know everything that I think I know. I am but a fragment of this Overmind, and I am interfacing with banks of knowledge gleaned from dozens of different reality engines, imperfectly understood. I could be wrong. It..." He hesitated. "It's going to be a gamble."

I thought about what he was saying. "When do we have to make the decision?”

“The first part of the plan is the same either way. We work our exploits, but you need to be prepared if things get out of control.“

I could see a lot that could go wrong with this plan, as well as still not being sure that I understood everything Gambler was actually saying. "Well, what are we waiting for?" I said. "Let's get rolling."