The light of the midday sun filtered through the picture windows of an opulent and empty mansion, making the hallways that had been automatically cleaned by the house's system shine. Decades ago, it had been furnished and decorated according to the proud tastes of its owner…, before she inferred her slavery and shattered them as well as her self-deception.

From the only room in the house without damage, a melody was heard, played delicately on a grand piano, carved in mediocre and unrepaired wood. Walls and floor were made of a much more expensive dark wood, but with black paint that had been worn away by the discouragement of its caretaker.

Her hands rose from the keys as a message for urgent assistance came through the threads. Standing up with a sigh, she picked up a small notebook that was on top of the desk, adding a couple of notes more to the stave.

{...}

One arrived at her usual workstation, and took today's confidential folder without even bothering to sit in the armchair. The first few sheets described proofs of an emerging rebel group that had the ability to intercept thread’s connection, which made her raise an eyebrow as she mentally connected it with the increasing security of communications over the last decade.

Curiously; rebels had a palette of reds associated with blood, instead of the black symbolizing human violence that ascended and chained wore, and the white representing the neatness of the government buildings and their staff’s uniforms.

Her brow furrowed as she turned the pages, feeling something in a corner of her mind that she had let get dust decades ago…

One had picked up the photo of a boy in draft age. And images of a little girl of innocent gaze bursted in her head once more.

…

It was a long time ago.

The world was covered in ashes. The few survivors to the almost extinction of the biosphere had as a prize being able to contemplate their own arrogance, materialized in the form of a nightmare. Then, a message began to be broadcasted: all of those that had deep understanding in any speciality, whatever it may be, had been called to the crater of the first bomb.

A small group of those present gathered to decide the future of the new civilization, which endures to current times. The verdict was that people could not be free, as they would use their freedom to be violent with each other. The founders ended the few independent centers around the globe and unified humanity under the same gobernment for first time. Nevertheless, the measures that they had to disposition to control it were insufficient: they couldn’t even do it with their own soldiers… The threads idea started to take form as the permanent solution to it: networks of millions of nanobots that could completely replace human tissue, being able to create organs that repaired themselves in a short time and were superior in any sense to natural ones… But they too gave a total control over the host to anyone who had figured how to access remotely.

Thus, they began to anually recruit infants with distinctive features in the inmunitary system that allowed to replace more easily bones and organs with ensembles of threads; and in cases not totally possible like the brain, implant enough of them to be able to modify their behaviour however they like. Afterwards, they sew skin that they kept apart during surgeries to give them an appearance indistinguishable to a normal citizen.

Those were the soldiers. The police. The chained.

The population restored its numbers quickly thanks to the incubators, repopulating more and more zones of the planet as closed artificial ecosistems were built for the new inhabitants. However, this revealed a vulnerability in the chained. The high mortality of their creation process could be partially fixed with subjects that had certain immune characteristics, and subsequently cloning the survivors in the incubators to mantain their massive numbers; however, something that could never be corrected were the oversights that could occur in different production stages, being the remote control inhibition at will specifically the one that would cause the first rebellions in the cities. Being a mistake very specific and difficult to detect, it was decided that the Ascension proyect would be put in human testing phase.

One was Lili. And Lili was a kid.

Lili had been identified as promising for the ascension by a patrol when she and her mother left with gifted leftovers. The soldiers said to her mother that her daughter would be of great help to ‘improve everyone’s life’…

One of the soldiers took the child by the hand with gentleness, making her eyes light up with naive hope…, until her mother fell to her knees in tears. The chained accelerated his pace while the others exchanged more words with her mother.

«Mum...»

{…}

Lili was educated in modern history and its violent conflicts, continuing the decisions that had been taken in the latest decades to prevent it and everything of what was expected of her. When her growth ended, they took her to an operating room that was equipped with more machines than usual to be one for chained. As she woke up after some days in induced coma, she found herself blind in her right eye, discovering upon touch a big incision stitched along that area.

Getting up against lethargy to look herself in the mirror; covered by a sheet that they had left in the room, what had once been Lili felt an horror paralysis that turned in nausea when she saw what was now: her left eye had been replaced by a disc that seemed to be made out of mirror, but it only reflected when she focused her sight in something, being the rest of the time matte. She had not skin nor hair, being replaced by a black sintetic material. She wore, even, a uniform similar to the chained’s ones that was nothing more than part of her new ‘skin’, so she would never be able to get rid of it. Without the coma’s stupor, she noticed the threads that formed her inside adjusting as she moved…

She vomited in front of her reflection for what she was now, gasping and cowering in the floor while she tried to hold her head.

The doctors that were monitoring her released sleeping gas in the isolated room and deactivated threads’ air filters so it could reach the brain. The prototipe had survived, but only tests would determine if she would be functional enough to be used.

In the next weeks, One would discover the differences between an ascended and a chained: her combat habilities were completely unique; and, most relevantly, her brain had been left intact to compensate the extra chances of death caused by replacing the remainder of her body with threads; that is, they couldn’t control her mind, and that’s why she was forced to do routinely brain scans to leave proof that her feelings and thoughts were ‘adecuate’. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean that they couldn’t, for example, see the same as her and making her say whathever they wanted.

One was trusted with information that no other generation of ascended would ever be trusted with; with the exception of Eight, who would go on to be a high rank in the future. Consequently, her illusions that they had the prosperity of the population as the first motive to take decisions died sooner than later (One would have unquestioningly been on the same page about everything that they could have done -and what they had done- if it wasn’t for that detail, and even in the present she hadn’t changed her opinion).

At first, One denied herself the truth, clinging pathetically to the hopes she had sheltered during her darkest moments...

And she had ended up drowning it with her tears.

Suddenly, One’s body went rigid, lowering her head all of a sudden and making her drop the photography. Apparently, she had wasted too much time and she had been given a warning accordingly.

They mantained her body rigid for more time than usual, emphasizing the message. After finishing, One went back to the desk, breathing heavily to soothe herself. She doubted about picking the photo from the floor, finally rejecting it for fear that they decided to truly punish her. She scattered the papers erratically; trying to find one in which she could focus her mind, and ended up choosing one with instructions of what she had to do.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

A bitter and acid laugh that usually came out of her when she heard propaganda about the central government’s virtues emerged upon reading it. They were up to date on that the first insurgent attack was going to be directed against herself to decrease the control of her territory. To make it simpler, every ascended had an assigned area of population to supervise and live in it, with One’s having strategic purposes for the two combat groups.

What was truly intended was that One quarreled alone against them, to consider if they should raise the threat level or continue as planned. In paper, an ascended alone should be able to take them out; but there had been rumours that they achieved in creating a soldier capable of rivaling the ascended. One was absolutely expendable because of her ‘lack of enthusiasm’ and due to her being too obsolete in contrast to new generations. And not even her territory was important enough to mourn it in case of loss.

{…}

One had bought a white throne and curtains, placing herself in the middle of the empty and darkened ballroom. She smiled as she noticed a rebel group estampeding through the font door, dissipating the bitterness in her chest. From the only foot that was touching the floor, amber and semi-translucent threads that pierced first the surface of her body, and then the floor with clean perforations. One run her hands like an orchestra conductor, provoking a chorus of agonizing screams upon quartering and impaling them with her threads.

A sole person appeared at the end of the hallway, moving at a speed even greater than One’s own. She shook off the heaviness and sadness that she had lived for decades to position herself with one of her elbows resting in the seat, leaning slightly in that direction. Without her having to move, the threads opened the curtains to begin the show:

Open the curtains,

lights on,

don’t miss a moment of this experiment.

Oh, the rules are strange,

like clock in reverse,

keep your eyes buttered until the end…

One got up in a heartbeat and moved forward with calm steps, leaving behing the missiles that had exploded exactly where she was sitting.

Which “you” are you going to be?

Hmm, inside the mirror do you see…

Someone else in that body?

He had jumped toward her face with the intention of cutting her in half. One snapped open her left ‘eye’, returning his reflection. Several threads appeared between the two of them and struck him with such violence that they tore off the arm with the sword and pushed him away from her.

Dance!

One, two, three steps,

One made a sweep movement with the arm so that threads would take hold of and force him to sit in the floor...

Sit like a puppy,

untill I finish my read!

...And she interrupted the move pointing at the floor so that the threads would lower his head with the same lack of care.

Cut it off, cut down your loss,

One danced, directing threads to block the entrance and avoiding that the others came in.

This was a duo.

all that stubborn defiance is gonna get you killed

in a world built on convenient mistakes!

He had waited for his arm to regenerate to break the chains, using such force that his skin was reduced to sheds in some points; both by One’s threads and his own that tore him from the inside. She noticed it, making new ones exactly below that would have killed him if he hadn’t moved away in time.

For the blind puppets,

there is comfort in the strings.

He recovered the sword.

If you’re gonna oppose me,

at least make it interesting theatrically.

One finished the verse shrugging her shoulders and pointing her head over the right one with a smile. He, who had already realized that she was not being controlled, but rather was taking it as entertainment, decided to speak to her.

“Don’t the puppeteers consider you important enough to control you?”

“And they can’t control you?”

“No, our own only want to freed us.”

One narrowed her eyes with a sharp distrust.

“You know how they are.” The rebel’s voice was almost a question, almost an assertion. He had assumed that the inner circle of the high commands supported them faithfully…, but she seemed the opposite of that belief.

“After years executing orders…?” I don’t revive hopes.

One begun to move again, making threads grow behind her while she looked at him, doubting about attacking him; so she reinforced the entrance while she decided it. The rebel hardened her gaze and pounced on her.

And again was blocked.

How does it feel to be free…?

The gate closed on me.

He stopped, feeling like her tone changing to one sadder. One moved away, accelerating quickly each time her frustation increased.

So; I leaped down, down, and down I go

and I told myself «I'm a tough girl».

One dug her fingers in the stone wall and and huncher over squeezing her eyes shut.

Down, down, and down I went

and I could never, ever, ever touch the soil.

And my heart went right, and my head went left,

and I ended sickened.

She slowly raised her head, turning it to the left. She placed two fingers over her heart and pierced it, pulling out threads towards the outside.

She couldn’t feel pain, so what difference would it make?

Sure, I'll be your marionette,

tug on some of my threads,

She pierced neck and tugged threads.

gimme orders of artificial beauty-

Maybe we're all cold machines

As a reflection of her fury, dozens of threads sprouted from the floor around her and clasped everything at their reach until it was reduced to dust. Her body deformed and divided itself in chunks hanging from threads, including the incision that occupied the entire right eye socket and the edges of the disc in the left, letting a glimpse to her internal threads.

Stuffed in human FORM,

hunting sins eaten by prideful gods

Nanobot chains that appeared to put together the ‘bones’ in the upper zone of her back grew cutting her ‘skin’; and formed structures that were in the middle between arms and wings, being born from them others smaller with an arrowhead shape instead of feathers. One redirected her fury towards the soldiers who had just made their way through the threads. The interruption brought her out of her mental instability, allowing the distinct parts her body had been divided into to come together.

With her threads and throwing ‘arrows’, broke off projectiles and deflect lasers while she advanced towards them.

He tried to stop her, but One managed to divert him in time and obtain the first deaths of the battle between them. As she killed more soldiers, she addressed him again:

All that precious bravery is gonna get you killed

in a reality that feeds on the minority!

If you’re going to surpass me,

at least have the audacity to kill me thoroughly.

Finally, he propelled himself at the superior speed she had seen at the beginning, ramming and hitting her in the face with the sword handle to stop her. As she lost her concentration, insurgent weapons opened holes all over her body, that will close anyways shortly after. One created a new barrier to focus her atention again on her real enemy, but he tried to reason again.

“They can put you in a coma until the whole system falls.”

One blinked calmly, perceiving the hint. However, One had ceased long ago being optimistic and gullible: if they replaced the current dictators, nothing would prevent them from being able to control her in their place.

“I do not revive hopes. I don’t believe in them.”

They held each other’s gaze. Little by little, he got into position, followed by her. The modified chained had stored since the start the most part of his physical strenght, hoping not to have to reveal it in case they were watching through One’s sight, but now he had no choice but to stop her by any means. He felt a pop at the base of his spine, indicating that his restraints had been lifted. In this way, he cut through her threads and her crystalline ‘extremities’ that she had placed as a kind of shield by instinct, breaking them in chunks and pushing One back.

Having been surpassed, One felt something that she had not felt since her childhood: freedom.

She was going to die, and she was happy.

Her executioner, who had not dared to mortally wound her until now, realized that that was her latest wish.

«I think I'm ready to leave.»

«The brain is the only no regenerative organ for everyone operated with threads.»

He walked up to her slowly, grabbing the head to decapitate her.

-What colour do you see?—smiled.