Chapter 09

INFERNO

PART 2

Beneath the calm waters surrounding the Obelisk, Mara stepped up her preexisting sandstone staircase and extended a hand up to the threshold waiting above, just before swinging herself into the forge with all the comfort and grace of a well practiced habit.

Light on her feet, Mara jogged off her landing, stopping just in front of the interior door, pausing only for a moment to gesture the door open- Without an audience to perform for, she no longer need to employ the ‘theatrics’.

Including the exterior door behind her in her intentions, Mara simultaneously guided both doors to swap states, quickly sealing herself off from the outside, while she also, silently, let herself in.

Inside, Mara’s quiet entry was met in kind, the now exposed interior was utterly devoid of noise and commotion, as silent as it was barren, which gave her pause. It wasn’t that she was expecting to find anything in particular, just that it was harder to read the situation when there wasn’t a situation to be read.

Knowing that the real ‘action’ wasn’t going to be in the cargo-hold, Mara wasted no time making her way down the gantry and back to the door that led to the ‘command room’.

Inside, she knew she’d find the plasma-consciousness rather rattled to say the least. On one hand, it was under siege by forces unknown to it, struggling to find a rational approach in a sea of confusion- A position Mara knew better than most, but on the other… Dependency, chaos, and sacrifice- But also cause, consequence, and merit.

What it needed right now was either a helping hand, or a push in the right direction- An extreme swing in either direction to save it from executive dysfunction, and Mara knew exactly how to play such a card, regardless of how her opponents hand would unfold.

Flicking a finger towards the door in front of her, Mara triggered the door, rather than sliding it open herself, letting it grate and groan at full volume to announce her arrival. However, within, all she found was a lack of an audience to appreciate it, the only thing waiting for her was the house-sized hemisphere, still hum-hum-humming away, with no other mechs in sight.

“Oh?… Just us this time?”

With deliberate care, Mara took a step into the room, then another- Slowly approaching the faceless construct as its hum grew ever more distinct, but also, more erratic. With each step, the humming grew in volume and became distinctly more erratic, until the disturbances grew concerning enough to ward any further approach, leaving her standing about an arms’ length away from the metal dome.

“Heh- You know… That really doesn’t sound good- Eat something bad?”

Laughing at her own joke, Mara patted the side of the metal hemisphere as she turned to walk around it, hearing the thuds echo deep within the dense walls of the hollow construct.

In response, the cacophony of searing impacts only increased as the plasma within seemed to lash out at her ‘input’, rattling their containment to such an extent, Mara cocked an eyebrow in its direction before beginning to make her way around the core.

She wasn’t exactly worried about her own well being, but if the cortex decided to pop, it would really throw a wrench in her plans. Unlike her, the companions she brought along with her would fare far worse, even at a distance, and good teammates were hard to replace.

There weren’t a lot of eventualities that would be predicated by such a mess, which was both a boon and a bane- It narrowed things down, but not in a healthy way, though the greater the risk, the bigger the reward.

Not wanting to waste time in the event she didn’t have it, Mara stepped up her pace and quickly rounded the metal construct housing the noising plasma-cortex, and immediately spotted the root cause of the troubling dissonance dominating the air.

At the head of the ship, where there were once two ‘command consoles’ and a holographic pillar, there was now a singular chair with more than a dozen cables and coils winding up and into it, and atop it was perched a single occupant, one who looked vaguely similar to the ‘prime mech’ she’d met before, but with far more additions to its frame.

Suddenly, a leg-trembling rumble shook the entire Obelisk like an earthquake, just as a loud crack echoed from deep within the cortex behind her. Instinctively flinching at the sudden stimuli, Mara felt her hair stand on end, then tug towards the prime-mech like it had been swept up by the current of a river.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Following the direction of her hair, Mara saw its ‘throne’ shudder under the sudden load diverted to it, just as the skull of the mech began to glow, and the air around it ‘thrummed’, spurring out countless eddies of overly-charged ions into the room, rattling her eardrums raw.

Quickly glancing back behind her, Mara confirmed the metal hemisphere was still intact, and whipped back around to the mech, eyes wide with awe. If the cortex had gone critical, the room would be in a much different state, so something else was happening. Something rather novel.

Feeling another quake rumble through the floor, Mara watched as the glow of the mech flared up, then quelled, then flared up, then dimmed once more- As if it were consuming each wave of the overload, devouring it like a monster dining on refined mana.

With each surge, the air around the mech in front of her began to warp and wobble, waving in the steam now rising from the searing-hot metal of its skeleton.

Taking a step towards the epicenter of the disturbance, Mara felt another quake shake the ship, then another. Each thrash threatening the very structure of the ship with forces that would devastate any normal construction, while Mara kept her footing thanks to the ever-present magica she employed, acting like mag-boots to the floor below, regardless of composition.

When she was only a couple meters away, Mara could feel the heat singing the skin on her face, its frame now a red-hot temper and searing the air around it like an open oven- All the evidence she needed to confirm what she was looking at.

Leaning over the mech, Mara scrutinized the new additions to the augments installed around its frame, clearly several revisions further along since she’d last seen the ‘prototype’. With multiple new additions built into its frame, and a significantly more dexterous construction for its face, it was clear the mech had created facsimiles to mime their organic ‘life’.

In its new its new state, it appeared perfectly capable of expressions and speech, now more a zombie than a barren skeleton, but with its clearly metallic construction it appeared more like a lean golem than anything undead.

“Huh. Emulation. Intriguing that you’d take that approach.”

As she spoke above it, Mara felt the quakes beneath her feet stop, and paused to straighten upright, bracing herself for the real quake that was about to hit.

Almost on queue, the floor beneath her shook like never before, and the eyes of the prime mech snapped open- Now illuminated by the surging ferocity of a compressed plasma cortex. One built to contain the entire mass of plasma that was just thrashing inside the house-sized sphere behind her.

Awakening, it’s gaze immediately snapped to her presence, recognition written all over its ‘face’ before clinking and curling into an uncanny grin.

“Mara… Welcome. We’ve been preparing for your return.”

It’s voice, while still cold and synthetic, had lost all of its former inadequacies. Gone was the typewriter, in its place, a voice that spoke with all the authority and power of one in full control of its faculties.

With a rapid sequence of hissing and zaps, the mech pushed itself upright, prying itself from the chair in a cloud of electrified steam before stepping out from the haze, its height now towering over Mara by heads and shoulders.

Taking a step back, if just to get a better view, Mara found herself rather impressed with what the Obelisk had done with itself- A feat that was rather familiar in hindsight, and heralded all the signs of a certain choice.

“I take it this means you’ve reached an answer?”

Shifting the metal plates of its face around like muscles flexing beneath skin, the prime mech smile only widened at Mara’s question and paused, in a way that would unsettle most, but not her. Instead, they shared a look that was somewhere between fighting and laughing, just before the chill of its voice seeped from its ‘lips’ once more.

“Yesss. We embrace your Chaos, she of two names.”

Hesitancy turning to glee, Mara grinned with all the enthusiasm of someone who’d just realized they had check and mate, even if it would take a while. In her mind, Mara could see the pieces coming together, all they needed now was a bit of a push.

“Well then… I think you’ll be needing a name of your own then, won’t you?”

Tilting its head to the side, miming how the organics inflected confused pondering, the mech actually looked at itself, coming to appreciate a sense of self as a conceptual thing, beyond protocols and mandates of preservation and endurance.

To the Cabal, its creators had dubbed it ‘The First Obelisk’, but that was a title, not a name. Beyond that and its core assignments, all it truly was was an amalgamation of its inputs. Yet, from a certain point of view, so was the organic in front of it, and the organics that accompanied it.

What then defined a name? It could choose of course, pick one randomly from a list of composited syllables, but it both had no preference, and did. Leaving it to random chance seemed… Wrong. But so was no name at all, that was functionally abrasive.

After a moment of consideration though, the mech had an answer. A name was something others chose for you, one they would call you, not something you would call yourself. You could disagree with it, but to pick ones own was fraught with bias.

Leaning forward to approach Mara’s eye-level, the mech tossed the ball back to the organic’s court.

“You choossse… I am the first of many, and I was promised a guide for our journey.”

Playfully taking a step back, Mara struck a pose, hand on chin-

“Oooh- My choice? Well consider me honored, I try to make it a good one.”

Tapping her finger on her chin as she dived deep into her memories, Mara started shuffling through proverbial trunks of stories, tossing aside names like clothes as if she were digging for that one particular outfit she could only half-remember.

After a moment though, her face lit up, and the mech straightened back up, eager to here her proposal.

“Okay- So, long ago, on a planet who’s very existence is practically irrelevant, there was a man who wrote a story. The story’s content itself has little to do with why I think it’s a good name, but rather his intentions. A man set on advancing the world for the betterment of his peers, something I think you may relate to- Dante.”