[Log 3.7]

[Fodder to the Flame]

Two figures emerged from the smoke.

They looked like postmodern storefront mannequins, low-polygon-count, shaded dark orange to red, moving slowly through the flames as if they couldn’t feel them at all. Their forms suggested a torso with one head, two legs, and two arms. They carried simple gray rods without any detail. Despite that, it was clear that they were weapons.

Zephyro tensed. Cyan light crackled over him and his form became more substantial, his outline more defined. The militia fired their crossbows. Instead of bolts like I was expecting, beams of light tore through the air, slamming into the red figures and shattering them like glass. The forms hung in the air for a second, then dissipated into nothing and released a shower of blue sparks that got sucked into the whirling smoke behind the gate.

“Go, Vizier!” the woman at the head of the formation yelled, firing again as another red figure entered the square. To our left, a burning building collapsed into a heap of cyan blocks. They casually rolled towards the wall, increasing in speed like styrofoam sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

“Forgive me, Sultana…” Zephyro said, and before I could ask what for, he made a twisting motion with his hand, and the cubes dissolved into strands of cyan light that shot into his core. The blood on his face vanished as a modern tactical combat vest assembled itself over his chainmail, and for a second, I feared he wanted to stay and fight.

As a general, you don’t wade into the middle of the fight, Sam. You simply fucking don’t. It doesn’t matter if you’re immortal or not, you have more important things to do. Look what it cost you. What it cost us! And how much more would we have lost if I hadn’t taken action? How much could you actually do without me? Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

I snarled. My breath came in tiny bursts. The anger reached my eyes and pooled there—

“Let me help, for fuck’s sake,” I yelled at Zephyro, just as two more enemies jumped over the wall toward the hard-pressed militia. Zephyro turned to look at me, distracted for only a second. And that saved him.

He brought up his sword in a whirl of motion and barely managed to parry a blow from a third red figure suddenly appearing in front of him. If I hadn’t said anything, the slate-gray simulacrum of a sword would have hit him right below the neck. And then… and then what? Would he have died? And if so, what would I do? What can I do? My entire body felt itchy. Every hair stood on end. It was all I could do not to storm forward, to ignore the cost. To not care about anything besides venting all this… rage.

Zephyro kicked the red figure in the chest to disengage. Behind him, the militia kept firing at the other two enemies approaching them, but they barely manage to slow their inexorable advance. Beams of light slammed into red figures who just kept walking like the attacks were pleasant springtime rain.

“Kun darban!” Lightning crackled up from the ground as Zephyro clenched a fist. The energy arced upwards and shot into his opponent, the one who had nearly beheaded him. The red shape seized, then collapsed and shattered into red and orange pebbles. A fountain of cyan sparks rose from the remnants. That’s the same color as the one swirling around the laptop, I realized.

The light traveled towards the gate just as another two enemies approached. I caught a glimpse of Zephyro’s anguished expression as the sparks flew into the new arrivals. The one on the left grew larger. The one on the right dramatically increased in definition, his movements assuming a languid, predatory grace. Holy shit, are they improving themselves on the fly? How can they be using these nanite swarms for that? Wait, no. That can’t be right. Why would they release a swarm of nanites when they die? You could just program them to self-destruct. There would be no incentive to kill each other for the stuff. The entire thing doesn’t make any sense. With enough time, you can print an endless amount of nanodevices, and with far less risk. It must be limited, somehow. Maybe they need some rare resources? Zephyro calls it “my” Blessing, so it has to be something only I can—

Then it hit me. They weren’t improving, they were advancing.

“Fuck,” I sounded thin, as I had suddenly forgotten how to breathe.

They were using the Wish. Logic was the Wish.

How could that even be possible? You couldn’t explain the Wish. You couldn’t measure it, let alone reproduce it. Even if you could, there wasn’t a single human being on Tobes that could provide you with enough of a sample to reverse-engineer it. I was sure of it. I had looked everywhere.

And yet, these red, low-polygon mockeries of human life casually used it to mod themselves on the fly.

But if they could do it, why couldn’t I? Wasn’t I surrounded by a giant cloud of it in the real world? I checked again and yes, the place where my Wish would have rested was still empty. If I focused hard enough, I still noticed how it infused every part of me like steel framing in a high-rise, but just like steel framing, it seemed load-bearing. Using it to modify a digital avatar sounded like a terrible idea.

In the end, when the worst of the shock settled, I came to a rational conclusion. The Wish was a divine power, in the truest sense of the word. It wasn’t possible that robots could just use the Wish to improve themselves. Not while I, who had received the power to use it from a literal Angel of God, could not. Logic had to be something else. A nano swarm infused with some of my Wish, maybe. Perhaps A very advanced version of swarm-AI that I had somehow unleashed when I tried to advance memOS? It behaved a lot like my Wish, but there were distinct differences. A competing product, then, possibly built by the Conservationists. It sounded far more reasonable.

Another building collapsed right next to me. Startled out of my thoughts, I almost got buried under a support pillar that came crashing down right where I was standing. Only a quick dive saved me, but it also left my face buried in dust and sand. I cursed and turned around as fast as I could. There was little left but rubble and twisted steel, as well as a handful of blue blocks that were already tumbling towards the gate as if pulled by an invisible force. I reached out as one of them rolled by and grabbed it. It felt warm and inviting, like a palm-sized campfire. The feeling was familiar, like a memory of a better time half-forgotten. I tried to command the energy to move into a splintered beam nearby, but nothing happened. I tried willing it to advance my avatar. Again, nothing. The space within me where I held my Wish remained vast and empty. I jammed the handle of the scepter into the pit of my arm and held the cube with both hands, trying to twist it open. Zero success. Fuck! I slammed it on the ground, and that did as much as you would expect.

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I looked up and noticed Zephyro running toward me. He motioned behind me, toward a small alleyway between a smithy and a grocer. I rose to my feet, pushing my frustration aside and the cube into my robes, and started running.

A glance over my shoulder showed the first red figure entering close combat with the militia. It started reaping them like stalks of wheat. Blue sparks shot everywhere, hanging in the air like mist before being sucked toward the red figures. They grew in complexity, their weapons gaining wicked edges. They were more efficient now.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at Zephyro when he caught up. Stopping for a second, I point at the mess of blue sparks and red reapers and force him to look. “Is this your domain, or not?!”

“It is, Sultana, but my people are slow to move in the Real and—“

“You’re feeding them free resources!”

He looked stricken, his shoulders sinking. “But Sultana, to take more of your Blessing than what was freely given is a grave sin, I—“

“Fuck Sin!” I said, pushing him into another side street to break the line of sight. One last glance at the square around the gate showed me a glimpse of another red figure entering the battlefield, holding a rifle. “This is war, Zephyro! You can’t give just let them have free power-ups!”

“But Sultana,” he said, stopping at the entrance to the alleyway. His voice was thin, brittle. I knew that tone. He was close to breaking. “…Those are my people. How can you ask me to devour my people?”

He wasn’t thinking rationally. One thing I learned far too late in my career as an IT manager was that often, insurmountable problems were just incorrectly framed challenges. Most of the time, we make finding a solution harder on ourselves by focusing on the wrong things. Most people do it because they’re stupid or lazy, or because— They’re scared, Sam. People like to focus on what they’re scared of, whether they know it or not.

Fuck that, no. No! I did not like to think about what I am scared of, it never fucking helped, and fuck you, you’re dead. Fuck.

“Zephyro, listen to me,” I said, meeting his eyes and putting a dash of that unending tension in my chest into my stare. “You can either take their Blessing, or you can let these fuckers do it. What will it be?”

Zephyro did not answer. For what felt like a small eternity, he just stood there as the city burned around us and the sounds of battle grow louder. Someone screamed, and he flinched. His form shuddered, distorted, and re-settled. Wordlessly, he reached behind him and a flash of blue brightened the burning square. Then, a thin stream of cyan flowed into his outstretched hand, forming a blue cube that disappeared a moment later. The sounds of fighting stopped.

“I will leave the buildings standing, Sultana.” He started walking. He didn’t look at me. “By your grace and if God is willing, they will spend some time salvaging the structures and will not proceed deeper until they are done. To them, there is no rush, for they know we can not escape, and I do not believe they know of your secret. They also do not know about the Ferals, so they think their time is infinite, the fools.”

“What? What Ferals?” I fell into step beside him, but I still felt like I was just barely catching up all the time. It was infuriating. I stopped to grab his shoulder, but he glitched out of my hand and kept walking.

“Zephyro hold the fuck up!” I yelled. And finally, he stopped. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I continued. “Right now. No sidetracking, no mysticism.”

I noticed how harsh I sounded, so I added: “…and then tell me how I can help.”

He still wasn’t looking at me, eyes locked on the palace that towered over the rooftops ahead. We found ourselves in a dark alley, and while the bells never stopped tolling, they seemed more distant now. The cool shade and muffled sounds gave a treacherous feeling of safety.

“We do not have long, you are right, Sultana. I need to show you what happened, so you are prepared.”

“Prepared for what, Zephyro?” I was close to losing my patience again but forced myself to stop. It was hard, and I hated it.

“Must you torment me so, Sultana?!” he asked, finally whirling to face me. He was crying. “I pledged my life to your well-being, and have kept you safe since the moment I could form a thought. And now you are awake, which is a joy that I thank Heaven for with every vibration of my core, but you must understand that my people are dying. You can not possibly know what it means to see your friends and family fall like wheat and stand aside, unable to render any help. Can you not extend your trust to me? Must you stop me at every opportunity, when I am carrying the weight of what will and must happen, and it is like a millstone on my shoulders?”

I weathered his teary stare. He still hadn’t answered my question. His frustration washed over me, and I let it. It was nothing compared to what I felt.

Ever since I had opened my eyes in Zephyro’s domain, all I had gotten were vague clues and omens. Every answer I had gotten raised three more questions. And then, when I finally had gotten enough of a grip to know what questions were really important and demanded my fair share of answers, he started treating me like an ungrateful child. I knew that I should have stayed calm, looked at things logically. I knew that we were in danger, and having a standup meeting wasn’t high on the backlog. I was just so very fucking done with being carted around with no power over my own fate.

And he told me, me, that I didn’t know how it felt to—

My eyes narrowed. I was going to tell him exactly how much I knew about loss and sacrifice. I stepped into his personal space and pressed my finger against his chest. The scepter, stuck under my arm and half-forgotten, came free and clattered onto the dusty street.

We both looked at it, transfixed. In the distance, a house collapsed, shaking earth and air alike, scattering ash and embers into the sky. Heat wafted through the alley, blasting us with the smells of destruction and scorched flesh. Someone screamed in the distance. It cut off, unnaturally sudden.

Neither of us said anything for a while, and the city kept burning. Eventually, I knelt to pick up the torch, pausing when I caught a glimpse of Zephyro from below. He was wreathed in the flames consuming his nation, armor tattered and worn, breath short and labored. His face betrayed an inner struggle I knew too well.

“For the fifth time, I must ask you for a thousand pardons,” Zephyro said, again proving he was handling this crucible far better than I had been. “This is five thousand apologies I owe you, and—“ he coughed again. When he recovered, blood seeped not just from his mouth, but also from his eyes. They drank in the pandemonium around us, deep, brown, and so infinitely sad.

He was still staring into the distance when he reached toward his face and wiped the blood away. Finally, he looked at his hand and a frown shot over his brow. He blinked, eyes widening, but then his expression set with determination.

Another surge of blue washed over him and all the blood and grime disappeared from his face as if washed away by gentle rain. When the light faded, his features looked less gaunt, his armor less worn. Overall, he seemed far from fine, though. He’s probably using Logic to prop himself up, but that’s starting to fail. I wondered how long he could keep it together. And how long could I? I took a deep breath to ease the tension in my neck and shoulders. It helped a little.

“It’s alright,” I said, getting up with the scepter in my hand. It felt heavier than before, somehow. Smoke crept out of an open door to my right, and flames licked after it. The golden, stylized fire atop the scepter gleamed in their light. The way it seemed to flicker and dance, it almost looked like the real thing. Zephyro coughed again.

“No, it is another shame I must carry. I have read the records of your djihad, Sultana. Of course, you know of loss. But unlike you, whom the heavens have blessed with endless confidence and faith, I struggle. I struggle with the burden of knowing my people will… that many of them will not see another cycle.”

I licked my lips, eyes still on the flames reflected in gold. I turned the scepter in my hand and the shadows of the alley fell onto the metal. Without the light dancing on them, the metal-cast flames looked more like wicked spikes.

If only you knew…