City-21 “Kyiv,” UNSA Protectorate, Avril Dominion
Sky Bastion “Queen Lamark,” Deck 1, One of the Temple Chambers
Alba Maria Rodriguez Marquez
However, in the vast expanse of Bastion, there were decks where hustle and bustle were not tolerated. No matter what happened in the world — be it an attack by the Shaiszu Matriarch on the city, a nuclear bomb detonated by rebels, or even the appearance of the True Tengu Dragon.
Whatever that had happened, was happening, or would happen in the world was just a mere ripple on the immense surface of the Primordial Ocean.
It was all just energy in the form of data.
Just another task for HIM to resolve…
This central chamber of the Flying Bastion was always immersed in twilight, ensuring nothing disturbed the concentration of its inhabitants. To an unprepared visitor, it might resemble a sanctuary dedicated to the worship of technology. But unprepared visitors had no place here.
At the center of the hall stood a true Divine Artifact. The small shard of the God’s Heart, resembling a tiny crystal of irregular shape with billions of sharp facets. Surrounding it, spheres spin ceaselessly, nested within each other, formed from countless intersecting meridians and parallels.
A barely noticeable but steady glow from the shard periodically flared up slightly, reflecting off the facets and creating an illusion of a living, pulsating organ. Each of the several thousand spheres surrounding the artifact was a complex system of numerous components that smoothly changed their configuration, adapting to the rhythm of an invisible breath. These spheres seemed both ancient and incredibly high-tech, embodying millennia-old wisdom and cutting-edge engineering achievements.
In the shimmering light, thin lines of informational-energy flows could be seen coursing through the crystal, connecting it with each sphere. These threads, like neon veins, traversed the dark space, creating the effect of living tissue, linking the Divine Artifact with the surrounding Real world. Each of these lines glowed faintly, emphasizing the complexity and beauty of the symbiosis between engineering artistry and Celestial will that created this masterpiece.
Before the Artifact, an Altar was residing. It was shaped like a massive cube composed of countless intricate parts. Pulsating tubes, data buses and separate cables, along with thick power lines, spread out from it in all directions. They snaked across the floor, entangled the walls, and connected to sockets at various points in the hall.
Around some of these “outlets” were platforms with numerous technological devices, screens, holographic projectors, and sensory surfaces. Their flickering light reflected off the metal and plastic, creating an atmosphere of otherworldly, almost mystical concentration.
In front of the altar, a figure was sitting in a lotus position, deeply meditating. Clad in loose white garments, a massive chain of white gold with a brightly shining Temple Regalia hung around his neck. It was both a symbol of the Highest caste and the confirmation of proximity to the Great Father, the True Keeper of Thought, the Embodiment of the Eternal Sun — the Living God of the Protectorate.
Upon closer look, one could see that the Regalia pulsated in sync with the beating of the Heart Shard.
The man’s head was completely shaved, with much of it replaced by numerous implants. His body was enveloped in a cold blue glow, and symbols of embodied information ran across his skin like living tattoos. He was absorbing, processing… No, more than that — he was breathing digital data, he lived by it!
However, calling this being a mere man was inaccurate. This was no ordinary human, but the High Techno-Priest of the Protectorate.
Acolytes dressed in simple white robes were scattered throughout the hall near clusters of screens. There seemed to be few, only eleven of them... But such a large number was a rarity, and just a handful of Bastions within the Dominions of the UNSA Protectorate could boast such a luxury.
This enormous potential for future capabilities! One day, each of them might also be able to peer beyond the bounds of time and reality if they succeeded in their ordained path.
For now, these apprentices played a secondary role, each at their station, reviewing the portion of data assigned to them and striving to contribute to its processing, preparation, and forming reports based on probabilities caught by the High Techno-Priest.
Without opening his eyes, the Priest slowly raised his hands. The distal phalanges of his cybernetic fingers split into ten small elements each. At their tips, glowing symbols concentrated and “shot” hundreds of bright beams to the locations of his pupils.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Despite all the data instantly entering the acolytes’ implanted Core-Regalia, the surrounding screens still displayed rapidly flashing complex algorithms, graphs, and data columns. Each apprentice was surrounded by volumetric holograms with continuously flowing data, in all its variability. In this seeming chaos, information underwent a highly structured step-by-step processing to yield the necessary result.
Visualizing data in the real world was not merely a nod to old tradition, a visual effect, or mere decoration. Oh, no! It was a vital part of the Divine Meditation, one of the key details of His Divine Ritual.
Today’s Ultimate Goal of the Search Meditation was to locate all the insurgent bases in Kyiv and to identify the major ones for a preemptive strike. To calculate possible rebel counteractions and the associated probabilities.
In the corner of the hall stood Alba, also dressed in the white robes of a junior Templar-Analyst, although she was yet to be entrusted to standing in the place of data reflection and refraction. Her current role was to quietly observe and provide any information her intuition deemed as vital for the current task.
This was natural, given the sudden and incredibly rapid change in her career and plans. Frankly, even her view of life and understanding of her place in the Protectorate got a sudden turn around.
That’s right, Alba had unexpectedly made a leap that no one in many worlds of the Protectorate had ever made. She jumped straight from the Red Class, from an ordinary analyst in the monitoring and social analysis group of the UNSA Protectorate’s internal security service, straight to the White Class. And not just anywhere, but as an acolyte of the High Techno-Priest himself.
An honor that no one had ever been granted before. In any world.
However, this happened solely because he personally noticed her. As soon as Alba’s report landed on von Scholz’s desk, a copy, of course, reached the Priest. No bit of information in the Bastion, Avril Dominion, or even the entire Protectorate escaped his attention.
And that report was enough to understand the importance of this young Earthling’s role in the future events, not only of this Mirror-World but of all the Great Spheres.
The girl was given an offer no one refuses in the Protectorate. The White Class.
Now Alba’s head was smoothly shaved, with numerous fresh scars from recently installed implants visible on her skull. Instead of her right eye, there was a metal plate covering the socket where the “Eye of God” had yet to be installed. Tubes extended from her nose, going somewhere behind her back, and hidden under her clothing. She could have lamented the loss of her beauty and luxurious hair, but that was the last thing on her mind now.
Yes, of course, the Priest saw that her GT-Core and Soul were infected with emotions. The most complex, hot, and dangerous pair — Love and Hatred. This did not diminish her exceptional abilities, which she herself was unaware of, but it painted the probabilities of her path in Black.
Nevertheless, the choice was made. Whether she could keep her sanity and survive now — directly depended on whether she could overcome this fire within her.
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Unexpectedly, the former Spaniard took a step forward. In a sudden impulse that surprised even herself, she extended her hand towards the hologram enveloping the acolyte to her right. The girl held her breath, watching as symbols detached from her hand, trembling with excitement, and drifted to the young man bathed in a bluish hue.
Her thoughts materialized in this stream. In the form of key words and mental images, they wove into the larger rivers and smaller streams of information flowing through the hall. Carving a path, they surged to the Techno-Priest and finally reached the radiant cloud of data surrounding him:
“Team of Maksim Chernykh. Renouncers.”
“Maksim. Engineer-developer, presumably possessing knowledge of exceptional importance to the Protectorate. Numerous law violations in the past related to AI development. Military training and exceptional shooting skills. A need for money and resources, indicating extensive contacts in the underworld.”
“Combat cyborg with significant battlefield experience, mercenary, former cyber-athlete, criminal, multiple underground fight participant. Exceptional combat experience.”
“Talented hacker-programmer. Ability group Beta-four, direction: AI Development Navigator. Estimated strength: no less than eighteen units.”
“Strong artificial intelligence, self-awareness based on donor’s full-personality/ memory dump (human). Presumably: at the initial stage of Evolution, according to the AD-type scheme. Reason for directive 9/00 issuance.”
“Revelation: First. Presumed target of TACTA Seekers.”
“Revelation: Second. Presumed target of one of the First.”
“Insight: HE IS INTERESTED.”
“Process: Deception. Objects have left the City.”
“Process: Hypothesis. Wheelchair, spinal injury, vertebral damage.”
“Certainty: yes. Analysis: complete. Source: surveillance cameras.”
“Need for surgery. Underground clinic. Access possible through personal contacts or the cyborg’s contacts.”
“Process: Hypothesis 2. Hobbies: modern combat shooting, weapon collecting. Twenty-five percent of the collection is illegal for civilian purchase and possession.”
“Certainty: yes. Source: Meditation. Full access to long-term memory unlocked.”
“Access to his own arsenal is restricted. In this situation, Maksim will definitely try to acquire the necessary weapons. He will contact Kyiv dealers through his own connections or those of the cyborg.”
“Analysis. Processing. Synthesis…”
“Considering the intersection of the two hypotheses, the most likely location of the Object is in one of four points within Kyiv: Nagil Logistics Coordination Center, NES Factory, Arsenal Factory, Monolith Trade Agglomeration.”
The Techno-Priest suddenly opened his eyes and cast a sharp glance at Alba. This world had yielded a strong crop. Great potential for development, but equally great potential for madness, death, and betrayal. Future monitoring required… Slowly nodding to himself, he closed his eyes again and returned to the task at hand. As a result of Alba’s intervention, one more decision was added to the countless ones made today:
#Maksim Chernykh’s team.
#List of participants with names and key skills.
#List of recommendations for capture attempts, including possible armament and camouflage methods.
#List of risks if the capture is not achieved.
#Highest priority directive: find and capture alive.