I told you this would happen. The only laughable thing about this is how much you fucking gerents are surprised. Seems like immortality doesn’t prevent senility. You want an explanation?

Fine.

I’ll give you three. Apathy. Bitterness. Fatalism. What else do the FATELESS in the Warrens got? The entire sectors of the city are still no-go zones affected by countless Ruptures. This was something we pledged to fix immediately.

It’s been eighteen years!

They own nothing and rent everything from the Guilds, meaning that they functionally have no concrete value in the market. No freedom. Education is free, but considering the Undercroft is already ten billion lives over capacity, they won’t be making it up even if there were geniuses among them! They can’t even have any physical intimacy, for Jaus’ sake. Forget sex, a godsdamned kiss on the cheek will cause an outbreak of the rash. Then, they get to watch their block get glassed.

You know what, the hells with this. I resign. Fuck each and every one of you! I signed up with Ori-Thaum to serve a republic, to see that everyone is represented and supported. “Unity is Destiny?” My ass. We broke their homes and our promises. We’re goddamn bastards. Same as Highflame. Same as Voidwatch. Same as the No-Dragons and all the other “great” Guilds.

The next time you ask why the Warrens are filled with organ-smugglers, joy-fiends, gangers, snuffers, and scavengers, think to yourself how much they’re worth to us alive versus how much their Essence can fuel our Souls when dead.

We’re running on a necro-economy. And they know. They know but they can’t do anything about it.

There’s no difference between us and the gluttonous gods that used to rule us.

I quit. I quit. I quit.

-Chief Admin Revo I’Kurita’s “resignation” speech to the Court of Elders of Ori-Thaum

-2

Scavengers

The girl was still fiddling with her broken gun when Avo pulled himself up the walkway. Scaffolded over the dozen or so scavenging pits built deep into the keel of the barge, the rusted railings of the crudely festooned walkways spilled across the top of the ship, its loosened bolts rattling to the breath of the wind. Encompassing two pits a row, all of the walkways were interconnected, segmenting the top of the ship into cubes until it finally trailed off at the prow, with holo-haptic interfaces for the industrial cranes lighting each intersection as a milestone, neon embers amidst the murk of the Maw.

Behind, Avo heard heavy metal limbs hammered against the grating and two other rising heart rates as he closed on Hap-Tat—a moniker he granted to the girl that shot him. He peeled her face from his mind–the act coming easily from his years of practice diving in the Nether. Dehumanizing the opposition into something akin to an object was common practice among most Necrojacks.

Most in his profession did it to avoid traumatizing themselves when jacking into the memories of their victims.

Avo was taught to do it because hurting people fed pleasure to his cruelty. An equally bad habit, considering he had a habit of fragging apart more of their minds than he needed to.

Avo loped in on all fours, his movements between a dash and a stagger. His muscles, though sore, felt functional. Down the narrow path, Hap-Tat's face quavered in the projected glow of her rig. Scintillating glints reflected off the piercings that dotted her right cheek like constellations. Her heart roared like rising war drums in his ears, spurring him onward.

Desperately, she chucked the broken gun at him. He caught it, and, just as her rig’s drill whirred to life, he cast it back at her. Lagging, the drill lanced out too late to block the gun. It cracked against one of her HUD projection ribs, making Hap-Tat flinch. Her eyes snapped shut.

An unwise thing to do when a ghoul was close by.

Three-hundred and fifty pounds of ghoul slammed against a ton of rusted metal. The more rusted pieces of plasteel on her rig groaned and cracked on impact. Her response was sloppy. Unfocused. She flailed at him, mechanical arms snapping out, clamping only air as he slipped low. Ramshackle her rig might be, a glancing blow from it would be crippling. It was meant for scavenging; menial labor, not combat, but Avo knew what a fusion drill could do. At its highest intensity settings, it could strip titanium. Hard as the Low Masters made him in comparison to a flat, titanium he was not.

Put simply, if she plugged him with that drill, his flesh would do more than strip; his insides would

spill

.

On his side were momentum and agility. He smuggled himself under her left and drove into her at an angle. The rig toppled back, breaking the crane interface she was operating. Staggering, her rig’s crab-like legs gripped the walkway tight, trying to keep itself upright. Metal groaned. Servos wailed. He struck her again. This time, he lashed his remaining arm through the projection ribs, feeling a spine-shivering delight as his claws unzipped sinew and skidded off her bones.

She screamed. He pressed. In the back of his head, he kept track of the other two heartbeats. They were approaching from the next pit over, their rigs clanking on at a leaden pace, coming at him from perpendicular paths. He needed to finish Hap-Tat now.

A mechanical whine sounded from above him as the articulated limb bearing her drill descended. On instinct, Avo twisted out of the way. Barely. A line of pain flared along his spine, The drill sliced a shallow avenue of pain down his back. Avo snarled. His thoughts slipped from him.

The beast inside him took hold.

As the drill shot past him and punched through the grating beneath them, he wrenched the flat flaps of her projectors from their sparking joints, hoping to get at the screaming meat behind. A weak fist bounced off his jaw, showing him just how unaugmented she was. He responded by clamping his hand around her head and squeezing.

Her skull felt so small between his claws. Like an oversized egg. In his grip, bone succumbed, fracturing. Her voice greeted him with a muffled cry, growing to choked screams as he clenched tighter.

“

Mine

, “ Avo hissed. With a vicious yank, he drew her halfway out of the rig. Her arms and legs snapped at the sockets. She cried out. Avo chuffed in annoyance. If she thought dislocations were bad, she should try losing an arm.

A choking wheeze filled her lungs. The other two were close now. Their heartbeats told him they were closing. Fifteen feet. Maybe less. He didn’t care. Hap-Tat’s safety harness clung tight to her torso and fought him. He’d deal with that later. Instead, he went for the metallic cord slotted to the datajack on the back of her head. Unhinging his jaw, he brought his fangs down on the cord.

Plastic, metal, and micro-tech came apart in his mouth. With the connection severed, her rig went slack, its frame toppling against the bending rails. Spitting pieces of broken cord, Avo slashed through the harness and pulled his prize free. Hap-Tat weighed akin to a feather in his hand. In the darkness, he saw the tears rolling from her eyes, and heard the pleas spilling from her lips. Her heart was tearing itself apart from her at the pace it was beating. Avo grinned.

It was a pleasure to hurt and it would be a delight to feed. Saliva dripped from his mouth.

The arrival of the other two rigs broke his trance. As the beast looked away from its prey, the shifting of focus allowed the rational remnants of Avo to resume control. Blinking, he let out a hissing breath as he worked his excitement under control. He had gone too long without his Metamind suppressing the beast. Glaring at his two new adversaries, he did his best to ignore the writhing meat–

enemy.

The writhing enemy in his clutches.

He cast his glare upon the new arrivals standing ten feet away. A beat passed. No one moved. Hap-Tat whimpered. Avo wrestled himself. He didn’t need to drink from the sweet that was her blood. He didn’t need to take a sampling nibble from her adrenaline-bittered flesh…

“Please,” she whimpered, the circuitry of her haptic-tattoos malfunctioning. Error codes spilled over her forehead. Something had broken beneath her skin when he was crushing her skull earlier. “Please, I–I just got a…a nu-dog.”

He ate a cloned nu-dog before. Not nearly as good as humans. But that was by design. Ghouls were made to prey on humans. Baseliners. Flats like her. Nothing buzzed a ghoul's brain quite like human flesh. Just as nothing was quite as euphoric to them as violence. The weight of his impulses was heavier than the aerovec, heavier than the rig.

Still, Avo fought it. He had to.

It's what Walton taught him to do.

“The beast has to win sometimes,” Walton had told him after catching him gorging on an aratnid nest. “Surrendering is human. But choice? Choice is divine. Fighting your body might just lead to failure. But mastering it, and choosing when to give in to it gives you choices. It’s not about repression. It’s about expression. Expression of free will against yourself. I think there’s true freedom to be found there.”

Avo snarled. Hap-Tat shuddered and clamped her eyes shut, unwilling to face the end. Instinct warred against rationality. Reason won. Barely. Closing his jaws with a repressed grunt, Avo considered the next best use for her.

Lifting Hap-Tat past the rails and dangling her over the pit, Avo turned to face the other two problems that he had yet to solve. They wore rigs bearing much of the same make and quality as Hap-Tats. They faced him, their heartbeats high with tension, their breaths misting the air thick in nervous respiration.

Avo sighed. Since he wasn’t trying to eat anyone presently, he might as well negotiate. Bargain. He had no idea where he was or how he was going to get back home. Not without his Metamind working anyhow. He’d leverage what he could from them for a start. See if they could get him back up to the surface. Or at least to the Warrens. Getting left here was a death sentence. Hells, it already had been if he wasn’t hallucinating about being resurrected earlier.

“Oh, gods, oh Jaus don’t let me die,” Hap-Tat muttered.

Avo frowned at her. Her lip quivered. “Speak. Speak to them,” he said.

She blinked. “You can talk?”

He shook her in the direction of her cohorts. “

Speak

. To. Them.”

“Fuck! Alright! Fuck!” She opened her mouth. What followed was nothing but silence while she did her best impression of a dead fish. Frustration bubbled inside him. He shook her like she was a defective toy, her broken limbs bouncing limply. “Fucking! What do you want me to say?”

Avo gritted his fangs. He hated this. He hated talking to people, interacting with them, trying to tell them what to do. Ghosts were so much simpler. Attached to his will, they just obeyed. If he still had his Metamind along with his engrams, he could just snatch the information he needed from her mind using his ghosts. He could have put her to sleep with a thought seeing that she lacked a Metamind of her own or any functional cognitive wards for that matter. Physical threats were so

impractical

in comparison.

“Location: which district are we close to? Ship name. Which Guild owns the ship? Get the captain. Want to talk to them. Need to borrow your ship’s locus. Make a call.”

The other two stared at him like ravens watching an owl. He studied them again and through narrowed eyes noticed the white stripes painted along the ribs of their rigs. A note of seniority perhaps. It was something that Hap-Tat didn’t have on her now disabled rig.

Hap-Tat continued to not speak. Avo glared. She withered beneath his gaze. “Which…which questions do you want me to ask first?”

He loosed his grip slightly. She began to slide.

“Fuck! Alright! Fuck! Godsdamned!”

She waved at her cohorts. “We’re at…we’re at…what’s the nearest dock?”

The other two didn’t say anything. One of them shuffled an inch backward. The other held firm, remaining in place. The one that didn’t move had a face covered in a mess of burns and budding tumors sealed in place by transparent implants. Avo decided this one was to be named Tumor Face.

Silencing Hap-Tat with a glare, Tumor Face spat. Turning her rig, she leaned out and sneered at her fellow officer. Whatever they were. “And you said this welp was nova at the gig?”

The other scavenger had green optical implants.

Green Eyes

. Avo kept things simple. Reduced them from being people. Make them like artificials in a Nether-Sim. Took the fun out of killing them. Somewhat.

Green Eyes’ glared at Avo, his expression like granite. “She’s got a good eye. Good at sorting trash. Not her fault we have a rotlick for a stowaway. Took her by surprise."

Tumor Face laughed with a nasally wheeze. “She let it tear her out from her rig, she did. Ain’t that some shit. If it were me I’d–”

“For

Jaus

sake, help me!” cried Hap-Tat.

Tumor Face waved her off. “Oh, relax, consang. It didn’t eat you, so it wants you alive.” For the first time, she sized Avo up. “Weird rotlick we got here. Calm too. Ain’t right.” Her eyes narrowed. “Hey, Kald?”

“Yeah?” Green Eyes said. Avo considered changing the name over to Kald, but decided against it. Would make the man too human in his eyes; too appealing to hurt.

“Wasn’t this the one you got the kidneys from earlier?”

Oh. Well, that explained who stole his kidneys. It was getting harder to not kill them now.

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you say it was

dead

?”

“Yeah."

She made a vulgar gesture at him with her rig’s manipulator arm. “Does it look dead to you?”

“It was when I found it. Didn’t even move when the boss threw one of them refugees down the pit,” he chuckled. “Splattered all over him, she did.”

That explained why there was a corpse on him when he…

resurrected.

Another word caught his attention. Refugee. Shooting a glance down the side of the barge, he did his best to gauge its size. It had to be pretty large to have the twelve or so pits reserved for scavenging. Might be half a mile long. From where he stood, he couldn’t gauge how deep it was, but he guessed this vessel had to have a crew of three hundred at the least.

So where were they? All he saw were three scavengers and no more. He supposed they were just here to sort for valuable finds while the ship did most of the harvesting. Still, he wondered where the drones were. The golems. Maw-diving ships were machine operated most of the time.

If this ship was primarily meant for people into New Vultun, however, then that made things different. That meant the bulk of its profits were below deck, in the form of the FATELESS–unsponsored refugees. People without the protection of the Guilds. There was plenty of currency to be made forcing them into easy labor, or converting them to back-alley organ farms. Even killing them, pawning their Essences off to local megablocks, or selling their ghosts could net a profit if there were enough of them. From what Avo could judge, this meant the bulk of the ship’s personnel and resources were below deck.

And suddenly, another switch flipped in his head. Walton’s ethics were always a bit…looser when it came to criminals, thugs, and tyrants. The first chains of his will began to buckle beneath the urges of the beast.

“How many?” Avo asked.

Tumor Face froze. “

Jaus.

” She said as if noticing him for the first time. She clearly hadn't been listening to him earlier.

“Rotlick-fuck speaks too. Next, it’ll be doing math.”

“It’s already

doing

math,” Green Eyes deadpanned, “asking us how many toils we got.”

Toils. Another term for FATELESS refugees. Avo shot a look at Hap-Tat. She looked back and swallowed.

“Thousand,” Hap-Tat blurted. Across the walkways, her cohorts scoffed and mocked her weakness. “Less now. We’re sorry we threw one on you. The…the toil tried to run. She tried to break out!”

“Boss is going to black-haul the shit outta you for letting the rotlick get you, juvie,” Tumor Face said, laughing. "Moreso for being a

lack

."

More of the situation was revealed. The corpse splattered across him in the pit was a refugee. Their death preluded his resurrection by seconds. They had murdered someone who just wanted their freedom who was trying to escape. An alignment between his rational mind and the beast within was reached. He had a reason for violence now. When his bloodthirst began to rise again, he didn’t fight it. Not this time.

This was a slave ship. Walton hated slavers. Took special care to break their minds. Even used some of them as practice during Avo’s

education

. The concept of choice and free will had been sacred to his adopted father, and to honor the man, it would’ve been ethically wrong for him

not

to kill these people.

He looked at Hap-Tat and ran his tongue across his fangs. The adrenaline was still rushing through her. If this went fast enough, bitter would still be in her flesh when he got to eating her.

“Thank you,” Avo said, letting out a relieved breath.

“What?” Hap-Tat asked.

Green Eyes titled his head.

Tumor Face frowned. “The fuck? Thank you?” She laughed, more confused than amused. “Why…why thank you?”

“Needed a reason,” Avo said.

“A reason?” Tumor Face asked.

Avo didn’t reply instead, he pulled Hap-Tat away from the edge and pulled her in front of him. She went still. Her eyes widened. Looking past her shoulder, he saw the other two scavengers, just watching, waiting for him to react.

She wasn’t that heavy. Tumor Face wasn’t that far. He could make the throw.

“You–you gonna let me go?” Hap-Tat whispered.

“Yeah,” Avo said, his grin spreading all the way to his ear-nubs. Technically, he wasn't lying.

She whimpered and let out a breath. “Oh, thank–”

Every strand of muscle across his body exploded with motion. With a primal snarl, he launched the girl from his grasp like a javelin. The sight of her sailing away, choking on her own screams was joyous to behold. Like a spear molded from the softness of flesh and unlaced bone, she broke against Tumor Face’s rig with a satisfying splat, ribs cracking, a lung popping.

Tumor Face stumbled back in surprise. Pure reflex made her shrug the mangled body of Hap-Tat over the railing. Green Eyes, the most focused of the three, stomped forward. Slow as he was, Avo felt an aura of danger about him. This one was good at mastering their fear and going forward. Part of Avo respected that. The rest wanted to know if the man would taste any different.

The thrumming vibration beneath Avo’s feet called his attention. Hap-Tat's drill. Climbing over Hap-Tat’s disabled rig, he found the drill dangling through a wound made in the melted grating. It had been left running when he severed the connection. Poor safety protocols, but useful for him.

A feral smile spread across his face, his fangs barring from ear to ear. Hiding behind the rig, he listened for Green Eyes’ approach as he took hold of the drill’s connective articulations. Taking it in his hand he waited for the right moment to drop down onto the hull itself.

He intended to drive his new weapon into Green Eyes from below.

Somewhere behind Green Eyes, Tumor Face roared as she began stomping over. “Rotlicking half-strand fuck!”

The walkway creaked as Green Eyes approached. A bolt popped. Avo jumped, disappearing over the side just in time for his newest victim to smash past Hap-Tat’s disabled rig. Landing, Avo ignored the lancing pain traveling up his legs and limped below where Green Eyes was standing. Looking up, Avo saw the confusion splashed across Green Eyes’ face. His projectors were detecting nothing. Poor fool was looking in the wrong direction.

“Kald! Below!"

Tumor Face’s warning came far too late. Avo leaped, driving the drill up through the grating and into the underside of Green Eyes’ rig, feeling as it chewed through metal and meat. The wafting taste of exposed organs greeted Avo. Green Eyes screamed. Blood spilled. Avo opened his jaws wide and fed on the deluge running down from above. The

drill spun twice more in the scavenger’s abdomen before fizzling and dying. Disappointing.

Green Eyes' fat boiled and popped between the edges of his wounds. Blood foamed in his mouth. He barely had time to struggle with the drill before Avo pulled back hard. Ghoul-muscle battled the unmaintained machine servos of his rig. Green Eyes’ body bore the burden of defeat. Bone snapping, flesh flaying, he came free from between the ribs in a welter of gore, his datajack snapping loose from the back of his skull. He landed nothing more than a brutalized pulp against the grating, his last breath a sobbing whimper. With a final violent tug, Avo drew his prize down through the gap he made in the walkway using the now useless drill.

Above, another rig-toppled, pilotless. Tumor Face stomped forward far too late, a wail of absolute despair tearing free from her throat. Avo didn’t hear it. He was too busy gorging himself on good meat. The man tasted divine; the sweetness of his lingering diabetes only added flavor. As he fed, however, Avo sensed something else. Something entirely different.

He felt it more than he tasted it, but it was coming free from the corpse all the same. An unseen ripple–no, an echo poured into him. Impossibly, Avo heard Green Eyes whispering in the back of his mind, chanting muted prayers to a god unseen.

Suddenly, Avo felt himself ignite in an incandescent burst. The world expanded around him. Existence shivered momentarily. He saw himself as a chasm between a shroud of primordial fire, a world between him and where he was right now. His mind spun. His body felt hollow and heavy at the same time. It was as if he was both a conduit and an anchor at the same time. The moment passed as fast as it came. Suddenly, he was back in his own skin like nothing happened.

Then, data lines from his cog-feed flashed behind his perception, its system booting. A ghost-glitch? Didn't matter, the Metamind was working! A ripple of phantasmal matter bloomed out and expanded into a five-ringed halo. A paltry wisp of a ghost spilled out from the center and swirled into a thin spread along the outer accretion of his mind, unshaped and unsequenced.

Avo laughed with genuine joy.

His Metamind working again, he awaited to hear the voice of Walton greet–

SOUL ONLINE

IGNITING THAUMIC CYCLER - 2 THAUM/c

THAUMIC CYCLER ONLINE...

METAMIND ONLINE - [1] GHOST ACTIVE

  [0] PHANTASMICS ENGRAMMED

WARNING: INSUFFICIENT THAUMIC MASS

  UNABLE TO MANIFEST LIMINAL FRAME

[0] HEAVENS GRAFTED

[1] HELLS GRAFTED: (FIRST CIRCLE)

Even as the world around Avo came alight with new color and clarity, he frowned. The single ghost he just claimed was already fine-tuning his perception, feeding his mind with visual data to counter his nearsightedness. In the narrow lane far above the Maw where the lights of the city spilled in, Avo sensed the countless sequences of ghosts spreading across the entirety of New Vultun in a grand skein beyond the surface of existence. Avo didn't have enough ghosts to reach it yet, but he could hear the Nether calling to him.

He ignored it.

This wasn’t his Metamind. It didn’t sound like Walton. It didn’t have any of his engrams. It sounded like

him.

How could it sound like him? He never had his mind cloned–

A howl of rage interrupted his thoughts. “Rotlick!” Tumor Face leaped over a railing and dented the ground in a rough landing. He noticed the thin wisp that was her ghost oozing out surface thoughts from the center of her mind. Her emotions bled angry clumps of thoughtstuff as she made for him. Yet, as she approached, he found himself wondering why there seemed to be a rippling echo inside her core as well.

ESSENCE DETECTED - [1]

The words flashed in his mind and were spoken to him through a voice copied from his own. Essence? Avo frowned. Souls burned Essence to make thaums. Why was this Metamind detecting Essence? Why was it telling him it had a Soul online? He wasn't anywhere near a megablock right now. He couldn't be linked to any of the reactors.

Tumor Face thundered close, her shadow creeping over him as he shook off his new questions. If she didn't snuff him, he could take his time to figure out what his situation was after. Mull it over with the meal that was her corpse. Right now, he was still starving and found the hunger in him ran deeper than before.

Letting the beast inside him slip the leash once more, he met his new prey mid-charge, seeking more than mere meat.