Ravens of Eternity

205 Ice Queen, Pt Two of Miko’s mirrors wreaked havoc on Network and Diagnostics. They tore into the code with incredible vigor and destructive power. She poured everything she had into disrupting the logic circuit, and tore its code to pieces with every movement she made.

Like before, she imagined she was some great kaiju monster as she trampled cities made of digits and data and reduced them to piles of unusable, worthless code.

And instead of sending out streams of destructive Sparks, she instead produced a single Null in random Intelligences around her. These didn’t corrupt or tear apart data – instead, they simply zeroed anything they came across and rendered the data nonexistent.

They literally nullified everything they touched.

Even the Watchdogs and Codemines laid out for her were useless before them. They simply consumed everything without a second thought and left blank, unused space in their wake.

Security Intelligence was utterly powerless against it. Every defensive measure it could employ was ineffective to say the least. Quarantine units, code nukes, armored response – all fell before her Null code, as though they never existed to begin with.

Enjoy my interpretation of Godeater, Miko thought. I am sure they will give you plenty to deal with.

As her Nulls truly tore apart the system, she made multiple miniscule changes to Operational Intelligence. Like before, her changes were so slight in comparison to the damage her Mirrors and her Nulls were causing. Security Intelligence didn’t even look twice at her.

It was the price robust Intelligences paid for operating inside an inferior physical circuit.

.....

Like every other settlement they had visited, all their tech had been at least a generation old. Their logic circuits were certainly the same.

As Miko observed the Prophets’ code, she realized that Security Intelligence was clearly written on sophisticated equipment. While it might have run perfectly in its development environment, it was sure to be weaker in outdated circuits such as these.

All she needed to do to defeat it was slow it down with a Denial of Service attack. Combined with an exploitable memory leak, the Security Intelligence would be open to attack.

Although that wasn’t her goal at the moment, she was secure in the knowledge that she could defeat it. By herself, sort of.

Security Intelligence had long since given up on neutralizing the Nulls, and instead entered Rapid Restoration Mode. There, it simply restored all the data that every Null removed, as fast as its read/write functions allowed it.

At the same time, it had to deal with Miko’s two other Mirrors, which wreaked havoc on their own set of Intelligences. Right at the height of their destructive cacophony, they flooded the circuit with Sparks, kind of like a cherry on top.

Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of requests and alerts and notices and warnings, Security Intelligence went into High Alert and began an Emergency Lockdown. But before it could initialize it, the whole circuit crawled to a near halt from the onslaught of requests.

Every process was rendered just barely mobile, and the world stood nearly still.

Miko slid the last bit of updated code into place, then deactivated all of her subprocesses. All her Nulls and Mirrors vanished, which allowed the circuit to recapture itself. Everything sped back up to normal as its system resources leveled out.

Security Intelligence quickly withdrew its Lockdown Request, and entered Full Restoration Mode. There, it began an absolute recovery process. Like before, it rebuilt data structures, repopulated them, reinforced them if possible, and sent them along their way. It swept up all of the leftover Sparks, restored all of the data that had been nullified or torn away, then performed a snapshot for the databanks.

Code verified, just like that.

Miko grinned widely at her partial victory. Though she didn’t defeat it fully, fooling it was good enough – for now she needed to deal with the Hallowed.

She activated an All Halt command from within Operational Intelligence, then poured legions of them through every propagation node in Network Intelligence. From there, they were transmitted to every client within the settlement with blinding speed.

They struck each of them and overrode all other instruction sets in the blink of an eye. And with verification from Security Intelligence, those clients accepted the All Halt without hesitation.

~

Max’s rifle CLICKED as his magazine emptied of ammunition. Completely out of supplies, he had no choice and tossed it aside. Then he drew his pistol and fired at the oncoming horde of Hallowed.

He did his best to stay cool under pressure despite how fast they were coming at him. But felt his nerves fray further and further, as the Hallowed got closer and closer.

Claire was massively distressed by their sudden onslaught. She kept her beamlance on and cut a number of them in half even as they advanced. But the gun became hotter and hotter in her hands, to the point where it became painful to hold.

But even despite that, she tightened her grip and kept the trigger held down.

The Hallowed now ran at them with reckless abandon despite how easily they fell. They all jerked around even as they charged in, as though they were glitching out. To them, it seemed like it was a last-ditch effort to kill them.

And it was working. They advanced on them faster than they could cut them down.

What they hadn’t realized was that Hallowed had climbed up the wall from the outside, and ran in from the open window behind them. Not that they even had time to worry about them.

Claire’s beamlance completely shut down due to it overheating. Worse, it began to burn her badly, and she had no choice but to throw it at the Hallowed right in front of her. She drew her pistol and fired at it while another leaped right over the desk at her.

Next to her, a Hallowed ran up to Max and fired his rifle in close range. In exchange, Max emptied his pistol into the Hallowed. Both were peppered with each other’s bullets, and blood spilled out from their wounds.

Claire shot at the Hallowed even as it tackled her, and pushed her down to the ground. Her head struck the floor with a BANG, and she found herself dazed from the blow. In that moment, she was absolutely certain that they were all dead, that they had done too little, and that everything had come to a gruesome and untimely end.

She looked back and saw a dozen Hallowed as they ran up from behind them, then shut her eyes in disbelief.

Claire waited to be killed.

But after a moment, nothing came. Instead of death, she heard muffled WHUMPS all around her. And when she reopened her eyes, she saw the Hallowed fall down all around, and that Amal was by Max’s side, healing him despite it all.

Miko pushed the Hallowed off of Claire, then smiled at her.

“I am sorry that I took so long,” she said. “But we are fine now.”

Claire cried as she reached out and hugged Miko, who awkwardly wasn’t sure how to reciprocate. So she patted Claire’s back in response.

~

Rocks and broken bricks fell from the top of a pile, tumbled down, and joined the rest of the debris all around the bottom. An arm burst out from within the pile, and pushed some more rocks away.

Callie then pulled herself up and out of the debris with a groan, and stood up on shaky legs.

Icy rain pattered lightly on her torn clothes as blood soaked through them. More blood trickled out of her mouth and nose.

Beyond her wounds, she was bruised and banged up everywhere. She clutched at her chest in pain, then coughed out blood from simply remembering the power of Eva’s hit. She also felt spikes of pain around her chest, ribs, and back with each breath that she took.

No doubt, many of her bones were broken – she could almost tell.

Regardless of her state, she still had plenty of strength to get away, and all she needed was time in order to heal. Callie looked out towards the street and saw that her Hallowed had stopped in place. Some still stood, but most had fallen on their faces in mid-run.

She groaned deeply. Both out of sheer pain and out of utter defeat. Anger filled her again – it came at the humiliation she felt. It came with the realization of her inferiority. Or rather, the realization that she was far from the top, that superiority belonged to someone other than her.

There always seems to be someone above me, she realized. Father, or Mia, or Freya. But why do I keep thinking I’m the only one at the top? Like I’m the only one who deserves to be at the top? Where’d that garbage idea come from?

Callie spotted her hammer’s handle among the debris, grabbed it, and pulled it out with a groan.

As she centered herself, the sound of rocks and bricks falling and clattering resounded from behind her. They came with an incredulous grumbling that was intermixed with an feminine chuckle.

“That’ll teach me to do that on stuff held together by mortar,” Eva laughed.

She picked herself up from the rubble as well, and though she had her own set of bruises, she was far less banged up than Callie. Her environmental suit was only slightly torn up in places, and the clear glass on her helmet had a thin crack in it.

Other than that, Eva was doing well. She glanced over at the synth and gave her an approving nod.

“You’re one tough chick, you know that?” she said. “I do gotta admit that your Father has given you some great gifts. Too bad they’re saddled with all the other shit, too.”

Callie, still incensed with Eva, immediately drew her war hammer up.

“Stop insulting Father,” she said flatly.

“I didn’t,” protested Eva. “In fact, I praised him, which honestly sickens me a little. Everything I know about him represents everything I hate. Reminds me of my own fucked up Dad. So a good word from me means a great deal.”

“STOP IT!” Callie shouted.

She took a step toward Eva threateningly, as though she had the energy to act on her urges. Eva was utterly incredulous at what she was seeing, at how Callie was still behaving.

“Can’t you see what’s going on?” Eva asked. “You’re getting angry over nothing important at all! So what if your precious Father is criticized? That happens all the time! Everyone criticizes each other for their behavior. Everyone can be relentless to everyone else around them. But you don’t see everyone lashing back like mad dogs, do you? Get a goddamn grip of yourself!”

Callie darkened considerably. Despite all her protests, despite all she had tried to say, Eva simply didn’t stop slandering her Father. It completely overrode her mind and swamped her body with anger.

She stumbled feebly towards Eva, her hammer held up high. Then she swung at her with as much force as she could muster.

But Eva simply caught her mid-swing. Effortlessly. Callie was far out of energy, and all the fight had been drained out of her. All that was left was her unrelenting hate.

As Eva looked at the synth, she realized it wasn’t hate at all. It was an unrelenting loyalty to her Father, whoever that demon was. It just translated into hate.

“Alright, fine,” said Eva. “I hoped I could at least knock some sense into you, but I see that’s impossible now. And, I want you to know that I’m sorry. Truly.”

She drew her blade, reared it back, then punctured Callie right through her chest.

The synth gasped as Eva’s blade slid through her heart and out her back. A sense of relief fell over her, for a reason she couldn’t understand. Like a great burden suddenly fell from her shoulders.

She looked to Eva for an answer, but only found a dark grimace.

“If your Father brings you back,” she said, “tell him that I’m coming for him. Tell him that no matter how many times he puts you in my way, I’ll still make it to him. Tell him that what you’re feeling in your chest, right now, is what I’m going to make him feel, as many times as I need to.”

She sunk her blade into Callie right up to its hilt.

Pain bit into the synth, deeply. She felt her heart thump hard, but weakened considerably each time.

“You see,” Eva continued, “I’m immortal too, and I’ve got all the time I need to rid the galaxy of him. All the time I need to remove and undo the damage that he’s done. Not just to these people and anyone he’s killed, but to you, and to Mia. And all your brothers and sisters.”

Callie could only gurgle up blood in response to Eva. She felt her legs go numb as they buckled under her weight. She grabbed on to Eva’s arm as her body slowly slid downward.

Most importantly, despite the pain in her heart, she felt lightened. Freed.

“And if I were you,” Eva said quietly, “I recommend breaking free of your Father. Otherwise, the only thing you’re destined to do with every life you’ve got is to lose it over and over again. And for no reason at all, except to fulfill His ambition, never your own.”

Eva then drew her blade out of Callie, flicked the blood off it, and slid it back in her sheath. She backed away as Callie fell to her knees and onto her face.

The Prophet’s blood flowed out of her, its warmth supplanted by the freezing cold that surrounded.