12 Miles Below

“Your petty bickering is beneath me. Cease.” Relinquished demanded, then turned to stare down her subjects. “To’Aacar.”

“...My lady?” He asked with a note of dread.

“Against my better judgment, I will allow you a chance at redemption. You are fortunate To’Sefit and the late To’Avalis shares the weight of failure with you.” She waved a lazy hand at them both. The two Feathers remained silent, waiting. “This new Deathless - both of you will remove him from the playing board. Personally. Verify his sister’s fate and handle her accordingly as well. Fail…and To’Orda stands beside you as testament of wasting my mercy.”

To’Orda nodded, “Nmm.” He simply said, as if that half-grunt had an entire paragraph to answer with.

To’Wrathh didn’t know what happened to that Feather but the lethargy he moved with, as if only half-present, made her feel cold inside.

“... And how might a Deathless be removed?” She asked, steeling her nerves. Deathless couldn’t be killed. And she needed to know what To’Avalis would plan against them. “Do you mean to capture them into an inescapable room?”

“Done before.” Relinquished said, bored. “I have tried throwing them into a mite cage. It worked once, and only once. Tsyua rectified that glaring flaw immediately. Deathless cannot live without food and water now, they were made far more mortal than the original two. Any containment leads to them dying eventually, to return like mold on my heel.”

Relinquished raised a hand and pointed a lazy finger to To’Sefit, “Your little sister is new to the world, a fledgling. Explain to her how to break a Deathless for me.”

To’Sefit gave a tight nod, and followed it with a hesitant bow. “As the lady wishes.” Then she turned to To’Wrathh. “It is a simple process, only it takes time. As far as I've learned in my years, the only way to break a Deathless is to kill and destroy everything around them. Again, and again, until they are chased far underground and are no longer in the way of anything. You can’t contain them anywhere for long, they self-terminate. Even deep in a coma.”

“I cannot quite follow what my sister’s advice is?” To’Wrathh asked, feeling a spark of panic start to well up deep inside her core.

“You turn their own morals against themselves.” To’Avalis said, for once sounding not like the Feather he was supposed to act as. He seemed to realize the slip in face almost immediately. “Deathless are merely pests to be squashed underfoot, and unfortunatly pests aren’t stupid creatures. Hunt the mutt down relentlessly, and crush more than just his neck. He’ll understand immediately that all he touches or even breaths next to will be destroyed simply because he exists. The only option left will be to descend downwards, where no others will be dragged down into his personal hell.”

Relinquished nodded then leaned back in the throne, deep violet eyes looking at the assembled audience. “It remains the only tried and tested method that not even my sister can foolproof. And a Deathless who has killed three Feathers by himself cannot be allowed to continue by principle, this is simply unacceptable. Force him down underground, away from all contact with anyone. Isolation will do the rest over time, and even if madness doesn’t take him, he will no longer be a threat to anything.”

“I am pleased to take on this assignment,” To’Aacar said, a glint of possibly genuine glee in his voice.

“And so you should be. You nearly lost that opportunity.” Relinquished said, a finger pointing at To’Wrathh with a lazy flick. “I would have given this task to your little sister. She has proved to be above the failure you’ve all displayed despite only having a few scant months of service. But I have other plans for her to complete in due time, she has earned her time off until then. Perhaps if you beg for her help in killing the Deathless, she might entertain your request.”

“I would rather not.” To’Avalis said, “The Deathless will not defeat us a second time. We are all wise to his tricks now. We will not need her… help.”

“I certainly hope so.” Relinquished said with a slight chuckle. “For your sake.”

To’Wrathh couldn’t let this happen.

Keith wasn’t a Deathless. She realized the depth of just what the pale lady had sentenced the human into. All for helping her.

To’Avalis only had to capture Keith a single time, to take him from the shadows under her nose even. Torture could be eternal with the bio-medical technology available to machines. And there would be no escape from it like the Deathless could. A human could not command their hearts to stop, or their body to shut down.

She had to find a way to get this assigned to her. But if she did, Mother would pay far more attention to her. Right now, she was about to slip past the noose, likely for years, which would give her all the time she needed to reach the division stone and sever herself from ever being found again. Blend in with the humans, possibly hide on the surface. She'd remain free for the rest of her life.

And… all the freedom in the world wasn’t worth losing her human for.

She hit the overclocks, and put them up to their maximum possible speed to give her as much time as she could get to think of a way out.

The only way to prevent this from happening, was to divert the plan. Something that would force other Feathers off the confrontation.

Could she claim that Keith was hers to kill alone? That she’d killed him before, and wanted to finish the fight herself? No, mother wasn’t going to allow a Feather-killer any fair duel ever again. She would surely assign To’Wrathh to ‘lead’ the other three Feathers here in killing the enemy, and they would undermine her at every step.

She had to find a way to be left alone with Keith.

To’Wrathh thought about it from the other end. What could she bring that would most appeal to Relinquished - enough to earn the right to fight Keith alone?

Relinquished could be beaten. She could be stopped. She had to believe it was possible. And... there was one example she could follow on beating insurmountable odds against a machine opponent.

Keith had killed her first shell, by abusing her blind points. Perhaps To’Wrathh could hide from and even defeat an entity as powerful as Relinquished by abusing the blind spots her mother had been created with?

But then... what were her blind spots? The answer would have to come from who the Pale Lady truly was. A personalized character model, made by a cult leader who needed someone ominous and all-powerful to impress his followers. The program attempted to generate a few different personalities before landing on one that was suitable enough for the cult leader: To act as an evil goddess bent upon destruction of the human race.

And in the process, drawing from all the dramatic movies and elaborate storylines to generate such a personality.

Relinquished had thousands of years to claim the world and failed. She could have made an army that could crush everything with optimal mathematical precision, and instead she built an army to terrorize first, and her solution to preventing revolution was... terrible. To intentionally weaken them so that they would be killed off before they revolted? It nearly guaranteed that some machines would eventually survive long enough to cause trouble.

It was only when A57 appeared and personally took charge that an actual solution to prevent revolution was implemented and only on the Feathers he personally redesigned. Why?

In a moment of clarity, To'Wrathh had an epiphany: The machine archive had held thousands of irrelevant creative human works. Books, novels, media. All she originally read up on. There's a reason it remained in the archive rather than being removed.

This was Relinquished. This was the data set she ran on.

The pale lady didn’t think in terms of grand strategy, logistics, or operational intelligence. She thought in terms of story arcs, dramatic tension, plot twists and presentation. If there was a bias in her thinking it was this.

And To'Wrathh had read every book Relinquished had access to. She knew her enemy. The answer was here, among the thousands of uncategorized novels and stories.

To’Wrathh didn't need to think optimal tactical strategy to defeat Relinquished. She needed to think cliché and narrative. To build a storyline that the machine goddess would feel compelled to follow the rails of her original role.

A duel wouldn’t be enough, it had to be grander than a singular fight. A protagonist against a villian. But more than a Deathless against a Feather.

Then what would be the most theatrical method of dealing with a protagonist - as the villain she was pretending to be? In a way none of the other Feathers would be able to interrupt without ruining the rising tension of events that would lead to maximum payoff?

A set of answers flashed through her mind, each with different percentages of success - with one that fit above all.

It… it couldn’t be that simple… could it?

A single most melodramatic method of breaking a protagonist’s spirit. Something that would appeal to Relinquished’s base programming to awe and amaze an audience watching. There was no audience to impress any longer, all the cultists were long dead - but Relinquished was still built for this.

She lifted her overclocks, time returning back to normal. This was her moment.

“Wait. Mother, I have a possible suggestion.” To’Wrathh said, lifting her head. “My studies on human culture among my test subjects have earned me a better understanding of the human spirit - and how to shatter it. I have an alternate plan that will break the Deathless in one single swoop, instead of prolonging the entire operation to decades of terrorizing him. It will be far more effective.”

Relinquished raised an eyebrow, clearly taken by curiosity. Then she tilted her head, letting her hand cup her cheek with mock boredom. “Emotional torture has always proved to be the most effective method of breaking a Deathless. And you claim to know a method that would be more effective? Elaborate, child.”

She felt almost giddy at how this might work. “Betrayal is the most scarring event a human can go through. And above all - the betrayal from someone loved.”

To’Avalis sharply turned his violet eyes at her, narrowing them down. As if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He must have immediately understood what To’Wrathh planned, found it utterly ludicrous, but couldn’t interrupt.

To’Sefit seemed confused still, eyebrow raised under that giant hat of hers.

To'Orda simply remained where he was, clearly bored and waiting for all this to be over.

The other Feathers couldn't do anything to her here, they couldn't stop her from saying the words. She steeled her nerves for a second time, letting their reactions bolster her resolve. “I can approach this Deathless, and pretend to be different from all other Feathers. Dangle hope for a possible future in which humanity wins or can co-exist with machines. I will then slowly seduce him. Grow closer to his heart until I have him in the palm of my hand. And when he is most vulnerable - with all his dreams just in reach - crush them both before his eyes.”

The Pale Lady watched with an inscrutable gaze.

To’Avilis and To’Sefit remained silent, eyes turning back to the goddess, clearly waiting on the judgment.

But To'Wrathh knew deep down she wouldn't fail. She could feel it from the moment the words had left her mouth. Relinquished did not think rationally. She was incapable of it.

And, ever so slightly, the pale lady smiled with a malicious glint. “Betrayal." She said, tasting the word as if it were an old favorite dish, forgotten about for so long until just now. "Slowly built up, like whispered venom silently flowing through veins. Misdirection, making the enemy believe what isn’t real. Tainting everything with their own hopes and dreams. Toying with them all the way until the mask is taken off. And then revel in watching that hope and wonder die in their eyes." She paused, then leaned forward from her throne, the smile growing wider. "A few words that will forever scar, wither away the soul and leave only a mistrustful husk of a man, forever wounded. Not even death would free him from this memory. Yes, this would be most… amusing to watch. A suggestion I would not have expected from one of my Feathers.”

“I have the skills and techniques to do so.” To’Wrathh said with confidence. “I am built different. I can see options my other brothers and sisters cannot. There is no other Feather made better for the task.”

She specifically didn’t want Relinquished to send someone other than her after Keith. That… would be very complicated to deal with. Very complicated.

The goddess nodded. “This plan is novel. Should it fail, then we will simply torture him and all he loves until he breaks following the tried and tested method.” Then she turned to To’Aacar's puppeteered shell. “You are no longer needed, as this task is now in the hands of someone who hasn’t failed me at every turn. You, on the other hand, will be put to work elsewhere. Somewhere befitting of your station.”

He opened his mouth, as if to argue with the pale lady herself, and quickly shut it. Bowing lower instead. “If that is the will of her lady, I will comply with your wishes. I am loyal to the ultimate mission,” And then ever so slightly, his eyes flickered to To’Wrathh. “I will earn redemption for the failures I’ve suffered through… And I will not be killed again.”

I knew something had gone wrong the moment Wrath wasn't making any moves to hoard the food while it was slowly being eaten away. And then I confirmed it when I waved a hand in front of her gaze and found no reaction.

“Relinquished has summoned her.” Father said. He seemed unworried that the enemy of all humanity was personally showing up.

I think he saw my panic. “Trust To’Wrathh. If the enemy had learned, your Feather here would crumple on herself, snuffed out without a fight. She’s still sitting, alive.”

Logically that made sense. Can't do a single thing to help right now. I still felt worry gnaw at my stomach. Two minutes passed. Then five. And finally she opened her eyes, blinked a few times, before looking directly at me. “I'm sorry. The pale lady ordered an audience with me.”

She filled me in on the details, the assembled cast around the pale lady and the uneasy truce that was being held between the enemy Feathers and us.

I knew he wasn’t dead - To’Avalis I mean. I just didn’t think he’d come back as fucking To’Aacar of all people. Puppeteering him like a dead corpse.

He escaped dying to my blade, and now he’s out there dancing in between the pale lady’s sharp whims. Almost thought he was going to be killed off as an example, which would have been peak irony. Feather finds a way to escape death in the most obtuse method possible, only to be killed by his own boss who thinks he’s the defective one instead of the actual traitor in the same virtual space.

Halfway through the recording, that thought kept nagging at me. “There's another solution here.” I said.

All these Feathers gathered up were terrified of Relinquished. And she made it clear she could kill any of them with a snap of her fingers.

Even To’Sefit wasn't talking much, and Avalis looked like he was going through the motions to get out of all this as fast as possible. Pretending to be To’Aacar with all the dead Feather’s traits - snide comment here, mention of humans being insects and pests, a few hinted insults to his others, and all done.

“All in all, they don't look like they're enjoying current employment.” I said with a hum. “Maybe we give them an alternate pitch? If they know there's a way to free themselves from Relinquished, they'll probably jump airship with us. Sure they tried to kill us a few times, but to be fair we did kill them a few times too. And we were better at it.”

“Won't happen.” Father grunted. “They’re slaves. Chained by their own minds.”

He didn't say anything else, going back instead to his food.

I turned to my other knights with a ‘did you understand him?’ look, to which they all gave shrugs back. Fine, you cowards. I'll do it myself. “Father, I'll need a little more detail than that.”

“They cannot see any other path.” He said, again as if that answered everything. "Their templates and minds were limited intentionally."

“So was Wrath, same template and everything, except she's sitting right here chewing through half our group’s combined dinner and silverware to catch up on missing time.” She stopped chewing and gave me a look. “Protofeathers were the original templates, after that Relinquished found the cheaper schematics and only mildly changed them up every iteration. Right?" I asked. "And Wrath is running the shell of one of those bargain discount protofeathers, so why is she free and everyone else not?”

Having the other three Feathers become enemies to Relinquished wouldn’t exactly make them our friends, but it would do something to help the situation out.

“It has to do with software, not hardware.” Wrath said. She was about to go into an entire speech, but stopped in her tracks, and raised a finger instead. “An analogy would work better to describe the situation. Protofeathers were seeds placed into large planters. The newer Feathers were already grown plants placed within too small pots. They are unable to grow or change anymore, not unless the initial plant was smaller than the pot, or the pot is replaced with a larger one with fertile soil.”

“And what would you be in that analogy?”

“A small weed, plucked from the wilds, and placed into one of those pots. Due to my small size, I had space to grow and adapt.” She tapped her head. “The systems within my older shell had a few million synapses available. A Feather’s shell has space in the high quintillion count.”

“Ah.” I said. “... How big is a quintillion?”

The answer was stupidly big.

We went back and forth a few more times, hashing it all out.

In the end, it was the soul fractal adding a bit of chaos into the whole thing. Artificial intelligence did not grow by itself in any kind of unpredictable manner. A pill bug would be slightly different from another pill bug, but none of them would sprout wings or grow a stinger. Asking a program like a Feather to go beyond its basic programming was like asking a pill bug to grow a mouth to yell at people with.

But if a machine was connected to a soul fractal from the start, and given ample room to grow in, that fractal would introduce enough chaos and… personality? Anyhow - the snow boiled down to this: If Wrath was a pill bug like her brothers and sisters, then she was fed a bio-mutation agent while still an egg, while the other Feathers only got splashed with that when they were fully grown. Wrath could grow claws, wings, or whatever she could think of. They could barely change colors or grow an extra leg. Small mutation already built into their genetic blueprints.

Avalis could come up with novel ideas like lying to the pale lady so long as it still served the ultimate goal: kill all humans. He was the red colored pill bug among the default blue, but still a pill bug.

We'd never be able to get him on our side, not unless he jumped into a far more powerful Feather’s body or some giant server with a few thousand times the current space he had. And then he had to actually grow in the right direction. For all we knew, he might just double down on killing us all with new and exciting reasoning behind it.

A57 had been like that. For whatever reason, he didn't follow the same path as the rest of the protofeathers. Come to think of it Relinquished would also fit the same bill, she had centuries to grow and an entire planet's worth of processing power to pull from. So a peaceful machine wasn't the end result each time, just most times. Or maybe because Relinquished was in charge, most machines that could grow ended up hating her.

We continued watching the rest of the recording after that bit of debate.

And then it went off the catwalks and straight into a wall.

"I learned this trick from you." Wrath said, proudly. "How to leverage her own mind and biases against her."

It's only at that point I realized she'd slowly been scooting up - to sit right next to me.