Chapter 6-10 A Virus or Twelve Thousand and Eighty Two
For the love of Jaus don't download anything from public palaces. You're just asking for a mem-con by that point.
You know half these illegal vicarities got hidden sequences lined into them, yeah? Make it easier for some Syndicate or ganger-trash half-strand to steal your information or mem-lock you. Hells, if they got a half-decent Necro, they can even overwrite your memories. Make you more inclined to do what they ask of you.
Your wards are only the first line of defense. I recommend hiring a proper Jack to do deep dives through your mind at least bi-annually, even if you're some nobody wager.
Ultimately, remembrances are always worth something, so you best make sure that you don't end up serving as someone else's smokescreen when your memories pop up over some goon as a decoy during an exorcist scan.
Seen plenty of bystanders get scalpeled into collateral that way.
-Quail Tavers, School of the Warrens
6-10
A Virus or Twelve Thousand and Eighty-Two
"Chambers!" Avo snarled, jacking out from the wretched ghost-infested midden that the enforcer called a mind. "You said two viruses! Two!"
Chambers, for his part, just shrugged as Avo flipped the man back into being conscious. "I said 'might a virus or two.' I'm giving you the best guess I got. Just... turns out, I made a wrong guess is all."
Wordlessly, Avo glared. He had seen virus-ruined minds before. He had seen scars made by filth and mem-con infections, reaching out and eating away essential material, like rot eating into the base of an ego. Even once, he helped Walton clean out a juv who somehow managed to get a major part of their memories overwritten by a badly sequenced ad-replicator that was slowly subsuming all her other memories to feed its constant expansion.
What Avo had never seen, however, is twelve thousand and eighty-two mem-viruses all fighting each other to claim ownership over a single mind. A single useless mind. A single useless mind that belonged to a degeneracy-addicted fool that didn't seem to understand the concept of "cognitive security" or "not downloading unconfirmed mem-data from strange links."
"So, uh," Chambers chuckled, "give it to me straight, consang, how bad is it."
"Lobotomy would count as positive treatment."
The enforcer winced. "Avo... consang, buddy, friend, my good, noble paler, you're sounding a bit dramatic. I'm sure--"
With a thought, Avo drew up a map of Chamber's mind. Within, the center of the entire structure was marred by a clash of blackened lanes, each spreading out further like writhing worms trying to burrow out into other memories but found themselves too interwoven to manage such an extrication. Here was a mind that should have been utterly fractured by decay, but yet, was still somehow running at a functional state of efficiency.
"Your viruses," Avo began, "are trying to eat each other."
"So, what are you sayin'?" Chambers asked, a glint of excitement flickering through his eyes. "Does this... does this mean that my mind... is invincible?"
The sheer stupidity of the statement made Avo grunt as if stabbed by a dagger. A few steps away, Draus and Janand, who she had just started actively interrogating, shot him a look of concern. "No. Not invincible. Opposite of invincible. You will fall into a coma once equilibrium collapses."
"You mean if it collapses," Chambers suggested.
"No," Avo said. "When. They're eating each other. All are badly sequenced. Only a question of which one is the least poorly designed. Bad quality extended your lifespan. But mind will still almost certainly collapse"
"Oh," Chambers said. The flicker that was in his eyes went as his gaze dipped. "Well, you--you can fix it, right?"
Avo shot him a blank stare. "You downloaded over ten thousand viruses. Directly into your mind. Will need to see how deep into core cognitive functions the infection has spread."
"Yeah--don't rub it in, Avo! I'm having a traumatic moment here."
"Having a stupid moment. Shouldn't download viruses."
"Look, I didn't know all of them were viruses, okay," Chambers said. "In my defense, some were just... informative pieces."
With a growl of annoyance, Avo cast himself back into Chambers' mind.
ENGAGING META-DIVE
Faced with the massive fissures of leaking emotion running between the solid, unmoving walls that constituted Chambers' defenses, Avo cast his ghosts deeper and snatched the nearest chain of the compromised memories he could find. It took him less than five seconds to locate his example. It took him less than ten in total to jack out.
EXITING META-DIVE
Resurfacing into the real, he slid back into his body with extracted bounty in tow. Choked between the grasp of his ghosts like a twitching snake, Avo forced shape into the sequence and held it up before Chambers' very eyes.
Interfaced with phantoms, the vicarity began to play. A horrifically low-quality memory stuttered by missing seconds and splotched with blurs due to a badly edited perception filter began to play. The phantoms danced, weaving wisps of mem-data into a badly damaged megablock. From the perspective of someone chained to a wall, both Avo and Chambers watched as the actor made awkward grunting noises, straining to break free.
+Foul ghouls!+ the vicarity's actor proclaimed, the thespian nature of his performance made vulgar by his awkward tonal pronunciation. +You dare hold a Regular of Highflame prisoner?+
"Avo, the hells are you watching," Draus said, drawn back over by the sudden mention of one of her old order.
"I... don't know?" Avo answered.
The fact that Chambers had gone ashen in the meantime did not fill him with confidence. "Ah, shit," the enforcer said. "Fuck me, I thought I deleted this one."
"Is it spyware?" Avo asked. "Dangerous?"
Chambers winced. "No, it's just--"
+Oh, but we're not scared, soldier-boy.+ An off-screen presence interrupted whatever Chambers was about to say. Whoever was speaking sounded sibilant and sultry, the speaker female-presenting.
Then, out of the shadows, a bone-pale figure entered the scene. Shrouded by dust and striding forth from between crumbled hab-cells, Avo's eyes narrowed as he found himself looking upon what looked to be a parody of himself.
Yet, to call what he beheld a ghoul was a lie, for there had never been any of his kind that he knew to carry the exaggerated sexual characteristics of a female.
"What is this creature?" Avo asked.
"So," Chambers said, licking his dry lips, "this... the story here takes place in an alternative universe from ours."
"Alternative universe," Avo said blandly.
Chambers nodded. "Yeah. In that one, all the ghouls are a lot more... feminine."
He continued staring at the "alternative ghoul" and her exaggerated protrusions. The fact that she also had a full head of hair and a whip-like tongue that looked more than six feet long filled him with confusion. He really couldn't imagine for what purpose those were for.
"Chambers, this is just godsdamned wrong," Draus said, shaking her head.
"It's justified in-setting, alright," Chambers said. "This... this is all for a good reason."
"Yeah," Draus said, snorting. "Sure it is."
Meanwhile, the scene continued to play with the Regular declaring that the ghouls would never break him. The not-ghoul, on her part, seemed to lean forward a lot and spent her time threatening to swallow pieces of the Regular's flesh whole rather than eating the man already.
"Avo, cut that off before we all catch the rash from it," Draus said. "This ain't the dream."
He grunted, but let it play a while longer as the not-ghoul brought in a specially bioformed nu-dog. A specially bioformed nu-dog that seemed to have what looked to be a large steam piston installed somewhere impractical.
+Last chance, Regular. Submit to the Soft Masters or face your insertion...+
+Never!+
Avo ended the vicarity right then and there. He stared wordlessly at Chambers. "Soft... masters."
"There's an in-setting reason--"
"This is just revoltin'," Draus said, looking upon the enforcer with newfound scorn. She flicked a glance at Avo. "Why the hells did you pull that out of his head anyways? You tryin' to start an outbreak or somethin'?"
"Mind full of these," Avo said. "Over ten thousand compromised sequences."
An eyebrow rose high across Draus' forehead in a slow climb. "Ten thousand?"
"Over."
"And... they're all like this?"
"Not all of them," Chambers interjected, trying to defend himself. "I... I got documentaries too! Educational pieces!"
"Most are worse," Avo said, ignoring the enforcer's lies. "Actively siphoning mem-data from him. Some are spyware. Outright mem-cons. Going to take days to clean out if at all."
"Can't you just put the stuff inside him?" Draus asked. "Build around the filth."
"Spread through most of mind by this point," Avo said. "He even deleted real memories to make room for more."
"Useless memories," Chambers said. "Stuff I didn't need! Besides, how was I supposed to know that I was gonna get so many viruses? Coulda surprised anyone?"
"Not surprise," Avo said. "Mistake."
"Oh, it's like you never downloaded something from the public Nether before."
"Only after scans. Review. Testing."
"I do that too."
"More like you use your mind as a testing ground," Draus said. "Avo can we still use him or is he... too far gone?"
"What?" Chambers said, voice spiking in alarm. "Avo! Tell her it's not that bad!"
"Pretty bad," Avo said. "Will need further examination. Take time. Need to delete spyware to make room for spyware. Have to be careful. Delete around key memories. Will create a vegetable if too much is pruned away."
"Hells," Draus said. "Sounds like more trouble than he's worth."
"Yes," Avo agreed.
Chambers' eyes pinballed between the two. "I--I can help you get that flat out? I know a lot of the operations! And... and I can operate the Blockrunner? Besides, if you don't use me you'll... you'll be forced to use Janand!"
A few steps away, a spray of spit flew out from within an unveiled cocoon of flesh. "Fuck you, Chambers."
"Listen," Chambers said. "Haven't either you made a mistake in your life."
"I haven't made ten thousand of the same mistake," Avo replied.
"Avo, you gotta understand: we both suffer from addictions," Chambers continued. "For you, that's like... eatin' children or some shit. For me, it's highly informational and well-filmed vicarities. I like to know about the inner lives of other people. Explore the worlds that could be."
"You know, back in the day before the rash, we just called half-strands like you lust addicts," Draus said.
"A little lust doesn't hurt nobody when it happens inside your head!" Chamber said.
"Mind reminds me of the Maw," Avo said. "Hurt you plenty." A beat of silence fell over Avo. "Although."
"Although?" Draus asked.
"Thinking," Avo said. "Might remove some of the viruses. Contain the rest. Use them to infect Conflux loci even more."
"Yes," Chambers said, nodding vigorously. "We... we got to use everything at our disposal to our advantage. It's like... my mind is an armory instead of a cesspit. All a matter of perception, am I right?"
"No."
***
The eventual work it took to clean out Chamber's mind was far over what Avo expected. Unlike Lucille, the enforcer's mind was not a delicate operation for there was little left of the man's mind to be delicate with. To cleanse rot required a deepness of penetration, with the repair work more akin to carving away decaying bone before the proper resequencing could begin.
His past greeted Avo in fractured flashes. It was like peering into someone's history through the lens of a broken kaleidoscope. Most of his childhood came in increments of violence; these moments chained Chambers to a blank-faced father, the abuse near-constant, flattening any obtainable trauma down to routine details. This lasted up until the Uprising, whereupon the man was eaten by ghouls.
Suppose the enforcer's positive ideation regarding ghouls had to come from somewhere.
Ultimately, it took three entire days for Avo to finally shear away enough of the infection to return some semblance of controllable order to Chambers' mind. Through this time, Draus left Avo chunks of raw flesh to sate himself between bouts of work.
The techs were comparatively creatures of simplicity compared to the oddities infesting Chambers. Having them planted with the proper sequences took half the time and a fraction of the effort.
Overall, it took seventy-five ghosts in total to prepare the three subjects for reinsertion into Conflux. Each ran twenty-five spreads with the outer layers twined to their active memories granting a reactive mask for the phantasmics while the bulk of their builds was scattered deeper in more ingrained memories still.
"So, I won't be at risk of droppin' nulled anytime soon anymore, right?" Chambers asked after his adjustments were done.
Avo grunted. The truth was that the enforcer still had some fragmented viruses lining his sequences in places but they were now bound to Avo's spyware rather than some Deep Nether operation. The insides of Chambers' mind were more divided than a Sovereignty in the Warrens.
The man sighed. "Avo. Consang. I knew you'd come through for me. Knew that you'd see the point in keeping your old--"
"Best chance to spread mem-con through Conflux. Create distraction be operator on inside," Avo said. With a thought, he activated a memory session using his Auto-Seance. An overlay appeared in his cog-feed, and he found himself looking upon his masked person through Chambers' eyes.
+Confirmed.+
Avo deactivated the memory. Chambers blinked. "What the fuck was that? Didn't see a link at all."
"Built a disguised Auto-Seance into your mind. Reduced its overall features. One way receiver. Can't transmit to anyone but me."
"Auto-Seance?" Chambers asked. "I--I think I had one--"
"Viruses ate away most of it. Using its functions to transfer imps out while you were asleep."
Chambers' eyes widened in realization. "Oh! Oh. Well. I always did think they used to keep disappearing. Looks like ya solved another mystery, huh?"
He laughed. Avo didn't.
***
Finished with the subjects, Avo returned to the Second Fortune to prepare for the next steps. A great deal of work remained. He still had a Hell to procure. More information to collect regarding the moments of Conflux and additional establishments that Mirrorhead operated.
The good thing was that, with Draus due to collect their mobile operations vehicle soon, they wouldn't need to continue operating out from the Second Fortune. The establishment had treated them well, but something about the place still fed the flames of suspicion within Avo.
A fire that only grew when he entered the elevator to return to his temporary abode, touch base with Draus and Kae.
"I might require a favor from you," Green River said, her person greeting him with naked anticipation of his arrival.
Avo grunted in displeasure and stepped in next to her. "Don't have what you want. Ask Draus for what you need."
Her presence grated on him, grinding an active discomfort into the air between them. Yet, though the tension pulled at him, it appeared to be non-existent for the Sang herself, who seemed content to keep her eyes fixed on him as if anticipating moments of certain amusement.
She laughed and kept pace with him. "Ah, but you do have that which I need. Of this, I am sure. Our mutual friend is skilled at many things, but Necrotheurgy is not one. Not to the extent of what you have reputedly performed anyway. Bright-Wealth told me you changed a certain girl's mind. Left her more intact than you found her."
"Did she now?" Avo asked.
"Indeed," Green River said. "I do not see myself as anything more than a dilettante of the art, but even one as parochial as I could tell Ms. Lucille's damage was severe." The casino owner laughed, chirps of amusement sounding from both the human and fox. "Yet, now I am sincerely considering using her as a door-girl. Another one of Bright-Wealth's requests. I swear, my sister is too soft sometimes."
Avo sighed. Green River was like slime. She spoke. She clung. She didn't give up. "Don't want work. Busy right now."
Green River merely smiled. "I think you may make time for my request. Tell me, what do you know of the Ninth Column?"
Visit freewe𝑏n(o)vel.𝑐𝘰𝑚 for the best novel reading experience