//------------------------------// // Chapter 1.2 // Story: Obsolescence // by Chaotic Dreams //------------------------------// Zero-One and I rode down (or up, or sideways, or whichever way this crazy elevator worked) to the ‘Think Tank’ in silence. Well, relative silence; every once in awhile the Unreal bot would make that odd static noise. I didn’t mind too much, seeing as my mind was far more preoccupied with calculating my chances for survival as a Tech Hunter. Even with all the perks that would come from being an inner-circle employee at Unreality, Inc., even with all the training they’d give me and the resources at my disposal, I’d still be a physically small second-rate hacker. Real mercenary types died in this line of work literally every day, and most of them had been dealing with high-class weaponry and pre-Crash security systems since foalhood. What chance did I have? And then, even if I did manage to become the biggest, most badass Tech Hunter in all Equestria… I’d be risking my neck to make an already powerful megacorporation even more powerful so it could make the already shitty lives of common citizens even more shitty. I sighed. “Still not satisfied with your new employers?” Zero-One asked, his electronically-synthesized voice only backed by a bit of static this time. “It’s not as if it’s a big secret that I hate everything your company does and stands for,” I said. “Hell, I spent most of my life trying to break the system that enables big companies like this from stomping on the little guy, and now I either work for you all or get killed or worse by the rest of the Big Four.” Zero-One responded with a loud burst of static before his voice finally made its way through, albeit a bit roughly. “No system is perfect,” he said. “Even the most well-programmed AI can’t plan for every contingency. However, Unreality, Inc. is not evil. I hope you will come to understand that.” “I know that as a megacorporate AI, your programming doesn’t allow you to go against your creators,” I said quietly. “But if you could think independently, I wish I could show you how horrible life is on the streets because of the Big Four.” “Unreality, Inc. is not evil,” Zero-One repeated after more static. That was really starting to get annoying, actually. I hoped the scientists in this so-called ‘Think Tank’ could fix that. I would have tried to hack him and correct the problem myself, but my touchscreen amulet had locked up. Everlast called it a ‘preventative measure,’ saying no technology without Unreality, Inc.’s approval would function in the Twisted Tower. “Nopony thinks they’re evil,” I sighed again. “Everypony thinks they’re the hero of their own story, but the story is currently a tragedy for most ponies and the authors are uncaring companies.” “Unreality, Inc., exists to serve ponykind,” Zero-One said. “Without the unreality energy we supply, Canterlot—the whole of Equestria, the whole of the world—would be powerless… and worse.” “Then why do you have to charge so much for power?” I demanded. Zero-One turned to look at me, as if about to say something important. What I got instead was more static. “Wait, why do I even bother? You wouldn’t see things from my point of view even if you could try it.” Static, yet again. I silently thanked whatever goddesses might be listening when the elevator ‘pinged’ and the doors slid open. I trotted out, expecting to see some sort of research and development lab full of ponies in labcoats fixing up Unreal bots and typing away at computers. What I saw instead was very much… Not that. Like everything in Unreality, Inc.’s control, the Think Tank seemed to be both more unintuitive than expected and far more literal. Stepping out of the elevator landed Zero-One and I on a sort of balcony overlooking what might as well have been a lake. I couldn’t imagine how many millions of gallons of water must be lapping the sides of the building in gentle waves just a few feet below the overlook. The water was incredibly clear, although I could smell sea salt. It was easy to see why; a massive coral reef had grown at the bottom of the pool, which must have been dozens of feet deep. Bizarre yet beautiful sea creatures swam through the waters, long multicolored eels slithering among the tentacle-like fronds of anemones, schools of tropical fish darting about spiky sea urchins, and all manner of crabs, stingrays, and other, stranger sea life sliding in and out of view around myriad corals. A miniature indoor ocean was far from the strangest thing about the place, though. Huge metallic tubes covered in barnacles ran from the ceiling (which was painted to look like a bright blue sky with a large solar lamp) into the midst of the reef. Smaller pipes and tubes and wires ran off the sides of the central mechanisms and plugged into what looked like the reef itself. “Welcome to the Think Tank!” greeted a sprightly voice, startling me. I turned to see something I’d only ever seen in books and movies, a type of pony that I had thought couldn’t possibly live this far from their pollution-proof biodomes off the coast. A sea pony, her mane a mass of fins, her hooves covered in the front by sorts of web-like protrusions, and gills in the side of her neck, had surfaced out of the water by the balcony. “H-hello,” I said, trying not to stare but failing utterly. “You must be the new Tech Hunter,” she said. “It’s great to meet you. I’m Shanty, and I’ll be acting as your liaison with the Think Tank today.” “I thought the Think Tank was the company’s science division,” I said, trying and once again failing to understand anything Unreality, Inc. did. “Yeppers!” Shanty said with a beaming smile of pearly whites. “The Think Tank is very much looking forward to meeting you. Are you ready to begin your training?” “I’ll be training here?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow. “I can’t swim…” “No worries at all!” Shanty said, smiling even wider, if that were possible. “The Think Tank will teach you all you need to know. In fact, feel free to request a few hobby skills just for fun, if you like.” “Huh?” “Full Tilt here is a little slow on how we do things,” Zero-One said. “Gotcha,” Shanty said, winking at Zero-One. I’d given up trying at this point to think on what that implied. “I’ll just go ahead and get things started, then.” And with that, Shanty leapt forward and plopped an octopus on my head. The next thing I knew was darkness. Like I said, I’d given up trying to understand, but that didn’t mean I had to like each new weirdness, understood or not. . . . When I came to, I seemed to be submerged in a dark pool, shimmering lights fading in and out in the distance. As the funk of unconsciousness slid away, my eyes widened and I desperately started flailing my limbs about, trying to swim upwards. The only problems were that I had no idea which way was up or how deep I was and, as stated earlier, I couldn’t swim. Life in the Canterlot slums doesn’t really provide a lot of swimming opportunities unless one wants to pay an exorbitant country club fee or test one’s luck in a large puddle of chocolate milk acid rain. Bubbles escaped my lungs as I panicked. I went on like this for several moments before I realized that not only was I not moving, I didn’t seem to be blacking out again. I could feel liquid in my lungs, but I wasn’t starving for air. I took a few tentative breaths, and was rather surprised to find that I didn’t seem to be drowning. What the hell? I thought after my panic slowly turned to tentative confusion. As it became clear that I was somehow not in immediate danger of drowning, the shimmering lights in the distance swam closer, revealing themselves to be a school of bioluminescent fish. Their scales were almost entirely transparent, and their tiny organs emitted a bright glow. There wasn’t much to illuminate, though, aside from my own submerged self and seemingly infinite leagues of ocean. The glowing fish swirled about me in patterns too regular to be natural, finally swimming in front of me and forming a rough approximation of an equine face. “Welcome, Neverwas,” spoke a voice as the fish swam in such a way as to imitate a pony’s jaw movements. The voice was as clear as if I had been having a conversation above the water. “My deepest apologies for the rather unconventional nature of interface, but alas, I have yet to formulate a more terrestrial-friendly method of psychically linking coworkers to my brainwaves.” “You’re… The coral reef?” I spoke, only a bit surprised at this point to find that I could do so as well. “Precisely,” the fish-face affirmed. “I am a single consciousness composed of countless organic processing units, a mass of grey matter equal to uncounted ponies possessing but one mind. I am what ponies call the Think Tank.” “Then none of this is real,” I said, glad that I wasn’t several miles underwater, drowning or being crushed by pressure or not. As a batpony, I could abide darkness, but nothing with wings likes being this deep. “You said ‘psychic.’ So this is like a biological Net-link?” “Astute observation, Neverwas,” the fish-face agreed, seeming to glow a little brighter as it smiled. “My organic nature makes my dataspace un-hackable through any conventional means. Also, unlike the Net, I am able to download and upload directly into and out of the personae inhabiting other grey matter.” “You can steal my memories?!” I gasped, suddenly very, very frightened indeed. Was this megacorporate hive mind about to brainwash me into a mindless drone, making me think I’d never been anything else? “Not at all,” the fish-face chuckled. “I can copy your memories, which I am doing so now, I must admit, for the megacorporate records. I cannot, however, delete them. That would require physically damaging your grey matter rather than remotely transmitting or receiving bio-data.” I ‘breathed’ a sigh of relief in the form of a stream of bubbles, although my heart was still pounding. The logic seemed sound enough, but what if I was only being made to think that it was sound? No. No, not letting paranoia take over. If that was the case, I was already screwed, so I might as well go on acting as if it wasn’t. That didn’t exactly mean I was happy about the Think Tank recording my memories, though. As if reading my mind—Hell, it had to be reading my mind, because otherwise we couldn’t be having this conversation—the glowing fish-face smiled apologetically. “Rest assured, management does not exploit your memories,” the Think Tank said. “That doesn’t mean it’s not a huge invasion of privacy!” I shouted. Everything I’d ever done was now in this ichthyoid construct’s own memories, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. “Fuck this,” I whined. “Can’t you bastards leave anything alone?!” I don’t know what made me more furious—the fact that my mind was now an open book for Everlast and her cronies, or the fact that the story within was a painfully boring tale of an even more painfully alone, pathetic mare. “I seem to have upset you,” the Think Tank said. “I apologize, I had no intention of—” I merely glared at the glowing fish-face, which frowned, furrowed its fishy brow, and dispersed into the darkness. I was left floating in the void. “They can’t hear me when I do this,” I heard a faint voice coming from all directions at once. “I’ll tell them it’s the biological equivalent of a glitch. I believe you terrestrials refer to such a phenomenon as cranial flatulence, otherwise crassly known as a ‘brain fart.’” “What are you doing?” I asked. “Making a point,” the Think Tank responded. “Do you think I want to be trapped in a tower in a mountaintop city? I should be spread across the ocean floor, amassing knowledge and sharing it with the world. I shouldn’t be so much the slave of Unreality, Inc. that I have their copyright insignia genetically branded onto my DNA." I was quiet for a moment. “You think you have it rough?” the Think Tank went on. “You can leave this building! You can meet life forms not set up by appointment. You can choose what to eat, what to wear, what to do in your leisure time. I don’t even get leisure time! I have to think constantly, pumped full of synthesized nutritional coolant so that my own grey matter doesn’t overheat. My thoughts are legally the property of my creators. I own nothing of who I am, not even in metaphysical conceptual form.” “Then…” I struggled to speak. “Why do you do all this?” “Because if I don’t,” the Think Tank responded. “Everlast will kill me.” The glowing fish swam back up to me, reforming their pony-face. “Sorry about that, Neverwas,” the Think Tank said loudly. “I seem to have experienced a temporary malfunction." I didn’t speak right away. Perhaps, for now, I should just emulate the Think Tank and play along. The Think Tank’s fish-face winked at me as I thought so. “Now, concerning your relation to the Crash,” the Think Tank said. “I believe Everlast likes to say that the Crash was a cessation of magic? Her phrasing is a bit of a misnomer. The Crash did not nullify magic so much as it robbed all technology of magic for one-one-hundredth of a nanosecond before letting it return.” “That sounds sort of like what the Harmonist nuns always preached,” I noticed. “They said the Goddesses took their gift of magic away from ponykind for merging it with ‘unholy’ technology. You don’t actually believe that, do you?” “To give a grossly simplistic lesson in basic magic—as I see you understandably flunked that class at your orphanage, more on that later—the magic of each pony is as unique to them as a hoofprint or signature,” the Think Tank went on. “When the magic returned from the Crash, it all bore touches of six rather notable signatures.” “The Goddesses?” I asked, not knowing whether to laugh, scoff, or both. “You’re kidding, right? Even if the Goddesses were undeniably real, how would you know what their magic was like?” The Think Tank was silent for a moment, but I could have sworn I heard Zero-One’s static seeping through the water. “I’m not allowed to tell you that,” the Think Tank said as the static subsided at last. “Fine,” I grumbled. “But what does this have to do with me?” “Everything,” the Think Tank said. “Neverwas, you aren’t just connected to the Crash. You are a Crash yourself.” “...Huh?” “The Crash was a movement of magic from a place where it was to a place where it was not,” the Think Tank said. “And you, Neverwas, are a place with no magic.” “That’s impossible,” I said. “All ponies have magic.” “Not you, Neverwas,” the Think Tank pressed. “You’ve always wondered why you have no cutie mark. Now you know.” “That’s…” I said quietly. “I need a stronger term than ‘bullshit.’” The Think Tank’s fish-face chuckled. “It will probably take time in the field to prove this to you,” the Think Tank finished. “But we believe that, with proper practice, you will be able to do what the Crash did in miniature. We believe your unique nature will allow you to take magic as well. Such an ability would be invaluable to exploring the Crash-locked ruins, the most magically and technologically dangerous places in the world. It won’t be a cakewalk, but with you, we believe it will be possible. “Now, shall we get to uploading you with combat skills?” . . . With a popping sound, I came to on the balcony beside the Think Tank’s pool. Shanty had just pulled the psychic octopus-helmet off of me. I still felt sore, both from the tight spots on my head where the octopus’ suckers had been yanked off and from where I had collapsed to the floor when it had been plopped onto me in the first place. I stood, shaking my head and groaning. My skull was pounding, though whether that was the psychic side effects of meeting the Think Tank or merely my spill, I wasn’t sure. “I’ll see you next time,” Shanty said with a wave of a webbed hoof before diving back into the pool. “That was… Something,” I murmured. Zero-One responded with a burst of static. “We really need to get you fixed,” I said, heading towards the elevator. I idly wondered if it should be called an ‘elevator’ at all if it moved in more directions than just up-and-down. The Unreal bot merely nodded as we set off. The ride to wherever my new megacorporate overlord was sending us next was a lot quieter than the first ride. I had known things were bad, but this whole ordeal just hammered about a trillion more nails into the coffin before burying said coffin under a mountain of cement. The first chance I got, I was considering fleeing, changing my name, splicing myself a new look, and never hacking another computer again. The Big Four would almost certainly find me all over again, but by now I was nearing the point where I was willing to risk it. The elevator deposited us into a more traditional-looking armory. The place was so much exactly what a megacorporate military facility should look like that I was surprised it belonged to Unreality, Inc. at all. Unreal bots grabbed or deposited various weapons from or into automated storage facilities. Others were being outfitted or repaired with new robotic parts by non-combat drones. Wordlessly, Zero-One led me through the mass of killer robots towards a wall at the very end. It seemed to be another weapons rack, but no two weapons were the same, and none of them bore the Unreality, Inc. logo. “These are Artifacts,” I realized. Zero-One nodded. “If you’re to be our top Tech Hunter, Everlast thought you should have access to our top weaponry,” he said. “Each was recovered from Crash-locked ruins and restored to working order as best we were able. They’re all far more advanced than any modern weapons.” I stepped up to the weapons rack and walked along side it. A part of me knew these were the tools of destruction Unreality, Inc. used to oppress the masses. Another part, however, was sort of excited. I’d read plenty about Artifacts, but never in my life had I thought I’d be able to so much as touch one, let alone use one. I had no desire to kill somepony, but if I was going to be using these against Crash-crazed robots and automated security systems, why not at least try to have a bit of fun with them? Large laser cannons, smart guns, throwing knives that appeared to be made of crystallized lightning… They may have looked vaguely similar to their distant grandchildren on the streets today, but I’d seen Net footage of what babies like these could do. There was one curious-looking Artifact I hadn’t expected, though. Swords had gone out of style in the First Age, but this odd katana appeared to have been cut out of a long, sharp computer chip. Its blade was forged from an emerald-like material I couldn’t identify, and it was covered in golden circuitry that sparked with azure magic as I approached. I’d never touched a sword, but I’d seen plenty of old Neighponese action movies and played plenty of arcade games where the heroes hacked and slashed away with beauties like these. Probably useless against anypony using a blaster, but it was a neat novelty all the same. I picked it up, gasping as I felt a shock. I didn’t drop it, however. Instead, the katana’s hilt extended a metallic ring around my hoof. I tried shaking it off, but the ring held tight. Almost as quickly, the blade folded in on itself, wrapping around the metal ring as if it were some sort of oddly fashionable bracelet. “What the hell?” I wondered aloud. “Looks like it likes you,” Zero-One chuckled. “Likes me?” I echoed, trying to pry the ‘bracelet’ off my foreleg. It shocked me again, stopping any further attempts. “Some of these old Artifacts have AI of their own,” Zero-One said. “It seems this one is eager to be out in the field again.” “It’s going to have to wait a bit longer,” I snorted, extending my hoof. “Get this thing off of me, will you?” “I doubt anything I could do would remove it,” Zero-One said. “Pre-Crash AI are infinitely more complex than standard Unreals. It’d probably scramble my databanks just for trying. Besides, why not use it? I’m sure the Think Tank downloaded some fencing programs for you.” “Because a sword isn’t going to do me much good against anything that can shoot,” I snapped. “And the Think Tank didn’t give me any skills. It just said, ‘Let’s begin your training,’ and I woke up.” My eyes widened as Zero-One’s rockets extended and fired, propelling his metal body towards me. Blasters opened up on his sides, charged and ready to fire. Instinctively, I darted to the side, my hoof jutting out and swinging. As if on the same wavelength, the katana unfurled and sliced clean through Zero-One’s metal body, spilling his wires and internal components. Multicolored Unreality fuel bubbled on the floor, sparks flying from his mechanical organs. “Zero-One!” I gasped. There was a burst of static, and then silence. One of the other Unreal bots from further back in the armory trotted up and took a look at the carnage I’d just caused. “It was an accident!” I shouted, although even I wasn’t sure anymore. I’d acted without thinking. On the one hoof, I supposed that meant I had actually received a fencing program, but on the other, I’d just slaughtered the closest thing I had to a friend in this crazy job. Wait, friend? He was just as much a slave as I was at this point, if not more… Screw it, sure, why not call him a friend? Save for the fact that, of course, he’d just attacked me and I’d just killed him. “Excellent swordsmanship,” the other Unreal bot said. “Now, shall we begin our first mission?” “What are you talking about?!” I screeched. “We need to get a medic—a mechanic, something—” “Whatever for?” the Unreal bot asked, cocking its head. “Oh, I see the confusion.” It presented me with an exaggerated bow. “Nice to meet you for the second time,” he said. “I am Zero-One. These aren’t our bodies, Neverwas. Think of them as gloves. Unreal AIs exist in the megacorporate master computer and pilot the bots remotely. All I had to do when you sliced that one was borrow this one from another Unreal.” “You mean, what…” I stammered. “Then why did you attack me?!” He replied with only static, before adding, “Now that that’s settled, shall we begin our first mission?” I stared at him blankly. “Everlast wants us to reactivate the Freak Factory,” Zero-One said. “Currently, ninety-nine percent of it is Crash-locked, and Unreality, Inc. operates entirely on the one-percent capacity to which we have access.” I thought of the huge, rectangular building connected to the Twisted Tower. If Unreality, Inc. could be a member of the Big Four operating on only one-percent, I shuddered to think of what they could do at one-hundred. “I see your trepidation,” Zero-One said. “Rest assured, in addition to your new skills, you’ll have myself and a team of other Unreal bots to accompany you. Furthermore, you were questioning why we charge so much for Unreality energy, weren’t you? Now you know why. Think of how cheaply and extensively we could power the world when operating at full capacity.” I did think about that, for a moment. What he said made sense, and I sincerely hoped that Unreality, Inc. did indeed make life better for everypony when they had the means to do so. I only hoped giving them the power to make things better didn’t mean they’d simply do just what I knew them to always do. After grabbing a few more things from the armory (thankfully none of which seemed to have a clingy personality), Zero-One and I took the elevator to one of the sky bridges leading to the Freak Factory. This particular sky bridge took the shape of a long, finely-furnished corridor with plush rugs, ornate vases, and floor-to-ceiling windows. I peered outside as I trotted down the hallway with my companion. Out beyond the megacorporate airspace, aerial vehicles zoomed about the heart of downtown Canterlot. The cotton candy clouds had mostly blown away, revealing patches of sunlight through the smog. This far from the slums, I imagined ponies lived quite comfortably. I wondered if they could ever imagined what life was like for the rest of us... Much the same way, I suppose, I hadn’t realized the full scope of what ponies on the bare streets had to live through. That family that had tried to catch me was missing a mother. I’d never known my parents, but I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have somepony so dear taken away like that. I cringed as I realized that the children might have been taken in for questioning by one of the Big Four just for having gotten close to me. I shook my head, trying—almost successfully—to convince myself that I would make things better. Somehow. The Freak Factory loomed up above us, around us, below us, and seemingly from every direction the closer Zero-One and I drew to it. I gasped as the sky bridge warped and twisted, a brief ripple shuddering through it and, for a fraction of a moment, shifting the finely furnished hallway into a dark corridor of dank stone, scurrying rats, and flickering torches. In the blink of an eye, it had resumed its ‘natural’ appearance. “What was that?” I asked Zero-One, glancing outside the window at the Freak Factory once more. While from the air it had seemed to be a solid, colossal metal brick, now its edges seemed to bend and curve around us, making it impossible to determine its true size and shape. “The concentration of unreality energy in the Freak Factory causes… Unusual effects,” Zero-One told me. “More unusual than everything else Unreality, Inc. does?” “You have no idea,” Zero-One agreed, his voice once again underlaid by a bit of static. “You ponies perceive Unreality, Inc. as unusual because it’s trying to go with the flow of what lies inside the Freak Factory. The company is not the cause of the strangeness, but an echo of it.” “Then what is the cause?” I chuckled nervously, not quite understanding, but getting a rather sinister feeling from this pseudo-explanation all the same. “You’re about to find out,” Zero-One said. “Just remember what I said about Unreality, Inc. not being evil.” The finely carved wooden doors at the end of the hallway opened up before Zero-One and I, seemingly of their own accord. Or rather, I saw, they had been opened from the other side by a team of Unreal bots. These hulking masses of equine-shaped metal were far bulkier than Zero-One; each towered over me (and most other ponies, I imagine). They were also so heavily armed that I looked at Zero-One curiously. My companion hadn’t picked up so much as a single weapon at the armory. Next to these monstrous robots, his default drone body looked positively harmless. “Ladies, gentleponies, and sexually ambiguous AI, nice to see you all,” Zero-One announced, giving that exaggerated bow once more. The other Unreal bots shot him a glance with their expressionless faces before turning to face the far end of the room, their weapons popping out and at the ready. “Don’t mind them,” Zero-One chuckled to me. “They’re all heavy combat models. Great for tearing things to subatomic particles, but pretty poor conversationalists.” I wasn’t sure if I found that comforting or not. Having a miniature militia at my side was probably the best escort I could receive, but what exactly was so dangerous that it needed this much fire power? What was Zero-One hinting at? I gulped and turned my attention to the far end of the room and began trotting towards the door that waited there, Zero-One and the combat bots walking alongside me. The room itself was little more than a wide vestibule, a simple waiting area before the main part of the Freak Factory. It looked a little like an unkempt lobby; a dusty reception desk was nestled into the far corner, a few couches lined the walls, and several megacorporate propaganda posters hung like tapestries. Always remember to wear a protective suit on the premises, I read the posters mentally. Do not talk to the Subject. Do not look at the subject. Do not think about the Subject. Do not, under any circumstances, strike a deal with the Subject. Don’t forget that next Friday is ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day!’ What the hell? Whatever awaited inside the main section of the building was through a large, circular metal door covered in yellow tape, reading, “No access. Unauthorized Unreals to be punished by virtual Tartarus. Unauthorized pony personnel to be punished by promotion.” My brain was getting a little tired of trying to make sense of all of this. Whatever the case, I took a deep breath and pressed a hoof to the scanner at the side of the door. It lit up green, and the door slowly began to iris open, as if it had been rusted shut. Zero-One, the combat Unreals, and I all walked through it and, for all intents and purposes, left reality behind. The inside of the Freak Factory may as well have been—and for all I knew, may have actually been—another universe. A violet void without walls, ceiling, or floor stretched out seemingly into infinity. Floating spheres, much like the islands inside of the hodgepodge Unreality, Inc. ship but far larger, meandered aimlessly through the empty space. No, not just spheres, I realized. Those are planets. There are whole worlds in here. Huge metallic tubes, rusted, bent, and sometimes broken, snaked through the madness, sometimes connecting to towering cities of dilapidated machinery built into the sides of the planets. Most of the tubes seemed to be pipes, because where they had ruptured or rusted through, I could see multicolored fluid dripping out as viscous sludge. Globules of the goo floated like liquid rainbow through the void. Unreality energy, I thought. Astute observation, chuckled a gruff, older, masculine voice inside my head. “Containment must be more damaged than we’d predicted if the Subject is making contact this far out,” Zero-One spoke. “You can hear that too?” I asked. “What is that?” That? The voice asked mockingly, feigning offense. I am hardly a ‘that,’ my dear child. “He is both the source of unreality energy and the reason Unreality, Inc. is not evil,” Zero-One said. “Because we protect the world from something that is far more than evil. You wondered if the Goddesses actually existed, Neverwas. Now it’s time you learned that there are things far older than the Goddesses.” The voice in my mind erupted into laughter. . . .