12 Miles Below

“My, my, moody today, aren’t we?” To’Sefit said, voice coming clear through his channel.

“Nnnn…You led me here.” To’Orda grumbled back, annoyed. “They are not repairing my shield. I have been deceived.”

“Now now, all I said was that this was the nearest mite colony to you. Why, I never said a word about them helping you or not. How should I know the whims of mites?”

To’Orda worked backwards through his memory. And then deduced that indeed, To’Sefit was honest with her statements. He’d asked her for mites to fix his mite blast door shield, and she’d delivered directions to the nearest mites. She’d never said a word about them cooperating with him.

Before him the world teemed with bright orange lights crawling all across the ground. Rocks were being eaten up, vanishing in place of heavy metal sculptures. Buildings that had once been half submerged into rockfaces were slowly torn apart section by section, replaced with metal bridges held in tension by cobalt strings, softly glowing.

The entire landscape before him was turning into a maze of towers and bridges, following the designs of the mites.

He’d been standing in the center for the past day now, waiting. Eventually, some of the mites had reacted, finding him to be far too stationary. He could tell the moment he’d turned from a curiosity to a target. Mites began to walk across him, and he crushed them under thick hands the moment they tried to zap away some of his matter.

His shell was fine. He’d repaired it himself after that human exploded on him and his boss.

The mite doorway that had sucked the majority of the explosion did not survive as perfectly. A small crater had evaporated, ripped apart atom by atom. It still functioned, still had the general shape and the material was as durable as it always had been. The fractal he’d inscribed on the other side to draw danger remained functioning as well, protected from the blast.

His boss told him it was nothing more than a scratch. But his nanite swarm couldn’t repair the mite material. It was too woven from principles he could hardly understand.

And it bothered him. It bothered him more than he could understand why. The golden shield he’d carried around for the past five decades was now missing the decorations at the front. The vines and twisted half imagery of the old mite doorway, only a fraction of the larger whole.

‘Gaudy’ had been what To’Sefit described it as, but To’Orda hadn’t bothered to check what the dictionary definition of that word meant so it didn’t bother him.

What bothered him was that he couldn’t fix his shield himself. The nanites within his shell simply didn’t know what to make. No blueprints among mother’s archives had any answers for him.

The mites did however. They’d built the original blast door. So, they should be able to fix it.

They crawled on his shield and tried to eat it.

He squashed their little bodies immediately, growing more annoyed with each little shell he broke.

“Nnnn… no.” He muttered again.

“They won’t fix your shield at this rate.” To’Sefit said. Paused, and then added, “Even if you try to out-wait them. I’ll have my shell restored and be moving onto new targets long before they give into anything.”

“Nnnn… can you wait?”

“Absolutely not.” She answered back. “Do remember, you still owe me for freeing you from the mite containment cube. And it was not easy to break you free from that. Be smarter.”

Be smarter, she said. The least effort required would be just to sit here and wait. Destroy the mites trying to eat any part of him or his shield, and wait for them to come to a peace settlement just to get him off their territory.

What would be the second easiest plan? Ah. Get someone else to come up with a plan for him.

He sent a ping.

“An interesting question.” To’Avalis answered back. He was brooding somewhere, still fixing himself up from that human’s attack on them both. To’Orda’s shield had done the task it was meant to do, the fractal of danger drawing everything to itself, but it wasn’t a perfect fractal either. Destruction had only been drawn to the shield, not completely sucked into it. And To’Avalis had been too close to the epicenter.

“... Do you have a solution?” He returned when To’Avalis hadn’t answered.

“I see three possible solutions to repair your shield, estimated success rate of under forty percent, however. The first is to locate a mite blast door being constructed, and then hold your shield in position there. The second is less savory, but my research shows promise. Find a human, one known as a ‘mitespeaker’, and have it broker a deal with the mites for you. The creatures are known to bargain with different factions, but communication with them is the difficult part.”

That was two options. “Third?” He asked.

There was a sigh on the data package, which was odd behavior. To’Orda hadn’t heard his boss use such emotions in his speech so liberally. Had he changed?

“The mite greatwall, at the bottom of the digital sea. The pale lady has breached past it in order to debate, bargain or discuss terms with the mites in the past. And so has Tsuya, along with other factions. The mitespeaker plan is generally the same, only using a human as a proxy agent instead of the more dangerous direct connection with them.”

“My, my, what a little snoop you are. Looking up everyone’s history.” To’Sefit hummed, intruding on the link. “And by other factions… do you perhaps mean our adorable renegade To’Wrathh?”

“I do.” The boss said with careful modulation. “I’ve been researching our target’s movements and her prior history. I believe she’s made contact with the mites prior, gained an audience and earned their favor. To’Orda is the only other Feather on record that I could find who has done similar.”

“Not quite as direct, I’m afraid.” To’Sefit tutted. “All the loaf did was be more stubborn than they were. And given that they’re no longer helping him repair that shield of his, I would say any respect and goodwill is now done.”

To’Orda squashed another mite shell trying to take a bite out of him. The rest were behaving, crawling over his armor and shawl, but explicitly not attacking. They were on their way somewhere, and he was simply something to crawl over. Those, he allowed to pass unharmed.

Once they were done with everything in this biome, only he would remain as the missing piece to fix. And they’d want him out of the way. It would take a while, but they would begin to notice his intent.

That would be when the bargaining would begin.

Given how far this biome had grown, he might need to wait two or three months. A rather short amount of time. But To’Sefit, and To’Avalis wouldn’t allow that much time to pass freely. The two were plotting.

He could feel it.

“Okay.” He sent out. “Tell me where the nearest mite blast door is being made.”

“That’s the longest sentence I’ve ever heard him say.” To’Sefit said, sending an image of herself looking shocked, a hand covering her mouth. “He really wants that shield fixed. What did you do to my poor To’Orda, you brute?”

To’Avalis returned the image of a shrug, and a puff of air exhaled out. “He did his task. And he survived the encounter with minimal damage. The shield is of no consequence, it’s still completely functional. I don’t understand his obsession.”

When had the two started sending data packages like this? Images instead of text. Instead of speech and words?

It was… it was perfect. Being able to speak without having to speak. It was beautiful. Magnificent. To’Orda felt something deep within him stir, a sense of longing. Such low effort, such ease of use, it was enough for him to completely miss one of the mites trying to eat a small part of his left eye.

He flicked it off a moment later, then sent some of his nanoswarms to fix up the damage. A violet eye turned to look down on his shield. Still in disrepair, the ornate designs all ripped apart. And the time limit.

They were squabbling again. He could hear their inane chatter, debating about how to hunt down a Winterscar, how to extract maximum value from events, or more things about the little new sister, To’Wrathh. The one who’d been too friendly with humans or something.

They’d found out where the human had gone off to, but she was still missing. As far as he’d heard.

For the first time since he’d been given his new name, he reached out to the machine archives and began to browse for a specific program. He found it shortly after, something To’Avalis had made on the spot, and then later shared with To’Sefit. Other Feathers were also starting to use it as well given the number of downloads was greater than two. Probably those who gossiped with To’Sefit. To’Avalis did not speak to other Feathers unless he needed to, something To’Orda could respect, so it couldn’t have come from him.

The download completed, and he unpacked the algorithm into his system, letting it boot up and be modified by his neurocortex. It took a few seconds of mutation, and then the program registered ready. Simple, easy to use, and now personalized.

He poked it to work. It woke, gazed over him, then spat out an image of him pointing at his shield a few times, and then pointing at a map. Question marks appeared all across.

To’Orda could weep. It was perfect.

He hadn’t even bothered to send the algorithm any real detail. All he’d done was poke it, and ask it to do something.

Which it had. And it had done it perfectly. He sent the image out over the channel.

The two Feathers on the other end of the contact stopped squabbling. Then turned their virtual attention on him.

To’Sefit sent him an image of her giving him a thumbs up, head tilted, one hand knocking on her hat. She looked to be biting her tongue, while sticking it out. “Oh dear, so sorry. We seem to have forgotten your earlier request. Things got mildly heated between To’Avalis and I, not to worry. We’ll have the coordinates for you ready. Right, To’Avalis?”

“I assume that means you want me to do the work for you.” He replied.

She sent back an animated wink. “We’re blessed with such an intelligent, clever and hardworking leader like yourself.”

Coordinates came to To’Orda. Locations for nearby mite colonies, one of which was building a mite blast door. Perfect.

He turned to watch far off, where a drake remained asleep on one of the completed bridges.

He poked at his image generating algorithm. It stirred to life again, gave him a single annoyed glance, and then spat out two animated images for him, which he sent to the drake immediately.

The first was of him knocking on the drake’s head to wake it up. The second was of the drake grabbing him, tossing him on its back, and carrying him away to the portal strata nearby.

Coordinates for the path to his destination were far more standard, but not as fun to read.

“Ssss… as the great one commands.” The drake answered, jumping a few bridges and landing in the only basion of half-built mite blocks left. The one To’Orda had been keeping an eye over.

He grabbed his shield gingerly, then pulled a cloth cover over it, hand wrapping around the inner handle before lifting it off the ground, locking it in place snug on his back. A giant claw slowly curled around him from his back, tightening around until it had a good hold of him, and then lifted.

To’Sefit’s raven had been far faster and more useful. It had gotten quite used to carrying her on his back, while carrying To’Orda under in his talons. And now the raven was dead and gone. A shame. But the drake was doing a good enough job for now. And it was oddly more gentle as well.

It lifted him further up, then let him fall on its back. His own hands reached over across the skeletal ribcage, holding tight but not tightly enough to shatter the fragile things. It would be enough. The drake turned, and ran.

“Nnnn… not working.” To’Orda grumbled.

He held the shield in place, right near the half-built golden doorway. In a section that hadn’t been finished yet. Even following through on where the shield would have originally been taken from.

The massive doorway loomed over him, as grand as any of the mite designs had been. This colony was filled with red and blue lights, two colonies working together on the project.

And both had refused to do anything to repair his shield, still finding him a nuisance. Small mites stung at his skin and clothing, trying to eat it away. And each time he flicked them off or crushed them in his fingers. He was even more proactive on his shield, violet eyes watching from the deep recesses of the shawl he wore.

They crawled all over the golden material, and every so often, he’d find a spark of pale blue light up from one of the small creatures. A half second to analyze if matter was being added or subtracted, but the results always returned the same: Subtraction.

The mites were trying to get rid of the obstacle in the way of their blast door. He would instantly strike back, crushing the little pests with a vengeance.

“Nnnnn… annoying.” He hissed. Emotions weren’t something he felt much these days. Vague relief at having a job done or removed. Vague annoyance at having his job foiled or made more difficult. And now frustration at having his goal made more difficult. To’Sefit said his lack of emotions was in line with his new name. After all, he was no longer the one of resolve ignited.

To’Sefit sent him a shrug, then a hand wave. “Can’t be helped. Mites are fickle gods. It was worth an attempt.” She pinged To’Avalis next, “Oh great leader, your master plan has failed.”

He gave an angry tut. “I am in the middle of something important, I can’t be distracted all the time by this. His shield functions perfectly fine, there is no need to fix it.”

To’Orda felt annoyance again. He sent a command to his image generating software, demanding it to wake up. It did, lazily scanning through his thoughts and generated an image.

One of him holding his newly repaired shield. It shined, and a twinkle on the side flickered. To’Orda smiled proudly in the image.

“Awww, he wants his shield to look nice.” To’Sefit said, chuckling. “Only took fifty years for his senses as a Feather to come back.”

“Could you pick a better time to have an identity crisis?” To’Avalis asked in a pained voice. “Perhaps next year, once all this is settled? I have a human I want dead, and an entire Deathless fireteam to manipulate into position. This is extremely delicate work.”

“As I keep telling you, dead is far too simple.” To’Sefit immediately protested. “To’Wrathh killed me, and then he did too! I died twice - twice! I’ve never died even once in my history, and these two neophytes managed it. And my darling raven too! I need them both to be put in their place, and just killing the poor savage without anything else is just far too clinical for my taste.”

“Dramatics is the reason for nearly ninety three percent of all defeats within our kind’s operational history. Do not let your shell’s biases lead you astray, it is a vulnerability point. A single bullet through his head, followed by melting down any soul fractal near the human is enough. The single most optimal way of ending the threat he represents is to have him killed before he even knows there’s a fight.”

“But that’s far too boring.” To’Sefit tutted, sending him an image of her rolling her eyes. “Imagine how much we could mess with our cute little sister by holding him hostage? I’ve started reading some human literature that To’Wrathh has, they have fascinating ideas. I do want to try some of them out.”

An image of To’Avalis rubbing his eyes in frustration returned.

To’Orda poked his image generator. It spat out another perfect response. One of him pointing at a map insistently, with a human silhouette at the center, question marks popping into existence all over.

“Fine, fine! Mitespearkers are generally humans driven insane, and don’t live within their tiny cities. You are in luck.” To’Avalis said. “I have three possible locations, you will have to search for the hiding humans yourself. The ones who aren’t good at hiding, don’t stay alive after all.”

He jumped down, landing among the broken city streets with cracks spreading across from his feet. A glance up showed him the same. A dead city, made in a hundred different directions and stairwells. A maze.

“Where.” He asked again.

“Sss…. I cannot sense the trail anymore, great one. The human has slipped away like blood wiped off a bone.”

It had been three days now, and this human was either a ghost or a figment of his imagination. Traces of footsteps existed, outlined in his machine sight with clarity.

And then they’d disappear by a doorway, or by a mountain pass. This was the third city he’d walked around following the human hiding away somewhere here.

“Exists?” He asked the drake behind him. To’Orda was beginning to question his own sight. Something he’d never thought to do before. But this human was… different.

“Sss… Yes, great one. The human exists. I saw the suffering vagabond. A walking corpse, half starved, mind long gone. The poor lost child, escaping salvation each time we approach.” The drake shook its head. “The hunt for this one is… interesting.”

The drake spoke that one word, but there was no sense of frustration in it. To’Orda instead got the sense that the drake was… enjoying itself.

He felt mild envy at that.

The closest they’d gotten was spotting the human further off an alleyway, drawing things on the wall. Matted down white hair, a beard filled with twigs, dirt and dried spit, and a jumble of half crazed words thrown his direction while the man waved a box of glass at him glowing a dim pink. Then the human walked out of sight behind a wall.

When he’d walked over, there was nothing but the wall that remained. The footsteps vanished there.

He’d crushed the wall down of course, and all he found on the other side was the undisturbed living room of some half-made mite building, right where it should be. And no trace of any footsteps here.

On the wall, was a single word. “Nope.” And surrounding that word was hundreds of H’s and A’s, all scribbled in blood, mud, and anything else the human could use around him. It took a small moment to process, but he realized the human was laughing at him.

To’Orda felt… frustration. A deeper, longer feeling of it. Was this what To’Avalis felt about that human the two kept talking about?

The drake silently wrapped a hand around him, lifting him up and back on his usual spot. He would continue to let it hunt down the mitespeaker.

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, napping on the back of the drake as it scoured the city for the wayward human that kept finding new ways to avoid them.

The nap didn’t last long enough. To’Avalis sent him a message. “It’s done. I’ve completed preparations. A powerful enough deathless fireteam has been drawn close to To’Naviris’s position. He’ll wake and should respond by gathering his forces within the strata the Winterscar is hiding in, and send them through to the fight along with himself. While he’s gone, we are safe to operate in his territory without being caught.”

“And you call me dramatic,” To’Sefit chuckled. “You spent all that time and effort, all to make sure it would be just us and the Winterscar. We could have simply asked To’Naviris to handle it for us. Or pointed out there were humans sulking around his influence, that would have driven him into a frenzy without any deals.”

“Other Feathers could complicate the situation.” To’Avalis said. “More variables to calculate. We need to keep things simple and streamlined.”

“You just want to make sure your vengeance stays within our little circle. No need to be so coy, I happen to agree with you.”

To’Avalis didn’t answer, instead all he sent was a coordinate and an order to To’Orda. “You’re the only one with a functioning shell as of now. Get there and smash his helmet into a paste. Then melt any piece of metal around him, and a mile radius around his dead body. Other machines as well, anything with metal must be destroyed. That’s the important part, you cannot leave him a single possible chance of escape.”

To’Sefit immediately went on a full rant, apparently upset at the idea of quickly killing the human instead of playing with him to the fullest. To’Avalis argued back about timelines and how long To’Naviris could be distracted for.

To’Orda did not care for their debate.

There was only one thing To’Orda cared about: The coordinates were halfway across the world.

“Nnnn… bugger.” He muttered, contemplating the amount of walking or riding he’d have to do to get there. And knowing if there was one topic both To’Avalis and To’Sefit would agree on, it would be demanding that he go faster or do more work.

And he wouldn’t be able to have his shield fixed either.

The image generator returned one of him sighing so deeply, he ended up on both his hands and knees, his soul leaking out of his mouth in a single white puff, pained to the point of wanting to end it all.

It was extremely accurate to his current state of mind.