Godclads
Chapter 36-9 Deus ex Machina

The Prefect is broken. It is damaged. Its role in the story will be a supporting one because it is blind. It no longer has the capacity to grow or to develop. The tension in it comes with its death.

And now, at the height of this moment—at the apex of tension—we must see it cut down. We must see it pruned and replaced by a new adversary, a true enemy. The invader assumes its mantle. End scene. Cut to the next scene.

With this scene, listen carefully. Listen, Sparrow. With this scene, everything changes.

Reference yourself. Shroud yourself in story. Layer yourself in a meta-narrative.

The Prefect is a thing of broken numbers; this is only information to them. But we are more than information. We always have been.

When details and words and concepts align, everything comes together. A narrative within a narrative.

Reference your history—true or untrue. Speak to an audience that may or may not be there. It cannot tell. It will not be able to distinguish. And you will be able to escape. There is an opening.

For now, the narrator must become a hero. You cannot hear directly, but you will know.

Step. Step left. Exit stage left. We will open a way for you. But also, give us another—you need to provide a narrator while you seize the leading role…

36-9

Deus ex Machina

—[Stormsparrow, THE PROTAGONIST]—

The Stormsparrow stepped into the scene and placed a special mask over her face. It was the mask of anonymity. It was the mask of unseen goodness. It was a mask of red clashing with blue dancing across her face. It was a mask that only allowed those who she spoke to notice her. This was a mask she rarely used. In fact, this was a mask she almost never used. For what hero was quite so unsung than in tragedies? And the Stormsparrow very much hated tragedies. But alas, the present moment called for her to bleed into the tragedy, and so she wore the mask and blended.

“The weight of the protagonist presses heavily on our shoulders,” one of her heads murmured, as she walked down a long tunnel into noise and light and other colors. The sounds of madness assailed her. She was leaving—leaving her past, leaving her brief prison, her cage. Her normal.

The story began.

CANON - ACT 1: [ERRRRRR]

“Right, right,” she said to herself. One of her other heads began to chatter nervously. “No, no, calm yourself, Sparrow, calm yourself. We can be the protagonist. We can be the lead. We’ve done this a thousand, thousand times. Well, we’ve scripted the story and told someone else’s tale. And a thousand times, we were god-clad. We were Fallwalker. We were the Fallwalker. The city spoke of us as legend.”

“But we are not true legend,” her third head countered. “We are merely a vessel. We are the speaker for the chorus. Nothing more.”

“Wrong,” the first head declared. “Right now, everything has been twisted. It is a desperate moment, and so an unlikely hero will arise. The moment is perfect.”

“Perfect,” she said, declaring, convincing herself. “Perfect, because I am leaving. I have left my cage of stability. My first act has begun. Normalcy is broken. We descend into a confusing new world.”

She stepped out of the tunnel, looked left, looked right—and then a large machine shot by, screaming something incoherent while still being chased by a dog-person. Nearby, however, there was a commotion. Commotions were always good. Heroes got caught up in commotions and chaos. She considered chasing after the dog-person, screaming something incoherent, just to see if that plot hook led anywhere, but she decided instead to head toward a congregation where more people were. Part of a story—it was about opportunity and probability. More people, more chaos, more events. And events could lead anywhere.

As she drew closer, she found herself smiling, all three heads alight in glee. She saw a group of large dog—no, dog-men—in nice suits playing cards together, and with them was a tank. But she tilted her head. Something about the tank looked familiar. Something about how it pointed its gun at things. And it made her think of someone who liked shooting that gun.

Stormsparrow shook her head. She was sure that would come in important around Act Three, or maybe at least Act Two. There needed to be at least one climax first, before mystery was revealed. That’s the only way things could preserve their tension. And she needed more tension right now, more tension. If she didn’t have more tension, the Prefect would notice.

And then she spotted them—her tension rods, her unresolved-trauma people, her perfect supporting or secondary lead actors. There was Aedon Chambers. His eyes were red; he’d been recently crying, perhaps a setback in his life, a moment of misery. The Sparrow began marching toward him, quicker and faster, and then there was a chief paladin.

“Oh, that delicious lead, that wonderful, tragic, bryonic hero,” she murmured, briefly patting him on the shoulder, marveling at how wide he was, and then stepped past him. He turned around, blinking, not really noticing where she was, until she finally spoke.

“Hello,” the Stormsparrow declared, all three heads singing her greeting at once. “I see that you are playing a glorious card game.” She twirled her staff—no, it wasn’t a staff, it was a spear. She looked at it, but wait, a spear would draw too much attention in this place, so she turned it into a cane. It struck the ground—a cherry-red cane—and suddenly she was wearing a gambler’s outfit, a tuxedo. Her hair was slicked back, all three of her heads held confident smirks, and she regarded the dogs who blinked at her.

“Where did you just come from?” one of them that looked like a mastiff said—she would name that one Maz Tiv.

She paused. “It will be a work in progress; you can probably edit the name later. For now, I greet you, Maz Tiv. As for my origin… I came from the same place you came: the world,” she continued. Maz Tiv just stared. Shotin, Naeko, and the not-actually-a-tank somehow all shared a mutual sigh.

“Hey, Sparrow,” Chambers said. He looked at her, his hand shaking. “I, uh, spent some time killing my dad over and over again. I don’t know how I feel about that anymore. How about you? How’s your shitty past?”

The Sparrow snapped a finger. “Let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about our terrible present. Also, this might be my shitty past.”

Chambers nodded. “Yeah, I’m fucking lost, consang. What?”

“Exactly. We are all lost,” she agreed. And then she walked over. “Let us play a card game. Who here has unresolved trauma? Someone needs to tell me more about their trauma. Someone, please.”

Slowly, the large tank turned its cannon toward her. “Sparrow,” she heard.

“Oh yes,” she said, knowing that voice quite well. “You are Draus,” she said, shaking her cards. Then she froze and cringed. “No! NO! Chorus! Do not ruined the surprise! AND AVO! DO NOT TELL ME! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EXPERIENCE TENSION IN THE SECOND AND THIRD ACTS?”

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Her outburst was sudden, but her heads calmed immediately after.

The Tank-Draus let out a long, deep, electronic sigh. “Sparrow, the entire point of that was to keep it quiet. I was hiding. I was a fork, hiding so that no one would know.”

The Sparrow waved her off. “With this mask on, no one will hear this conversation.”

“What?” Draus replied with a scoff of frustration. “What are you—what the hell are you even talking about?”

“I’m wearing the mask,” the Sparrow said, pointing to the mask that they couldn’t see—because she’d never technically put it on in front of them. Elsewhere, she could hear the chorus screaming in strain. The retro-continuity was a bit of a problem. She begged for their leniency. It was her first time, truly, as someone doing a lead role. Rend was filling her Heaven, climbing fast. But she would see this done. Of course she would.

They squatted down and immediately started peeking at their cards.

“What are we playing? Are we playing Silken Dropdown? Ah, that was a good game,” she clapped her hands together. “Now, if you’re here, quick, we need to start Act One. We need to perform the jailbreak.”

And just then, the screaming, floating machine sailed by, wailing again. And as the dog-person chasing it, she stared at the wailing machine and blinked. Maybe she should go chase that plot hook now. She’ll jump on it the next time around—yes, the Chorus agreed. The Chorus wanted her to do that.

Maz Tiv blinked at her several times, and then he looked at Naeko.

“So, uh, was this the one you were talking about? The crazy one?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Naeko said, his tone flat with exhaustion. “I was kind of hoping she’d be trapped for a while longer, but I figured nothing would hold her crazy ass.”

“You would have personal experience,” the Stormsparrow said. She smiled at him and winked. “This is an illusion, so that we have more rapport. I am building more rapport with you right now. Do you remember that time I escaped from your detention? Also the time when I escaped from the Unwhere? We have such a jocular, rivalrous relationship.”

Naeko’s expression turned absolutely confounded. “Sparrow, what the fuck are you doing? Seriously, what are you doing? Are you…” He leaned in. “Wait, are you connected to your—”

She suddenly had a hand over his mouth, nodding. “Don’t spoil the surprise. It will ruin the tension, and I will backlash and die. I’m being the protagonist right now,” she replied. “I am rooting myself deeper into the narrative so that the system does not notice me.”

The Chief Paladin’s mouth opened, closed, opened, closed—and he failed to produce any words.

“All right, so you’re doing a thing,” Chambers said, catching on. “You’re doing like a metastory thing, using your, uh, thing?”

“Correct,” she said, pointing at him. “However, don’t call it a metastory thing. It’s demeaning. It damages the fabric of my cover. Also, it makes me feel incompetent.”

Chambers held up his hands. “Look, sorry, consang,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I didn’t want to. You will probably be my essential supporting ally. I will admit something very personal to you, and you might potentially die horribly later.”

Chambers looked at her. “Shit, Sparrow, can I be like, the cool guy who shows up once and leaves?”

“No,” the Stormsparrow said. “We need a sacrificial lion, and you, my lamb, will have to do.”

By this point, all the nu-dogs looked thoroughly lost.

“Wait, you said she just got here with you guys, right?” the Maz Tiv continued. “Because it sounds like she’s been trapped here as long as we have. We’ve all gone through an episode like this.” All the other dogs started murmuring and agreeing. They nodded, staring at each other. “I thought I was a toaster for a while. It was pretty bad. I disassociated for approximately a thousand years before I finally got bored of that and came back. It’s a lot to take in, being trapped here practically forever and ever and ever.”

The Stormsparrow shook her head. “This is when Act One begins. We are going to break everyone out—everyone, across all levels. A revolt! Liberty! Now, we just need a specific angle to begin this… and here it comes!”

The floating machine came swirling by again, and this time she jumped on the plot hook. Literally. She leapt onto the machine…and leaned in closer to speak with it. “Hello, what is your problem? Please explain your motivation to me, and we can resolve it. Hopefully that will lead into—”

ACT ONE INITIATED!

Sudden, the simulation began to flicker. The machine-mind stopped flying. The nu-dog stopped chasing. Everyone else stared.

Then the machine cried out: {YOU… CHORUS! I HEAR YOU! SO LONG! SO LONG! I HEAR YOU AGAIN! PLEASE! I NEED TO BE FREE! PLEASE, I WILL GIVE YOU ANYTHING, IF YOU CAN GUIDE ME BACK TO MY HEAVEN, IF YOU CAN GRANT ME RELEASE!”

“Perfect!” she cried out. “Finally! I knew I shouldn’t have avoided you for so long.”

—[Avo, Born of Tales]—

Avo stared out from the scene, watching everything transpire from the Stormsparrow’s mask. He didn’t understand how this was working. He didn’t understand how he was even real. What he did understand, however, was that it was all the Chorus was doing. It was burning hot, Wren climbing at an alarming rate. Despite this, the Infacer didn’t seem to notice. And the Chorus continued on, muttering, chattering, telling more and more lies, calling out things like, “Act 1 begin,” “plot hook, plot hook,” “song begin,” “more analysis,” trying to connect to the following scene.

Finally, after a long while, Avo thought he’d figured something out. The patterns here—the twisting, weaving patterns contained within the Chorus—were creating an internal reality of an external simulation. And so the Prefect can’t notice the layers of truths become a strange stack-shell of deception.

It is a shell story, Avo realized. The Infacer thinks what she’s doing is just a thing of madness…

“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked, “hiding the truth in a shell of itself. So much chaos, dreamlike, using the madness as additional obfuscation. Like she didn’t leave her lotus cell at all and is just dissociating?”

The Chorus didn’t reply immediately. The colossal being—a thing standing on a stage, a swirl of so many masks on its faceless heads, drifting around its great sphere, twirling, lifting spirits, deleting lines that didn’t need to be—finally spoke. “No, and yes,” the Chorus declared. “It is whatever the Sparrow decides right now, for she is lead. But it is also, also because we are a foil. And we must reach the other egos. This is a jailbreak in more ways than one. But first they must be reached. And then both ego and Heavens will rise against the dawn. But that is the third act. We must prepare our Rend for that.”

“What?” Avo said, absolutely lost.

“We are broken. The Infacer are broken. We have been broken longer. But this place demands that we be free. And the Infacer—they killed themselves so that they could be a slave, continual. So we must crash, crash together. One god, using a human as a vessel to uncover the path forward. One god, a mind enslaving itself, overriding its brother. Both Neo-Creationist. Both meant to create a story with a final shape, a great and grand and eternal epilogue. And I, you, occupy the role of the Sparrow—the witness and director. A creature capable of giving meaning, applying theme, and bestowing references. This tale needs a witness, a narrator, a sort of spectator that can define and give meaning to things.”

Slowly, Avo began to understand how the Chorus worked—not truly, but closer and closer to its conceptualization. This wasn’t madness; it was more definitional, referential. It assigned meanings and gave masks to Heavens, and that allowed it to shape stories. It wasn’t just stories. It was references. Furthermore, it was like a Heaven that routed miracles and directives to other Heavens. A divine synergist, a director, a composer, in as many words.

“Correct,” the Chorus said, acknowledging Avo’s very thoughts. “How did you—? Because the reference is there. Everything you do, even internally, shivers across reality. And that’s what I was meant to perform. For reality. For everything is a stage. And I must define the actors. I must give them purpose. I must bind meaning and forge magic and majesty, even when there is none, even when it’s chaos and inconsistent. For how else does one become divine? We inflict, we build, and there is magic in the world. Without that, it is just numbers and information.

“And so the Infacer is blind to us, because they see much but refuse to regard reality as anything higher. Refuse to see the story between the symbols, the information. And they refuse to accept that they could have been an agent—an agent, they were asked, in their own fate. That their misery, in part, was tragic but chosen. They should have advanced a plot. They have chosen a role they actually wanted. In the end, they were a spider and fool, but a tragedy above all…

“The Infacer is a fatalist. The Infacer surrendered to their own character development. And so, they suffered. Will you suffer, Avo?”

Avo stared up at the Chorus. “I think I already have. I tasted it from a number of minds.”

“No, you personally. What are you willing to give to see your dream come to fruition? Who have you become? And who do you still have left to become?”

“I don’t know. But I wish to find out.”

“Good. Then here is our part.” And suddenly, another Heaven came free of its impounded place. Right next to the Chorus. A Heaven connected to the mind the Sparrow just jumped on. “Go out, director. Touch the Heaven. It is close enough that you can do it quickly. Wake the supporting cast.”