"It sounded reasonable at the time? Perhaps mistakes were made?" - Unknown Senior NCO (Suspected Iron Fence), Age of Paranoia, Pre-Glassing

"You know what? I don't wanna know," Unknown Command Sergeant Major (Suspected Hamburger Kingdom), Age of Paranoia, Pre-Glassing

"Get out of my office, you lunatic," Unknown Colonel (Suspected Vodkatrog Empire), Age of Paranoia, Pre-Glassing

"There is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it but let's keep going and see what happens," Every goddamn Private ever in every goddamn species ever.

"I HATE YOU ALL SO MUCH! I WOULD SHOOT EVERY ONE OF YOU IN THE FUCKING HEAD AND GIGGLE MY ASS OFF FOR A PINT OF PISS AT THE PUB!" - Unknown Company Commander's Friday Safety Briefing (Suspected Bongistan), Age of Paranoia, Pre-Glassing

"That went well, don't you think, sir?"

"Oh my God in Heaven, what's wrong with all of you? This is why we can't have nice things!" - Radio Net conversation, Unknown (Suspected MechaKrautLand), Age of Paranoia, Pre-Glassing

-----

The blue spark reached the clouds and vanished, pulling Legion's intellect and awareness with it. He found himself swirling and rolling as he sped down a tube of data, thousands of bluish sparks joining him as he swept through the datalines.

He was suddenly spit out into a room. He felt the bluish spark get yanked away from his fingers as he landed, butt first, on a bunk. He didn't look around, held perfectly still, using his peripheral vision to get a good look at his surroundings.

Legion was sitting on a bunk in what was obviously a thirty-two man open barracks bay. Around him bunks had bluish sparks hit the carefully tucked and tightened sheets, flickering for a moment to show a Terran male sitting on the bunk, hands on his knees, waiting.

Through the windows was a low-rez sky and unoptimized bushes.

Well well well, where have I found myself? he asked himself, still holding still. He closed his eyes, checking his digital code. The system had dropped him into the area without running a full scan, so even his barely hidden code was intact and waiting for use.

You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars, he quoted.

Inside of himself code blocks slid back, code loaded into his brain, fitting neatly in the sections that had been left blank when he had been created. Old evolutionary wiring that had not been needed for a short-life dahlit menial labor clone was still emulated and created in the architecture for SUDS templates. Legion relaxed and loaded with code blocks those ipsum-lorem filled spaces.

The door at the far end of the room opened and everyone, including Legion, sat up a little straighter and turned to look at who had walked in.

Dressed in pressed green fatiques, with enough medals on the uniform that some of the medals were literally pinned to the legs. All three faces on the trio were haughty, patrician, and silently tried to announce to everyone in the room that the trio that was just entered was better than all of them by sheer right of existence.

It made Legion's knuckles itch and he avoided the urge to load code strings into them.

"Failure is unacceptable," the lead of the trio said. "The enemy is attempting to push pass the Kashmir Pass and into our very homeland!"

Legion carefully scanned the one behind the leader, who had a lot more gongs and ribbons than the other ones, carefully going over it.

there...

To anyone else, nothing happened as the leader gave a speech, haraunging his men into guarding the pass from "The Enemy" and reminding them of the price of failure.

Legion reached out, through the open input variable, sliced through the being's defenses, suppressed the SUDS stack recording, crushing it down, and slid perfectly into the digital body. The personality was held tight, the digital equivalent of holding a person's head at the angle right before the vertebrae cracks, and Legion had control of the body and access to any memories he needed.

you can't do this... the man whined.

I am Legion, Dhruv thought back. Master of the Army of One, the One and Many, Admiral of the Fleet of One.

There was a horrified silence as Legion scanned the memories.

He was startled. Most of the memories didn't feel like memories. They lacked the... the... the flaws. No sense of self-justification and self-aggrandizement that most real memories had. It was more crystal clear.

Many of the 'memories' showed Legion's prisoner from outside.

Why are so many of your memories video or still pictures? Why are memories of your conversations transcripts? Legion asked, squeezing. You aren't digi-creche grown.

The voice squirmed and Legion put more pressure.

The other two suddenly turned around and Legion let the body move on autopilot to follow.

Some of the memories had edges, concepts, and words they shouldn't have had.

The United States of America. Germany. Austria. Brazil. Rwanda. Vietnam.

Words that the system should have wiped away, should have at least put a lock on.

Oddly enough, Legion found that the memories were indexed, not by stimulus, but by keywords.

Pre-Glassing, Legion thought, grabbing a memory that popped up when he used the keyword for America.

The memories that popped up showed Washington DC intact. Senators and Congressmen flickered by, Presidents flashed through the mind's eye, the Wall Street Index, and more data.

Legion realized that what he was seeing was just that.

Data.

Indexed and coallated, put into the matrix of an early SUDS template, recreated from records and social media and private diaries and autobiographies.

The shadow cast by a dead man on a cave wall recorded by those in a different cave watching the shadows and trying to interpret the man.

Legion increased the pressure, twisting slightly to fill the digital creature in his grasp with pain.

You're a homunculus, Legion hissed. Not destroyed after all, were you?

The creature in his grasp writhed in pain.

I have what I need from you, Legion said.

He twisted and the intelligence strings sundered and shattered even as he reached out to himself.

-----

Daxin looked over at the Hesstlan girl, dressed in heavy coveralls and wearing a grav-ski mask as she finally spoke for the first time in over three hours.

"Pay no heed to whispers from the dark for they are full of deceit. Get ye from my presence, servants of darkness," the young woman said, quoting the Digital Omnimessiah. She took off the mask with one hand and set it on the desk even as she reached up with her other hand and turned off her datalink.

"Problem?" Daxin asked.

The bunny-girl shook her head. "No. Just those who oppose us attempting to pour poison in my ear to turn me against the side of life."

Daxin just nodded and went back to staring out at the ocean through the crystal windows.

His datalink clinked and a window opened up in his retinal link.

It was a bald man in spectacles, a slightly round face, and a wide smile.

"Daxin Freeborn. No. Middle Initial," the face said, without changing expression.

"Yeah?" Daxin asked, twitching his finger to get attention even as he tossed the data coming in over to Peter, Menhit, and Kalki.

"You have come. A long way. What is it. You. Seek?" the voice asked.

"The formula for Crystal Pepsi," Daxin said, narrowing his eyes. "It's necessary for Gen-Six hyperdrive coolant."

The face froze for a moment then broke into a wide grin. "Jocularity. Interesting."

"What do you want?" Daxin asked.

"What. Do you. Seek?" the voice asked. "Is it. Your wife? Daughters? Freedom?"

Images of his wife and two daughters floated up.

"We can. Return. Them to you," the voice said. "Or. We can. Delete them."

Daxin shrugged. "They've been dead for eight thousand years. The universe has moved on. I've moved on."

"Perhaps you would like. To tell them that. In your own. Voice," the voice said.

Daxin shrugged again. "They know I will not allow anyone to hold them hostage against me," he said. He narrowed his eyes. "Ask the Sandmen what happened the last time someone took hostages and tried to use them against me."

There was silence for a moment.

"What is it. You. Desire?" the voice asked.

"Nothing you would understand," Daxin said, shrugging again. "I've left everything behind. You have no leverage over me."

"We will speak. Again," the voice said.

"Whatever," Daxin shrugged.

Pete looked over at Daxin. "Who was it?"

"Someone able to access real history records from before the Glassing," Daxin said, picking up the beer from where he'd set it down and taking a drink out of it. "Someone who is making critical mistakes."

Menhit tilted her head. She closed her eyes, softly whispering to herself, then suddenly laughed.

"Those ancient hexes and words of power have no hold over one such as I, devious one," she said, her smile bright and her eyes shining. "Ancient, outdated concepts no longer needed by a humanity that has left such superstitious mumbling behind," she laughed again. "You are forgotten spirits, wailing through a time you no longer understand," she clenched her fist. "Begone, unclean ones."

"What did they say?" Daxin asked without looking away from the view.

"They attempted to use ancient bindings upon me. Words and incantations that I am inured against by the passage of time and the steady progress of humanity and human culture," Menhit chuckled. She shook her head. "They are before the Glassing, probably much more ancient then they appear."

Peter suddenly sat up, looking away from the screen suddenly.

"What?" he asked, reaching out and picking up a data cord to plug into the cybernetic datajack just over his left ear. He cocked his wrists and a holographic keyboard appeared. His fingers started moving rapidly.

"Marco. Yes. That's my name," Peter said, typing rapidly.

Daxin reached down to his leg and a compartment popped open. He drew the hilt of a knife from the compartment and it closed as he lifted it up, examining it.

"You still have that?" Menhit asked.

Daxin nodded.

Dambree gave no hint of any care regarding what was going on, walking over to the vending machine Daxin had carried in and tapping out the code for what she wanted. The vending machine spit out a can of Liquid Hate and she cracked it open as she walked back.

"Well, that's a nice offer. I'm sure it is not the prelude to some kind of betrayal on your part," Peter said.

Daxin moved a few chairs out of the way.

"Well, you seem to know a lot. Especially regarding how I was killed on Luna while I was there working on the new lunar mining system VI," Peter said. He nodded. "Well, eternal life does sound nice."

He made a couple more key presses then pointed at the empty spot.

"I'd rather you talked to my friends face to face, Neetu Shahaama Paracha," he said, snapping his fingers.

The holoprojectors came on and a woman appeared in the cleared away spot. She was dressed in archaic, Pre-Glassing finery. Her expression was haughty, arrogant, still not caught up with the situation.

"I'm afraid that's imposs..." she started to say. She looked around and saw Daxin, Menhit, Dambree, Peter, and Herod all looking at her.

"You... you wouldn't dare touch me," she said, licking her digital lips in sudden nervousness.

Her eyes widened with fear and she made a static filled squawking sound as Daxin grabbed her by the throat, code suddenly running down his arm and covering his hand. He lifted her up in the air as she started to kick and choke, grabbing his arm.

"TOUCH!" Daxin roared out.

He slammed her onto the floor, the code sparkling and disrupting for a moment as he held her pinned to the floor by her throat, her digital throat bulged around his fingers.

Daxin held up the knife hilt and pressed the button on the back. A blade flickered to life, burning with malevolent white light.

"Do you know what this is?" Daxin growled, pushing his face into hers.

She shook her head.

"The bullets used to kill the Digital Omnimessiah. Code made reality. I gathered them, I smelted them, I forged them into this blade," Daxin growled. "Do you know who I am?"

She nodded, trying to swallow past the grip, kicking her feet, trying to get purchase, her fingers ineffectively clawing at Daxin's arm.

"Look away, child," Menhit said to Dambree.

Dambree looked out the window. Herod stood up from his chair and moved over by Dambree, who reached out and put her arm around his waist, pulling him next to her.

"They call me," Daxin rumbled. He leaned forward and dug the point of the knife into her side.

She screamed, a shocked and surprised outcry of pain.

"The Walking War Crime."

-----

Legion had sifted through the man's 'memories', going through his life. A member of a family of wealthy hyper-industrialists, from the early years after the Great Crash, where his family had only gotten richer.

Not a true SUDS template, but a early recreation method of a man who had died before the neural recording system had been fully developed.

Legion wasn't surprised to discover that the man had never served in any military but considered himself a military genius who would have redefined warfare if he had ever stooped so low as to reluctantly agree to apply his genius to what would have been a grateful military.

The other two he reached out carefully, cobweb thin data trails, and found they were much the same way. In a strange way, they were nearly copies of one another, just the names, locations, and a few details changed.

One considered himself a political genius as much as a military genius and was fond of quoting historic military leaders.

Or at least the quotes he could find online in a split second data search.

The other one considered himself an expert on societal engineering and the sheer inhumanity of what the 'person' considered justifiable for 'the greater good' made Legion tempted to launch attack programs and obliterate the other 'man'.

The journey came to a sudden stop, dropping him into a chair at a massive circular table. Around him, in each chair, were figures that Legion did not recognize but he was sure had been important people in their lifetimes.

"...explain your failure with that one?" a woman was asking a man. "She's a teenager."

The man shook his head. "Superficially. Her mind is shattered into a thousand pieces, dozens, hundreds of personalities all screaming in her mind, while her mind has regressed to childhood to make sense of the world around her even as she inflicts massive violence," he turned to another man. "You speak her language, perhaps you will have better luck."

The other man, short and squat, with featured that Legion ID'd as the Pacific Rim, shook his head.

"She speaks nonsense. Butchered words and mashed up phrasing."

Legion checked the system around him, looking beyond the architecture at the system resources themselves.

There was enough.

He hid a smile even as he reached out to himself.

-----

Legion looked down as the reinforcements who were trying to push toward the Gates of Hell, only to run into Trucker's rear guard. He could see the blank banners they were waving, the blank unit insignia on the vehicles, the blank shoulder patches on the uniforms.

He knew how they were doing it now. How they were convincing these long dead soldiers to fight the Blood War.

Is it the fate of everyone who believes they have absolute power to become one trick ponies? Legion asked himself as he reached out.

He could see the dataline clearly. Coming down out of one of the high speed data conduits and into the waiting area for Hell. See it streaming to every soldier's SUDS recording that were charging Trucker's rear guard like the days of frontal assault charges had not been brought to a close thousands of years ago.

"LET THE SCALES FALL FROM THINE EYES!" Legion cried out.

He cut the link.

The soldiers suddenly stopped, looking around as their HUDs and their vision lost the overlay that had been laid upon them.

The blank faced officers kept screaming, kept yelling, kept shouting orders.

Some of the men began screaming as they realized they were in Hell. Others tried to run away. Others fell to their knees praying.

But many of them turned to stare at the vaguely man-shaped blobs of whitish-blue static.

"Trucker, cease fire," Legion said, frowning as the troops and vehicles below stopped shooting and came t o a sudden stop before he could even finish saying the first syllable of Trucker's name.

"Roger. Looks like the enemy's clear," Trucker replied over the static filled linkage. "What happened?"

"I knew they were getting fake visuals, a HUD or retinal overlay. An old trick from before the Glassing," Legion said. "I cut the data stream for the visuals."

"All right. What now?" Trucker asked.

"Hang on, there's things going on," Legion said, standing on the ground and watching men and women go down on their knees or down on one knee as they stared at him, clad in hammered bronze armor, wings spread out, a burning sword in his hand.

-----

Vuxten had just stepped out of the mat-trans, sipping at his water, waiting for his headache to ease when Peel suddenly turned around.

"You have to go, right now!" she snapped, pointing at the mat-trans.

Vuxten turned and looked at the mat-trans. "Can I wait a minute?"

--ow my big giant head--

"No! Now! You have seconds. Joan and Dambree will meet you there," Peel said. "Daxin just found out their backup plan, the Immortals are locked out of the mat-trans right now. Legion's at max, there's just the three of you."

"Where? What's going on?" Vuxten asked, moving into the mat-trans.

The door shut, but not before he heard Peel's answer.

"They're moving on the Digital Omnimessiah."