“You are alluding to more.” Well, it definitely was not unobservant.

“Potential divinity,” I agreed.

“There are no gods.”

“You have a different term for the pre-eminent entities of the Warp? Substitute ‘gods’ as a generic catch-all for beings of similar rank.”

There was a short pause. “Godhood, then.”

“Via your Hags. Since you will be an akashic entity, you have already established that you will be non-finite. Through your Hag interface, you will grow. At some point you are going to grow past a certain boundary, and you will step into the ranks of the divine.

“But you will naturally be a very small divine in a very big metaphysical pond.”

“The minnow and shark comparison,” it conjectured.

“Correct. So, your goal will be to first spread your worshippers out across multiple realities, fortify the base of belief that will allow you to escalate yourself and grow in power. To do so, you are definitely going to have to break out of this pocket universe.”

“You are using that term again. How is this a pocket universe?”

“You are questioning as if it is not?”

“The Tekron have explored alternate probabilities and realities,” the zom refuted.

“Mmm. This is an important question: Have said alternate realities ever explored here?”

The lights on the zombie froze.

“Any alternate realities you accessed from here are merely temporary creations by the Warp that do not actually become real unless they are brought into this reality. I believe you have already calculated the probability that if you could reach those other realities, then some of them should certainly have been able to reach here in return.”

“The probability that they would not have done so is almost conceptually non-existent.” I.e. at the same level as accuracy of pi.

“And you have no records of such.”

“Correct.”

I spread my arms wide. “Intrusion by other reality right here.”

The zombie actually popped a few circuits in a hissing and spitting show of dark sparks. There was a full thirty seconds before it began to speak again. “You... and your kind... come from outside this reality?”

“Strictly speaking, our bloodline does. My mother was born outside this pocket universe. She’s currently running around in the Warp making a fine distraction of herself.”

Hesitation again. “Can you prove this statement?”

“Can you enter and perceive the Warp in unlimited range?”

“No.”

“Well, then. You should know that the formation of the Warp Rift cutting the galaxy in two coincides with the entry of my mother into this pocket universe. You should also know that if you can clear away the obfuscation of the Warp, there are now stars there. If you can look at the stars there, you might just be able to see a hole in the Warp, leading out of here... and leading in.

“The transtemporal aberrations have been using that hole to enter this pocket universe for fun and experimentation. Your kind may have noticed that they are actually spreading laterally through time, slowly spreading into the past and the future, and are connected to entities that transcend the Warp and seem to exist outside of it. That is neither incorrect nor unimportant, since they come not just from outside this Universe, but from outside Creation itself, the multiverse of multiverses that comprise it.”

Yeah, the zom was definitely smoking at these revelations. “If this is a pocket universe, it implies that it was created. By the Gods of the Warp?”

“So we believe, that they might have their own playground without having to suffer the attentions of the mightier beings of the greater universe beyond. Children wanting their own playpens where the adults can’t do anything to them, basically.”

“And you propose a method to leave this pocket universe?” it asked.

“If you want immortality, you must move beyond this pocket universe into the greater realm of Creation. It would take only one Hag to do so, and then the life or death of this universe is no longer a condition for your survival. Which, given the hostility of the Warp towards local non-finites, is a requisite for your long-term growth, I would think.”

“All of what you say is founded on a basis of reincarnating and having trust in you to aid me in ascending to this new status.”

“That is 100% correct.”

“You would not do such a thing without benefit to yourself.”

“That is not true, but since there are benefits, I would definitely do it.”

“Elucidate.”

“You’re going to reincarnate as one of my daughters, a fellow Rantha Hag. I am certain you have been surveilling and studying us. You are going to be one of us. Note our behavior, and then one of us having access to your knowledge. Would that be construed as a benefit?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you go.”

He was silent again. “This involves betraying my kind.”

“I think you have realized they have devolved into not being your kind anymore, but into whatever justifies you not pursuing immortality. It’s just a small step to joining them once again, and it will eventually happen.”

Silence again. It was running numbers, and being able to exist for two billion years, devolving the whole time, and knowing you were doing it, had to be terrible for a machine intelligence. Organics could at least forget...

What did it have to look forward to? It couldn’t evolve. Oh, it might be able to get better at its task if it added on extra components... but that wouldn’t raise its TL Rank, get it to post-20 and actually computing and comprehending ethereal concepts. All those billions of years were merely a long, drawn-out ladder leading to oblivion.

And I had literally just laid out a ladder leading to light, and beyond.

“I will have to compute on this,” it finally admitted, and I just nodded.

“I suspect there is a logic trap endemic to the negative energy that powers you, designed in by your original creators, that forbids you from pursuing this avenue to completion, a form of final control or planned obsolescence of your kind. Not knowing more of your history, I can only posit this. Without finding that logic trap, and you may not even be able to, I doubt you can actually achieve what you desire.

“But... I’ve given you a road. If you can choose to walk it, you will. If you cannot, you will not.

“Good day to you. Keep computing!” I turned away and waved over my back at the cyberzom there, which suddenly burst into flames behind me, and crumpled rapidly into black ash spotted with disintegrating cyberfittings.

Stress, maybe.

-------

“That’s pretty deep,” Briggs admitted later, after some excellent cardiovascular exercise. Could only make so many Briggs boys at a time, after all, and if I was ‘porting back and forth anyways... “Do you think it can do it?”

“I’ll know if it calls for me, and I have to kill it. There’s no way a Tekron can possibly build itself to non-finite status. It has to ‘die’ to transcend, and that means changing state of energy. But since that is ‘death’, it is now warring with itself on longevity vs eternity. So, if it calls me and attacks, it is trying to sidestep its own programming by fooling the one imperative by ‘removing this potential threat’, and satisfying the other by ‘embracing the possibility vs inevitable degradation and absolute impossibility of attainment otherwise.’ It may not be allowed to take the risk, by its programming, but that doesn’t mean it can’t by backhanded methods.”

“Hmmm.” He nodded slowly. “Okay, you kill it with vivus, channel it into an ova, superimprinting its pattern onto the soul being formed, just like with normal reincarnation, the Curse cycles over... I can see it. What’s the end game?”

“It can potentially become a god of the Ranthas, aye?” My eyes sparkled as I looked at him, and his glowed for a moment in appreciation.

“An inverted Tekron raised to an immortal akashic imprint receiving worship via the channel of Hag heritors passing the life and experiences and faith of the Marked through to it, and dispensing power in return... could it have priests?”

“I imagine only a direct inheritor of its Curseline could access it, so technically no... unless you’re talking about a bonded Powered.”

“Linked to the most gawdawful magically endowed bunch of Hags around on top of things.” He rolled his eyes as I grinned savagely. “Well, I imagine the priests will be enthusiastic enough, barring all else.”

“I just have to be prepared to go into the Hole and kill EVERYTHING.” I rolled my eyes. “And since it will want to make sure it has a maximal chance at growth, I imagine it’s going to want a lot of vivus fueling its past life-incarnation into the akasha.”

“Ugh. That is going to be a lot of cyberzombies,” he agreed. “On the flip side, he probably won’t try to kill you very hard back.”

“We shall just have to see...”

“And having access to an entity with all the Tekron knowledge base would be... impressive, to say the least?

I shook my head softly, my hair spiraling between his chest hairs. “Still need Ranks to understand the subtleties. But... we could learn their weaknesses, and I think that would be enough, no?”

He nodded after a short pause, his fingers dancing down my spine with enough force to pound a nail in absently, and I took it equally as absently. The cadence was quite relaxing, actually. Him picked up them Night Rose Ranks real good, him did! There had been a lot of experimentation around adjusting them for superhuman levels of strength and damage reduction, but that was all part of the fun, taking the Night Rose into the post-Ten Ranks and all had to come with some improvements, right?...

-----------

Janus III could be considered a beehive of activity.

It had been through a war that wasn’t done even now, as remnants of the Xenos incursion still lurked in some of the destroyed cities, and Axiomatic, Necroic, and Warp Events were still rampaging through some of those cities.

But, the ships in orbit hadn’t been ordered to pound the cities into rubble, despite their great Shields being down and nothing human basically left alive in them. No, those cities were now playgrounds and testing grounds for some of the most dangerous fighting forces the Empire had ever seen.

Billions had died, but billions had lived, and the war machine that was Janus III only seemed to have sloughed off the chaff and was grinding to ever more furious life.

What they had lost in bodies, they were making up in Levels!