“The human mind is malleable. When faced with pressure, it undergoes a metamorphosis that will change, harden, divide and redistribute it, but never break it. We are survivors. Even when we do not want to.”

- preface to the sixth chapter, The Modern Proxy, written by Fatimeh Vahde 2087, Federated Press.

Isla strode through the Vänern arcology, enjoying the feeling of people looking at her. She spun through the crowd, entering a elevator, the center of which remained conspicuously absent of people, for a Proxy stood there. A person to admire. That made her feel good, considering what she was about to do.

Isla Calix, denizen of Mexico arcology, sister of five, mouthy daughter - atleast her mom said so - and now an actual Proxy.

Her family was barely Access 2, closer to 1 in fact but she would change that. Mamá will have actual meat for her shitty fajitas and Ricardo will have real eyes. The skin around her eyes tightened, and for once she was happy that the helmet of her Chassis covered her head.

The elevator reached the intended destination and Isla shouldered her way out of the crowd, through a claustrophobic hall, down a series of stairs, stopping at unmarked door.

She glanced around, metal and light no bar to her sight. Empty space. Just like she felt inside.

She knocked, twice. A hologram came into being next to her. Yellow teeth form something that could generously be called a smile. “Hola, Calix.” The teeth, shipped and broken, smacked. “I see you’ve come up in the world.”

“Fidel. I want the same.”

“Price is up.”

“I can pay.”

The teeth moved up and down the form of her Chassis. “I’m sure you do.

_____

The screen rotated at a whim.

In one, two girls and a boy snuck through the Mountain.

The screen below showed a boy with teak skin running fullt tilt as pythons, gryphons, mannequin-formed men, spheres made of bristling spears and other forms of Host chased him.

“Coastline,” Raja Sviratham spoke to empty air. “Assign probability of Somchai Saolirin diverting the majority of Host during this Examination of Worth.”

The bearded man nodded next to him. Raja was curious as to why the AC had chosen to mimic a provincial camper’s father, but he remained quiet on that point. A AC who governed an arcology could find out all manner of things, and he didn’t want to incur its attention.

“In a hundred scenarios, Somchai Saolirin of Bangkok Arcology manages to create some form of diversion. In five of those scenarios, there is a 10% chance of Martin Solieri, Isla Calix and Berenice Sonnentag acquiring Chassis, and a 5% chance of all three escaping the Ennas Dilemma.”

That figured. Luck of the devas. Though no Chassis could manipulate something so nebulous, Raja had known a Proxy or two who could terrifying things to probability.

In another screen, a knight in green and white swam through deep tunnels. The sensors in the habitat could not penetrate a Chassis without making themselves known, but the way Sonnentag simply drifted spoke volumes.

________

“Did you watch the trials?” The speaker had a melodic voice, even garbled as it was through several distortions.

“I did,” came the answer, said in a voice that too had been distorted to make out anything worthwhile.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Excitement could clearly be made out in the first speaker’s voice

“It’s too soon to tell.”

“Fifteen trials, fifteen examinations. All of them passed. Those who managed to get their hands on Chassis bonded them immediately.” The glee was unmistakeable.

“That only means that the mechanics of the Chepri Solution are sound.” Dull words, dull intonation.

“Sound? Even those who didn’t find Chassis either led several groups or engineered traps to kill drones. This could be what we have been waiting all these years for.”

“Even if they all pass their Tutelages, which we know statistically they won’t…there is still the public to consider. They will burn us at stakes for what we’ve done.”

“Not if we present an end to this war. Not if we show them a victory so overwhelming as to blot out any discussion of ethics.” The first speaker’s voice burned, inspiring that uncomfortable feeling one gets in the presence of believers.

“You’re being optimistic.”

“You’re such a pessimist. I told you that those who found a Chassis would bond it, and you told them we should brace for failure. Remember?”

“The early itinerations showed great promise. And look what happened to them.” Toneless as the voice was, it could still convey a certain amount of weariness.

“The early itinerations did not have…” the voice faultered,”…the same materials as we do. And there were different constraints back then.”

“They held to their ethics, you mean?”

“I mean, that they were not willing to pay the price for victory. Should I remind you of Luleå? Or Cairo? Hokkaido? Or all those American arcologies? How many people have to die before we grasp the sword with both hands, rather than this limped grasp that only serve to enable weakness?”

The first speaker’s voice had begun to crest in volume, almost screaming the last word.

“As always we disagree,” the other speaker spoke, never having changed in inflection once during the conversation.

“Yet. Once the gears start turning and they decide to reclaim Luleå and our little Scarabs participate…then we will have some actual leverage and the leaders of the arcologies won’t be able to ignore us.”

The other voice remained quiet. “I’m still worried about the people.” Though expressing a sentiment, the sentence hardly held any emotion.

“Don’t be. They will do as they’re told. As long as we keep the lights in the arcologies on, the porn flowing and reformulators materialising all the drugs they want, they will not care.”

“And if you are wrong? I’m not saying that you are. But if?”

“If so, then we have another war on our hands. We’re fighting one war to save mankind; what is one more on our plate?”

The two senior Proxies signed off.