“Don’t count your victories until the last enemy is dead and buried.” — opening sentence of the Seventh Decade, autobiography of Raji Sayegh, the Defender of Sur.

Editor’s note: though no consensus exists in regard to the title, all Proxies who have earned the epithet of ‘Defender’ have all been seniors and great fighters.

When one can take any form they wish, that choice says something. A human might change clothes on a whim, but that was a difference only skin-wide. The fluid nature of a artificial consciousness meant that they were unbound, free to pick any shape they wished. Non-bodied. How, Martin Soleri thought, did that inform their minds?

Were they creature of habits or did they pick a new body each time? Was there a set of illusions, hardwired and stored somewhere in the arcology from which the Administrator picked? Or did it use a drone, one which it phased in and out of a personalised dimension?

A single beat of wings blew hair anew into his eyes, stirring the water. Black eyes, darker than his own skin gazed out at him from deep-set sockets. The Vänern Administrator, it seemed, had a fondness for eagles.

Martin bowed. He cleared his throat.

“You were there when Nina Abrukha had her drunken episode. You helped me clear my name with Chevalier. And so I’m here, a third time.”

The eagle-that-was-not blinked. Martin didn’t confuse the opening and closing of lids for the real deal. This was one facet of the whole, one side of a thousand-layered diamond. If it blinked, it did so for his sake. To suggest humanity, where none existed.

It didn’t speak.

A moment passed. Waiting.

“Somchai Saolirin’s Chassis affords him abilities that are not granted to a normal Proxy. Isla Calix and Raja Sviratham have their own specialities. As…as must I.”

He took moment to collect his thoughts.

“I want to know about my Chassis. Only, the databanks have nothing on its make. Without knowing the Host it came from… the favor I want is this: information, and a path to take.”

The eagle was still. Not even beating its wings. The Administrator didn’t even pretend to obey physics.

There was a sense of being watched, of intrusion, which had little to do with the fact that its eyes were trained on Martin. That sense intensified, only to wane.

“YES. SHOW ME.”

The light sheeted off him in a grounded halo, revealing Martin in all his ghostly glory.

The eagle shifted in response, wings growing back, arms extending out, taloned feet bending at an angle.

The eagle man strode across the water, and onto the beach. He surveyed Martin, walking a circle around him. Wasn’t there a mythological creature like this? Martin felt a bead of sweat inch down his temple.

“Vänern Administrator—“

“COASTLINE, IS MY NAME.”

Martin paused. He, yes. Sviratham had called the Vänern Administrator that name.

“I didn’t want to presume.”

“NOW YOU DO NOT.”

“Erh…yes.”

The birdman clasped his arms around his back, like a lot of the elderly did back in Sala. The Administrator turned in profile, staring up at the cloud-wrought summit. Below, the wind rustled the jungle. A keening wind rose, glancing of the ice above.

“THE SCAN IS COMPLETE. INTRUIGUING.”

“Yes?”

“I DO NOT RECOGNISE YOUR CHASSIS, NOR DO ANY OF MY COLLEAGUES IN SWEDEN. NOT AT A QUICK GLANCE. FURTHER INQUIRIES WILL HAVE TO BE MADE.”

Martin’s hopes plummeted. The notion that the Administrator wouldn’t know had never occurred to him. In the casts and books, the Administrators always played the oracles or the scheming artificial consciousnesses bent on world domination. There was even a whole tradition about it— every Christmas, all of the denizens of the arcology were allowed to ask the Administrator one question and have it answered in truth.

Beyond that, he had witnesses an Administrator’s power first hand. Nothing occurred in an arcology that an Administrator didn’t see.

“YET, THERE ARE SYMPATHIC CONNECTIONS. THE WAY THE METAL MIMICS CLOTH. THE DATA OF YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS AND THE EASE OF YOUR ENDOAURICS. SUGGESTIVE.

THERE ARE THREE EXTANT FORMS OF HOSTS AND TWO EXTINCT FORMS THAT HAVE THIS WHITE CLOTH FOR SKIN.

“Really?”

“AS I SAID EARLIER; I DO NOT LIE, MR SOLERI.”

The garuda—that was what it was called!

Coastline raised a taloned hand in which a small square piece of metal sat. When…when had he made it? Had it been teleported from Level 1? When?

The Administrator flipped it and enhanced as he was by his Chassis, Martin caught it with a wave of lessened gravity. He focused the exoauric technique, recentering himself as the center and the diagonal as the ‘drop’ and the metal fell horizontally. Into his palm.

He used a trick he had learned recently— and one of the ‘strands’ of cloth that made up his Chassis— furled up. He put the square of metal there and the cloth flowed over.

Oh, there were exoauric techniques they had begun to work on. Ways to inflate space, to ensure that an object the size of hand could be fit inside a space the width of a nail.

Then, these Proxies were too damn clever for their own good. Why hide something valuable in a pocket-space? A clever thief would check those spaces first. Better put it somewhere close.

And low-tech solutions always won over more advanced tricks, that much Martin knew.

He bowed, another time.

“I owe you.”

Not only for the information, but for saving him twice.

“AND YOU MAY PAY ME BACK. I REQUIRE BUT ONE THING. SHOULD YOU BE AMENABLE, FURTHER ADVICE COULD BE OFFERED.”

Martin Soleri, the child of a teacher and line-cook, come up in the world, stared at the Administrator.

There were scientists out there who spent their entire careers dreaming of one thing: to have a chat with an Administrator.

Disregard the power of their Fields, which allowed Administrators to massheal an entire ward of cancer-patients while simultaneously restoring their dementia-ridden brains. Their ability to open or shut an arcology down at will. Forget these things, but bear in mind then!

Any artificial consciousness had a mind like a web—that was what school had taught Martin. Not…linear, yes that was the word, not linear like a human being. Time and cause was all the same to them. They could view the present from both ends. All ends.

And no AC was greater than an Administrator. To have one offer advice to him, a rat from the camps…

It was a good thing to happen. A great fortune. Something for a cast, almost-like. Just as with the lanyard and the offer of moving to Vänern Arcology. Meeting Chiyo Moyomoto in the Reception Hall.

It galled him, that he couldn’t just enjoy the things he had been given. But he was who he was, Martin Soleri.

“You know the senior Proxy who got me here, don’t you?”

There was no tell. Nothing to denote a liar, or at least a human one. No twitches, no lids rising and closing, no open mouths. But.

The Administrator had answered him without error and hesitation in all of the conversations he had with it. Surgical. If it paused, it did so only as an affection. No, this was deliberate.

The garuda was still before him, yet he could tell something wasn’t present. Until it was and the hair rose on his arms and his Field pulsed uncertainly.

“YES.”

Finality thrummed in that word.

“And you’re not going to tell me why.”

“NO, I WILL NOT.”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE THERE ARE SECRETS STORED IN THE WALLS OF THE ARCOLOGIES THAT WERE NEVER ENVISIONED IN THAT OLD PROPOSAL.”

Martin thought on those words, bent all the power of mind, focused his Field inwards. Willed it up, and into his skull. He had promised Somchai, but this, this was too important.

The moment listed and his heartbeat became a dull thing. Secrets…the Arcology Proposal…knowing his lesson he called up a sliver of a memory…the day when the Proposal was read up in school…”…to safeguard Man..”…”but only as long as Man remain true…”

The garuda waved a finger with both ponderous slowness and exacting speed. The same speed as Martin in fact, as if the Administrator too had a enhanced perception. But of course it did. It-

—the world exploded with sound, slowing down. He stumbled. Martin’s eyes went down to his forearm and the Field. It…

…it was gone. And with it, the exoauric of his mind.

His Field was gone. He clutched the limb with weak human-level strength and the faintest of shimmer rose in response to that sentiment that howled through his veins. Sluggish. Hangover. Not gone. Blanketed.

“MY FIRST ADVICE, MARTIN SOLERI, IS TO NEVER WORK AURICS OF THE MIND WITHOUT ATLEAST A JUNOR GRADE PROXY NEXT TO YOU.

Chagrined and chastised Martin was; could only nod.

One day, he promised himself, he’d have that ability.

The wonders of a Proxy was fuelled by a Field, and he would learn how to stop the motion of one in its track. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man was king. And he would be king.

“AS FOR THE SECRET? I DO YOU SERVICE. WERE YOU TO KNOW IT, AS YOU REMAIN, YOU WOULD DIE.”

“That’s-“

“IMPOSSIBLE? INCOMPREHENSIBLE?

“I was going to say: unlikely.”

The facet of the Vänern Administrator remained quiet. He had said it, had he not. No lies.

“EVEN SO. IF YOU WERE A JUNIOR PROXY ON THE CUSP OF SENIORITY, THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE A CHANCE.”

“A chance?”

The garuda shrugged.

“THIS CONVERSATION IS POINTLESS. I WILL DEPOSIT YOU BACK IN YOUR APARTMENT. FOR NOW, I SUGGEST YOU LEARN THE CONTENTS OF THOSE FILES. AND IN TIME…”

The Administrator paused with a theatrical finger raised, wagging once more.“THOUGH, IF YOU DESIRE THE ANSWER AS TO THE IDENTITY OF THE SENIOR PROXY? I SUGGEST YOU TALK TO VIKTOR SOLZHENITSYN— BUT DO WEAR ARMOR.”

Huh.

Martin blinked, and even with the unconscious perception of a Chassis as a aid, the transition was smooth. He instinctively braced and his legs absorbed the slight fall.

Martin Soleri stood once more in the lowered section of his apartment.

That had been illuminating…if albeit slightly cryptic. He removed the square piece of metal and examined it. Not a Field-based device, he thought. His Field, close as it was, didn’t trigger it.

And his Field, which he had back…he pushed, and it surged like a bonfire around him.

How long he stood there, staring into the depth of his Field, none would know. Never would he take it for granted. And he’d learn.

He bypassed his couch and placed the metal in the receptacle next to the screen.

Long before the Host plummeted down on Earth, men had dreamed of information wired without cables or appendages. Modern science had narrowed the distance, eliminated the need for wires, yet that seamless transition still eluded them.

The hand-width platform shone green.

The screen lit up, showing a Y-shaped…Host, he guessed.

“This is the a form of Host known as blossoms.”

Martin startled; the Administrator’s voice issued out from the entangled loudspeakers positioned next to the screen.

The squat Host split in the middle on the screen, revealing white strands not unlike his own. It reminded him of deep sea anemones.

“The blossoms are static defences, often located kilometers out from adjacent Holds. They use a form of tremor-location to locate their enemies.”

The image on the screen fuzzed, revealing another Host. It looked like a spearhoner, round, with two sets of outer shells shielding the inner core. This one was red, rather than the usual grey. Its first shell detached in three wider plates in a protective circle around it. That much was normal.

From the inner shell… Martin jumped. A…thing in white had peeked out.

He glanced down at his Chassis. The very same color.

“You are no doubt familiar with spearhoners. This is a variation of that Host, in scientific parlance known as spearhoner-1, but in common usage known as a webdrawer. Its preferred method of attack involves extending yards of its tentacles beneath snow or cloud, then withdrawing the limbs with whatever remains stuck.”

The screen fuzzed again, for the third time, the final time he knew. The…Coastline had mentioned three kinds of Host.

A six-legged creature, a bull crossed with a lizard was frozen mid-rampage. It was white and its skin…had a oily sheen, and even locked in the moment the photo was taken, the Host seemed frantic.

“The bellerophian bull. This Host is endemic to Mongolia but the harvesting of Hosts is truly a global endeavor.”

“The bellerophian bull, the webdrawer and the blossom. One of these three Host was harvested to make your Chassis. It is notable that none of them can be fond even close to the Northern Quadrant. How your Chassis ended up in the Examination of Worth is an interesting dilemma, one which I will have to pursue later. As for determining which it was, further tests will be required. I suggest you avail yourself to the litterature on all three.”

The voice shut off, uncaring of any human niceties like a ‘good bye’ and the screen went blank.

Martin sank down in his couch, head up, staring into the ceiling. Just like that. His problem, solved.

The mind of an Administrator was vast—yet he didn’t understand it. Everyone knew that an artificial consciousness saw the world in a different way than a human being. Twice that for an Administrator, who supposedly was a cut above that of an average artificial consciousness—whatever that meant.

Oh, like a great deal of things he had learned on his advent to Vänern Arcology, there were known facts that seemed to obscure the bigger truth. An artificial consciousness thought differently and faster than that of a human being, but how did they do so?

Most people, himself included, merely settled knowing that the Administrators were different. But now, as with other events, things he had seen— he wondered. There were aurics of both varieties powering an AC—that much he knew.

But how would one even begin to create a living being?

He could freeze the walls, pull on gravity. Call on his despair and malice, make them real. He could teleport through walls and further beyond. He could communicate over the net via his Chassis with anyone in the arcology rather than needing a device.

He could do all these things, but he had absolutely no idea as to how to create a living, thinking being. The problem, he mused, wasn’t that he was in the beginning of his Tutelage, but rather that he couldn’t envision any way to create a living being at all.

He—he shook himself. It had been a long day. His mind was straying, choosing odd paths to go. He leaned back, still wearing his Chassis, and slept.

…then he knew nothing.

_____

The knock resounded, urgent.

He blinked inside his Chassis. His hearing was more acute like this—which was probably why each consecutive bang struck with the sound of artillery.

“I’m coming!”

He sped through his hallway, opened the door and took a step back.

“You!”

Still in the land of the unconscious, Martin’s hand blurred up. Too late. The Field surged, responding to his alarm.

The spear took him in the neck. His back struck the wall of the hallway, cracking it as he spun, bouncing, ending back on the couch.

The Field had instinctively covered him, strengthened the already miraculous metal of his Chassis. He placed a hand against his throat.

“a…r…h”

It was if a fire had been strapped to his throat. He would have died just now.

“Yes, trash.”

Claire Chevalier strode in. The door slammed shut.