Ragnarok

Chapter 12 - Olympus

Rei easily slipped through the lines of code towards the Voidbridge. She wasn't thrilled about this, and never was, but at least this time she figured she'd get some answers. Most supplicants didn't even get past the Forbidden City of Deimos, let alone come to the place that the Gods themselves held court.

Whatever form those Gods may take, Rei thought sourly. She'd been around Micah too much, she was getting unruly. Questioning those above her. Such thoughts were unwelcome even in Deimos, let alone the central chamber of Olympus. She quickly compartmentalized those doubts and, at the same time, slid into the virtual form of a Water Priestess, all cool blues and greens, with a few hints of deeper purples. Organic patterns both geometric and natural covered the long dress she cloaked herself in, her blue hair going in a traditional Chinese bun.

All without even having to lift a simulated finger. Being a ghost in the machine had its benefits. Even if it meant that sometimes you had to get called up by the gods within that same machine. Who took a jaded view of upstart mortals, most of them being themselves ascended.

The Seer's Dilemma. When one speaks only to the gods, one begins to see the gods in everyone he bothers to look at too long. Were they gods dreaming they were personality programs, or machines dreaming they were gods? Or was the question itself yet another fractal?

These bloody humans were driving her crazy. Especially Micah!

"I wish he would just make a bloody choice already," she swore to herself. If she wanted to, she could spy on them. More than that, even. Tug ever so gently on their strings and make them dance to her song. See what they were doing while she was away, and how she could do it better ...

She saw the glint of envy in that thought and put it aside, as the Voidbridge spun towards her. The decision was Micah's. She could not blame him for casting his eyes down a different path than the one he seemed to want to take. Even if the most human part of her disagreed strongly with this idea, that part itself was within conflict.

"Alright, center myself," Rei muttered, the ICE programs to either side of her paying her no mind. No doubt they heard all matter of both prayers and curses before the virtual people stepped through the Black Gate. For a moment, the many parallel Reis within her each protested, then one by one, stepped in line. She opened eyes that had slipped closed without her even noticing, and then stepped through.

*     *    *

Darkness, once again.

The shadows parted, and this time, she had not arrived at the Forbidden Palace of Deimos, but at the base of the greatest mountain that the Solar System had yet discovered. For the machines, it was the holiest of holies, a place even more sacred than Deimos. This was the true crown of the Virtual Bureaucracy, with all that such a title implied.

Olympus Mons. The home of the gods.

She glanced up at the sky. A hundred years ago, it would have been a lifeless, sepia-tone desert with barely any atmosphere to speak of that she looked out upon. Fifty years of colonization and a decade of terraforming had already begun to bear fruit, but most of the population still huddled in their well-protected composite domes. Elsewhere, the business of making Mars live once again was fully underway. As an electronic organism, she could already tell that the planet's missing magnetic field had been restarted, though it remained weak compared to Earth's as yet.

This time, it was not Ling Kwan who greeted Rei at the Gate, but Sun Tzu himself. The author of the Art of War, and one of China's greatest military minds, stood mildly on the third step of a staircase that seemed to stretch on endlessly, slowly criss-crossing its way up the peak. Over sixteen miles above her, blocked partially by thin clouds, the distant caldera of the ancient volcano remained silent as she stared up, past the ancient Chinese war leader. She thought she could see flashes of lightning at the top, but it was a very long way off, and difficult even for her augmented eyes to see.