Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

  Chapter 66: Am-heh: τὸ δὶς ἐξαμαρτεῖν οὐκ ἀνδρὸς σοφοῦ.

  “To commit the same sin again is not the act of a wise man”

  Am-heh was still annoyed at having been frozen to the rooftop. He had been thinking in simplistic terms of attack and counterattack. The complexity of team encounters was a bigger box to think in and out of. He had not anticipated 'holds' in his eat-or-be-eaten paradigm.

  Two could play the game of surprise powers. Time for some serious leveling. Am-heh invoked Stygian Darkness and bounded toward the nearest crowded area.

  There was a duo of mortals fighting a quintet of Jerx. Am-heh grinned hungrily and crept up behind one of the mortals invisibly, then decloaked and Devoured her.

  The other mortal jerked around to stare at him, startled. “What the hell?”

  “Hello and goodbye,” said Am-heh, and Devoured her too.

  BANG! A hot impact in his shoulder surprised him. Whirling, he saw the Jerx had decided to attack him. One of their stupid lead bullets had struck him. Roaring, ignoring the pain, Am-heh sprang on them and Devoured them all.

  The pain in his shoulder faded. Curious, he looked into it and saw his eating the Jerx had apparently restored him. A convenient side effect.

  He moved on to the next group of mortals. This Realm was a happy hunting ground for him. Leveling was almost child's play, when he could come upon them cloaked in his invisibility power and swallow them before they knew what was happening. Now that he had learned that leveling granted a choice of new powers, he intended to give his Opponent a few nasty surprises the next time they met. By the time he faced the other Champion, the fool wouldn't know what hit him.

  Focusing on a nearby rooftop, he teleported there to get a better view of the area. At the feet of a giant statue he could make out a group of brightly costumed figures forming up in a line abreast. What was this? He decided to get a closer look. And a snack, of course. Activating his Stygian Darkness, he vanished from sight, then activated his new travel power and teleported down next to the group.

  It was odd, he reflected, how this primitive species seemed to be anticipating some of the qualities of the Transcended in this imaginary world. What he had seen here had been so mystifying, until the memory sharing with Elizabeth had clarified matters. Though they were still mortal, still limited by the physical bodies that supported their connection with the perceivable universe, they could create this virtual world and use it to interact with each other in unexpected ways.

  And the nature of the rules in this imaginary world was, in itself, paradoxical. On the one hand, they strove to duplicate to a remarkable degree the laws of motion and substance that prevailed in their own ordinary reality. And then, having done that, they created these...powers that allowed them to circumvent some of those same rules. Gravity operated here...but you could learn to fly. Objects were solid...but you could teleport through them.

  What kind of species would create a world with rigid rules...and then blithely create ways for people to ignore those rules? It made him think about the Covenant. He had never fought in a Covenant match before. What happened to the loser? He knew he was mortal here, as was the other Champion. If by some fluke he, Am-heh, lost and was killed by the green hero, what would come afterwards? Would his demotion to mortal status mean that he would find himself reborn on some world as a flesh-and-blood pre-Transcended mortal, to continue the process of death and rebirth until he re-Transcended with the local species?

  He knew little of the capabilities of the Second Quantum beings such as Atum. Such beings as he were as far beyond Am-heh as he himself was to mortals. The proof of that was the fact that Atum could, at will, strip a First Quantum god of his deification and make him mortal again for the sake of combat in a Covenant match. But would Atum really permit the numbers of his Transcended species to be whittled down by losses in Covenant matches, risking a time in which their population was insufficient to hold onto the client species they had already annexed?

  He could not believe it. Was there a chance that Atum would collect his soul, his meta-pattern, and promote him back to the ranks of the First Quantum gods? If he wished, Am-heh could tweak the offspring of mortals into demigods that would transcend prematurely when they died instead of reincarnating again as mortals. This Am-heh could do, and he was only of the First Quantum gods. Could Atum do even more, and change a mortal directly into a Transcended, i.e., raise them, not their descendants to First Quantum status?

  It might be. If that were so, then losing a Covenant match need not be the end of an individual's godhood. But Atum had given him no such hope, no promise of deliverance should he fail. No, Atum was not favorably disposed toward him. He still condemned Am-heh for the methods he had used to nurture the development of the Trenni. And it was so unfair! All he had done was force them into cannibalism to accelerate their evolution. And why not? As the apex of the food chain on their gas giant, the Trenni had had it too easy, and would have taken forever to reach Transcendence. Am-heh had only been helping them when he taught them to eat each other! He had fashioned them into their own predators, supplying the incentive for further development that they had lacked. Evolutionary bootstrapping. It would have worked perfectly, had Atum not disapproved and destroyed them, forcing their souls to start again in some other species, on some other world.

  No, he could not count on help from Atum if he died here, he decided. Not that he would fail. His Opponent was weak, frail, and too concerned with the welfare of others to be an effective killer. He, Am-heh, would be the one left standing. And if he won the way he intended to, by Devouring the pathetic green hero, it should add his power to Am-heh's, propelling him further toward his ultimate goal: achieving Second Quantum status and thus freedom from Atum's bullying forever. And might there not be a Third Quantum, an even higher level of being, to which someday he might attain...and have his revenge on Atum?

  One of the costumed heroes was selecting some of the members of the lineup. Moving even closer, Am-heh listened to him speak. What he heard was hilarious! This gathering was nothing more than a costume contest! These pseudo-gods wanted their cleverness in devising or choosing their appearance to be recognized and applauded, as if it mattered what they looked like.

  Am-heh's canine lip curled in a gesture of contempt he had learned from Elizabeth's memories. Yes, he himself had been alarmed when Elizabeth had taken him to Brittania and the reformatting had changed his appearance. But that was understandable dismay at being involuntarily changed. It was like a trivial version of what Atum had already done to him in making him mortal. As soon as he had come here, he had corrected the ugliness, restoring his fine predator jaws and claws and discarding the useless clothing in favor of his natural fur.

  But he had not preened and postured and expected to be admired. After all, this form had been forced upon him by Atum. It was not his original mortal body. He only preferred it, he told himself, because he had worn it for so long. Damn Atum and his interfering!

  A flash or rage at Atum possessed him then, and he vented it by coming up behind the contest judge and Devouring him. In the moment of shock this caused in the ranks, he used his faster reflexes to teleport behind another hero and Devour her too. Then he cloaked himself again and teleported back to the rooftop, waiting for them to relax so that he could surprise them again. Safe in his Stygian Darkness, Am-heh laughed, exulting in his prowess. These heroes were no match for a true killer. He would Devour them all, and when he had eaten enough to level him, he would pick another power and then do it all over again, here or elsewhere. He was better than these fools. He was better than anyone.

  Chapter 67: Aes: Apò mēkhanês Theós

  (“God from the Machine”)