Smorgeous magnified the view. Not insects, D_Light declared. Those are bats! Big ones!
D_Light had never seen so many creatures being used to fuel a single dro-vine structure. He supposed it made sense. The living structure was incredibly thick and therefore did not have adequate surface area to survive on hyper-photosynthesis alone. The bats were needed to ferry nectar from the nectar trees of the mainland to the island, the distance being too great to use insects for the task. Indeed, larger animals were required, ones that could efficiently make the crossing. These bats fit the bill, being genetically engineered animals. By imprinting them with the location of their roosts throughout the dro-vine castle, they tirelessly gathered their payloads and brought them back home. There they dispensed the nectar into receptacles that fed straight into the building’s circulatory system. The bats took for themselves only enough of the energy and nutrient-optimized nectar to continue their work and, when energy reserves were sufficient, reproduce.
Lily went on. They are so breathtakingly busy! Collecting, collecting, depositing, depositing…
And to think that many of them are probably asleep! You see, for harvesters, when it’s time for a nap, half their brain shuts down while the other half controls flight. Some migratory birds have done this for millions of years. We have since borrowed that nifty innovation.
Fascinating, Lily replied. When asked, Smorgeous did not detect any sarcasm pattern in her thought signature.
D_Light relaxed and allowed himself a moment to take in the silver and black cloud of harvesters rapidly swirling around, in, and out of the glowing icy crags. My Soul, what is this place I’m going to? he thought.
Just look at it, Lily. This…this ecosystem is an example of God’s work. Efficient, elegant, beautiful.
God’s work? I thought this was all designed by people?
The OverSoul is in everything.
It’s beautiful; however, those bats just seem lost to me, lost in their single-mindedness. A little sad, I think, Lily said.
We are all just thralls of biochemistry, D_Light replied. Besides, it would be wasteful to make them any other way. Have you heard the old saying “The world is a jawbreaker”?
No, she answered.
There was a time, a time before the OverSoul, when the world was like a jawbreaker, a hard, round candy, that we sucked and gnawed on over the centuries, slowly consuming it. We didn’t do this because we were evil, we were just animals doing what animals do-eating.
What a silly saying. So are you-I mean, we-no longer animals?
Of course we are! However, we now have a shepherd.
Perfect! So we’re not even handsome animals? We’re the livestock, chewing our cud and grinding our lives away?
Yeah, I suppose. Just like that, only less nihilistic.
Too late, I think I’m going to drive my bike off the bridge, just like a big dumb cow, Lily said with a laugh. So on the bright side, the world’s no longer a jawbreaker?
No, it’s this. In a grand gesture, D_Light had Smorgeous pan out for the optimum view of the House of Monsa. He then turned to look over at Lily to see her reaction. He was startled to find her gazing right back at him. She was obviously not watching Smorgeous’s feed.
“Umm,” D_Light said out loud as he stumbled over his words. “Your, your veil is off.” D_Light’s front tire wobbled, and he struggled for a moment to keep from colliding with the railing.
“When you plugged me into your cat’s eyes, I saw myself as another person. It was…unsettling. I’d rather keep track of who’s who,” Lily said.
He could see the silhouette of her exquisite face in the glow of the marina. Fine for now. No one’s around. Put it up again before we arrive, he said through the blink.
She nodded as she returned facing forward. He glanced back over his shoulder at the seemingly endless bridge behind. From time to time, he continued to look back while he pedaled as though making sure the shadowy bridge was still there…and to keep an eye out for rogue bot trucks.
Meanwhile, Lyra and Djoser were just ahead, riding side by side. The two nobles chatted aloud. “I’ve arranged to meet a friend of mine,” Lyra mentioned. “She’s not of very high rank, but she is a mother of this house and has promised to get us in. Actually, Djoser, you know her. Sweet_Ting?”
“Sweet_Ting?” Djoser shrugged. “Uhhh! I’d look her up, but-”
“No! Don’t even consider pinging the Cloud. We don’t know how we might get traced. Only peer-to-peer blinks,” Lyra warned. “Look, you met Sweet_Ting when I did, at that mixer last year, remember?”
“Hmmm, drawing a blank here.”
“For Soul’s sake, Djoser, you perved the woman!”
There was a pause. “Oh, right! That skinny, bug-eyed girl!” he exclaimed. “Hmmm, she wasn’t the brightest, was she?” Djoser chuckled.
“That didn’t stop you from going in on an intimacy permit with her,” Lyra jibbed.
“Actually, that bitch made me pay for the whole thing. Said it would ‘soooo be worth it.’” Djoser turned his head and spat over the side of the bridge rail, down into the blackness below.
“Maybe not so stupid after all,” Lyra said, “although seducing you is about as difficult as pedaling this bike.” She then looked back over at D_Light. “Not that I would know from firsthand experience,” she added with a wink.
Lyra leaned back on her seat. “Aside from convincing you to foot the bill for an IP, I believe your estimation of her intellect is correct. She can’t even get a breeding permit. She told me she was turned down just last week.”
“Ouch,” Djoser said. “But she’s a mother of an important house.”
“True, but she was born with her title. Apparently, the DNA fairy chose to withhold the brains. I guess even parentage like hers is no guarantee,” Lyra replied.
Djoser let out a low whistle. “Her parents must be peeved. Imagine spending the points for a breeding permit and then having a dud like that? I bet her parents wished they could have engineered her like in the old days. Makes you wonder why the OverSoul changed the rules.”
“ Everyone knows why the rules were changed. Even Sweet_Ting knows that,” Lyra spat.
Djoser looked back at Lyra. “I know, but if I ever decide to have one, I’d like to make sure. I mean, I want to get some kind of return on my investment!”
Lyra switched to a blink, effectively shutting D_Light out of the conversation. Genetically engineering humans is a deadly sin, she said with emphasis. Would you want to risk being demonized? You need to have your familiar erase your archive of this conversation.
We’re demons now and it’s not so bad, Djoser responded.
Suspected demons, Lyra corrected. She looked over toward D_Light. Only Dee and the new girl are demons. Besides, our sins were necessary to win the MetaGame and will be purged upon completion.
Lyra’s thought pattern was a little ragged, and Djoser thought it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. He would have preferred more resolution in her tone. After all, he was taking a big gamble with this whole game. He had half a mind to turn D_Light and Lily in to the Divine Authority and be done with it. He did not want to lose the MetaGame, but he did not want to get on the wrong side of the OverSoul either. The last thing he was curious about was what, exactly, “demon atonement” entailed.
“Anyway,” Lyra continued out loud, “even D_Light didn’t commit a deadly sin.” She looked pointedly at Djoser. “You watch it or I’ll turn you in for heresy. Erase your archive or not, I’ve got mine and D_Light has his.”
“Oh, I’d prefer you left me out of it,” D_Light said flatly.
“Look, thinking outside the box is divine. I’m not serious. It’s not a sin to think about sin, right?” Djoser’s voice was pitched an octave or two higher than usual.
“Well, at any rate,” Djoser continued in a tone that seemed to suggest that the conversation may as well end, “lucky for you and me that we both have good parentage and the brain genetics c
ame through.”
Lyra was quiet for a moment and then said in an offhanded tone, “By the way, if Sweet_Ting brings it up, you know, about the breeding permit? Be sure to console her properly.”
Djoser rolled his eyes.
The stairway leading up to the main entrance of House Monsa was long, and it towered over them. Snaking down the staircase was a line of tightly packed people waiting to get into the lounge, the house groksta. Some were there simply to enjoy the groksta, while others hoped to find a way into the house itself and perhaps-if they possessed the right traits-even apply for family membership.
Following closely behind Lyra, the party ignored the line and withstood the weight of many hateful glares as they ascended to two enormous doors that stood wide open. Half a dozen armed guards flanked the doors, and while a few of them nodded to people as they passed through, most of the square-jawed men just stood stoically.
Lyra walked straight up to the first guard and said, “We are here to see-” Her sentence was cut off by a screech from just inside the immense doors. A slender pandectic woman with a beautiful face but distinctively bulging eyes rushed out and embraced Lyra, nearly sending them both backward down the vast stairway below.
The woman’s assault was so fierce that D_Light half expected an edgy Amanda to sink a blade into the stranger’s side. Amanda, however, did not react at all except to watch the newcomer carefully. Products like Amanda were designed to read body language very well, much better than most humans, which was no small feat given that human evolution had dedicated a great deal of effort to learning how to perceive subtle signs from one another.
“Lyra, it’s you!” Sweet_Ting exclaimed as she carefully parted Lyra’s nanofiber veil. “At last you visit me!” Sweet_Ting let the veil fall back into place to hold Lyra by the sides of her head as though gazing into a crystal ball. Lyra smiled and looked like she was about to say something when the whirlwind of a woman let her head go and moved to Djoser. She parted his veil. “Djoser!” she squealed and kissed him squarely on the lips before he could even speak. “Oh, what a perfectly stupid top hat! My, it’s a dream to see you again.”
The greeting confused D_Light. In his experience, nobles of different houses exchanged formal greetings when they met. For example, when a noblewoman like Sweet_Ting greeted another noblewoman, they would each bow and say something ingratiating like, “The face of a princess, only younger!” A noblewoman’s greeting to a guest nobleman might sound something like, “I avert my eyes, for your virility makes me blush.” This process tended to take some time since it was expected that each party would try to one-up the other’s compliment, resulting in a tedious arms race of flattery.
Sweet_Ting, in contrast, made immediate physical contact and was saying things that were not scripted. It amused D_Light to watch Lyra and Djoser squirm under the ambiguity of such a reception. He also found himself taking an instant liking to the woman, unsure if it was due to her unexpectedly casual nature or her remarkable ability to make her uptight friends uncomfortable. Whatever the case, he appreciated the brevity with which Sweet_Ting immediately beckoned them to follow her into the lounge. The gesture was made specifically to Lyra and Djoser, but the others were apparently welcome also.
Just inside the doors was a small secondary line. Smorgeous strode ahead to have a better look.
Master, it’s a blood scanner, Smorgeous said as he beamed the visual back. Under the watchful eyes of a guard, visitors were taking their turn placing their palm down on a small, veiny, gelatinous slab.
Mother, they are going to take a blood sample! We will be exposed!
Relax, D. None of us are in the public demon database, and there are no flags on any of us, remember? Lyra was using her soothing tone.
And the guest list is supposed to be discreet. House Monsa won’t send it to the Authority without a special request. There’s no reason for the DA to suspect us to be here…and don’t look so frightened! That actually might raise suspicion, Djoser said. Further up in line, he was peering back at D_Light with his monocle.
Anyway, House Monsa requires blood of all visitors. Just a chance we have to take, Lyra said.
CHAPTER 23
Sweet_Ting strutted through the lounge of House Monsa as though it belonged to her, which, in a sense, it did. Although she was not an exceptional player by any measure, she was still the daughter of nobility, and one of the many benefits of being a noble-aside from immortality-was a traditional minimal status given to your offspring, a base status that noble children could rise above but could not fall below. There were houses that waived these nepotistic house rules, favoring a purer meritocratic flavor, but the House of Monsa was not one of these. And so the waifish Sweet_Ting strode forward with her light and luxurious gown flowing behind, confident that the crowd would part for her. She seemed genuinely surprised as, time and time again, she had to pause for some poor pleb in the crowded hall who did not see her coming and stood dumbly in her way. Each time this happened, Sweet_Ting had to dislodge the oaf with insults and threats, her eyes bulging as she did so. She might have even resorted to violence if it were not for the fact that she was not built for such exertion. She knew that any kick or punch she dished out would harm her more than the receiver.
Right behind Sweet_Ting strode Lyra and Djoser, who, upon again finding themselves among society with norms they benefited from, had also adopted a certain confident, if not regal, gait. Amanda guarded Djoser’s side and swiveled her head about, one hand resting on a sword hilt, watching for dangers. At the very least she would protect Djoser from undesirables, such as stupid plebs who lacked the sense to give them a wide berth. Unlike Sweet_Ting, Amanda was designed for dishing out pain and was not at all averse to shoving those whose offense was only mild and delivering debilitating hand jabs to those less fortunate. Brian also cleared groksters from their path, but he relied primarily on his broad shoulders, which mowed through the crowd like a plow through snowdrifts. He enjoyed this activity and secretly hoped for a small altercation that might require a brief demonstration of his other, more impressive skills.
Bringing up the rear were D_Light and Lily, who would have been left behind in the shifting throng of guests had they not determinedly shoved and stumbled behind as quickly as they could. More accurately, D_Light did the shoving while Lily slinked her way through the crowd like a mongoose, which was no easy feat given how distracted she was by the lounge scene. She had never seen anything like it.
The groksta-goers alone were a sight to see. Swarms of people were on the floor all around them. People were lined up on winding stairs that twirled their way high into the air, up toward the massive vaulted ceilings above. There were people on transparent-floored verandas, people who seemed to float on nothing, people on stages, people lying near an elaborate fountain, people everywhere doing everything. And how these people dressed! It was obvious that veils were allowed in this groksta, as many of the hairstyles and hats defied natural laws of physics. The clothing, both real and illusory, was outlandish in both volume and color. Accessories were random and odd, such as children’s toys or ancient building tools. Taken together, the scene reminded Lily of a dark vision she’d had one night when she was ill with a particularly bad strain of a hallucivirus.
And then there were the products. There was a giant rabbit so massive that a fully-grown woman was perched in a saddle on its back. The rabbit, however, did not move much. Thankfully, it was trained to not smother the people who were stroking it under its huge, furry rump. The woman did not seem to mind the rabbit’s docility. Perhaps it was enough for her to know that she was riding a rabbit, however slowly.
Lily caught glimpses of mermaids and mermen breaching a nearby stone-lined pond. Great gouts of water flew here and there, drenching onlookers who screamed and laughed. Genderless human-shaped figures without faces stumbled around with outstretched arms, stalking giggling groksters in a sort of perverse game of tag. Furry little snakelike creatures gently made their way throu
gh slumbering groksters, occasionally stopping to groom someone’s hair with their long, forked tongues.
All of this madness was contained in a chamber so terrifically immense it felt as though they were outdoors in the hot, moist evening of an alien world. Giant video screens adorned every wall. Some screens displayed performers in real time on stages sprinkled over the vast floor, while other screens assaulted the viewer with images and video of all kinds-some beautiful, some grotesque, and many more that Lily had no idea what to think of.
A woman was walking pointedly toward Lily. Aside from her face, she was skinned entirely as a leopard. Lily turned to press forward through the crowd, trying to catch up with the others, but she ran into a man in front of her. She made a motion to pass, but he quickly moved sideways and blocked her path. His hand came up toward her face, but she blocked it. Another hand reached out, and she slapped it aside. There was laughing from those who pressed around her and then more reaching and clawing. Finally, her veil was forced aside by someone. A man whose eyes shone like hot coals pressed in for a momentary peek. Upon seeing her, he gasped and took a step back. “My lady,” he said and bowed. The leopard woman curtsied. Others near her began bowing and murmuring. Lily hurried on her way.
Stag preserve me, they’re insane! she thought.
Eighty meters above the swarming floor, a small girl was perched atop a dro-vine throne. This was Love_Monkey, who was on watch duty for her father, Dr. Monsa. She enjoyed presiding over the lounge, the family groksta. It gave her an unobstructed opportunity to observe intelligent beings as they played out their dramas and comedies on the floor. Often, usually at least once a day, someone worth noting would grace the lounge. Tonight, it was the Middle Eastern woman trailing behind Sweet_Ting like a water-skier towed by a speedboat.
Love_Monkey was not interested in this woman because she was a celebrity. Being a celebrity, even a newly minted one, did not by itself earn one interest from a groksta hostess like Love_Monkey, who by now had even grown tired of A-listers. No, it was not who the woman was, but what she was that fascinated the daughter of Dr. Monsa, the most revered wetgineer on earth.
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