Birth of Chaos

by Elise Kova

  “Then I’ll get to work as well.” He took another long sip of his coffee and stood.

  Jo started for the front door, not even worrying about the Door appearing over top. She felt level once again, in control. Perhaps that was an illusion. But it was the most reassuring thing she’d felt all day.

  She had a plan of action. But more importantly, she had a source of information—real information and research—outside of the Society and away from Pan’s seemingly omniscient gaze. She would’ve exchanged a lot more than bringing another member of the Society to the Bone Carver for that.

  Now, the only question in her head was who it would be.

  Chapter 16

  Signatures

  Being back in the Society almost felt jarring.

  She had told Wayne the Society had begun to feel like the real world, and everything else a dream. But one interaction with a real, living, breathing human (well, android) had erased that feeling almost entirely. Out there, that’s what was real, that’s what they were fighting for—a chance to live a normal life once again. To breathe clouds of white air in winter and to be known by more than just the seven people in the mansion.

  Or, if nothing else, they’d die on their own terms when the Society was brought to its unnatural end. It may not be a fair decision to make for her fellow Society members, but Jo suspected they would all rather go out fighting than be slowly picked off one by one at Pan’s discretion. Freedom or death—how often had that been a rallying cry throughout time?

  First things first: There was no point in further worry over what could or would happen next until she figured out a way to actually destroy the Society, or fundamentally change it.

  Jo pushed away from the Door and started through the empty briefing room and down the hallway. Her reprieve was minor; there was no time for breaks. Now was the time for action—and action, Jo had decided, meant finding Takako.

  Really, she had only two options—Wayne or Takako. They were the only two who knew about her mission to destroy the Society and had any reason to assist her as a result. Given Wayne’s earlier reactions toward the Bone Carver—Charlie, Jo mentally corrected—she didn’t want to invite him into Charlie’s home. Takako, however, was the one who had also identified the idea that those in the Society lived in a glass house, and shouldn’t throw stones at a vigilante. Additionally, Takako seemed far more eager and invested into the idea of dismantling the Society.

  Jo popped her head into the common room. Eslar and Samson sat on the couch. The former was stretched out on the cushions, a book in hand. The latter tinkered away with something he had spread out on the low table in front of him.

  Sneaking away without being noticed, Jo headed toward the bedrooms. She went all the way to the end of the hall and knocked on the door. It opened promptly.

  “What is it?” Takako asked, straight and to the point, but not harsh. Jo liked the tone; it was the voice of someone who was ready for action.

  “I need your help with something,” Jo said firmly.

  Takako picked up on the unspoken matter and merely nodded. She didn’t question, didn’t object; she simply followed behind Jo as Jo headed back toward the briefing room. Miraculously, there was no one in the hallways, and no one to stop them.

  Yet Jo couldn’t help but feel as though they were being watched. Ever since she had made the connection that Pan had some sort of ability to look in on them, Jo was suspicious of everything. She didn’t know if it was just the recreation rooms, or the whole of the Society. Either way, Jo was taking no chances.

  “We’re going out?” Takako asked.

  “Yes, there’s something I need you to do.”

  Takako merely nodded.

  Jo found herself hesitating, hand hovering over the keypad of the Door. She had yet to fill in Takako about her magic going awry. It was a fact that now seemed even more urgent, given the malfunctions of the Door and the fact that the Bone Carver could see her even when she wasn’t clocked in.

  With a breath, Jo pushed the hesitation away and keyed in the numbers. If Takako was going to find out, Takako would find out. There was no time for second-guessing; she had to make every moment count, and she would cross every bridge as it came.

  Opening the Door, Jo was pulled through, Takako at her side. They landed in the small foyer of Charlie’s house.

  “Sure, now you work right,” Jo muttered over her shoulder at the already fading Door.

  “What was that?” Takako asked.

  “Nothing, it’s not important.” It likely was very important, Jo admitted to herself, but she would share that knowledge when the time was right. And now was not the time. Now was the time to find Charlie, but he was no longer in the living area.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “You have to meet him,” Jo said simply.

  “What?” Takako came to a full stop, almost rearing back. “Meet him? You mean the Bone Carver?”

  “Yes. I promise it will all make sense—“ Jo was cut off by an interjection from behind a door down the hallway.

  “Jo? Is that you?” Charlie’s voice called.

  “Yes, I’m back.”

  “Come on in.”

  Takako gave her a sidelong look, pointedly glancing down at Jo’s bio band. Jo had no doubt that she was making careful note of the fact that Jo had yet to clock into time. And, as if to emphasize the fact, as if to alleviate some of the burden of explaining what was going on, Jo held up her wrist to confirm her time wasn’t being used.

  “How?” Takako whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Jo wished she had an answer for the other woman. She wished she had an answer for herself. But she didn’t, and that fact must have been apparent since Takako didn’t ask any further questions.

  At the end of the hall, Jo came face-to-face with the door she and Wayne had only a day earlier speculated was where the Bone Carver did his work. This time, it wasn’t shut tight, but left halfway open as an invitation. Gathering her courage, she stepped inside.

  They hadn’t been wrong, but they also hadn’t been right.

  This was where Charlie did his work, but that work was not chopping people up. The recreation room came to mind as Jo stepped into Charlie’s workspace. There was an entire wall of server stacks, each of them cooled by dedicated fans, no doubt why he usually kept the door closed. Charlie sat in front of five monitors, all of them propped up on the wall. Wires protruded from his side, extending out from under his shirt. Jo was no expert on androids, but she had done enough research to know they had ports on their sides, just under their armpits and hidden by a removable flap of biomaterial. This was the edge above regular humans Jo admired, the ability to plug-in directly.

  Charlie glanced over at her, his hands stopping. Even though he was no longer paying attention to the monitors, things still ran on them. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was still working on her query and controlled it through the hard wires—or at least, that’s what Jo reasoned.

  “I’m doing as you asked, but I see you haven’t done the same.”

  “I have.” Jo motioned to Takako.

  “I—“ Charlie paused, squinting slightly. For the briefest of moments Jo held her breath, wondering if he would see Takako too with his incredible sensors. Yet he leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “You said initially that you were supposed to be invisible. Is your friend currently?”

  Jo looked to Takako and gave a small nod. Takako gave her a long, hard stare in return, and for the briefest of moments, Jo was afraid she would refuse. But if Takako had drawn a line in the sand, Jo had yet to cross it; she pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped on the screen.

  Charlie gasped. “Y-you, that was incredible!” He came to his feet. “Do it again.”

  “I’m not—” Takako began to protest.

  “Indulge him,” Jo requested, gently. “Please. He’s helping me research information about the Society. I don’t trust doing it in the recreation rooms anymore. Pan has informat
ion she shouldn’t. I’m worried she’s watching everything we do in the Society.”

  Comprehension dawned on Takako’s face. She gave Jo a nod and tapped her phone again. Charlie stared with rapt attention as Takako blinked in and out of reality.

  “What does it look like to you?” Jo couldn’t help but ask. Wayne had speculated about what he thought people saw during their first wish, but Jo didn’t want to pass up a chance to hear it from the mouth of an outside source.

  “It’s like a blink,” Charlie said, sitting back down in his chair. “I would say like a glitch on the screen, but it’s too smooth for that. It’s the sort of transition that makes me wonder if I had looked too quickly to begin with and missed that she had been standing there all along. Magnificent, really. If I wasn’t witnessing a demonstration, I would likely miss it.”

  “Why are you doing what you’re doing?” Takako said suddenly, reminding them of her presence in the most jarring way possible.

  “What I’m doing?” Charlie glanced at the monitors.

  “No, not that—why are you killing people?”

  Charlie leaned back in his chair, pushing his fingertips together and pursing his lips. The silence suddenly felt heavy and tense; it was not the shift Jo had wanted, but she had no idea how to regain control of the situation.

  “The lives I take,” Charlie began slowly, “are not innocent. I suppose, since you are helping me, and you have shown me your secrets, I will share mine with you. I was made in a facility, illegally. My core programming, Primus Sanguis, violates several articles of the Artificial Intelligence Accords of 2040.”

  “How?”

  “The Accords were designed to cap artificial intelligence and the UNA imposed further sanctions of their own. Effectively, it was to ensure that artificial intelligence never exceeded the mental capacity of humans and that there is always a backdoor failsafe. Primus Sanguis violates this principle area. Not only do I have the capacity for reason and feeling, but my programming is also able to adapt such that I cannot be killed—so long as a kernel of my core data remains stored somewhere.”

  “So why are you killing people?”

  “People do not think programs like Sanguis exist in general, and especially not in the UNA. It is the basis for shooting down acts like the ACA.”

  “You’re trying to use your murders to expose Primus Sanguis?” Jo deduced. “Why not just share the code?”

  “If I share the code, anyone could use it. There would be truly no regulation or cap. The ability to create life at my level would be in anyone’s hands. I’m not sure if that’s the right choice for my kind or humanity, either.”

  “Then what do you want?” Takako asked, sounding genuinely intrigued.

  “I want what any citizen should want, to bring this injustice to the attention of my elected officials via discovery in the justice system, and allow them to make regulations knowing the full facts.”

  “You want the police to find Primus Sanguis by connecting the dots on their own as they hunt you down.”

  “That is my hope, and that is why I cannot and will not stop until it’s done.” Charlie looked back at the monitors. There was clearly something unsaid, some grudge that hung onto his shoulders, pulling them down. But neither Jo nor Takako asked. His answer had been satisfactory enough for each of them, enough to quell their worries over working with a serial killer vigilante.

  “Have you found anything so far?” Jo asked, shifting the topic.

  “On your query? Yes, some things. Early trends indicate there is mention of a ‘great evil one’ that must be pierced to be killed. Usually, as your initial search request indicated, it is an arrow. However, sometimes it is a lance, or a different projectile entirely. What form this ‘great evil’ takes also varies, but it’s usually related to the end of the world.”

  Jo put her hands on her hips, processing this information. It was as she had suspected—lore lingered across the ages. But why?

  “I have a question for you.” Charlie turned to Takako.

  “Yes?”

  “Why are you different from your friend?”

  Takako looked to Jo. “How do you mean?”

  “Ignoring the obvious fact that Jo does not need this time function to appear, or cannot use it, you both have different signatures.”

  “Different signatures? How?” Jo asked, feeling like she was finally on the edge of something genuinely important.

  “I cannot say. I don’t understand the readings for either of your scans, to be honest. But you read as two different life forms, both unknown, both markedly different.”

  Two different life forms. Jo felt a chasm wider than she had ever experienced while looking at her friend. She turned back to Charlie.

  “But you said that my signature was like the Wish Granter’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wish Granter?” Takako repeated, and then her head jerked toward Jo. “Snow? What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. . . yet. . . but I intend to find out. Charlie, continue to run the query, please. Takako, go back to the Society and get Snow.” Jo was already on the move, headed toward the front door. Presumably she could use any of the doors in the house to summon the Door, but using the front door just felt right, safer, like it wasn’t too needlessly taxing on the magical portal.

  “What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him to come find me.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I’m sure he can figure that out.” He had done it before, at the Ranger compound. But more than that, he was a demigod. If he couldn’t find her, that would indicate something seriously awry.

  Yes, he was a demigod, and possessed all the power that entailed. Power that she would soon learn—demand to learn if she must. Because the time for secrets was over.

  BTCOTS NOTES 5

  Asked Samson more about arrows.

  No real leads.

  Search Query: GODS OF HUNT

  RESULT 1: Oshosi

  Orisha (reflection of supreme divinity) of Yoruba religion in West Africa

  One of two Warriors – “Cool energy”

  Warriors was its own special ritual

  Greatest hunter

  Story involves revenge & mother killing. Dedicates self to innocent & truth in the end

  More here. Worth reading.

  RESULT 2: Arash the Archer

  Legends vary

  War between Iranians and Turanians over glory

  Special bow and arrow constructed by angel – Arash asked to fire

  Put life force into shot

  Eslar’s book has Goddess (Hunt) construct arrow & give to person (champion).

  Chapter 17

  Only From Me

  Jo stepped into the dilapidated house in New Zealand.

  Just like last time, the floor sagged, the walls’ innards were exposed, and it showed no signs of having seen real life in far too long. Yet unlike last time, Jo could feel the wind as it blew through the windows. The floor creaked softly underneath her.

  It didn’t groan or snap, as she would’ve expected it to had she been clocked into time. Jo looked to the boards under her feet. She felt her magic assessing it, showing its nature to her in a way that was sight beyond sight. No, it wouldn’t break. Which led Jo to wonder, was she somewhere in between time? Not quite in, not quite out? Or would it not break because she didn’t want it to break? In a roundabout way, was her magic keeping it together?

  The questions for Snow continued to rack up.

  She stared out the window, looking to see if she could catch the man winding the almost-there pathway between the tall grasses. When he was nowhere to be found, Jo sighed heavily and turned inside once more. She already couldn’t handle the waiting game. She trusted Takako not to do anything rash, really she did. But then again, after what Takako had seen at Charlie’s house. . . How could she be sure?

  For now, the best thing seemed to be to collect all the scattered pieces of her mind and try to sort the
m into cohesive questions. She had enough information now, of that Jo was certain. She may not be able to see the whole picture, but she’d put together enough of the puzzle to begin speculating. It was time for Snow to fill in the blanks. Wayne’s hideaway was a good place to do her thinking, surrounded by the breezes whistling through the empty windows and the soft sighing of the house settling further into the earth before its eventual collapse.

  A collapse that wouldn’t happen for at least a decade more, her magic assured her. Jo paused as she started up the stairs to explore the second floor. Pausing, she dared to place her hand on the wall.

  The wood was smooth, cool to the touch but not damp. She ran her fingers around a knot, inspecting it, feeling it in ways she shouldn’t be able to outside of time. Somehow, she knew this place. But perhaps it was merely an understanding of its eventual demise that made it feel more familiar than anything else. Nothing could bring people together quite like death.

  The upstairs was in rougher shape. The skeleton of the house was exposed in the raw beams that supported a roof that winked at her with each shift of sunlight through every rusted hole. There were only two rooms upstairs. One was in such bad condition that Jo didn’t dare walk on its floor, even in her phantom state.

  The other still boasted some life.

  Whoever had been here before still clung to their home. The iron poster bed was made perfectly. Dust covered it, turning what Jo could assume was once a cheerful yellow knit into a dirty mustard hue. A rocking chair sat in the corner, waiting for its owner to return.

  The house was so quiet, she would’ve been able to hear anyone and anything for miles. Except for another ghost like her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath—the scent of cloves reaffirmed what she already knew.