Server Extant

'Every single politician should be shot.’

-Everyone, everywhere, all the time

Morghain passed through the inner honeycomb of the block. The place seemed underpopulated. It was designed to provide a defending force with choke and ambush points, which made it a little slow to get through. That was frustrating, considering that every minute she was delayed was another that the council could hear the news. The council members were big believers in the innate rationality and goodness of their enemies but had, apparently, nothing but contempt for their countrymen, so they most commonly assumed that any difficulties their diplomacy encountered were the product of obstructers within their own camp. As a frequently-denounced obstructer herself, Morghain did not have much anticipation of a favorable hearing, but Orm help them all if the news about Epsilon hit and there was no voice from outside their bubble to argue caution.

The council was the nominal governing body of Extant. Despite the general derision with which it was treated, it wasn’t powerless. It controlled the Block, which was a mighty weapon as well as a fortress. It had the Peacekeepers and, to a varying degree, the support of a large number of regular citizens who preferred bad governance to no governance. However, as one proceeded towards the outer rings of the city, its authority waned and that of the clans became stronger, until a state of Hobbsean brutality was arrived at, in the furthest outreaches of the city. This dynamic hadn’t been planned, it had arisen naturally. It made it possible for a citizen of Kys-1 to choose their preferred degree of order vs. liberty, thus establishing a rough parity between kultura and gamer, lending stability to the Extant’s civ and sparing it the violent upheavals which had destroyed so many others.

As she hurried anxiously along, not daring to go too fast, least she make a wrong turn and waste more time, Morghain was ambushed.

‘Morghain!’ yelled Dawn, leaping from a corridor.

‘Hi Dawn’ sighed Morghain.

Dawn’s Id was exaggeratedly female, with gravity-immune breasts that were like beach balls. It had spiky anime-like hair, which looked good in 2D but was hard to pull off in 3. Morghain hated Dawn’s look, because it was basically a lunatic’s mirror to her own. Dawn was currently obsessed with Morghain, and was vampiricly, if incompetently, absorbing her essence. She frequently locked onto people in this manner, but the infatuation generally soured into hate and a subsequent, six-month harassment campaign.

‘Morghain, I’m under attack!’ she yelled as she fell in beside the hurrying ranker.

‘Okay, well, I’m sure if you talk it out with people you’ll find they didn’t meant to offend you..’ replied Morghain, vaguely, trying to outpace her.

‘Do you know what it’s like to be a rape victim? I can’t even talk about my trauma because my emotions aren’t validated! Nobody listens to me without judgment!’

‘Dawn, people saying mean things to you on social media is not rape.’

’Sexual assault is not graded on a curve! Zero tolerance is the only standard!’

‘I don’t want to get in a pity-party, okay?’

‘Fuck you, you ableist bitch!’

‘Dawn-’

‘I’m sorry, but I just feel like you’re my last friend! Why won’t you help me when I’m in pain? Why does nobody in this shitty world care!’

‘I’ve told you I’m happy to be your friend, if you want one, but I don’t think you want one.’

‘They tore me up from the inside out! They destroyed me! I survived seventeen suicide attempts because of those fucks and none of them have even shown any idea that they know that they did something wrong! Why can’t you acknowledge me?’

‘Dawn, if you’re going to make demands- wait a minute.’ Morghain stared deep into the face of her accoster.

‘Ha ha!’ said Pulsating Rodney, more commonly known as ‘PRod’, popping out if the lip of the gallery, ‘I got you!’

As if switched off, ‘Dawn’ turned from Morghain and hurried off into the maze.

‘You asshole!’ said Morghain.

‘You like my Dawnbot? I’ve got, like, ten people with it today. You twigged pretty early. Darth Consumer tried to talk it out of committing suicide for about fifteen minutes.’

‘I don’t have time for your shit today, Dawn!’ An exasperated yell came from somewhere in the depths of a nearby corridor.

‘Ha ha!’ said PRod.

‘Okay, gotta go’ said Morghain, taking off.

PRod fell in beside her. ‘I’ll come with you!’ he said, ’To that place you’re going. Which is, purely by coincidence, the place I was going.’

‘How do you get it to recognize people?’ asked Morghain, meaning the Dawnbot.

‘Voice cog and facial.’

‘How did you record the voice?’

‘I didn’t, it’s simmed. That’s why it’s so responsive. The replies aren’t canned, they’re put together by a verbal heuristic, in response to the target’s statements.’

‘That’s clever’ admitted Morghain. ‘All your intelligence, Rod, wasted on stupid bullshit. You’re like a living metaphor for online culture.’

‘That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.’

’Where the fuck is everybody?’asked Morghain, anxiously scanning the empty chambers as they passed, ‘This place is empty.’

‘Council’s closed, if that’s where we’re headed. Peacekeepers ringed it off. And they haven’t been letting anyone through the firewall, almost.’

‘Then how did you get in?’

‘I never left.’

Morghain stopped. ‘Isn’t there supposed to be an all-committee today?’

‘Don’t think so. But they are doing something.’

Morghain wondered if she’d been sent a fake meeting notification for some nefarious purpose. Well, no point worrying now. They were coming up to a concentric slipway that led down to the spiraling audience chamber, the seat of Kys-1’s power. Sort of. The round mouth of the access was almost perfectly filled, however, by the massive shape of a Peacekeeper.

‘Sorry’ it said, ‘you’re not on the list, Morghain.’

‘I received a notification!’

‘I’m not in charge of notifications’ it replied, ‘I’m in charge of telling people they’re not on the list, which is almost everybody, including you.’

‘Oh no?’ said Morghain, ‘What if I- turn around, Rod!’ she ordered. PRod dutifully turned to face the other direction. ‘What if I did this?’ Morghain lifted her hand and signed three cryptograms with her fingers, in the gamer’s finger language. SWIFT. TEMPLE. GRAVITY.

‘Oh’, whispered the peacekeeper and stood aside.

‘What did you do?’ asked PRod, having watched through his chase cam, and knowing exactly what she’d done.

‘Never mind. Come on.’

‘Ever thought that we should hang out more?’ said PRod, as they hurried downward. ‘And by that, I’m broadly hinting at a sexual relationship.’

‘I thought you were gay.’

‘I am. I just always assumed you were a man.’

Morghain couldn’t help but smile. ‘You’re funny, I guess’ she acknowledged, ‘That goes a way.’

‘Exactly the thing I’d like to go with you.’

‘And then you get creepy.’

‘I’m an autistic dork. You are too, Morghain.’

‘Shh,’ said Morghain, and smiled again. ‘People think I’m cool.’

They hurried on.

* * *

Hidden in a crenelation above the black abyss of the firewall moat, the two spies lurked, snug as pesticide-resistant lice in a beehive hair-do. The scanner they had humped all the way from the outer strip was set up and surveilling the firewall, displaying the mathematical geometry underlining their illusionary world. Against a black field, the firewall was a dense tessellation of white wire-frames, studded with denser blocks that were weapons. The boolean was visible, too, as a negative space amid the clutter, and the bridge that extended from it. At the opening, three hulking figures stood, about three meters high, the peacekeepers. Very little traffic crossed the bridge but, occasionally, an articulated figure, animated in delicate wire-frame, would move across, pause in conversation with the peacekeepers, and enter the boolean. They’d just watched Morghain enter, after a short conversation with the sentries, and added it to their log. 15:02, Entered -Morghain -Clan boss. There weren’t many others. The spies were already tiring of the job. Getting here had been dangerous fun, but the actual spying was boring.

‘Do you think Luke Skywalker banged his sister?’ asked the first spy.

‘Of course.’

‘Really?’

‘Dude!’ replied the other, ’Blowing up a Deathstar is like the ultimate turn-on for chicks. Everyone thinks they’re gonna die, and suddenly they’re not, due to the actions of a humble, yet heroic, moisture farmer. Leia’s up there, all smiling, regal, pinning on the medals. But inside, she’s thinking ‘I am fucking this dude to-ni-i-i-ight..!’

’That makes sense.’

’Yeah. And, afterwards, he finds out she’s his sister, and he’s like, ’Woah..! The force shoulda given me a heads-up on that one.’ And everyone’s like, ‘asshole, the force did!’ You just ignored it. Ghost Obie’s like ‘Lu-u-uke! Don’t do-o it! She’s your si-i-i-ster!’ he’s like, ’what’s that, some ghost voice? Can’t make out what it’s saying.”

’Yeah. Then she’s all like, ‘I was never into Luke. I was into hansom Han’.′

‘Exactly. And everyone pretends it didn’t happen. Until years later, when we discover Kylo Ren’s their retarded incest son.’

‘Who’s Kylo Ren?’

‘Hello!’ interrupted his partner, ‘Something’s up.’

Zoomed in, the scanliner revealed heavy Kysairon Ids moving onto the bridge. The forms of the kingpins were so dense, the mesh so compacted, that they appeared to be almost like white silhouettes among the sparser wire-frames of the other bodies and structures.

‘Kingpins,’ said the first spy. ‘Looks like.. Cubist, Hammerziet, Lopslide, 7P.. can’t make out the other three.. there’s lots of rankers and roaches. Oh yeah there’s Carnivous.’

The kingpin’s tall, weirdly-horned form stalked out, ahead of the mass. They adjusted the zoom and framed in closer on the entry point, the perspective compressing to a long-lens flatness.

‘Fuck me,’ laughed the first spy, ‘look at those monsters! Nine million verts each, minimum. Can’t hardly see through Carnivous. He almost looks super-compressed.’

It didn’t seem possible to super-compress an entire Id, with all its associated complexities, such as rigging and player control, not to mention terrifically dangerous, but the spy knew enough about Carnivous not to put anything past him. If nothing else, it would be a good way of converting his body into a gigantically destructive suicide bomb.

‘Look at the Peacekeepers!’ laughed the second spy. ‘They’re shit-scared.’

* * *

On the bridge, the representatives of Extant’s thin veneer of law and order were attempting to reason with unreason. The three Peacekeepers, powerful but far less dense than the clan bosses, did seem to be almost defensive in their posture. One raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

‘Alright fellers, you know the rules’ it said, ‘I can’t let you in armed. Also-’

‘Carnivous does not converse with peons,’ interrupted 7P, ‘or so I assume, because he does not converse with me either.’

‘Out of the way’ growled Lopslide.

‘Also-’ said the peacekeeper.

‘Let’s kill him’ said Cubist.

The peacekeeper considered his options. He could close the Boolean, but that would leave him and his companions on the wrong side of the firewall, with multiple clan bosses and a large contingent of their supporting rabble, all of whom were heavily armed and susceptible to mob psychosis. It seemed a waste to lose three expensive Ids just to keep a jackass like Carnivous out of the People’s House. He tried again.

‘I can let you in,’ he explained, ‘but everyone has the same responsibility; to surrender all weapons or effect-generating devices-’

‘Seriously,’ sighed Cubist, ‘let’s tag these bloaters and go in, I’m getting bored. I hate being bored. It’s why I flunked seminary.’

‘You got five seconds dude,’ said Lopslide, flatly. ‘Talky time is over.’

The lead peacekeeper looked at the crowd. Talky time was, indeed, over. He was staring into the bored, twitch-dead eyes of unreformable deathmatchers, each racking, digitally-speaking, higher body counts than Joseph Stalin. In five seconds (three now) they’d attack and Carnivous would be stepping into the council circle anyway, over their burning corpses. Unless he closed the boolean. But it seemed pointless and, after all, the bosses were representatives of the clans and supposed to be part of the government. Was he even allowed to ban them?

The lead peacekeeper decided to just let the them in and be optimistic about the odds of them massacring the entire civil administration of Extant.

‘Alright’ he said, standing aside. I’ll be damned, though, he thought, glancing past the kingpins, if this rabble is going in with them.

Carnivous strode into the channel of negative space that cut through the firewall, followed by his peers. As soon as they were through, the lead peacekeeper deleted the boolean modifier and the gap in the wall began to close. There was an immediate upwelling of outrage from the following mob, but the balance of terror had shifted.

‘THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ASSEMBLY!’ blared the lead peacekeeper, jacking his volume to full and blasting the crowd with it. ‘GET OFF THE BRIDGE BEFORE I RETRACT IT AND DUMP THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU INTO THE CHASM!’ As he issued this threat, he and his companion’s torsos parted into multiple sections and unfolded into a wall of blunt-nosed weapons. The roaches, who had little to lose, jeered and whooped like electro-shocked chimpanzees, brandishing firearms, but the rankers, who comprised the forefront of the column, were not nearly so keen to test law-and-order’s bluff. They were jammed, in a single column, directly in front of the defender’s weapons. To their left and right was an effectively bottomless drop. All this added up to a bad tactical position, and roaches did not advance to become rankers by picking fights on shitty odds.

With a great deal of cursing and face-saving threats, the gamers gave way to the advancing peacekeepers, until they were off the bridge.

* * *

As they drew close to the central amphitheater, Morghain and PRod could hear voices arguing.

‘We’ve had server monopolists before, but nothing like Motor. He could take over most of Knet.’ echoed one.

‘You’re exaggerating. He’s a clown. He’ll implode’ came another, faint and hollow.

‘He’s been about to implode for five years now’ came the first voice, growing louder as they approached. ‘Just before he took over Kaligo he was about to implode. Just before he took over H.U.L he was about to implode. I got news for you. He’s not going to implode. And even if he does, what good does that do, if he’s all ready rolled over us? If you’re serious about waiting for him to take care of himself, then you’re only logical strategy is to buy time.’

‘Exactly! And we do that with diplomacy. Keep him talking.’

‘No, we do that by going out and contesting his staging points!’ came a new voice. ‘Keep him busy fighting us on the boundaries he can’t stage up enough to make a run our home server.’

’Do you know how ridiculous you sound with all this ‘gamer’ talk? What do you think, that you’re in the military?’

‘That’s just going to piss him off,’ protested another, ‘and give him the excuse he needs.’

‘Excuse! He’s a conqueror! He doesn’t need an excuse!’

‘Even if that’s what you think, you need to speak to those deep-thinkers in the clans and tell them otherwise, because provoking him without deterring him is the worst thing we could do.’

Morghain came out from under the lip of the lower chamber, to see the owner of this voice was Devin Ryan, the head of sixteen important committees and therefor the nominal ‘leader’ of Kys-1. Ryan was a R1 pseudo-celebrity for rigging every part of his house with 24-hour internet feeds, allowing people to see every sordid detail of his overweight and pointless life. As the self-made star of a one-man reality show, he had pioneered a style of spectacle that was weirdly comprised of both abject abasement and exhibitionist egotism. While most Knet Ids were customized and modded into shapes that reflected the kultura or personalities of their owners, Ryan’s Id was an almost perfect representation of his R1 self, down to the porcine hairlessness and receding chin.

On Knet he was more commonly referred to as the Fat Controller.

‘And why aren’t any clan reps here?’ demanded an Id that looked like a tall shadow with hair made of fire. This was D00mcaster, a member of the war faction. ‘So you can tell them that yourself? Did you not invite them?’

‘No we didn’t. What good would that do?’ replied The FC. ‘The decision’s made, you are outvoted.’

‘It’s up to you to convince the clans to be patient,’ interjected another, ‘do that, and maybe you can get off-charter.’

Morghain saw that the concentric, ascending audience chamber was mostly empty, save for fifty or so councilors. They seemed to comprise of only of War Party or Peace Party members, with no other factions represented. There were no Anarcho-Pugilists, UNITYLOVEHOPE members, Dime-turners, P.H.R.E.A.K.I.S.H, Olmet’s Conscience, the Community Reason And Perseverance zealots, The Why Can’t We Have Sex With Animals Analysis and Support Group, Pantifa, Dehiearchy, Plutohierachy, Commando League of Women Voters, or Heterosexual Recruitment Initiative (HRI) representatives at all. There was a single exception, One Party Pat (1PP), a member of a faction comprising only of himself, was present, sitting at the back of the rows.

‘Well, I’m here, at least,’ she said, stepping into the light (there was no undramatic way to do it), ’and I’ll answer for the clans. Perhaps, to start, you can explain why a so-called ‘all-party’ committee contains so few parties.’

Morghain’s arrival was not met warmly.

‘Morghain’, said the Fat Controller, ‘you were not included in the admittees list.’

‘Then why was I sent a notification?’ asked Morghain, realizing why, even she asked; so she could be snubbed at the door. These people were that fucking petty. ‘Never mind,’ she continued, ‘why are only two parties present in an all-committee meeting? Well, two plus Pat.’

‘Because we’re here to discus a serious issue,’ replied the FC, ‘and we need serious people to do it.’

‘Oh I get it. War and Peace, plus One P-P, and you have fifty percent. So, presuming you ballot unanimously, you can vote something through without the other parties support.’

‘We did more than that,’ replied D00mcaster, ’we voted them right off the fucking island. We are the council now.’

‘What?’ said Morghain, shocked, but also wondering why no one had thought of it before. Probably because it was impossible to get fifty percent of the council to agree to anything. ‘What do the other factions think about it?’

‘Nothing, because they don’t know yet.’

‘What?’

‘We had no choice,’ interjected a blue-skinned, Buddha-like individual, called Bing Giant. ‘We had to act, Morghain, to cut though the lunacy. To save ourselves and this server.’

Morghain looked up the sweep of the rising benches and saw few friends. The Block’s governing body was a zoo at the best of times, beset by an ever-metastasizing plague of factions. Every kind of lunacy flourished within, it made the Mad Hatter’s tea party look like the blessed fields of sunlight and reason. Rather than a multi-cameral system that held the governing process to predictable rules, the council used a system of self-evoluting committees, that could form themselves and challenge other committees in making policy. It was supposed to create an organic, problem-solving system, a legislative neural network. Its creator, BongHitz358 had assured the proto-democratic voting mass, which had compromised Kys-1’s population at the time, that his radical system of anarcho-syndicacization would revolutionize, not just human governance, but the human race. Moved by his eloquence, a consensus had emerged; that, if a body of people, selected by nothing more than their willingness to dream of a better world, could take no leap of faith, in the constitution of that new society’s governance, then there was little hope for mankind. The system was duly voted up and implemented.

A second consensus formed shortly after; that BongHitz358 was a fucking idiot. But by then it was too late.

‘Well, unfortunately, I have some news for you all-’ said Morghain.

‘I still have the floor, ’ said D00mcaster. ‘You never gaveled me out. So I say-’

‘You’re gaveled out!’ snapped the Fat Controller, striking the gavel. ‘Answer the question, Morghain!’

‘You didn’t ask a question.’

‘Oh I thought we did.’

‘Anyway’ continued Morghain, I came here with news-’

‘Holy fucking bloody Johnnie!’ gasped AnkhBiter, a peace faction delegate. It was AnkhBiter’s habit to affect a fake British accent in all his conversations, which drove his fellow members insane. His nickname around the council was J.H, short for ‘Justifiable Homicide’. ‘Gable says we just blew up Epsilon server’s junction! We de-affiliated Epsilon from P-Fed! They’re saying its a bally act of war!’

‘Yes! That’s what I’ve-’ said Morghain.

‘Traitor!’ yelled an elongated, girafoid human, at Morghain. The polymorphic congregation heaved with rage and profanity.

‘I didn’t know anything about it!’ yelled Morghain.

‘Fuck her up right now!’ called a member of the mob.

‘May she be as a ghost amongst us, outcast and accursed, let all turn against her and seek her doom!’ yelled someone else, displaying a more poetic turn of phrase.

’Order, order, order, order!′ yelled the FC. ‘Don’t make me get peacekeepers in here! We won’t have lynchings done in the council circle! This is a senate, not a Colosseum!’

The ear-cracking noise of Lopslide’s big, ten thousand point kinetic emitter, fired into the air of the chamber, cut the commotion short.

‘It’s generally a poor augury for democracy, when civic meetings are brought to order by firing a gun’ said Lopslide.

The four kingpins, flanking Carnivous in a rough phalanx, had appeared at the rim of the chamber. They moved to the floor. The mob quieted.

‘You’re not supposed to bring weapons into the circle,’ said the Fat Controller, enraged, yet managing to sound petty and querulous.

‘We forgot’ said Hammerziet.

‘We had nothing to do with Epsilon’ said Cubist.

‘Nobody has yet accused you of that!’ yelled the Fat Controller.

‘Then I hope you don’t find it suspicious that I brought it up’ said Cubist.

The four kingpins came to a halt at the base of the council dais. All eyes were on them. Carnivous tilted his head slightly to the right and spoke in his cold, heavy voice.

‘Minion, communicate my demands.’

‘I’m not your minion, ’ said Lopslide, ‘and they’re not demands. But okay.’ He straightened up and addressed the council. ‘We, the free peoples of Kys-One, declare it our intention to defend ourselves from all aggressors, external and internal. To this purpose we declare: you can join us in martial brotherhood, daring your honor with our own, or withdraw behind your walls, leaving us to do what we must.’

The crowd was silent, expecting to hear more, but it seemed that was it. As manifestos went, Morghain thought, it was succinct.

‘You don’t speak for the people!’ yelled the Fat Controller. ‘We do, because we are elected. We don’t-’

Carnivous produced an object and tossed it onto the floor before the Council Dais. The red tile of a junction box core.

‘It’s war’ he said, indifferently. He turned, and with the others, and stalked sway from the dais.

Hesitating, but seeing little choice, Morghain went with them. Either way, she was going to be branded a traitor and, if everything was about to go to shit, it was probably safer to side with the people who had the guns. She saw PRod, who had sensibly remained in the shadows, giving her a ‘nice job’ thumbs-up from the recesses. Asshole.

Thus Morghain turned her back on democracy, probably for good, this time, and strode, with her fellow fighters, under the arch and out of the council circle.