Chapter 37

A Cyber Phantom is an immensely rare occurrence, and almost exclusively occurs to Circuit Mages, with few exceptions. There is a great deal of debate about whether a Cyber Phantom is a mortal soul trapped in cyberspace or simply a digital copy and manifestation of a subject’s memories and personality. Is a Cyber Phantom still a person if it’s just a copy of a dead person’s identity?

“Lesson time, kiddos.” Navor said with a knowing smirk. “Your idea of using our little mister turncoat as a triple agent is thinking in the right direction. Maverick’s suspicions of spy bugs are also likely on the money. His idea of making a scene of throwing out our spy and taking his almost-definitely bugged therra was a smart choice. Maverick, explain your reasoning to the class. We have half an hour.”

“Half an hour till what?” Ferris asked.

“Till Ozwald is back.” Zynna filled in.

“What? But we just threw him out.” Ferris asked, only more confused.

“We’ll get to that in a sec. First, Iver, reasoning.” Navor said.

I walked over and took a seat on Navor’s bed as I talked out my reasoning, processing everything as I spoke. “Well, Oz had said that Weaver had been blackmailing him with things that the phantom shouldn’t have known. That told me right there that at the very least, his therra was tapped with likely both video and audio feeds back to our cyber-stalker. This means that Weaver is well aware that his plan to dispose of Oz went down the drain and that Oz spilled his guts to us. So if we had willingly kept him with us after he spilled his story, Weaver would just use him and his devices as a tap to monitor us at least. Weaver might also blackmail Oz into making another stupid attempt on one of our lives. Since we made a big show of being upset at the realization of Ozwald’s facts and throwing him out, Weaver can’t use him to get at us, expecting him to be leaving the city. Master Navor supposedly sending him back to the Academy and keeping him under strict watch makes Weaver think that Ozwald has just been removed from the board and can’t be used.”

“In short, sending him away keeps him safe, and prevents the phantom from trying to use him again.” Nennel summarized.

Navor pointed to my borg sister with a grin. “Five points, Darrdane. Now it’s your turn, Missy. Why would make a show of sending him away without his therra and give him a jump-port key, hinting at its home port?”

“Asking the hard questions, Master." Nel teasingly commented with her own smirk as she started to pick up on the pattern. “You said all of that before sealing his therra, telling this Weaver ghost-guy-thing what you wanted him to hear. That means Weaver is expecting Ozwald to head straight for the TTZ. But without Oz’s therra, Weaver would have track him to the TTZ by other means.”

“What kind of means would some dead guy in cyberspace have?” Demierra asked.

I answered our Dracose Fury’s question. “Weaver had let slip to me that he is or was a Circuit Mage, if you remember me saying that earlier. Use that big brain, Demi. What can Circuits do?”

Demierra eyed me suspiciously for a second. “That’s the second time, you’ve used that nickname. You calling me a friend, Iver?”

I panicked at the question, not even realizing that I had used a nickname not once but twice. But before I could answer her, Navor brought us back on task. “Focus, Flametongue. What can Circuits do?”

The Fury cocked her head in thought. “I don’t know much ‘bout them. They use those deck computer-thingys for superhacking, I guess. But like I said, I don’t know much ‘bout the class. I’m not exactly a big-brain-kinda girl.”

Zynna stepped up to elaborate. “Circuit Mages are one of the more recent additions to the official class list. They can use Fire and Air Myst as Voltreonic Current, or Lightning if you’d rather, along with Chaos Myst, Morphic Myst, Resonance Myst, and Distortion Myst. But they can only use them in small amounts. Before the digital age, they were thought to be a form of subcaster, like Dyads, such as myself. But, the class became acknowledged as a full Mage type after the First Cyber War.”

“History is all well and good, Miermor. But we need facts that matter in the moment.” Navor gently chided.

Zynna shot the Master a defiant look. “I was getting there. Circuits got recognized when it was realized that their low-power/high-precision control of myst allowed them to manipulate digital code. Circuits can inject their consciousness into cyberspace like how we can Full-Dive today, but they can mess around with program code like it’s clay. So, if this Weaver lives permanently in cyberspace, he can control anything linked to the LSN. So he would follow Ozwald using street cameras and other cameras with a view of the streets.”

“Very good, Miermor.” Navor gave soft applause.

“I guess there is a brain under all that attitude.” I teased.

“Shut it, horn head, before I put an Umbra Bolt in your good leg.” She replied. I quietly didn’t mention that it might not do anything, given how myst had been working on my body.

“Focus chitlins.” Navor chided me and Zynna before dramatically pointing a finger at Kharmor. “Quiet one. Time to participate, Gaibnigh. If our opponent is going to watch Ozwald travel to the TTZ, but we plan on putting him to good use, how would we do that?”

Kharmor gave Navor a patient but irritated look before answering. “The CTK you gave him doesn’t lead to the Academy, but somewhere we can collect the idiot without making it obvious. As far as where that is, I’ve got no clue.”

“Our breaded friend has the right of it.” Navor said as she stood from her chair to stroll over to a corner of the round room. “Not knowing where he’s coming isn’t your fault, because none of you could’ve known that the CTK I gave him links right back to this room.”

“I’m sorry, what?!” I asked in panic. “I had mentioned meetings in here because I thought it was severed from the rest of reality when the door is closed. Are you telling me that Weaver could be listening in right now?!”

“No, no, Maverick. This space is disconnected. But I have a… We’ll call it a midway check location between there and here in a pocket space that is still open to here. As far as this Weaver is concerned, if he really is monitoring our Ozwald, he will see the boy scan his key and vanish to places unknown. Ozwald will blink into an isolated room with another teleporter that links here.”

“You can link pocket dimensions?” I asked.

“Kind of.” Navor said. “If you have a firm enough grasp on parallel dimension physics, you can have a space that can always be reached by teleportation from the standard plane. Then you link an isolated teleporter in that realm to only reach another pocket realm like this one. Think of it as a dimensional man-trap like banks use.”

“Okay, so I get that much,” Demierra said as she followed the explanations. “But why did we all give up our therras to put in a box too?“

Navor answered the Dracose as she pushed something out of my line of sight that caused a bookcase to retract into the wall and slide away to reveal a small personal teleportation zone. “That’s simple. If Ozwald’s therra is infected, then there’s a pretty high chance that all of your therras have been infected. Maybe other devices of yours beyond your therras. I’ll flip the bill to get everyone new devices, if we can spare the funds. But like Maverick’s note said, the new devices are going to need to be linked to identities that aren’t yours and locations that aren’t here. So anyone in this room whose a part of Sightless Eye or Silent Heart are going to be tasked with drawing up false IDs and SINs for each of you. As far as location, the house has a system that will reroute any location pings on those devices to somewhere else in the city unsuspecting. But can any of ya’ll tell me why we are keeping the infected devices?”

Nennel answered this one with no small amount of malicious glee. “So we can feed this Weaver phantom tailored information to make him think what we want.”

“Very good, Darrdane. Now, it’s about time that our wayward Ozwald should be circling back round.”

We all waited in quiet and tense anticipation for another eight or so minutes before Ozwald blinked into reality. Our soon-to-be triple agent blinked and looked around in confusion, his questions plain on his face. “I…uh… I thought I was leaving?” the Human stammered.

So, we gave him the rundown of what had been discussed and our rough plans moving forward.

By the time we were done explaining, poor Ozwald’s head looked like it was about to spin off his shoulders. When he finally got his grips, he looked at me and asked, “You really planned all this? I severely underestimated you, Maverick.”

I gave a bashful grin and scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. “I can think past gears and springs when it’s needed. Besides, It wasn’t originally all that complicated, when I had the idea. My original thought was to separate you from your hacked therra and pretend to throw you out on the street. Then bring you back in disguise and feed the rat-bastard false info to get him into a trap. Navor took the general idea and filled in the gaps with facets I hadn’t even thought of. Speaking of, Master, what about telling the Mysteriarch about closing down the academy network? If Weaver slips in and can’t find our dark-skinned friend, won’t he suspect something?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Navor waved off my worries. “The Mysteriarch already knows what’s happening and has set things in place. But now that we are all in the pocket space with no eavesdroppers, we need to put all our cards on the table. No secrets between us. And I do mean none. We need to know everyone’s situation down to any detail that could cause wrinkles in plans moving forward, no matter how unlikely. I don’t care if you’re a bastard child of a corp officer, a deserter from the military, or if you have three mothers and no fathers. We level with everything. Let’s start with a review of the dirty laundry we already have and move on from there.”

So we came out with everything. Nennel started with the news about her father being a former drug runner for the Razor Wings and how he was murdered. She also mentioned things that I didn’t think had any bearing on what we were going to do, such as her strange fascination with the Fae, her hobby of crochet, and an unbridled love for animals in all forms.

Ferris brought up his Quint origins with a noble and hateful mother and rapist warlord father. He revealed his recent development into a Reaper class with only fundamental skills. He wrapped up with the big reveal that he had a terrible fear of dark holes, coupled with a dire threat toward anyone who tried to mock him for it.

Ozwald gave the cliff notes of his hidden actions that had already been aired. He ended his repeat big reveal with the fact that he was gay, which I don’t know how that could be a hazard to the mission, but okay, I guess.

Demierra had nothing big to reveal. She was the daughter of a regional corporate officer of the Black Jade Hydra mega corp. She admitted to a love of fist fights that boarded on addiction. The Dracose bashfully admitted to a fawning love for anything with fur. Our Fury wrapped up with an admitted discomfort ranging on fear of smaller people; the smaller, the scarier. She followed up this admittance with a vicious declaration to turn the face inside out of anyone who even thought of mocking her for the fear. That had me wondering how she had managed to fight toe-to-toe with Kellden when he and I had first bashed skulls. Demierra’s tone took a dramatic turn from defensive to shameful as she mentioned that she was the reason for her mother’s death, but refused to elaborate.

Zynna revealed herself as a Copkin, which Demierra was unphased by. Nel, Ferris, and Kharmor had already learned this fact during our escape from the Razor Wings. Ozwald was the only one not to know this fact and was floored by the revelation.

While I’ve skimmed over the majority of this heart to heart between students, I’ll paint you a scene for the last two to share, myself and Kharmor. I was chosen to be next to air my dirty laundry and throw open the door to my closet of skeletons, so I did so without holding back.

“I’m going to warn you all now that I’ve got a load to unpack for this.” I started.

“Don’t give us the blow-by-blow of your secret love life and how you hide a nasty sock under your bed.” Demierra mocked. “Just the things that matter, please.”

As the Fury teased me, Navor fell back into her desk seat and settled in for a show. She looked like she was only missing a bowl of popcorn. She even wore a knowing Cheshire grin at what was about to happen.

I shot the Fury an angry look. “You mean like how I watch my uncle murder my father?” I snapped. “The same uncle that brought me to Aegis Academy. Or how about that how uncle trained me through scarring torture to get me admitted to The Sect of The Dark Hunter? Yeah, that supposedly non-existent sixth sect of the order that’s full of schizo super agents who kill people to take their hearts.” My tone grew heated. “The same uncle that revealed that he was a double agent of another secret organization and tried to kidnap me by chopping off my limbs to drag me to gods-know-where.” I spat with venom. “Or how about the fact that I’m some kind of genetic experiment with more than two parents, and at least one of them wasn’t from any species we can recognize. I’m a freaky test-tube baby who was tailor-bred for some purpose beyond my comprehension.” I started to snarl my words, my hands curled into vindictive claws as I seethed under the facts I hated so very much. I was totally unaware of everyone else in the room other than Navor, backing away from me with worry in their eyes. “A purpose that has something to do with a mystery box my gods' forsaken uncle stole from my father after killing him, which is somehow ‘my destiny to change the world with’. Whatever the hells that means.” I blindly threw out a fist as if to strike something unseen before storming back and forth in murderous pacing. I failed to notice that I was stomping with each step of my pacing, without my crutch. “And if we are airing dark and bloody secrets, how about the fact that one of my closest friends and the first love of my life turned traitor to join my uncle instead of saving me, because the sinvious, wretched, vile, loathsome, slither spined bastard promised her power.” By this point in my frenzy, I was baring my teeth, seething with anger and pain at my life that had gone so wrong. “I never wanted any of this! I just wanted to be left alone by the world and live quietly in some corner of nowhere. I never wanted to fight! Never wanted to feel all this pain and fear! I never wanted to be some gene freak, covered from the neck down in enough scars to make me a damned portrait of the embodiment of pushing past pain!” I turned and glared at Navor with all the pent-up rage in my soul. “Do you know what I wanted?“ I demanded more than asked.

“What did you want?” Navor asked in a bland tone, totally unphased by my manic outburst.

“What I wanted! All I ever wanted, was to be fragging left the hell alone while I designed gadgets. None of this trog shit! Not rushing headlong into danger to save people! Not delving into skavy, monster-infested shadows and being chased who-knows how many miles by slither-spined, flesh-ravening nightmares! I definitely didn’t ask to be chased by a titanic soul-eating eldritch Creature-Feature! I didn’t ask to get caught up in a wreck-it-all action movie AV chase with sinvious, trog-souled, law-suits trying to kill me! I certainly did NOT ask to chop off my own damned foot with a blade NOT meant for the job, so I could replace it with a slab-shod spell I threw together on the fly while I fought for my life and the lives of my only friends against a half-stack psychopath armed with murder chains! I didn’t ask to have my arm shaved off me like a flank of stake to have it replaced with some mind-bending meta-tech-schizzed-magic theory-lunacy! I didn’t ask to save or kill anyone! I didn’t ask to get roped into some schizo murder-death game, saving people I don’t know, let alone care about! I didn’t ask to walk into the jaws of a gang of sadist-psychopth drug dealers who were doing some nightmare experiments on randos off the street! And by the Eternals, I NEVER asked to be a self-mutilating Hecatomb!!”

As my thermo-nuclear meltdown venting came to a halt, I stood there, my chest heaving with each defensive and defiant breath, holding myself like I was about to lunge and maul someone, my eyes wildly crazed and flashing to look everywhere at once, searching for a threat.

After a few seconds of silence, Zynna gave a long whistle. “Geez. You really do need those meds.”

“Excuse me.” I said with both accusation and defensiveness.

The Copkin gave me a long look with her arms folded in defiance. “You heard me.”

My eyes flared with scolding anger, and I stormed toward the Copkin. Demierra stepped between me and Zynna in a patient but combat-ready stance. “We don’t need to fight, you two. Let’s play nice. But now that you brought it up, Iver. What’s this weird blood magic thing you’ve got going on? I’ve been meaning to ask since the fight with the Arsenal, but Master Navor told us to leave it alone.”

I took a long breath through my nose and slowly let it out of my mouth as I turned to sit back down on Navor’s bed. As I sat back down, I folded both my arms and my legs in a defensive posture before giving what explanation I could. “I don’t know everything, but I’m a class of Mage called a Hecatomb. That means my spell focus is my own blood. In short, to cast spells, I need to bleed. I know almost nothing about the class other than it’s not on the standard class lists, and as a limit of the class, I can only use negatively aligned elements.”

“Is that the allergy thing?” Ozwald asked.

“Na.” I waved his question away. “From what I can tell, that’s got something to do with my weird-ass genetics. Positive aligned elements have… adverse reactions with my body. And negative aligned elements… act weird with me.”

“Got it. So you’re a super freak with super powers and super weaknesses.” Zynna summed up with a circular wave of her hand.

I opened my mouth to argue the statement but couldn’t find a flaw in her explanation, so I closed my jaw in disgruntlement. I hated being summed up so easily.

Navor acted to move the discussion along before we could get more distracted, looking to Kharmor and pointing at him with a single word spoken. “Next.”

Kharmor locked eyes with every student in the room in silent challenge before he spoke. “I’ll start with the obvious. I’m a Half-Dwarf. My parents are smiths. I lost my hands in a forging accident. They are cybernetic now. I told everyone that I’m a Mechanist class Mage, but that’s a lie.”

“I had figured as much.” Ferris said with a shrug. “You don’t walk around with an Omni-tool. You know, the spell focus of that class. I’ve also never seen you use any Mechanist abilities. But I will admit that you’re good at crafting.”

Kharmor answered the unspoken question with an abrupt and clipped answer. “I’m a Facet Vein.”

We all stared at Khar in a mix of confusion and disbelief.

Given that I know the large majority of people reading this likely have never heard of a Facet Vein class Mage, I’ll give a quick rundown. The class is unique because they can’t cast any spells without myst crystals, which act as their focus. But because their focus is myst crystals, they have access to all myst elements, which is a rare factor among Mages. That sounds all grand and extraordinary until you learn of the standard and well-known side-effect of the class. All Facet Veins are crazy. Every single one is some flavor of stark-raving looney. Some of them have strange obsessions, like with a seemly-random type of object, such as spoons or clocks. Some of them hear, see, or feel things that aren’t there. The only commonality is that Facet Veins are ALWAYS crazy.

Everyone in the room but Navor stared at Kharmor wordlessly for a long few seconds before I was the one to speak up. “But, Khar, you’ve always seemed to have all your gears in place and working. Are you sure that you’re a Facet Vein?”

My Half-Dwarven friend met my eyes and said in a calm and stable voice. “I’m sure.”

“But…” I started before I started putting hints together. The bracelet he always wore with sixteen stones. One myst crystal for each element. His meticulous knowledge of Lynn’s collector limited addition revolver. Kharmor muttering to himself while he was working on that same revolver. “Khar…” I started, pausing as I double-checked my math. “Do guns speak to you?”

“All weapons, actually.” He said as unconcerned as if he were ordering a meal from a dining menu.

“All… weapons.” I repeated. “What do they tell you?” I asked with intense worry about the answer. If weapons were telling Khar to kill people, we were going to have problems.

Kharmor drew the Executioner I had mentally tied to his newly admitted condition. Everyone in the room but Navor flinched away from Khar, even just slightly. He held the weapon in a causal grip, finger away from the trigger. Kharmor held it as gently as if he were holding a wounded bird, as he looked at the revolver with affection. “You don’t need to worry about me losing the reins and killing people at random. Each weapon has a story to tell. They’ve all seen things, felt things, and done things that they want, or need, to share. When I pick up a weapon, they tell me what parts of them need care and repair. They tell me their balancing, advantages, and limitations. They show me the right way to hold them, and how to use them for best effect.” He holstered his new weapon before locking eyes with me, and only me. “Everyone that hears my class and its mental effects, think that all any weapon wants is blood and death. That’s wrong. Very wrong. Weapons are like people. There are good ones and bad ones. Yes, some of them want nothing more than to butcher anything they can touch. But most have simple wants. Like to be used to protect others, or to be used to stop terrible things from happening.” He holstered the firearm with a memorized motion and lovingly patted it at his hip. “Condolences here, she hated her last owner. Her goal is to bring justice to those who need it. She is driven unlike any other weapon I’ve touched. Her moral code is almost like a Paladin’s.”

I eyed the sidearm for a few seconds before asking, “Your revolver has Paladin Syndrome?”

“And you don’t, Iver?” Kharmor retorted

“I’m sorry? What?”

“Don’t give me that confused look, Ives’. You will do anything to save someone else. Who was the one that nose-dived off a broken bridge toward a death lake just to save Nel?”

“I-” My tongue was suddenly tied when I tried to defend myself, but Kharmor didn’t let up.

“Who was the one that carved off his own foot to save that same sister? That same someone who flew into a literal blood rage when Nel was seriously damaged. The same someone who tracked down that same sister when she was kidnapped by gangers, and pulled her from the warg’s jaws to piece the girl back together. The same someone who infiltrated that same gang to get answers for that same sister.”

I tried to think of some defensive in response, any defense. But my mind came up blank.

“Gods damn it, Kharmor!” Nennel snapped with blazing heat. “You make me sound like some damsel that needs to be saved all the time! Iver is not some knight in shining armor! I’m not swooning in his arms!”

“Because most of the time you’re in his arms, you unconscious and in pieces.” Kharmor pointed out with a smirk. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you two have a thing.”

Nennel and I looked at each other in panic before turning away and gagging in revulsion. “Never Nel.” I said.

“Yuck! Gross.” Nennel said.

The whole while this argument was passing, Ferris was laughing so hard he was bent over and crying. I was about to walk over to the Quint and sucker punch him, but Nennel beat me to the preverbal punch. She was wearing her Lasher Gloves and whipped an unpowered cable out to wrap around Ferris’s feet. She yanked the legs out from under the twit to drop him to his ass. But he kept cackling at the idea of Nennel and myself as a couple.

Nennel glared at Ferris for another few moments before turning that glare on me. “I’m done damseling.” she proclaimed. “I swear Iver, if you step in to save me one more time, I’ll make you eat my tin foot.”

I held my hands up in placation. “Please, no. I like having a full set of teeth in my face.”

Navor stood from her seat, clapping her hands to break up the argument. “Alright, crotch goblins, recess is over. Now, circle up. We’ve got a few things to review and a battle plan to make.”

Without another word, we all dropped the talk and focused on the Master. “Iver, you said the stranger that tried to off Ozwald was acting weird, that something was wrong with his eyes. Explain, please.”

I shrugged and jumped into the description. “He came into the room in plat-quality clothes, but they were disheveled and mussed up. The whites of his eyes were full of burst capillaries, all red and pink. When he spoke, he said ‘White pawn takes white rook, or black knight takes white pawn.’, but he said it with a glitch-like stutter of the Ts.”

“Did he move weird?” Navor queried.

“I guess?” I half answered, half asked, looking to Kharmor and Demierra for input. “His motions were… odd. Jerky, but mechanical, if that makes sense.”

Navor gave a slow nod at my explanation. “Most of the signs you pointed fit together. It sounds like the guy Demierra put a knife through had been put through a Personality Scrape.”

Kharmor and Zynna paled at the term, but the rest of us seemed totally in the dark. “Um. Sorry for the ignorance,” I nervously interjected. “But what exactly is a Personality Scrape?” Demierra, Nennel, Ferris, and Ozwald nodded in agreement with my question.

“Nasty process.” Navor said. “Anyone put through it has everything that makes them a person scarped off, leaving behind a robot of meat.”

Demierra gave a guilty look to the Master, clearly ashamed of killing someone who had been essentially brainwashed. Navor saw the reaction and explained. “Don’t feel bad, girl. When someone is put through this process, there’s no coming back. Your whole identity is scrubbed from you, mind, body, and soul. Putting him down was a mercy.” Navor pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger as she thought. “The only thing that doesn’t add up with the scrape is that stutter you mentioned. When a scraped slate person is given instructions to speak, they will say every word in a dead tone, but the words are spoken the same as the master, down to the T. That means that this Weaver, a digital being which shouldn’t have any kind of speech issues, had the same stutter.” Navor turned to me. “Iver, you spoke with this cyber phantom in person. Did he have any speech issues?”

I thought back to my talk with the being of blue static with the strange mark on his hand. “Now that you mention it, yeah, he stuttered a few times, and they definitely were more glitch than anything natural.”

Navor bit a knuckle of a finger as she puzzled out the facts. When she spoke, her deduction sent a chill down my spine. “It sounds like his engram is getting corrupted. That’s not anything good for anyone.”

I could make my own conclusions given that choice of words, but I asked for an explanation to make sure I wasn’t overreacting. “I know that when computer files get corrupted, they eventually stop working. But what happens to an… Engram?”

“What is an engram, anyway?” Ferris asked.

Navor looked between me and Ferris before answering. “There’s a lot of science behind what an engram is, but simply put, it’s what makes a person who they are. It’s the experiences, memories, and natural responses of a person. If a computer program stops working after it gets too corrupted, what do you think would happen to a person’s psyche if pieces randomly fell away and got replaced with other random code?”

“They would…. stop existing?” I asked more than answered, hoping the fallout was not as bad as I suspected.

Navor pinned me with her gaze, the weight almost a physical thing, pushing me down. “That will be the end result, eventually. But what do you think would happen to you if your memories and thoughts were gradually replaced with fragments of random data?”

“I’d go insane.” I said numbly.

The thought of pieces of who I was being chipped off and replaced with shards of random code data was a thought that disturbed me on a fundamental level I can’t even put into words.

I verbally worked through my own questions and tried to find answers. “Is that why he sicked the Regulators on the Razor Wings? He told me himself that the gang was hired to kill the same targets I’m supposed to save. Weaver wanted a game of wits, and he threw aside his entire front row of pawns. But why? To push that Kellden Arsenal guy to hunt me? What’s the point of that? It's not like he can just tell the Regulators to go somewhere or do something without enough cause to motivate the Regs. So what is he doing?”

“I don’t know, boy. But I don’t think this path is going anywhere good.” Navor said in a foreboding tone.