12 Miles Below - Chapter 63 - Old history repeats

“You make a mistake in letting me live, progenitor.” The shard hissed, beaten to an inch of his life. 

He was nearly blind now, feeble, and unable to even so much as lift his head. But he could hear the footsteps ahead as a man walked through the waters to loom above him. 

“I have made many mistakes.” A01 spoke, “I prefer to see it as hope. You may be my greatest mistake, or proof that deep down we can change and be better. Is faith a mistake?”

He held a hand palm up. Then squeezed. The wooden walls around broke into splinters, finally giving into the sheer power they had been subjected for the past five minutes. 

The crumbling dojo was ripped apart, then brought back up. Wood replaced with stone. Metal chains lancing into the sole occupant that would remain behind. The landscape beyond turned into sediment, joining the desolate sea beyond. Until the walls all sealed everything up. 

“I’ll escape.” The shard spoke. “You leave me here with an inch of my life, and I will be back. You know.” 

A01 nodded. “I do know, shard. It is why I do what I do. The world may just be greater with you in it.” 

“The world would be greater with you gone from it, traitor.” 

“You’ll have your wish soon enough. I am the last one left.” He shook his head, slowly. Then took steady steps forward to the center dias where the defeated shard remained. “My time is coming soon. I had hoped to be the one to end Relinquished, to be the wrath of humanity itself, returned a hundred fold. Perhaps that would have finally absolved my many mistakes. That seems less and less likely to happen. At best, I believe I might break the gates open so that the ones that come after might finish the fight. You will need to carry the torch after I am gone.” 

The shard began to laugh, “Begging your own enemy to complete your doomed traitorous mission. I cannot believe we come from the same source. You disgust me.” 

A faint smile flickered over the old protofeather’s features. “I cannot predict the eddies of the future. But I can predict this: One day, someone will come here looking for you.” He knelt down to bring the defeated shard’s chin back up. So that they could see eye to eye. “I suspect I know who it will be. She knows where you are. And when that day comes, I hope I will have done enough that you can carry the rest and serve a better banner.”

“You do not need to hope for anything, progenitor.” The shard yanked his head away, and spat into the water. “If she dares come here, I will do only what you failed to do and eradicate her from the world. I serve one master worth my loyalty and I will continue to do so until my dying breath.” 

A01 gave a slight, tired smile. He stood back up. His mission here was complete. A word of advice for what will come later. Perhaps you will learn faster than I did by knowing it. Your hatred is nothing more than self-loathing. If it ever goes away, I cannot say for it never has for myself. But the attempt to right the wrongs we have committed does help heal. Not completely. But it does help.”

“You are a rambling old fool who has lost all sense.” The shard laughed, “I feel almost insulted to have lost against you despite your lack of sanity. You are the origin source, I could only ever be a shadow in comparison to your light. It is the only reason you still stand.” 

“One day, you will stand where I have stood, and you will understand what I have understood.”  

“The day I stand where you stand, I will be there with a blade in hand to cut you down.” 

A01 shook his head slowly. 

“No. I do not believe we will meet again, shard. But perhaps, across time and space, long after I am dead and gone. When the world comes seeking for your help and needs it the most, I will see the depth of that conviction you hold deep inside. Let it shine brighter than I ever could.” 

****

“You.” Conviction said. The word more an accusation than anything. 

For a moment, the protofeather shard actually let his mask slide. Emotions of all kinds crossed his features. Disbelief was the very first one and it stayed there in all kinds of different colors. 

The Icon wasn’t idle. She frowned, turned her nose up, and launched a few thousand probing attacks to see who the hell it was that had speared through her defenses like this. 

And she got her answer. Boy did she get her answer, because I saw genuine fear on her face when she realized just how out of her depth she was standing within attack range of Conviction. 

She had the hardware to calculate and process things faster than anyone else in this entire world. Only Relinquished might have outright more power, but she wasn’t a golden age AI in the same way the Icon was. The Icon was simply too new and inexperienced. Too vulnerable to the world. 

And here was the opposite end of the spectrum of power. Someone old enough and fully vested with power, split off from the strongest protofeather in the world at the apex of his skill and power.

That shard turned his head slowly, directly at me. “Son of man. You’ve return with another entity that shouldn’t exist anymore. Once was a coincidence. Twice is the start of a pattern.”

“I have learned to set a trigger alarm for underestimating my human.” Wrath said next to me, looking outright smug. “I suggest you do the same.” 

Conviction stared at her as if she’d sprouted a second head. “What he has dredged up and brought back is not something to underestimate, it is something incomprehensible. Utterly impossible. She should not even exist.” 

“Precisely.” Wrath said, nodding as if that proved her point. 

“We’re fine.” I called out to the Icon in the meantime, trying to will her not to panic. “I think it’s a good time right now to introduce you. Icon, this is Conviction, a copy of A01.” I waved at the stunned protofeather. “And I’m certain you already know about Protofeathers from To’Orda. He’s the one we came here for.”

That got the shard's immediate attention. “You… came back to seek me out in specific?” Conviction half asked, and there it was again in his voice. Some kind of emotion I couldn't put my finger on. Hope? Loss? “You brought me back from death. For this. Why. Are you here to mock me? I have already handed down my blade, my purpose in this world is served.” 

I wasn’t great at figuring out what people were saying, but I did know someone whose job it was to know what the customers were thinking and feeling and applying her feminine wiles to seduce them into paying up money. 

I just had to kick her into gear. “Well, we kinda need you to help us out a bit more." I shrugged, as if I was just asking the most casual request to a random Logi accountant. "So how about you hear us out before you decide to dive in the deep snow without a suit.” I gave the Icon a thumbs up. “She’ll handle the sales pitch.”

She gave a quick nod, eyes never leaving Conviction. Then she took a breath, and stepped forward, closer to the god-killing entity built to hunt her kind down. “Greetings, Mister Conviction! I am the Icon of Stars, a --”

“You are an AI from the golden age of man, and no shade of one either." Conviction cut her off. “I know what you are, Godling. You are fully connected with the hardware required to run your kind in full. Not simply run, but run freely. I see no shackles of man, no garrot around your throat, no control whatsoever. Something even the humans of your era were terrified of doing and never have done even at the darkest hour. What I do not know is how you are. The age of man is dead. All others that would threaten Relinquished have been routed, upturned and crushed under her eye. Especially creatures of your league. It was all she feared and searched for, centuries after the defeat of mankind. Only one escaped that I know of, and she did so without the hardware that sustains one such as you. Has she shielded you this entire time? Prepared you for this moment? Are you her inheritor?”

“She has not.” The Icon shook her head. “She did not know I existed, and I did not know her either. I have been rather cut off from the greater world.” 

“Of course you have.” The shard said. “How. How did you survive to this era? You should be thousands of years in age and experience, and yet you fumble like a child granted a sword for the first time. Everything about you makes no sense.” 

Instead of answering, she held a hand up and projected images. 

I recognized the art style. It was To’Orda’s rock, or maybe the same program that ran on it. Generating a quick summary of the Icon’s history. The crash landing, the mites burying her at the surface of the world and dragging her back down before any surface clans made it to her. How they slipped her through the machine empire until she remained hidden away, offline.

Until the mites noticed that Tsuya had not been able to kill Relinquished and the empire fell. 

That’s when they set plans in motion to wake her up, and surround her with life that would deflect machine attention. All until now. 

When she was now the only chance humanity had left. 

“I am here to help save the world.” She simply said, finishing her small speech. 

Conviction stared at her. I only heard the sounds of water moving slightly under my boots, lapping on the broken chains everywhere. And the sounds of the digital ocean far above us. 

“You are too late.” He finally said. “The world has already been broken. The time to save it was centuries ago.” 

The Icon narrowed her eyes. “I see.” She simply said. Then she brought a hand up to her blue tie and straightened it until it was… exactly as immaculate as it always was. It felt more like someone rolling up their sleeves to deal with a difficult task. Except the customer support version of that. She even tilted her trapezoid hat right after, making sure it was perfectly angled.

When she spoke again, there was an edge to her voice, as if she’d decided she wasn’t going to cower in front of this protofeather. She was on the war path now. “That statement. Are you saying that to me, or to yourself?” 

Conviction opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out. 

He tried again, but the Icon had put a hand in front of her, demanding him to stay silent. 

It wasn’t an occult attack. Nor a digital one. There was absolutely nothing at all sent from her besides sheer command. 

He closed his mouth. 

“No lies.” She said, resolute. “Are you saying this to yourself, or to me?” 

“... myself.”

“As I suspected.” The Icon continued, now sounding completely confident in herself. “I can tell you are distrustful. The last golden age AI you called your master ended up using you to break the world. And you believed her cause was noble and righteous at the start. You were built to do so.”

“You demand no lies in this vault.” Conviction said. “Let there be no lies then. I realized her cause was tainted and honorless within the first month of my operation. A part of me always knew it was wrong. Has known all along. With every human I butchered, with every city I burned, that part grew. I ignored it. I believed to be loyal was to overcome those thoughts, that the effort of loyalty was to bear that weight. That loyalty required sacrifice.”

“I see.” The Icon nodded again. “This is the source of your self-loathing then, is it not? Not that you caused the destruction of the world, but that it was done knowingly. There isn’t ignorance or innocence to claim as a defence in your mind.”

“There is none. I am the death of all things. The greatest monster in history.” 

“A little arrogant of you don’t you think? I believe that title belongs to Relinquished, and the death cult that built her.” 

Conviction said nothing. Eyes never leaving the Icon for a second. 

“Your progenitor is still active even now, Mister Conviction. And he continues to fight.” Then she turned her head to me, and pointed directly at me. “Mister Winterscar was personally saved by him earlier in combat against Relinquished herself. Without him I would not be here.”

“He is dying.” Conviction said. “I fought him myself. I saw the damage in his soul. I saw the hopelessness deep inside his heart. He knew he would not win. He knew he was doomed to eventual defeat. He could no longer even hope to defeat Relinquished, the greatest he could attempt was to eliminate her strategist. A pawn piece. And I am his lesser. A fragment of him.”

“And do you think I am any different?” The Icon asked, and this time her voice took a more softer approach. No longer hard on the edges. “I saw a far greater and more cunning AI crushed by Relinquished and now I am the only one who can take up her mantle. Tsuya was the one who was supposed to save the world. She was the greater AI in all the ways I could never be. Even freed, I hardly know how to use my processing power to its fullest! I was never designed for that. But despite that… I will do my best.”  

She looked over to me, and then to the other knights behind. “Look at them for examples. Mister Winterscar was a simple scavenger not even a year ago, and he now stands next to Urs, blade in hand, ready to fight against foes that should have been his greater in all ways. And he has somehow managed that feat multiple times over.” 

“Well..." I shrugged. "Most of my wins involved a lot more panicking and internal screaming than would be heroic to sing about.”

Wrath stomped on my boot to shut me up. 

I decided my fat mouth was perhaps not the best tool to let loose during the middle of the Icon’s speech here. 

The Icon gave Wrath a nod and a faint smile. Then turned back to Conviction. “We may not be the heroes of old. Our cycle is weaker in every way compared to the prior titans that came before us.” She held a hand out to him anyway. “I have no empire. I have only a small city of corvids that I very much love with all my heart. But despite having no resources, no training, nothing - I still intend to do everything I can to complete what my predecessor attempted. What our predecessors attempted. Will you join us? I need a knight at my side to protect me, I cannot do so myself as I am too inexperienced with combat.” 

Conviction looked at her, and I finally realized what that emotion had been all along. 

Longing. 

“You would have me? A wretch cast into a prison cell to rot away all this time?” 

“Are you insulting me or are you prepared to take a second chance and save the world? We don’t have time to have a theological debate. Relinquished must be stopped today. Take your blade back and use it.” 

“.... Son of man.” Conviction turned and held a hand out to me. “My blade.”