Not So Long Ago…

The world was bleeding.

Azez threw himself down to the ground as a swarm of pavol-locusts buzzed overhead, reducing the man behind him to a skeleton in an instant. The bones clattered down, coated in blood, and the ravenous maggots below took their chance to squirm out of the soil and drain them dry. Within the span of a few seconds, even the bone marrow had been sucked away. Then, they got curious and began to crawl towards Azez too.

He screamed, picking himself up as quickly as he could and running for his life. Just because the maggots had eaten their fill, though, that didn't mean it was the end of the blood. Everything on Mar was tinged with that colour. The dirt was red. The sky was red. Even the air was red, coating everything within it with a crimson filter -- especially the bullets that flew like rain.

A swarm of the Maven in Red's Flying Churches -- babyfaced airborne wyrms, each miles long -- screamed as they were beset by hordes of the late Cleopatra's bio-planes, propellers of bone slicing through their flesh. A passing necromass plucked the discarded bones from the ground and incorporated them into its mass, only to be mauled by Tomyris' paleo-beasts right after. Another squad of soldiers moved through the constant gunfire, muscle memory still driving them even after their heads had been devoured and replaced by massive spiders.

And through it all Azez was running, running, running for his life.

A shadow stopped him -- a hulking silhouette pushing its way out of the bloody fog. Eyes burning a toxic yellow. Teeth that had grown wild and pierced its own cheeks before curving into tusks. A body grotesque with muscle, dragging a metal club behind it.

Without a doubt, it was one of Constance the Clumsy's Giga-Pugnants, driven mad by its own adrenaline. Foam dripped from its mouth as its eyes flicked in different directions, its murmuring alone powerful enough to make the air tremble.

"Born here… born here… I was born here…" it mumbled -- before a sudden fury took hold of it and it screamed: "BORN HERE! THIS IS MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!"

Azez didn't know whose side this thing was on, or if it was even really part of any of the factions that fought over Mar. Whatever the case, it was still trying to kill him. He dove to the side as the Giga-Pugnant swung its club with strength enough to shatter steel, the air pressure alone enough to scrape the skin raw along his left arm.

He had to run. He knew he had to run, and yet he was a prisoner of instinct too. Pain won over pragmatism -- and Azez screamed, curling into a ball and cradling his arm, tears of terror and agony running down his face.

He should have died there. He would have died there… but someone wasn't going to let that happen so easily.

Strong arms -- not the Giga-Pugnant's -- pulled Azez up and away, dragging him to safety right before the club smashed into the ground. It would have turned him into paste -- and no doubt the Giga-Pugnant, blinded by excessive visual acuity, thought that it had. Muttering to itself once again, the beast lumbered off into the infinite war waiting for it.

"You alright, man?" Azez's rescuer asked.

Azez looked up at him, eyes still wide with terror. His teeth were chattering. "C-Captain…" he sobbed.

"You're okay, you're okay," Captain Tazir grinned down at his fellow Pugnant, supporting him on his shoulder as they began their retreat. "You ain't gonna die here, kid."

Tazir looked over his shoulder at the havoc still going on behind them -- the havoc that had been going on, without pause, for eighty years now.

"You ain't gonna die here…" he repeated.

The Hour of the Revolution…

Granba worked.

As far as he was concerned, that was the best way to get through life. Occupy your mind, and occupy your hands. Granba had four hands that needed occupying, and so he did his best to keep them busy. Right now, he was assembling a new model of plasma rifle, one that he'd been working on for weeks. He'd acquired a new heating element -- originally designed for the thrusters of escape pods on starships -- that would improve the efficacy of the plasma-shots. It hasn't been easy to get that working with a smaller-scale device; he'd had to think the problem over for many days.

But that was fine. The brain, too, was something that was best occupied. Otherwise, it was liable to start getting thoughts and notions about the world.

Granba was a creator. With the hands he had been given for the sake of curiosity, he put things together. With the hulking body he had been given for the sake of violence, he put things back together. That in itself felt like rebellion to him.

He had created this house -- cylindrical, perched on one of Terriadun's cliffs -- full of automatica to aid in his work and leisure. He had created this complex -- stretching all the way across the mountain -- laden with traps to keep out intruders. In this quiet corner of the galaxy, he had created safety -- as much as he could -- a quiet place to exist out of sight.

Yes, safety. Next to working, that was the most important thing.

"Mr. Granba!" Derin cried. "Iosen stole my bear!"

Granba looked down with all four eyes.

His creator, it seemed, had had a preference for the quadruple. Four arms, thick with muscle. Four legs, arranged radially, such that Granba walked like a spider. Four eyes, their yellow pupils a stark contrast to the deep blue of his skin. The overalls he wore were patchwork, custom-made to fit his unique physiology. At first, most children found his appearance frightening. That didn't bother him at all, but it was good that they got used to it.

Derin, for example, looked up at him now with not a trace of fear in his eyes. A young fella of eight, with shaggy brown hair and dark brown eyes. Crownless, one of the countless unaccounted-for escapees from the eighty-year war-game on Mar.

Generally, the Gene Nobles cared only to keep track of their bespoke creations. The offspring those creations produced when left to their own devices were worth less than dirt in their eyes. Who would bother to keep track of dirt?

Derin complained further about how Iosen was tormenting him. Iosen complained about how Derin always blamed her for such things, and how the bear had belonged to her at first anyway. Helena complained that she was hungry. Pablo complained that he was bored. Werl complained that everyone else was complaining too much. Kojo hung off of one of Granba's extended arms cheerfully.

Honestly, Granba did not approve of children. If it were up to him, he wouldn't be taking care of them here at all. But it wasn't up to him. He had found these children lost and abandoned along the path that had led him here.

If he didn't help, who would?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Granba stopped working at the sound of the alarm.

"As we practiced," he grunted -- and the children immediately stopped their babbling, scrambling away to the shelter in the basement. This was far from the first time a visitor had arrived unexpectedly. Most of the time they were customers, but Granba didn't want the children making contact with the sort of people he sold to.

Those visitors that weren't customers? Well… those ships were always good for spare parts.

Granba flicked one of his wrists, triggering two scrap automatics to activate and follow after him, their guns ready to fire at whatever threat presented itself.

Terriadun was not a good-looking planet, but it wasn't necessarily a bad-looking planet. The sun was almost always covered by a thick layer of clouds, but that wasn't to say it was stormy. The ground was dirt and stone, but that wasn't to say it was barren. If room temperature was a planet, it would be Terriadun. Terriadun was okay.

As Granba strode out onto the okay surface of Terriadun, automatica flanking him, he breathed a sigh of relief through his four nostrils. Not an enemy… but still, possibly, a nuisance.

The Zeilan Morhan landed a short distance away from Granba's home, a few members of the crew disembarking and approaching on foot. There were some unfamiliar faces, he noted… and not as many familiar ones as he would have liked. That was the way of the world, though. People didn't last long, especially if you cared about them.

Zarakhel the Blind Man reached the fence first, stopping to look at -- or maybe not look at -- Granba from across it. Beyond that point, there were traps that could kill in dozens of nasty different ways -- if you weren't on the whitelist. Best to speak here.

Gritting his teeth, Zarakhel held up the spear Granba had created for him. "It didn't work, asshole," he seethed -- but then again, seething did seem to be the boy's default state.

Granba raised the eyebrows above his top row of eyes. "The explosives didn't go off?"

"They went off as they should have," Edgar took over for his brother, smiling pleasantly as always. "It's just that our plan didn't go off as smoothly as we'd hoped."

It was funny. Zarakhel was violent, loud, and brutal… but Granba felt much more at ease around him than his brother. Edgar spoke far too smoothly and blinked far too rarely. To Granba, he felt more like one of the automatica behind him than a fellow human being.

All the same, a customer was a customer. A certain degree of courtesy was due. Granba snorted as he crossed his four arms.

"I told you it wouldn't work," he said. "A weapon like this could take a Gene Noble by surprise, sure, but it's not going to take long for it to get used to it. I'd be surprised if you managed to force it anywhere, much less an incinerator. To tell you the truth, I reckoned I wasn't going to be seeing you boys again."

Edgar blinked -- just as regularly as he always did, pure maintenance of the body and nothing else. "Without him, you wouldn't be," he said, stepping aside. "Please meet our new friend."

Granba looked the third man up and down. Not terribly impressive. He was a Pugnant, going by his golden eyes, but it looked like the rest of his scrawny body hadn't gotten the memo. Still, the expression on his face was brimming with confidence.

"The name's Azez Tazir. I hear you gather and sell weapons?" the young man said.

Granba frowned. "I make weapons," he corrected. "And then, sometimes, I sell them on to folk like you. Why? You got a request?"

"I do," Azez grinned. "I'd like your customer list."

Ah. One of those types.

Granba tapped his foot and the two automatica by his side readied to fire, their barrels extending until they were nearly poking Azez's forehead. Zarakhel and Edgar took a step back, but the Pugnant did not. The easy grin on his face remained.

"I'm not in the snitching business," Granba said sternly. "You want a fancy gun, that I can do you. Anything else, you're on your own."

With that, the grin finally faded… but the words didn't.

"I hear you take care of kids, too," Azez said seriously. "Ones that escaped from Mar?"

Granba narrowed all four of his eyes. "What of it?"

"I'm from Mar myself," Azez said. "My friend Bieshu too -- she's back on the ship."

Mar was a planet with an infamous reputation. For nearly a century now, it had been the site of an ongoing war-game between several Gene Nobles. Every day, they threw in more and more troops, more and more creations, more and more monstrosities… until the air itself was tinged red with blood. The place was a meat grinder.

Hell for the living.

"We barely made it out of there alive," Azez went on. "Tazir… that was the name of the man who saved my life."

Granba sighed. "I'm sorry to hear that, son, but I still can't --"

"Let me ask you something," Azez interrupted, taking a step forward -- pressing his forehead against the barrels of the rifles. "Those kids you're taking care of. Do you love them?"

"Extra mouths to feed," Granba sniffed, all hands on all hips. "They're nuisances."

"Nuisances that you take care of," Azez insisted. "Nuisances that you do feed, even though they can't give you anything in return. Yeah. You love them. So let me ask you something else. What kind of future is there for them?"

"That's…"

"I'll tell you. There isn't one. As far as the Gene Tyrants are concerned, those kids don't exist -- cockroaches that slipped through the cracks. And if they find out they do exist? Rogue materials outside of their experiments? It doesn't take much effort to bring a boot down."

Granba opened his mouth to protest, to tell him to shut up, to say something -- but Azez wasn't done.

"I've seen them do it," the Pugnant said quietly. "Again and again and again. It's all they know how to do, in one form or another. We're building an army, Granba, and an army needs people -- the exact kind of people you sell to."

"It's hopeless," Granba said quietly, shaking his head.

Azez nodded in return. "Maybe," he conceded. "Maybe. But this feels hopeless too, doesn't it? Tell me, what would you prefer? The despair of losing… or the despair of surrendering?"

Granba gritted his teeth.

Granba clenched his fists.

Granba squeezed his eyes shut.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Damn you," he muttered. With a snap of his fingers, the automatica by his side deactivated. With a stomp of his foot, the traps surrounding his house were disabled.

For Azez Tazir, the way was made open, but those words still hung in the air.

Damn you.

Azez smiled sadly at them. "Yes," he said. "You'll be the first of many."

"Madam," Idra chuckled. "I honestly don't know what you're talking about. Rebels? Us? Come now."

The leader of the small commune was tall and thin, his skin dark and his eyes Cogitant-blue. Going back a bit, 'tall' probably didn't describe him properly -- there was a difference, after all, between 'tall' and tall. Bieshu was hardly short herself, and yet she barely came up to his chest.

She raised a sharp eyebrow at his denial.

The jungles of Kay-Luss-Kor couldn't be called hospitable, and yet this Idra and his followers had managed to set up what was basically a functioning village here. At least thirty people, living and working outside of the control of the Gene Tyrants. Oh, sure, on paper this planet and its inhabitants were the property of Margarethe the Tenderheart -- but Bieshu knew for a fact that the Gene Tyrant hadn't even visited this sector for five years at least.

If she was aware of Idra's activities, she obviously didn't care enough to act.

Bieshu smirked as she looked at Idra over the roaring campfire, the other members of the commune watching her carefully from a distance. Idra insisted that he and his followers weren't rebels -- merely scholars pouring through books of the old world in search of meaning -- but Granba had confirmed that this so-called holy man purchased quite a few less-than-legal items from him, quite regularly.

"Okay," she chuckled at Idra.

She didn't buy it, and he knew she didn't buy it, and he didn't expect her to.

"I speak true," he insisted, his sharp canines glinting when he opened his mouth. "Violence against innocents is forbidden by the tenets of Yu. Me and my friends have journeyed so far in search of peace and meaning. Why would we jeopardize that by going against the laws of our own faith? Why would we risk oblivion at the hands of the Gene Nobles? Come now!"

"You realize that the Gene Tyrants aren't just going to let you stay here forever," she said, sitting cross-legged across from him. "Whatever you're doing here, it's on a time-limit. Isn't it better for all of us rebels to join together now, rather than get picked off one by one?"

Idra sighed, holding his holy book to his chest. "Again," he said. "Madam, we are not --"

Bieshu's hand lashed out, fast as lightning, and snatched the book out of Idra's grip. When she opened it, she found a massive hole cut between the pages -- a pistol resting inside. Her black gaze slid over to the piles of books in every corner of the camp.

Idra smiled bashfully.

"Ah," he chuckled. "But who ever heard of an innocent Tyrant?"

"So," Josephine said, looking between the two brothers excitedly as they trudged through the snow. "You've actually seen a Gene Tyrant, huh?"

"Did more than see it," Zarakhel chuckled darkly, the hood of his parka pulled low over his face. "Or hear it, or… whatever."

"You talk like you haven't," Edgar glanced over his shoulder, snow twinkling in his hair.

Valdecim was a planet right on the edge of Gene Tyrant territory -- a snowball of frozen trees and frozen grass and frozen clouds. Apparently, no Gene Tyrant had ever set foot here, but that wasn't that impressive a factoid. If it weren't for the rumour they were chasing, Edgar was fairly certain he'd never have set foot here.

Josephine was the escort they'd gotten to this place. She was a broad-shouldered Pugnant woman with wild orange hair and a mouth full of fangs. Unlike Azez, she had clearly gotten all of the benefits of Pugnanthood.

"Well," she chatted away happily, the snow parting for her like it wasn't even there. "I guess I must have seen one when I was created, but I don't really remember that, and from there it was all fighting all the time. I reported to my commanders, and they reported to theirs, so I guess at the top of the ladder there must've been a Gene Tyrant, but I never met them myself, so --"

"You're a fucking pest," Zarakhel muttered, tensing his shoulders. "Shut your trap for a while."

The reason for Zarakhel's agitation was obvious. While Bieshu had gone infiltrating Gene Tyrant territory directly, and Azez was in search of a living legend, they were on the trail of an urban legend. The nearest rebel group, the Sacrosanct, swore that this thing is real -- hence them sending Josephine as an escort -- but that didn't make the notion of the whole thing any less dubious. Zarakhel would have preferred a task that stained his hands with enemy blood.

Still, Josephine did shut her mouth, but 'a while' didn't last as long as Zarakhel was clearly hoping. She grinned as she stopped, jabbing a finger towards the upcoming clearing.

"There."

They said this thing helped. When circumstances were dire and defeat seemed certain, they said this thing appeared out of nowhere to rescue humans from danger, and then disappeared just as quickly once its work was done. At first, Edgar had assumed the story was nothing but wishful thinking -- a fairytale to make life seem just a little less unbearable.

But there definitely was something before him now.

It was humanoid and huge, nine feet tall at least -- even if that was difficult to tell when it was kneeling on the ground like that. Without a doubt it was an automatic, a grey-and-red mechanical chassis covering its form, covered with the scars of many battlefields. Plasma-scorches and signs of battlefield repair, places where new parts had been scavenged to replace what was missing.

The 'face' of the automatic was covered by a sheet of crimson cloth, firmly bolted into place so that it looked more like a death-bag. It turned slightly in their direction as they approached, and adjusted the burden it was holding.

At first glance, Edgar thought that the thing it had slung over its shoulder was a massive bindle, but no -- that was a mace. Fused together from chunks of scrap iron, the head of the weapon alone was almost a match for its towering master. Just from looking at it, Edgar could tell that it would serve to pulverize a human body with just a swing.

"Well," Zarakhel asked, frowning at the sudden silence. "What is it? What's there?"

Josephine smiled. "According to it," she said. "It's name is F001. We just call it the Fool, though."

There were places in this world where the eyes of Tyranny did not reach, where their feet did not fall, where their hands did not torment.

These places, by coincidence or circumstance, had gone untouched by the empire of the Gene Tyrants as it had spread across the stars. In some cases, they were too inhospitable to bother dealing with. In some cases, they were too far flung, difficult to reach. But in other cases -- in most cases -- they had just slipped through the cracks.

Sometimes, there were even places that had been forgotten by the Gene Tyrants. Experiments left to their own devices until they had faded from the mind of the experimenter. Misplaced materials that then sprouted new life of their own. Miracles once abandoned did not stop being miracles.

In opposition to Lord Director Eve, such places were called Lilith Worlds.

Azez was deep below the surface of one such world, his fists drenched in his own blood. This planet had no name. Once upon a time, a bug-loving Gene Tyrant had unleashed a near-infinite swarm of their creations upon this barren rock -- seeking to test their tunneling skills before deploying them in a war-game. Satisfied or dissatisfied, they had left the planet soon after, leaving their creations to starve… but the countless intricate tunnels they had carved remained.

In short, this was a planet outside of the surveillance of the Gene Tyrants, full of underground structures where fugitives could hide and wait and plan and build.

To find a place like this was nothing less than serendipity.

Roland Nebula had thought the same. The old man was considered the original rebel by some of this generation. Sixty years ago, he had been the leading general on one side of a war-game. He had plotted with his counterpart on the other side, a fellow Cogitant, and together they had led both armies in a revolt against those who would use them as mere proxies.

The rebellion had been doomed from the start. It had been too spontaneous and too easily crushed. Roland's partner resided within the Nerve Senate's Hall of Faces now, and Roland himself had been driven into hiding with whatever followers had survived. That was how Azez had found the so-called legend down in the deep dark, licking his old wounds.

"I'll ask you again," Azez panted, clenching his bloody fists.

The negotiations had not gone well. Azez had asked Roland to join the army he was building, to become part of the final rebellion, and Roland had laughed in his face. One thing had led to another, and it had ended with Azez challenging the old legend to a duel, in front of all of his men.

And so Azez now stood there, bruised and battered, swaying on his feet.

And so Roland now lay there, his sword snapped in half, looking up at the weaker man.

His blue eyes were wide. His white hair and beard gave off the impression of wisdom, his sturdy armour gave the impression of durability, his story gave the impression of legend…

…and yet, right now, he seemed so much smaller than the defective Pugnant named Azez Tazir.

"Do you want to die down here, glaring at the past," Azez asked firmly. "Or do you want to die out in the world, with their blood on your hands?!"

He extended a trembling hand --

-- and he didn't have to wait long for it to be taken.

"Ma'am," one of Victoria's servitor-knights said to her as she passed, bowing low. "The Senate is in session already. They're ready to hear your proposal… regarding the Zeilan Morhan."

Victoria the Chitin Knight squeezed her rapier tight as she heard those words, stalking through the halls of the Nerve Senate. Her blade rarely left her hands these days -- in fact, it was connected to her wrist by an umbilical cord, making it part of her own body. She could change its shape however she pleased, whenever she pleased.

She wanted to be sure that the moment her hated enemy appeared in front of her, she was ready to strike it down with the cruelest edge.

The Nerve Senate, the seat of the Nobility's power, was no mere construct of brick and stone. It was a fortress of flesh and bone and blood, a living organism, the skin of the hallway expanding and retracting as Victoria made her way through it. Deep in the darkness of this place, below the Senate itself, there were floors upon floors of organs and entrails, keeping the building alive.

A sphincter expanded to allow Victoria passage into her viewing booth, and she ducked through it immediately.

She'd changed her appearance since that terrible night -- the night she'd gotten the news from Yoslof. Her carapace armour was now a deep mourning black, and four wings hung limp from her back like a transparent cape. Her helmet, which had previously borne a resemblance to an ant, was now sculpted into what could only be a human skull -- mouth twisted into a grimace and lined with razor-sharp fangs.

In every aspect, she was the quintessential dark knight -- an avenger.

As her servitor had said, the session was already ongoing by the time she arrived in the Hall of Faces. True to its name, the Hall bore a number of visages -- each booth was an engorged human face, its expression crawling with discomfort as its Gene Noble master watched from inside its mouth. Victoria sat down on a tongue sculpted into a couch, crossing her legs.

"The Senate accepts the proposal of the honourable Maven in Red," Ermengarde, the Speaker of the Senate, rasped from his position at the centre of the chamber. "His custom breed of Umbrant Hunters shall indeed be dispatched to reinforce the already existing numbers."

His Noble Attentiveness

ERMENGARDE

Speaker of the Senate

Reboot of Margaret

Just like those watching from their booths -- not many, attendance was low -- Ermengarde was seated… or at least he appeared to be. In truth, the emaciated elderly figure and the thorny throne he sat on were both part of Ermengarde's body, the arms of the man and the arms of the throne fused together. A crown of fingers twitched at the air as his cloudy eyes scanned over the chamber.

"Are there any objections?" Ermengarde asked, noting Victoria's arrival.

Victoria shook her head from her booth, and the session continued. As Ermengarde went on concerning mining colonies on the galactic fringe, Victoria's gaze drifted up to the three charred figures suspended from the ceiling of the Senate chamber.

Their identities had been burnt away by tender flame, their bodies impaled by thin spears, their lives made everlasting through the Nobility's ingenuity. These were the Great Traitors -- those who had led major rebellions against the Nobility in the past, suffering their eternal punishment. The Blind Man would twitch up there soon enough -- as would Edgar.

Edgar.

Victoria's entire body tensed up at just the thought of his name. Back then, on Yoslof… if she'd only been able to convince Elizabeth to put that thing down, all of this could have been prevented. She should have taken matters into her own hands, she realized that now. Edgar had had so many years to put its claws into the poor girl… it was no wonder she'd tried to protect it.

That was why she was here now, listening in muted rage as the Nerve Senate worked through the minutia of empire. She'd heard the rumours. She knew what they were -- what it was doing. She wouldn't remain idle any longer.

"Point 213," Ermengarde wheezed. "Concerning the… 'Zeilan Morhan'. Honourable Victoria wishes to raise a proposal."

Victoria stood -- and the tongue she'd been sitting on unrolled like a red carpet, producing a pathway with which she could cross to the centre of the chamber. The gazes of each and every Noble in attendance fell upon her. Most already knew what she was going to propose, and had already made their decisions. All that remained were the theatre and the vote.

"Dear Olga," she began. "Dear Olga spoke in this chamber many times. She was a friend to many, both within and without these walls. I know I am not the only one who mourns her passing -- but we must remember, friends, that she did not simply drop dead. She was murdered. One of our own, murdered for the simple crime of being alive and being greater -- and she is not alone in her tragedy!"

She raised her arms as if to challenge the world.

"We have heard this song before. This is not the first time we have faced fruitless rebellion. These three…" she jabbed her sword up towards the writhing Great Traitors. "...are living proof of that. Let us proceed to the inevitable ending of such miscreancy. I propose, here and now, that we smash down upon this Zeilan Morhan with all the power available to us!"

"It's already being dealt with," a snide voice drifted from one of the other booths. "They're criminals, rebels. That's what we have soldiers for. Why overreact?"

Heat boiled through Victoria's brain, and her voice boomed through the chamber.

"No! These are not simple flies to be ignored and swatted away only once they become too loud! They are murderers of gods, and their numbers are swelling as we speak! Let us dispose of this notion of proportionate response! Let the Maven unleash whatever monstrosities he pleases! Let Otrera smash them into paste! Let all of us join hands and bring down fists, until the Zeilan Morhan and their army have been utterly exterminated from this world!"

As Victoria had bellowed, her body had changed, new limbs sprouting to accentuate her points. She stood panting before the great powers of the world now, eight arms spread out, more a spider than an ant. It was only when she stopped speaking, however, that she realized…

…their eyes were not on her. Their eyes were on something behind her.

A shiver went down her spines.

She noticed then that a faint white light was cast upon her back. By the time that Ermengarde's trembling voice reached her ears, she already understood what was happening. Her arms shifted back into her shell, and her impressive height shrank down to that of a normal human -- no, a little shorter.

"Lord Director Eve has arrived!" Ermengarde declared. "It will answer this proposal Itself. Listen and hear!"

Victoria looked over her shoulder…

…and saw that, behind her, a pedestal had arisen from the chamber floor. Atop that pedestal was a small white vial. Within that vial was a heavenly white light.

She didn't even dare blink in the presence of that glow.

The Last Human

LORD DIRECTOR EVE

The First Human

As the Nobility was to the commonfolk, Lord Director Eve was to the Nobility. It was their creator and their master, and -- while It usually allowed them to govern themselves -- It held ultimate authority over all things. With a single word, all matters of government became irrelevant.

Whatever It decided was absolute. The most deep-rooted biology of a Gene Noble would not allow them to disobey.

"Lady Victoria," Ermengarde said, as Eve's pale light danced across his face. "You shall reiterate and summarise your proposal for the Lord Director."

Victoria swallowed with all the throats of her current configuration.

"Lord Director," she whispered. "This… this Zeilan Morhan will be a threat beyond the mere rebels we have dealt with before. They have already slain two of our number. They have a taste for our blood now. This cannot be trusted to our servants and our soldiers. We must pursue and destroy them with everything we have -- everything… no matter the cost. I beg of you. Grant your divine permission."

The light inside the Lord Director's vial flickered -- and a moment later, It spoke. It's voice was curiously quiet and faint, as if coming down a long tunnel, but such a hush was over the Nerve Senate that each and every Noble in attendance heard the verdict loud and clear.

"Nah."

And with that, the course of history was set.