16-11 Tainted Flesh (Patreon)

Look, like it or not, ghouls are a party of this city’s messed up ecosystem now. There’s too much darkness, too many FATELESS, and too much flesh for them to fully die out. Not that the Syndicates or Sang want them to.

The fact is that ghouls are more a benefit to the city than a bane. Free meat for the killing, for live-fire exercises, for stapping explosives to and sending them as hordes to run down your targets, as incubators to grow cheap mods and organs, as test subjects and renewable harvests for ghosts and deaths.

Who the cares about a couple thousand refugees going missing in the dark? Hells, they got less economic worth than the rotlicks–all they usually provide is their deaths. Ori-Thaum’s even beginning trials, adapting ghouls for use in their new dreamer-farms.

The Low Masters might’ve thought they were going to drown us all in a tied of monsters, but all they did was give us a gift.

Suppose that’s hard to hear for all you out there who lost consangs during the Uprising, but honestly, it was one thing or another.

Least the rotlicks just kill and eat you. Find some relief in that.

-Quail Tavers, School of the Warrens

16-11

Tainted Flesh

“Is this… normal?” Kae asked. Her eyes were locked on the swollen sacks of meat kept within the titanium cages. A bit further beyond the gangers’ living quarters, they found themselves where the gene-vat was stored, and with it, the kennels.

Nu-dogs came in a variety of sizes, builds, capabilities, and shapes. Ever since the Sang popularized the modification of humanity’s animal companions, splices were made and augmentations were added to their overall structure. And so with the advancement of one’s pets, so too did their cages have to grow.

The “Guttergnasher” breed attack dog was a favorite of joy-dealers and Syndicate enforcers alike. Standing at eight feet tall and somewhere close to one and a half tons of bio-enhanced tissue further laced with titanium, olfactory boosters, supplementary irises, and a hyper-active metabolism designed to enhance their healing, the nu-dog could be set loose on even a squad of exo-rigged enforcers for a while.

With such a heavyweight dog came the need for a heavyweight cage, and thus, titanium bars with built-in auto-clean pressure sprayers, germ killers, and a nutrient dispenser grew to be market standard as well.

The very same cage was also quite useful for storing other creatures. Like, say, joy-fiends who let their debts linger a bit too long.

Or crippled ghouls for that matter.

With metal plugs fused to the stumps of their limbs by way of fire and their bodies bulging with half-grown biomods, Avo judged the miserable fates of his brothers. Even with their cages actively spraying them down, the stale, grey room still stank of rot and filth. Clustered in the corner next to a broken entertainment system and the rusted reactor harvested from an aero turned makeshift power turbine, he countered twelve ghouls still alive within eighteen cages.

[Well that just fucked up,] Abrel muttered, beholding the little zoo of horrors. [Better than doing that to actual people but… ew.] Twinned to her mind, Avo knew there to be no sympathy in her words. It was the lack of sanitation that bothered her, of the way the ghouls looked unnaturally swollen and pregnant–not so dissimilar from one afflicted by the rash.

“We’re convenient to use,” Avo said, clicking his fangs together, burning away his reflexive disdain for his own kind. There were few pleasures greater than knowing you were beyond the apex of your own kind. If he was human at the root of his consciousness, he supposed there should have been a horror that followed; the cold of being alienated from one’s own species.

Ghouls were not a species. Ghouls were weapons derived from human flesh. It was only the Low Masters and the presence of easier prey that stopped them from feasting upon each other, and sometimes, even that wasn’t enough.

Inching closer to the cages, Kae studied the incubators with genuine curiosity and turned to face the damaged gene-vat bolted down to the center of the room. Dim lighting flickered overhead, its brightness paltry compared to the strobing flashes of neon from the open hallway beyond the liquefied door.

The vat itself was a cylindrical machine clasping a translucent interior. A holo-haptic interface flickered along the glass, requesting that the user synchronize their minds for identity confirmation. Judging from how the text was greyed out, the system was likely remain unresponsive until a Meta was properly interfaced with the vat’s locus.

Deformed appendages and other organs drifted behind the glass. Reaching out with his Sanguinity, Avo found the pattern to be more crystalline and durable than he expected. Voidtech: endlessly surprising.

{Those are mostly safeguards put in for your sake,} Calvino explained. {And by you, I mean everyone on this planet. Some of the creatures you grow are… a bit too volatile to handle, and so in the case that someone manages to jack into one of our vats without the system noticing, it grants another step before your “Frankenstein’s monster“ decides to give you a Jovian Handshake.}

“Would be nice if I understood any of the nouns you used in the last sentence,” Avo responded.

An actual novel was downloaded into his Neurodeck. One consisting of nothing but text. {A Jovian Handshake is when a large, brutish creature tears your limbs off and beats you to death with them. If you’re textually challenged, I can recommend you several updated tellings of Frankenstein. In summation, it’s about a man making a monster using mad science.}

“Hm. Sounds like the Low Masters.”

{Please don’t insult Doctor Frankenstein. His hubris was in reaching beyond the confines of his wisdom. His science succeeded. He was just unprepared for the culture and practical aspects that came after. Your kind is–hurtful as it might sound–a failed arts and crafts project made up using spare parts stolen from someone else’s backyard.}

Avo looked at his Meldskin, at the near-impenetrable pallid carapace now armoring his Echoheads, and then turned his gaze on the limbless writhing torsos that were his brothers. “You’re being too kind. Trauma dumps for the Hungers. A subspecies born to feed an impotent tantrum.”

Dirty plastic tubes ran down their throats as cheap nu-dog chow-paste was pumped into them in ejections of yellowish sludge. From the way they swallowed and bit at the feeding tubes, Avo could tell that more than a few of them were enjoying this somewhat. The lack of violence before a meal errored the stability of their psyches, but the presence of food kept them from fully succumbing to psychosis.

“A mistake I will resolve,” Avo finished.

Calling Jack and Jane took but a thought. The ansible opened its pathway and connection was established near instantaneously.

Adjusting for data-lag across NooSphere

“That’s new,” Avo said as the voider grafters synced with his Neurodeck.

{Omnitech is probably doing something with data again.} Calvino scoffed. {That’s usually the problem.}

{Alright,} Jack said, voice momentarily crackling as he clapped his hands together. {Let’s see what we got to work with here. Oh, and you already got test subjects lined up for us. Perfect.}

{Don’t get carried away, Brother Jack,} Jane said. {As the New Alloy says–}

{I know our bloody tenents, thank you very much, Janie. I’m just saying… we have some room to experiment.}

{We keep this neat,} she insisted. {It is rare enough to get unofficial approval from an administrator. Let us not jeopardize such a privilege.}

{Spoilsport. Ahem. Avo. Could you do us the favor of accessing the vat?}

He cast a ghost into the machine’s locus and a progress meter filled his cog-feed.

Authority Override Successful

Ego-Profile Recognized

Administrative Access Granted

Ejecting contents

The machine sang as it processed the new commands, and the translucent began to fade like a fog was being drained. With it, however, the half-finished organs were dissolved as well, dismantled particulate by particulate.

{The nanos are emptied out,} Jack said. {We canceled the previous build halfway through. We’re gonna need you to put in one of your bros in a minute though. Got something special to cook inside ‘em.} The grafter cackled.

{Professionalism, please,} Jane said.

As the glass cleared and hissed open, Avo unmade one of the nu-dog cages and seized the body of his healthiest brother before casting them into the vat. The other ghoul bit and writhed, and Avo had to quell the urge to crush them from the inside using their own blood. With a grunt of scorn, he ordered the vat to close and relinquished control over to the grafters.

“You don’t care about them?” Kae said, staring at the brother he so callously flung in. Nanomachines began to fill the interior of the gene-vat again, and with contemptuous ease, they plucked the ghoul off the base of the machine and held it aloft. “At all?”

Avo shrugged. “Why? This is more than what they were meant for. Their lives have achieved value beyond their means.” The way she stood askance from him revealed discomfort enough. He didn’t even need to study the turbulence running along the curves of her Metamind. “You’re thinking of them like people. Not people. Not really. Maybe if you compare them to joy-fiends.”

“But you don’t want to make them better? Transform them into something like you?”

Ah. There it was. The truth of what bothered her. Cast down from the heights of the Tiers, abandoned by her own order for political convenience, hunted by one of the Guilds sworn to keep her order safe, and still she could not walk away from her central ethos. Damaged in ego and emotion, the dream continued to burn inside her: a yearning to make this city greater, to uplift society with her miracles.

What he was doing with his brothers must have seemed such a tragedy, such a waste. “Do you miss the Tiers? Being an Agnos?”

She paused, shuffling her feet as the voiders argued on in the background, sniping at each other over potential solutions. After a stretch of uncomfortable consideration, she replied. “Of course. It’s the only life I ever had. The only real life. Ever since Draus brought me down, my memories were… it's like being caught in a whirlwind. There are flashes and moments between the chaos, and you’re always going somewhere. Always running away.” She paused. “Running and surviving isn’t living. Honestly, up until you, um…”

She rubbed at her arm and stopped talking, gesturing at her accretion while her voice quivered. “Part of me wants to thank you for giving me my mind back and letting me be myself again but… after everything that happened to me, and what your father did I… I’m doing my best not to hate you. I–I’m succeeding. But it's hard sometimes. And I keep fixating on why this had to happen to me.”

Avo took in her words and let them settle. His templates listened, and from the gestalt came several potential reactions. The sensitive templates wanted him to comfort her. Abrel scoffed and mocked her weakness–as did most of those bound to Highflame’s philosophy. The Necros within him wanted to him to have Chambers sequence away these psychological vulnerabilities and accelerate her return to optimal health. A foreign touch without the Conflagration’s pain would spare her the danger of a potential nulling and preserving the fragile trust between them, but something about altering who Kae made the idea all too unpalatable.

She wasn’t like Chambers. She didn’t want to change. She was trapped in the past because the past was unresolved. Even if he were to rewrite her very nature, the roots of her suffering would continue to linger.

“There’s only so many things we can do sometimes,” Avo said. “At the beginning of this. Wanted to survive. Ran into Essus. His son. Decided to take them with me. Not wise. Taunted my hunger. Vulnerable targets. Did it anyway.”

“And his son died,” she replied.

“Got killed,” Avo said. “Tried. Me. Draus. His father. Didn’t matter in the end. Not until after I was killed too.” He paused. “My father was selfish for me. Didn’t care about himself at the end. Was willing to die entirely to see my ascension. Was willing to damn anyone else. Did damn you. But I’m what’s left. I’m going to help you. Because I choose to. Because I think what you want for this city is more interesting. More valuable than just more killing.”

She turned her attention to the ghouls dissolving in the vat and sighed. “I was never very good at letting things go. My mentors told me that–told me that fixated on certain problems too much and spent too much of myself trying to fix things that weren’t important but watching potential never truly realized is painful. I think the same thing is happening here.”

“Good to know your flaws,” Avo said, shooting the other ghoul a glare of contempt. “It’s how you learn to be greater.”

[Double meaning here,] Benhata said, catching something that Avo didn’t. [She’s talking about the life she lost too. Hells, she’s probably thinking about the Paladin that got snuffed. That’s a damn mess and a half, and probably something the Menders would just cut out from her memories than try to fix.]

{Ah, yes. The New Vultun method of mental rehabilitation, in which all trauma is necrotized tissue to be removed and replaced with comforting falsehoods.} An uncharacteristic judgment laced Calvino’s words despite the light tone.

[What? You want her to suffer, machine? Is that how you voiders work?]

{No. But the pain is real. We respect that. We respect grief and the worth of one person to another. And we help our citizens by building them back up before ever changing who they were. I respect that you’re trying to help, though. That’s the important part.}

Benhata paused. {I had a sister.}

{I know,} Calvino replied. {I’m sorry.}

[Thanks.]

{And it’s done!} Jack declared.

Turning, Avo found himself staring at a fully healed ghoul, with unnecessary organs removed and limbs returned. Aside from this, however, he wasn’t sure what they changed in the creature. It looked as most his brothers did. Pale. Thin. Unnatural.

“What did you?” Avo asked.

{This,} Jack began, {is a first draft. Me and Janie here had different ideas on what to do with the ghouls, but for the “solving the equation of their deaths” aspect, we decided to go with this.}

Avo studied the creature growing in the vat and frowned. “Looks just like a normal ghoul.”

{It is,} Jane replied, {other than a single point of deviation.}

New data filled his Neurodeck as an interface containing detailed simulations of a ghoul’s circulatory system manifested in his mind’s eye, but his Woundshaper felt the change before the visuals told him the blunt truth. The blood inside this new ghoul was clumping–and fast. Hardened tissue was fusing, growing, and mutating. The seeds of multiple fast-growing cancers began to spread across the body of his newest brother, its death now reduced to weeks or months instead of years.

{Five days, actually,} Jack said. {And the best part about this: it’s contagious. The subversion is happening in the blood itself–Jane actually figured that one out. All the time she spent with her Sang friends really paid off.}

[This might actually work…] Abrel said, sounding impressed. [Exploiting the poor impulse control of the ghouls. They eat the weakest ones when there aren’t any people around, don’t they?]

“Sometimes they eat the weakest even with other prey present,” Avo replied. “Good.” He sniffed at the creature and could practically taste its weakness. “Don’t think the Low Masters will be able to notice either. Not unless they learn how the technology actually works.”

A hissing laugh escaped him as he imagined the three remaining Famines struggling to understand why their monsters were all dying. “Will release this one in the dark. See the problem spread. Very good work.”

{Aw, you hear that Jane? He’s praising us! What a polite people-eater we get to work for.}

“Want another variant too,” Avo added. “Something that’s still obvious ghoul but more. In my image.”

{...And there’s the inevitable psychotic narcissism that follows every last Godclad in existence,} Jack said with an exaggerated sigh. {We thought you were one of the more normal ones. What a pity.}

“They’re meant to be an insult,” Avo said. “Provoke the Low Masters' attention. Use it as bait.”

{Will they truly be lured by such an obvious debasement?} Jane said, sounding doubtful.

“One of them might,” Avo said, thinking of Peace and the endless rage the Famine emanated. If he could ambush and subsume just one of them, that might very well allow him to see an end to his father’s killers and claim what little remains of their kingdom for his own to wield against the Guilds. “Don’t worry. Going to commission personal sheathes too. All clades. Different bodies for exploration. Infiltration.”

Jack began to hum a tune while Jane sighed. {Hey, admin, do the ghoul a favor and update his profile to Avo-007. I might need to graft you a dick though. Gotta have a dick for this to work.}

Avo frowned, not understanding why genitalia would be useful to him beyond making him more susceptible to the rash.

{Right! Fuck! You guys literally broke sex and love. Goddammit, you maniacs. You blew it up–}

{Ignore him,} Jane said. {Simply specify what kind of sheathe you wish built and we will do our best to deliver. If you want to achieve certain… anomalous properties within your biology, I fear you might need to seek some local expertise for material and installation as well.}

Cracking glass sounded behind him. Avo didn’t even need to turn to realize who just stepped in. Through Draus shared feed, he looked upon himself and Kae from behind, the Agnos turning to address the approaching Regular.

Chambers, meanwhile, was sitting on a couch after his bloodletting, lost in his own thoughts.

“Fuck’s this?” Draus said, stepping into the room, caked in gore and with entrails hanging from her like tassels.

Kae swallowed and gave a low gag of disgust while Avo tilted his head. “Had a nice time?”

Draus shrugged. “At first. The guns are godsdamned beautiful, but the gangers kept running. Might wanna shoot a golem or something with ‘em to see how they handle harder targets. Decided to test how the kit handles stuff up close and… you know the armor can accelerate you up to hundred and fifty miles an hour, right? Woulda shot through the side of the block if the Manta hadn’t caught me.” She brushed an eye still connected to its optical cord from her shoulder. “We gotta start killin’ tougher shit, Avo. Fuckin’ gangers and enforcers really ain’t doin’ it for me no more. You owe me this shit. You took this from me.”

{Most moral Reg, everybody.} Jack somehow generated a concert’s worth of applause to go with his words.

Avo was just about to speak when he looked at the vat again and paused. An idea sparked through his mind–potential theories and choices both great and terrible.

They didn’t need to waste time testing themselves on gangers and soft meat anymore. Not when they had all the means to create the perfect live-fire conditions of their own.

And the best part was if he could figure out how to separate and spread his Conflagration, he might just be able to spread a template into a new body…

[Oh… I am game-fucking-on for this,] Abrel breathed.

“I have an new idea,” Avo whispered.