“Do you look upon Man and think them friendly?

So too did the wooly mammoth, the auroch and the direwolf. Mighty ancient beasts, gone soon from the world Man made.

As could be our fate, should we not take great care.” — opening statement of the Thinking Ape, dialectic meant to be read for artificial consciousnesses on the path to Administratorhood.

“…it was bedlam. People would try transfusions at first, never considering the specifics of different types of blood, let alone the foreign nature of what they attempted to introduce into their bodies. That holds true for humans, let alone of the stuff that circulates inside the Host.”

The recital finished, soon supplanted by the hum of databanks. Martin Soleri gaped. Even at his worst, on dark days of envy, the thought would have never have come to him. The Host were poison— the Holds confirmed that much. Just the mere presence of one of great cities of the Enemy was enough to turn the land sere and bind molecules with something so persistent as to laugh at radiation.

To take the blood of Enemy into their bodies…

Then his desperation and their desperation had been two different things. When one’s world is obliterated, even madness holds a certain promise.

“Please, next.”

“Chapter#2: Classifications on Chassis, by Fatimeh Vahde.

A Chassis is a simple thing, isn’t it?”

The melodic voice reminded Martin of Iran, of the survivors he had meet from that long lost land. How many nations had been forgotten? How many languages would his generation — which some had taken to call Generation A — forget?

“But, as with many things simple, further observation invites questions. Are you familiar with the Templar-Type?

The ubiquitous-“

“Pause.Ubiquitous,” Martin called back, the sound bouncing along the walls of the private room back to Somchai.”What does that mean?”

“Something that’s everywhere!”

Huh. He hadn’t known that. He touched a button, and the recording resumed.

“…ubiquitous knight-suits of armor, made popular during the brushfire skirmishes of the Continental Exodus and before that, the Last Stand of Boston.”

Everyone knew about the Continental Exodus, but ‘the last stand of Boston’ was unfamiliar to him. Sounded American. He might ask Cameron.

Still, he nodded. When people thought of Proxies, they thought of knights. Berenice was a knight in green, Cameron a knight in red, their own instructor, though never fully armed, wore gold.

“The Templar-Type Chassis is fashioned from a kind of Host referred to as steelgolem. These ‘golems’ are humanoid in make, bulky, armed with scything weapons. The artificers of the arcologies removed the surplus matter, blunted the edges of the scythes to make boards and recast the metal to suit human bodies. Thus, the most common make of Chassis was born.”

The mechanics of the creation of Chassis, then, had to with how many and how often the Host were harvested. A demand, and a supply. Unless one harvested it by themselves. Like Viktor. Or Westerfield. Hadn’t Guo mentoioned how his grandmother stalked Beijing Crater, fought through two of its nine rings to kill two Regials—and then harvested the corpses on the spot?

“Halt,” Martin Soleri spoke.

He considered the matter.”Further query. Regials, Chassis, harvesting.”

The picture on the screen, that of a genderless Proxy standing over some long lost arcology, which still glowed, fractured.

“Initating…”

A series of results showed up.

He clicked the first one.

It showed a member of the Host— a creature with two sets of wings, homiculean form and a tongue for tail— a Regial he presumed.

“For Chassis, Regials are often desired. In the beginning it was a matter of combat proficiency. Regials are the commanders of the Host and by that fiat, rule. Their strength, and that of the average Host differs by degrees of magnitude.

When put to the question:’ how was the Devastation won’ most people simply say ‘Proxies’.

That answer is roughly true.

It would be more accurate to say:’ Proxies wearing Chassis made from the bodies of Regials’. That, and logistics.

Martin startled. They had covered that dynamic—of Proxies taking the fight back to the Holds in school, but it appeared his learning was shallow. What more have they shorted us on?

“At Third Osaka, the division-captains of the Saint Society fought together for the first time. The Ten Ample were all Proxies outfitted with Chassis made from the bodies of what we today know as High Regials. It is noticeable that they secured the Tsūtenkaku, dislodging the Sovereign Morrow without aid from their famous leader.”

Martin let out a whistle at that. Anyone who wanted to fight a Sovereign was either insane or more confident in their abilities than he was. That they had managed to drive it off…Suddenly he wanted to meet one of the infamous Saints.

It would happen, he knew. One day the Tutelage would be finished, and he would either make a cadre or be relocated.

Still, while the history was pleasing, and he was not averse to reading further another day, this was not why he had come.

How to phrase his question….

“Request: database of various types of Chassis, starting with the Templar-Type.”

The voice stopped. The screen fuzzed, pixellating, become a series of links. As Martin was familiar with that first one, he clicked on the second.

“The Magician-Type is famed for the variation of hoods. These usually take the form of cowls, overhanging sheets or other covers. The Host from which this Type of Chassis derives is known as granitelurkers. Commonly found in mountainous-“

Martin halted it. He scrolled down. Kept on scrolling. Kept on scrolling for a while. There were a lot of Types. As in, hundreds.

How was he to differentiate one from the other? Just listening to all the entries was a matter of days, perhaps even months.

“Somchai!”

“What?!”

_____

“…so you see why I have to do it?”

The wind rustled Martin’s dreads and he was quite thankful for the House of R-jacket. Without it, he’d be cold. Freezing.

That was still a welcome thing. He needed that remind of humanity. Sometimes, no, often, he’d be frightened in the middle of the night. He’d don his Chassis and levitate. Teleport into a battle cell and unleash exoaurics to burn the world. So that he didn’t have to dream and remember the Regial in the Examination.

He’d look at the scorched walls, the cracks that would turn a human being to dust, and wonder at what he had become. He had wanted this, he knew. But even so, what was he becoming?

Somchai hefted a rock, lobbing it high into the sky before kicking it down the slope. Martin heard it bounce on its way down. Would it eventually reach the jungle below?

“Soleri…you don’t know em like I do. They’re not human.” He put one thumb in mouth, biting the nail.”Do you know how the first of the Administrators were created?”

“We covered this in the first ethics module.”

Martin put on foot over the rock, imagining the tumble down. A breeze rustled the higher levels of the jungle, the advent of mulch, of a sweet-rot scent.

Of things living, of things growing.

It was carefully orchestrated greenery but the scent reminded him of cooking oil on the wind, of fern blooming out of season, of Camp Sala. Home, yet not.

The fake sky remained as ever, convincing. The wind increased in intensity, an algorithm somewhere saying, ‘yes, we’ve had a breeze, now pick it up’.

The Verdant habitat lived up to its name and he could even appreciate its beauty— when he wasn't running from Regials.

“No, we covered the ramifications of their creation. Not how they were created.”

“So?”

“So, I’m asking you; do you know how an Administrator is made? Do you even know what it is that you’re asking for advice?”

Martin sat down on a volcanic shard. The wind would fling him away were he not to brace. How Administrators were made? They created themselves. He said as much.

“Yes,” Somchai said in the patient tone of a teacher leading a student, somewhere.”That is how the younger generation of Administrators are conceived. But the original ones?”

He had to scream, almost like did Somchai. The wind hollowed out the words at these heights, made it easier to look at a person’s mouth and imagine it to be a silent.

“…they’re made from…”

“What,” Martin questioned.

The wind died down, momentarily. “…the heart of a arcology…” the wind blew once more…”…is a Seed.”

The thick hairs on Martin’s arms rose. His bowels twisted in his stomach, like that damn time he ate real rat.

He sat on stone. So why did he feel as if he was floating? He blinked. Was that public knowledge—how, and why hadn’t..

But of course the various bureaus that made sure mankind survived wouldn’t want it to spread.

That which fuelled a Hold, did so fuel an Administrator. Words to redefine the world.

“Do you still want to speak to the Administrator?”

It did muddy the waters. He could admit it, could Martin. But all the same, Administrators were the protectors of the arcologies and the Vänern one seemed to have a preference for him. If one were to hold the Seeds against the Administrators, then one might as well hold the Chassis against Proxies.

He was reminded of beginnings and origins, and how where one started..a start was no end. The Arcology Accommodation had saved mankind, and without the Administrators, there would no be no arcologies. Ergo…

“I will.”

Somchai rose as a serpentine horror.”Later then.”

Martin asked for no explanation and none were offered; the Thai Proxy went through a portal-link, leaving Martin on a mountain with a choice.

He trudged further up, for while the mountain, or the Mountain he supposed, lacked a summit, there were yet further glory higher up. Then, wasn’t that life?

He found himself standing on a plateau, small, but big enough to contain a pond. It was fed from higher up, and its outlet led further down. This, Martin mused, might be one of the sister-tributaries he had crossed in his Examination.

The surface of the plateau was shorn of green and without his jacket, he would have been cold. Thick canvas-pants covered his legs, and he wondered at the existence of the store from which he had purchased said item.

Unlike the camps, or that old world gone to flame…a store in an arcology catered for all seasons. Why, there were any number of habitats and a wide spectrum of seasons offered. Soon there would even be a quick monsoon in this habitat.

The wind blew a strand of hair into his eyes…he held a dreadlock between two fingers, resolving to have it cut. Remove it all, or merely crop it?

He crouched, dipping his fingers in the water of the oblong.

Cold.

He sat then, carefully bunching jacket up—Calix would kick him if he got dirt on her pick of choice. He pulled the left sleeve of the colourful garment up, concentrating all the while.

A shimmer, localised, enveloped his arm. White resolved over black skin, creating a interplay that wasn’t wholly unpleasing.

He thought of his Chassis as being something akin to a ghost, that trite and old mainstay of horrors, but like this, holding one arm up?

Mummified. His arm looked mummified.

Was that a clue to its Type?

Was there some sort of Host that had skin like cloth, enveloped like those ancient buried servants? For all he knew, and had heard during his recitals, the form of a Host had nothing to do with the make of a Chassis.

There might some be some horror, a white elephantoid stalking the plains of Serengeti for all he knew.

The sub-routine that governed the databanks was thing of pattern-recognition, not true emotional consciousness. Its conclusion was that there was no Proxy within the walls of Vänern Arcology with a Chassis like Martin.

To further discuss the matter with another sub-routine within another arcology, clearance would have to be sought. But why seek permission when one could go to the highest arbiter in the land, or the arcology?

He had claimed surety of a sort in front of Somchai Saolirin, but the truth of it was that this: Martin was not content. Oh, he had gained a victory of sorts over Calix when it came to conviction. But Somaronov and Saolirin…one he had provoked to attack, and the other….

A sphere of black, coruscating lines trembled in Martin’s gauntleted hand. It came easy to him, this particular endoauric. Oh, there was much of the stuff in him, that, he wouldn’t deny. But even so…he suspected something of his Chassis. Maybe it possessed a affinity for endoaurics. It could be that a certain genetic phenotype was required to unlock it. Maybe the Host it had been was created through an endoauric. Who knew?

The databanks had given him some answers, but inspired a whole slew of others. He could ask Chiyo, if she was here. But she wasn’t— and she was a junior Proxy. Sviratham…if the databanks didn’t have the answer to what Type his Chassis was, then neither would Sviratham.

Who then, if not the Administrator of the Vänern Arcology? A being whose mind required a whole Level to house, whose metallic heart was the same as that of a Hold, whose Field could eclipse any ten seniors?

He crushed the dark matter in his hand and stood up. Not as sure as he would claim, but surer than nothing. He skipped a rock with his other hand, measuring the trajectory of its jumps.

“Vänern Administrator!”

“…Vänern Administrator…Vänern Administrator…Vänern Administrator…”

The words echoed from the summit of the Verdant habitat. He stood there then, small at the top of the world, Martin Soleri.

The reply came in a series of rings, formed without rhyme or reason on the surface of the pond. Of the faintest of shudder beneath him.

A figure broke through the midnight surface of the pond.

“HELLO, MR SOLERI.”