12 Miles Below

“Intelligent birds? My, you’ve gone a little daft now.” To’Sefit shrugged, her animated image shaking her head with disappointment. “If they can’t understand your name, I see no reason to speak to them at all.”

No reason to talk to them? His instincts told him this was the way. Humans didn’t care for bugs, only the strange and broken ones were fascinated enough to collect them. The same with Feathers, they shouldn’t care for humans or intelligent creatures, with exception to the strange and broken Feathers. Like To’Wrathh.

“Are you going to stop by and talk to every little ant you see in your way? Rather disgusting to even think about.” To’Sefit said, equally coming to the same conclusion he had. “To’Orda, my busy little bee, they aren’t even humans and those monkeys are already barely worth our attention. Intelligent species are… what’s the human term for this? A speck of pyrite per dozen? Bed bugs in a free mattress? Something like that.”

He considered the logic here. “Nnn… Ignore them?”

“Or kill them if they get in your way.” Another image of her shrugging returned, examining her nails with indifference. “I fail to see why this is even a question. They can’t understand our name, it should be obvious they aren’t worthy of anything else.”

They weren’t worthy of speaking to him. That made sense. He felt it was right. His instincts agreed, as did his gut.

But in Mother’s fury, he had been bound to answer any question he was given.

And he had been asked who he was. He couldn’t ignore the creatures, he needed to answer.

His internal programming warred with each other, between the primal need to simply consider them unworthy of his attention, mother’s direct brand on his very soul to answer any question given, and the other primal need to do as little work as possible.

In the end, Mother’s will was absolute and above all other options. He needed to answer these birds. to’Sefit’s last image made it clear not to contact her about things that were beneath her notice.

He connected with To’Avalis instead. That Feather was pragmatic. He might understand the deadlock To’Orda found himself in.

“What?” The Feather asked, and took a moment to digest the information. “Intelligent species exist just about everywhere due to mites, most species are so primitive they aren’t any better than animals. To’Sefit’s logic is correct, you are wasting time. Use them as tools, or discard them, they have no other value. Is that all you came here for?”

The rock sent a quick green checkmark.

“Don’t waste my time with animals again, you are on a deadline.” To’Avalis ordered. “The Deathless I’m using are rapidly falling apart and moving counter to my suggestions, the suicidal fools think they could actually defeat a Feather for whatever inane reasoning. Get your work done soon, you will have to contend with To’Neviris within the day at this rate. And he will certainly be upset at you for the intrusion into his domain once he finds out.”

“Rich coming from him.” The rock huffed. “Considering he’s the one who sent us here in the first place.”

“You found a solution to your issue?” Drakonis said, arms cradling his head while he chewed on a blade of grass. “It’s interesting watching the little rock draw pictures and talk to nobody, but I get a feeling he’s getting a little desperate.”

“I’m not desperate.” The rock instantly shot out, image turning from the vectored black bird to his default doodle. “You’re the one that’s desperate.”

“No. No solution from my team.” To’Orda groaned out before the bickering started. Ignoring the Odin made sense, and fit perfectly within his system like a puzzle piece with both ends aligned.

Except there was a piece there that didn’t belong. Mother’s demand that he answer any question. The birds had asked a question. So long as that demand remained in his memory, the offered solution from his peers could not slot into the logical inconsistency. ṚàΝóꞖÊś

Errors were starting to appear in his software. Smaller systems were shutting down, rebooting and failing all over. No solution was reached.

“Tough.” Drakonis agreed, “What did they tell you?”

“That they aren’t worthy of talkin’ to us. Humans barely register past that threshold, let alone some random birds and dogs.” The rock said.

Drakonis frowned. “That’s stupid even for a machine. What’s their reasoning?”

“Can’t engage with something that can’t understand you exist, duh.” The rock said.

"Of course you can, you’ve been doing it all up till now.” Drakonis said, racking his neck.

The words hit To’Orda like a small knife. They were true. He had been.

“What’s the real reasoning behind thinking you can’t talk to the Odin at all?” Drakonis asked. “Not dumb enough to think ‘unworthy’ is the actual answer here. Too strange to be rational."

Why did it have to be a question? To’Orda wanted to simply turn and go into low power mode for a few decades. Wait all of this out in peace. But, with a resigned sigh, he turned inward as the Deathless had asked, and searched if indifference and contempt on the species was truely what pressed him.

The answer had been immediate to both his peers, while it hadn’t occurred to him until now.

He focused on that.

The indifference was there, the lack of reason to engage at all. All a direct result of learning his name wasn’t recognized. Except it wasn’t his. He knew what his own thoughts felt like, he’d lived with them for years now. He knew when the lack of resolve was his own. This indifference was built deeper into his system, tied up to his core identity.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He studied his mind for where the logical connection had slotted itself. And found his was… frayed. Connected to things that had already been burned out of him, too close to the systems in charge of identity.

Ah. That’s why he was malfunctioning right now. His systems had been damaged, and this edge case was exactly the kind of edge case that needed the processes he now lacked. Unfortunate.

The rock processed the flow of information and spat out an answer. “Yeah, it’s not To’Orda himself that chooses not to care about this. It’s a byproduct of being a Feather. It’s how our kind think. Just… like biology. Issue is that ours got wiped a while back, so the answer the other two gave us just doesn’t work.”

He could easily consider the entire Odin race beneath his attention. Rather, that was his default state for just about everything with exception to his shield, and food now. But Mother’s demand to answer any question was preventing him from moving forward.

“Biology can still be suppressed when you need to.” Drakonis said with a calm shrug. To’Orda’s instincts made him suspect that the human had latched onto something. “If I’m pissed off with someone and recognize it, I can choose not to be a piece of shit. That’s the basics of diplomacy and self-control there. You want these birds to help you out, you gotta be willing to talk to them.”

“They can’t understand our name anymore than a wrench or a rock could pal.” The irony of the rock saying this was not lost to the image generator, but it pressed on. “We’re kinda in a deadlock situation here so there just might not be any solution.”

“Deadlock?”

“Kres asked us who we are. So we gotta answer. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Drakonis started laughing from the belly out. “Polite thing to do. Please. I’d say you’re the strangest Feather I’ve met so far, but the only other one I knew was To’Wrathh.”

“She’s a nutcase.” The rock immediately said. “But you still got a deal to handle Deathless. We swore not to hurt your friend up there, in exchange you help us out. Where’s the help?”

He hadn’t found anything that would resolve the different connection points. No puzzle piece had all the sides he needed to conform to both his natural processes and mother’s artificial additions to answer questions. To’Sefit and To’Avalis both gave him the same advice that ended up useless.

“How about you ask To’Wrathh then?” Drakonis said, “Loop me in on the discussion. If she’s a nutcase like you’ve mentioned, this should be fun.”

“I don’t like this.” The rock said. “Second time we’re going to the enemy for advice. You don’t think that’s odd, boss?”

To’Orda shrugged. Results were results. He opened the channel.

“Have you made the modifications to your pallet?” To’Wrathh immediately began. “I would be interested in verifying if experiences remain consistent between two different Feathers using the same pallet. Humans all have different likes and dislikes, despite the same biology. The idea of that being replicated among our kind is fascinating.”

“No we haven’t done any of that.” The rock started. “It’s a lot of work lady, and we’re on a tight schedule. Maybe after we kill you once or twice and our boss stops hounding after us, we can sit down and hash that out.”

“I doubt you would defeat me.” To’Wrathh said, with supreme confidence. “We can verify this shortly. I know where you are, and I am on the way.”

“Great, nothing personal, just business. And talking about that, can you make heads or tails of this?”

He sent the attachment summerising the issue. To’Wrathh rejected the connection and sent him an unamused image. He’d forgotten that virus warfare was now a thing, started by her. Suppose it was prudent to be cautious around each other at all times while swapping advice.

The rock handled explaining the details in short order.

“Why do you have an issue with your name being unknown to them? They understand most of the idea behind your concept. A nickname would work just as well.”

What? That reaction was… unhinged. Was she even tied to her identity anymore? What in her programming would allow her to diverge that far from the base template of a Feather.

“Nnnn… thanks.” He sent, deciding advice this insane at least deserved a direct response from him.

She sent back a stylized image of herself giving a thumbs up, with a twinkle at the top, then logged off the channel. She’d be arriving soon to try and kill him, so he supposed keeping herself focused was something more important now.

Still. Her answer felt wrong on every possible level.

“Told you she’s a nutjob.” The rock huffed. “The insane lady thinks a nickname would be fine. Absolutely not.”

“That’s her advice?” Drakonis asked. “Use a nickname? Can’t see what’s off about that.”

“Cause you’re human.” The rock sighed. “And she’s a nutjob that’s broken on the inside. No wonder she’s okay with being called a nickname.”

“How about you approach it from the other end?” Drakonis asked. “Doesn’t that mean you’re free from your name around them?”

Free of his name? Then what would he be if his name was absent? There was only nothingness. Default settings. The idea was disturbing. It lacked individuality. It felt anathema to him, to be nothing. He had to be… he had to be unique. He had to be someone. Deep down inside, he knew that was how his kind were built. Mother hadn’t burned him deep enough for that to vanish.

“Still need a name. It’s part of the default instruction seed.” The rock said. “You’re suggesting a tree just pops up into existence. Doesn’t work that way.”

“So you need a name, and one that can be understood by any language you’ll run into. Right? I think To’Wrathh’s advice is sound if you think about it a little more. Why does it have to be your current name?”

Again with the questions. All he wanted was to just grunt and ignore that, get back to his job. But the question had been asked, and he had to give an answer.

It had to be his name because that’s who he was. Drakonis was suggesting he switch his name to speak to the birds. The idea was mind-boggling.

Drakonis leaned forward. “That rock that talks to you, it’s addressed you as boss, pal, bud, all of those. Isn’t that a nickname already? If the rock’s a part of you, how’s it able to give you nicknames in the first place?”

His processes froze in their tracks. The words sunk into his head like a sword, stabbing straight through all the logical inconsistencies building in the backend. Synapses flared into action, building, destroying, and rebuilding different logic functions. Attempting to find a way to reconcile all the disjointed viewpoints. Errors started piling up again, this time he was unable to shunt or reboot the systems behind them.

He stood up, and staggered back down on one knee. Locomotion programs failed to gather enough resources to run, his synapses were consumed with the logical paradox. It was taxing his system too heavily.

Then he found the light. A way forward.

Mother had already renamed him once. The precedent was there. He reused the synapses left behind in that wake, the new logic set down in his system that no other Feather besides To’Wrathh had: The ability to hold two names simultaneously.

The final line of code was input. He triggered the self-reboot sequence.

Darkness. Only his soul remained active, a fractal echo in the dark shell.

Then light. Connection with his greater systems. Information flooded into him once more.

No errors appeared anywhere in his system. All processes nominal. The new patch had correctly taken effect. Logical inconsistencies were resolved.

He was now cleared to input an additional designation.

To’Orda scanned through the options available, an outright heretical operation to any Feather a moment ago. But To’Orda had evolved past that constraint.

There was a name that would line up with what he currently wanted. The image generator had the answer this entire time.

He stood back up, his shell having fallen to his knees without his notice during the shutdown. Violet eyes turned from the Deathless who was watching him like a weary hawk, and up to the bird above.

He wanted them as his minions. That had been his original goal in contacting them. Therefore, there was only one name he needed to be known by them.

“Nnn… You will call me Boss.”

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