Chapter 67: The Final Steps
Perspective: Claw
The atmosphere in the Tower had changed over the last few days. The machine was almost complete, the Entity's plan was palpably close to coming to fruition. And everybody felt it. Command and Control held one full assembly meeting after the other, trying to make sure that absolutely everything went as it should.
Both the Science and Magic divisions worked overtime on putting those last finishing touches on the machine and quadruple-checking that nothing would go wrong once the device powered up.
Over the course of the last week all off-world trade had ceased and portals connecting to other worlds had gone dark. All resources were consolidated in the Tower and the staff from Logistics worked hard on categorizing and storing whatever came.
Claw was naturally not spared from all this. He'd spent countless hours with the Ender working on defense plans and drilling the troops. A final attack by the rebels was not just considered, it was absolutely expected.
Claw had heard a variety of things from different employees, everyone had different expectations of what would happen once the Entity flipped that fateful switch that had been installed in its throne room. The switch that would activate the machine and collapse all worlds into Nexus. Some fully bought into the prospects of prosperity brought on by this grand convergence, others were skeptical but optimistic. A select few were fearful, but they hid it well. Most of these did not know why exactly they felt the fear that they felt, all save for one.
Dr. Veronica Mercury had figured it all out, she knew the fate of the world and everything living in it. Claw had realized this the moment he had seen her during one of his frequent visits to her private laboratory. It was subtle, her posture was a little less upright, her tone of voice was a little flatter, her eyes stared a little further. She knew and she could do nothing about it. She was not even able to sabotage the machine, the Entity kept a sizable portion of its attention firmly focused on the machine, so much attention that conversations it held had become noticeably sluggish.
Claw could of course have told the Entity about the discovery made by their head of Science, but in reality, why should he? At this point her expertise was not required for the machine to work, all it would do is shorten her existence as an individual by a few days. If it wasn't obvious at this point, Claw knew as well. He'd figured it out at some point before the rebels' raid on the portal facility. He'd gone and confirmed it with the Entity even.
Claw's own role in all this didn't change. If the Entity succeeded, he'd be assimilated, if the Entity failed, he'd return to his previous prison. All-in-all the outcomes were the same, in a way Claw was glad he got to exist as his own person at all. However, as a rare exception to his usual attitude, Claw felt genuinely bad for Dr. Mercury, finding out all on her own with something to lose.
Putting the thoughts of impending doom aside, Claw turned to other matters. Kay had developed nicely, just like Glibby said he would. Rumors of this "King in Ash" that was now leading the rebels had quickly spread to the Tower as well. Him burning down that warehouse was just perfect, it exceeded Claw's expectations of how quickly he would deteriorate. However, the fact that so far there hadn't been a single defection from the rebels spoke volumes about their desperation, they clung to hope even when serving under a leader such as Kay.
While deep in thought, Claw had found himself wandering back to the hallway that contained his private chambers, his and those of the other direct subordinates of the Entity. He thought about each as he passed the doors.
From what Claw knew, Glibby had taken his advice to heart and had spent considerable time reading and consulting demonologists. With any luck he'd actually find some sort of weakness he could use. Naturally using it was a different question because at this point, after his repeated losses, the Ape was apprehensive about his next confrontation with Helix. Of course, he hid it under his usual bravado so few people in the Tower knew the truth.
Freak had been acting oddly as of late, more so than usual. Maybe he felt something off with the Entity's plan. Among everyone in the Tower, Freak would be the most likely to have found out. For now, the phantom hadn't done anything that could give Claw certainty.
Finally Claw arrived at the Ender's room. His wandering had not been random, but with purpose. There were still a few things he had to discuss with her, and they could not wait.
He knocked on her door exactly three times. It didn't take long for her to answer. The Ender was still in uniform, wearing her signature obsidian armor with the purple gems. That was to say, the Ender was never out of uniform. It was a common practice for endfolk to wear armor at all times, even while they slept.
The Ender looked at Claw with a neutral expression. "This is about those defense plans, isn't it?"
Claw nodded. "Mind if I come in, or should we go to an office?"
The Ender hesitated for a solid three seconds, then gestured for Claw to enter the room. "I had a feeling you'd come by, so I took the plans with me."
Claw had been to the Ender's private chambers only once before, so he took another look around the room. It looked similar to his in basic structure but there were significant differences. The living room looked like her office, a table, two chairs, a shelf with books and various other things on it. However, one corner of the room was dominated by a bulky device, a dehumidifier. Judging by the absolutely arid air, it worked as intended.
He'd never seen the bedroom, but he assumed that it couldn't be too different from his own. There was one striking difference, however. Where Claw's chambers had a door to a bathroom, the Ender's simply had an opening. Behind this opening Claw could see the winding and branching vines of a chorus plant. The Ender had told him about an ancient custom that leaders would take care of one, parallels between keeping the plant healthy without it taking over the entire room, and leading an army or nation were easy to draw. However, it turned out that the Ender didn't care much for that tradition for its intended purpose, she simply liked gardening as a counterbalance to her day-to-day duties.
Claw sat down at the table, the plans were already rolled out and pinned down.
He began: "So, we've got most scenarios down and accounted for. But we've still got insufficient coverage for the really bad outcomes. Say the rebels somehow breach the main gate and all of our external infrastructure is crippled or destroyed."
The Ender responded: "It's hallway combat at that point, our mages and marksmen should have that front covered. They can only push in so quickly and between them and the bedrock golems guarding the machine, there should be enough time for the machine to activate."
Claw quickly glanced over the possible choke points on the blueprints, then used a marker to highlight several of them. "Those should be our best bet then, we need to make sure our soldiers and civilian staff know this. If they breach that far the civilians will inevitably come under attack."
"I'll have Issa take care of distributing the information, Dimensions has a lot of free capacity now that we've cut the portals."
Claw looked up and directly at his colleague. "Speaking of portals, we can't rule out that the rebels are in possession of functional portal technology from their raid."
The Ender continued his train of thought: "Which means they'll probably have stocked up on forces and resources by now. We should expect not just raw numbers but elite troops as well, if some of these people were able to contact their home worlds, they are bound to have rallied professional soldiers in some capacity. Or worse, heroes."
Claw asked: "Any worlds in particular?"
The Ender leaned back in her chair, thinking the question over.
She replied: "I will have to ask Issa on that too, the only one that comes to mind is the world where Kay hails from. Though I doubt they'd be inclined to help him if what Glibby told you is any indication."
Kay's world was definitely a possibility, especially considering it was one of the few where Herobrine still lived and wasn't an unhinged killer. One more world came to Claw's mind, his own, or rather that of the other one. But that one would remain a non-issue since the energy required to open an invasion-sized portal that far would exceed even the capabilities of the rebels' Void mage. Nobody short of the Entity had that much energy at their command.
"Tell Issa to go over the dossiers of known rebels, as well as any reports about nearby worlds we never established portals to. In fact, we should ask her right now to get going. One of her telepaths should be listening out."
Claw took it upon himself to get the attention of the telepath. If Claw recalled correctly, it was the same one that had told him about his first Command and Control meeting. All he had to do was concentrate on a specific concept. For this specific telepath Claw had to think about weaving a basket while submerged in sea water and wearing a second basket for a hat. The concepts were chosen so it would be nearly impossible for them to be thought of unintentionally.
Seconds later Claw heard the voice of the little girl again. "Hello Claw."
Claw replied: "Heather, we need you to relay some information to Issa for us."
Claw had made a point of learning the names of everyone he interacted with, he found that people were a lot easier to work with if you knew their name. The voice of the other one's memory had told him it was about forming a personal connection and Claw had not found any issues with that.
Heather asked: "Is it confidential?"
Claw transmitted the mental equivalent of shaking his head.
Heather told Claw to wait while she looked for Issa. In the meantime, Claw thought over some additional worst-case scenarios with the Ender until the voice of the telepath appeared in his mind again.
"Ready."
Claw took care to slowly transmit the information, telepathy was much faster than speech and going too fast risked information getting lost in the telepath's short-term memory. Once he was done, he waited for an acknowledgement.
Heather transmitted: "Issa says she'll have it done as soon as possible, you can expect a full report within four hours."
"Thank you, Heather." Claw replied, moments later the connection was closed.
He turned to the Ender. "Four hours and we'll have our threat breakdown. Plenty of time to finalize the regular defense plan. We'll do a formal worst-case one once the report is in."
The Ender nodded. "Let us get to it then, much to be done."
