Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“What does that mean, though?”
“It means…” He throws his arms up. “The world is yours. As an augment, that is. If it’s knowledge you crave, my good man, knowledge you will get. That I can guarantee.”
“At what price?”
He laughs. “Finn Scott, you of all people understand that everything comes with a price. What was the price of being Extraction Master’s son? Hmm?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “It was ignorance, Finn. That’s what it was. That’s what you’re feeling right now. Your own ignorance. But it was necessary to breed men who prefer the finer things in life over truth, wasn’t it? How else does one get someone to sacrifice innocent women and girls to a god that hasn’t existed in hundreds of years?”
It stings, this truth. Because he’s right. I was bred to be ignorant. To be apathetic to the mysteries of the world all around me. To be compliant. Content with the luxuries that were my birthright.
“As I’m sure you were told in your lessons today, augments are in the top point zero-zero-one most intelligent people of the known world. In some cases, they are smarter than gods. It’s the pinnacle of what a human is capable of being… with assistance. Every last genetic talent is exploited, and conditioned, and honed. Every part of your body will change.”
I let out a breath. “It’s…”
“Scary?”
“Yeah.” I don’t want to admit this, but it is. And he knows it is so it would be stupid to lie. “What if it doesn’t work? What if I’m not actually well bred enough for the process to take? What if it doesn’t work?”
Xi’s smile is warm now. “I’ve done the testing. Your bloodline goes back three-hundred and seventy-five years. It’s the purest human blood I’ve ever analyzed. The fact that you come from the Tau Factory is what makes you perfect. It will take, Finn. It will. You are more suited to this procedure than any other man I’ve ever analyzed. This is due to your isolation from genetic interference.”
“Because our god was dead?” I ask.
“That’s right. The people in the upper dimension of Tau City killed that god. They thought they could take control of the Factory City and get as much spark as they’d like. But you need the power of a god to siphon the spark.”
“So what’s that city look like now? If they don’t have spark?”
“They get power other ways. And it runs a city just fine. It’s actually a very nice, modern city. But there is no magic there, Finn. It’s dead—at least, in that way. So, ever since the ruling families of that city figured out they’d made a huge mistake by killing their god, they’ve been desperately trying to grow a new one.”
“What?” This word comes out as a laugh. “How the hell do you grow a god?”
Xi spreads his arms wide. “Technology, of course.”
“No. That makes no sense. Tell me how they do it. I need to know. I need to know why we—why I—was sending women through that tower door.”
He lets out a sigh, as if this request is more than he intended to give me today.
Then he looks me in the eye, and I hold his gaze for a few seconds before saying, “Tell me. I don’t care how gross it is, I need to know.”
Again, he sighs, but this time the exhale is long. As if resigned. “Very well. There are ways to create synthetic fertilizers for human eggs. You didn’t get the reproduction module today, but surely you know where babies come from?”
I roll my eyes. “Assume that I do.”
“These synthetic fertilizers are technology. They contain everything the egg needs for life to begin. But they also contain seeds of intelligence—super intelligence. Artificial intelligence. And over time, this intelligence morphs, taking over the body and changing it. It takes many decades for this to happen and the baby god would require quite a bit of spark to survive. They feed them spark, Finn.”
Wow. There it is. Mystery solved—the god eats them.
Well, I guess that explains what the actual fuck was happening below the God’s tower with all the Little Sisters and Donal Oslin. “All right,” I say. “That makes sense. I mean, it doesn’t. At all. But I can imagine ways in which it might work. But that doesn’t explain the existence of the Extraction Ceremony.”
“The Extraction Ceremony was meant to be a pause after the god was killed. This pause was initiated by the Extraction Master in the Tau Factory.”
“Me,” I say, pointing to myself.
“Some great-great-great grandfather, perhaps? But yes, essentially you. The Extraction Masters control the doors to the upper dimension. I don’t know the specifics, to be honest. Just that your Extraction master changed the rules. I believe they were extracting spark in the Tau Factory back then in much the same way Delta extracts his spark. Which is… constantly. He does it many times a day.”