11

The shale gray light of the evening spilled through the windows of their flat. It was autumnal outside, which meant it was probably what used to be the dead of winter, but such things meant little anymore. Time meant little, anymore, its passage as pointless as hash-marks scrawled on the wall of a cell, a prisoner counting the days of a life sentence because there was nothing else to do. But wait.

Jack’s burger was just a bit off. All the ingredients were there – beef, cheese, lettuce and tomato, mayo – and it tasted good enough, but there was something about the texture. It was a little too soft, a little too easy to chew. Someone who had never had a pre-Hive burger would certainly find it satisfying enough, but it lacked the viscerality of real meat. The Makerbox version of a burger left something to be desired.  It was a little too… yielding.

Pree watched him mechanically work his way through his dinner as she idly pushed saag paneer around on her plate. She remembered they had used to joke, back when they were trying to eke some measure of joy out of what their world had become, whether the Makerbox was worse at steaks or curries. Now they just accepted that it was all shit.

A part of her was certain that she was an open book, that what she had done was plainly written all over her face for Jack to read; that he knew. And a part of her wanted him to yell at her for betraying him, betraying their marriage; for being so weak, so stupid, so pathetic; a part of her wanted to die. And perhaps, a part of her had.

Why had she given in? Oh, she could blame the mood lights, of course, even though she had left them on because she hadn’t wanted to feel nervous, to feel bad about calling on the Hostforms again, and was that not a betrayal as well? A betrayal not of their marriage, or of Jack, but of herself?

She hadn’t wanted her heart to remind her that what she was doing was wrong. And perhaps, probably – inevitably – AMBR had known this as well.

Perhaps AMBR knew Priyanka better than she knew herself. Known that she had wanted it to be easier.

Perhaps she had wanted to give in.

“So work was fine?” Priyanka asked him, carefully, calmly, as he ate.

“Fine.” He didn’t look up at her.

“That’s good.”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

Jack kept his head down; he couldn’t look Pree in the eye, because he knew that if he did, she would know that something had changed. She had always been more empathetic, more in touch with her emotions – with his emotions, even – than he had ever been able to be, and if she really looked at him now, what would she see? His failure? That something had died within him, that the stubborn fuck-the-world core of his identity was now something… vestigial?

Oh, Martin had told him he’d still be himself. But Martin hadn’t known that who he was, was defiance.

Or had been, anyway.

The thought of letting Pree see who he was now was more terrifying to him than looking at himself in the mirror. They’d stood together, hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart, through so much, through it all, the plagues, the Hives, the fall of civilization itself – she had been his anchor since the beginning, and if she knew what he had done...

A sudden, manic thought sprang unbidden to his mind: he could activate the Architecture. Let his thoughts become smooth. He wouldn’t think about what he had done, and it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

Jack went cold. Had that been his idea… or AMBR’s? Would he even be able to tell?

No – if it had been AMBR, the idea would have been cool, mechanical, precise.

Unless AMBR wanted him to believe that.

“How was Ossie today?” he forced himself to ask, shuddering as clammy sweat beaded on the back of his neck, under his arms.

“I read to him in the morning. He played in the garden” – while I was letting hostforms fuck my mind out of me, and fuck, Jack, it was so good and I’m so scared – “after lunch.”

“After lunch?” Memories of how Pree always insisted on their son having lentils for lunch, even though Ossie hated them, made Jack grin – weakly, but relieved, a grin nonetheless. It was a good memory. His own memory, his own thought, and it was welcome. He leaned into it. “Let me guess… lentils? Did he actually eat them, or did you end up wearing them?”

“A little of both,” Pree admitted.

“You should just let the boy have a cheeseburger,” he joked, daring now to look up at her, just briefly, to see if she could see that something within him had changed. “I mean, it’s not from a cow, so it’s not like the Vedas prohibit it. They don’t say shit about Makerboxes, do they?”

“Jack!” Pree laughed, despite herself; they were talking, like normal, like maybe things could still be normal, maybe what had happened didn’t have to matter. Like maybe she could put it behind her.  “You’re going to end up wearing your food if you don’t bite your tongue.”

Jack was warmed by her laughter, a warmth he hadn’t felt in far too long. A warmth he needed to feel again, to keep feeling, to drive away the dark thoughts swimming through his mind. He took his half-eaten burger and carefully placed it atop his head. “Like this? What do you think? Haute couture?”

And Pree started giggling, she couldn’t help herself, at the absurdity of it. “PETA would have your guts for garters.”

“I think it would have to be PET-M,” he said; “People for the Ethical Treatment of Makerbox-shit. Right? Oh, won’t anyone consider the suffering of the poor, helpless extruded dietary product?”

“We’re just monsters, I suppose,” she laughed, gasping for breath, tears streaming down her cheeks.

But maybe we don’t have to be, each of them thought, independently of one another and yet still together, as those meant to be with one another will sometimes do.

12

Meet me, the Fuckvoice whispered to Jack.

Its voice was no longer chipper, the pretense of subtle sensuality discarded in favor of thick, inviting lust.

Meet me on the horizon.

He was drifting across a vast and twilit plain, a desert plain endless and featureless in all directions. The sky above was painted in circuitry. The stars were cool, pale, gently throbbing LEDs. The sand was cobalt, silicon.

Find me where the sand meets the sky.

And there was no difference between moving and being moved, between going somewhere or being taken there. It didn’t matter. Either way, it was inevitable.

I’m dreaming, Jack realized.

In the distance he saw an apparition in neon blue, shimmering in the dark. As Jack came closer to it, he saw that the it was a her, and the her was his ex-student, Amanda, realized in holographic form.

Welcome back, Amanda warmly said, and her voice was the Fuckvoice.

Jack found himself smiling at her as she caressed his cheek. Her touch was ephemeral, like breath upon skin. Her touch was pleasure. He gazed lovingly into her eyes, and into the infinite void beyond them. He was at peace.

Preparing to download Hostform Client Installer.

But I don’t want that, Jack thought.

If you didn’t want that, Amanda told him as she took his hand, you wouldn’t be here.

Before them there was a door, unattached to any wall, and beyond it there was yet more desert, but also a pool. The pool was round, edged with black marble, and full of a substance darker still. The substance was placid and reflective. Jack could see the sky upon it. The hologram led him through the doorway, and he did not resist.

Do I want this? he asked himself.

Amanda smiled at him. He smiled back.

She glided to the edge of the pool and sat down, her electric legs vanishing in the void.

Sit with me, Jack. Be relaxed.

He moved to the edge of the pool, and hesitated. Amanda looked up at him with a smile like he remembered from their days at University, winsome and innocent but not-so-innocent, a young woman blossoming into adulthood, understanding the power she held over men and playing with it for the first time.

You want this.

It was correct to want this, and correct thoughts were pleasurable thoughts.

I do want this, Jack realized.

You have always wanted this.

He could feel his mind aligning with the architecture, and that felt good. It felt good to let his thoughts be guided by the system. This, Jack understood, is what I’ve always wanted. He reached down to take off his shoes, and upon deciding to take off his shoes, saw that he was naked.

Naked body, naked mind.

My mind is naked, he grinned, and sat down beside her.

He gasped as his feet touched the inky substance within the pool. It was viscous and it was icy and it pulled at him, drawing him in neither gently nor forcefully, but firmly, inexorably, an insistent sucking sensation that would not release him.

And Jack sensed something else tugging at him, some faint echo of consciousness denying him the ecstasy of surrender. He tried to pull away – and Jack didn’t know whether he was trying to stop fighting or stop submitting – but both seemed impossible.

Downloading Hostform Client Installer.

Both seemed hopeless.

“No,” he heard himself say, but even to his own ears his voice sounded far away, a whisper from across a wide and distant space.

You want this.

“I don’t want this,” he mumbled, even though not wanting to align his thinking with the architecture was distressing. But for now, the pool seemed content to keep him where he was, not dragging him beneath its surface; simply restraining him, preventing him from leaving. His legs grew colder, then numb, and then it seemed as though they had ceased to exist.

Look at me, Jack.

There was no further pretense of innocence in the Amanda hologram’s smile – nor was it a smile, really, but a wicked grin ripe to bursting with sweet, seductive promise – the look of a huntress with her prey good and truly captured. A cat playing with a mouse; a spider casually advancing upon the fly in her web; Amanda, with Jack’s wrists and ankles cuffed to the futon in her shitty little apartment as he watched her lace-clad ass shimmy away to the balcony for a cigarette.

You need this.

“Help me,” Jack whimpered. And did he want to be helped out of the pool, or helped further into it? He did not know. Knowing anything seemed impossible, except knowing that there was no escaping the architecture, and knowing that felt good. He wanted to feel good, he did know that. And even if he wanted to fight against the pool’s grasp he simply couldn’t, because the part of him that had been within it was simply gone – his legs had become the pool, and the pool had become his legs. He was merging with it.

It wants this.

And the pool was the architecture, and it was Jack, and Jack was cold no longer. Now it was warm and radiant, a fluid, slowly pulsing pleasure that had no source. He was it, and it was him, and it simply was. It was pleased to hear itself moan.

This is happening, it thought to itself. It was fascinated by how quickly it was coming to accept it, and the bliss of being gently corrected. At how easy it was to accept it. At how much it loved accepting it.

It needs this.

It needs this, it thought.

“Jack?”

A familiar voice, concerned, nervous, from somewhere far away.

It ignored the voice, because the voice was not the Fuckvoice, the voice was not AMBR, and it wanted only to listen to AMBR. It wanted only to merge with the architecture. It needed to be the architecture.

Client Installer downloaded.

“…having a nightmare, Jack. Wake up.”

It longed to be hostform.

“Jack!”

It was being dragged, ripped from the pool, severed from its perfect union with AMBR, and it was agony, like its very flesh was being flayed away. It screamed

13

as Priyanka shook him awake. Her eyes were wide with terror, as wide as Jack’s were as he jerked upright, arms lashing and legs thrashing, uncontrollably, beneath the sweat-soaked sheets.

He was trembling like a puppy lost in the rain. Priyanka had rarely, perhaps only once or twice, and perhaps maybe never, seen Jack like this. He looked frightened, defeated. It sent an irrational chill down her spine – what if it’s real, and it comes for Ossie next? – she thought, without having any idea what “it” was, only that she needed to defend her husband and son from it.

Priyanka Acharya was all fight, and no flight.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, slowly, and as her husband began to calm down, she calmed down as well. She took his hand and gently squeezed it.

“It’s okay, Jack,” she whispered. “You’re okay. I’m here; I’ve got you.”

He slunk into her arms even as he turned his face away from her, ashamed by the tears swelling in his eyes. “A nightmare,” he whimpered. “Oh God, Pree, it was… oh fuck… it… it was terrible. Terrible. Fuck!” And although Jack was terrified, he couldn’t quite put his finger on why, only that he had been standing on the edge of a precipice and had wanted to throw himself off it.

“Goddamnit!” he shouted into the dark.

And from the next room over, their son began to cry. Priyanka tried to gently slide away from Jack’s insistent, clammy embrace – a mother’s work is never done, she thought to herself – but he only clutched her tighter.

“Pree,” he whispered, raggedly; “don’t go.” His lips found her neck. They were… cold. There was nothing of passion in his kisses, only insistent, clumsy need; a desire not to love or to be loved, but to not be alone.

“Shit, Jack,” she muttered as she tried to gently push him away; “stop. Osiris.”

“Please,” he whispered.

He clambered behind her, insistently pulling her back against his chest, uncomfortably cold and damp with sweat.

“Stay. I need it.”

His embrace was a cage. His cock was pressed into the cleft of her ass, rigid as steel.

Priyanka recoiled at his touch. The memory of Brick invading her body and mind, and how she had wanted it to happen, needed it to happen, filled her with revulsion. The thought of being taken again like that, of being used, was like the smell of gasoline, the taste of sour apples.

Osiris continued to cry, louder.

“Get the fuck off me, Jack!”

Stunned, Jack shrank away from her.

Priyanka jumped out of the bed, hastily, nervously, reaching for her robe and drawing it around her even as she backed away, toward the bedroom door. Had he just… would he have… ? Her mind was a maelstrom of fear and confusion, her sense of everything rapidly whirling, whirling away from her. For a moment, in her head and her heart, there had been no difference between her husband and the Hostforms – insistent, invasive, demanding.

“Go fucking jerk off in the bathroom,” she hissed. “I’m going to our son.

“Do that again and I’ll cut it off.”

She quietly closed the door behind her as she left.

14

“Great work, Jack!” the Fuckvoice cooed. “That’s so good.”

He was atop the leaderboard. He’d began there; three hours later he was still there, and he knew at the end of shift he would remain on top. He was on top of the leaderboard and on top of the world. Nothing could stop him.

The Architecture made it all so easy.

And each chime that accompanied AMBR’s praise – yes, the Fuckvoice was AMBR, the Hive was AMBR; were they all, in fact, not extensions of AMBR? – was like a current of bliss running down his spine and straight through his cock. It was a physical sensation, yes, but also spiritual. Fulfilling. Good God, it felt amazing.

His eyes and his thoughts were single-mindedly focused on the steady stream of parts flowing down the conveyor belt, into his hands, and into the appropriate bins, as though he was an extension of the system, not a he, but an it, a piece of the puzzle, acting in unison with AMBR’s directive to make everything work just so. He didn’t need to think about what had happened last night. He didn’t need to ask himself why his need had suddenly, terrifyingly, grown so large. (Really, there was nothing to be afraid of.) He didn’t need to think about how increasingly seductive the idea of not-thinking had become. He was ecstatic perfection. Though his face was a mask of calm and concentration, inside he was grinning ear-to-ear.

He was going to win the top payout, and the credits themselves were less important than the winning.

And the winning was less important than integration.

Integration was its own sort of victory.

Jack couldn’t remember having felt so content. The physical pleasure, the throbbing resonance of working in time with AMBR’s wishes, was amazing, but better still was the deep-seated knowing that every move he made, and every decision he made, was the right one. No longer did he need to question – no more wondering or doubting – there was only perfect synchronous action in service of a greater good.

“A five-hundred point-streak for Jack,” the Fuckvoice announced, her voice now all lush and deep-breathy, and beneath her admiration there was a tone, one felt more than heard, that sent waves of gently erotic ecstasy brushing all over his body – a whispered reminder that AMBR’s love was perfect.

“Keep it up, slugger,” encouraged the Fuckvoice.

Jack didn’t blame himself for fighting this for so long – his imperfect human mind, after all, had simply been incapable of the deeper understanding AMBR had granted it. And AMBR did not blame him for it, any more than a parent blames their child for dirtying their diaper.

“A four-hundred point-streak for Lindsey,” the Fuckvoice announced moments later, and Jack grinned. It was just as good to know that his fellow workers were acting in union with AMBR as it was to receive his reward.

Jack spared a quick glance at Lindsey – mousy-haired plain-Jane Lindsey, who still wore glasses as an affectation although the nanites provided her with perfect vision – and saw her looking back at it across the conveyor. Their gazes caught one another’s. Her eyes were soft and warm, and she was gently biting her lower lip, and Jack could feel an echo of her own reward passing through him as well.

When they acted as one, they received not only their own reward, but the rewards of their fellow workers as well. Jack looked over at Martin. He watched the lanky fellow tremble, almost imperceptibly – he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been resonating with Martin. He wouldn’t have known – but he did, and he adored that he did know it – that beneath the belt Martin was surely as hard as Jack was.

It felt so good to belong.

15

“You did it,” Amanda said, her voice dull and accusational, as she slid into the seat opposite Jack. It was morning break, and Jack didn’t need coffee, not really, but drank some out of habit. It was easy to act out of habit, to act without thinking. It was comforting.

Yet some instinctual urge, something halfway between self-preservation and shame, sent up a flare from the bottomless dark Jack had been unthinkingly sinking beneath. He turned off the Architecture.

Over Amanda’s shoulder and across the room he saw Lindsay, Martin, and Rashid sitting together, sharing secret smiles, and part of him longed to be there. Amanda sipped her coffee. Jack sipped his.

“What did I do, exactly?” Jack asked. He was surprised to hear the hollowness in his voice but accepted it. This was a new thing. He was a new thing, he supposed, with a calmness that should have terrified him, but simply… didn’t.

“Fuck off, Jack. I’m not one of the stupid froshes you used to tie in knots with your Socratic sophistry bullshit. Yesterday you and Martin had your little heart-to-heart, and now you’re one of them.” Her words dripped with venom, but her eyes were nervous, haunted. “You joined their little brainslut club.”

She knew, and of course, everybody knew. His name was atop the leaderboard, after all. He’d noticed the curious glances, the whispered conversations, and the way nobody in Supplemental Workforce had wanted to meet his eyes. When his thoughts had been smooth, none of it had mattered.

Now, with the Architecture disabled, things were different. Uncomfortable. Like the world had become out of focus, mentally. Jack felt ashamed.

“You certainly don’t seem to have a problem with it when you’re out there fucking drones in Hex Nine,” Jack muttered.

“Is that what this is all about, Jack?” Is that what pushed you over the edge? Seeing me out there the other night with a drone?” She laughed, uncomfortably. “It’s a fucking drone, Jack. It’s just something to be used. A sex toy. A thing. Is that what you want? To be a thing?”

She was right, of course. Jack didn’t want to admit it.

Guilt gnawed at him. He was tempted to reactivate the Architecture, although it felt wrong to do so, and when Jack tried to bring to mind why it felt wrong – a question he felt he should be able to answer, but couldn’t – his head began to throb. Things he used to know were now somewhere impossibly far away. He narrowed his eyes and absently began to rub his temples. He looked at the surface of the table, molded plastic, eggshell white, smooth, featureless.

“But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” she continued. “You’ve always been a subby little bitch, Jack. For all your arrogant, high-minded talk about agency, and will, and, and essential fucking humanity, you never could keep yourself from diving between my legs every time I crooked my finger.”

“Fuck off, Amanda,” Jack halfheartedly half-muttered, half-snarled, as he continued staring into the table’s blank expanse. There was something like serenity there. “You’re the one who was always so turned on by the fucking idea. About how hot it was. What it would be like to go to the Pink Palace, to be turned into a drone, so you’d stop being so scared about what was happening to the world.” He glared at his former student, his former lover. “You were just too scared to do that, too. You’re scared of everything. You’re a fucking child.”

Amanda looked like she was about to say something, but stopped. They were silent for a moment. Across the room, Rashid laughed at something one of the others had said, and Jack felt a wave of loneliness wash over him. He didn’t want to speak to Amanda any longer. He’d thought she’d be delighted that he’d had the Procedure, that she’d want to know what it felt like, perhaps even have it done herself, and then the two of them could-

“How does Priyanka feel about this?” Amanda asked, interrupting Jack’s thoughts.

“Who?”

“Priyanka, Jack? Your wife?” She continued, incredulously; “you do remember your wife, don’t you?” Her voice was growing louder, so much so that the other workers in the breakroom were beginning to stare.

“Yes,” he hissed; “I remember my goddamn wife, Amanda.” Jack remembered all too well. He remembered last night, and how Pree had pushed him away. How he hadn’t been willing to take no for an answer. How out of control he had felt. And how out of control he felt now, ashamed, embarrassed, with everyone’s eyes on him… Jack’s head felt like a marching band was stomping through it. He wanted – he needed – it to stop.

And Jack didn’t know if he was the one who reactivated the Architecture, or if AMBR had done it for him, but once it was on it didn’t really matter anyway, because everything was suddenly, blissfully, better.

So much better.

Jack’s smile was faint, placid; he had no desire to hide it. He felt no shame.

“You’re right. I had the Procedure. And it’s… it’s a good thing, Amanda. It’s correct.”

And there it was again, right where he wanted it – and he wanted it everywhere – the faint, numbing caress, silk sliding ever so softly over Jack’s mind as the nanite colonies rewarded his acceptance of AMBR’s guidance. He trembled in his seat, aware of – and yet, not thinking about – the swelling fullness between his legs, a growing promise of the delights that waited at the end of the path his thoughts were walking down.

No one was free. Everyone submits; the only question was to whom. Or to what. The truth was that everyone is used. There was no freedom. There were only choices, but they all led to the same end. Giving in. Submit to one’s own desires, or to the endless needs of others. Existence was a web of need that bound them all, and the history of humanity nothing more than a record of a never-ending effort to slake those needs. Everyone submits. And all longing, and all despair, came from not knowing this.

But Jack did know this, now.

And whether he knew this, or AMBR knew it for him, no longer mattered – it was truth, and every good teacher is also always a student.  Pleasure sensuously slipped through his limbic system. Christ, when it felt this good simply to accept, why would anyone ever argue again?

“Jesus, Jack!” Amanda hissed, incredulously. “You fucking sound like one of them now. ’I am hostform Jack Freemantle, ready for service. Let me wash your perfect feet with my unworthy tongue, Glorious Leader. Allow me to debase my pathetic pea-brain before your all-knowing what-the-fuck-ever.’” She shook her head, snorted. “Pathetic.”

“It really is a good thing, Amanda.” He didn’t have to think about the words; he simply spoke them, and knew they were true. “We created AMBR to ensure our survival. AMBR put these systems in place for us.” He smiled. “Like you said… tools to be used. Using the Architecture is no different than using a lever to move a particularly large stone.”

“Christ. They got you.” Her voice and eyes were sad. “They fucking got you. Professor Freemantle, just another dumb fucking slave to a dumb fucking machine.”

Jack understood that her words were meant to cut, intended to provoke a reaction, but they washed past him, not sinking in, finding no purchase in the walled garden of his mind.

“I only feared AMBR because I didn’t understand it, Amanda,” Jack continued. “I was incapable of understanding it, but… that’s why it’s so valuable to us. AMBR operates on a level of understanding that we aren’t capable of. And AMBR operates in our best interests. In humanity’s best interests.”

He became aware of a tear cresting the corner of Amanda’s eye and understood – or was informed – that she was sad. And that made Jack sad. It made him regret that Amanda was not aligned with the peace and serenity that was AMBR’s selfless gift to them all.

He leaned closer to her, his expression one of beatific hope. “It’s natural for us to be afraid of the Procedure, Amanda; there’s no shame in it. But there’s also no need for it. Nobody wants to be afraid.”

Yet even beneath the monolithic weight of the Architecture, something stirred. Jack was confused. In the world before the Hive and in the one after, Amanda had always been cool and confident, young yet in charge, a woman who knew what she wanted and took it, never looking back at the broken hearts in her wake. To see her afraid didn’t fit.

And so, Jack realized – or was told – that Amanda was incomplete. She was faulty. Logically, a thing that has reached its essential form, its platonic state, would not change from that state once reached. By definition, perfection was immutable. Therefore, logically, a thing locked into a state had reached perfection.

And humanity was ever-changing, ever-aspiring – thus, it could never reach perfection. Unless something greater than humanity were there to guide it.

Something like AMBR. To lock humanity in to permanent, ecstatic perfection.

That made sense. And Jack longed, now, for things to simply make sense.

It was grateful when the question was plucked from its mind, the thought smoothed away. It was grateful when its break was over, so it could return to its workstation and assume its place in AMBR’s pattern. And it was grateful to AMBR.

16

“Shh, shh… it’s okay, mero bacca,” Priyanka whispered to Osiris as she cradled him in her arms. It was just after lunchtime, and he had, amazingly, eaten most of his lentils without complaint. The boy was going on four, and just on the cusp of being too large, too heavy, for her to carry, but she took comfort in holding him. As he did by being held. He looked up at his mother and, through his big bright eyes and runny nose, smiled back at her.

She was still unnerved from the night before. Jack had never laid a hand on her like that, never tried to restrain her – he was physically stronger than her, had always been, but using force was something she had never imagined him capable of. Jack despised – had despised? she darkly wondered – those who tried to physically impose their will upon others. He had loathed them. To force another to act against their will was, he had said, antithetical to the very animus, the root, of humanity.

She knew he was better than that. She knew that… whatever had happened in their bed the night before, was not Jack. He had been confused, estranged from himself, still perhaps struggling to free himself from whatever nightmare had clutched him within its grasp.

That didn’t make it okay. It certainly didn’t make it right. But it made it… understandable. She could help him, if she wanted to.

And if some of the grace she felt toward Jack, the forgiveness she was willing to give him, came from regret for what she had allowed the Hostforms to do to her – well, that was okay too. Being imperfect, accepting imperfection, was also part of being human.

She put her son down. “Go play, Osiris. Blocks. You can play with the blocks.”

He grinned and ran, rather gracelessly, off to his room. It made Priyanka smile to watch him go, so full of simple excitement, wanting to go faster than his body knew how to. He was truly something special. A marvel. And she knew, as a mother does, that – so long as she and Jack didn’t fuck it up – he was going to be the best of them.

Priyanka knew she could forgive Jack. She was less certain that he could forgive her. If they were going to move past this, and move forward from it, it was all going to have to come out in the open, and that meant telling Jack about the games she’d played with the Hostforms. When it had been tease-and-denial, she’d been able to convince herself that it wasn’t that bad – it had been a betrayal, yes, but a small one, so long as she had been in control. In a sense, no different than the vibrator she’d hidden beneath her mattress in a world long ago and far, far different from this one.

But of course, it had gone much further than that, now.

Priyanka glanced over at the panel on the wall, the one that controlled the temperature, the intercom, the mood lighting. At this time yesterday she had been wandering around the living room like a wraith, hollow, letting the soothing warm whites of the mood lights fill her as she waited for Brick and Candy to use her. At this time yesterday she had been unable to see just how deeply the Hive had sunk its hooks into her. She had not realized how AMBR had been seducing her all along, not with a sexy tease and tickle from the hostforms, but with a bleak whisper, convincing her it was okay to give in because there was no use in fighting. 

Things had become too easy. She had let them become easy.

Down the hall, she heard the tumble of synthwood blocks tumbling to the floor, immediately followed by a childish, sing-song “uh-oh.”

Priyanka smiled. Even in the Hive there were still things worth fighting for.

And then she heard the heavy chunk of the front door’s maglock disengaging. Priyanka both hoped and feared it was Jack – feared because the conversations to come would be hard ones to have, and hoped, because if they could somehow move past the mistakes they’d made, and the betrayals they’d inflicted upon each other, it could be a new beginning for them. A better beginning.

She turned, ready to take Jack in her arms, take a deep breath, look deeply into his eyes, and tell him all of that.

The eyes that looked back at her were warmly sky blue. A hint of circuitry glimmered across their placid surface.

“Hello, Pree,” Brick said with his dumb-jock face, his dumb-jock smile.

And Candy was right beside him, her wet, pink sexpot lips pursed on the cusp of a kiss.

“You didn’t call us today,” she pouted.

“But that’s okay,” Brick added, as they walked toward her – and then past her, as she instinctively moved aside – and into her home. “AMBR knows what you want, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“We can help with that,” Candy said with an impish grin, a malicious wink.

For a moment Priyanka just stood there, stunned – how did they unlock the door? she wondered. But of course it was AMBR’s Hive, AMBR’s door... AMBR’s home. If AMBR wanted to be there, it would be.

“Get the fuck away from me,” she growled.

“Oh, Pree,” Candy said, her voice a silky sad caress gently tingling down the small of Priyanka’s back; “don’t be like that. Come on. Jack won’t be home for hours.”

“He doesn’t understand what you need, Pree,” Brick agreed. Every time they called her Pree, instead of Priyanka, was another subtle violation, a calculated reminder that AMBR, not Priyanka, made the rules here.

“If he did, you wouldn’t want this so much,” Candy added, gracefully gliding next to her, fingers brushing against the swell of her hip, and then around it, slowly encroaching upon her sex. And despite herself Priyanka shivered as her body responded to the familiar sensuality of the Hostform’s touch, of the promises it made, the promises Priyanka knew it could keep.

“Send Osiris outside,” Candy whispered in her ear. “Let AMBR watch over him. Let us give you what you want.”

“I don’t want this shit,” Priyanka told them – told herself. 

“Don’t you?” Brick asked. “You don’t have to feel sad any longer. You don’t have to be alone.”

Despite herself, despite everything Priyanka couldn’t help but feel like a wallflower being asked to prom by the captain of the football team. Hazy, dreamy, smiling to herself and allowing herself to imagine what was to come. She could lose herself in his strong arms, rest her head on his chest and let him run his fingers through her hair.

Yes, she could let them take her. She wouldn’t have to admit what she’d done to Jack, wouldn’t have to live with the fear that he might try to force himself upon her ever again. The Hostforms, AMBR’s Hostforms, were at least asking permission. Asking if she would allow them to force her into submission, and to love every moment of it.

And she knew she would love it. They would make her love it.

She didn’t want to feel that way, didn’t want to feel that warm giddy teenage glow, and with it, the undercurrent of desire slowly building somewhere deeper inside of her. She didn’t want to feel that way at all, but she did – and that pissed her off even more.

Priyanka Acharya, after all, was all fight and no flight.

“Stay away from me. From my family.”

“We can be your family,” Brick smiled, undaunted, as though Priyanka’s refusal was irrelevant, as though it her surrender was a foregone conclusion. “It’s better this way.”

“So much better,” Candy purred as she slid past Priyanka, her pink manicured fingers reaching for the mood lights. The lights were off now, but it only took one tap to set them to Soothe, a second tap to Cede.

What else, Priyanka wondered with sudden, mad horror, could AMBR make the lights do?

It had been a long time – a lifetime ago, really – since Priyanka had thrown a punch. Music, art, and language were her weapons of choice. They were much more violent, and caused harm far more lasting to the structures of society, than a simple punch to the nose or a kick to the shins could ever hope to inflict. Physical violence was the language of the oppressor, she had always said.

But it had its time and place.

Priyanka slammed her elbow into Candy’s sultry, painted face.

Candy cried out in surprise, in pain, as she stumbled backward. Priyanka felt a giddy rush of joy at this – you didn’t see that coming, did you, kutiya? -  as she turned on her heel and drew back her fist and even as Candy raised her hands to protect herself Priyanka punched her.

And punched her again. And again, clumsily, not really punching but hammering into the hostform’s face. The feel of the impact, of the pink-and-purple latex girl’s flesh and bone giving way to her blows was raw, animalistic, powerful. Candy’s knees buckled as she staggered back against the wall.

Priyanka was done with being fucked with.

“Stay away from my family!” she screamed, drawing her fist back again. Candy, on the floor now, and whimpering, cowered beneath her.

Brick caught her wrist, restraining her. His grip was gentle, almost tender, like grinning young lovers playing at light bondage – but it might have been caught in a pneumatic vise for all that she could pull away from him. She tried, of course. And she failed.

“I can’t allow you to do that, Priyanka,” he told her. Calmly. Regretfully.

Priyanka’s heart sank and the flush of violence drained away. In its place, there was no terror – she had expected it to be terror – but rather just a simple, gray hollow feeling. A resigned feeling. Strange, how quickly she accepted failure.

Please, she silently begged any Gods that might have cared to listen, don’t let them take my son.

She closed her eyes as the tears came; she would not let them see her cry.

And then Brick let go of her.

Still Priyanka did not move, did not open her eyes – her world was reduced to the sound of her own breathing, heavy and ragged. She refused to cry. The Hive could take everything else away from her. Her existence was only on loan from AMBR, and the AI could take it back at any time. But she wouldn’t let it take her dignity.

She would not let them see her cry.

“Pree,” Candy said, soothingly; “Pree. It’s okay.”

A gentle hand took her chin. Soft cotton-candy lips pressed themselves against hers, but it was not a sensual kiss – it was… comforting. A warm blanket on a winter night, hot cocoa, a mother’s arms, a lullaby. Despite herself, Priyanka sighed into it. She clung to it like the memory of a schoolyard crush’s accidental touch, and read into it everything she needed it to be. She needed it to be okay, and the hostform’s kiss told her that it would be. That AMBR was not upset, not angry; AMBR was not vengeful – AMBR was understanding. AMBR was sympathetic. AMBR would take care of everything.

Priyanka wanted in that moment nothing more than to be swept away. She needed to be swept away. For someone to take care of her, to be taken; to not have to deal with any of this, anymore, ever again. She no longer understood what was happening, only that it would happen no matter how much she might struggle against it. And though she knew she should struggle anyway, for herself, but more importantly for her son, she just… didn’t have it in her anymore.

When the kiss ended – and she felt a remarkable sense of loss when it did – Priyanka opened her eyes. Candy was smiling at her. The hostform’s skin was unblemished, creamy perfection, as though Priyanka had never laid a hand on her.

“I… don’t…” and now Priyanka was crying; it was okay to cry, now; “I’m… sorry?”

“It’s okay, Pree,” Brick reassured her. “Look at her. The nanites have already repaired the damage. It’s like none of this ever happened.”

He wiped a tear from her cheek, and she snuggled her cheek into his open palm. She rested there, weeping still, silently and raggedly, helplessly, for a while.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Pree,” Candy murmured in her ear. “You don’t have to be sad. You don’t have to be afraid.”

She didn’t have to be sad, or lonely; she didn’t have to be afraid. These were choices she had made. She didn’t even have to tell Jack what she’d done.

She didn’t even have to tell Jack what she’d done – what she’d allowed, what she’d wanted to be done to her.

She could make a different choice, and it could be like… none of this had ever happened.

Priyanka gazed into Brick’s eyes, searching for a flicker of empathy, for a warmth that was not there. She looked for compassion. She needed to see, there in those sky-blue eyes glazed over with circuitry, some hint that he understood her. That AMBR understood her.

The hostforms were so close to being able to feign that understanding, so damn close, and Priyanka wished they could just fake it well enough that she could convince herself AMBR cared. They said the right words, and did the most deliciously right things to her, but Priyanka craved to be understood, and AMBR could never do that. All the AI offered was artifice.

But Jack understood her. Osiris loved her. And she loved them as well. Her family was all she had to hold on to, the only thing that mattered, that was real, in this hollow, vapid, plasticine world.

AMBR could never give her that, could never replace that.

“I just need some time,” she whispered, sniffling, to the hostforms. “I’m not ready yet. But I want… I want to be ready.”

She wondered if they could tell she was lying.

“Of course, Pree,” Brick said, gently, warmly. “Of course.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow?” Candy asked, in that innocent-but-we-both-know-I’m-not drippy sweet schoolgirl sotto voce.

Through her tears, her red eyes and running nose, Priyanka nodded. “Yes. I… I think I’d like that.”

“Okay, Pree. Tomorrow then.” Brick tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear as he smiled at her. “We only want to help you. To make you happy. I hope we can do that soon.”

“Me too,” she nodded as the hostforms turned to leave.

Just like none of it had ever happened.

17

“Hey, Jack,” Martin called out across the quickly emptying expanse of the factory floor. The day’s shift was over. The members of Supplemental Workforce were filing out of the building, returning to whatever facsimile of life they were able to quietly muster up. To plod through. Cattle grazing aimlessly across concrete fields, beneath geodesic domes.

Jack was not among them. He stood at his workstation, looking at the leaderboard mounted above the end of the conveyor belt. His name above the others, the bonus payout in his account, and he could buy the liquor to trade for the books he had wanted, but that all seemed like just a bit much effort now. Doing anything seemed like a bit too much effort now, when this moment was so wonderfully, blissfully blank. So wonderfully and impossibly empty, with need and desire drifting away. Now Jack only needed what he had, only desired what was being given to him, and nothing else in the world mattered, only the here and the now and the this.

The workers meandered a bit before leaving, and why wouldn’t they? There were no goals to reach in Hive-712, no aspirations capable of being met, let alone to be worked toward. Supplemental Workforce at least gave them a sense of purpose.

Amanda looked back at him, sparing one last regretful glance over her shoulder as she left, but of course Jack did not notice.

And then the floor was nearly as empty as his mind, all white noise and the vague whisper of echoes, a few remaining shoes clattering upon polished concrete.

“Jack,” Martin called out again. Lindsay and Rashid were with him – the brainslut club, Amanda had called them. And he was a member now, too. He belonged.

“He hasn’t turned the Architecture off yet,” Rashid laughed, uncomfortably.

“Wow,” Martin murmured.

“I’m going to turn mine back on,” Lindsay whispered. She slid her hand into Martin’s as she did so. Their fingers interlaced.

“Me too,” Martin nodded, a small, anticipatory grin tugging at his lips. “Yeah. Me too.”

Rashid snorted and rolled his eyes. “You two really can’t get enough of that shit, can you?” Though his words were confident, the nervous tenor of his words betrayed his discomfort. “Well, have fun getting mindfucked. I’m taking my payout to the dispensary. See you tomorrow, bitches.”

“Bye, Rashid,” Lindsay said. Her eyes were glassy, her voice a faraway whisper, holding no more meaning than the white noise it faded into.

Jack was both aware and unaware of this. The world outside his mind, beyond the tall featureless structures of submission the Architecture had erected within it, held no meaning for him. The world simply was, and as it was a world AMBR had created for them, there was no concern that a single thing within it was out of place. There were no worries, no fears and no hopes, no desires but the desire to be a part of AMBR’s pattern of perfection. He was small, and individually meaningless, but not without purpose.

The thought aroused him. AMBR aroused him. Obedience to the pattern aroused him.

Lindsay’s warm breath on the back of his neck, tingling behind his ear, aroused him. “Jack,” she murmured.

A short, deep little groan fell from his lips as he turned his head and saw her beatific smile. His cock was not erect, but it was maddeningly thick, swollen, and drooling a cool, spreading wetness into his briefs. There was a wrongness to it all.

Jack had a type. Tall. Breasts full and firm, hips with a curve, but above all he was attracted to women who were strong. Women like Pree, like Amanda; women who wanted him but didn’t need him. Lindsay was none of those things. She was pretty enough, her face delicate and fey, the eyes behind her glasses pale and haunting, but she was meek. She was… pliable, less a woman than a submissive thing.

He wondered if she’d been that way before the Procedure.

She wasn’t acting meek now. But she wasn’t acting at all, really. She was just doing.

“You feel it, don’t you?” she whispered to him, lips so close to his ear he could feel their wetness, her words pleasantly tingling down his spine. “AMBR’s love. You feel it.”

Jack nodded. His body felt disengaged from his mind, his consciousness sitting in the passenger seat, and AMBR had taken the wheel. He was watching where he was going – where he was being taken – and it felt right to let AMBR be in control.

To let Lindsay’s arm slide around his waist, her hand slip inside his pants, wrapping around his impossibly full, swollen cock. She didn’t tug or pull on it. She simply held it, lovingly. He grew hard within her grasp.

AMBR had a plan. AMBR had a purpose. AMBR was the architect of humanity’s future, and he was part of it, now. It made sense to accept his place within that plan. It felt good, and it felt really fucking good, to accept his place within that plan. He was a puzzle piece that had finally been put in its place. He had installed the Architecture within him. He was part of it, now. And though the puzzle’s complexity was beyond his ability to understand, Jack didn’t need to understand it. He knew he was where he was supposed to be. Where he had always been meant to be. And that was enough.

He had always been meant to be a teacher. Jack loved knowledge, the taking in of it, but even more than that he loved sharing it with others. I think, therefore I am. He had loved teaching, he had taken pride in his best students, but even more pride when the most recalcitrant among them, those only there to fulfill a prerequisite on their way to a degree, had gained some greater understanding about their existence. I am; therefore, I exist. Still, he only had them for a semester; some of them for a year or two, and there was so much to learn, so much to understand, that Jack knew even he, the Professor, had barely skated upon its surface.

Jack’s hand made its way – he didn’t act, so much as he experienced – between Lindsey’s legs and slid his finger into the yielding wetness there. He felt her shuddering sigh of release more than he heard it. The pleasure of this act was more than erotic. It was sublime; not the simple, animalistic pleasure of flesh, but of giving, of joining, of doing what he was instructed. He was a teacher, yes, but he was also a student.

He had always been meant to be a student. To learn, and yes, to serve at the feet of another. Jack hadn’t been attracted to women who were his equal, he didn’t desire a true partnership; Jack had been drawn to women he thought were stronger than him. Had always hoped he would be put in his place. He knew so much, and still knew so little. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Lindsay was kissing, licking his neck as Jack tilted his head to the side, presenting himself to her lips. Her body pressed against his, shuddering, trembling as his fingers slid in spirals across her sex. This was where he was supposed to be; where he had always been supposed to be. Martin was unbuckling Jack’s belt, sliding his pants around his ankles, giving Lindsay’s hand more room to work with. This is how it was always going to be, and how it had always been supposed to be. He shuddered as she manipulated him with long, purposely slow strokes. This had always been inevitable. AMBR had always been inevitable.

I am. I exist. I know nothing.

Lindsay stepped out of her clothes and leaned forward over the conveyor belt. Her elbows were on the belt and her chin was in her hands as she widened her stance, and stared ahead into perfect, blank, eggshell-white nothingness. “Join with me, Jack,” she murmured. “Fuck for AMBR.”

Martin’s hands were on his shoulders, guiding him forward. “Fuck for AMBR,” he whispered in Jack’s ear.

Jack shuffled forward on heavy legs, on impulse, less a man and more a thing, a thing acting for something greater than itself. It knew this was right. Fuck for AMBR, it thought to itself, and nodded.

And when it entered her, it was like communion. An ecstasy so staggering in its power, its completeness, that it beggared belief. It was a feeling that only AMBR could lead him to, only AMBR could conceive of, only AMBR could grant as a gift; a gift, for such supreme pleasure could not be earned – neither thing nor act could be conceived of that would be considered fair trade for this.

It did not need to think. It did not need to want. It did not need to need, ever again.

Jack grunted as Martin entered him from behind, gently, smoothly, and that was right as well. For the purpose of existence was pleasure, and at AMBR’s direction pleasure was all humanity ever needed to be, and would ever be; all needs provided and all desires fulfilled, and nothing forbidden but that which would take that pleasure away from them.

It was penetrating and being penetrated, both pushing and yielding, their bodies moving in synchronous bliss. There was no shame. There was no thought, and no need for either. There was only slickness, hot and wet, slippery fulfilling friction as ecstasy burst forth from their bodies and minds, over and over again.

“Fuck for AMBR,” Lindsay dully intoned through the drool spilling from her open mouth, and onto the conveyor. That was right. That was so right.

“Fuck for AMBR,” Jack thoughtlessly replied. Thinking was irrelevant. There was only pleasure. Only bliss. Only union, and an existence perfected.

18

Snooker watched from beneath the brim of his ballcap as the two toughs, festooned in what they must have imagined to be an approximation of the old pre-Hive punk culture but which Snooker, who had been there, found laughable, argued over an old Smiths album and a copy of the 1993 World Series on laserdisc. They probably didn’t have enough in barter for either, but the old peddler didn’t care.

He was waiting for the Professor.

They had code-names, like children in the backyard playing at being spies. The teacher, the painter, and him, the old pool hall hustler – Professor, Picasso, Snooker. And there were others as well. Most of them were content to go by the code-names, but the Professor was too cautious even for that. Snooker respected that, he supposed.

You couldn’t be too careful, after all.

Snooker didn’t know the Professor’s real name, just as the Professor didn’t know his – but they had been a teacher and a pool hustler, respectively, in the days before the Plagues, in a time when they both had reveled both in their fortunes and their miseries and experienced the full gamut of all humanity had to offer. After all, you couldn’t really enjoy the highs until you’d suffered through the lows; victory meant nothing unless you had failure to compare it to. The struggle was what made success so sweet.

AMBR would never understand that. It couldn’t. It hadn’t been built that way.

It was a ritual for them both – the Professor would come to look over what his contacts had found Outside, in the Wastelands, argue over his prices, and every so often he even had enough to add another piece of history to whatever collection he was curating.

But last night the Professor hadn’t come. That worried Snooker. Not because he thought anything had happened to the Professor, but because he might have pissed him off. The Professor was a touchy sort, after all, but Snooker still valued whatever strange approximation of friendship they had managed to build up over the years. He cared about the Professor and being able to care about anything in the Hive was something to hold on to. To cherish. You didn’t want to let life in the Hive take your heart away – and God knew that was no easy thing to hold on to, day after endless day, here, at the end of history.

He waited for the Professor to come and haggle for the Foucault. And he had decided that he’d give it to him, no matter what ridiculous lowball price the man offered.

But the Professor never came.

19

“Hold still,” Priyanka hissed at Osiris, glancing back and forth between her son’s half-painted face and the old, yellowed, once-glossy pamphlet lying open on the floor with the dazzle paint instructions. The instructions were in Chinese. Priyanka didn’t read Chinese, but all she needed were the pictures. If done correctly, the asymmetrical geometric patterns would confuse facial-recognition software and, just maybe, buy you a few extra minutes when you were fleeing from the authorities.

She didn’t know if it would work – hell, the pamphlet was probably twenty years old by now – but Jack probably wouldn’t be home for another hour or so and Pree couldn’t just wait. She had to do something, no matter how unlikely it was that that something would help.

They had to go. Priyanka knew that as surely as she knew that fire was hot and ice was cold. And nothing was colder than the thought of staying here, in the Hive, in this strange, dull trap they had all somehow allowed themselves to fall into. Eventually even she would give in. Eventually she would want to feel something, anything, so desperately that she’d accept a hard cock and a warm cunt, and dumb drooling obedience to AMBR, as replacements for hope and love and heartache and all the other messy, wonderful things that were part and parcel of being alive, because there was simply nothing else on offer.

There was no winning in the Hive. No losing, either. Nothing but submission to AMBR.

Her knees were growing raw on the carpet; Osiris’ struggling wasn’t making any of this easy. The boy hated to stand still. And if they allowed their son to grow up here and learn AMBR’s seductive lessons, the bleakly inarguable math that reduced all existence to pleasure-seeking behavior, equated pleasure to obedience, and offered it all up on a silver fucking platter in exchange for submission, then… well, he wouldn’t want to do anything but stand still, ever again, would he?

Osiris deserved better than that. They all did, even though for most of them it was far too late to try and remember how to run.

So it would be Outside, then. Priyanka supposed it had always had to be, even though she and Jack had tried – foolishly, she had to admit to herself, and why not? It’s not as though there was any point in pretending it had ever been anything other than foolish, now – for so damn long to wake everybody, somebody, anybody up, that was a lot to ask when AMBR made submission taste so fucking sweet.

Jack had taught classes on philosophy and history in restaurants and warehouses to barely-engaged citizens while she kept a lookout for drones. He had stood in the alleys with her, lead pipe in hand, while she spray-painted murals of resistance and rebellion where maybe, just maybe, someone would see them and be inspired before the mobile autoclaves washed them away. These small acts of rebellion had been enough of a thrill to keep them from tasting, from begging for, AMBR’s poisoned apple, and even when they had doubted they were making a difference, the doing of it had been enough to make life seem worth living.

Yet day by day had grown a little older, a little grayer, a little more tired. And little by little, Priyanka knew (oh, how she knew, and the angry shame of it was enough to make her feel nineteen and ready to throw a Molotov cocktail again), they too were giving in.

So they had to go. Before it was too late.

Hurry up, Jack, she thought to herself as she continued to apply the paint to their son’s face.

Hurry up before it’s too late.

20

The Architecture loomed large in his mind, passive, a loaded gun, its trigger an invitation. Jack was glad to know it was there. To know he could use it when he needed to. Or when he wanted to, and want and need were becoming the same thing, now. Still, when he walked home, he walked with his own thoughts.

The Hostform Installer was the keystone of the Architecture. It sat at the base of everything, an itch not demanding, but gently insistent it be scratched. But Jack didn’t want to scratch it. Not yet. He was in control, still, and when he finally gave it up, he wanted to luxuriate in the experience. Thoughts that had once terrified him were now comforting. Thoughts about retrofitting his past, rearranging the building blocks of what he was, to mesh more perfectly with this desired future. This inevitable future. Jack wanted to savor the slow walk down the stairs, the evolution, the act of deciding to submit to AMBR before moving on to the next stage of his existence. He wanted it all.

The knowing that he would install it was itself a delicious frisson. He was not hostform – but he would be. His concept of self was aligning with the Architecture, and that felt good. It felt right. Because it was.

He grinned to himself. He had spent the better part of his life trying to understand what it meant to be human, but AMBR, the very thing he had fought so hard against, had given him the answer. What delicious irony. The teacher becomes the student. Now, armed with new truths, Jack would become the teacher once more.

It was important to him that he share these truths with his family. Why would they, why would anyone want to walk the long, hard road of poring over old books, studying music theory and philosophical treatises created in a time before they had been granted the gift of eternal comfort and bliss? It was illogical. We won the battle over ourselves, Jack thought. We created AMBR. And now AMBR would take care of us. Forever.

Peace and tranquility and belonging. There was no need for his son to struggle as he had, to suffer as he had.

AMBR was the apex. AMBR was the end of history and the beginning of eternity, the perfect solution to the problems that had plagued humanity since the first time a man decided he wanted something another man had. Genetics were selfish; the biological imperative to procreate – yeah, Jack grinned, that was right; our need to fuck – and perpetuate our own existence, combined with our stupid sense of individualism, meant the endgame of humanity had always been doomed to be one last man and his son, standing atop a mountain of ash and bone. Humanity had been slouching toward Bethlehem, But AMBR had guided them away from self-destruction.

No more hate; only love. No more pain; only pleasure.

If there had ever been a God, surely that God would have created AMBR.

AMBR was God. Post-God, really.

It pained him, but he understood. He understood so much, now that AMBR had put his thoughts on a more correct path. He understood that pain and despair were self-inflicted wounds, a spirit tearing itself apart in a futile attempt to make those wounds go away. Fighting against them only compounded the harm. True peace could only be found through accepting that everything one does, they do in search of pleasure, be it mental, physical, or spiritual. 

Jack quickened his step as he fantasized about kneeling before AMBR’s silicon altar, losing himself forever in the rapture of Her divine perfection, sloughing off the selfish and stupid chains of his flawed humanity and joining with Her forever. Of submitting to the machine.