Orlandine returned her attention to the data gathered by her subpersonae. Interestingly one of them had revealed sensory structures capable of reacting to the molecular components of their environment. By making comparative analysis she realized the node’s sensorium was somewhat superior to that of a human being. However, inside the display case it had been in contact with nothing but inert gas and chainglass, therefore, from its shelf in the display, it must have seen her. This thought led nowhere, however. She realized that the only real way to learn how the node operated was to extract one of those silica crystals, one of those quantum computers, and find out exactly what it contained.

In the first moments Thellant felt trapped in a net of white-hot wires. Movement squirmed throughout his body, tearing, shifting, connecting. His skull felt ready to burst and when he pressed a hand to his forehead, bone and skin shifted underneath it. His sight faded, sounds became dull and echoey, then disappeared altogether. When his lungs shut down and he began to suffocate, he panicked but there was nothing he could do: he just lay paralysed in that same spot. But he could feel more closely than before his connection to his Dracocorp aug and to the network over which it held primacy. Information flowed random and chaotic, but the sheer quantity of it he perceived inside his own head was huge, and somehow being read by something else that was becoming part of him. However, as that information flow increased, his consciousness faded.

Bastard Legate . . .

Flashes of perception: a group of four men standing in a corridor ranting about the shortage of their favourite beer; a woman having an orgasm in some VR fantasy about Golem lovers; hunger and growth—finding a power cell and the intricate components of an atmosphere monitor, pulling those apart, pulling the cell apart, feeding and spreading down an optic cable while reading its traffic on the way; a second wave of support substructure spiralling like a vine around the outside of the cable afterwards, digesting the coating to create itself; a fusion reactor, connection, and surge of intoxicating power with a concomitant surge of growth; then sight returning.

Where are you, Legate?

Dracocorp network. Millions bending to his will to ask that question and none other.