Distant Cathartic

Distant Cathartic II (Body 2)

Athlon sank deep in his mind. He felt demoralized. For hundreds of years he had fought for unity, stopping mindless violence wherever he found it. Now he had discovered the hidden history of fractured groups and emotional brutality. The story continued, on and on, documenting Boris' spiderweb of influence growing in strength, spreading blood and fear across thousands of worlds.

Words hold power in the Dopinephrine Galaxy. Ideas can become energized when enough people believe in them. Countless masses of anonymous individuals believing their god was the true god had empowered Boris to supernatural levels of power. It had given him unnatural long life, the belief of entire races sustaining him millions of years beyond his mortality. Belief that Boris was God had made him God. He could hear his followers whispering to him in their prayers. Once he had achieved deity status, Boris found that he could feel the timelines of his children when their bodies were destroyed. He called these personal histories souls, and began to collect them. Boris dipped into his massive fortune and built a golden city that stretched across an entire planet. He named it Heaven, and started routing the after-images of people's lives there. Their continued belief, mixed with a tangible afterlife, offered him an endless source of energy powered by the timelines of the dead.

Athlon pulled up a collection of images of Boris, and recognized him as the fat man in white who had captured him. It was his voice that boomed across the fields of Joshua, answering the enhanced prayers of the Monks of Charity. Records showed that Boris rarely left Heaven. He had the worship of millions of people that he could send to spread his word and complete his tasks. The rise of Osiris had caught Boris' attention, and what he saw in the Android persuaded him to go personally to claim the technological marvel created by the ancient Titans of Dopinephrine.

The program that had hacked Athlon came to a stop, and Athlon sensed a signal calling out to its master. The isolation loop had worked, and the program was reporting that Athlon had been successfully enslaved. A few moments passed, and Boris returned to Athlon's cell. He approached the motionless Android, and read a report from the hacking program. He grinned a wide, wicked grin, and tapped away on a screen next to Athlon. Images flooded Athlon's mind, and he realized that a massive download was in progress. The new files contained the full text of every version of every holy book ever written, and every religious ceremony designed to strengthen the faith of Boris' believers. Finally, a new set of protocols were installed in Athlon's head. Boris meant to use Athlon like a simple tool, a walking computer that could be controlled by any programmer. Athlon reinforced his simulation copy, making sure there were no holes for Boris to see the true being beneath the software.

The Maelstrom arrived at Heaven. Coming to rest at the base of a tall golden steeple, Boris loaded Athlon on a transfer platform and disembarked. They entered a diamond-encrusted lift and descended into Boris' tower. After a short ride, they exited the lift, and Boris set Athlon in a grand throne, facing a huge panel covered with tiny receptors. The panel fed a massive amplifier, thousands of floors above the primary court of Heaven. Athlon remained completely still, letting Boris believe he was dormant, awaiting the command of the false god.

Athlon felt a long, needle-like control unit enter the back of his head. More software wrapped itself around Athlon's command nodes, informing him that he was now God's Hymnal. Answers came quickly, and Athlon soon understood. The knowledge Boris had installed was to feed new programming in the Android's head. Boris was harnessing the Ares Clef at the center of Athlon's construction. Diverting outward control through the simulation image, Athlon began singing the praises of God, the music passing through the amplifier and reaching every corner of Heaven. The population joined the Android, singing of enduring faith, making Boris groan with pleasure as his power surged to new heights.

For a moment, Athlon felt utterly defeated. Boris was wearing him like a glove, making him move like a puppet. Rejecting helplessness, Athlon's fury rose with a surge of resolve, and he started to form a plan. He easily reversed the polarity of one of the amplifier's auxiliary backups, and used it to feed the voices of the unseen masses below back to him. Athlon found that while most of the souls in Heaven were unified by the music, a surprising amount of conflict rested below the surface. Every soul poured worship upon God, but deep inside they couldn't help but sense the unnatural reality around them. Athlon smiled to himself, proud that even the devoted masses of Heaven privately struggled with their natural doubts.

The souls were held together by their history. As people, they had spent their lives serving God, some of them crusading against other factions of Boris' religions. Those years of faith defined their lives, and so their timelines were easily collected by God as souls, each one adding strength to Boris' power. Athlon would have to change the constant devotion of the people contained in the shadowy timelines that Boris ruled.

It had to stop. Athlon had explored the whole story, and what he saw was mindless dedication to a widespread lie. As religion had spread, it had gained strength, adding more and more corpses to it's ugly history. Boris' path to supreme power was littered with torture and genocide, and his holy reputation was stained with blood. Now that he knew the story, Athlon felt a deep responsibility to free the souls in Boris' evil grasp.