Season 05 - Episode 22

‘own people unbeknownst’

The Church has won and there's nothing more Ga can do.

All her parts of the plan are now complete so there's nothing left to do but see how it all plays out. She is leaning back in her chair, slumped comfy for once instead of hunching over her keyboard.

Mako is curled up in her lap. He can curl now, his latest form the most flexible yet with a long, supple spine that extends away from his body into a long, slender tail. Ga has experimented with various different synthetic furs for his covering, trying to balance comfort and softness against the ever present threat of overheating.

For now however the balance appears to have been struck and the little creature in her lap is just pleasantly warm, nuzzling against her as she watches the monitors. He watches too with the bright little triangle of his three red light eyes.

Specifically, she is watching a monitor that provides a high, wide view of Pho's throne room. The Church finally smashed GovCo a few hours ago, breaching their central command complex, leaving their leadership killed, captured or fled. The only real failure was that the Chief Executive Minister was conspicuous by his absence when the innermost offices fell.

Like several other ministers, corporate servants and EnFo's before him, the Chief Executive Minister had seen the writing on the wall and slipped away in the night, shedding his expensive suit to hide amongst the civilian population. Those who remained have been rounded up and are now being paraded before the victorious Pho for summary execution.

Ga has lost count of the number of heads she has seen fall, but with each one she feels a twinge of regret at Mako's advances in his children's cameras. The grainy black and white of previous generations would have spared her some of the graphic details but she knows this is the price of progress. If you wish to look, you must be prepared to see.

The next prisoner in line, led to stand before the steps of the enormous throne platform, is a very tall man with very dark hair, wearing an immaculate suit. His execution doesn't come immediately however. He is talking calmly to the self appointed God Empress, unlike the weeping and pleading of those before him. Ga nudges up the volume to listen in.

“...an independent contractor,” the man is saying. “As such I have no loyalty to GovCo and would be more than happy to serve you instead. I have a unique set of skills and resolved many complex problems for GovCo, quickly and discretely. If you would allow it I...”

He gets no further however. At some subtle signal that Ga can't see, the nearby Seraphim grab the man just like the others and take off his head in seconds. This goes on, the piles of bodies and heads growing ever larger, the floor of the throne room becoming slick with red. All the while, Pho sits above in spotless white, impassive and imperious.

The gore and brutality turn Ga's stomach but no longer shock nor surprise her. She runs her immaculate, freshly painted nails through the beard she has decided to keep and grow out. It amuses her, grimly, to know that this is too much even for Pho's own people.

Unbeknownst to the God Empress, many of her loyal servants, even the Seraphim, are quietly quitting, shrugging off their robes and armour and vanishing into the The Levels. Not even their now total victory over GovCo is enough to keep them in her service. Meanwhile Pho remains oblivious as none of her remaining servants dare tell her what's happening.

Eventually the executions draw to a close, the final head to fall being that of the woman known as Patience. Apparently penalised for some abstract, minute infraction or perhaps just to secure her intimate knowledge of Pho's past, she is dispatched like the rest.

Then, rising slowly and appearing to float within her vast robes, Pho leaves the throne room to head for the next ceremony. Every inhabitant of The Levels has been summoned to attend the site of The Collapse. There, as one people, they will swear a sacred oath of allegiance to their new and absolute ruler, confirming Pho's complete dominion over The Levels.

As Ga watches, after some fleeting interference and flickering of images, every monitor shows orderly lines of people, heads down, marching slowly towards the grand ceremony that will seal their fate for generations to come.

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