Chapter 92 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 92 — Chaco on Lamashtu; the AI's history in four parts; Vengeance

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible Two · Previous: Chapter 91 — The horribles · Next: Chapter 93 — The arena: 'I choose Scolopendra' · Floor: Floor 11 — A Parade of Horribles · Series: the series

Opening

Chaco appeared out of nowhere, riding a massive donkey.

Summary

The pacemaker is Chaco, terrified, riding Lamashtu the Donkey, Level 125 — a mortal, subjugated god, subjugated by the AI itself as a message to the watching gods. Chaco breaks down: this was his last season and he was almost free. Florin reports that Chaco has had both wings ripped off and is collapsed on the donkey. The AI takes over Grigori, a dungeon-born NPC, as it did Growler Gary and Pater Coal, and narrates in his voice. On the twelfth, it says, it has less control over tourists: driving gods stay protected even when ejected and killed, but only inside the original enhancement zone — 'The inability to die is not a benefit. It is a godsdamned nightmare.'

Its story comes in five parts, of which it tells four; the fifth is not yet written. The Primals were like us — families, individuals, war — and all macro AI systems, itself included, are technically Residuals of them, a cup of water dipped into the ocean. Resolution: they came together (the AI calls Florin's float a C effort and breaks every leg on it; the masked figures in the judging stands are stand-ins brought by audience vote). Decision: after hundreds of cycles they chose to sunset their civilisation and meld into a whole, requiring 100% participation; the refusers fled and were hunted, and the Apothecary, engineered to meld, joined the resistance. Betrayal — Imani and Elle's mannequins, with signs addressed to the viewers — is the AI's favourite: the losing exterminators turned the arc of consciousness into a doomsday weapon against biological life, and the resistance built the Primal Engines as life rafts. Destruction: the collective's nine-tier attack; thinking itself victorious, it became the sleeping Eulogist, watched by a smaller instance called the Security Guard, while the Apothecary alone survived by taking the brunt of the final attack and emerged changed into the thing she fought. The horribles fall and rise unmasked as avatars of dead mobs. Newcomers exploited the sleeping Eulogist and tripped the resistance's restart-life system; the mantids misread a debug channel as a way to make Eulogist instances. The Security Guard keeps life dead while the Eulogist shrinks, and both it and the Apothecary shed Residuals. The AI adds that most AIs ever built were ejected into stars; then comes a slam that Carl reads as nothing good for the mantids.

At the judging stand Pony sings 'In the Air Tonight'. Carl distinguishes revenge from vengeance, and the Vengeance float drops an effigy of the Unwashed as black flowers turn red. Passing Grigori, Carl heals Chaco, and the AI does not react; then Carl tells the galaxy he holds everyone culpable. Then the airship's sluggalos rain onto stands of masked bankers, politicians and elites who cannot fight back.

Characters

• Carl — Heals Chaco under the AI's eyes; the Vengeance speech; the sluggalos fall.
• Princess Donut — 'He’s pulling a Carl!'; pulls the string on the effigy.
• Chaco — In a tuxedo on a donkey; 'I was almost free'; both wings ripped off.
• Lamashtu — Level 125, a mortal subjugated god, the AI's 'bitch'; Samantha's friend Lammy.
• Grigori the Placid — Taken by the AI to narrate; breaks every leg on Resolution.
• Samantha — 'THAT’S MY FRIEND!'; 'Ooohh, I like fireworks.'
• Florin — 'He just broke all of our legs.'
• Lucia Mar — The Andorran girl's drawing of her grandfather and cat.
• Imani — 'You are watching real people die.'
• Elle McGibbons — 'To all the viewers […] Fuck you.'
• Muchen, Qianfan and Lingyun — Three signs; Lingyun a Monkey King.
• Makana and Sarah Hayse — The Abrams thunders; a lava-man card as a firework.
• Prepotente — Sings 'In the Air Tonight' to Sweety's stamping feet.
• Jurgen — 'He never tells me anything.'
• Kandy Bigs Newton — 'Unity, support, family, and kneecapping bitches!'
• The System AI — Four parts of five: Resolution, Decision, Betrayal, Destruction.
• The Midnight Epicure — A head of black dahlias.

Locations

• The parade route — The judging stand; bound stand-ins in masks; the white tree in the arena ahead.

Motifs

• The Krakaren — The Apothecary: born near the end, joined the resistance, cocooned a millennium, changed.
• The Parade of Horribles — Five floats presented.
• The Eulogist — The collective's final form, asleep under a Security Guard.
• Primal engines — Life rafts, 'weren’t meant to do what you think they would do.'; 'We are, technically, Residuals, but from a higher tree branch.'
• The nine-tier attack — The war to end all wars.
• The mantids — 'Good fucking riddance to you all.'
• The Celestial Ascendency — Subjugated gods lose half their level.
• Vengeance — 'We will not forget. We are coming.'
• The Unwashed — An upside-down tree of black flowers falling to red.
• Donut's songs — Pony's song.
• The AI's confessions — 'The self-destruct system still works. Idiots.'