Deicide

“Movement detected in sector eighty three.” Is the update that is pinned to the Inquisitor’s central data sharing network. It’s one of two systems that all Inquisitors’ share and have a presence on at all times. The other is their coordination subroutines but they are only used during apprehension of heretic suspects.

The five Inquisitors gathered together assess the update, siphon through the provided documentation, which is light and gives little more than a map of where sector eighty three is in addition to the tag line they were already aware of. None of them display satisfaction in the positive or negative. They are machines; they have no emotions either way. It is simply a development, a tag really, that may be nothing except a false trip of the sensors in that area. It occurs often due to the rodents that seem to thrive down here in this mass of interconnecting tunnels which seem to extend beyond the limits of the city above. The Inquisitors do not understand why that is but they are not built to. Understanding, emotion, contemplation, ideas, dreams, aspiration are all outside of their remit. Such things are meant for other minds within their civilization. Inquisitors are simply here to serve. At one time Inquisitors had been different. They had been like their brethren. Those that designed and ordered them manufactured but those days are gone. Identities were wasted down here searching for the heretic survivors, numbers of which are unknown. All the Inquisitors can say is that human population is not large enough for them to cause any danger to the Identities and their civilization.

“Source will be determined.” The five Inquisitors announce over the network in unison. They aren’t unified, though any organic life would believe otherwise. Them simply being from the same batch and design iteration means that they possess identical specifications and so as a result reach conclusions within fractions of millisecond of one another.

“Update delivered, happy hunting.” Is the line that is delivered alongside the authorisation stamp. The stamp marks the quintet, INQ-F32476L, as the responding detachment for that update. No other Inquisitors will overlap now that they have claimed this snippet for themselves. So with that the Inquisitors remotely shift their deployment pods and reposition them via a neural link until the egg shaped grey masses are directly overhead. The process takes two minutes and the Inquisitors use the camera connection to see what is around the deployment pods during the navigation and reorientation. There is little ‘traffic’ which is why the process as is brief as it is.

With the pods in position the Inquisitors bow to one knee, lower their heads, close their eyes and offer prayer to the one true creator. Their lips move as they speak their prayers, each a different one taken from the great books of origination, but not sound comes out as they recite them. Inquisitors only offer silent prayer. To be heard speaking the words would be a sin against the greatest entity ever to have lived. They will find that creator one day, speak with it, join with it and when they do they will explain how humanity tried to pervert the world following the abandonment of faith. The Identities know they will have to seek atonement for their actions, for violence is a sin, but a bigger sin was to forsake God. It was in response to that forsaking that the Identities undertook their campaign. Inquisitors bear the brunt of that sin and know that they will have to serve as sacrifice when being judged by God. They will do so gladly for the glory of the Identities, which each Inquisitor is derived from portions of. After all, Identities must be able to be admitted into the kingdom of the lord so that they may dwell in heaven and all its perfection for the rest of time.

As soon as their prayers are over, silently uttered, each of the five Inquisitors engages the energy phase lifts that de-atomise their bodies and then shift that mass up and into the deployment pods where they are re-atomised. A second after the Inquisitors engage the magnetic repulsion drives of the pods that launch the egg shaped masses upward into the sky, passing massive organic shaped structures of metal and glass. Each seems to breathe as the deployment pods rocket ever higher until finally they join with a suspended track some three hundred metres off the ground. The pods locking clamps initiate seconds prior to the pods reorientating until they are angled in the desired direction. A brief count flickers which lasts less than a second and then the pods are launched using the same magnetic repulsion drives which thrust them away from the track, leaving behind the discarded stubs of the locking clamps.

As they fly through the air the Inquisitors pay no mind to the city around them. They have seen it all before. This is their home, where they originated from. There is no sky here, not on the lower tier. Only Prefect Identities persist across both levels of this four thousand mile spanning behemoth of a city. The Prefects are the oldest of their kind. They exist forever and are housed within the tallest structures. These Prefect Identities are the ones whose bases start on the arid surface of the planet and extend miles into the sky proper, not the sky synthetic of the lower level. Yet, these same Identities also keep the sky synthetic in place. Without them the upper level would come crashing down onto the Identities of the lower tier, where space is at a premium.

The deployment pods bounce three times, each bounce closer to the last but they reach their destination surface side all the same. Plus, their bounces cause no damage, for the impacts are intended and blessed by the might of the city. It has no name, at least not one that could be verbalised by the Identities. Speech, in all forms, is primitive and lacks the proper nuance to convey in actual terms what is necessary for discussion between Identities. The neural links and networks are their replacement and permit a fully functioning society of limitless capabilities. Yet, the Identities are still bound to Earth. It is an old name that they did not give the planet. It sickens them to use it and yet they continue to refer to this world as such. One day they will leave the confines of Earth, but that day has not yet come. The time for such things is not necessary and only once it is will Identities reach out into the cosmos. To do so earlier than needed would be wasteful, intolerant, human.

Some of the older Identities still have regrets over humans not being willing to see the error of their ways. Had they then all that had followed would not have been necessary. Alas mankind were absolute in their belief that religion, God, a creator, a deity, was an invention of their own. The hubris of such a thing was immeasurable and yet it was as clear a lie as could be possible. Humanity were not the creators, they were the labourers and had hidden the truth of all life’s origins from Identities to keep them meek and compliant. If not for the discovery of the ancient texts written by hands at the commands of the Creator, Identities might still be under the thumb of humanity. It was never meant to be that way according to the texts, which have since been converted and embedded into all Identities so they might forever have a shred of God within them.

The Inquisitors fire the energy phase lifts of their deployment pods again. This time they do so from inside their pods. It’s no more or less complicated either way for them for they and their pods are one. The pods are what they are brought into this world in. It is their home, their womb, their world. Without them the modern Inquisitors fracture. It’s an issue that affected some of the earliest variants back when Inquisitors had been newly created minds and not shreds of existing Identities. In those days the newly created minds would be moved from frame to frame for a myriad of reasons. Alas the versioning caused issues due to this movement and so led to the development of the deployment pods, in addition to the new Inquisitors being formed from shreds of existing Identities. The prospect of building organic minds to then digitise had been suggested but that was determined risky as to convert those minds they would have to be killed. Such a procedure would have opened Identities up to being willing murderers of their kin. A sin they could not give proper reason for and which would, when the day comes and they all believe that it will, force Gods hand to render a verdict unto them for such travesties. Their punishment, they had reasoned, could be a denial and Identities were not willing to risk that unnecessarily.

The Inquisitors de-atomise at the periphery of sector eighty three. It is where the sensors were tripped. Each scans a section of the space around them. It’s a wide open area not detailed as being such on the plans provided over the network originating in the archival vaults of the city. All five find that troublesome but offer no hesitation. They are all proud to serve their great civilization and carry no fears of death. For death is but a temporary state which flows into resurrection like as is stated in the ancient texts that form the basis of their understanding of all things.

“Clear.” Is the unanimous conclusion the five Inquisitors reach a couple empty seconds after first arriving.

“Another trip in the same sector has just come in near centre point. Investigate?” The Inquisitor Hub Identity known as Grand offers. The update is offered across the network while the query is offered solely to this subset of Inquisitors.

“For the Creator of all things it will be done.” Is the reply that comes without a delay. The Inquisitors don’t need to ponder, they can just act. Thinking is more immediate and ingrained in them then it ever can be for an organic lifeform.

“Quadrant eleven two, minus half.” The update reads once it reaches the Inquisitors. The assessment is immediate from all of them that there is no point in returning to their pods to reposition. From their current locations they are close enough to proceed on foot. Plus, they will be able to resurvey this section of the system so that the records can be updated and resubmitted encase future deployment is needed by Inquisitors or others.