The ten figures had all arranged themselves in a circular formation, sitting at their respective seats by a round table. The table was littered with various papers, both handwritten and neatly typed, models of both machinery and entities, ink stains, jagged cyan crystals, and various geometrical shapes. In the middle was what was salvaged from the ruined power core of the Logic Gatekeeper. The ten figures were all identical, dressed in perfect black suits, adorned with gleaming nametags, their heads topped with sleek brown hair, and their faces pressed into depressing frowns. Their circular meeting hall was completely silent, and very little light besides the ambient natural light from the glass ceiling filtered through. Like so many others, they spun through the Void listlessly.
The ninth suited figure, with one eye blinding teal and the other solid gold, cleared his throat and tried to speak. Yet no words came out of his mouth. The seventh suited figure, whose eyes were light pink, sighed. “This is pointless. All of it. Pointless!” The fourth figure, with cyan eyes, interjected. “Caret, please. Now’s not the ti—” “Oh, haha, get it?? Not the ‘time!’ And you’re about time! Wow, what a funny joke! That’s all we are! Jokes!” The fifth figure, with magenta eyes, stood up now. “Cut it out, all of you! I get it, we’re stressed, this is awful, but—” Number seven pointed an accusatory finger at number five. “No. No, I’m done going along with this. All we can we be are archetypes. Blank shells! A cold, calculating personality, a lack of care for life, and some elemental power! All because of symbols! Sins! Sins are our shackles! Can’t you understand?!”
There was a tense silence as everyone sat back down. The sixth figure, with hollow eyes, spoke quietly. “I... understand. Despite our powers... Our metachronistic sight... We’re statues, really. Fated to make the same choices, act the same ways, every time. We exist in nine dimensions, yet we’re incapable of change. Stuck. Rooted here. In the world tree of world trees.” The second figure, with grey eyes, nodded. “It’s like... we lost Him all over again.” The ninth figure cleared his throat once more. “Are we done? Can I start?” There were several curt nods. “Listen, Caret...” he said. “I get what you’re saying. God knows we’ve all thought these things before. But giving up on all our plans isn’t what He’d want. And you and I both know that.” The third figure stared at the pile of papers in front of him. With golden eyes, he spoke. “Lozenge, go… go ahead. Do your thing.” The ninth figure coughed into his hand and spoke with a loud, booming voice.
“I call this official meeting of the Advanced Superiors to order,” he said. “State... state your name and rank.” The first figure, with black eyes, spoke. “Octothorpe, Keeper of Words, present and accounted for.” The second figure spoke. “Pilcrow, Consumer of Shadows, present and accounted for.” The third figure spoke. “Asterism, Spirit of Voice, present and accounted for.” The fourth figure spoke. “Ampersand, Seer of Anachronism, present and accounted for.” The fifth figure spoke. “Backslash, Bearer of War, present and accounted for.” The sixth figure spoke. “Obelus, Judge of Death, present and accounted for.” The seventh figure spoke. “Caret, Priest of Radiance, present and accounted for.” The eighth figure, with pale blue eyes, spoke. “Dagger, Wielder of Absolute, present and accounted for.” The ninth figure spoke. “Lozenge, Abstraction of Abstract, present and accounted for.” The tenth figure, with stars in his eyes, spoke.
The ninth figure awkwardly bowed while seated, as though they’d forgotten to stand up, and muttered “At ease.” No one else had stood up either, so they all shuffled in their seats. “Our order of business,” the ninth figure said, “Is the discussion of what just occurred within the Garden of Geometry, and what we will do moving forwards. Octothorpe. You first.” The first figure stood, brushing lint off his suit. “As you all know, Project Doorway was fully activated for the first time several hours ago. Its power source, a duplicate of a ‘Flumpty Bumpty,’ subconsciously lured William Cipher and the actual ‘Flumpty’ to our location, and imprinted the manifold sixty-four bit divine Name of truth into his unchained brother’s head. The thyme-based Flumpty spoke it, Cipher gained the Interpunct from what little power of the Overseer remained here, and defeated the Gatekeeper in combat. Flumpty unchained his duplicate, and the latter…” The figure’s voice trailed off. He shook his head multiple times, and sat back down, apparently unable to continue. The second figure stood. “I suppose I can’t beat around the bush,” he said. “The Overseer is gone. Expunged. Erased. There’s now a hole in reality where he once was.” We all felt it, all ten of us. And none of you can deny it. And the Gatekeeper... Now it’s gone, too.”
The third figure stood up. “Project Binary is terminated. Project Doorway is terminated. Those were our two biggest options. Our two biggest tickets to total power. Reduced to absolute nothingness over the span of a few years. All because of some Descendants that beat plot. Influence from a plane of reality beyond any of our dimensions is what fuels them — something we can’t predict. Whatever happened to their misuse of our property, anyway? Our... prototype?” The fourth figure stood up. “I haven’t detected any transmissions or uses of the machine in quite some time. Their access of S.N.A.K.E.E.Y.E.S. has ceased, too. My most reasonable guess is that they went full Probect.” The entire group shuddered, chanting in full unison. “You never go full Probect,” they recited. “Never ever ever.” The three figures standing up sat down, and the fifth figure rose. “The Descendants are a moot point to us now. We have all their data, they’re not fighting in any wars that we care about... What matters is the Gatekeeper.” The fifth figure motioned to the power core lying in the middle of the table. “As you can see, I excavated this from the Garden of Geometry. It’s not operational, and I’m not just saying that because Flumpty isn’t inside of it anymore. But it still has importance. All our data on the Descendants is still inside it. If we can relocate a similar power source, it can be reused. But for what?” The sixth figure stood up. “I see great death in the future. The total death of the Overseer won’t stay a secret for much longer. The End of Man is swift approaching, and soon, every force in reality with a say in anything will be butting heads with themselves, and with each other. It would be useful to have a guard of the Gate, so to speak. With the Overseer gone, we will have to defend His legacy.”
The seventh figure stood up. “...I miss Him. I miss Him so much. My powers hinge on connection to a god, and now that God is dead...” The sixth figure shook his head. “He died a long time ago, Caret.” The seventh figure hissed. “No! As long as we held Him close, and thought of Him, and used His power, he was alive! In our soul of souls! You all felt it, right?” Everyone slowly nodded. “Without His essence, we could have never completed the Gatekeeper. But now, he’s gone. Him sleeping, comatose, behind the Gate felt different than this, somehow. At least back then… He was still there. Watching us. Now, his eye isn’t even closed. It’s gone. And through it all, I’m filled with... with soul-sucking rage.” The seventh figure clenched the table. “Why wasn’t it us that got a divine sermon? We’ve spoken his name countless times since his physical death! More than anyone! We know the 64-Bit Name inside and out! But he never appeared on a whirlwind from heaven! He never shared wisdom of the underlying nature of reality! Yet he talks to a demon. A goddamn demon! He’d prefer a trickster over his trusted subordinates! The Serpents of the divine Ouroboros!” A harsh silence followed these passionate words. “…Maybe Cipher really was the son of God. I don’t know. But it doesn’t sit well with me at all.”
The three figures standing sat down, and the eighth figure stood up. “I don’t know about you all, but I think we need to rethink our alliances. Since we banished the Critic—” The eighth figure snidely turned to the tenth. “—Thanks for that, Interrobang—” Then he turned back. “—He’ll probably blab to the entire Conflict about how we directly acted against them and their policy of maintaining control over their subservient villains, or whatever. Cipher’s as much of a wildcard as ever, and so is his egghead friend. Waluigi Thyme and cancer do not mix. Seriously, it’s a horrible recipe. Let’s say we somehow manage to reconstruct the Gatekeeper before reality falls apart. If we really plan to fight in whatever final conflict is on the horizon, or even get revenge on Bill for taking our god away... Will we stand alone?” The ninth figure stood up. “Perhaps we should. I know, we’ve always been the type to make alliances and hide in the shadows and manipulate, but... Being passive and sitting back while our machinations inevitably turn to dust isn’t going to help us much, should our goal be to fight. If we want to fight, we run forward. We shackle our enemies with sin. We do what He would do, were He here. That’s always been our mission, and I don’t see it changing. All of you, think about this clearly. If the Overseer were in our shined black shoes, what would he do?”
The tenth figure glared at everyone present simultaneously.
The tenth figure finally sat down, leaving everyone in complete silence. After several minutes, the ninth figure spoke. “There’s... no question. We have to stop Cipher from accomplishing his plans. Despite him having the divine right to control our reality, he was not entrusted the mantle of cosmic police force by the Overseer. We were. And thanks to the Ends of the Earth amplifying the effects of our power across all points in time and space, the establishment of the Logic Gatekeeper should now be a constant across all timelines. You all can feel it, can’t you.” There were nods throughout the room. “It may be gone in this timeline, but in any others that exist… In all the others where we retain control... It will be there. Guarding the Gate. There’s only one question left. Interrobang,” the ninth figure send, turning to the tenth. “How do we stop him.” The tenth figure spoke with perfect clarity.
And so the nine serpents and the head of God continued their sojourn through the Void.
< 3.4: TESSERACTS ALL THE WAY UP | 3.5: STATE YOUR NAME AND RANK | 3.6: HAIL TO THE KING >