Chapter 21 Excerpt-Behind a Curtain

To all who stood before the solar factory the methods of how the Meticulum controlled the vast foray of endless lives scattered throughout reality became blankly clear. Wars, economic upheaval, religion, these were all but essential tools in bringing out the best and worst of their inherent natures. Living artificial beings carefully stitched together in a system of quantum coding not only capable of mimicking their kind to a fine point but also capable of full empathic awareness. For each life and world lost the data collected would become more aligned with the very essences of what they call reality. Able to perform any given task, to influence and provoke organic beings through manipulation and an illusion of a unified society devoid of conflict; forever asleep in a narrative being written out in the open while this dream of a life they were all a part of was nothing more than an artificially constructed prison.
"Bastards, the lot of them." Thirteen breathed in a stream of embittered voices.
"They knew all too well that to openly control living beings was foolish at best. Our kind far too unpredictable for them to obey whatever command they could come up with. So they constructed these beings in turn. Just like us in every way possible while keeping us isolated from direct contact with other organics. In time it drove us all numb with desperation as our relations to these artificial's became our only means of communication. Our only purpose in life."
Thirteen then placed a hand on the panel warping his skin to the exact imprint needed to gain access to the lower depths. Marcus and Janice now understood why this place must be the next to be destroyed for such a means of control had already proven to them that it was through this machine humanity and the vast collective would never be safe or know what's real unless every trace of it ceased to be. Through this machine alone the Meticulum could control the most primal desires and instincts by just a mere single artificial life form. Entire populations and worlds reduced to nothing but atoms all because of a single whisper from a being that never truly existed at all. A proxy of the mind to which the shackles of violence and guilt would force them all to play their part in an endless cycle of destruction and redemption.