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--
PART ONE
--
CHAPTER TWO

On the first day of the fourth month of 276, many Force vehicles pulled up to the field-gates of the Symphony labs. The field-gates immediately disappeared, letting Force car after Force car past the gates. They came to the Symphony Weapons building.
Much chaos ensued and many experiments and information disks were destroyed. Their target escaped.
Speculation and rumour followed the event. The news networks were forbidden by Wolfgang’s spokespeople to release any information on the event and had to give any information they had to the government, under penalty of exodus or execution.
On the night of the second day of the month, they were allowed to release wanted ads for the now-former Symphony-worker, Liszt, and minor details on the attempted-arrest.
On the third day, Scriabin, who had been thinking about the Salieri disk for the past several days, picked up his Reader and read the news provided to him by the Connect.

--

It wasn’t surprising that Liszt was a terrorist. Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a non-surprise, but it did bring Scriabin a certain amount of delight to know that she was in trouble now.
And he had hoped to turn in the disk for some laughs.
Cruel, Scriabin. Just cruel. Okay, maybe he would have blackmailed her with it. No need to get her exiled, imprisoned or, worse, in the dreaded Interrogation and Death seat.
He selected the link to the Wanted page containing the information on Liszt.
200,000 zees! Maybe he should turn in the disk, get a reward for it. And risk getting his mind destroyed when they guessed that he had read the disk.
The dreaded ID seat.
And everything in the disk had had given him the impression that it was all true; the papers, the hidden motives, everything true.
Of course, it could have been falsified, even the supposedly-unfeignable government seal. Right?
Right?
He needed a tab.
Shit. All out.
He had to go outside.

--

The black van was closer. It was on his side of the pavement. It had been like that for the past couple of days.
He came close to the van and looked inside. The two people there looked back. They had red ribbon’s like the one that Satie guy had.
The one closest to him rolled down a window.
“You’re terrorists, aren’t you?” Scriabin said the woman who opened the window.
“No.”
The red-ribbon girl paused. She was probably one of those enhanced humans. They always paused like that to measure brainwaves and voice patterns in the mecha-cyber-whatever they had implanted in their brains. They were practically mind-readers.
“You’re Scriabin, right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Pause once more to check if he was lying. She wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to him, keeping it away from the surveillance camera over the entrance of the building.
“You have a disk right?” it said.
“Yes,” Scriabin responded verbally.

--

Scriabin had no idea where he was. The men in the black van had taken him here. He had received a web message not two hours after having read the disk telling him to go to the van if he wanted to meet the member of the Salieri closest to him.
“Letting a complete stranger and secluded area may not be one of your best ideas, Skippy,” Liszt said.
“Does that mean you’re going to do something to me, Ms. Terrorist?”
“Just because one of my fucking arms is in a sling doesn’t mean I can’t sink your face in! And that article was full of lies. They shot at me. They destroyed Symphony equipment and data.”
“Right.”
“Damn news reports. Have you noticed how they never have anything bad to say about Wolfgang? Ever. Like he’s bigger than the freakin’ Spider.”
Satie tried to calm down Liszt. Scriabin looked around the room. It was mostly empty except for furniture that looked salvaged from the dumps. A pile of scrap metal lay in one part of the room.
Scriabin wasn’t too sure about Satie. Nor of the shotgun slung over his chest. That damn thing better have the safety on.
“Is this one of the Salieri’s hideouts?” Scriabin said. “I have to say I’m not very impressed by this, Satie.”
Liszt was glaring angrily at Satie for trying to calm her down (“No, I won’t shut up. He called me a terrorist, dammit!”). Satie groaned and turned to Scriabin.
“I’ll find another abandoned building when this one gets ripped down.” He looked at Scriabin’s metal cross. “Religious guy, eh?”
“The disk already mentioned the part about Neoreligion,” Scriabin said. “You don’t have to rub in my face in the ‘the faith has been manipulated’ shit. Though, I don’t really believe that it has been manipulated.”
“If you don’t want to face facts, that’s your own choice. You’re free to your own opinion. That’s exactly what we’re fighting for.”
They sat at a camping table near the room. Liszt stalked off to the scrap-metal pile corner of the room to look through some papers there.
“It’s really a terrible thing that Liszt got found out at her post. Well, it’s no great loss. She’s really more efficient working inside the group instead of being hidden in the open.”
“No great loss?” Scriabin asked.
“You’d be surprised how many of us there are out in the world. What we do isn’t exactly fighting. We want freedom of information and some other rights that we feel should be ours: privacy and a fair trial and such. We wish for a constitution and a democracy, if we can have a democracy, as far as government reformation goes. We are peaceful and made up by students and freedom-seekers. We are only out to destroy one thing and that is... well, it’s pretty obvious what we want to destroy.”
“You want to assassinate Wolfgang,” Scriabin said flatly.
“Yes.” Satie paused a moment. “If you can call it an assassination, that is. Wolfgang isn’t even alive anymore. He’s just a cyberbrain. It isn’t as much killing as it is disconnecting.”
“Good luck trying to do that. By the way, I find this whole ‘we are pacifists’ thing very hard to believe from someone who’s got a fucking shotgun lying over his chest.”
“I told you he was bitter,” Liszt said as she came close to the table. She thrust a silver metal rod at Satie before sneering at Scriabin. “You’re self-serving and cynical, Scriabin.”
“Which is why we should find you an easy role in this operation,” Satie told Satie.
“Whoa there. Who says I’m joining you conspiracy theorists, eh?”
Liszt snorted.
“Why would you have come here if you weren’t at least curious?” Satie asked.
“What’s that for?” Scriabin said with a nod at the metal rod. “Is that a memory wiper?”
“Well, we aren’t going to kill you if you decide you want no part of this, but we will have to erase a bit of your memory for our own safety.”
Scriabin stared at the metal rod.
“The disk specified what would happen if you didn’t want to join us. We can’t allow this information to stay in the minds of others. It would have negative consequences.”
“Out of curiosity,” Scriabin said, “did Liszt let me have the disk on purpose?”
“No,” Satie said with a grin. “That was a fortunate accident. We were going to give you one soon anyway.”
Scriabin stretched out a hand. He and Satie shook. Liszt scowled and Scriabin grinned.
“Nice to have you on board,” Satie said and gave Scriabin a red ribbon like his own.
Later, when Scriabin left the old building, Liszt returned to her projects and Satie to his texts.
“You should have zapped him,” Liszt said moodily.
“He’s of use.”
“So is anybody else in his building. And Scriabin’s unrealiable.”
“It’s not like we won’t be making sure that he isn’t selling us out to the authorities.”
“Uh huh. I’m just saying that Scriabin’s an idiot, genetic or non-genetic selection aside, and that you shouldn’t be surprised if he a) sells us out; or b) cracks under the pressure.”
“What makes you think he’ll do that second thing?”
“From school. Guy was having breakdowns a lot.”
“Hm.” Satie was becoming to doubt his decision.
“Not to mention the fact that he’s an effing Happy Smile junkie. Brain-melt at twelve o’clock, captain.”

--

The van left Scriabin in the middle of the city and he integrated himself with the people walking the street. There was a fair amount of them, but many of them preferred the public transport systems or inter-building tunnels to the streets.
A shiver ran down Scriabin’s spine. It wasn’t from the events of the evening, nor from how the Salieri words and voices made sense if he looked at the world more clearly. The shiver came from his blood and flesh, his nerves and brain begging for something they needed.
He was going to make an exception from the Salieri philosophy. He didn’t care if all the money for illegal Happy Smile Medical goods went back to the company itself, to Smile and then to the Interplanetary Empire’s Security and Force projects.
Nobody had told him that he shouldn’t take drugs anyway. If they had, wouldn’t that had made them hypocrites? Freedom of choice was their main ideal; therefore Scriabin was free to choose what he wanted. He had the freedom to calm his nerves through that method, to damn himself if he so pleased. He knew the consequences of them. He had paid attention to the health classes at school. It felt good and that’s what mattered to him.
The alley had a broken surveillance system, shattered and covered in black spray-paint. A spark would occasionally fly from the still-live circuits.
He left the alley some zees poorer and the pockets of his trench coat pockets laden with purple chewables, tabs of Happy Smile too-strong-for-safe-use depressants.
Fuck them all, both Salieri and non.
He chewed on one of the tabs as he walked and felt his nervous system sigh in relief. Its chemicals were blended with the flavour of Soh Needo berries.
He passed the Neotemple as he walked to the transport station. He looked up at the building. No prayer today; he was tired and all he wanted to do was sleep and maybe have more of the depressant tabs.
The man in blue, ‘Zart, right? He was walking down the stairs of the Neotemple. As he passed Scriabin, Scriabin asked, “You ever wonder if it’s true?”
‘Zart stopped. “The doctrine or the Spider?”
“Both.”
“The doctrine has its original message changed and the Spider is not as holy as the message, both original and old, make it out to be. Not nearly as holy as they want to believe.”
Maybe this guy was interesting; still weird, but interesting.
“Mmzt?” was the sound Scriabin made, his teeth to busy on the tab to form a proper word. ‘Zart kept walking and Scriabin followed. “How do you think it’s not so holy? Are you an atheist or something?”
“Holy is defined in many ways by the dictionaries, but my morals are not excellent, for I have little to begin with, and my divinity could be debated. I am not divine, but I am empowered by something. To my knowledge I do not think I have been empowered by any higher living being, but by an object whose purpose eludes me. The object itself does give me a purpose, but why it does it I do not know. I should know soon.
“I can’t be an atheist if, considering my role in this universe, I am what they define as their god. If they worshipped any other thing, then their dogma would be illogical to be, depending on what it mentioned.”
Scriabin tried to contain his laughter and incredulity.
“We’re talking about the Spider here, not you, Mozart.”
“Yes, we’re talking about the Spider. And I said I preferred ‘Zart over Mozart, in case you have forgotten.”
“’Zart, yeah.”
The gum was starting to lose its flavour and the natural taste of the chemicals was starting to seep through.
“Okay, ‘Zart,” Scriabin said, amused. “What makes you believe that the Web is lying?”
Maybe ‘Zart was another member of the Salieri.
“People make many things up often. Or so from what I’ve observed so far. They make mistakes in truth or outright lie.
“A small alteration changes the original meaning of something. The Web has been slightly altered to benefit your leader’s desires. But I am not frustrated by the change in my so-called holy message, for he is doing what I tell him. I told him to change the dogma, to add a new thread into the Web. Some people obey it, the new thread; some don’t, splitting into Neoreligion and the Spider’s Cult. Holy wars have been fought in my name, but I only watch. Pray as they might, I will not help them like I have helped worlds long gone. The new thread is only an experiment to me and I am not angry that some of my worshippers disobey it. I do not care if my worshippers think they will displease me if they consider utter obedience and loyalty to their sovereign my word or not.”
Scriabin pressed the tab between his teeth and inner cheek. “Are you a student or a sociologist or something?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you were the Spider,” Scriabin said mockingly.
“I did.”
The taller man snorted and looked down at his blue companion.
“Prove it, shorty.”
And ‘Zart proved it. Scriabin stopped walking as he received a vision of multiple limbs, blue outer shells and glowing eyes. For a moment the world was wrapped in white threads. Or were they wires? They pulsed with light and contained all the information in the world. Of this world.
The vision revealed that his entire world—
—universe—
—reality was mouldable. The Web had said this, but it was one thing to read the Web, the holy texts, but it was another thing to see the real Web.
And the real Spider instead of the statues at the altar.
For a second, Scriabin had gone blind, insane or both. He didn’t know why he screamed or if anybody could hear him.

Description
First -- Previous -- Next -- Last

--
PART ONE
--
CHAPTER TWO

On the first day of the fourth month of 276, many Force vehicles pulled up to the field-gates of the Symphony labs. The field-gates immediately disappeared, letting Force car after Force car past the gates. They came to the Symphony Weapons building.
Much chaos ensued and many experiments and information disks were destroyed. Their target escaped.
Speculation and rumour followed the event. The news networks were forbidden by Wolfgang’s spokespeople to release any information on the event and had to give any information they had to the government, under penalty of exodus or execution.
On the night of the second day of the month, they were allowed to release wanted ads for the now-former Symphony-worker, Liszt, and minor details on the attempted-arrest.
On the third day, Scriabin, who had been thinking about the Salieri disk for the past several days, picked up his Reader and read the news provided to him by the Connect.

--

It wasn’t surprising that Liszt was a terrorist. Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a non-surprise, but it did bring Scriabin a certain amount of delight to know that she was in trouble now.
And he had hoped to turn in the disk for some laughs.
Cruel, Scriabin. Just cruel. Okay, maybe he would have blackmailed her with it. No need to get her exiled, imprisoned or, worse, in the dreaded Interrogation and Death seat.
He selected the link to the Wanted page containing the information on Liszt.
200,000 zees! Maybe he should turn in the disk, get a reward for it. And risk getting his mind destroyed when they guessed that he had read the disk.
The dreaded ID seat.
And everything in the disk had had given him the impression that it was all true; the papers, the hidden motives, everything true.
Of course, it could have been falsified, even the supposedly-unfeignable government seal. Right?
Right?
He needed a tab.
Shit. All out.
He had to go outside.

--

The black van was closer. It was on his side of the pavement. It had been like that for the past couple of days.
He came close to the van and looked inside. The two people there looked back. They had red ribbon’s like the one that Satie guy had.
The one closest to him rolled down a window.
“You’re terrorists, aren’t you?” Scriabin said the woman who opened the window.
“No.”
The red-ribbon girl paused. She was probably one of those enhanced humans. They always paused like that to measure brainwaves and voice patterns in the mecha-cyber-whatever they had implanted in their brains. They were practically mind-readers.
“You’re Scriabin, right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Pause once more to check if he was lying. She wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to him, keeping it away from the surveillance camera over the entrance of the building.
“You have a disk right?” it said.
“Yes,” Scriabin responded verbally.

--

Scriabin had no idea where he was. The men in the black van had taken him here. He had received a web message not two hours after having read the disk telling him to go to the van if he wanted to meet the member of the Salieri closest to him.
“Letting a complete stranger and secluded area may not be one of your best ideas, Skippy,” Liszt said.
“Does that mean you’re going to do something to me, Ms. Terrorist?”
“Just because one of my fucking arms is in a sling doesn’t mean I can’t sink your face in! And that article was full of lies. They shot at me. They destroyed Symphony equipment and data.”
“Right.”
“Damn news reports. Have you noticed how they never have anything bad to say about Wolfgang? Ever. Like he’s bigger than the freakin’ Spider.”
Satie tried to calm down Liszt. Scriabin looked around the room. It was mostly empty except for furniture that looked salvaged from the dumps. A pile of scrap metal lay in one part of the room.
Scriabin wasn’t too sure about Satie. Nor of the shotgun slung over his chest. That damn thing better have the safety on.
“Is this one of the Salieri’s hideouts?” Scriabin said. “I have to say I’m not very impressed by this, Satie.”
Liszt was glaring angrily at Satie for trying to calm her down (“No, I won’t shut up. He called me a terrorist, dammit!”). Satie groaned and turned to Scriabin.
“I’ll find another abandoned building when this one gets ripped down.” He looked at Scriabin’s metal cross. “Religious guy, eh?”
“The disk already mentioned the part about Neoreligion,” Scriabin said. “You don’t have to rub in my face in the ‘the faith has been manipulated’ shit. Though, I don’t really believe that it has been manipulated.”
“If you don’t want to face facts, that’s your own choice. You’re free to your own opinion. That’s exactly what we’re fighting for.”
They sat at a camping table near the room. Liszt stalked off to the scrap-metal pile corner of the room to look through some papers there.
“It’s really a terrible thing that Liszt got found out at her post. Well, it’s no great loss. She’s really more efficient working inside the group instead of being hidden in the open.”
“No great loss?” Scriabin asked.
“You’d be surprised how many of us there are out in the world. What we do isn’t exactly fighting. We want freedom of information and some other rights that we feel should be ours: privacy and a fair trial and such. We wish for a constitution and a democracy, if we can have a democracy, as far as government reformation goes. We are peaceful and made up by students and freedom-seekers. We are only out to destroy one thing and that is... well, it’s pretty obvious what we want to destroy.”
“You want to assassinate Wolfgang,” Scriabin said flatly.
“Yes.” Satie paused a moment. “If you can call it an assassination, that is. Wolfgang isn’t even alive anymore. He’s just a cyberbrain. It isn’t as much killing as it is disconnecting.”
“Good luck trying to do that. By the way, I find this whole ‘we are pacifists’ thing very hard to believe from someone who’s got a fucking shotgun lying over his chest.”
“I told you he was bitter,” Liszt said as she came close to the table. She thrust a silver metal rod at Satie before sneering at Scriabin. “You’re self-serving and cynical, Scriabin.”
“Which is why we should find you an easy role in this operation,” Satie told Satie.
“Whoa there. Who says I’m joining you conspiracy theorists, eh?”
Liszt snorted.
“Why would you have come here if you weren’t at least curious?” Satie asked.
“What’s that for?” Scriabin said with a nod at the metal rod. “Is that a memory wiper?”
“Well, we aren’t going to kill you if you decide you want no part of this, but we will have to erase a bit of your memory for our own safety.”
Scriabin stared at the metal rod.
“The disk specified what would happen if you didn’t want to join us. We can’t allow this information to stay in the minds of others. It would have negative consequences.”
“Out of curiosity,” Scriabin said, “did Liszt let me have the disk on purpose?”
“No,” Satie said with a grin. “That was a fortunate accident. We were going to give you one soon anyway.”
Scriabin stretched out a hand. He and Satie shook. Liszt scowled and Scriabin grinned.
“Nice to have you on board,” Satie said and gave Scriabin a red ribbon like his own.
Later, when Scriabin left the old building, Liszt returned to her projects and Satie to his texts.
“You should have zapped him,” Liszt said moodily.
“He’s of use.”
“So is anybody else in his building. And Scriabin’s unrealiable.”
“It’s not like we won’t be making sure that he isn’t selling us out to the authorities.”
“Uh huh. I’m just saying that Scriabin’s an idiot, genetic or non-genetic selection aside, and that you shouldn’t be surprised if he a) sells us out; or b) cracks under the pressure.”
“What makes you think he’ll do that second thing?”
“From school. Guy was having breakdowns a lot.”
“Hm.” Satie was becoming to doubt his decision.
“Not to mention the fact that he’s an effing Happy Smile junkie. Brain-melt at twelve o’clock, captain.”

--

The van left Scriabin in the middle of the city and he integrated himself with the people walking the street. There was a fair amount of them, but many of them preferred the public transport systems or inter-building tunnels to the streets.
A shiver ran down Scriabin’s spine. It wasn’t from the events of the evening, nor from how the Salieri words and voices made sense if he looked at the world more clearly. The shiver came from his blood and flesh, his nerves and brain begging for something they needed.
He was going to make an exception from the Salieri philosophy. He didn’t care if all the money for illegal Happy Smile Medical goods went back to the company itself, to Smile and then to the Interplanetary Empire’s Security and Force projects.
Nobody had told him that he shouldn’t take drugs anyway. If they had, wouldn’t that had made them hypocrites? Freedom of choice was their main ideal; therefore Scriabin was free to choose what he wanted. He had the freedom to calm his nerves through that method, to damn himself if he so pleased. He knew the consequences of them. He had paid attention to the health classes at school. It felt good and that’s what mattered to him.
The alley had a broken surveillance system, shattered and covered in black spray-paint. A spark would occasionally fly from the still-live circuits.
He left the alley some zees poorer and the pockets of his trench coat pockets laden with purple chewables, tabs of Happy Smile too-strong-for-safe-use depressants.
Fuck them all, both Salieri and non.
He chewed on one of the tabs as he walked and felt his nervous system sigh in relief. Its chemicals were blended with the flavour of Soh Needo berries.
He passed the Neotemple as he walked to the transport station. He looked up at the building. No prayer today; he was tired and all he wanted to do was sleep and maybe have more of the depressant tabs.
The man in blue, ‘Zart, right? He was walking down the stairs of the Neotemple. As he passed Scriabin, Scriabin asked, “You ever wonder if it’s true?”
‘Zart stopped. “The doctrine or the Spider?”
“Both.”
“The doctrine has its original message changed and the Spider is not as holy as the message, both original and old, make it out to be. Not nearly as holy as they want to believe.”
Maybe this guy was interesting; still weird, but interesting.
“Mmzt?” was the sound Scriabin made, his teeth to busy on the tab to form a proper word. ‘Zart kept walking and Scriabin followed. “How do you think it’s not so holy? Are you an atheist or something?”
“Holy is defined in many ways by the dictionaries, but my morals are not excellent, for I have little to begin with, and my divinity could be debated. I am not divine, but I am empowered by something. To my knowledge I do not think I have been empowered by any higher living being, but by an object whose purpose eludes me. The object itself does give me a purpose, but why it does it I do not know. I should know soon.
“I can’t be an atheist if, considering my role in this universe, I am what they define as their god. If they worshipped any other thing, then their dogma would be illogical to be, depending on what it mentioned.”
Scriabin tried to contain his laughter and incredulity.
“We’re talking about the Spider here, not you, Mozart.”
“Yes, we’re talking about the Spider. And I said I preferred ‘Zart over Mozart, in case you have forgotten.”
“’Zart, yeah.”
The gum was starting to lose its flavour and the natural taste of the chemicals was starting to seep through.
“Okay, ‘Zart,” Scriabin said, amused. “What makes you believe that the Web is lying?”
Maybe ‘Zart was another member of the Salieri.
“People make many things up often. Or so from what I’ve observed so far. They make mistakes in truth or outright lie.
“A small alteration changes the original meaning of something. The Web has been slightly altered to benefit your leader’s desires. But I am not frustrated by the change in my so-called holy message, for he is doing what I tell him. I told him to change the dogma, to add a new thread into the Web. Some people obey it, the new thread; some don’t, splitting into Neoreligion and the Spider’s Cult. Holy wars have been fought in my name, but I only watch. Pray as they might, I will not help them like I have helped worlds long gone. The new thread is only an experiment to me and I am not angry that some of my worshippers disobey it. I do not care if my worshippers think they will displease me if they consider utter obedience and loyalty to their sovereign my word or not.”
Scriabin pressed the tab between his teeth and inner cheek. “Are you a student or a sociologist or something?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you were the Spider,” Scriabin said mockingly.
“I did.”
The taller man snorted and looked down at his blue companion.
“Prove it, shorty.”
And ‘Zart proved it. Scriabin stopped walking as he received a vision of multiple limbs, blue outer shells and glowing eyes. For a moment the world was wrapped in white threads. Or were they wires? They pulsed with light and contained all the information in the world. Of this world.
The vision revealed that his entire world—
—universe—
—reality was mouldable. The Web had said this, but it was one thing to read the Web, the holy texts, but it was another thing to see the real Web.
And the real Spider instead of the statues at the altar.
For a second, Scriabin had gone blind, insane or both. He didn’t know why he screamed or if anybody could hear him.