A Diamond Dream by Eli K. P. William

Author:Eli K. P. William
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945863592
Publisher: Talos
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

The Phoenix Virus was only possible through the cooperation of an Identity Executioner and an Identity Vitalator who had both voluntarily chosen bankdeath and the architect of the House of Blinding, with an immensely wealthy patron to fund them. No other combination of people on earth could have even tried to realize it. Amon was amazed when the idea emerged nascent in his awareness and he recognized the seemingly miraculous serendipity of their meeting, though their acquaintance would have meant nothing without his insight to bind them.

As an Identity Executioner, he had memorized the Death Codes that allowed him to execute the identities of citizens and send them to bankdeath. As an Identity Vitalator, Hippo had memorized the Birth Codes that allowed him to endow citizens with an identity signature and bring them to banklife. Because Amon had committed identity suicide and Hippo had received identity euthanasia, they had never been liquidated and their codes had never been reset even unto bankdeath.

Hippo had noted this unique symmetry when he told Amon and Rick his story in the digital quarantine. It had led him to trust Amon instinctively and compelled him to argue in favor of admitting him to Xenocyst at his first council hearing. For his part, Amon had sensed the same enigmatic significance as Hippo. But he had all but forgotten their conversation until Rashana made her offer above Hahajima. Then Hippo’s words rose up in the dark chamber of Amon’s mind, reverberating like the echo of some holy summons. Other memories rushed in and clustered around the first, like the plasma of a reverse supernova turning into a star: the PhisherKing’s prophecy of rejuvenation, the action exemptions, the flaming bird that saved him, the diamond dream. In a flash, Amon saw that Hippo’s intuition had been right, but in a way that Hippo had never imagined.

Part of the reason Amon had committed identity suicide was to hold on to his BodyBank and therefore also the LifeStream record of all the injustices he had been subjected to surrounding Barrow’s assassination and then the jubilee charge. In the end, the LifeStream had been useless, except as a source from which to flesh-hack Mayuko’s saved profile and thereby send her futile messages. But identity suicide had left Amon with the power to wield an even more valuable kind of information. Not the data in his hard drive, but the memory of the Death Codes in his head. Similarly, Hippo had sought identity euthanasia to manage Xenocyst more effectively. In the end, that had not gone as he’d expected, but his Birth Codes remained. Amon was certain that no one else—not Anisha or Sekido or GATA or the Gyges Circle—had put it together that they still had them, let alone that they might pose some kind of threat, any more than he had.

Hippo and Amon could do nothing with their birth and death codes alone. Being disconnected from the ImmaNet, they had no way to interface with other BodyBanks (for this same reason, Hippo couldn’t simply put himself back online).

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