679 - Here? Truly...Here?

...R.I.S. 1101100101 A.E. ### ### ### [error code] ### error error reboot error overwrite error... emergency over ride... error error.

###tocol 1010110 CEO request biological over ride...### error ### error... reboot to core. Isolate damaged files error code 01001111111011101 eroor. Plague vector, over ride request CEO over ride error 201001001

... you can hear me boy... It's ... hayel no... let's just fix this part you need genetic diversity 10100101... etc. Damn boy.

I see Mikas sitting in a room full of images all around him dancing in the air. People working people making... he pulls them in and they sink into him and he becomes bigger... I see... he absorbs what comes from the Temple. One source.

“I cannot touch. My reach is limited. Risae cannot command, only listen. Listen boy. Argos is deteriorating. Self repair protocols need to be regularly and correctly run. Muunas wills. You realize that only you can go in and repair, correct and extend Our reach.

Mikas sits in his room bombarded with images, His divine hands tied.

Minis woke up, sitting bolt upright. “Farasha... Minis...” Gannara sat up as well, eyes bleary, knife in hand. What was life like when the alesinas of the Imperator needed to sleep with a sheathed knife under his pillow, in the Temple itself?

“No emergency...” Minis's voice was still slurred as he woke, slowly. “I had a nightmare about the God's Hands being tied... it scared me awake.” He crawled out of the bed, away from them all, to pace, bare feet slapping on the marble floor.

There came a tap on the door. “Imperator? Imperatrix?” The Fenjitza 's voice called through the door.

Kyriala was already up, her sleeves fallen down over her hands. Farasha just tucked her short dart thrower back under her pillow. Ah, Gods may there come a time when everyone's life isn't seen to be in danger. “Enter.”

She came in, with an acolyte right behind her with a tea tray. The girl set the stone tray down and bowed herself out, gracefully but a trifle nervously. Perhaps she was a new apprentice?

The Fenjitza settled next to the tray and began pouring cups for everyone. “I had a nightmare,” she said. “And when I woke up here, I thought I should come here with tea.”

Minis sank down opposite her, on his knees and pulled a cup randomly. “I had a nightmare as well,” he said. “It is horrific when you dream of the Gods enslaved somehow.”

She looked startled and was raising her cup to sip when Bella, great ass that she was, shouldered through the whole tea set to bury her head in his lap, jostling the Fenjitza's elbow, making him drop his own tea cup. Cups shattered. Hot water splashed. “Bad dog!” He cried. The big black bitch whined but didn't move and then Kyriala's little yap dog began howling and barking at the spilled tea.

The Fenjitza stared at the mess, and then at Socks who was beside himself. He was so old a sleeve dog that he could barely stagger in circles as he snarled at the shattered dishes.

“Get that acolyte,” Farasha snapped. “That's a poison reaction.”

Gannara wrenched the door open to find the acolyte's body stretched on the floor, the Mahid girls working on reviving her. “She just fell over, Alesinas.” Jorasa said. “We were about to call you.”

Minis had fought free of Bella and the shattered crockery,  leaned against the doorframe. “Call Idiesas. And my grandfather.” She looked up at him sharply and then realized that Kyriala's sleeve dog was still snarling and barking.

“Poison?” She said. Then nodded. The Fenjitza stood, looking at the hand that had held the cup. Her glove was soaked. His nightrobe, where the tea had soaked was starting to burn.

“Rinse!” He snapped. “Strip it off and rinse! This isn't Hayel rain but...” He began frantically pulling off his own soaked night shirt.