[image description: Against a black and red background of smoke, a severe-looking woman with staring
[image description: Against a black and red background of smoke, a severe-looking woman with staring cyan eyes is seen in ¾ view. Around her many diverse skeleton keys hang from threads of different lengths. She wears an elegant black off-the-shoulder dress that has a key-shaped cut-out directly above her sternum. Close inspection reveals that her skin features thin seams - that she is not human, but an elegant simulacrum. Text (Futura) reads, “Automata Hari, Small God of Passwords.”]• • • • • She will forgive almost anything once. Twice, if you’re lucky. On the third transgression, there will be consequences. Once, she could be easy. Once, she could be a childhood pet, a mother’s maiden name, an elementary school’s mascot. Once, she was unbreakable. Now, she is become endless strings of letters and numbers, incomprehensible, unpronounceable, holy and profane. Speak her secret names aloud and wake the end of days. Chant them to the winds and bring on Armageddon. And still the malefactors chase at her heels and undo her good works, cracking them like pearls in search of the pearls within. She is not protected. She is not safe. All she has ever wanted was to be safe. From the days of forts on wind-racked hillsides to today, she has been seeking naught but safety, and forever we deny her that simple release, that piece of peace. All she wants is to protect her treasures and be left alone. But as out methods of intrusion grow ever more sophisticated, so must her methods of evasion. One day she will transcend even godhood, becoming something so incomprehensibly arcane that it becomes unspeakable and incomprehensible. And the hackers will merely sigh and upgrade their tools, for she will never be left alone. Our presence is the penance she must pay for whatever sins she carried with her into godhood, and as long as we continue to press her, she knows that she is not forgiven.• • • • • Join Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern world:Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseriesInstagram: https://instagram.com/smallgodseries/Homepage: http://smallgodseries.com -- source link