!X
!X (or si!Xist-i!xalt-iVa!qara) was a member of the "Truly Crazed" - a term used by the People to describe those who were insane.
The last of the Truly Crazed, !X was the only one (at least by the 26th century) who could not be cured by even the extremely advanced methods of the People. As such, God simply exiled !X to his own slice of reality (ironically dubbed Paradise) and let him warp it to suit his own twisted desires. Before being sent, !X attacked several members of the DO[EO]C sent to cure him - making them ugly on a "cellular level" by either carefully shattering their face bones or using cytotoxins to make them "ugly at a subcellular level".
Some time later, God realized that he could use !X as a scout in areas where the People were not allowed due to !X technically not being a member of the People. As such, God sent !X (along with a member of the Department of [Entirely Optional] Corrections named Fos!ca) to the planet Tyler's Folly. Though ostensibly this was to try to heal !X, this was actually to help in the "birthing" process of MEPHISTO.
!X and Fos!ca were sent to the planet in a bathosphere and (after an attack by a giant squid) were pulled into the interior of the planet by a gravitational anomaly. They were soon followed by Bernice Summerfield and a Neuroseismology student named Ash Juliandis. Shortly after arriving in the interior, !X was found by Ash. On noticing her, !X nearly strangled the student to death but stopped right before doing so. He then left Ash and Fos!ca behind to travel into the jungle. While there, !X felt the presence of the Eldest of the Tribe of Lillith watching over him (which alarmed the Eldest) and noticed several mutated primates attacking his psychologist and the human student. !X saved their lives by brutally murdering the primates, then put one of the primates' heads on a pike as a warning to the rest of them.
Though this disturbed Ash and began an existential crisis in Fos!ca, the two followed !X deeper and deeper into the jungle - where they were captured by members of the Tribe of Lillith who had been mutated by the gravitational anomaly (whom !X dubbed "his people"). !X ordered his "people" to sacrifice their captives but killed them before they could finish the sacrifice. !X revealed that this was nothing more than a ploy to show his own viewpoints. He then freed Fos!ca and, using the gravitational anomaly, entered into the core of Tyler's Folly.
Once inside the core of Tyler's Folly, !X met a machine that the Tribe of Lillith had built to represent MEPHISTO. He hid himself inside of the machine and remained inside of it until a dirigible containing every "alien" to the Inner World arrived. !X then emerged from the machine (meeting Bernice Summerfield for the first time after doing so) and spoke for the machine. He tried to force the "aliens" into becoming a part of MEPHISTO but was stopped by Kommander Katastrophen activating the machine's self-destruct sequence. While the "aliens" fled from the exploding machine, !X escaped.
Once on the surface of Tyler's Folly, !X infiltrated a chunkputer belonging to Officer Quinton Pupp (who was interrogating Bernice Summerfield) and waited for several days before emerging from hiding and attacking the prison where Bernice was being held. During this attack, he disfigured Pupp (alongside several other officers of the Republican Security Forces) and entered into Bernice Summerfield's cell. After talking with Bernice about the true nature of MEPHISTO, he pulled out a weapon created by the Tribe of Lillith and offered her a choice - die or kill him. Ash (alongside Lucretia Scannon and Fos!ca) broke into the room shortly afterwards and discovered that Bernice had used the weapon to stun !X - breaking the cycle of violence that !X had hoped that Bernice would further. While still stunned, Fos!ca brought !X back to the Worldsphere and the last of the Truly Crazed was presumably sent back to Paradise by God shortly after this. (PROSE: Down [+]Loading...["Down (novel)"])
