As several ships in the shape of gray triagonal prisms entered district 13, the situation quieted down. Earlier, several people had been hysterically running around, causing all kinds of issues.
Whereas some had taken this opportunity to break into buildings, looking for valuables to steal. Others, having lost their heads, had funneled themselves together into stampeding crowds as they ran, trampling innocent bystanders.
All of this, however, had stopped the moment the iconic ships of the planetary guard arrived. Of brutalist architecture, the gray ships ranged in sizes from 5 to 20 meters, and on the side of every ship was a symbol of two lasguns crossing barrels. Above the lasguns, in bold white, were the letters "P" and "G", letting everyone watching know that these ships represented the military arm of the government.
Most of the Planetary Guard's forces spread out throughout the district, taking control of the area. Their investigative branch, however, had a different assignment. Moving in deeper into the district, these ships headed directly for the place where all of this had originally begun.
As they approached, the first thing they saw was a trail of destruction spanning hundreds of meters. There were patches of blood everywhere and numerous bodies littered the streets. The gray ships landed, and several forensic investigators began exiting, carrying survey equipment as they walked down the ramps.
"W-what in the world?" One of them stammered as he saw the bodies.
The victims, had skin, so closely draped to the bones below, their entire skeletal frame became visible. It looked as if these people had been starved for months. But to the investigators surprise, many of these victims were still alive. With Ronin chasing him, Specter had not been given enough time to properly drain his victims. Not completely.
"Someone quickly call over some paramedics!" A woman shouted with an authoritative tone. Most of the dried-up bodies were only hanging on by a thread and a moment of indecision could mean the difference between life and death.
"No need, they're already on their way," another forensic specialist replied, looking up at several new incoming ships. These ships did not belong to the planetary guard.
"Out of every emergency service, we have the fastest response time. Who could have called them so early?" The woman said, her brows furrowing in suspicion. One of the medical ships, was heading off in a different direction from the rest. She followed it closely with her gaze as it landed next to one of the apartment complexes nearby.
"—And just who might you be?"
“…”
Leaning back into the couch, Ronin looked over his call log. Good thing I called an ambulance earlier, he thought, thinking back on his fight with Specter. He hadn't lied when he'd told the skinwalker he'd called the authorities. He had however left out the specifics of whom he'd called.
As medical personnel entered the apartment, they swiftly brought Scrabby away. But as soon as they left, what entered the room next was not men of medicine... At least a dozen individuals clad in black and yellow uniforms, entered the room with weapons at the ready.
"Whoa! I'm the victim here!" Ronin said, raising his metal encased arms as they began surrounding him.
"We'll see about that at the station," one of the guards replied in a feminine tone.
Ronin was promptly directed to exit his suit, after which he was swiftly brought to the planetary guard station.
“It was Specter — a skinwalker. If anything, I did the city a favor by stopping the guy,” Ronin said as they walked down the corridor.
He’d already told them this earlier, several times, But the guards did not want to listen to reason.
“You’re pretty knowledgeable about aliens, which other dealings have you had with aliens before? Do you know them well? What other aliens do you know of in this city?” The female asked.
She’d been pretty much the only one talking to him along the journey and was probably the lead investigator on this.
A door was opened, and Ronin was led into an empty metallic room. He’d been in one of these before.
“Look, just search up my name — Ronin Maximus. I’m done talking if you’re going to continue on like this.”
He sat down into the familiar looking chair. It was the same kind of room they’d placed him before shipping him off to Exodon last time.
“So now you’ve gone quiet,” the woman chuckled. “Guilty conscience?”
As they were about to chain him to the table, Ronin, in spite of his fatigue, quickly crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. Looking calmly at the men surrounding him, he spoke flatly:
“If you think you can chain me to the table this time, think again. I’ve been cooperative so far, but there are limits.”
One of the guards attempted to move his hands away from his head — they wouldn’t budge. More guards joined in, attempting to peel his hands away. Ronin simply continued leaning back, not moving an inch.
“I’ve been to Exodon before… They let me out again soon after. I will leave it for you to figure out why.”
Ronin, now with four guards on him, gave the woman a calm look. Not moving his eyes away from her, the struggle with the guards continued. At some point, one of the guards had had enough and reached for a weapon.
“Stop!” the female guard said. “For now, he’s where we want him. Investigate his background first.”
Some of the men left the room and after about 20 minutes of silence later, the tone in the room suddenly made an abrupt shift.
Seemed they’d finally figured out who he was.
As the lead investigator leaned gently over the table, she politely asked: “So… Mr. Maximus, I’m sorry about earlier, but would you please go over exactly what happened today?”
Satisfied, Ronin began explaining himself again, having to stop several times mid-sentence to elaborate or answer new questions. Still, this was a much better situation compared to earlier. At least they listened now.
Hours passed as he kept talking, often having to repeat himself several times. When it was finally over, he was escorted out of the station and... they'd called down a ship for him?
Being recognized as a genius by the government apparently has its benefits at times, Ronin thought.
Stepping into the shuttle, he headed straight for the factory.
“…”
As he walked past his security and through the gate, Ronin was so tired he headed directly for bed. Already running on fumes, he collapsed onto the mattress the moment he reached it, falling asleep soon after. Unaware what was happening around the factory, he slept throughout the day, and by the time he woke up, his surroundings were spinning and his body felt weak.
Rubbing his forehead, Ronin groggily looked over the factory.
Simons, seemingly just having finished up with something, was walking over from the design studio.
“You alright there?” He asked, noticing Ronin being awake. “You’ve been sleeping through three entire design sessions.”
Ronin checked the time. He'd been asleep for over 50 hours...
“Ugh, fought an alien yesterday,” he groaned.
“Good one,” Simons laughed, giving Ronin a couple of hearty claps on the stomach. “More like you’ve caused another happy pearl incident. If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so, alright? No need to lie.”
“If that was true…, what are you doing so close to me?”
“Ow, that's right,” Simons said, feigning disgust as he covered his nose. “Just get back in shape quickly, alright? Been doing some rerouting on the Eluvian’s power supply, and it would help a lot if you could take a look at it.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Alright,” Ronin tiredly nodded back.
Simons had thought he’d been joking about the alien. Ronin didn’t have the energy to convince him, nor did he have the need for that matter. His thin-necked friend would find out sooner or later anyways, well, providing the government didn’t cover it up of course.
Closing his eyes, Ronin entered his mindscape, beginning the slow and monotonous repair work of his mind palace. He was close now, very close, but what door should he open this time? He considered his options for a moment: Perhaps I should check out the Transhumanist collective again first. After all, who knows, I might have earned a coin or two.
“…”
2 hours later, and Ronin was greedily stumbling into the VR-chamber, looking for star coins.
[Do you wish to boost post? Yes/No?] The screen queried as he entered the transhumanist lobby.
Boost post? Ronin wondered. So, something like this was possible?
Maybe he should have helped Simons first, but recent events had clarified things for him. Nothing was more important than strength.
The screen blinked, waiting for him to make a decision.
Surprisingly, his two articles had earned him 36-star coins in one day. The comments below the two posts however… Well, they were worrying.
Almost every single person who’d bought the articles had left comments. They ranged from statements such as: “Embrace the demon!” To glowing reviews expounding on how many people you’d be able to kill if you learned the techniques.
If he chose to boost the two articles, they’d be prioritized in searches and become more visible to anyone visiting the site. That meant more people would buy them. These comments though… people on this site don’t normally write like this. Could there be an issue with the techniques?
Still, it wasn’t as if Ronin was in a position to be picky at this point. He desperately needed star coins to figure out what was going on with him, and if the boost post function helped with that, he’d do it.
He pressed the button for [Yes], paying 20-star coins to boost both articles.
With the remaining coins, he bought an article on energy circulation. It claimed that the human body consisted of certain points which could absorb energy, then showed several diagrams on how that energy could potentially be circulated. There was no mention of what that energy could be though, nor were there any examples of people using it.
A purely theoretical exercise, or is there something more to this? Ronin wondered.
He looked through the comment section. The article seemed to be legitimate. But the commenters had the same issue. It almost seemed as if these pressure points were biological remnants from a bygone era that was no longer relevant. Why else would humans have the biology to circulate a mysterious sort of energy if no one even knew what it was.
Was it the energy he was using? No, unlikely. He was the only one with access to it and humans would not evolutionarily develop to fit something that was not common to everyone.
So… could the world have looked different before? Did humanity once have access to something that was now lost?
Leaving VR, he entered his mind palace, the question turning in his head as he placed his hands along the numerous closed gates. The Potentia Panorama had not been designed for humans, but it did deal with energy. Perhaps he could find an answer here?
Somewhere along in his search, he found something. A sectioned off packet of memory that gave off a vague feeling akin to circulation.
He could open this gate. It wasn’t that large… but was it worth it?
It could take months to repair his mind palace again… But if this worked, he might actually be able to master the energy within him. Up until now, he’d only concerned himself with releasing it before he lost control. But if he could master it, instead of it being a threat, it could become a boon, something which could aid him in ways he couldn’t even imagine yet.
If there’s even a chance, I will have to take it, he thought, then pushed the gate.
The familiar rush of new memories flowed through him as the outline of a technique began forming.
Meridian forging: To master the rules of reality, a warrior needs worthy meridians. This makes it possible to craft your own. No true warrior submits to inborn mediocrity. This allows one to forge one’s own fate.
As the inflow of memories stopped, Ronin closely inspected the technique. From the looks of it, a fusion of the alien energy and his own flesh would allow him to create a new organ. A channel.
According to the article from the Transhumanist Collective, humans might have been supposed to absorb energy through the various pressure points found along the body. Ronin did not need to absorb energy, but what if he connected his channels, or meridians as the Potentia Panorama called it to the alien artifact?
Perhaps, instead of absorbing energy, he could release it out of his body instead. And what sort of effect would that have?
He walked over to the design studio and began reconstructing the various diagrams from the post he’d just read. He began modifying them. As he would with electronics in a ship, he altered paths, changed the power source, switched input channels for output channels, all the while making sure the meridians stayed connected to every organ.
Before he could finish however, Simons walked over.
“What are you working on?”
Ronin knew what he was here for. This was about his earlier promise to help Simons out.
“Ehem,” Ronin awkwardly coughed, swiping away the diagram he’d been building. “Been doing some power supply rerouting. Didn’t you have something similar you wanted checked? How about you send it over?”
Technically, he had been doing a sort of power supply rerouting, just not on a spaceship.
“Really? Thanks! I've been waiting for several hours now for a second pair of eyes on this.”
Ronin spotted a tinge of bitterness in those words. Better help him out right away, he thought, realizing he might have gotten a little too carried away with his research.
The two began going over the modifications to the Eluvian design. Ronin could finish his meridian circulation model later. Although strength was important, he still had obligations afterall.
image [https://i.imgur.com/EBoScIM.png]
Not far from district 13, within the central meeting room of the Ironglades Space-Force Academy, sat 4 figures in deep discussion.
“So, he didn’t take the contract? You’re supposed to be the head of ISFA ship design, and we only have one genius in that branch. How could you screw up something so simple?” Minister Bladia Ungtari questioned.
Petrov Bjerksson shifted in his seat. “Some of our personality estimates were wrong.” Swiping his hand, a hologram appeared upon the table.
Above the black table’s surface, projections of light began showing detailed information regarding every single decision the subject of discussion had taken over the years. Accompanying every action, were psychological evaluations, temperament estimates, and probability calculations on the likelihoods of which choice the subject would make.
The list went on, detailing anything from which type of food the subject would choose to eat, to how they would react when insulted by a colleague. The further down the list went, the more accurate it became. It was only after the recent CLM terrorist attack near the academy that the list got spotty, disappearing completely when Ronin removed his government issued implant.
“We have here a record of every single decision Ronin Maximus has made for the last 10 years. Based on this and various predictive algorithms, we predicted a 93% likelihood that he would take the contract after finding out he’d been targeted by Argus.”
“— But something must have changed after he switched it out, right? Something large enough to cause a drastic shift in personality,” Principal Armstrong broke in.
“I believe we, for all intents and purposes, are dealing with a completely different individual at this point.” Petrov echoed. “However, the change didn’t happen after he changed the implant…no, it was earlier than that. If you look at the data here—” He scrolled down the list, showing the latest recordings.
“Ever since the CLM terrorist attack nearby, there have been gaps in what information we were able to gather. It’s almost as if he intentionally hid his actions from his own implant. I doubt it's a coincidence he just happened to switch out his implant soon after either. Though we don’t know how he did it, he’s got himself a Uninet now, a brand which is pretty much impossible to monitor.”
“You mean to say he’s gotten paranoid?” Armstrong asked.
“It goes far beyond just becoming paranoid. We’ve been in contact with the planetary guard on this and, if the sparse data we have is correct, instead of taking our contract, Ronin launched a private war against Argus. This latest report is merely the aftermath of this war.”
Petrov made another swipe with his hand, and a new hologram appeared on the table. This time it showed details regarding Ronin’s fight with Specter, revealing anything from preliminary crime scene investigations, to records regarding Ronin's questioning by the planetary guard.
Bladia Ungtari gasped.
“HAH!” Anatova Li laughed, slapping the table. “This kid should have been in the pilot program instead. He’s almost as daring as Haraken!”
“—This is not the time to be joking around,” Armstrong rumbled in annoyance. “Based on this report, and if we read a little between the lines, this genius candidate is likely to defect the moment he sees the chance. And the fact that we offered the sort of contract we did earlier, only stripped away the little bit of loyalty he might have had left for us!”
Petrov gave a curt nod in agreement. “He bet his life on his fight with this Specter. All to avoid our contract… It's likely he’d rather risk death than submit to Tar.”
“This is unacceptable. A genius within ship design is too rare of an opportunity to let go of. We need to bind him to Tar — firmly.” Minister Bladia finally spoke up, her eyes hard.
Anatova Li grunted in response, not happy with the decision, but they all knew of the potential costs should they fumbled this.
The discussion continued, but at this point, the overall course of it, was set.