Fallout from the Fall
“Always be mindful of your energy reserves; experiencing a mind zero is like getting a brain freeze, a migraine, and the tingling when your nerves are asleep, all simultaneously across your body. At least you get used to it; it doesn't bother you after the twentieth time it happens.” ~ Lazaru Corpo Mage, 13390 CT
A faint tingling pain awoke Essen from his slumber, pulling him back into blissful consciousness. A few soft breaths echoed out, Essen almost unconsciously pulling at the Aether around him before he felt the foreign Aether sing through him, smoothing and tugging at the remarkably less twisted and burnt Aether veins, soothing away the feeling of the Mind Zero. Remaining still for a few moments to enjoy the sensations, he finally decided to make the monumental effort to open his eyes. For a split second, he remembered the blurry memories of how he had fainted, a spike of panic and Aether surging within before Essen's eyes focused and recognized the space he woke up in.
The room was remarkably less bright than he was expecting; instead of harsh overhead lights as were typical in a hospital or operating room, most of the lights were off, and the room was lit only by soft strips of neon and the rose gold Aether radiating in swells and lines over his skin, originating from who he took a moment to recognize the Covens proprietary Healer and Cyberdoc, Doc Reye.
To anyone who didn't know the Doc, it would be jarring to see her try to give medical care or perform surgery on anyone. Doc Reye was a 7ft 1in giant of a tanned muscled Valkyrie with hair that looked like liquid gold. Her eyes were a solid swirling gold missing distinctions between iris and sclera, a side effect of the rare celestial giant bloodline she had received from the Nocturne. The skin around her eyes and across her hands had little cracks of liquid gold that spilled out onto the skin like proto-ancient pottery relics. She sat there dressed in a lab coat, thrown over a black crop top and some military-style pants and boots, showing a distracting amount of muscle and midriff.
As if reacting to him looking up at her, but most likely the surge of Aether, Doc Reye started moving through another health scan before reaching down to adjust the position of what he now realized was one of Doc’s operating chairs. Doc moved the chair until he was in a seated position. Somewhat surprised at the lack of pain in his spine from the motion, he nearly dropped the glass of water that the Doc handed him before drinking deeply at her behest. Essen looked around and noticed that all the standard readout and status screens had been disabled. That was not good, not good at all. He turned his head slightly towards Doc Reye, clearing his throat before speaking up, “What’s the damage like Doc? Bad enough you had to turn all the reads off?”
“Sorry, Essen, I’d love to update you, but Boss Ava asked me to let her explain the extent and ramifications of what happened. I've pinged her Aug, so it shouldn’t be too long of a wait. You should see a full recovery very quickly, so don't be too worried about it”, Reye reassured him while finishing up her scan and making marks on a checklist that Essen recognized as post-install procedures for pieces of Bio-Cyber.
Knowing the Doc wouldn't tell him anything more, he began to cycle his breath in the proper technique and focus inward, pulling his mind inside and looking with the internal sense provided by his Aether. While non-dreamers couldn’t refine or use Aether externally without charms, they could still meditate on and use Aether internally.
Essen first looked at his network of Aether veins, looking for the additions from what was essentially adding another organ network to his body. Bio-Cyber was rare, expensive, and not typically seen on a world with as low of ambient Aether as Gaia.
That Ava had installed some into him was either a very good sign or a horrible omen.
As Essen focused further inward, his view of his Aether network cleared up at a much more rapid pace than expected. He saw the few untwisted Aether veins shining much brighter than usual, the swirling light of his Aether now seeming much more brilliant and profound. Essen also noticed the color had significantly changed, moving from a green-silver color to an almost colorless luminescent silver. Essen could also see that many of his veins were still damaged and twisted but were being repaired at a very high speed. There were many new pathways, too, no doubt a result of the Bio-cyber or whatever was repairing his veins.
It was like two new layers were being wrapped around his previous veins before fusing into a singular stronger whole. His spine and brain area also had new pathways growing, as well as the area throughout most of his nerves and tendons. These pathways were not fusing, just connecting, meaning they were from the Bio-cyber and were changing or augmenting something, probably reactions and reflexes.
Essen faintly felt and heard a significant Aether signature move within his senses, and as the door opened, he pulled his focus outward once more. For a split second, the world slowed to almost a stop around him before his focus shattered, and he looked at who had entered the room. Looking into a pair of glowing violet orbs with a halo of slightly brightened pink from Bio-Cyber installed in her eyes, Ava had arrived.
Essen took stock of Ava’s appearance, again appreciating her impressive fashion decisions. Ava had cut her hair into a short undercut of the same glittery, glowy pink-purple blend as her eyes. Framing her face and neck, the faintly glowing lines of her Bio-Aug displayed the color of her lavender mind element Aether. The color of someone’s Aether is intrinsic to them, and only significant changes to a person will shift this color. Changes to the color of Aether are important because a person's eyes, hair, and even the specific pattern of their Bio-aug called the Stigmata reflect this color.
Everyone’s stigmata are unique, the pattern representing themselves, as well as their choices for templates and sub-templates in the nocturne. This unique way of expression, combined with Aether colors, lends Dreamers to having themed outfits and armor. Bloodlines also play a massive part in this, as while most people stay primarily human, there’s a considerable variation in the forms someone can end up with.
Ava was no exception to this, her duster-like coat a deep purple with lavender cyber lines running over it. Underneath, she wore a black sports bra under a fishnet shirt, little purple armor plates covering her vitals. Ava’s outfit then moved into baggy black capris with the same cyber patterning, cutting off just below the knee into some sleek armored boots. A pair of holsters hung from her hip, where her custom air of revolver-shaped spell focuses sat ready. At first glance, Ava looked human, but the longer you stared, the more little details you would notice, like slightly too big and slanted eyes and pointed ears belied the slight amount of fairy that represented her bloodline shift.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Ava sat on a chair the Doc had pulled to the front and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Essen finished off his water, setting the glass on a small tray to the side as Ava started to speak.
“First, on behalf of the Coven, I both have to apologize and commend you for what occurred on that run. I’ll explain shortly, but it was more important than anyone thought.” Ava spoke calmly and directly, “ As for your injuries and their extent, well, that’s just a small part of what we discovered.”
Ava seemed to steel herself as she took a deep breath before speaking again.” That datadeck and chipset you recovered have information on a corporation's research and experimentation on a highly illegal prototype technology that they just finished testing and were getting ready to begin production on. “
Ava looked directly into Essen's eyes before continuing,” Said highly illegal tech is now installed in your body, along with a few other prototypes that they just finished the research on.”
Essen was beyond shocked. The second Ava started explaining the data from the run, he had a bad feeling, which she had just confirmed. Ava seemed to pause to let him collect himself before continuing to speak. ”I’ll explain the rest in a bit, but the most critical piece of tech installed was what the corp in question called an auxiliary dantian. Essentially it increases the amount of Aether a person can have by a factor of ten. It’s not even what was used to repair your spine and Aether network; it was just installed because of one of my troops panicking and injecting you with everything you were holding.”
“Wait, what!” Essen shouted. “Someone just injected me with all the stuff in the package I recovered? How the hell did that happen?”
Ava calmly replied,” Your Aether veins began to hemorrhage the second you fell unconscious, and one of the girls with Luciell saw a Bio-Aug injector in the bag, but in her panic, she just used all the injectors in there.”
“Luciell has been properly re-educated on identifying the different types of injectors, but for now, congratulations, you just got a Bio-Aug, bone and skin replacement wetware mod, an Auxiliary Dantian, and a state-of-the-art piece of Bio-Cyber that not only repairs your spine but makes you think and react faster, or will when it matures, and you start cultivating with it.”
Essen was beyond thinking at this point. He had been saving for years for a Bio-Aug, and he has one land in his lap, along with many other good mods that will help once he becomes a Dreamer. He knew there had to be a catch somewhere. The fallout from this run was too good to be true.
“Ok, Ava, that sounds amazing, but where’s the catch? Besides that corporation hunting me down to recover their prototype, what else is wrong? You wouldn’t have kept the Doc from informing me otherwise.”Essen did his best to keep his voice from wavering as he spoke. His hands were shaking, and he suddenly felt very sick to his stomach.
Ava glanced at the Doc, who moved forwards and started sending soothing waves of life Aether through him to help him come out of shock. A few minutes passed before the panic subsided, and he was calm enough to listen again.
“Well, Ess, the reason I had her let me tell you is because we don’t know what the catch is. The data we had only cataloged what each item was, not the exact effects of installing it.” Ava grits her teeth before continuing to speak.” plus, it’s not the parent corporation Aureliod that’s after us; it’s one of the other members of the Corporate Organized Conference of Kings, precisely speaking, the Beiowulv corporation.”
The Aureliod corporation, rank 5 of the CCK, specializing in Biological type modifications and medicine, Is one of the more straightforward and humane corporations. Beiowulv, on the other hand, has recently become a member of the Six thru aggressive expansion and inhumane procedures and seemed to have the desire to keep climbing.
“That's not good, Ava.” Essen said.” The Beiowulv Corp might hunt us all down to get the data they wanted.”
“I know, Ess, and so does the Matriarch of the Coven. We’ve been instructed to shift our operations and avoid the Aureliod corporation for now, as well as having you lie low for a while.” Ava explained.
“I understand, Ava.”Essen reassures her,” It’s not a decision you can make or go against. That will be my last run for a while anyway; I need to adjust to these new Mods. I’ll message you if I need emergency work, but I should be good for a while.”
“I’ll hold you to that, you’re one of my best runners, and with your new gear, if you can acquire a token, you could be a top-tier operator too.” Ava said before clapping her hands, "Now! We get to the fun part, namely your pay and some gifts!”
“The first thing you’ll receive is some peace of mind!” She exclaims, “ The Aureliod Corp hired us to move that data, and we did that just fine, but the scientist who put the package together was a Beowulv plant, hence the extra goodies.”
“The Aureliod corporation has told us that they will not pursue the lost prototypes and hope for the best to whoever received them.” She continues, “So, no worries about retaliation from them. We’ve also wiped the security footage and verified that your identity wasn’t compromised, and your Aether signature has changed enough to be untraceable too.”
“Now, for the payment for your run, I’ve sent 2,300 concords to your account, as well as a gift from the Coven. You’ll have access to the Silverblood Mkv1, Witch-hunt mkv2, and Mikomin mkv1-3 weapons, armor, and consumable catalogs as soon as you receive and activate a token.”
“The Coven thanks you for your dedication and looks forward to sub-contracting with you again, Operator codenamed Essentia.'' Ava finished off the mission debrief.
Essentia was only a temporary operator name, copying his online handle. Once someone becomes a proper operator, they can earn a street name or title to call themselves. The whole thing with his handle was a play off of Essen, a nickname based on his initials.
“Holy shit Ava, thanks!” Essen had to stop themselves from shouting,” Those bonus credits and not having to invest in too many catalogs will help me a lot later on. Tell the Matriarch I said thanks as well.”
Essen slowly got out of the operating chair and hugged Ava.
“No problem, Ess, I’ll do just that,” Ava said once they broke apart,” now you should probably hurry home; with the surgery and injections, it’s been almost 12 hrs since you passed out.”
“12 hours!” Essen shouted,” Oh fuck, my parents will kill me! Ava, where are my clothes and Aug necklace?”
Ava pointed to a small duffle off to the side that Essen had seen several times. “There’s some stuff you can wear in the bag, along with a temporary Aug-necklace since you won’t need it by tomorrow since your new Bio-Aug should finish installing. Stay safe on your way home.” Ava said before waving to Doc and them both leaving the room.
Essen nearly tore off the hospital gown, grabbing some of the clothes in the bag and throwing them on. The clothes ended up being Simple black military pants and boots, a silver tank top, and a purple hoodie four sizes too big with the Coven logo on all of it. He took the bag with him, starting up the Aug necklace to access the lifts and transports required to get home. Ducking out of the Covens base, a strange blend of witchcraft, samurai, and technological themes, he jogged through the Shell towards the Eastern entrance and the lifts to get back to the mid floors.