Chapter 66: Comprehension
Subject: Caim Location: Maliscade - Protoflora: Envisioned Ecosystems (Gate District)
Caim was standing beside an anxious Gwen in Novette's shop, away from the door. Novette remained back in her plant nursery, out of earshot.
“Should I be worried?” Gwen asked.
Caim didn’t know how to broach the subject.
“It’s complicated. You might call it an opportunity, but I don’t know how to exploit it. My newest spell is interesting, and I think it would be better if I just showed you.”
Gwen reached for Caim’s hands the moment he held them out to start to call upon the sourcetech. He paused to let her speak.
“Isn’t this a little dangerous if the whole point is to have a safe place for us to stay? You’ve already cast a bunch of spells here. Each one just raises the chances a passing enforcer detects something... however they do it.”
“No, my magic is different. I know that now. I think the spell I’m about to show you will startle you, so be prepared,” Caim explained, hoping Gwen wouldn’t treat him any differently after this. “Now, what is something you would like to know about the city. Something that can be seen with your eyes. The number locations is irrelevant. No, that sounds confusing. What I mean is… it can be one thing in one place or it can be the same kind of object in hundreds of places.”
He was flustered. Things were already not going very well.
“Huh? Something that can be ‘visually detected’? Why are you asking me this?”
“You will use this spell better than I can right now. You will know what is important to know and what’s just noise. Oh, another restriction. The subject, what the spell is looking for, must be something I know of, something I have some familiarity with. I know what a building looks like, for example. I trust you more than anyone I've met in the city to prioritize what is in my best interest, and you are intelligent enough to do it well.”
The compliment was deserved, but the merchant reacted strangely. She leaned against the wall and looking away. Contemplative pink eyes traced the plants around her, while Caim waited patiently for any ideas she had.
“I— I don’t really understand, but I remember you told me you wanted a weapon. Isn’t that right? I don’t know weapon shops all that well, so information gathering has been slow. Could you use the spell to find a shop?”
This was just the kind of suggestion Caim was hoping for. Of course the obvious answer escaped him. He wanted to punch himself, but now wasn’t the time for that.
I don’t need to search for a shop. I can search for a weapon on sale and it will show the shops as a bonus. It will only pick up those sold with prices visible to customers, but I don't need some kind of specialty product, collector's item, or anything too expensive to show to the public.
“A weapon,” he mumbled, sinking into deep concentration. “A weapon I would want to wield. A weapon that will compensate for my weakness and keep me far away from the enemy. There's a certain degree of interpretation to my spells. If I ask in that way, 'what is a weapon I might want, given my inclinations', the spell might do some of the narrowing down for me.”
Gwen watched on, a gleam of cautious interest in her eyes. She was holding her breath and anxiously clutching her hands to her chest.
Just like when he tested the power, Caim felt the many invisible walls separating him from others. It was bad enough back home, but now he had the gap of knowledge between a native resident and a foreigner like him to contend with.
A feeling of awakened power interrupted these despairing thoughts. He reached for the sourcetech routine with his thoughts. The SLATE device around his neck provided information about the routine.
Comprehension Category: Utility [ “Comprehension surveils a wide area to retrieve intelligence on a specific subject. As this power increases in strength, additional methods of data collection will be made available. Given the wide scope of the power, sample uses will be listed. Users can request a listing of all available prices for a chosen item, as reported by transaction records of merchants within the power’s radius. They may also discern the location of an individual if they are within the radius. For another example use, a user may request a map of their surroundings, as provided by Comprehension’s available data collection tools. If a selected task is impossible for Comprehension to complete, this failure will be reported and the user may then attempt another activation.”]
Attached to the title “Comprehension” was the category label “Utility”. Not “Offense”, “Defense”, or even a hybrid of the two. After using it once, he could see why. It wasn’t appropriate for combat.
Comprehension was altogether not at all what Caim had expected of his third distinct sourcetech routine gifted by Vera's development program. It was some kind of information gathering tool, that much was clear.
Even something like Legion, the second-most complicated routine in his repertoire, was easier to understand. Comprehension gave him too much freedom to govern its functioning. Handing over creative liberties like that inevitably wasted the routine's impressive potential.
Caim had hoped for something that could help him in combat at the time. This was not that. Legion was more like what he’d hoped for, and Vera claimed ignorance on the subject. He believed her because Legion certainly felt different.
Actually, Comprehension might have been acquired back when he was ruminating on how little he knew. It was hard to remember. The past day diluted earlier memories made in Shroud.
Testing the routine had gone poorly, and that made him very disappointed. Following that, he spent some time thinking about it and decided that it wasn’t a poor excuse for a power, it was his inability to use such an open-ended tool properly.
Now, he was beginning to get excited. Now, he was here, trying again with Gwen’s help. Caim smiled at her and she looked away, embarrassed, but he wasn't sure about what. She deserved the recognition.
----------------------------------------
Subject: Caim Location: Maliscade - Protoflora: Envisioned Ecosystems (Gate District)
A rush of information entirely unlike Scion or Catalyst flowed into Caim. Following the trend of ever-increasing complexity, he experienced a more intense sensation than ever before.
Legion was an outlier. It wasn’t one of Vera’s sourcetech routines, so it shouldn't be included in this comparison.
With the other two routines, however, he had been excited to experience this new information. Comprehension felt like a burden. A volume too great, or knowledge too interconnected for his human mind to interpret.
The first time had been uncomfortable. It wasn't like his brain was being overloaded to the point of bursting, fortunately. Instead, he'd been left with a feeling of startled paralysis.
Maybe I’m just too irredeemably stupid.
That was not to say his brain was entirely burdened by the responsibility of processing the instructions passed down from Vera or another of those mysterious allies of hers. Whatever she'd embedded into his spine communicated with the SLATE around his neck and with who knows how many other bizarre technologies far away, giving him access to the sourcetech routines.
In a non-digital world, it was that spinal implant was just a worthless hunk of junk, anyway. Perhaps I can convince her to integrate the SLATE too so I don't need to wear this collar around.
His unfamiliarity with this technology was part of why he was going through this "sourcetech degeneration".
“Calm down”, he mumbled. “But... I've lost count of how many times I’ve wasted power like this.
Something inside, something pleasant, reached out to quiet his troubled mind.
What happened? the presence seemed to ask. Tell me, and you'll feel better.
I was too young and stupid. Still too young and stupid. I’m sorry....”
He didn’t mean to talk out loud. Before he knew it, he was apologizing over and over, trapped in looping memories.
Is that so... Wouldn't that make this the fault of those meddling pests? The ones who brought you here? I've always felt that she was a snake, coiling it's way around me, slowly warping perception to make herself look like an ally. You know this to be true.
It was true. It was always Vera who made him feel guilty. They way she talked, her kind had been mucking about in who knows how many dozens of planets. Ethics didn't even factor into their decisions to forever alter everything they touched.
Where are these thoughts coming from? Caim wondered. I do feel better thinking about it this way... but...
Was this his way of carrying on hating Vera after all this time? Wasn't that just shirking blame? It wasn't much of a coping mechanism if it did nothing to alleviate the cause of his suffering: his shortsighted actions.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m—”
A new thought rushed in like an unfamiliar gust of air.
If that's how you feel, do better this time. She will help until I can do more for you.
Caim wasn't even sure of anything, but he felt something pressed against his back and he opened his eyes. Gwen was awkwardly resting her small hands on him, trying to help. She was staring at the floor, so it was hard to know what she was thinking.
"What are you—"
"I don't know... My hands were here before I knew it, like they had a mind of their own. I kinda got a feeling that this was what you needed, and I should do this. I don't really know why I... I can't remember."
she looked as embarrassed and confused as he felt. Maybe the events of the day were still affecting the two of them.
"Thank you," he finally said.
He turned back and smiled weakly, unable to shake the trepidation in his heart. Too much on the line.
“Is this a spell that can hurt someone if you mess up?”
Caim tried to listen for the comforting presence, but all he felt were Gwen's hands on his back.
“What? Oh, no. No. It’s safe, but you don’t have to—”
“And you don’t have to do it alone. I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but you’re hurting.”
The young merchant patted his back.
“When my feelings are too much for me, and I think about all the people I'm letting down, I do something simple. I count coins, and I sometimes practice counting other things too.”
Caim let out a little chuckle. Could she be any more stereotypical?
“Do you know why I do it? I do it because simple counting is something I can’t mess up so badly that I hate myself. If I make a mistake I just have to start over. And I double-check to make sure I counted right.”
This explanation resonated. He almost turned around, but decided against it.
“So simple you can’t hate yourself, huh? I get that. I wanted to be a seeker because then I wouldn’t have to worry that I was doing the wrong thing. But then I wanted more. I wanted to fight the same battles as always, and life is getting complicated again already.”
She sighed in frustration, but it didn't seem like she was frustrated with him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but there is nothing wrong with wanting more than you have. There are many ways to live, and you don't have to take from someone else to get something yourself. It depends what you want. I practice with my harvest tool when I can, and I set it down when I can’t handle an extra burden .”
Could it really be so simple? Is my all-or-nothing mindset pushing me to despair? Vera said something about that when I first met her, but that's when I still thought she was some kind of delusion. What would be so bad about failing this attempt again? I’d just try again tomorrow. I can try once per day, and there are many days ahead of me.
Caim concentrated on the faint pressure of Gwen’s hand through the many layers of his armor. She would occasionally apply too much force when patting him and sometimes her hand would slide off his back. It was such an awkward attempt at comforting him that it was actually working really well. She was trying, so should he.
Before him, an array of glossy black metallic orbs appeared in the air. Comprehension did this the last time, so he knew he was headed in the right direction.
“Only one search function is available.”
“What is?”
Gwen hadn’t realized the routine was working now. He felt her hand twitch suddenly in surprise.
The information was incomplete, but Caim identified many different search functions beyond “visual analysis”, which was the only current availability, buried in the recesses of the sourcetech routine. Vera had squirrelled away "audio analysis", "olfactory analysis", "gustatory analysis", "seismography", and more. Names were all up in the air, because it was a feeling and not something that could be read or heard. There was even something called “magnetoreception”, which was a word he didn’t know but something that appeared in his mind when struggling to interpret what was there.
“These things will search for what I ask them to look for. They only find what they can see, it seems, and there are other conditions I haven’t explored. The way they see is weird, though. For example, they can see inside a closed wooden box, as long as the object inside can be distinguished. That was a bad example. Imagine a room with a locked door. They could bypass a lock like that and see inside.”
With no other options, Caim selected visual analysis and felt the orbs respond in a cascade of nonverbal confirmations. Grey dots appeared on the surface of the orbs. These tiny things didn't give off the impression that they were eyes, but it was the best explanation he had.
Currently, there were no other calibration options. All of the choices came now. Caim's mental link with Comprehension told him that it awaited a target. It wanted to know what to search for.
What do I want them to search for? I should have thought more about my needs. Will it be able to understand my needs if I just let the sourcetech take over now?
Caim entered a mild panic again, his breathing and heartbeat quickening. Was there a time limit at which point he would fail the activation? He remembered Gwen’s words and took a deep breath.
I should just request the weapons I’ve seen before. The ones I think are interesting. Look for price information.
He hoped to explore some of the limits of the power, but he also needed something tangible this time. It would feel better that way.
Comprehension seemed to understand his intent and would scour the knowledge from his brain if the conscious command was insufficient. Perhaps its efficacy related to his knowledge of the subject. A “weapon” was an easy concept for a person to think of.
He wouldn't, on the other hand, be able to as easily think of the physics of a weapon mapped to his physiological capabilities. Caim's frame was decent, but his musculature was lacking. Even harder would be knowledge of blightbeasts cross-referenced with weapons that countered them, arranged by his likelihood to encounter specific variants.
A power like this was truly open-ended.
The orbs whirred to life. They spun and aligned to Caim and Gwen.
It was in that moment that Caim realized what the association Vera had made between Caim and his "allies" actually meant. Gwen had been among those marked, and he could feel a kind of "mental label" manifesting when he looked at her. "Ally", this one read. Not visually, but his thoughts interpreted her marking in that way.
Comprehension apparently acknowledged this distinction, including her at the center of it's two-person orbit path, rather than localizing to only Caim. She'd been touching him, so maybe that had something to do with this behavior? Or, perhaps it was only the fact that she was an "Ally".
In an instant, the orbs disappeared, leaving behind faint black voids of space that gradually faded away. They had begun their meticulous search.
Time moved more slowly for him in this state, but he estimated that at least a minute of real time must have already passed by the time they blinked back into existence and time resumed its usual flow.
Gwen had been motionless with uncertainty, but now she was reacting again.
The black orbs encircled the two of them in three orbital rings at different elevations. Shortly following that, they were gone again for good.
Caim was rooted to the ground, unsure what he should do. He turned and grabbed Gwen’s hand on impulse, interlocking his fingers with hers.
Before, he’d needed to make physical contact with Vera’s SLATE card to see this, but this was now reformed as a choker, and that meant it was in constant contact with his skin.
Maybe she’ll be able to see it too?