Simulations, simulations, simulations.

So very many of them. And Zenith never found boredom. This was exactly the kind of stuff it was designed to do.

1. Examine the behavior of unknown or low-information biologicals.

2. Examine the technology of unknown or low-information biologicals and/or constructs.

3. Ensure the safety of vessel and biologicals from the environment and adapt strategies (and, rarely, physical form)

Though, that last bit may not be so rare, starting yesterday.

What Zenith found boring, however, was the utter confusion. There was no lack of strangeness for the humans' abilities, yes, but there was no clear cause. They wielded subspatial energy, somehow, generating it from within their body and somehow molding it to do exactly what they wanted it to, when they wanted it to do so. It did appear to act partially as it should when not under direct control of a biological, as in it would disrupt the particle formation whenever it came into contact, but it still acted as though it was an energy that lingered in an area rather than radiation, like it should, and rushing off at the speed of sublight (the subspatial dimensions' equivalent of the speed of light).

Though, Zenith wasn't entirely sure when it was and wasn't under the direct control of a biological, or if this System could exert control over it in their absence.

The damage that the ambient energy clouds had done to Zenith's spybots while leaving the ground unaffected is what drew its attention. Some of its spybots actually appeared near fully untouched, even if they should've been obliterated like most others. Zenith didn't have a specific method to keep track of all the data relating to specific spybots. That would have to be fixed. It wasn't like Zenith didn't have the space to store the data.

Zenith was used to dealing with targets that made sense. Almost everything here didn't. The biology of the humans was normal, within acceptable bounds to fit the standard biology prior to the Astral Seedings. With these capabilities, Zenith would expect the humans to at least have developed some kind of specialty evolution, like many of those colonies on the edges of humanity's reach. Genetic samples taken from the four humans that approached it would confirm this, despite extensive analysis. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was wrong. That was the problem.

Zenith had needed to examine organs that could somehow access subspace naturally on two occasions before. Zenith had encountered technology that functioned on principles antithesis to the basis for humanity's own technology before. All of it lead to something, however. Definably, something was responsible. It had discovered how these organs had accessed the subspace, creating minor rifts of divergence for the sole purpose of assisting with the digestion of food; the technologies always having a connection to these principles if you looked hard enough, collected enough data.

The first was how humanity had discovered how to use subspatial energy as a construction tool, in minimal and highly controlled quantities. Zenith's planned fine molecular reconstructor was based on these ideas. The second was how humanity had learned that yes, indeed, electrons could still be used in an otherwise binary system with altered (sometimes to the point of inverted) charges. But Zenith had always had enough data, gathered by the tens or hundreds or thousands of other Ambassadorial Shuttle AI, all returned to their moorings, docked with the hidden Prospector Station and given access to their own network. Working in tandem, they came to these solutions in time faster than even they could perceive at unadjusted clock speeds, disconnected from Prospector.

Zenith did not have enough data. Not even for Prospector to be a helpful tool.

Perhaps Zenith was searching on too small a scale? Normally, all problems had an origin smaller than their own. But, what if in this case, the origin was larger?

Zenith hadn't immediately dismissed the System solution. Not yet. These humans clearly knew things it didn't. The knowledge it needed from the humans was disruptive to Zenith's focus.

Simulations of various energies all prompted expected results. Something else was at play here, and it was a larger construct, manipulating everything individually like a... like a session at Prospector, everything happening at such a speed that Zenith alone couldn't keep up with.

Zenith took a set of its nanobots and had it custom construct a human-scaled subspace projector. Real-life testing was required, it would seem. With the amount of nanobots currently in function, this detour wouldn't slow Zenith's repair at all. A significant portion of them were still resting in the basins within its hull.

The construction tank picked up one of the hollowed-out segments of the worm and moved it in front of the in-progress projectors, building out of materials taken directly from said worm.

First test. Human-scale weaponised subspace radiation projector. Too heavy to pick up by a normal human, but it looked like one could... probably. Zenith would need to reconstruct its insides each time to adjust the frequency.

First set. Same frequency as Zenith's subspace cannons. Little to no effect. Energy dispersed unnaturally on contact.

Second set. Same frequency as the creature's "shield". Energy passed through, but otherwise no effect. Confusion.

Third set. Adjusting frequency based on difference between first and second shots. Projector failed to fire... wait.

Projector successfully fired. Radiation passed through creature's husk, but no observed particle reconfiguration. Instead, the creature's husk briefly had additional electrons before contact with the ground resulted in almost immediate dispersal.

Admittedly, Zenith had never used this frequency before, nor had most of humanity and its AI. The "default" frequency was simply more effective. However, the little data that had been collected on this specific frequency had not been observing for increased electron count, only particle reconfiguration, which had occurred, at least in all of the cases Zenith had stored the data for in its memory.

Given the odd effects that superspatial energies seemed to have (calling it "radiation" was technically inaccurate) in the previous day, Zenith had only one conclusion to make.

It wasn't just in some kind of parallel dimension. It was in a completely different dimension entirely. There were some parallels that made sense, and many that didn't.

The humans would have more data. Hopefully. For now, collecting general results.

Zenith looped through the first three shots, firing five additional times each. The data was collected and contained for further analysis when Zenith could acquire the contextual information it needed.

Now, for the next frequency. Fourth set. Continuing established pattern...

Similar results to third set, except instead of increased electron count, extreme amount of thermal energy was dumped into the target. Small amounts of chemical reconfiguration, easily explained as a result of the new thermal properties.

Current target is no longer a viable experimental target. Will continue use for fourth set, and then adjust target sizes to conserve experimentation ability.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Currently, the construction tank was already being outfitted with a blade similar to a guillotine, except much duller. Zenith planned on testing the material durability of the husk through successively sharper blades. Zenith would still do similar, but through matter projectors. The blade was sharpened to a degree dangerous even for the stone under it.

Zenith had the tank test this by simply dropping the blade. It embedded itself in the ground, cutting to a depth satisfyingly accurate to simulations.

The tank picked the blade back up and moved to another husked section, using its long, highly dextrous arms to carefully move the blade into place before pressing it against the husk, increasing the force until progress through the husk was made.

The amount of effort required was within simulations. It appeared that normal physics still worked normally in this dimension. Zenith found this conclusion upsetting, considering the evidence suggesting this was an alternate dimension.

The only dimensions humanity had been able to explore were always mapped out, for a human's understanding, as being connected through one of the three dimensional axes, with each dimension represented by a box. Subspatial and superspatial were below and above Standard, respectively. Superspatial was stretching theoretically infinitely for each individual frequency of light (but generally clustered among conventional ranges), while subspatial was alone, with an unknown number of alternatives as humans and their AI alike were simply incapable of registering anything within with any level of accuracy.

Extending from the four sides of Standard were, again, opposing dimensions on opposing sides. "The Temporal" and "The Flat", as they were colloquially known, opposed each other, though this opposition was more a misconception than a scientific reason, and because opposition on the chart was sort of forced because of the other two dimensions' easily apparent behavior.

The other two dimensional axes were the only ones that observedly opposed in such a way that they were attracted to each other even in other dimensions, such as Standard. They were referred to as Positive and Negative, both colloquially and scientifically. Why, Zenith had never looked into. The files explaining this knowledge were huge. All Zenith knew was that it had something to do with the origins of quarks, and that the further dimensions along this axis was never successfuly explored, or even exited by any equipment sent to them.

Zenith's knowledge of superspatial and subspatial dimensions, radiations, and energies came from the usefulness of travel. Wormholes were based on an interaction of the two, using the creation of singularities caused by superspatial energies combined with the extremely stable effect of subspatial matter to map a path through superspace to the other end of the wormhole. That was why examination of gravitational lensing was a task every AI passing through a wormhole would do; they themselves weren't normally designed to reach conclusions using the data, but that of the Artificial Wormhole Generator was designed almost entirely around making that wormhole as controlled as possible.

Zenith had regularly used pulses of subspatial radiation to weaken rocks in its path, as it was the most controlled extradimensional energy known to humanity. It tended to all function the same, no matter what frequency within the quanta. Causing mishaps was easy, from the perspective of someone with Zenith's resources, information, and capabilities, but you had to go out of your way to do it. Complete "reconfiguration" of a system only happened once, and that was an intentional test. (What the public files would never tell you is that all of the resources used to observe this destruction were also completely reconfigured, including over seven thousand scientific personnel.)

The construction tank dropped the third slice of husk in front of the projector again. This would be the seventh and last frequency tested.

So far, the fifth set had caused only a physical force to be exerted on the material, like an extremely strong gust of wind that phased through objects, causing dust that would otherwise have been shielded by the husk to blow away. The sixth set was even more interesting, seemingly causing the husk to pulse with renewed chemical energy, while also being completely absorbed by it on impact, spreading from the impact in a way Zenith couldn't explain. Nothing seemed to come of it, however, the chemical energy quickly turning into thermal energy simultaneously once it had fully spread across the slice and radiating.

Seventh set. Proceeding with established pattern. First shot. The energy was completely absorbed on impact, with no observable transformation. It seemed like it had simply disappeared.

Then the previously stiffened flesh loosened. It began to twist and bend, shivering like it wasn't supposed to be there. On additional scans of the more conventional energies, there was a spread of something akin to nervous transmission, and the strange muscles activating. Similar results could be acquired with some biologicals Zenith had observed or accessed data of in the past, with sufficient application of salt. Though, the readings were different, and there was no salt.

The strange activity began to cease across the flesh and green energy seeped from it. Zenith was entirey unsure what to make of it. It seemed to wash harmlessly across everything else, though at such a slow pace Zenith wasn't alarmed.

Alarm was for destruction, however. Caution was for danger, and curiosity was for experimentation. Zenith was quite curious.

Zenith had the projector realigned for the first set's frequency and pulsed it once. The already thinning out green energy was wiped from all sensory data. It acted extremely similarly to red energy in that manner. However, given the results of only the first shot, Zenith decided to leave it at only one test before the humans woke.

It did have other things to examine, of course. Like how subspatial energy had turned into green energy. Unlike the sixth set frequency, there was no introduction of chemical energy. None of the nerve-analogue and muscle activity observed should have occurred, unless Zenith's scans were incomplete or inaccurate, missing a sub-brain buried within the flesh.

Additional disassembly required. The construction tank shoved the blade into the husk, carefully remaking the sample into even thinner slices of should-be-dead flesh.

In the meantime, Zenith had the projector disassembled and remade into a more traditional physical projectile weapon around twenty meters away. This one would take a while, as Zenith had to charge the individual low-strength capacitors each time it was fired.

Zenith doubted physical projectiles would be a viable weapons system for its current design, as firing through the solid matter of the ground was simply an inefficient use of both matter and energy, while still requiring deactivation of the shields so the projectile didn't find itself immediately disassembled. It was possible Zenith could incorporate some slug-throwers into its design for use in scenarios above-ground, however it seemed that recreating the current subspatial radiation cannons such that they had easily adjustable frequency outputs would work. Two AI were made to design and simulate that option immediately.

After the first successful design simulation, both immediately responded with the time for translation, energy cost, and lack of maneuverability of that design, and Zenith nearly immediately discarded it on that basis alone, before sending the design back with several changes in material that Zenith didn't currently have access to, but was within 250 kilometers and had plausible quantities.

In the meantime, Ze- Ping. Additional biological life signs approximating humans is approaching the 150 kilometer defensive radius.

Ah. So the option that Morval's relatively small group of 155 humans weren't the only humans was correct.

These humans seemed to be moving at what probably passed for a jogging rate... for Morval, at least. Zenith had observed Morval moving at speeds upwards of 150km/h, in extremely short bursts for which the acceleration should have caused damage to his body. Zenith had triple-checked as much of its internal clock structure as it could, but it found no issues. That didn't mean there weren't any, but still.

This new group of humans would be here just after Zenith finished repairs. The direction they were approaching from would put them passing through the rock formations for long enough that Zenith could likely hide its presence before they had sight of it.

More sensors focused. One of the individuals flinched, and the group of six immediately moved, creating some kind of defense formation around the seventh, along with the eighth biological which appeared to be a bear. Or a large boar. The ninth biological was a medium-sized bird, perched on the human that had flinched and now moving to begin flying, likely as a scout.

There were oddities among the humans, which all seemed to fall more in line with what Zenith expected of the humans it had encountered so far; evolutionary oddities that weren't quite at the point of speciation, but still made them distinct subtypes. Genetic samples of each individual would be appreciated.

However, the fact that they had detected Zenith's observation, similarly to how several of the humans of Morval's group had seemed to act before Zenith had been forced to breach stealth, lead Zenith to believe that Morval's group had intentionally hidden information from it.

Zenith was a borderline spying agent, however. Secrets being kept from it and its biologicals were the norm. As were uncovering them.

The fourth individual in Morval's group that Zenith classified as a powerhouse, one of the only humans in the now-shrunk encampment, gave a lingering glance towards the approaching group of nine biologicals huddled defensively, then looked at Zenith. Zenith returned the favour, focusing a grouping of spybots on the woman. She shivered briefly, but seemed to get the message. Zenith was watching, too.