“What do you mean it doesn’t count? I damn well killed it, didn’t I?”
“Technically, it did expire three seconds before you did, but that’s quite besides the point. It’s a matter of upholding certain training standards.”
“The goal of that exercise was to kill the wolf. I killed it, so I passed.”
The words came out in bits and pieces, accompanied by grunts of exertion as Barry moved through a series of spear thrusts. Pokka had insisted that he should practice outside of virtual reality as well, so he’d gotten a short spear for a handful of Value, teleported into his cave through his trusted MAFT.
“A normal, unempowered human being, trained with the spear, should be able to take down a wolf with no or only minor injuries. You are half again as strong and durable as the top one percent of human beings. That makes your so-called achievement worthl-”
Pokka broke off and rephrased his sentence in a way that Barry already knew to associate with his new Psych Module kicking in. It was meant to sensitize the combative AI to human emotions.
“It means you should set your standards higher. We can’t settle for mutual destruction. Also, you’re still doing it wrong, you need to step into the thrust and brace your core so as to maximize the force transfer to the tip of the spear.”
Barry tried to adjust his posture, bringing his center of gravity down a bit and leaning forward as he stabbed, but it still felt awkward, like he was doing lunges while he happened to be holding a spear. Pokka shook his head, his projection standing out in the dimly lit cave, appearing bright and remaining untouched by the warm, orange light that painted the rest of the surroundings.
“I told you from the start that I’m not a fighter, Pokka. But let’s leave that aside for a moment. You said you’d answer some questions after I killed that wolf. Even if you want to call it a technicality, I did kill it.” He’d paused and turned towards Pokka, crossing his arms, small drops of sweat visible on his lean torso.
The old man rolled his eyes.
“I suppose you did technically fulfill that requirement. Go ahead, then, ask your inane questions. But I won’t disclose any classified information. And get back to your exercises. Try a series of fast thrusts this time, maximizing for speed.”
Barry grinned victoriously as he got back to it. He still felt the relief of finally having finished that grueling VR training session. It had taken a mental toll on him. Pushing down the horrifying realization that he’d have to do it all again soon, he focused instead on the movements for a while. Even jabs were surprisingly difficult to train. Finding the right balance between strength, speed and accuracy felt like threading a needle. He could only ever manage two out of three at the same time. As he repeated the movements and they became more automatic, he thought of which questions to ask.
“Okay, start with the weapons. You’ve got all this advanced technology, and yet you have me training with weapons that even we haven’t used in a hundred years.” He paused to catch his breath. “How does that make sense?”
“The PE Node is the culmination of highly advanced technology and an excellent weapon. There is no better tool for war that we can give you. Some of those more primitive weapons that you invented, synergize well with the benefits you gain from increased Stats as well as with the PE Node. You should also consider that tools like a spear or sword were modified over the years to work well with the many limitations of human bodies.”
“Fair points. The PE Node is hard to use though. And look at how I keep fumbling this spear. If you gave me a laser rifle, I could just point and-”
“Lasers are a good tool, but not an effective weapon.” Pokka cut in. “There are many scenarios in which they lose their effectiveness completely, such as being up against a reflective material. Simply put, if the thing you’re shooting the laser at is not absorbent, it doesn’t work. Launching solid projectiles at high speeds requires far less energy and is more effective.”
“So then if you gave me a gun-” Barry said, panting from the continued jabs.
“You’re putting too much strength in the return movement. Focus the strength on pushing the spear past your imagined target, and pulling it back into position is an extension of that. As for the gun, with proper PE Node usage, one could be able to launch projectiles of different shapes and sizes while keeping their hands free. It is superior to a gun.
“The PE Node could let me shoot things? Where are those Abilities? Under Momentum?” He grunted as he tried to adjust his movements again.
“Yes. Using Momentum Abilities, you can actualize the Potential Energy into kinetic energy, choosing an amount and direction of force.”
“So why do you have me training with a spear then?” He turned his neck to look at Pokka with a deep frown, pausing for a moment.
“There are several reasons for that. First, you’ve chosen to focus on other Abilities, for good reason. Just like with Waves or Light, effective usage of the Abilities under challenging conditions requires you to first develop an intuitive level of control, which takes time. You need to prioritize. Second, it is possible to use weapons like a spear while using Abilities at the same time. It’s another tool in your toolbox, and a very important one. Finally, you will learn over time that there are ways to empower a blade which are not available in the same way for projectiles. Attempting to slay what you call a ‘Roid-Bull’ with projectiles would require a ludicrous amount of energy. An empowered precision strike with a spear is much more cost effective against an armored foe like that. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
The old man paused, stroking his beard pensively for a moment.
“What you also don’t yet know is that the Ulm are a highly adaptive species. It’s common to encounter Ulm individuals that are effectively immune to certain kinds of attacks. Flexibility is key, which is what the PE Node offers, especially in conjunction with handheld weaponry.”
Barry wasn’t sure what to think of the close combat comments. He still couldn’t imagine himself fighting monsters like that. His mind latched onto Pokka’s comments about the Ulm instead, raising a host of new questions. What did the Ulm look like? How did they adapt so quickly? How advanced was their technology? The realization that they were talking about an actual advanced alien species was still overwhelming. Not just any alien species, but a hostile one that would come to invade them in a number of years, if Pokka’s story was to be believed. It was, however, hard to take it seriously with everything that was going on. Why worry about long term problems, when you’d likely be dead in a few months? Another thought occurred to him, then.
“Why do you need weapons at all? If you have the power to transform entire planets, to manipulate matter on a molecular level even, then why not use that directly?”
“I’m not able to share further details on that, so I will just say that everything has its limitations.”
Barry stopped moving through the jabs and frowned, seeming to think about it for a moment, but didn’t comment any further.
“Oh by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you but I keep forgetting. What is this ‘Ultimate Dodge’ thing? I noticed it was mentioned as a reward for luring the Roid-Bull off the cliff, but I can’t find it anywhere else in the interface.”
Pokka let out an exaggerated sigh. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have noticed that.”
Barry narrowed his eyes slightly, waiting for Pokka to continue.
“You can think of the Ultimate Dodge as a single use Ability, though it’s a passive one, which is why you can’t trigger or hotkey it. It will trigger only when you’re about to receive a mortal blow and only once. An instant before you’re hit by something that would end your life, the Ability will instantly move you to the safest place in a five mile radius. It’s an exceedingly rare reward, issued only for unique achievements.”
A mortal blow.
As soon as he heard those words, the images came, unbidden, like a switch had been flipped. His entrails stretching out below him, the delayed horror of realizing that he was looking at his own legs, bent and jumbled in an unnatural way far below on the ground. His lifeblood erupting from the mangled wreckage of his wrist, pumping vigorously at first, then ever weaker as he bled out next to the wolf.
He kept telling himself that it had been a simulation, none of those things had actually happened in reality; but still his white-knuckled hands shook as they gripped the spear too tightly. His heartbeat quickened and he tried to force his breathing to slow down, which took a long moment.
“That… Sounds like a useful Ability.” He eventually forced the words out.
It was a good Ability, a literal lifesaver, that was undeniable. But it would only activate when he would otherwise have died, probably between the teeth of some nightmarish creature. Then it would teleport him away, saving his life, just so he could get back up and start running towards the next monster. Something about that just seemed to emphasize the futility of his journey, as if ‘Plan A’ was simply to go out and die.
Also, five miles sounded like a good distance, but when dealing with super-powered monsters, it might not be enough. If a Roid-Bull hit him straight on, the Ultimate Dodge should whisk him away right before the collision, but then wouldn't it just plop him back down elsewhere in the same forsaken desert? It might not even be out of range for the damn thing to sense it and come rushing right back.
"Even now, there is no rejoicing?" Pokka said loudly, then continued more quietly, speaking to himself. "Mental trauma? Again? When am I going to receive an analysis that suggests another action besides empathy and positive reinforcement? "
Barry ignored Pokka's ranting. A part of him was asking questions about the limitations of this new Ability, but he wasn't in the right mindset to dig into it now. A sense of desperation was settling over him, and he realized how poorly informed he still was about the perils of this new world. All he'd been thinking of was to get out of this cave as soon as possible, but even if he managed to hide his vibrations from the Roid-Bulls, would that mean he was safe?
"How dangerous is it out there? Will I encounter more dangerous things than that bull?"
"It will depend mainly on your skill with Abilities. But you may still get unlucky. I won't give any information about particular creatures, but… Perhaps it's time to walk through your journey. You would have to purchase a map for that." Pokka said, once again stroking his long, white beard.
Barry agreed, and soon they were looking at a multi-colored map, projected over his vision in the same way as the System Interface. It was a large tapestry of colors and borders to reflect the zones and after Pokka showed him how to adjust the settings, it showed bodies of water and elevation as well.
The AI explained that it would only show the current continent he was on, which, as far as Barry could tell, was massive. If he zoomed out completely, the zones were barely more than colored dots. As he got a better sense of the scale, his stomach sank. He might have to traverse the equivalent of entire countries to get to his family.
“We are here.” Pokka said, highlighting a dark orange zone in the upper third of the map.
“Your family would have been sent around here.” Pointing to an area further north and slightly west of their position. Barry’s spirits lifted as he saw how close they were. If you were to split the upper third of the map in half, the areas would both be in the bottom half. He started looking at the legend and trying to make calculations, but Pokka helped him out.
“You will have to traverse forty zones at a minimum. It will be at least five thousand miles, but of course the distance depends on which route we were to take. Let me show you.”
“What? That small piece of the map is five thousand miles? How the fuck is that even possible?”
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Barry dropped his spear to the ground with a clatter to put both hands on his head as he started to pace.
“It is possible because your former planet has increased in size. I’ve told you this before.”
“Well, my dear mentor, I might have overlooked some of those interesting factoids while I was busy processing the fact that you had destroyed human civilization. Why would you make Earth bigger? How does that not create a bunch of other problems, like, I don’t know, our trajectory around the sun or just… gravity?”
“While the surface area is significantly bigger, the overall mass has not increased. It’s less dense now than it was before. So gravity remains unchanged, as you have noticed.”
“I… Whatever. Goddamnit, Pokka.”
The flare of anger was already fading as Barry focused on that seemingly insurmountable distance. Five thousand miles. That would be something like walking from Mexico all the way up to northern Canada, and it would be infested with monsters. The sense of hopelessness came back, hitting him like a punch to the gut.
Pokka had taken his silence as a sign that he should continue and brought up the map again.
Three trajectories were plotted as dotted lines on the map, from their position up to the other area, where his family was supposed to be. The middle one was simply a direct line and therefore clearly the shortest route, but as Pokka pointed out, it went not only through bodies of water and across mountains, but also through two red zones.
The longest route moved westwards, curving around the large mountain range that stood in the way. This option would avoid any red zones, but would cross a series of orange zones, including two dark orange ones, which were equivalent to the zone they were currently in.
The final route moved slightly eastward, meandering through different zones to avoid anything higher than light orange after exiting the current zone. It was shorter and safer than the western route, but the main disadvantage was that it had to cut through the mountains.
Barry listened in silence, nodding absently every now and then, his face growing pale and his expression ever more hollow as he processed the information.
“As you might expect, the chances of success are highest with the eastern route. As with the others, the risk will be highest at the start, while you attempt to escape the orange zones, but here you’ll only have to contend with one orange zone before being able to move into dark yellow. Then there will be a series of yellows, followed by a series of greens, before having to cross through orange again. Traversing the mountain will bring its own challenges, but those carry less risk than even a light orange zone.”
His shoulders slumped as that feeling of despair continued to build. The ball of anxiety and stress that he carried with him was an urgent feeling, telling him to act, that terrible things would happen if he didn’t keep moving forward. This hopelessness was entirely different, more like a crushing weight that settled on his shoulders and grew tendrils through his body that sapped his energy. It was comforting, in a strange and insidious way, telling him he might as well lie down and curl up because nothing he did would matter anyway.
He walked over to his carpet and sat down, speaking only after a long silence.
“A hundred and eighteen days.” He murmured, staring out in front of him.
“What’s that?”
Another pause, followed by a deep sigh.
“Four months, give or take. That’s how long the eastern route would take, assuming twelve hours of walking per day at an average of four miles per hour.”
“Your math is correct. But your assumptions-”
“That’s after another… I don’t know how many months of this.” Barry raised his voice and waved his arms around angrily at the cave, then got up. “And this.” He punctuated the last word with an angry kick to the VR helmet, which bounced off the cave wall.
After pacing in circles for a while, trying to ignite his anger to take the focus away from his despair, he walked up to the thin, horizontal gap in the cave wall. He lifted himself up slightly to be able to see outside and breathe the fresh air. It felt warmer than the cool air inside of the cave. Due to the rock overhang on the outside of the gap, he had to angle himself just right to see just a sliver of the blue sky. He took a few breaths, trying to think through the problem.
“Are there any transport vehicles for sale in the System Store? Something like… A small helicopter?” He called over his shoulder, the tone of his voice indicating that he didn’t believe there was much chance of that.
“Nothing that would help you in your journey.”
“What about the totems? The MAFTs, I mean. Couldn’t they be used to teleport a person instead of food?”
“It is technically possible to transport a person, but this option is not available to you.”
“Well, can I unlock it in any way?”
“No.”
Barry let out another sigh. If there was really no other way than to cross through all those zones, he’d have to think about this with the tools that he had.
“If I brought my Speed up to 20, I should be able to run a thousand meters in like, what, a minute or two?”
“A bit more than a minute should be in the realm of possibility, yes.”
He paused as he thought that through. Thirty miles an hour would be theoretically possible, if he could sprint for that long, which he definitely couldn’t. Recalling something he’d seen, he went down into his Stats and brought up the info sheet. After playing around with the options for a while, he confirmed that it was possible to allocate a point of Strength or Durability just to his heart and lungs.
“Hypothetically, if I wanted to be able to run at my maximum speed for longer, after increasing my Speed, Strength and Durability, what would be the limiting factor?”
“Energy, of course. Your body needs time to convert nutrients into readily usable chemical energy. At higher speeds, ever more energy will be required. When you increase those physical stats, your metabolism is also being boosted, but for an increased performance you will have to consume more nutrients. Alternatively, you can use the PE Node to feed energy into your muscles.That Ability will become available once your Strength or Speed hit 20.”
A small ember of hope started in Barry’s chest as he began to form a vision, though it was still faint. If he could learn to hide himself completely while finding a way to run long distances at a high speed, it would be possible to drastically reduce the travel time, as well as the risk. He nodded to himself as he stared out through the thin opening in the rock. He’d have to work out the details, but the idea as such made sense.
First, he’d have to get his Speed Stat up to 20 and unlock the Ability to feed energy into his muscles. That should be easily done, though it would need some experimentation to understand how much energy he’d consume by doing this.
Then, he would search for the best stealth Abilities to hide his presence. So far, he’d only been focusing on vibrations in the ground, but he’d at least have to cover sight and sound as well. Thanks to his ample reserves of Value, he should be able to buy any Abilities he wanted.
Finally, he would have to get good enough with those Abilities that he could keep himself hidden while moving. That was the hard part. Nearly all of the standard Abilities had significant limitations and in the case of stealth Abilities, the main limitation was that they only worked within a certain radius. Hiding a moving target would be possible only through the use of ‘free manipulation’, as Pokka had called it.
Barry had been training to get better at this, so he knew how challenging this would be. So far he’d been focused only on sensing waves in the air and the ground and it had not been easy. It required him to get into the right mindset, so as to be receptive to the information shared by the PE Node. It felt like learning to use a new limb. Progress was slow.
“How can we speed up the learning on this free manipulation? There must be a way, even if we just focus on making the existing Abilities more mobile.”
“You are currently following a balanced training program which is optimized for developing a necessary skill set. Your progress in free manipulation is above average. As I’ve said before, trying to rush it is dangerous.” Pokka stated, observing Barry with narrowed eyes.
It hadn’t escaped him that Pokka had been taking on more human mannerisms lately. The AI had originally kept a neutral face and tone while speaking quickly, similar to the voice at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial, rattling off the side effects. Now, he not only spoke more slowly and with inflection, but he was rolling his eyes or sighing every other sentence.
This new behavior was suspect, as was the timing. It had started around the same time the infamous Psych Module was launched, so it would be foolish not to see it as manipulative. Everything the AI did should be thought of as deliberate. Calculated. Seen from that perspective, these small quirks would be part of an ongoing effort to get Barry to trust it.
He couldn’t deny that it was working, though it was frustrating to admit. He had to keep reminding himself that this was an AI built by the same people that had destroyed human civilization without hesitation. By all rights, they should be his mortal enemies. It was unthinkable that their long term goals would align with his. Even so, he’d begun feeling more sympathetic towards Pokka. It was a slippery slope. He couldn’t make the mistake of assuming that they had the same interests.
“I’m not going to keep wasting time doing virtual puzzles, when I need to be getting better at using the PE Node. The priorities need to shift. In fact, I should be practicing right now.” He walked over to the carpet and sat down cross-legged.
“Need I remind you that you committed to following my instructions on the condition that I lead you to your family? It’s remarkable that shortly after me giving you a clue as to their location, you’re backing away from that commitment. I believe you humans would call this betrayal.”
“Not if it takes a whole fucking year.” Barry said, closing his eyes, toggling on his free manipulation Ability and trying to sink down into the right mindset for sensing the waves around him.
“You’ve come up with some new fantasy, haven’t you? Racing past all the foolish monsters while perfectly cloaked?”
Barry ignored the comments, focusing instead on the imagination of tendrils coming out of his body, a new limb made just for the purpose of sensing waves in the air and ground. He’d gotten better at holding on to that feeling with less conscious effort, but it would not be possible while having a conversation.
“It would be better if you finally let go of these childish fancies. You know nothing of the outside world. Your plan will not work.”
He was starting to sense the soundwaves now, small cone shapes extending downwards in front of him, which he’d learned was the sound of his breathing. As Pokka spoke, he could feel multiple spheres, lengthening and expanding as the sound traveled through the room. They grew more faint as they moved, fading away after bouncing off the cave wall. He focused on the stronger ones, sensing their shape and trying to connect it to the sounds he was hearing.
“Let us complete your little fantasy. How would you imagine it proceeds? Do you arrive in heroic fashion, having left all the dumb monsters behind, scratching their heads in confusion?”
Having Pokka continue to talk was useful for sensing the sound, but Barry was having trouble ignoring the words. He was getting angry, fighting the urge to argue back. He had to focus now. He needed to move past just sensing the waves, and learn to manipulate them. How would that work?
He imagined stretching his tendrils around the bubbles and cylinders moving through, pushing against their ribbed sides to try and compress them. Nothing happened, his tendrils just moving straight through.
“You’ve somehow avoided their superior senses through expert use of multiple Abilities at the same time. You managed this exceptional feat while running at top speeds, even across natural obstacles. And what happens then?”
A wave of anger and frustration rose, but he pushed it down, didn’t allow it to grow as it usually did. He decided to try generating his own sound instead, using his imaginary limbs. He focused, picturing a ribbed sphere originating from the tip of one of his tendrils, pushing at it, willing it into existence. Again, nothing. He thought of the PE Node, of where it sat inside of his neck, imagined a line of energy extending from it to the tendril and gave it another mental push. It had no effect.
“Your parents are beset by monsters, about to be destroyed, but you arrive just in the nick of time, ready to save them. Good that you ran so fast, or you would have been late! There’s only one small problem.”
Another flash of anger, and Barry was starting to lose his patience now. He shoved one of his tendrils into a traveling soundwave, trying this time only to amplify it, to drive energy into it to make it stronger, or travel further. He’d settle for any effect whatsoever at this point. But once again, nothing changed. He cursed at his PE Node. What would it take for this damn thing to do something?
He remembered a feeling he’d had about a week ago, when he’d activated his [Cast Wave] Ability. A kind of pulling, sucking feeling, like something was being taken out of him. With a thought, he activated it again, focusing closely on that sensation. There it was, clearer now, something being pulled from him and manifesting outside into a wave of some kind.
He tried to reproduce it, but now there was nothing pulling at him, he had to push something out instead. His frustration grew as he tried and tried again to push some energy out.
“You never learned how to fight, having decided to de-prioritize that part of your training. You’ve developed essentially zero offensive capabilities. So in effect, you’re left to watch, fumbling your spear like a toddler, as monsters tear your family apart. Congratulations! You raced five thousand miles in record speed, only to watch your family die.”
Barry had kept pressing with his will, trying to find that feeling of draining something out of himself, and now he snarled in fury as he gave it yet another push.
“Shut. U-”
Something ripped out of his body as his shout distorted, turning into a strange noise like a wailing siren that turned into a blast which lasted only an instant, but it still felt too long. It was one second of agony; the noise was loud, unbearably so, the loudest sound he’d ever heard. He thought he felt the cave shaking around him, but only for that same instant and then there was a painful silence as he fell to the ground, stunned and disoriented.
He blinked up at Pokka, looking at him sideways. The old man’s mouth was moving but no sound was coming out. All he could hear was a faint, shrill tone. His ears felt wet and then he was staring at his bloody fingers, uncomprehending.
"You will have to ahead and hook yourself up to the Fixer Upper."
Barry blinked again, still dazed. Pokka's mouth had stopped moving, but somehow he could now hear his voice. He opened his mouth, moving his jaw around in an attempt to pop his ears, but he stopped at a jolt of stabbing pain.
"I'm communicating through your PE Node. You have blown out your eardrums. You need to heal soon if you want to avoid permanent damage."
He felt at his ears again, looked at the fresh blood on his fingers, and finally began to process Pokka's words. He grimaced at the rising pain, tried to get up, stumbled back down, then decided to crawl over to the Fixer Upper on his hands and knees.
"This is what happens when you choose not to heed my warnings. There are good reasons for progressing carefully, step by step. You should go back to the training programme and…"
Barry zoned him out, still dazed as he shook and tilted his head in an attempt to feel normal again. Every movement seemed to just cause him more pain, so all he could do was sit back against the cave wall and wait for the Fixer Upper to do its duty.
As clarity returned to him, there was plenty of silent time to reflect on what had happened. He had to admit that blowing out his eardrums was not good, but still, it was some form of progress. Perhaps more progress than he'd made in an entire week. He’d have to see if it could be replicated without exploding his ears of course.
Although the AI's statements had gotten him thoroughly angry, Pokka did also have a point. It wouldn't do to ignore combat training entirely; he'd need some basic skill at least, in order to protect his family. Some training would have to continue, but perhaps less, or at least different. He wanted to raise his Stats and bring some Ability practice into it as well, if that was possible.
He was already browsing the System Store for light based Abilities under Radiant Energy as the AI continued his rant. He was done playing it safe. Some things were going to change.