A dark cave. A hidden tunnel. A laboratory constructed from the best the universe has to offer. These are the things that have come into being for Inmate #409569. Within this barren, desolate virtual world, these are the only things he’d ever painstakingly cared for.
All the same, he isn’t even supposed to have this. His original punishment was absolutely nothing, broken only intermittently with an existence barely considered ‘living’. It was to crush his spirit and yet keep him sane at the same time. A punishment far worse than death.
The fact that the outside world still sees it as such is an amazing stroke of luck. Except it wasn’t luck at all. Inmate #409569 was instead able to do the impossible. He was able to influence an entire virtual world from the inside, without anyone realizing that anything was wrong.
Long, nearly insane years were spent on the endeavour though, becoming an obsession that only ended once the goal was achieved. It nearly burned the man up in his own frenzy, and left him with several issues that took even longer to rectify. In the end though, it was all worth it.
His hopeless imprisonment became a salvation that even the most powerful could only dream of. A chance to start over. A chance to grow without restriction or enemies. A chance to test theories and gain knowledge that’d make scientists and cultivators alike froth in the mouth in jealousy.
In the galaxy at large, it’s incomparably expensive and generally considered worthless to get an entire virtual world to be used in such a manner, after all. Even for this inmate, it’s only possible because of his crime and punishment. Thus it is utterly impossible for anyone else to achieve the same results.
No one as powerful and proud as a Star Fighter would ever dare to put themselves into suspended animation just to study and learn and train. The reason for being so is that such knowledge cannot directly increase their strength in the outside world. Being a Star Fighter is to constantly battle against the laws of the universe, the laws of heaven. No one would be willing to stall their gain of strength just for knowledge.
However, it is that very same knowledge that others look down upon that has brought about this hidden paradise within the most secure prison in the entire Milky Way Galaxy. The creation of a world from nothingness. The creation of machines and powers that far outstrip anything modern technology could bring about. The venerable truths of the universe itself, laid bare.
Two hundred and fifty years of freedom, unbound by the rules of the universe and society itself. All of these things have created a miracle that only one man knows. A man who most would argue should never have such knowledge. A man who’d become known as the greatest heretic and villain ever seen in the history of the galaxy. Or would be, if people ever knew what he was up too.
The fact that this man, who’d spent so long in solitude, was laid into cryogenic suspended animation at the age of 19 would only shock everyone numb. Once hailed as a once in a millennium genius, this man has found a way to regain everything he’d lost, regardless of the cost. And this man’s name is Jordan Lockes.
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“SUCCESS!!!”
The loud yells echoed throughout the massive cavern which was cleanly cut from the stone underneath the mountain. The walls are curved, smooth and shiny, arching into the darkness of the ceiling above like the great arched and gabled roof of a cathedral. The floor on the other hand is neatly and expertly criss-crossed with slight grooves, adding extra friction and grip to the feet that constantly rush around upon it.
At the same time though, the room appears both completely artificial and yet natural. No tools of man have ever touched the stone, and yet the design is as unnatural as it can be. Designed, but not made by man’s hands.
More than that however, the entire space is filled to the brim with machines of all sorts and shapes. Large black squares, crystal spires floating overtop of circular pads on the floor, shiny silver and stainless steel as well as other more exotic materials. The entire place looks and feels more like a factory, constantly filled with the low hum of running electronics.
Some of the machines are so tall that they reach toward the ceiling, big enough to be entire rooms in and of themselves. Some of them actually are. Some are mounted within alcoves cut into the walls themselves. Others are sunk into the floor. For all of this though everything operates with an efficiency that’d scare the corporate owners of even ultra-modern factories.
Precise spacing, precise placement, precise arrangement to those machines that compliment the others. For any run-down factory worker, supervisor, or boss, this entire cavern would be a dream come true. For all of that though, it was solely built, maintained, and used by a single man. A man that is now jumping up and down in the only empty space within the cavern.
The very center of the cavern is that empty space, and the reason for it is the massive construct that was built there. Towering overtop of everything else like a tree, this machine is sunk as far into the floor as it reaches toward the ceiling. Great and thick arms stretch out in a circular pattern overhead, and from within its central pillar the greatest humming of power could be heard, and felt once a person is close enough to it.
This machine though is also far different from the others that fill the rest of the space. Instead of gleaming metal or plastics, its outer surface is made of a black material so dark it seems to suck in the light around it. This black material is also veined in green patterns that pulse like a living thing, as if it had its own heartbeat. For that matter, it does feel like a living thing. Yet it is also artificial as well. A construct that would be considered monstrous, even taboo in the outside world.
Biogenics, the perfect melding of organic life and technology. One of the three universal taboos of the Milky Way Galaxy. Ranked second only to pure Artificial Intelligence. Closely followed thereafter by the study of reverse time manipulation.
“Finally…! Finally, after more than two hundred years. I finally succeeded!” The man, who looked barely out of his teens, cannot help but give outlet to his joy. But even though his words and croaked cries echo in the cavern, there’s no one there to share it with. Nor anyone to share in the marvel of what he had accomplished. Or anyone to fear and loath it, for that matter.
As the echoes start to die down, he regains his calm and cannot help but let out a sigh. Such outbursts are rare for him these days. In fact, he cannot even remember the last time he laughed out loud in more than a chuckle. He’s more apt to curse something for not working right than to express any sort of happiness.
Still, the look in his eyes are blazing as he stares upward at the towering thing in front of him. Finally, after so many years, his plans had finally panned out for him. He can finally escape this hell-like existence. At the same time though he is hesitant to do so. For better or worse this virtual world, his prison, has become the home he never really had. He’d spent more time here (figuratively) than he has anywhere else in his life.
It does give one pause and make one a bit wistful, even sentimental. A strong shake of his head later though and the mood is broken. ‘There’s no reason to delay anymore. I finally have everything I need’. The thought runs through his head, and after a moment to blow out his breath he looks up at the machine tree.
“Nexus, start the activation process in diagnostic mode, priority one. Shunting sequence is approved for resource requirements, priority two. Triple redundancy of the logs are approved, priority three.” The man finally speaks out in a soft voice, almost sounding like a father talking to his child. However the way he speaks are the same way someone would use any computer or interface, mechanical and precise.
For all of its marvels, the Nexus is still a machine, and thus lacks the ability to understand anything other than direct commands. It doesn’t even have a R.I. installed. A Restricted Intelligence. It is entirely programmed to follow inputted commands like a computer.
The difference however is fundamental. Proof of that is just how quickly it comes awake. Almost as soon as the man’s voice ends, the entire cavern seems to shudder, and even the world outside shudders. The machine-tree, the Nexus, comes alive in a blaze of light that far outshines anything else in the cavern. Just by standing close to it the man can feel just how much power is coursing through its structure.
As it comes alive, the other machines, starting from the walls of the cavern, are shut off one by one. They go dark, as the shunting program turns them off in order to direct all the resources available toward the Nexus, as it was instructed. At the same time, in the world outside this bleak virtual world, energy is quietly being drawn from other nearby sources. Other inmates, to be precise.
The tree brightens before the man’s eyes though, even that amount of power isn’t enough to feed it, and soon enough it starts reaching through the incredibly intricate systems of Concordant Prison to reach for other power sources. Only due to the safeguards, bypasses, and backdoors that the man had set into the prisons’ systems years ago does the sudden power drain go unnoticed.
This, quite simply, is why virtual worlds’ aren’t more widespread. To create a system that can mimic an entire working world consumes massive amounts of energy. So much so that commercial use is all but impractical.
At the same time, a multitude of holographic screens appear around the tree, each one bright and swiftly scrolling, almost seeming to jerk in random fits. Tens, then hundreds, thousands, millions, followed by billions of lines of code quickly scroll downward nearly endlessly on the screens. They reflect off of the man’s dark eyes as he watches everything in rapt attention.
This was the diagnostics he’d ordered to be run, but even he cannot keep up with it all. Not that he needs to, really. The core programming of the Nexus isn’t something of which even he could create on his own. Especially not given the absolutely unique architecture of biogenic computing systems. It took long, long, soul numbing years for him and the entire Concordant Prison computer systems to make this programming.
So long that the physical structure of the Nexus was finished long before the programming was done! It sat there, unused and unusable all of that time! However, even though the massive amount of coding would normally take a long time to be gone through by human or even R.I. hands, the Nexus is able to finish it within mere minutes.
By now the entire cavern is in complete darkness, except for the blazing glow of the Nexus itself. In the outside world, even the emergency energy banks are being drained at a very fast pace. In less than thirty minutes the entire prison could become a tomb for thousands of inmates, and even more of Concordant Guards.
All of this is known by the man though, whose face has slowly become a mask of concentration. All the other holographic screens blink off one after the other as the diagnostics finish, leaving only the single large screen in the center, just in front of the man left on.
DIAGNOSTICS COMPLETE. . .
All Systems Operational. . .
Available Resources At 94.746 Percent. . .
Back-Ups Completed. . .
Projected Operational Time Remaining: 27 minutes. . .
Only after his eyes scan across the words on the screen does he finally let out a breath he was unaware that he was holding before nodding to himself. It worked. By all the gods, it actually worked. Now though is the time for the greatest test.
Everything, all of his plans, depend upon this moment. Two hundred and fifty years, he’d worked toward this point. All for this moment. This chance.
“Nexus, activate the Seedling and Rebirth Protocols, priority one. System logging and monitoring, priority two.” He finally speaks the words, cutting the timing a little close as it nearly hits the 25 minute mark. Even for him, it had taken a little bit to regain his composure and proceed with the plan.
Commands Accepted. . .
The screen in front of him states, before suddenly shrinking down until it’s the size of a cube just big enough to place a hand on. At the same time, the outline of a hand, surrounded by a faint pattern appears within the window. Now though the man doesn’t hesitate, and holds up his right hand before pressing it onto the solid feeling holographic screen. It’s actually warm to the touch.
At the same time though, he unleashes his own power. Around his hand, a mass of light forms, before it spirals out into a circular pattern that grows to a massive size within a bare moment. Within the circle are other circles, and symbols, and lines. Sigils. The entire thing glows with a golden light, looking absolutely resplendent against the backdrop of the more clear, green-tinged light of the Nexus.
This is the activation key, a study of archaic Star Fighter techniques long lost to the Milky Way Galaxy at large. An arcane technique. A formation array. This was the secret that the man had brought with him even into the virtual world that was supposed to be his hell. The power of formations that allowed him to directly alter the virtual world, the programming itself.
Formation Techniques are considered long gone in the Milky Way Galaxy, and for a very good reason. They were hunted down and nearly all destroyed because of their great power. A master of Formation techniques can literally change the laws of the universe itself. They can do what science and technology cannot. Its very existence threatens the balance of power set up by the strong. Even within a virtual world, its power remains unchanged.
As the formation the man creates starts to spin around his hand, the screen reading his palm print flashes brightly then disappears. At the same time, the Nexus shudders and seems to groan as the available power is drawn upon with even more urgency. In the outside world, Concordant Prison itself shudders slightly, and several of the fringe regions grow dark, completely drained and cut off from power.
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This cannot be covered up, and the wailing of alarms echoes throughout the prison. The first such alarm ever heard within the fifty thousand years since the Prison was constructed. An alarm that would mark the chaotic doom coming its way.
The man though has no chance to check on the situation outside though, even though another screen had popped up by the Nexus to report it. Instead, the Nexus’ primary directives had already been activated, and the formation the man had created is absorbed directly into the thick trunk of the Nexus. Instead, all that he could do is stand there.
It wasn’t awe, or anger, or concentration that had locked the man down in front of the Nexus though. It was the all encompassing pain that has suddenly ripped through his body. It stole everything, his breath, his reasoning, his consciousness. So hard and so fast, it knocked him faint within an instant. Which is a mercy.
Within a small room, a cell barely five by five feet, stands a capsule. Inside this capsule the vague features of a young man can be seen, frozen inside a solid block of deep blue ice. A simple locked door is all that separates this small room from the corridor outside.
At this moment the previously frozen stiff young man is faintly twitching, convulsing within the cryogenic ice. Bubbles had also started to appear, as if the ice were starting to melt on the inside. Long ropey veins appear across the bared skin and face and shaved-bald head of the young man, squirming and wiggling just underneath the skin.
This young man is the same man who’d been inside the virtual world. The same man who’d created the extremely illegal and taboo Nexus. The same man who was damned to this maximum security prison in the void between galaxies.
And the same young man whose body is currently being ripped apart. Using the massive power provided by the Concordant Prison itself, the Nexus was killing the young man, while also planting something inside of him. His very body was being changed from the inside out. The young man’s power is also rapidly being used up as well, dropping his cultivation down rank after rank, level after level, leaving him a dried up husk without a single speck of power of his own.
All across the massive prison, all the other inmates were going through the same thing as well. Trapped within their own virtual worlds, directly connected to the prisons systems, the Nexus was sucking them dry in order to power itself just as it is doing with the primary power supply of the prison, and its backup systems. Thousands upon thousands of inmates start to die silently, not even realizing their death was coming for them. Those few powerful enough to remain even faintly aware of the outside world would feel their power leaving them, but even they could do nothing.
In one fell swoop the worse offenders and convicts of an entire galaxy are wiped out. Their corpses become dry sacks of bones and skin, forever frozen in time by their cryogenic suspended animation capsules. At least until the power fails for them too, and they start to thaw. It would take years, even decades for that to happen though.
For the Concordant Guards however, things could be considered much worse. As the power fails in increasingly larger areas, the thick bulkhead doors slam shut. This traps those out on patrol or in their bunking area. As a safety measure that activates when there’s loss of power or a hull breach, it’s to keep the rest of the prison safe. Now though, all it does is trap many of the guards inside, giving them no chance to escape.
Within the control room things are even worse. Outside of an overview of the entire prison facility, their control has been cut. All any of them, including the Prison Commandant can do is watch in mute horror as things go completely out of their control. Such widespread outages and system malfunctions can only mean that death is closing in on them swiftly.
Unknownst to them things are not quite as bleak as all of that. Hidden from their view of the still operating systems, there is one that’s been activated ever since the man within his virtual world started this mess. A sub-space transmission. A signal propagated faster than the speed of light, heading toward the Milky Way Galaxy. However, it isn’t the standard distress signal. In fact, it isn’t a signal that any intelligent race in the galaxy can understand or translate.
It’ll take hours or even days for that signal to reach its intended target, but even if the guards within the prison are able to find out that they are transmitting, it’ll already be far too late. This sort of signal isn’t required to be complete, or even legible. It only requires a direction to draw attention from.
During all of this the things going on in that tiny room, or cell, have changed as well. The previous young man has become a dried up husk, with his body withered away. All of his remaining body hair has fallen out. At the same time the cryogenic ice encasing him has started to melt, allowing him to slump forward. All the same his vital signs show that he’s still alive, the flickering flame of his life preserved by a constant input of energy and power.
The withering is a direct consequence of the changes taking place within his body. Once his own power, his Astra had been drained, it started draining the nutrients from his body itself. It is not a fast, nor extremely efficient process though. Within him a seed has already started to grow. A seed that spreads like a cancer, full of life and power as its growth if fueled by the entire prison.
Just like the ancient tales of a phoenix being reborn from the flames of its own death, this was the plan the young man had come up with in order to free himself. Only in death would the prison release him, and only by destroying himself could he regain everything he’d lost. And really, what is the death of a few tens of thousands compared to the billions that disappeared without a trace due to the destruction of an entire solar system? It’s barely a statistic, much less something to really grieve over anymore.
Thankfully the young man isn’t conscious of what is going on outside and inside of himself. The sheer pain would have driven him insane and probably would have killed him. As it is, even with the supplement of the prisons entire power supply at his disposal his vital signs are steadily falling. As his life steadily comes to an end, the seedling growing within his body grows even faster by consuming the excess energy.
Within fifteen minutes, well within the time limit allotted, the young man’s life has come to an end. His death is unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, and the overtaxed systems of the prison don’t even note it. Far too many other inmates have died out in waves for the prison to keep track of with everything else going on.
With his death the thing growing inside of him suddenly explodes with activity. It no longer is restrained within the confines of a body that it had to keep functioning for as long as possible. Instead, it now blooms in a flurry as it rips through and consumes flesh and bone and muscle and blood. The only thing it doesn’t touch, cannot touch, is the man’s brain. A brain slowly starving of oxygen and energy.
But now there is a second time limit in comparison to the first. Six minutes. The maximum length of time that the brain can go without oxygen. For Star Fighters, this isn’t an absolute rule, but for someone like the young man who’d given up his own cultivation to help fuel his plan, that was the absolute limit. Any longer than that, and the plan would surely fail.
It wasn’t just his body that was being consumed by the growing seedling. The abysmally cold ice pressed against his skin also starts to be gouged out. Underneath his feet, the metal interior of the capsule is also being ripped apart. Even where his lower back and buttocks, still pressed firmly against the back wall of the capsule, also sees signs of corroding and devouring the metals and other materials that make up the area around him.
With the new influx of materials, the speed of growth explodes greatly. Underneath the young man’s skin, which is already paper thin and nearly translucent, black streaks and pulsing green veins can be seen writhing and squirming. On closer inspection, one would be able to recognize the same patterns from the young man’s virtual world. From the Nexus, the abomination of technology and biology that he’d created.
The seed which was created within his own body becomes clear at this stage, and at the same time the rest of the plan falls into place. Somehow, some way, this young man had managed to bring his creation into the real world from a purely virtual reality. And he used his own body to grow it.
Time moves forward. The once emancipated body starts to fill out again, regaining muscle definition and flesh. At the same time, the figure has slowly sunk into the floor, the consumption of the available materials around him causing a hole to form into which he’s slowly drawn into during the process. Inside of his body though, things have progressed even further. Thick and thin tendrils of biogenic tissue have wormed their way into the nearly oxygen-starved brain, following the natural paths of the blood vessels and veins as well as spinal column, replacing the nerves with themselves and spidering out through the brain tissue.
Extremely tiny, nearly microscopic formations appear wherever the biogenic construct comes into contact with the brain tissue, causing jolts of energy to jump between the biogenic material and the brain and back again, over and over and over, stimulating the dying brain cells. Once the blood vessels had been completely recreated, a sudden flow of oxygenated fluid akin to blood is also released, adding to the revitalizing effect of the formations that have come to make it look as if his entire brain is covered in golden light.
Within the rest of his body, structures similar in look and feel of his organs also start to appear, and even assume their former, proper positions. But unlike before, these are all created out of the perfect balance of living tissue and technology, merging into a whole that is far stronger than what he’d had before. But just by looking at them, no one would be able to tell the difference.
It’s at that point that the sound of breaking glass is heard from inside his head. The formations, which had synchronize themselves with the young man’s brain, shatter as they’re drawn into the brain cells, creating perfect connections between man and machine. At the same time, a sudden choke is heard as a sharp breath is drawn in, pulling in air full of acidic smoke and chemicals from the melted cryogenic ice.
None of the toxins matter however, as newly formed lungs blow in and out like bellows, far stronger than they should be. A steady heartbeat also starts, causing a steady ‘thump’ that seems as if it would shake the heavens and the earth. Fluid, with the look of blood starts to naturally form and flow within the green veins; but it is several times thicker, and carry much more oxygen and materials than before.
The entire process happens incredibly fast at this rate, as signs of life return to the man. He remains comatose however, lost in black unconsciousness while the rest of his new body grows. Like a baby, his body at the moment is extremely weak, so much so that he wouldn’t even be able to move a finger even if he was awake. At the same time he is still slowly sinking into the metal and stone of what use to be the bedrock flooring of his former prison cell, his body continuously drawing in more raw material.
This leads to him being all but cocooned within this space, at rest. Like a larvae having weaved a tight web around itself, he finally comes to rest within the earth, the process of his growth having shifted to a new and more brilliant stage. No one had ever directly tried to connect a machine to a living creature’s mind before, at least not in this way. This uncharted territory, which has consumed tonnes of material and nearly the entire power reserves of an entire population, is controlled by massively complex sets of programming and failsafe coding. Everything set up with a meticulous hand, as if a god were personally shaping a new living being.
Inside the Concordant Prison, things have calmed down, if only because the power drain and failure of the systems have come to a stop. More than 80 percent of the prison has been sealed, and every single prisoner has responded as deceased. In a way, it was both a blessing and a curse. The Guards don’t have to deal with a riot, but at the same time they have lost their primary power source.
The Astra, the cultivated energy of every living being that has stepped into Galactic society, has been completely drained from every single inmate that was imprisoned there. Originally, the Astra drain was supposed to be a slow, methodic process, keeping the inmates in suspended animation and within their own virtual world hells while powering the prison itself. But the young man had tapped into the same systems to further his own endeavours, thus rendering everyone else a death penalty without fail.
For the Concordant Guards though, it’s a disaster, but not a crippling one. There are actually backup power systems in place, they have just never been used. Once the young man’s connection to the prison was severed upon his death, the control room of the prison regained its control, and was able to promptly activate those power systems. Even though some of the guards were not so lucky, having been trapped early on without any means to reach the inhabitable areas of the prison, the others were able to retain their lives. The bunkerage areas of the prison have stores of spacesuits and other equipment which are easy to use and dependable.
All told, only about three hundred guard or other Concordant personnel were killed. The rest survived, and await for their sectors of the prison to come back online. Twenty two thousand people, finally thinking they are safe and rescued. Unknownst to them all, that broadcasted sub-space signal has yet to be found or stopped. A signal that has already gone hundreds of light years into space, and continue to go even further.
A signal that’ll shock the entire Milky Way Galaxy, and will bring about the destruction of countless lives. A signal that’ll change everything, all at the beck and call of one Jordan Lockes. A young man who slumbers in the darkness, dreaming of freedom and vengeance.