Chapter 19: The Coffin

Alberich Gravas’ (Ripley’s Grandfather’s) Personal Writing

This is hardly the situation I wanted to be forced into, even if it was my wish. I’m glad to have Isabel, but to be robbed of time is perhaps the most sinister crime of all. I wish to give her the life I couldn’t have, a childhood of full bellies, of happy memories. Not the war-torn battlefield and ruined city I grew up in. Of scraping together meager shards of metal waiting for the day NeoCore would come to save us.

In the end, we had to save ourselves. And perhaps I am both stronger and smarter for it.

Euriel, I just wish your smile was here. That would have made things so much easier for me. We had gone through so much together, but for you to leave me at perhaps the toughest challenge I’d ever faced is proof that a cruel god exists. She has your nose, your eyes and most beautifully your laugh. It just pains me that so often I’m not the one it’s directed at.

She’s met a boy, sweetheart. A boy, in her first year at university. A kind, smart and delicate boy about to graduate. He has strength too, I can tell, but it is hidden behind the same pain that troubled me as a child. He will come to shape as I had, to a greater purpose. I know it. But his presence does anger me, it means my time is drawing near to leave the life I’d so cherished.

I wish you were here every day, my love. To stay with them. To teach them as they grow. They are still young and foolish and I will have to abandon them just as they come into the greatest challenge of life.

But most selfishly of all, I wish you were here just so I could hold you once more.

3:57 PM

June 5th

Ripley

I’d read through the paper note several times over, growing more perplexed each time the passages — written in actual ink — bore a vulnerability I hadn’t been expecting. From everything I’d understood of my grandfather, he’d abandoned my mother a few months into her pregnancy with me.

Apparently this letter was his way of saying goodbye, and I could understand her anger, hell, I could feel it within me. It was one of the only pieces of intact paraphernalia left out in the container I’d been escorted to. A privately-owned storage room larger than my apartment — he had it rented out for 50 years.

Cleansing my anger with a deep breath, I had to admit that I was amazed at the sight of everything in here. In ways, it was everything I’d dreamed of, and somehow less so. At some point this was a workshop, not a shred of doubt about it. Piles of wire-exposed limbs and strewn-together plates of metal fell across the entire floor as though the place had been thrown about in an earthquake.

Someone had once been through here quite thoroughly, looking for something.

And maybe that something was the metal chest about four feet wide and half as long and tall. It was peculiar to say the least, I didn’t recognize it at all, not a Pandora nor a SecureBox or Pectus. It was archaic in a way, like it had been made of these scraps but elevated with such a high degree of pure mechanical efficiency and intricate development of Warp Energy through it… and it was heavy, like it was just a solid cuboid of steel. A coffin.

“Yeah that’s the box. Couldn’t crack through it last time I was here.” A voice spoke in my mind, not Daylight’s but my mother’s who was watching through the feedback I played towards her.

Daylight too, was also there, in fact, right after I’d consoled my mother about this — I then spent the ride here comforting Daylight who was so taken aback by my talk with my mom that she sobbed the whole way here.

Daylight sniffed, her voice cracking in gloom. “It’s unfair… neither of you deserve this.”

I patted her on her holographic back in a ‘there, there’ motion for the hundredth time this afternoon, finally letting just the tiniest spark of my annoyance out. “That’s really nice to hear but… Daylight, do you think I could have a moment to myself? This is… it’s personal. I know you’re looking out for me but this is something I want to face alone.”

She sniffled again, nodding with tears in her eyes before a silence overcame me as her form depixelated.

Fucking finally.

A sigh of relief tore out of me and I stretched, getting closer to inspect the mysterious container splayed ahead of me. It seemed to almost be made of something like - I dunno, metallic dragon scales? That was Yuzhou Military design, but a quick scan around the room showed no extremely illegal Shardware around.

Most of them were everyday Standard-Grade, utilitarian types for civilians. Maybe some strength adjustment or posture-balancers here and there, but they mostly delegated themselves to integrating into society on a more technical level. Some individual pieces were of interest like arms built for heavy-duty construction or legs built for athleticism, nothing above Iron Grade, but the mechanisms that gave them their importance were missing.

Neural-Wiring centers. Joint stabilizers. Nanocarbon Tendons. Yttrium Steel-fiber muscle reinforcement. They were all missing, only their bare shells remained. The scraps on the floor were skeletons of what should have been true-functioning cybernetics. Nothing held them together, nothing of real value anyway.

Which could only mean they were removed and put into pieces somewhere else. My mother said the place was identical to the last time she entered, it hadn’t changed since the last decade or so.

The only exception to all of these skeletal remains was a small container I’d seen once before. A small vial identical to Hoaqin’s Bronze BUG container, which was smashed apart rather than deliberately pieced apart.

“That… it’d always been like that.” My mother said, but a hint of her still cracking voice faltered for a second for me to know there was some measure of secrecy in there. While it did annoy me, it was hardly the time to care, considering that the chest — or coffin — in the center of the room was demanding my attention.

It had no opening locks anywhere, no sign of a hatch, no indication of anything other than pieced together scales of metal curved into that shape of a chest.

“There a key? A dataport?” I phrased it as a question even though I was sure my suspicions were true.

“Nothing. Just that.”

“Alrighty, leaves only breaking it apart then.” I raised my claw towards the box, firmly grasping it with the three fingers whirring to their specific modes.

“Tried that, be careful it stin-“

I jerked back as an electric shock snapped up my arm, a small bark that certainly had a bite.

“Noted.” I paused, taking in the whole box, the whole mechanism. Everything. Then I stirred further for a while, a question popping in my mind as I rubbed my chin with my steel claw.

“Our Shard Op’ Claw? Where’d you find it? Here with the coffin?”

“Here. It was the only thing here other than the… the coffin.” Again, that pause and I’d already been suspicious with the Implant container I’d found… everything was a puzzle begging to be solved. One that only the pieces within this room could answer. I so badly wanted to ask about that Implant container, but I’d been too tired out by breaking out one secret from my mother already… another would push me over the edge today.

Especially when the truth was so obvious, someone had taken it. The question was… who?

“I think I’m starting to get it.” I cast a glance at my claw, a Pseudo-Silver with three Feature Links. Procedure Repetition, Warp Strands and Breakdown. Each respectively born from the BUG Features Database, Energized, and Technician.

I broke down each Feature in my head. Database was about the recall and storage of specific memories, allowing one to perfectly memorize a set of instructions or to directly analyze uploaded Shardware-schematics in Engrams. At least when it came to a Shard Op’. Other Database Adapters could learn martial arts in seconds from a simple upload of their movements and techniques.

Similarly, Energized redirected Warp Energy within, and external to, the Adapter. Considered essential for high-tier Shard Op’s as either a Feature or a Feature Link within their Claw, it could allow you to manipulate how Warp Energy was concentrated across the technical and even material aspects of technology to a degree, with input on the software limitations mostly determined by Dataweaving.

Technician was the simplest, it allowed a simple yet effective understanding of machinery. To create something wholly new, modify or even scrap down Shardware. Typically, whenever someone who wasn’t a Shard Op’ received the Feature they were delegated to some sort of maintenance job, or in the case of Vultures, to remove Shardware or its mechanisms with minimal damage to resell later on.

The answer was relatively simple. “Everything here was once broken down using this Claw, I bet. And then pieced together into that chest as one large series of an interconnected jigsaw puzzle. Using the Procedure Repetition and Breakdown Links I can reverse the process of putting it together. The question remains as to how the Warp Strands Feature Link fits into the picture.”

My mother responded. “Everything you said lined up with my thinking, the only issue is that Iron Warp Energy couldn’t power all three of them simultaneously, at least not for more than a minute. I’d hardly even plucked a single piece out in several days of effort.”

I grew resolved. “But I’ve got Gold. Even if I haven’t finished converging… it’s enough of a push that I could brute force past the efficiency of training.” I knelt down, taking in each piece to try and match them up with the scattered remnants of what might be a hundred different metallic skeletons around me.

No wonder Database was involved, with one look I’d bet that you would instantly be able to tell just what went where if you studied enough. Instead, I only had Psyche, which could only go so far as a mental augment.

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Finally, I noticed one odd piece that stuck out. A thicker process like a flat slab interspaced between more sharp angles, a Haithama Dyrider Spine Augment used for motorcyclists prone to whiplash. Two scalpels from my index finger dug in between the crevices, a feeling of knowing slipping through my arm.

I reached into that feeling, the same one I’d heard countless times running up my shoulder and into my head. The guiding voices that allowed me to leap across gaps of knowledge I’d never had the opportunity to learn, and the smallest drop of Gold in there produced an astronomical effect through Procedure Repetition.

It was like I had become a historian uncovering decades of lost knowledge with the lightest stroke of a brush, except with scalpels jutting out of my hands. And then I split that droplet of Warp Energy into two fine streams, letting it sink into Breakdown. Their effects combined, and I glimpsed how this was meshed together in an instant — and just as quickly, I was aware of how to reverse the careful and precise lock of the knotted metal.

My only issue was the reach of my scalpels, there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind to probe deeper into where the main body of the spine was, that was where it connected to several more pieces. There was but one option left, Warp Strands.

I marveled as sensation spread beyond me, around three thin threads slithering like worms through each scalpel blade. I didn’t see them, of course they were too deep, but an inner calling of tactile sensation could easily understand that it was similar to hair. Except a hundred times more sensitive, and more malleable to thought.

The three separate Features Links honed in like a trio of soldiers with a single target, each sharing the eyesight of the other. And then I pulled, snapping a thread tight so that my scalpel almost seemed to bend between the curvature. I tugged, and the spinal piece loosened out with a satisfying click.

I tried to bring it out further but a resistance kept it just in place enough to tell me that it was only one part of the larger puzzle. Then I grimaced, to unlock the spine I would need to set loose a piece of synthetic pectoralis major muscle, which in turn was dug deeper into a mesh of what seemed like… judging by the fiber orientation, had to be a muscle of the erector spinae group, then I had to return around to a temporomandibular joi-

The spine snapped back in place, a painful electric shock running into my threads which were indeed… much more sensitive than my skin. It took me a moment to stop holding my breath in, I couldn’t care less about the pain, all that controlled me was this chest.

It was a work of art.

Were thousands of individual pieces locked together like this? How long did it take to even conceptualize, let alone orchestrate its creation? And everything seemed to point that it was formed in one seamless procedure… one that I would have to reverse? To say I was amazed was an understatement, I was dumbstruck, flabbergasted.

Activating my Preservation Matrix, my voice hardened with the strength of steel. “Mom. I am not leaving until I get this thing open.”

6:42 PM

My Preservation Matrix kept me going, I’d given up maybe three times now as fifteen pieces of gray-and-black wires and metal would loosen, only to grab themselves back into place. Then I felt myself grow strong, borderline masochistic as I jousted my hand back in only to be shocked. Then I did it again, if this was going to happen frequently… I might as well get used to it.

10:12 PM

Psyche V.1.00 has updated to Psyche V.1.01

Effect: Preservation Matrix has increased efficiency during Shardware Operation

It’d come after nearly seven hours, the update was slower… but it was meaningful. My strands slipped in, ignoring the fatigue of my shoulder as Warp Energy trickled through it again in a constant stream. I’d made maybe… 40 attempts now? And this one was the best so far, in less than eight seconds I’d unlocked ten different pieces and lasted another two minutes of fanangaling my way deeper into it. Sometimes I wiggled around just to probe, to test the limits and measures of my Feature Links. I was beginning to understand them.

4:35 AM June 6th

My Warp Energy had finally hit its limits, I felt a burn constantly running within my skin, muscle and bone. An invisible itch, as ethereal as it was real. And the hollow hole burrowing through my skull left an infinitely shallow hunger leaving me in a daze.

The scrap piles weren’t a comfortable pillow, but they’d have to do.

3:26 PM

Psyche V.1.01 has updated to Psyche V.1.02

Effect: Increases tendency to fall into a state of focus and concentration during Shardware Operation.

Convergence has reached 25%, reconfiguring…

Two days after awakening, I’d earned my second Feature at 25% convergence. No coincidence I assumed. But I couldn’t help but feel tight-lipped as I noticed it. If I was right… then I might have a very interesting development of the four Features I would receive as a Gold.

You have unlocked Feature: Energized V.0.00

Energized V.0.00 has updated to V.0.01

Effect: Improved coordination of using multiple Feature Links at once.

3:45 PM

The effect was instantly noticeable. Unlocking the Features gave me an acute sense of the wires of thought-based energy that I pulsed up and down my body. With a simple swerve of intention, my Neuroframe intensified like a thousand bolts of electricity had run through it, giving me a momentary increase in cognition. That reflected in my updates.

Energized V.0.01 has updated to Energized V.0.02

Effect: Increased efficiency in redirection to Shardware involved in Neural Processing.

Energized V.0.02 has updated to Energized V.0.03

Effect: Increased output of Neural Shardware.

8:32 PM

The second time I’d run out of Warp Energy was the first time I’d eaten since I started. A Syn-To-Go burger stuffed me, and for once I didn’t mind the lab-grown meat submerged in enough sauces to make a mouse puke. I was starving, but it was worth it.

The more I leaned into the threads of Energy I slipped into the metal, the faster instinctive knowledge unearthed to me. For the first time ever, as I went from thirty to fifty to ninety detached pieces… I felt like a Shard Operator worthy to be called an Adapter.

Energized V.0.03 has updated to Energized V.0.04

Effect: Increased ability to direct Warp Energy pathways within the body.

Energized V.0.04 has updated to Energized V.0.05

Effect: Increased range of external projection of Warp Energy.

Energized V.0.05 has updated to Energized V.0.06

Effect: Feature Links derived from Energized are now more efficient.

12:39 AM June 7th

My internal stores took far longer than I’d expected to regenerate, I guess sleeping might have something to do with recovery since I would be less mentally fatigued. Perhaps it was because my brain was less active and thus had a passive reduction in the amount of Energy it used?

The science of Warp Energy was complicated, but once again my Compatibility meant I would recover faster than almost anyone I knew. Regardless, I made myself useful while idle, every minute here needed to be productive even if I didn’t have the Energy to operate on the box. My mind was accelerating, while my body was the same as it always had been. I’d just put in an order for Protein-MAX nutrition bars, and other dietary supplements.

I’d never sweat so hard as I did now. Each push up or situp sprawled agony over my muscles, draining away even more of my concentration. My physical health was never particularly bad, but I had never been the type of person to go to a gym.

After all, Shard Operating had you lifting more than enough heavy chunks of Steel. But I was intending to be more than just a Shard Operator now.

1:57 AM

I’d underestimated Psyche, maybe since Energized had such immediate benefits I never really took into account just how much more mentally tough I had become. Stimulating the Preservation Matrix worked anytime, including working out to keep me going despite the pain and exhaustion. After all, the average human doesn’t go from 10 pushups… to 50 in a day, right?

Psyche V.1.02 has updated to Psyche V.1.03

Effect: Preservation Matrix greatly reduces the sensation of physical tiredness when active.

11:34 AM

My body felt like cracked stone, splintered wood and bent metal, but an delivered AdStim kept me running through it. I was tempted to buy an Iron-Grade one, but the price still made me queasy… as did Psyche sometimes.

Psyche V.1.03 has updated to Psyche V.1.04

Effect: Increased sympathetic nervous stimulation during infliction of pain and exhaustion.

5:22 PM

Again, I was hitting a plateau even with two more updates to Energized. By now, at least a fifth of the box was piecing apart, and I was starting to recognize a pattern to determine what it might be — but it was too soon to say right now.

Energized V.0.06 has updated to Energized V.0.07

Effect: Increased flow of Warp Energy to arm Shardware in order to increase precision of Warp Projection.

Energized V.0.07 has updated to Energized V.0.08

Effect: Increased speed of external Warp Energy projection.

7:58 PM

I’d taken a small break, just a moment to clear my head. By now any piece of technology on the coffin I was comfortable with was disjointed in seconds just based on the pure repetition of my actions. My bottleneck was that the recall provided by the Procedure Repetition Feature Link couldn’t bandage up significant leaps of knowledge.

I still needed to know what I was dealing with, only then could I pull out information accurately from within the claw to specifically grasp the issue at hand. So I’d decided to take a few hours and catalog each and every bit of scrap metal here. Hopefully, I’d find the bigger picture soon, and then it would be easy pickings.

Looking around, I let Daylight hum into my ear as I swiped my Neuroframe’s ‘do not disturb’ function off. It wouldn’t actually silence her, but she respected the meaning it had. She spilled into my view, bright light, pretty face and easy-going smile as her grin bellowed out the sunlight I was so deprived off in this storage unit. “Gooood evening! How’ve you been!”

“How do I look?”

“Uh, I’ll describe you as rugged.” She flowed to my side, puckering her lips over the coffin as she tapped it. Nothing happened, she wasn’t an actual ghost and wouldn’t be able to interact with it unless I formed a Shardware Link. “Real creepy, this thing. Oooh, what do you hope is inside?”

“Hopefully something useful.” I dryly commented, tossing a few piles of scrap to look for meaningful parts that I recognized and noted down on a digital screen. “Would it be hopeful to say I want it to be an Arachne?”

“Ooooh, one of those spider-limb thingies you lie down on?!” Daylight blew a bubble from a ring she formed with her fingers, it expanded into the exact shape I was thinking about. A circular table with rings holding you tight, capable of omnimaneuvaribility for the patient so six-to-eight spider limbs could pry and forge new Shardware upon you.

It was a dream of mine to use one. Just looking at it made me feel warm, but maybe that was Daylight’s doing. She teasingly poked my cheek. “Awwww, you’ve got stars in your eyes just looking at the thing.”

“It’s a cool machine.” I defended myself, distracting myself by idly jutting down more notes. “Wouldn’t mind owning one myself one day.”

“Why not try making one?” Daylight sat down on the coffin, playing with her snow-like hair.

“Buying one costs more than a million… making one? How would I start?” I chewed down my dreams, an Arachne was just a fantasy — it wasn’t truly necessary for Shard Operating. But one couldn’t deny it’s sheer output.

“You’ve already started, haven’t you? An Arachne is sort of just like a reeaaallly big Shard Operating Claw, and I know you’ve got all sorts of modifications you want to make assembling in your skull.” She kicked the coffin with the back of her heel, a spark of light flashing from the soundless impact. “So what’ll you call it? Mr. Shard Operator?”

I stopped cataloging the scrap, the shape I’d arranged them in flooding from a once-abandoned river of hope. Four angular steel spikes with three joints spreading out of a vertical line, a rough head at the top, hips and legs at the bottom. Gazing intently, I thought of a name.

A smile came through me, one beaming with Gold. “The Arachnodyne.”