Becca placed the silver slate on a stool in front of her and turned it on. It opened in the middle of a file that she had been browsing. On the screen was a complicated diagram of an etherite crystal.

Remy and Will leaned forward in their seats. Will ignored the pounding in his head as he examined the etherite diagram. Its entire subspace structure was unfolded onto the page and shown in vivid detail. Small strings spanned across multiple dimensions, each interconnecting in an intricate array of patterns. It was complicated enough to make his head spin.

Becca cleared her throat. "Now we all know how etherite works, right? It's a connection point to multiple layers of subspaces. Physics works differently the more layers you go down. For example, time slows down, and the fundamental forces start to differ."

"We don't need a history lesson, Becca," said Remy. "Tell me about embedding."

"Hush," said Becca. "I'm going somewhere with this." She scrolled down the document to another diagram depicting the crystal formation inside a rift beast.

"Subspace creatures usually have crystal cores formed at the base of their brainstem." She pointed at the diagram. "As the shard crystallizes, their neurons and psion channels are slowly pulled into subspace."

Will massaged his temples as he examined the diagrams. The illustrations showed the different stages of crystal growth. It started out small and slowly grew to encase more parts of the brain. It was almost equivalent to his calcified knee. In fact, the phenomenon was similar in a lot of ways, except the rift beasts had evolved ways to use the crystals.

"So, their channels are pulled in too along with their neurons," Remy nodded. "Which means that their personal biofields are frozen in place."

"Don't jump the gun," Becca chastised again. "But yes, their crystallized pseudo-neurons are frozen in some set patterns, which, in combination with their channels, can produce some specific psion field behavior. All rift beast skills come from this, whether it's reinforcement, an increase in speed, or breathing fire. It's all the same."

"And embedding will give you access to these field patterns," finished Will, looking pensive. "The only problem is that the body rejects it."

He tapped at his amputated leg. "Even if the signature differs slightly, there is a runaway calcification effect. I assume grafting a shard to yourself, something that has a completely alien signature, has a lot worse side effects."

"Not exactly. Since it is so alien, the body recognizes it and fights it more aggressively," Becca frowned as she stared at his amputated leg. "I didn't know you had APS."

"Does that complicate things?"

"I don't know," said Becca. "The first step in taming an etherite shard is to slowly convert its signature to match the host, which is the same as APS treatment. I guess that gives you an advantage in experience. On the other hand, since your body is already weakened, this step might prove troublesome."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Right," Will rubbed his strained eyes. "How do you match the signature?"

"You can use the same medication that you use for APS. The second method is to grow your internal psion reserve to the level of an initiate."

Will shook his head. "We will go with the first one. Jumping to initiate in just two months is not possible."

"Why two months?" asked Becca.

"The next OATs is in two months," said Will.

Remy laughed out loud, and Becca shook her head. "You are about to die or turn into an insane, uncontrollable monster, and you're worried about the OATs."

"What can I say, I always had my priorities on point," Will smiled despite himself. "What comes after matching the signature?"

"You connect the shard using your channels," said Becca. "You have to figure out how to trigger specific field patterns of the crystal."

"That could take forever," said Will. "Field control is not like flipping a switch. You have to find the right sequence, which could range in the millions."

"Right," said Remy. "And it is not even your channels. It's the equivalent of learning to play the piano using someone else's hand. How would you even do that?"

"By asking the shard itself," said Becca. She scrolled through the tab once more and brought up a few extracts from a scientific paper.

Will frowned. "VR integration in recursive etherite cracking with Human feedback. What does that mean?"

"I'm assuming there is VR involved." Remy leaned forward. "Recursive cracking could probably mean that you are going to try bombarding the shard with a bunch of password requests? Is that what we are doing?"

Becca gazed at Will. "You are going to have to connect to what is left of the beast's crystallized neurons and interact with it."

"Where does the VR come in?" asked Will.

"The VR will help visualize the feedback you are getting from the shard." She pointed at the tab. "There is a specific cocktail of drugs in the paper that would help you reach a receptive state."

"As for the recursive cracking," Becca waved a hand towards Remy. "We will trigger the shard in a semi-randomized way, which gets further refined with the feedback from the host in the VR. By the end of it, we will have a specific sequence of channel inputs to initiate the shard's field patterns."

"Go on an acid trip and talk to ghosts of dead beasts," Remy translated. "Then bugger them till they reveal all their secrets to you."

"Yes, that's exactly what we are doing, Remy," Becca rolled her eyes.

Will picked up the tab and scrolled through the list of drugs required. "Recypnol? This is a class C restricted drug. I guess we could synthesize it."

"What? Why?" asked Remy, perplexed. "I heard your cousin and Angus had a pretty good deal going, moving Recypnol. Just pick some from them and be done with it."

Will gave Remy a look, and he understood. He chuckled and asked the obvious question, "Ryder?"

"Ryder," said Will.

Remy shook his head. "Your cousin is a piece of work. I suppose you don't want him too interested in why you need the drug for?"

"Damn right," said Will. "He would hang that over my head till the day I die."

Rebecca watched the two boys. "I'll trust that both of you know what you are doing. The drugs are done, which leaves the VR. We need to find a free one and pray that no one finds out what we are using it for."

Remy groaned. "The cleanup is going to take all day. Wash the drugs out and then scrubbing the entire data."

"That's right," said Becca. "We need to find one unattended and unsupervised for a couple of days. This will be tough."

"We have the VR set, don't worry," said Will.

Becca looked confused. "How?"

Remy grinned, and Will bent down, slapping his hand against the base of the couch. Instead of a dull thump, it echoed with a sharp metallic twang. Becca stared at the piece of furniture, or what she thought was a piece of furniture.

She looked aghast when she recognized the old pod collecting dust. Someone had placed a couple of cushions on it and converted the VR tank into a couch.

She slapped her forehead. "Does that old thing even work? This is going to take a while, isn't it?"

Will smiled. "Let's get started."