CHAPTER NINE - PANOPTIC REVIVAL
The station was quiet. Like normal, I was left with the second cycle shift, Rheasim taking her break, heading to the market. There was anxiety in the air; a new planet was being integrated, and we’d yet to receive someone for a trial.
The planet they were on, lovingly called ‘Soil’ of all things, was completely out of the way. Tens of thousands of lightyears from the last planet the interface integrated, which by itself was thousands of lightyears from the rest of the galaxy. There was, five or six lifetimes ago, the possibility of finding a species before they were integrated. That was the series of events for my own, yet now it was practically impossible.
It had me questioning the interface again. It was familiar. I questioned it for its needless cruelty, and I questioned it for its gifts. I questioned it against the cause its creator championed, and I questioned its power. Breathing exercises, taught to me when my father still cared for my siblings and I, always brought me back down to one conclusion.
I could not know. My station as one of its loyal servants only permitted me so much knowledge, and skill, and I was lucky enough to have passed my trial. My entire family was lucky enough to have one of us succeed, let alone the three that did. Raedes and Zuchious were truly blessed, and I as their elder brother even more so.
Our success didn’t bring back the two that died. Potum and Gar were gone, and I could never forgive the interface for taking them away with its needless trials. But it was not my purpose to forgive.
I slouched slightly. I had gone down this rabbit hole enough. The more pressing matter was that The Society would reach the newly integrated planet late. By a quarter-orbit, and there would be irreversible damage done to them because of that. Rhea had talked to the engine-master, and practically pleaded with the man to take some of her soul to get the ship there faster. She sulked for two shifts after he told her that the engines were already at max capacity.
There was no more boosting that could be done. So, we stuck to our duties, and waited for anything from the interface to announce the arrival of a ‘human.’ And what a strange species they were from little we were told by other branches that came in contact.
Combat, management, and soul trials had came through. Crafting–our ship–and the three Gaps had yet to arrive. It wasn’t a pressing issue; the fact we had already gotten three of seven only two cycles in was great. The humans were healthily on track, and from what Gar had told me of the Combat’s first seat, the humans weren’t lacking in character.
I did wonder what kind of skill path the Crafting first seat would have. I’d seen, in the few integrations I had partaken in alongside Rhea, very different results. The first seat is a precedent of what comes after, a reflection of a specie’s broad values and a model of their diplomatic intentions. Even if they reject the role, they often find themselves back in it just the same.
I remember Rhea audibly laughing at me when I first explained this to her. She called me stupid and naive for two more integrations, and then enough time had passed that it turned down into casual jibes instead of actual mocking. It was, I admit, a bit ludicrous, especially when the vast majority of first seats wouldn’t even make it past their trial. Speed did not correlate to character, and there was still the stain on The Society’s history from when the first seat would be left in charge of their respective planet.
Giving that much power to people that early on was terrible, and not in The Society’s place.
Now, the first seats were just given diplomatic positions and acted as the dissemination point for information. The Society would give them primers on other species, customs, treaties, and they would pass it down to their people. In restoration efforts, we would still give out the information manually, but tradition had changed after one-two many incidents involving the rather archaic branch system and its first seat appointees.
That was where The Society differed when it came to other organizations, and it was probably the main reason why it wasn’t interface-sponsored initially. The tradition failed, and it injected itself into the interface’s business with branches, first seats, and all of the other eighteen million classifications and jargon it liked to throw around. I nearly didn’t join my father as a custodian until I realized my skill path made me eligible specifically for custodian-ship.
It was still frustrating.
A small chime coming from my hip snaps me out of the thought, and pulling out the console revealed two notifications. There were three people in the airlock that connected to the branch, laid out in dark blueish-green body bags of varying sizes. I stared for a moment, blinking each of my six eyes individually, confused.
Quickly, I paged Rheasim. She answered after a moment, her voice coming out with an invisible yawn from the portable console.
“Here. Do you need me, Onyo?”
“The first seat’s arrived. Three bodies are in the air-lock connecting us to the rest of the ship. Would you go grab them while I figure out where they are?” I ask, already using the console to try and find the new Crafting first seat. Sure enough, at the very edge of the wing, a trial cube has gained some new furniture and occupant. I nearly did a double take at how odd their body looked compared to the images I had seen of humans. They must have gotten a strange skill path.
The corpses, all things considered, weren’t that unusual. Skill paths were a deeply personal thing, and the interface had to spur them on in whatever way worked the best for the path and its bearer.
“I’ll get on it. Go introduce yourself and I’ll be there soon.” She was, surprisingly, not that upset that I had interrupted her off-time. It’d probably be an issue later, but I’d take it for now. I closed the console, ripping out the page and making my way towards the abandoned dock.
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[Trial-goer {Jona Hall} has arrived; the details of his trial step are as follows:
Three pseudo-corpses have been transported to your ship. Give {Jona Hall} the pseudo-corpses, and instruct him to fix them. No further instructions should be given. If he requests further information, it is within your discretion to educate him, within the lines of your vows.
Inside his enclosure is a terminal that permits him to order necessary materials for operation. These requests will go through to both custodian’s personal consoles, as well as the main console inside the ship. Provide him the materials he requests, within reason.
Under no circumstances are you to allow him to modify or work on anyone beyond the pseudo-corpses. Should they be resuscitated correctly, deliver them to their home-worlds after your trip to {Soil}.
A lack of cooperation will move {Jona Hall} into {Gap_Ship_2}.
Details of {Jona Hall}’s skill path will be provided by the trial-goer.]
I read over the screen, before quickly swiping it away. I slowed in my pace, focusing my eyes ahead of me to try and get a better look at the human without actually allowing him to see me. As good as the cameras were, my eyes were better. Humans were already a strange looking species, with their skin rather tight over most of their body. Saggy skin was a sign of age in the species, but Jona Hall looked like his skin was pulled too tight.
Raggedy clothes hung over his body, a patchy short-sleeved shirt that did nothing to hide what looked like staircases on either side of his chest. His ribs might as well have been fully exposed, and his body looked visibly mutilated. Both his right and left arm were completely replaced with metal, but in such a variance in quality it left me with a headache.
His right looked like he compiled it from the parts of an industrial disposal, but his left was a masterwork. A couple possibilities immediately rushed to mind. Likely, the right was something that existed before the trial, and the left–as well as his eye–were probably provided by the interface. He was using his right hand to massage at the two stumps that made up his feet, the previous golden extremities that replaced biological tissue haphazardly discarded to the side.
The man was being noticeably careful about his left hand, careful to keep it away from the rest of his body. I found myself wishing that the interface would give me more information, but for an initial guess, I had a pretty good idea of what his skill-path likely was. He was in the Crafting branch, afterall.
I sped back up, but at a more reasonable pace. It was hard to actually gauge what that was compared to pre-trial individuals, but I grew up around enough children to get a good guess. The man looked up at me suddenly, and I got a good look at his eyes. One was a dark brown that transitioned into a lighter shade around his pupil. Green was spreading throughout, a clear sign that his body was adapting to his soul.
The other, however, was locked in place in comparison to his skull. Long brown locks, the same shade of what I assumed his previous eye-color to be, hung in front of it, but the steel underneath was blatantly apparent. It was glowing the same blueish-green color that flowed up and down his left arm, and even without eyelids I saw it widen along with his biological eye.
He looked almost panicked, and I had to remind myself that beyond the monster in his trial, he likely hadn’t seen another sentient species ever.
I raised my arms and crouched down to his level. He was seated on the ground, no longer rubbing at his stumps and instead raising his right arm and pointing what I assumed to be a gun at me. It popped out of his forearm, but the blast likely wouldn’t make it through the glass, even if he put his entire soul into it. Still, I was practically horizontal with the ground and with my arms spread and palms facing down.
In the back of my head, I brought a bit of my soul forth, prodding out towards his mind with my telepathy.
“Calm, friend. I mean no harm. Simply here to facilitate the next part of your trial.” He flinched at my mental intrusion and seemed more likely to try and shoot through the glass now. He mouthed something frantically, likely responding physically instead of mentally to my words, all while waving his arms around, panicked. The interface wouldn’t translate anything I couldn’t actually hear, and learning to lip-read was impossible when basically everyone spoke a different language, relying on the interface to handle translation.
I tapped at my own head twice, something that had to have looked silly to him considering how larger my head was than his. I even went as far to close four of my six eyes, trying to imitate his facial structure and expressions. This aspect of psionics was a bit beyond me, but with a bit of my soul I felt the minor illusion come through. It didn’t actually change anything, just made me seem more familiar and hopefully ended some of the questions he was likely asking himself.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The human went through two more sets of surprise, anger, and understanding before finally realizing what I was indicating by tapping my head.
“H-Hello?” There was a stutter in his projection. “H-How in the hell-hell does this work.” It sounded like an echo. It was okay, I told myself. I had done this three times before.
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Someone was inside my head.
What looked like a homunculus between a fish and an iguana was currently talking to me mentally. Six shining red eyes stared at me, four of them closed with one layer of slimy eyelids. It was crouched low to the ground, practically laying, but when it first walked over it couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. Its head was bulbous, but it was long, almost shaped like a beak. Large spines ran from the tip of its mouth, all the way down to his hip, before splitting down both of his legs.
There were segments cut out of the fins, where bands of cloth wrapped around and held up dark blue robes the person wore. In combination with their lighter, but still dark, blue scales, it created a camouflage effect, especially against the metal comprising the ship.
It was weird, but I had been killed by an alien five times already. I raised the H-TIG and readied a shot in case it tried anything. I was out of the trial, I understood, but I was still stuck in this cube and clearly in some kind of trial-sponsored space. I’d rather not test if dying outside the green plains still resulted in me coming back. And besides, the H-TIG was more than enough to break through some glass.
What got me panicking was when I felt something invisible latch onto my head. A physical full body flinch went through me with exponential leverage. I started pushing energy into the H-TIG, nearly firing immediately. I did manage to keep a hold of myself long enough to realize the brain-parasite wasn’t doing anything yet.
“Calm, friend. I mean no harm. Simply here to facilitate the next part of your trial.” I flinch again.
I was holding the Cure along to steady my right arm, subconsciously shaking. “I don’t appreciate you being in my head, man! Please, get out, or I’m going to blow a hole through this cube!” I yell out, trying to stay cordial. It takes me a moment to realize that, due to the tilting of the things head, it probably couldn’t hear me through the glass.
It tapped its head twice with its rather large right hand, and a lot of my nerves died. It just… the interface probably told it jack shit about me. My emotions flip flopped inside my chest from incredulousness, anger, and self-loathing. Can’t expect every alien species to be as individualistic as the silly apes. This time, I tried thinking my words at the weird fish thing.
It felt wrong, and the invisible thing on my head prodded down at me, as if expecting something. Providing for its parasitic nature, I pushed an infinitesimal fraction of my mana up–something that took some active control, as I desperately didn’t want to feed this thing my entire core–to try and project what I wanted to say to this thing.
“H-Hello?” I cringed at my mental stutter, and the greedy psionic bug made me pay more to continue. “H-How in the hell-hell does this work.” I slowly realized that telepathy was pay-to-win.
“Push a bit more of your {mana} into it, and you’ll come out clearer. Try again.” The thing’s mouth wasn’t moving, despite the fact its voice was still reaching me. It sounded low and soft, each syllable oddly connected in a strange accent. I briefly questioned why the fish-guy’s translated words had an accent, before instead questioning their motives. They were stealing my mana, right? Or was it just the back-cost of the spell?
“Like… this?” To my surprise, the amount required for my voice to remain steady, without a glitch-like effect, was just a tiny bit more than what I was already giving. It irritated me that they were in my head, and that they were making me pay to speak.
“Yes! That’s great!” Their eyes creased, and I picked up the masculine tint in their voice. “You’re Jona Hall, yes? How much has the interface told you about your next trial-step?” They clearly already knew the answer to that question, the tone in their voice conveying a necessary step in the order of events rather than actual curiosity.
“Nothing. My workshop gained another door, I went in, and I was here. Did it give you something to go off of?”
I got the mental impression of a nod, and they finally stood up to their rather short full height. “Yes! You’ll be working with some people with {malformed mana-cores}, and you’ll have to fix them! It’s rather straightforward compared to other trials involving pseudo-corpses.” While they were speaking, I was putting the Moon Walkers back on, only to pause at ‘pseudo-corpses.’
“Pseudo-Corpses?” There was a foul taste in my mouth. “What the hell does that mean?”
They tilted their head again, blinking each eye in three different sets. “How do I… Okay- so! Have you figured out what a {mana-core} is so far?” I nodded, realized that the interface might not translate body language, and then replied with a simple ‘yes,’ gesturing for them to continue. “When people modify their body too much, their {mana-core} is strained. Kind of like trials!”
“Your {mana-core} can only flow into so much extra mass before it stops considering it part of you.” Another reason to dislike the system. What if I had decided the optimal decision was to attach a giant hammer to my arm instead of a gun? “While growing your skill path grows your {core}, eventually modifications can out scale it, at which point you’ll kinda just… drop. Thus, pseudo-corpse!”
There was far too much cheer in his tone. “Is it directly related to mass, or what? And how exactly do you fix that?”
“From what I understand, though you have to understand I’m only {in the Shallows} on this, no. If you grafted another person to yourself, it wouldn’t matter if they were three centimeters or eight kilometers tall, it’s still a person, and you’d likely become a pseudo-corpse.” They raised a hand to emphasize both heights. “Now, it's my turn again! You probably don’t have a name for it yet, but what’s your skill path?”
I squinted at them. “Is that… culturally acceptable to ask? How unique are skill paths? Why should I tell you?” They were giving me information, and I could appreciate that to a certain extent, but still.
They visibly deflated, a rather strange look on the alien. “Well… no. But, the situation at hand kind of requires me to know what your skill path is!” They gestured at their chest. “I am a {custodian} of this ship, and I’m the one who’s here to facilitate your trial. Simply put, while the interface has already given me the means to do so, I cannot properly support you in the coming days without knowledge of your skill path.”
“And generally, a lot of skill paths start rather… {milquetoast}. From what mine has told me, they kind of have to, as anything more adventurous will rupture a {core}. But as they grow with their bonds, they become more and more unique. It is deeply personal.” They tilted their head again in what had to be some kind of cue. “After this, I wouldn’t recommend telling anyone much more than the broad details. There have been issues in the past involving governments and people’s skill paths.”
I took that all in, having to file away many details. They talked about skill paths as if they were separate entities with a will. It was strange; if mine could talk, wouldn’t it have done so already? It would be just my luck to get something attached to my soul that could potentially be a wealth of knowledge, only for it to be introverted and shy.
I tried to refine the connection to where every time I wanted to speak I didn’t have to send another burst. I didn’t really know how to do this, beyond stringing a cord between my core and the parasite. Now I could just thrum the thread, and that should be enough to provide for the invisible beast attached to my skull. Despite the fact the parasite didn’t actually exist, my neck was starting to feel heavy.
“I’ll have to take you at your word. I’m still not completely comfortable with telling you, so would you please tell me where the interface dropped me?” I completely abandoned the question exchange the alien tried to establish, another pang of guilt quickly stabbing through me at the sarcasm in my tone. I felt like I was bullying a cashier for a multi-billion dollar company. Except that wouldn’t have been an apt comparison either, it was closer to bullying a worker at a farmer’s market funded by a multi-billion dollar company.
They managed to take it in stride, a six-eyed blink the only real sign of offense I could pick up on. “Yes! You are on the {God of Stars and Beetles-Like Insects}, or the Crafting branch of the Society for Quality of Life’s fleet. Have you been given access to the forums?” Another question the alien already knew the answer to.
“Only forum posts.” I pinched at my thigh, connecting the thoughts. “That’s you?”
“Yes! Well, not me, but another custodian chosen by the interface to do so. We, while moving through the universe to Earth, are in charge of holding a few trial-goers whose skill path falls under the Crafting branch. They go through a trial step, and we establish connections with them.” They raised a palm, and I only now realize that their hands had six fingers, each roughly the same short length. They started to point at me. “You, with the honor of being the first to arrive here, will be given the special title and position of first seat!”
“What that means is that after the trial, we will take you to {Home of All}, and you will lead and represent all who fall under your branch for the human race.” I paled, and maybe it was the brain connection or the fact they had experience with other aliens, they instantly tried to pivot. “Don’t panic, please! This is an honorable position, and there are different aspects of it you can devote yourself to after the trial.”
“But do not worry yourself with that now. We will get in contact with you after we arrive on your planet, and you will {a few years later} be joined by other, elected representatives who will provide aid and counsel.” They pick up a deeper, more serious, baritone. “You will not be alone.”
“Do I get a choice in this?” I hissed; I didn’t want to become a space congressman.
They were apparently baffled by this, their head sliding back slightly and all six of their eyes widening. “Ah- no? Unfortunately not. Should you not make it through your trial, it will be passed down the line of who arrives in order, but this is something you have to do.”
“I’m not allowed to say no?” I had to grit my teeth. “I don’t even know your name. You seem nice enough, but c’mon man. Why the hell don’t I get a say in this?”
Another tilt of the head. “It… It is an honorable position? It is the way of things. Your skill and speed has left you eligible to guide your species. The interface has deemed it so.” There was genuine confusion in their voice. “I… Oh! Name- right. I am {Shame}. From what I understand, our species have similar mouths, so you should be able to say my actual name?” The alien swiped at something invisible to my own eyes. “Onyo.”
I flinched at the sound, the interface’s translation going away and letting in their voice; it sounded like a belch and growl blended with a cat in some terrible alchemical process plague doctor’s experimented with to try and create The Philosopher’s Stone.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you!”