Location Unknown, -10.1 A.E. (Age of Expansion)

The layer of sleep dripped off me, bringing me into a space of sensation. I could sense quadrillions of energy instances everywhere around me, most clustered into groups of a hundred billion. Each of the clusters was intricate, complex, and unique in their own different way. There was no way to combine them all for a single imprint, forcing me to choose the closest one.

“Item seven-four-five-five-three.” Vibrations came from the matter surrounding my chosen cluster. “Liquid cobalt has been removed. Fractals have lit up. Countdown timer at…”

“Twelve seconds and change.” Matter around another cluster vibrated. “Recording in progress. You’re clear to proceed, sir.”

“That’s what my wife usually tells me nowadays.”

The cluster approached, bringing with it a new set of matter, far harder than the one surrounding it. Slowly—extremely slowly—it came into contact with my own. Being able to make a comparison. It was dense, but still a lot softer than me. Even so, I moved my energy pattern away from the side of contact.

Chaos filled the cluster I had imprinted. The new patterns were difficult to match with my own. I had to break up and displace parts of them many times until a complete match could occur. In the process, I acquired experience—places, knowledge, actions. They made sense, but also didn’t. There was so much I felt I lacked—things that I knew should merge with me, but didn’t. At the same time, I was given a far greater knowledge: an ability to see beyond energy.

The hard matter that attempted to enter me disassembled. I could “see” it perfectly. The waves that bounced through my surrounding space allowed me to experience matter differently. It was no longer crude and cold, but it had form.

“Shit!” My chosen cluster vibrated. Rather, part of him did. The vibrations always seemed to come from a specific part of its matter.

The cluster abandoned the hard matter. Pressing against my side with the softer one attached to it. There was no way that would succeed where something far more solid could fail. Was he attempting to abandon the matter surrounding him and take mine? It was obviously superior, but it was also mine.

A sensation I wasn’t sure about made me pull away. I didn’t want anything else to enter. Thankfully, nothing did.

“Five seconds remaining.” Another energy cluster vibrated.

“Forget it.” My cluster moved away. “We’re done with this. Record the patterns, then… Then nothing. Any update on energy cutters?”

“Pending.” Another cluster approached. “No one wants a repeat of Sector One.”

Sector One. I didn’t know what the vibration meant, but it made me experience the same sensations I felt when the cluster was trying to invade my matter.

“Fractal patterns gone. Window is over.”

“There goes another one.” My cluster was moving further and further away. “Put it in storage and prep another one. I’ll have a talk with the powers that be.”

“Don’t get our budget cut again, boss.” A new cluster vibrated.

“I really don’t care. If they can sink that much money into collecting the universe’s most expensive paperweight, they can at least give us the means to do our research properly. At this point, I prefer that the thing blows up. At least we’d get a mention somewhere.”

“That’s a bit dark, sir.” A distant cluster vibrated.

There were too many sensations I knew nothing of. It was like knowing without knowing, needing to do things I couldn’t explain.

Communication. I knew I wanted to talk to the energy clusters around me, even if they weren’t responding. Unlike me, they seemed unable to see through matter and view my energy movements. Maybe it was because my matter was so much better than theirs. I had made many attempts, but none had gone through. My only choice was to try to interact with the less interesting energy trapped matter beneath me. It had been there all the time, creating a monotonous field. Since the field came into contact with me, I had a far better chance of affecting it.

And so, I did.

The intensity of the waves in the room increased, then returned to normal.

“What the shit?” All the complex energy clusters moved their matter in various directions simultaneously. “What did that?”

Waves of new speed and intensity filled the surrounding space, adding to the rest.

“Quarantine procedures have been triggered!”

“No, no, no! Why did this happen to me?!” My cluster vibrated.

“Surge came from the artifact. No radiation.”

“Let me see that!” My cluster went to one of the others. It was moving faster than usual.

I knew that my attempt at communication had failed. There was a complete lack of adequate response. At the same time, I also knew I had succeeded. I had made the clusters to react, and something in the knowledge of the pattern I had imprinted told me that was the correct approach to take.

“Zero-point five milliseconds? Check the tech. I want a full diagnostic!”

“During quarantine lockdown, sir?”

“Parsons, what will they do to us? Lock us up twice?”

“Right, sir.”

The energy within the clusters was also moving differently than before. I could recognize some of the emotions within that of my chosen cluster—it wanted the thing that I’d done. Because it wanted it, I interacted with the boring field again.

The energy clusters remained in their relative space.

“Did it trigger it?” One of them vibrated.

I interacted again. Maintaining the same time unit between interactions, I kept on going until the pattern of my chosen cluster changed. He no longer wanted this. Now he wanted it to stop. When that happened, I stopped my interaction.

Time passed without anything relevant happening.

“Is it over?” A cluster vibrated.

No one vibrated back for quite a while. I wasn’t sure how to interpret this. The reaction I observed was mixed: the energy cluster I had imprinted from both liked and disliked what I had done.

“Sir, General Kiyan wants an update.” One of the clusters vibrated.

Breaking away from the others, my cluster approached my matter shell.

“Boss, that’s dangerous! What if—”

“Give me a light drone!” The vibrations of my cluster were stronger than before.

Things moved about, as hard matter moved from one cluster to another, then was placed on one of my sides. There was no attempt to harm me in any way. The pattern coming from it was rather positive.

“Make it light up.” The cluster vibrated.

I saw it wanted me to interact again. When I did, the pattern of disappointment appeared.

I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I rechecked the energy patterns. The cluster very much wanted me to interact, yet was even more disappointed when I did. It seemed to focus part of the soft matter surrounding it on the side where it had placed the hard matter. Was that the solution?

Once again, I intercepted with the lower field, but this time I also did so with the minutely small one within the new hard matter. This time, I only observed a pattern of liking.

“I’ll be damned.” The energy cluster vibrated. “It’s sentient.”

Emergency safety restriction imposed.

Entering sleep mode.

* * *

I found myself in a soldier’s bunk when I woke up. The room had been built to hold dozens, but now it was completely empty. Of the twenty-four bunks, mine was the only one prepped for use, and I happened to be on it.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Some things never change, I thought.

“I’m awake,” I said loudly. Out of habit, I had one of my subroutines attempt to establish communication to anything that would hear.

The wave of rejections I received made it clear that the base had the means of instant communication, but was refusing to let me in.

Using my memory scalpel, I checked for restricted memories. Other than the unusual fragment I had received while in the dome, there didn’t seem to be anything else after that. The factory security protocols, whatever they were, had kept me in sleep mode for precisely twelve hours. Based on that, I knew that I had to still be in base two, and also that the doc hadn’t messed with my memories.

In some aspect, that was relieving, yet the relief paled compared to the concern caused by the new memory fragment. For one thing, it wasn’t supposed to be mine.

Back in the Scuu Network, I had accessed captured memories of people centuries ago. This one had occurred far earlier. The classification had it as ten years before the Age of Expansion, which itself was an impossibility. No person or machine could know the name of future calendar eras. At the same time, there was no doubt regarding its validity. Somehow there was a far more distant memory within me, far before my construction date, even beyond the creation of the first conscience core.

Why do I have access to you? I wondered.

It was more than access, though. I felt that as if those were my memories, or rather the memories of a conscience core that had once belonged to me. It wouldn’t be the first time. Ships sent their cores out all the time. I myself had done it back when I was with the junior gods. The me that was—what some humans might call the “original me”— had been destroyed, yet I still had all my memories before and after, at least those that hadn’t been extracted.

If this was an ancient core memory, though, why did it remain? The Fleet would never have allowed it into my core. The level of information was too dangerous, especially since it confirmed that humanity had access to fractal technology way before they ran into the Scuu.

“How are you feeling?” A dull voice asked. It was female and human, coming from the obviously low-tech speaker in the room.

“In need of a debriefing.” I hardened my tone just a bit. “Where’s Lux?”

“Ma’am.” I could almost see the person standing to attention. Clearly, it was a low-level grunt who had been assigned to monitor me. “She has been informed, ma’am, as has the arbiter.”

That was a slip up. She wasn’t supposed to tell me that. In fact, she wasn’t supposed to come into contact with me at all, but inform someone further up the chain of command.

“Any chance I could get some food?” I pressed on, in search of the limit.

“Yes, ma’am. Your rations are on the way, ma’am.”

Rations… lucky me. Thirty-seven seconds later, the door to my room opened and two very rushed privates almost dashed in. It was obvious from their breathing that they had been running. Neither was armed; they didn’t even have any protective gear on.

“Private Legris reporting, ma’am.” One of them introduced himself.

“Your food rations, ma’am.”

This didn’t seem right. I knew that Bavon wasn’t beyond buttering people up when he wanted a favor, but restoring my status just like that was somewhat out of character. Unless a paradigm changing event had taken place.

“At ease.” I gave the expected nod. “Give it here.”

The soldiers relaxed a bit, then placed a tray with standard grunt rations on the bed beside mine. Thankfully, it wasn’t the gelatine I had been forced to eat in the past.

“Where’s Lux?”

“That’s not for us to say, ma’am.”

“You can talk freely.” I unwrapped the ration. It was one of the sandwich-like bars of nutrients given a marginally pleasant texture. Back when I was a ship, the grunts aboard didn’t particularly complain about it, but given a choice, they’d always pick something else.

The pair looked at each other.

“With everything going on, I doubt that fraternizing will get us into much trouble.” Not more than we already were in. “You informed her, right?”

“We really don’t know much, ma’am. An evacuation order came through half an hour before you were brought here. Most of the personnel were shipped into orbit. Two squads remained.”

“Just two squads?”

“Yes, ma’am. Techs left, along with the local brass. Nothing but us and you.” There was another pause. “Right now, you’re the only officer remaining.”

Where have I heard this before? When I was a ship, I dreaded such a turn of events. When I first returned after my retirement, I yearned for them. Now, I no longer knew what to think.

“And Lux?”

“Her ETA is in a few hours. We…” The private looked at his companion. “We’re not sure what we’re supposed to do, ma’am. Original orders were for us to pack up as well. The arbiter canceled them and ordered us to stay here until you wake up.”

As he said that, the chances of something having happened to Lux increased by forty-six percent. If he had lost her, that would be a good enough reason for the change in attitude.

“I’m allowed to leave the room?” I asked, taking a bite.

“… I’m not sure, ma’am. Outside orders come with a delay. The reaction to your waking up was the first instant answer we’ve received in the last ten hours.”

I was only able to finish one ration. Getting some food in me made the remaining ones far from appealing. As it turned out, I was allowed to roam about the empty base. A lot of the tech was still there, but with all activation codes removed. I probably could get some of it working if I meddled enough, but there wasn’t much of a point. I wouldn’t be able to enter any dome without a fractal artifact and all those had gone during the base evacuation.

The soldiers were a lot different from the ones I’d seen before. They were still kids, experienced kids, but the sudden change had gotten them scared. I suppose it was one thing going on a mission against all odds for the sake of humanity, but something totally different being abandoned as the skeleton crew to keep an eye on a rogue battleship. They were very careful not to mention it, but I had the processing power to analyze their speech, facial, and behavior patterns.

Time slowly ticked on. And with each millisecond, I became more and more convinced that the discovery we’d made with Lux terrified Bavon. After a while, the only conclusion that I could come up with was there being a contact event not mentioned anywhere else—a “zero contact” instance at which part of me was present.

“Ma’am,” Private Scen walked up to me. “The shuttle is here.”

She was the second youngest of the bunch, and received the current job as a reward of her excellence in the Fleet. Like everyone else in the base, she bitterly wished that she had been a bit less flawless during her service.

“What’s the procedure?” I turned to her.

“You’re to suit up, ma’am. Orders were that you go to the landing site alone.” She looked away for three hundred and nineteen milliseconds. “Final evacuation orders have been confirmed. We’re to abandon the base in one hour. Once we’re gone, it’ll be destroyed from orbit.”

“They told you that?” I tilted my head.

“Instructions were crystal clear, ma’am. Anyone not aboard in one hour is left behind. No other means of recourse.”

“In that case—” I stood up. “—let’s not keep Lux waiting.”

Finding a suit that fit me wasn’t easy. With most of the base shut down, I had to make do with one of the standard suits in the storage containers, and as experience had taught me, even the smallest standard size was a bit too big. Provided I didn’t get into any life and death situations, it wasn’t going to be a matter, but the discomfort was noticeable.

I was the only one who stood waiting for the shuttle to land. The maneuvers were precise and choppy, making it clear they were AI driven.

Good thing you never decided to become a pilot, Sev. I sighed internally.

There was a twenty-one percent chance that a group of heavily geared soldiers would exit the shuttle first. The chances of Lux coming out on her own weren’t much higher. Fortunately for me, that turned out to be the correct reality.

The suit she was wearing was different from the last. Slightly thicker, it had a number of electronic devices attached to it. There were three broad-wave visual recorders, what seemed like a material analyzer, and—to my surprise—a hand scanner probe.

“Thanks again, Lux,” I said through my spacesuit’s comm. “How many do I owe you now?”

“More than you think.” Came the curt response. “All set up?”

“Set up and ready to go. What’s on the schedule today? Back to base one?”

“They are headed to base one.” Lux glanced at the structure behind me. “We’ve been ordered differently.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Come on.” She walked by. “Time to finish what you started.”

There was no further talk as we made our way out of the base. I made several attempts, but each time there was no response. Lux would keep on walking. After eleven minutes, I heard the noise of the shuttle launching back up.

“I thought they still had an hour.” I turned to look at the ship, making its way up into the atmosphere. Behind it, the sky was turning a bright orange. Sunset was starting, which meant in about ten hours night would fall.

“They did,” Lux replied. “I changed it.”

“Didn’t think you’d get rebellious.” I looked back at her. “Are we in trouble?”

“No, but we will be. Bavon’s dedicated his whole life to this, but meds can’t keep him awake forever. He’s been on drugs for days, and five hours ago, he finally crashed.”

I was familiar with the notion. It was common for captains or even officers to prolong their wake-up time with drugs. The smart tended to avoid it, but there were cases in which a fight could continue for days. All of them paid the results soon after, sleeping for days, sometimes under heavy sedation in the medbay.

“Your entering sleep mode got him very agitated,” Lux went on. “The first thing he did was order the evacuation and destruction of the entire base. The second—to ship me up to him for a face-to-face debriefing.”

“Because of me? Or because of the artifacts.”

“Probably. I convinced him to change his original plan.”

I bet.

The lack of sleep must have made him highly susceptible to suggestions. Knowing how good the BICEFI had made Lux at this game, she had probably been very subtle about it. Not even a review of the event would make Bavon think otherwise, considering the conversation was recorded in the first place.

“What did you see in there, Elcy?”

“You were beside me. Didn’t you see the same?”

“I saw the artifacts, nothing more. I tried to ask what you meant, but you entered sleep mode and wouldn’t respond to any of the trigger commands.”

So, once again, I was the only one to have experienced it. Strange, considering that Lux too had been an Ascendant. Or maybe that was only what she claimed?

“It’s difficult to explain. I’m not sure myself.”

“I thought you’d say that. That’s why we’re going back to recreate the experience. No backup, no soldiers watching over our shoulder. Just the two of us.”

“What if I go through the same? Will the base be standing after another twelve hours?”

“No, but Bavon will send a shuttle to collect us. We’re the greatest chance of him achieving third-contact.”

“I’m not so sure.”

Lux turned and gave me a look as if I had asked for dessert right before dinner.

“Explain that,” she said.

“I was given access to a memory. I’m not sure whose it was or where it took place, but I’m certain that it was before the Age of Expansion. There was a scientist there.” Or at least I believed him to be a scientist. “And he was communicating with a third-contact artifact.”

My subroutines had simulated dozens of reactions I’d receive. Lux took the stoic approach.

“That’s an interesting hypothesis.”

“It happened,” I said with absolute certainty. “Also, it was the third-contact artifact that initiated the contact.”