It was raining when they returned from the library.
The downpour washed the world out, turning everything dull and grey, darkening the stone, water forming puddles and running in streams.
The castle was quiet in response, all the groups and gunfire gone to ground. The rain only grew as they crossed bridges toward the safe-place, and by the time they arrived Beth and Jo were thoroughly soaked. Nicolai had avoided that fate by taking his poncho out, for once using it for the more typical purpose. It performed as well at protecting him from the rain as it did at hiding him from biological eyes.
The door was opened by old Ben, and Nicolai entered to see Elena crying, comforted by Azure and Sara, Perro standing awkwardly nearby. Daksh was sitting and observing this with an expression of concern. Jo and Beth followed after him, trekking water across the floor, stripping off their outer layers and clustering close to the space heater, a recent purchase from the Trade Link.
It was getting slightly cooler, day after day. Nicolai believed the season was this world’s version of Autumn, now shading toward winter. He didn’t know how cold and dangerous the winter might grow. It would be wise to purchase winter survival gear, just in case.
‘—don’t know,’ Elena had been mumbling. Her head had raised as Nicolai entered, and her gaze now centred on him. ‘You,’ she hissed.
‘Me?’ he replied innocently, and adopted a confused expression, though he knew exactly what she was upset about. She’d been withdrawn since Karl’s death, but it seemed she’d altered states while he was away, and had then fanned herself up into a fury with the sympathy and support of the others.
‘You’re the reason he’s dead!’ she yelled, starting up from where she’d sat. Azure and Sara rose with her, worried.
Nicolai managed to hold in his irritated snort. Something was happening with his Nodes, he could feel them pulsing in his lungs. He wanted to go and check on them, and then question Maric, not deal with a distraught woman. His Mask went: oh but you killed him oh but it’s all your fault oh but—and Nicolai silenced it with a flare of annoyance, then silenced Elena with a raised hand as she opened her mouth to continue going on. Something turned over inside of him. It was time to burst her little bubble.
‘Karl knew what he was getting into,’ he snapped. ‘This place is dangerous. Life is dangerous! At any moment, all of us could die!’ His voice had ripped into a roar and he stomped forwards. Elena cringed back, eyes wide.
‘Myself and the others have been working unceasingly to ensure our survival,’ he snarled, throwing out an arm to take them all in, creating an illusion of everyone being against her. ‘While you have been sat in here, contributing nothing.’ His arm swooped back to point an accusing finger at her. Elena was frozen, staring at him. He slithered in close and put his mouth by her ear. ‘You ought to have a long think,’ he hissed. ‘About your role in this group. About your usefulness. About whether you are. Earning. Your. Keep.’
Nicolai pulled away, and clapped his hands to break the spell his aggression had cast on the others. ‘How’s everyone doing, then?’ he asked, voice juiced up with false cheer.
‘G-good,’ stuttered Perro from nearby.
‘Wonderful.’ Nicolai flicked his smile around, taking the others in. Beth and Jo were giving him long-suffering looks. Daksh looked even more concerned than normal. Everyone looked afraid, and he could feel anger, and wariness, and hate. It made him hate them in turn. He wanted to break their idiotic faces, he wanted—
His Mask flared up and Threat Analysis blared a warning.
Nicolai paused, frowning. What?
It’s got you, said his Mask. Again.
What’s got me? But then he saw. His Soul Sense was red and sullen, twisted all around him, morphing his view of the world. Everyone around him looked like worthless little rats, deserving only of death. Painful death. The shadows were diving and looping, twisting and squirming, faces emerging on the walls. The darkness had crawled out of his belly and was clambering up his Soul, painting him ragged.
He took a deep breath, focusing on his Soul Sense, his Soul, the dark inside of him. Pulling its claws out of him, one by one. Pushing it down, stuffing it back into its cage. Cool and calm, that’s me. He’d done this only a short time ago and took to it quickly. Gradually, the world returned to clarity. He saw that the others were more confused and worried than full of hate and rage. He’d been… imagining that. Mostly.
Still, as his Mask was quick to make him aware, his words to Elena had been slightly too honest. A little on the firm side, perhaps. Unkind, one might say. Not the kind of thing that would make him popular; which apparently he still cared about.
Even if, objectively speaking, he felt it was reasonable to say she wasn’t exactly pulling her weight (though in truth this didn’t bother him because he tended to view most people as fundamentally useless as a default. In that regard, she was acting as expected). But according to the Mask none of that mattered and the only thing that did matter was that he’d killed Karl and therefore her current state was wholly his fault, his responsibility. Anyway, he had an act to maintain.
Nicolai puffed his cheeks out and turned to Elena, who stood there stock-still, eyes wet with tears. ‘I apologise for my words,’ he began, speaking slowly, not entirely sure about this apology, irritation bubbling below the surface. ‘I am… stressed. At the moment. You are right. It is my fault Karl died. I took lead so it is my job to ensure safety. Take as long as you need to recover. I am sorry that his loss hurt you. Hurt… everyone.’
‘No…’ said Elena slowly. ‘You’re right.’ She wiped her eyes dry, looking to the others. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve not been pulling my weight. I’ll do better.’
They all jumped at her with assurances that everything was fine. Nicolai observed, silent and thoughtful. His harsh words had accomplished what he’d wanted, regardless of his Mask’s feelings on the matter. It was still convinced it had the right of things, at least where being a Better Man was concerned, and he decided to do his best to take that under advisement. It was what he wanted, wasn’t it?
He let out a frustrated hiss, unheard by the rest of them, and dumped his bags then slipped past the others into the stairwell. He crept fluidly up the steps, winding his way to the top of the tower.
Before exiting, Nicolai paused. He began to strip. First his weapons, outer gear, then the rest. He removed everything and dumped it in a pile. No point getting everything wet. All he carried with him was a loaded pistol, because being unarmed was to invite death. Threat Analysis was saying something but he ignored it.
Nicolai stood naked in the rain, letting it fall and drench him. The weight of the dim sky above pressed down on him. From the horizon a faint bloom of reddish sunlight peered through the dark clouds. Soon the sun would slip away and night would fall.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing this, at first. But after a moment he realised some part of him had latched onto the act as a kind of cure for his ails. There was something calming about standing there, feeling the water pour onto and over his body.
The rain was stripping everything away from him. Breaking him down and making him clean. His mind grew empty, and once more he was calm. He’d been losing himself more and more, recently. He was failing in his efforts to control the darkness. It kept on crawling out without his notice, working to seize control of him. So far, he’d managed to wrest that control back before it fully possessed him. But how long could he continue to do so? What would happen if it seized full control? What if it locked him in the cage? How could he fix himself? What was happening to him? What was the hole?
He opened his eyes and the rain had turned black. The sky was dark and angry. He looked down at his body and found himself coated in the black rain, crawling over him. Nicolai laughed and then his laughter turned to sobs and he fell to his knees, staring at the black ink on his hands.
It crawled over from his fingers to his wrists, coating him, everything except the pistol which was pristine, smooth, pale metal, solid and reliable. As he watched the black ink glistened and shimmered and then it had turned red, blood, blood all over him, warm and clinging. The dark was squirming, eager to erupt, to make that blood real. The pistol writhed in his grip, pressing its trigger against his finger.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
‘Why does it have to be so difficult? Why do I have to be like this?’ he murmured, and snorted, and sniffled. Hearing the ridiculous self-pity in his voice, he loathed himself. He struggled with an impulse that made him want to raise the pistol to his head and pull the trigger, and then the impulse turned solid as the pistol forced his hand up. He held it down with his other and clenched his teeth and snarled. He wanted to scream but he kept it in, kept his mouth buttoned tight even as his lips stretched in a grimace.
‘There is a way forward,’ he told himself, even as the pistol wriggled in his hand, trying to turn on him.
He lunged to his feet, racked the pistol’s slide to load a bullet into the chamber, depressed the mag release, dragged the magazine free, and tossed it.
The magazine spun in the air. His Soul Sense tracked its slow arc while he racked the slide again, and the live round popped free. He caught it as the magazine descended toward him.
He twisted and threw the pistol high into the air, grabbing the magazine in the same moment. He slotted the round into it then raised his hand and pulled with the Grasping Finger. The pistol smacked into his waiting palm and he slapped the loaded magazine into it.
He held it out before him. ‘I’m in control,’ he told the pistol.
The pistol got the message.
Buoyed by this act, Nicolai moved through his Soul and once more he shoved the dark into its cage and the blood was gone and the rain was just rain once again. Standing there, he focused on the cage, and worked to firm it. This was what he needed to do, this was the way. Control. He took the time, care and attention, steadily working on the cage.
But as Nicolai worked he noticed the flaws, the cracks, and he encountered the difficulty of repairing them. When he focused, they grew firmer. But the moment his attention moved away… they started to unwind.
It was no good. The cage’s foundation was all wrong, fucked up since the first time the darkness had escaped. Like a boiler that had exploded, all torn metal. Total write-off. His efforts were like someone trying to fix that boiler with spit and sellotape. Should he tear the cage apart and start from the beginning? But then the dark would be free, the hole open, until he could finish rebuilding it. For now, all he could do was his best to fix and firm it up. He knew of no way to deal with the hole other than keeping the cage as solid as he could, it was something hot and angry buried within, something dangerous and twisted.
He needed to get away from the others, that’s what he needed. He didn’t want to kill them all. He knew that if he did it would countenance some kind of total failure. They represented his desire to change, to be better, at least a little, and to retain control of himself. With that failure, the Mask would desert him and the the cage would collapse.
It had all been so much easier as a part of Zero-Twelve, with the thing within him stripped away by surgery and the efforts of the other Modules. His mouth twisted at the thought of Zero-Twelve and his uncertainty regarding… everything. What am I?
He needed a distraction. Maybe he needed more augments. To bring himself closer to a state of Zero-Twelve? More points-tags. Always more.
For now, he only had one possibility. Maric. Perhaps the skull would know some of this matter, for Nicolai now held an uncertain belief: that it was not a simple madness within him. Perhaps, indeed, the things he had seen when he pushed through the Hole were simply delusions. But if he chose to believe that then there was nothing he could do about it. It was a pointless line of thought. Better to assume it was real. If it was real, perhaps it was known. If it was known, perhaps there were actual, concrete steps he could take toward dealing with it.
There was a pulse in his chest, and he was reminded of his Nodes. A flick of his wrist and fingers opened his Mark’s UI and brought it to the Cultivation menu.
User Interface 376 | User #53,217
Cultivation
Total Nodes: 1 Major, 2 Minor
Available unconstructed Nodes: 0 Major, 3 Minor
- Nodes in progress;
Right Lung (Finalised: 100%) (awaiting final consolidation)
Left Lung (Finalised: 100%) (awaiting final consolidation)
- Completed Nodes;
Heart (Flawless) (100/100)
A grin burst across his features. His mind eagerly moved within and floated beside one of the Nodes.
The Nodes in his lungs were shimmering, bright and active. The endless streams of Oma from his heart’s Node had ceased. He sensed that they were ready, just about complete. The Yin-Yang rotation pill had been quite effective, as he estimated they were finished about a day ahead of schedule. They only required one final step, the “final consolidation,” and he could sense what that step was. He simply reached out with his Soul and grasped at them, pouring his will, his being, into them. The Nodes crystallised, growing firm and solid.
Challenge Complete: Form your first self-made Node.
He breathed in, and his new, completed lungs Nodes pulled with him. They sucked the Aura from the air in far greater concentration than he’d ever managed before, taking it into themselves and then directing it through his body towards his heart Node where it poured within and began being transformed into Oma. Each breath made the new network within him hum. Nicolai laughed. It felt good. It felt great.
This was slightly different to how he’d imagined, as he’d assumed his lung Nodes would take in Aura and make Oma from it themselves, just like his heart Node. But it seemed his heart’s Node still held the transformative role, while the lung Nodes acted as assisters, working to harvest Aura then passing it to his heart Node. This explained something he’d always wondered at, the fact that his heart’s Node had never felt at all pressed by the amount of Aura it was consuming. It had always felt to him as though it could take and transform far more, but was limited by the amount that reached it.
The three Nodes worked in a kind of mimicry to the actual function of his lungs and heart, one that was pleasing to him in its symmetry and sense.
Curious as to how else these new Nodes differed, Nicolai dove into one of them, seeing the world inside. It was empty of Oma, and in the middle there was no black twist like in his heart’s Node. However, there was something. A different kind of twist, pale instead of dark, one that seemed somehow more open. This was what was creating the suction, pulling Aura towards itself. As his body breathed, the Node dragged Aura out of the air that poured into his lungs, its influence even reaching out of his throat to grasp at the Aura in the air and pull more in. After each collection, it then directed the Aura out and towards his heart’s Node.
He briefly checked on his heart’s Node and found that it had slightly changed operations, too. Now, he sensed very little of the original pulling force it had exuded, which it had used to draw the Aura from his blood. It still pulled, but far less. It didn’t seem to need to, as instead his lung Nodes pulled the Aura then sent it straight to his heart Node. From what he felt, his heart’s Node was now able to convert this Aura into Oma more quickly and efficiently, as a result, as its entire focus could be on that process without having to split some attention to drawing Oma in.
His heart’s Node was just about full, as he’d topped it up just before coming up the stairs. As he observed it reached its maximum capacity. However, where before it would have then stopped creating Oma, now it continued. The Oma spilled out and moved through his body, heading towards his two lung Nodes and splitting between them. As Nicolai watched these Nodes began to slowly fill.
He judged their capacity to be significantly less than his heart’s Node. When full it looked like each would individually hold around a quarter of what his heart’s could hold. Together, half the amount. Still, it was nothing to sniff at. A fifty percent increase was very significant. He tapped his Mark, opening the interface to see how this change looked from another angle.
User Interface 376 | User #53,217
Cultivation
Total Nodes: 1 Major, 2 Minor
Available unconstructed Nodes: 0 Major, 3 Minor
- Nodes in progress;
N/a
- Completed Nodes;
Heart (Flawless) (100/100)
Right Lung (B) (3/24)
Left Lung (B) (2/25)
A short time later he was off the tower and in his room, redressed and refocused. ‘Tell me about these gradings, those for Nodes,’ he asked Kleos.
‘It goes from E, D, C, B, A, and finally S, also known as Flawless,’ said Kleos promptly. ‘Your natural Aptitude determines what level of Node you are capable of forming.’
‘My Minor Nodes hold less Oma than my Major. This is normal?’
‘Yep. Typically Minor Nodes will hold about a third, at the max, of what a Major Node would hold. Does the Mark tell you what grade yours are?’
‘B.’
‘Not bad,’ said Kleos. ‘With some practise, you might be able to get up to A. Those were the first you made and you were inexperienced. For each Cultivator, it takes some time to learn to build or refine Nodes to the level of their actual Aptitude. Only once one has experience enough that they form the Nodes without any mistakes, can they know their true Aptitude. Since your first attempt was at B, your Aptitude is good, maybe very good. C and D are average.’
Nicolai considered that, and went to do some quick math. Cyberwarfare got there before him, giving him the calculation. Kleos said a Minor Node held a third of a Major Node. So to convert the Minor Nodes into Major Node units, he needed only multiply them by three; then the two were at about 74 and 76. Based on his understanding, an A tier Major Node should be about 80 and up, so he wasn’t far off. Likely his true Aptitude was somewhere in the A range, which according to Kleos was good news. Nicolai was pleased but not ecstatic; his true goal was Flawless, at 100.
With his lung Nodes complete his focus turned to the next. There were three more spots linked to his heart where he could construct new Nodes. His left kidney, right kidney, and his windpipe. Once they were done, according to Kleos, he would then be able to progress to building his first Major Node.
Nicolai decided to build all of them that night, one after the other, then they could all grow and finalise as a whole. He had plenty of Oma crystals, now. He would focus on the process, attempting to build them each as perfect as possible. He was eager to see if he could get these ones to A.
But first, he wanted to take stock and consolidate what he’d gained. He needed to look through the books he’d taken and find out just what they could do for him, to receive his reward for Maric’s quest and this recent challenge, to interrogate the skeleton, and to at last break-in the Symbiote in the rock.