Jack felt a small strip of electricity, about finger-sized, approach.

“Who touched my portable??” It was Jonah. So, passively he could sense electricity that was familiar to him. Useful. He wasn’t sure how but Jack was happy to stack any advantage he could.

Jack didn’t have a lie prepared so he didn’t say anything, Tule seemed legitimately asleep, his face covered in a slimy sweat.

Time to obviously change the subject, subtly he didn’t have, but neither did Jonah. “What was down there?”

Lea shared some look with Jonah. It was odd, Jonah’s finger stood out clearly.

Jack’s eyes gleamed, “Did you fix your electric finger?”

“Ah yes, I mean no, no I didn’t!” He wrapped his finger up in his other hand, moving it away from Jack.

“Just a bit Jonah, just give me a bit and I’ll leave you alone.”

He badly missed having a full charge.

“No, you’ll burn out my finger again!”

“I was barely conscious, I’ll be way more careful this time!” With Jack’s practice he could feel Jonah’s finger. He recognized the type of electricity, it’s unique pattern. He knew what to do. He pulled.

The finger sparked as an electric lead flowed from it into Jack’s hand.

Jack suddenly wrapped his gauntleted finger around the wrist of his other hand to prevent a bolt from shooting out from him in response to the lead and striking Jonah’s finger. The energy continued to build against the Gauntlet but Jack mentally commanded the pink gauntlet to “block the current” in his mind and, it did. The current started jumping out of his skin, looking for a route beyond the gauntlet to his hand and into Jonah. Jack felt his Nano Trace now, it extended out in a sheath. It maintained an electrical channel open and clear between his hand and Jonah’s finger.

Jonah dropped the finger off his hand onto the ground and it exploded into a small ring of shrapnel. Jack felt the connection die and some of the Nano that made up the sheath returned to his body while some other turned to unresponsive microscopic dust. It felt like he had lost a small bit of something even though the bucking electricity had started to settle inside him again.

“This is why I’m not going to charge you again.”

Between Jack’s gasping breaths, “Yeah. Fair enough. Jonah."

He recovered a bit then asked, “So, what did you find out?”

“It’s… not good. The water is rotting the crab meat from the inside.”

Jack was surprised, “What about machinery? There should be a ton inside of it.”

“Oh! There is!”

Jack perked up at that, maybe there was some juice, he missed the feeling of a full charge. He felt powerful when he had a regular charge, like he could do anything. It wasn’t addictive though, he was doing fine on low-power. He was keeping it together.

“Let’s go!”

Jonah looked excited at the thought of another expedition into the underground, this time with a strong combatant who wouldn’t want to “report their findings” before he managed to find anything worthwhile. He scooped up his portable and quickened his pace to catch up with Jack.

“So is the power still on in there?”

“Oh no, of course not, it’s all soaked and broke-”

Jack turned on a dime and headed back to the other two, leaving Jonah in a lurch.

“Wha? Where are you going?”

“Why would I want to see a bunch of unpowered, insane crab-machinery? Even worse, there aren’t any crabs down there, are there?”

“Not that we’ve seen but that doesn’t mean there aren’t!”

“Well, let me know if you find some crabs. Or a battery I guess.”

Jonah scrambled for a reason, his eyes fell on the Sentinel, she was rubbing her leg and looked disinterested in committing to another expedition.

“I… I can make a battery for you. If. If we go down there.”

Jack stood up again, this time with a grunt, “Alright you got me.” His stomach responded with another grunt, louder than his.

“Anyone have anything to eat?

----------------------------------------

This was some miserable shit. Jack learned another thing about his body. The level of charge inside of him absolutely affected how much food he was required to eat.

“If I have to eat any more crab I’m going to turn into a crab.”

No one laughed and his EQ did him few favors in figuring out why that was the case.

To be fair, he didn’t know because no one complained but the other three had been sick of eating crab for years now. Thus, they were entirely unsympathetic to his bitching and moaning about it.

How Jack saw the problem was that there was plenty of it and literally zero else for food. This was the last time he was going to eat crab, it tasted like shit. Sitting, miserably eating Jack found himself forced to unpack the thoughts he had about Tule’s leg as “thigh meat.” At first he denied to himself that he had thought that at all. Then, he tried to rationalize it as him being hungry. Finally he accepted, tentatively, that he may be a bit of an ‘odd-duck’ and while he accepted that he had the thought, he had the choice on whether or not to entertain it or act on it.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

He felt his headache diminish a small bit as the place he stored unpleasant memories felt like it gained a bit more room. He tried to unpack the next thing but quickly repacked and shoved it deeper into the back of his mind. Not that one, he didn’t like the look of that one at all.

“So what’s your deal?” Jack was bored enough to be curious about something that didn’t directly affect him. He needed to take his mind off of the crab he was endlessly jawing. He knew his interest was for selfish reasons but it lacked impact on his thoughts as the empathetic rebound was nearly non-existent.

After a pause, the Sentinel looked over, “You are talking to me?”

“Well, you’re the only person I don’t know at all. What’s your deal?”

“I’m the Sentinel, I command the Sentries of the Ancient Clan Kintu. Our history goes back to the beginning.”

“You mean Earth?”

All three looked at him, Tule said, “I thought you said you didn’t remember anything.”

“I don’t, I just know we came from Earth.”

Jack had gotten a bunch of his questions answered, and a few he didn’t even know to ask but there were still more, always more. The problem was that it seemed like whenever he asked questions it invariably seemed to circle around towards questions about him.

This, he didn’t want. They sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

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Sometime later…

Jack threw away his handful of cooked crab-flesh. “Tired of this shit… Jonah, you ready to go?”

He looked around and saw Jonah already ready to go.

Jack stood up and vomited the crab-flesh directly into the ground, everyone scrambled back, even Tule.

“Ugh, told you crab meat tasted like shit.”

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They were holding the same wall that Leanne and Jonah did earlier, Jack found himself involved in the same debate.

“Don’t jump down, there are creatures down there.”

“Crabs?”

Jonah side-eyed him, “Nooooo” he drew out, “there’s a way…” Jack jumped down, Toothpick in one hand and Gauntlet in the other, “down.”

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Another creature? Something to eat that isn’t a crab.

He hit and found himself attacked almost immediately by body-length long creatures. They had lots of arms and sharp beaks that stabbed into him. As they pulled him under he swung out with the Toothpick and caught a few of them. Or maybe one of them, he wasn’t sure.

They released him and swam away. He panted softly as he dragged himself up the crab-flesh shore. Jonah was waiting there.

“Hey Jonah can you cook this?”

It was a thick, tentacled appendage with suction cups strung along one side. Jonah took it curiously, then under Jack’s hungry stare he fired off energies from between two fingers of each hand and the sizzling sound, and smell of cooked meat appeared.

Jack was surprised, “that was quick.” It had also been quick to cook the crab meat but Jack had refused to watch any part of that happen.

He took a bite, gamey and just as tough as the crab meat, but much much better. He wasn’t sure if it was all in his head but he didn’t care much either way. It wasn’t crab.

They wandered around, Jack kept his Affinity on. There were actually traces of electricity around him and he started to pick them up. A weird coiled mechanism here, a small glass tube there.

He handled them off to Jonah who studied them and then pocketed them somewhere on his voluminous robes of scrap-cloth.

“What are you doing?”

Jonah looked at him, confused.

“I handed you that stuff to build a battery, not to hide it in your robes.”

Jonah looked embarrassed for a split second then a slight indignation worked its way up, “Well, I’m not going to make it here, we’re exploring.”

Jack had to admit that he had a point, he continued gathering the seemingly random pieces of scrap that surrounded them.

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“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘No’? Just plug your AI in there.”

Jack turned to Jonah, “Absolutely not.”

Jonah seemed like he was unable to understand. “What? Why won’t you?”

Jack was honestly surprised that he even had to answer the question. He had several reasons himself, chief among them were the unanswered questions about the AI disk that his Wisdom proc had brought about.

He didn’t want to get into that so he started with the second reason, “Whatever is in there right now isn’t doing anything, why mess with it while we’re all floating on top of it?”

Jonah tapped his lip in frustration then brought out his own portable. Jack placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry Jonah, but no. Not going to let you plug in your portable in there either.”

“You know you are relying on me to make your battery right?”

“I do.”

“And you’re still going to stop me from plugging in there?”

Jack nodded, “If it was another situation then I wouldn’t but I’m… We’re floating on it right now. What if it causes the entire shell to sink? What if it’s a trap? What if crabs come pouring out of there? I’m going to be the one fighting most of the crabs with Tule injured. It’ll probably kill him.”

Even Jack could see the warring thoughts and emotions on Jonah’s face. Eventually it settled down.

“Oh alright, let’s just make a final sweep, you keep your Affinity to find other useful stuff. I’m getting something out of this. You owe me a finger. Two!”

----------------------------------------

Tule spent much of his time asleep or close enough to count. He had looked better for a brief period before sweating something fierce. Was his skin turning darker? When they found land, the first thing when they found land was to get him to a Terminal.

Jack practiced his Nano control and Affinity. He had gotten to the point that he could sense the Nano inside him without his Affinity. It was rough compared to the precision his found with his Affinity.

He was hesitant to burn Nano when he was unable to replace it himself due to his missing sheath.

He could tell when Jonah rebuilt his electrical finger. The familiar electricity was clearly visible even to his passive Affinity. Did having familiarity with a particular source of electricity make a difference? He didn’t pull at it this time.

Jack remembered the sheath that had formed last time he did. That was his external Nano right? Part of his Nano-Trace?

He passed a Magno-Tube to Jonah, “Can you charge this with your finger?”

Jonah nodded then eyed him, “How did you know I rebuilt my finger again?”

Jack paused then grinned, “I have my secrets and you have yours.”

“Tell me in exchange for charging the Nano.”

“That’s not nearly enough.”

“I’ll finish your battery too.”

Jack considered this, he could absolutely force Jonah to built the battery. He’s too clever, just as likely to sabotage the battery as not.

Jack agreed with his internal voice.

“Deal. Your finger seems familiar, I can make it out clearly. I could tell the moment you fixed it.”

Jonah immediately took out a hand-sewn pack that he gingerly unfolded, inside it were sleeves that contained small tools. He fiddled with his finger until Jack said, “Ok, now it’s not as clear, I can still pick it up but it’s much less visible than before.”

Jonah was intrigued by new things, and this was a new thing. He fiddled with it again.

“I can sense it again, it’s like I’m staring directly at a light.”

Jonah fiddled and it disappeared, well relative to its prior brightness it ‘disappeared’. Jack told him as such.

Jonah shocked Jack and his finger lit up again in Jack’s Affinity.

“It’s lit up again, you did something though. The electricity in your finger, it’s different.”

Jonah nodded, “I changed the frequency of it and some circuits.”

They walked through several more iterations of this.

“Yeah after you shock me it’s like my Affinity recognizes it.” Was this how he could sense Yuma so clearly? Maybe, but still, that felt sort of different.

“Can you, pull on it, or whatever you did before? Don’t actually do it though!”

“Well, I can’t be positive then but I’m pretty sure that I could.”

Jonah tapped his pursed lips as he thought, absentmindedly cycling the different energies through the fingers of his other hand.

Interrupting Jonah’s extended experiment, “So can you charge the Nano with your finger, or not?”

Jonah opened up the full Nano-Tube, placed his finger against it and shocked a good amount of current into the floating ball above his hand.

Jack sensed it it now, before the current died out.

“Again Jonah.” Jonah shocked it again and it faded just as he was pulling the sheath around it.

They kept repeating but it didn’t last long enough for Jack to wrap his own connection around it.

“Nothing, it doesn’t last long enough.”

Jonah supplied a potentiality, “Crab’s are notoriously resistant to electricity, perhaps since this is crab-aspected Nano it is resistant to holding a charge.”

That… that made sense.

“Yeah I could see that, how’s the battery coming?”

Jack would try again later, when he had some Human Nano.