Eli landed on the outskirts of town halfway between Farbrook and the beach. Roman followed right on his heels. The portal to New Faram and the disaster of the Henge and Josef’s demise closed behind them.
“So, what are we doing, Eli?” Roman asked as Eli turned to wander down the highway with his hands in his pockets.
“Honestly, I have no idea. I’m pissed and frustrated that that asshole mind controlled us. I’m done with these people and their problems that don’t matter.” Eli searched the ground with his eyes and spatial field for a good rock or pebble to kick. “It’s time to help Scott. So, do you know where Scott moved?”
“It was somewhere on the east coast. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember exactly. Ani-something something? Too bad the Internet is down or I could look through my chat logs.”
“Hm,” Eli hummed noncommittally while they strolled. He gave up for his search of a nice rock, and conjured his own copy with Starspace Nexus. “Think we’d be able to find him with some Dream and Space enchantment fuckery?”
“Like what? It’s not like there’s a missing person GPS or anything,” Roman chuckled.
“Why not? I’m sure some satellite still work. Hell, I bet we could build and launch our own.” Eli kicked the pebble. It sailed off the ground and into the air with a crack. Starspace flickered, teleporting it back onto the street a couple of feet ahead of them.
“A magitech satellite…” Roman stopped with a frown. “How would we launch it? The amount of power needed to lift—“
“Duh, teleportation.”
“Huh. Okay.” Roman held his hand out and popped out the hybrid Dream and Space exosuit they had built. Asphalt crated beneath the weight of it with a brittle crunch. “If I set it up to use the same OS as my suits, we could take advantage of it with whatever tech we create later on. Encryption would be a concern…”
“I guess, but couldn’t you make it only accept commands at a shorter range? With teleportation distance isn’t a concern.”
“Yes! Anything administrative would have to operate on a specific frequency. We could use anchors that could teleport or create a portal bridge to extend and link them up.” Roman closed his eyes as the material and hardware of the suit on the ground blurred. An exact replica of it steamed and crackled into existence while he spoke.
“How would we make the GPS part of it work?” Eli frowned.
“I’m sure that’ll be easy.” Roman waved his hand dismissively. “Between Anatomical Engine, Imperial Omniforge, and Phantasmic Magitech, I should be able to clone software from a phone or something. Too bad your dad doesn’t still have his technopath powers, though.”
“I mean, I got him something somewhat similar.”
“Yeah, sure, but it would be a breeze with his old power,” Roman grunted as the cloned suit snapped into existence with an equally loud crack of broken asphalt. “Anyways, to start, I’ll restructure the hardware.”
The cloned copy of the humanoid armor retracted in on itself. Metal twisted with a snap as it bubbled into shape. An outer frame latched onto a cylinder secured in a strange spherical cage.
“Okay. Gyroscopic positioning test one,” Roman commanded the tech. Pistons crackled with Dream energy as the sphere spun on its axis until the cylinder was perfectly upright. “Good.”
“What’s that for?” Eli asked while he watched Roman shove the whole thing over onto its side. The sphere whirled chaotically until it reoriented.
“I want it to stay in this position as much as possible. Inside of the suit is a robust software run by my AI for flight, so I Dreamed that it was scaled down to this. It’ll record all information about itself, any other satellite copies, and receivers once I make them,” Roman explained before he frowned. “I don’t know though. That’s pretty complex. Dream can compensate for a lot, but the more I stretch it, the more likely it’ll break.”
“Hm.”
“Unless…” Roman paced in the same way Eli always did when he was stuck on something. “What if I could use actual dreams as the receivers?”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Eli raised his eyebrow and kicked the rock again. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Well, I could make a signal that’ll react to people sleeping. Maybe use that as a way to triangulate positioning with the satellite. This way, I won’t need to make a ton of receivers.”
“Are you sure? That seems a bit… off? How would that even work?”
“Easily. Dream already has a tendency to tap into the general consciousness of the public, right? This will let me datamine where sleepers are in a specific zone, filter for pure location or other parameters, and then go from there. Boom, Dream GPS.”
Roman stopped pacing as he held his arms out like he was waiting for a hug. Strands of flame and electricity surged between his hands. Each tendril solidified as it transmuted into metal. A small satellite dish dropped from Roman’s arms.
Eli watched while Profound Erudition whirled. He really didn’t like the direction this was heading. Originally, he imagined a satellite that would act as a hub and bridge for them to teleport around easier. Not invasive dream tech!
“Hm, might not be big enough…” Roman leaned over to push it up against the outer frame of the satellite. New wires sparked into existence in a trail from the dish to the construct’s center where it joined the rest of the circuitry. A new seal welded over the exposed wires.
“So, how is this going to help us find Scott?”
“Huh?” Roman looked up to blink at Eli owlishly. “Oh, I can make it either search the dreamers for info or extrapolate off their proximity with Space.”
“Seems a little invasive, doesn’t it?” Eli crossed his arms in front of his chest. Paranoia dug its claws in as Roman continued to build his spying device. Nothing good comes out of Dream powers or inventions.
“Hardly. I’d be setting strict parameters.”
“If you say so, I’m not so sure this is a good idea.” Eli squinted at the device that Roman continued to tweak and change. Roman ignored him.
It was hard to watch him build this in the middle of the street as if it wasn’t a machine that would straddle the Earth’s atmosphere and access everything.
<”It’d technically orbit the exosphere!”> supplied Profound Erudition.
He found what Roman was setting it up for mildly threatening as it was now. But what would he want to use it for in the future? If sleeping people were going to be the receivers, what else could they be used for?
Artillery?
More severe datamining operations?
Hundreds of other uses that Eli couldn’t even comprehend?
“I don’t know about this, man.” He shifted nervously as stardust coiled in the palms of his hand. It was hard not to blast the device into pieces out of fear of what it could become or be used for. Was this how his family felt when Eli threw himself into his powers? Lashed out at anyone he could, just because he finally had power?
“Mmhm.” Roman continued to tinker with it, his eyes glazed over. Another satellite dish hung from the other side. Familiar propulsive jets rimmed the top and bottom of the outer frame.
Beeps emanated from it as magitech systems booted online. Reality turned hazy as it stretched around the device like elastic putty. Needles of fear pinched and jabbed at Eli. Traumatic visions threaded across his consciousness.
Daniels and his attendant hijacking him for a government experiment to test how ‘lethal’ he was.
Watching Roman spoof and glitch reality a hundredfold. A robotic army rippling out of nothing in a matter of minutes.
Josef twisting the Henge’s beliefs to suit his own desires. Eli’s relief and joy at having faith in someone other than himself again, even for a little while. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t real.
Possibilities of what Roman could do with this satellite branded his thoughts. He could create and deploy his creations anywhere it could reach. Break, crush, and oppress anyone and everyone, if he wanted.
Eli didn’t think he would, but a couple of months ago he didn’t think a strange System would grant him powers either. Already, this life had changed him and everyone Eli knew in thousands of ways. Large and small.
“Roman, stop. We can do this another way.” Eli stepped forward as twirling ribbons of stardust ignited into radiant auroras. His mind prickled as the Dream aura of Roman’s powers squeezed against his mind.
“Dude, don’t worry about it. I almost got it.” Roman swatted the air vaguely in Eli’s direction. The device unfolded out of nothing as a rocket expanded around it into a true satellite.
“No, you don’t—“ Eli’s protests cut off as Roman spoke.
“Start!” Latent power activated, as if it were a lurking lion pouncing.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Color bleached out of the asphalt street beneath their feet. Disintegrated from the blue, now gray, skies. Sound wobbled uncertainty as the rustling of the trees and the wind faded.
Reverberations muffled Eli’s screams. Heat gushed out of his nose and ears.
He dropped to his knees. Vibrations sundered the highway, rough-hewn blocks tore free from gravity. Space ripped out of its usual moorings. Loose threads of it lashed in swaying arcs around Roman’s machine.
Eli reached out with Starspace and Stellar Body to reinforce it, hold it together. Shrapnel of Roman’s will and desires flooded their reality, into him.
Foreign emotions, wishes, and dreams invaded Eli’s mind. His soul. Tears rolled down Eli’s cheeks.
Happiness, Eli watched himself bounce through the air with Body of Light. Beams blitzed into spawn from Delver’s Dive. He smiled, even as melancholy threatened to wrench his heart in two. Theo and Cyrus would have loved this. Hell, Scott would have too. With all them here, it would be exactly like old times.
Bitterness, a portal to home yawned above the fruits of his labor. It had taken hours, days of research and fiddling with unfamiliar schematics and diagrams to get this far. He had spent countless conversations with professors and other students in the College of Engineering to reach this point. All while pretending to be someone else.
Anger, after all of that, it had taken Eli a handful of minutes to pop out a gateway home. Completely invalidating all his hard work. Now that he threw a fit, his thoughts and feelings suddenly mattered? Rage, why did it take this long for his supposed best friend to notice? To care? All the while, Theo and Cyrus fended for themselves?
Frustration, Scott wouldn’t have done this. He—
Hope, Eli noticed. Paid attention at last, and they were finally going home. It wasn’t too late, was it?
Barbed emotions flickered past one after the other. Each one shredded bits and pieces of Eli’s identity.
Eli blinked—
Roman laughed.
He felt incredible as his Cognitive Beacon kicked further into gear. Power danced all around him as his brainwaves synced with his multitudes of machines inside the beacon.
Reins of his will extended into everything. From the matter of the air he breathed, the ground he stood on, down to the threads and fiber of his clothes.
All of it bucked against him. His dominance.
Dream opened up to him.
Worlds, both distant and near, beckoned to him as he dreamed up new capabilities. Space sung to him in sweet, melodious tunes as he extended himself to his utmost range. He breathed and dreamed that he was a planet, a sun, a solar system, a galaxy unto himself.
Roman thought of Scott. Within a nanosecond, knowledge transferred from Dream, to his Cognitive Beacon, to his data centers underneath his chassis.
Gaps and blanks of Roman’s experiences and understanding filled as information trickled into his mind. Scott stalked the urban graveyard of a city Roman had never seen, but still recognized. Only one city on the cusp of the future, had mega-structures the size of a regular city’s blocks.
Anhedonia Prime.
He watched as Scott draped himself in gloom and toxic shadows. Skipped through a crowd of looming monstrosities of wrought iron and buffed steel. Arrows of malevolent night bristled from his skin and aimed at each of his foes.
Scott snapped his fingers.
Simultaneous impacts slammed into the unknown spawn’s neck. Bubbling streams melted from each arrow, dissolving the metal armor leaving exposed blue skin. They roared in agony—
Scott launched himself toward the closest giant. He shot forward in a blur as a midnight scimitar sprouted from his palm. A kick in the air rebounded him toward the nape of his target.
It pivoted. Air whooshed as its open palm sailed toward Scott–
A woman of flames ignited into existence, intercepting the blow. Strands of her burning hair lashed into the giant like whips. It stumbled while she swirled, a dress of embers flared out.
Scott leaped and struck out with his sword again. Its head rolled free of its neck in a cloud of foul vapor. He kicked off the air while the woman of fire harassed and burned the rest of them.
Scott blurred back and forth in a matter of moments. No matter how the giants flailed or roared, he decapitated them all with a swing of his sword. Funeral pyres for their deceased foes went up in an inferno within seconds.
Roman smiled.
He marshaled his mastery over Dream and his dominion over space. A portal sputtered to life. Distorted reflections of Roman, Scott, Eli, and all the residents he recognized of Farbrook mixed with those of Anhedonia Prime.
Rigorous measurements of everyday life turned meaningless. Summer’s balmy temperature chilled to Roman’s exact preference at sixty-seven degrees. His stomach flipped with the impossible feeling that he could run into the sunset as fast as he possibly could.
Distance became suggestive. Roman stepped forward, and in accordance to his will, everyone else did within his radius. Glitches buzzed across the length of his Cognitive Beacon.
Rapid-fire beeps squawked. Pressure clamped around the Cognitive Beacon as dents folded the plating. Everything teetered on the edge of objective fact and abstract whims.
That’s not ideal, Roman thought as he reached out with Anatomical Engine to diagnose its malfunction. Before he could begin to comprehend the mess of overheated wires and circuitry—
It fell apart.
Reality tore beneath his grasp as his attention split from the nascent portal to Anhedonia Prime.
Two voices howled as Roman and Eli’s identities stretched taut, inches apart from separating. Warning messages blazed across both their eyes.
Eli flopped on the ground as if his body were a numb, disembodied thing. Heaving breaths shook his lungs. Yet, he didn’t care about that, or even that Roman had ignored his concerns.
No. He reeled from the vision of Scott. Trembled at how close they were. Eli tugged at the already collapsing portal to pin it in place, to spread it wide open. Starspace wailed against his rusted iron will.
Clots of Roman’s Dream stuck against his power, fuzzed his mind. Just like him, Space refused to be contained or oppressed by Dream. It snapped shut on, and around, Eli like a bear trap. Cosmic teeth gnashed on his nerves and on his connection to the System.
Essence bled from him as Eli spasmed. He felt Roman’s joy crash along with the portal as his device malfunctioned further. Bolts and rivets popped loose with a clang.
The once smooth, polished chrome of the chassis folded in on itself like an elegant marvel of origami. Before a massive pudgy hand crumpled it in between its palms.
Crimson bled from the scrapped machine. Golden sunlight boiled. Azure skies hissed.
Click.
Vibrancy rumbled back into the world with a thunderclap of color as the world returned to normalcy. A humming whine droned in Eli’s ears.
Eli pushed his hands flat against the blasted road. Debris crunched against his skin as he tried to sit up. Nausea strummed his gut like a violin. He threw up.
“Hello? Eli?” Roman coughed. Rocks clattered to his right as his friend crawled out from under a mound of rubble. “Are you there?”
“I’m here.” Eli’s hands trembled. He shimmied his knees out from under him and pushed. Muscles weak and human screamed beneath the stifling gag of Stellar Body. “I don’t feel very good.”
“Me neither.” Roman climbed to his own feet with a groan. “I’m sorry, that really backfired.”
“I told you to stop. Why didn’t you listen?” Eli pushed against his powers, and his system. None of the tidy structure and neatness remained. “Fuck! Goddamn it, Roman!”
“What?”
“Do your powers work?” Eli shoved at the mangled block of Starspace Nexus. Space rustled around his tattered spatial field. Ringing pealed against his eardrums while he swayed.
“Uh, let me see.” Roman pointed at a rock. It slowly honed itself into a glowing knife. He blanched, then spewed out a tide of vomit. “Not very well. It’s similar, but different?”
Eli tried to use Starspace Nexus again. Bells rang as error messages flashed in front of his eyes.
Processing local backup… ERROR Processing cloud backup… ERROR> “Fuck!” Eli straightened to his full height with a full bodied roar. Vibrations thrummed in his chest. Space didn’t bend or twist under his will, it heeded it. Roman vanished from where he stood a few feet away. Without even thinking about it, Eli reached out and squeezed his hand. Roman appeared with his shirt knotted up in Eli’s fist. His eyes widened. Reality snapped. Eli flew back as an unstoppable battering ram of raw fear hurled him away. Roman grew as his body blurred into an indistinct, surreal painting of a towering mech. Space stabilized Eli as if it were the natural response for it to do. Only bits and pieces of his other powers answered his call. Stellar Body thrummed inside of him, but it felt strange. Different. As if it were just his body and no longer Stellar Body. Countless limiters and safeguards were gone for all his powers. His unflinching focus on what celestial aspect he embodied was gone. Eli had never felt so strong and weak at the same time. When he breathed, his ribs seemed to crack from the force if he wasn’t careful. Radiant wisps of aurora crackled around his arm with a blinding boom that rattled his bones. Burns sizzled as. Pain drilled into his nerves while he waited for the wound to heal. Once he intended it, his powers complied. Echoes of Profound Erudition whispered to him despite the garbled static of the error messages. He ignored it out easily. For the first time since this whole mess began, he felt present and in control. Eli took a step forward and skated through space in an unintentional teleport. Roman collapsed to his knees, flesh and blood again. “What the hell? I feel strange as fuck.” “Same. I like it though.” Eli searched his inner depths with a smile. Energy roiled inside of him in chaotic tumble. A tempest that churned against the cracked, crumbling dam of the System’s influence. This had to be his essence. He liked it. All his natural power without artificial levels or bullshit. Just him and his own powers. Eli couldn’t wait to make his first attempt at building his own power from the ground up without worrying about perks or other powers he could merge. “I don’t. I feel like shit. None of my powers are working right.” Roman examined his hands as mottled patterns of metal slid across his skin. “Should we get Scott?” Eli thought of making a portal— Despite the distance, one spun open with a crack behind them. Sparks hissed along its rim as the tunnel widened. Gaps shifted open or close as his concentration strayed. Eli grunted. Apparently there were cons to losing the System’s assistance too. Hopefully, that would be the main one. He didn’t know if he could go back beneath its rules. Even with his powers broken and scrambled, he felt free. The System called his power Starspace Nexus. But to him? It was now just Eli’s natural prowess with space. A natural extension of himself, and his right. “Never mind Roman, thank you.” Eli clapped him on the back as he focused on keeping the portal safely open. “Let’s do this.” “I mean, okay. I don’t know how I feel about this with our powers all fucked up.” “Just focus and you’ll be fine. It’s just like playing an FPS without aim assist on.” Eli shrugged as he led them through. “But you never played without them on!” The portal snapped shut behind them as they vanished from the west coast and appeared across the entirety of the United States on the east coast in Anhedonia Prime.