Sun was shining on the central square. Other than missing cobblestones, charred wall of one of the buildings and some missing windows, there was no evidence that eleven people lost their lives there only three days before.
In the square’s center was hovering the Program’s light bulb. On it, a timer was counting. Just a simple circle, filling itself, not caring about the people around it. It ignored the four PA units, two hundred soldiers, police squads, politicians, reporters and townspeople. There were no barricades anymore to stop people. Despite that, many of them changed their minds and decided not to come.
Even with hundreds of armed officers around them, the people at the square felt insecure.
Darius felt only apathy. As he stood with his unit in organized formation with his hands behind his back, he didn’t feel nervous or expectant, just blank. The silence was being mostly broken by C and D units, their members whispering to each other from time to time.
Next to Darius, Lena was slowly playing with a ring on her finger. The eye patch on her right eye was of a simple design, just black without any ornaments. She attempted to make a few jokes about it, but both Darius on her right and Adrian on her left side knew that she was shaken.
The silence was broken for a while.
“The automated baptism will start soon. More detailed explanation will be provided after its completition,” announced Program.
The silence returned.
Darius thought yet again why they needed to defend the square previously.
‘To find any risks that the baptism held before civilians could be harmed. Well, the people would need to undergo baptism even if they didn’t want to, so that was a bit pointless, if not counting information the military got from experiments and passed to the media. ‘
‘Saving the citizen’s lives by making the baptism organized so the crowd would not trample anyone down and kill each other to be the first to go through baptism? Yes, this was important, but wasn’t there a way to prevent it from happening? Is it really impossible to calm people, even when we explain what we want to do and why? Do they trust us so little?‘ he thought bitterly.
‘If it wasn’t such a chaos. We would be much more organized. We would notice the two dead security guards. And the police could have had so much more people if they didn’t have to fight at the barricades, security would not be so light, the guards would be alive and the murderer caught.‘
Darius snorted.
‘But whatever. I am just an assistant, how could I know something about it. I will need to go on the internet and ask the experts how it really was. Seriously, it makes me angry to even hear about the things people say. Some claim it was our failure, which is partly true, but they are not the ones who should talk about it. Some even say that we helped to assassinate the mayor. I feel… disappointed.“
“Please be prepared. The automatic baptism of all living beings not yet baptised will start now, based on the familiarity with each focus.”
‘Now, this could be quite confusing mister Program. Some examples would be helpful.’
“For Body, maybe if you do workout or something,” commented Adrian, as if reading Darius’s thoughts.
“Then what about Control? “ said Lena
“No idea about that one. Playing with pets could be for Companion,” muttered Darius and wished his family would get what they wanted. As many other citizens, they decided not to visit the square. Still, more than 35 000 people did.
“Hold the formation,” commanded vice captain from the front. Although he was the first to spot the murderer and nearly saved the helicopter, he only got a few pats from his friends saying that he did what he could. Ironic.
A few minutes later.
“The automated baptism has been completed. We apologize for not providing information on focuses before your baptism. We want to share only basic information about them and we want you to explore the depths of focuses and energy on your own. If we provided the basic information on focuses, there is a high chance that our description may mislead you.”
“Instead, we decided to give you a choice. If you used the mark, you made your choice even if it may not be your best one. If you choose not to use it, we took your choice into our hands but in exchange we gave you the focus that suits you the most, taking into account all of the hidden features of focuses.”
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Darius only blinked.
‘Woah, this Program takes it really seriously although I am not sure if what he is saying is really true..’
“Proceeding with more detailed explanation.”
The square turned silent. A laughter, crying and shouts could be heard coming from the city.
“First comes Body. The energy you gain will focus inwards. You may choose how much energy you are willing to spend on which body parts, organs included. The Body energy won’t be able to exit body and will be stopped by your skin or scale or feathers or other outer body parts. It is possible to gain higher strength. Limited growth. Higher flexibility. More sensitive senses. Regeneration. Hardness. Others. Gaining one will not lock gaining others. You are only limited by your energy. Secondary effects possible. Proceed with caution.“
‘Yeah, seems dangerous but prolonged life, who doesn’t want that one.’
“Second comes Companion. Your companion will grow and heal from your energy. It is impossible for the companion to be destroyed while you live. The form of your companion will be chosen by you, until then it will be formless energy with little to none usefulness.“
“To choose form for your companion, certain requirements are needed to be met. Sufficient energy in your baseless companion. Certain knowledge about the form you are choosing. It is advised to copy a form of another living being. It is advised to let the baseless companion enter the body of chosen being. The being does not need to be alive. It’s form mustn’t be damaged heavily. It is possible to store your companion into the mark on your body made by baptism. It is not possible to store your companion in your body except from the mark. You will need to discover further functions on your own.”
‘I see. I really wanted to be able to have wolf companion, seems like it should be possible. But it says nothing about communication with the companion or if it is intelligent. I tried to manifest something from my neck for days but nothing came out, not even the baseless form. Probably missing the energy thing.’
“Last comes Control. You will spend your energy on commanding energies with specific properties. Consumption of the energy will be based on the distance of controlled energies to your body. Another factors will be your experience in controlling said energy and your connection to it. Imbuing your energy into items is possible, but the energy will be slowly depleted. The ratio of depletion depends on the properties of said item and your skills.
‘Now this seems kind of overpowered. They are able to cast magic and enchant at the same time. Or maybe it will be more like runes? Interesting.’
“Now, what is the Energy? You may call it Fuel for your focuses. There is an abundance of it in space, but your planet has been reflecting it away. Until now. We made some changes to the planet’s core and instead of pushing the energy away it will pull, bringing the energy to you too.”
‘They were messing with the core? Crazy. And dangerous. But well, kind of expected something like this from the Program..’
“From now on, your planet will attract the energy from its surrounding. The energy will be absorbed by everything. Be it air, water, earth, plants, animals, humans. There are many ways to harvest energy more efficiently.“
“Living beings will be able to absorb the energy from the nonliving, in most cases. It is possible to absorb energy from the dead when in physical contact. Locations with less living beings will have more stored energy. The general level of energy on this planet will raise with time. It is possible for living beings to raise the range in which they absorb energy from nonliving.”
“Everything already has a maximum capacity of stored energy. This capacity may be raised, but only when fully filled. This process is very slow in comparison with regenerating the missing energy when your capacity is not filled. It is possible to raise the rate of regeneration. “
“The light marks have many functions other than baptism. Please explore on your own.”
“When sufficient energy is reached, it is possible to gain a second and third focus. Please train hard.”
“Further information will be provided after at least one individual reaches one of current limitations.”
With that, the Program ended it’s announcement. Well, in the current language. But Darius and others stopped paying attention to it.
The PA units held a small discussion, where they summarised the new information. The talk was mostly done by lecturers, but the assistants got the chance to speak in case they found something interesting in between the lines of Program’s announcement.
To Darius’s surprise, Adrian asked an interesting fact.
“Is there more energy in water or air?”
The question was noted. Then there was some talking about compressing the energy, edibility of food with high concentration of energy, breathing air with too much energy, spending energy in Body focus on brain,…
After that, the PA B unit went to their camp to finally get some rest. Darius exited the meeting full of thoughts and with one clear fact. Overpopulated cities are the worst for gaining energy.
When the evening came, Darius phoned his family, talked to them for half an hour and eased their worries about him. After he finally managed to convince his mother that he is healthy and uninjured, he had a long talk with father about his his future and plans.
Father listened to him calmly and asked Darius about his reasons for what he was going to do. Then he wished him a success and good night.
“It would be nice if you managed to visit us when the Christmas Eve comes,” he said and ended the call.
Darius was happy that father understood him and didn’t try to persuade him otherwise. He went downstairs, slowly, thinking.
‘I want to gain the energy, as everyone does, but I can do it while I work if I succeed in this. And honestly..’
Darius stopped.
‘And I need to get myself together. Not only did I spend my whole life in this city, but now.. It would be better not to get into contact with the people too much. My first big job and this is how it destroys my psyche.”
Darius shook his head.
‘It feels kind of like running away. And Lena must have it so much worse.’
He went to the vice captain’s office and waited before the doors, thinking.
‘Two three months away and then back. If he agrees. Well it would be quite embarrassing if I failed and the others would hear about it. Do I really need to do this? No. This is my decision, and it is not without reasoning. It’s no use not just think about it. I already started so lets see how it goes.’
Darius knocked.
“Come in.”
“Good evening, sir,” said Darius and automatically closed the door behind himself after entering.
“Do you need something?” asked vice captain, quickly seeing he was not there to report. Darius felt that both his mind and character were sharp. Sometimes scary. But if sometimes in the future Darius managed to be at least a little like the vice captain, he would feel that his efforts were not in vain.
“Yes sir. I would like to be transferred from PA to units working outside of the city.”
Vice captain showed a small grin.