Chapter 41

Movement

(Misha Tulley)

“This just in. A major outbreak of unknown origins has just been released in Hong Kong, London, D.C., and Los Angelas. With so many major cities hit all at once, leaders are thinking this is another super-virus outbreak. For now, the government has instituted an emergency shutdown to quell the outbreak. At this time everyone is advised to stay at home and not leave for any purposes, unless it is an emergency.” The News broadcaster stated, bringing to life news that broke through every major streaming application and social media platform at the same time. Not that many were able to see the message, as at this point the idea of accessing Social Media platforms was considered a luxury that most were unable to take advantage of. Especially with the way everything was going in the world.

Misha watched as Phil, her grandfather, just listened to the News and paused as she saw what she thought was yet another piece of Phil’s resolve slowly fade away.

“I don’t know what the world is coming to.” Phil said.

Misha nodded, realizing that Phil was at that point where he just needed to vent a bit, before things got too sporadic in his mind.

Phil realizing that Misha as usual wasn’t going to speak her mind, was both happy with her and flustered at the fact that he couldn’t rant to her properly. In Phil’s mind, the process should be, he complains, Misha asks why, and then he could go on a whole tirade about why the world sucks. Yet, Misha was far too clever to fall for such an event. As such, he was now forced to deal with the fact that he was going to have to put into words what still made no sense to him.

Finally, after a few moments, Phil just took a deep breath and finally let it out.

“You are doing a good thing by helping out the community while raising money for your team. Your grandmother would have been proud of you. Hell, I’m proud of you, but I know you already know that.” Phil said, his words filled with love.

Hearing that Misha smiled brightly, and actually meant it, when she did smile.

“Well, I’m going to let you get lost in your thoughts. I can see you are distracted.” Phil said, before leaving.

Misha wanted to stop him, to protest, but then realized she had been distant with her own thoughts. Recent events had played a major role in that, but she now realized that her being distracted was obvious to more than just her, as it now impacted her relationship with Phil, something that might not have bothered her as much, if at all, two months ago.

Yet, Misha had a very good reason for her recent distractions, one that she still didn’t quite know how to explain to anyone, even Phil.

The problem begins with the fact that when your mind can go anywhere, touch anything on a widely connected planet, sometimes the noise that is produced from a baby planet such as Earth is overwhelming. This was the great thing about the solar burst event, or at least that is what everyone on Earth is calling the event that brought communications back to basics for a while.

Only once all the noise was down was Misha allowed the chance to pause and think about everything, to slowly build up her tolerance to the world noise that to a Psycher looked and felt like a baby constantly crying for attention.

Now with everything slowly getting brought back online, Misha was slowly able to regain a sense of balance with her connection to the world. The closest equivalent that Misha could come up with was, this was akin to getting into a scorching hot bath, after a certain point it wasn’t that hot. That is how Misha now felt given everything that was going on around her.

This time as things came online, she was far more prepared and capable of dealing with the noise that everything gave off. So many open channels all screaming their secrets, so many different information networks that had data some would kill for, just sitting openly in unprotected vaults. Or at least that is the way the data felt to a Psycher like Misha, and Misha wasn’t even an infiltration expert, she was just a maintainer, one of the lower dregs of the fleet, apparently.

Given the information, Misha was still having a hard time adapting to her own classification and in fact her own workaround. In a way, she had stolen her freedom. She had found keys to a mental prison she and all other Psychers had willingly submitted to and was only now experiencing the full effects of being free. Though, she also realized that in her last death and subsequent resurrection into this vessel that she lost something. At the time she thought it was something important, but looking back on things, that part of her psyche that she lost might have been the very lock that kept her confined to her predetermined existence as a maintainer.

With the last few constricting bands removed from her consciousness, she could now think and feel more clearly, though the difference wasn’t as pronounced as she would have thought such a revelation would be. Honestly, the fact that it didn’t quite bother her was more of a revelation than anything. Though maybe her controls were waning for a while, as the original her, the recruit who first joined the fleet’s maintainer core would have never gone through and shared access codes and controls with anyone. Especially not someone from another group of workers, yet in war time it had made the most sense for her to be able to work quickly and effectively fixing an issue, before it got too big during a war time situation.

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That’s what she had referred to the change, the War Protocol, which meant that in war as long as everyone survived, any sin, like the sharing of passwords, could be forgiven. Particularly if there was a good logical reason for the sharing. Also, with chef Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu knowing that they could and likely should change their password after the mission. At first, they did change their password, but then invariably things went bad again, causing the need for yet another password update, which then ultimately led to another time when work was missed due to protocols.

After a certain number of password resets, Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu just kept their password and logins the same, knowing that it would be easier this way in the future. If Psycher’s don’t eat they die, and if the engineers especially don’t eat, then eventually the whole ship will cease operations and be a drifting target in space.

Ultimately, Misha realized that the first person to break from everything was likely Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu, or his commands were such that the prioritization of maintaining sole access to his accounts was not as much of a priority as his major components of his position as a Chef for the Lesser Evolved Species.

All of these thoughts and more went through her mind as she took in her seemingly unremarkable record for the fleet.

Name: Mala-Su

Current Status: Deceased (No more resurrection vessels allocated)

Position: Maintainer

Classification: Lesser Evolved (Unupgradable)

That was it, nothing about her five hundred years of service as a Chief Maintainer, nothing about her heroics with putting out countless fires that would have destroyed the ship. Nothing about how smoothly the ship sailed under her touch, just her name, position, and what the fleet truly thought of her.

Misha almost wished it hurt, but all she felt was a slight numb sensation to everything. Almost as if everything was happening far away from her, and she was only able to get faint messages of everything.

This was why she threw herself into projects, like fixing the electronics of everyone in the community. Not that she needed money, if she truly needed money there were more than enough ways for her to manipulate the stock market by falsifying records. Records like those being created by at least two other operators who were so sloppy with their work that Misha would find it hard to believe if the inhabitants of this world didn’t identify issues with the noted transactions.

The community project of giving back to the community was also being done for an alternative reason as well, namely Misha wanted to find more evidence about who the two other people in the van were, when her grandmother was killed.

Already, Misha knew that both Rodger and Alishia had been in the van at the time of her grandmother's death. She had also learned about two other key details, thanks to her working with the electronic devices. First, she learned the name, or at least the pseudonym of one of the passengers, a girl who goes by the name of Tricksy. A girl that Misha tracked as being part of the neighboring high school, whose real name is Tricia Reynolds.

The other key fact that Misha had discovered was the fact that Rodger was the one who actually killed her grandmother. While Jerome had been the driver who ultimately started the whole chain of events, it was Rodger who ultimately made the final blow that forever took away any chance that her grandmother had at living.

To Misha this meant that the fate in store for Rodger would have to be the most violent. That he would need to feel the pain and anguish in his very soul, pain so profound that he would pause and hesitate when offered the chance at rebirth. That was the pain that only a Psycher could inflict, and something that Misha knew she would need to prepare for, if she wanted to make sure justice was served.

For now, she decided to take her time, to set everything up, so that ultimately justice would be served.

Besides currently Misha realized that she was not alone here. That there were not one but two other Psychers running wild on the planet. At first, she felt it would have been part of her directive to go out and facilitate communications with the two of them, to offer up her services.

But it was that last part that caused her to pause and hesitate for the moment. Even feeling the lingering impulse to make contact, and to supplicate herself made her inwardly cringe. That was the old Misha, no that was never Misha, that was the now deceased Mala-Su, someone similar to but entirely different from Misha Tulley.

Also, having just watched the two in action on the electronic backbone of the planet, it was clear that both were up to something. One was in communications with an organization who at best could be described as terrorists. That one was already putting their status as a munitions expert to good use.

As for the second one, they were far more covert in their overarching goals. While it was clear that they wanted to make a lot of money quickly, figuring out their intentions was a lot tougher to ultimately deduce. For now, Misha decided to sit back and wait, and continue to evolve the strength of this form she had been given by improving her status as a Reaper. With so many people coming through, finding and resetting all of those infected with Bakshee variants became a game to Misha.

Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.

Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.

Improved Harvesting (2)

Physical Characteristics:

Strength: 14.9 / 14.9 (Max)

Dexterity: 20 / 20 (Max)

Agility: 20 / 20 (Max)

Stamina: 14.9 / 14.9 (Max)

With all of Misha’s Attributes maxed out, she had one of two options. The first was that she could jump up to Tier II of her Alternate-1 Speed Build, or she could expand outwards and become adept at many things that the other branches offer. Things that would no doubt detract from her mission objective of becoming the best Reaper possible.

In her mind, Misha wondered if this is what happened to the original ReaperOne, they clearly had more time and were no doubt more powerful than her. So logically to Misha, the only reason for the downgraded ranking was that they saw the old ReaperOne, who has since been downgraded to ReaperTwo branched out, thereby diluting their overall capabilities as a Reaper.

While this was only a theory, it was the best theory that Misha had about why there was a sudden status change.

With everything finally laid out before her, Misha paused realizing that if she pushed forward worried about her status as a Reaper, then she would be playing the exact same political maneuvering games with the Bakshee that she had while as a Psycher.

Looking back, she wondered if she had somehow failed some inherent or implied tasks for the Bakshee that made her a second-class citizen, one who was considered expendable in the event of a complete loss of the ship.

Realizing the ramifications of her future likely lay within this next choice of where she would grow, either out and gain more abilities from the other Bakshee classes, that of the Warrior, Worker, or the Rulers, or would she expand up and ultimately see what lay in wait for her as a Tier II Reaper.

Pausing for only a moment, Misha analyzed all the data presented to her, twice, then made her decision.