Chapter 10 – Life 4 – Year 112 – The Harmonium

At 16 years old, all children of the Harmonium needed to have their Affinities tested. We had limited space (a decent amount, but finite), so we were forced to kick off anyone who didn’t have a strong one. We were at the forefront of scientific study, and everyone who joined us had to acknowledge that it was a privilege, not a right.

Most people in the outside world didn’t even know that people could have multiple possible Affinities, or that they could have different strengths. Sometimes people didn’t even wield their strongest one, a terrible loss of potential. Not to mention the inefficiency of people breeding together willy-nilly, when Affinities were fucking hereditary! Not 100% of the time, no. Sometimes things went off-kilter in whatever magical way they did, but if you married a high-Affinity Water Generator with an equivalent Absorber, you would be hard-pressed to get a kid WITHOUT Water Affinity.

The details of what separated Generators from Absorbers, or why the children of two Generators or two Absorbers would be found *incredibly* lacking in power, were unknown. Studies were ongoing, my parents told me. They had been for decades, and only recently had they been refined to the point we have now. Science was a process, that was more-or-less the motto of Harmonium. Well, the *official* motto was about the harmony of the 6 elements, but only kiss-asses said the whole thing.

I had to deal with a lot of kiss-asses, being the son of the two highest Water Affinities recorded. Both of them were themselves children of the Harmonium’s water purification mages, so naturally they were paired together by the Caretaker. Even better, they got along well, as opposite-Alignment individuals tended to. But since I learned to speak, I was told by damn near everyone how I was destined for good things. Water was obviously an important part of a floating city, after all.

They say in the early days the Harmonium was some big leisure vessel meant for a constant rotating cast of hapless tourists. Then the Apocalypse came and someone with a spyglass made the notable discovery that none of the crystals fell into the ocean. Coastlines, yes, but deep water had no monsters besides those that decided to migrate. Which wasn’t nothing, and the aquatic mutants were no slouches either, but those poor wretches stuck on land had it much worse than we did by all accounts.

That was only true if we made sure to travel, though. Staying in one place for too long had invited trouble from nearby coastlines so often, it was eventually declared that we needed to stay in motion at all times. Our fleet of secondary vessels, both the official ones and the ones that just leech off our safe zone, got us any supplies we needed from the shores. Which was increasingly little, we were truly on our way to becoming self-sufficient.

Water Generators to make mostly-potable water, Water Absorbers to get it fully fit for human consumption. Earth Generators for fresh farmland, Earth Absorbers to keep the land fertilized. Fire Affinitied to keep the boilers, and therefore propellors, working at full speed. Metal Affinitied to build and repair our fleet. Air Affinitied to run the submersible hunter-killer division and their pneumatically fired missiles. Everyone was working in harmony, just as the Founders had laid out. And today was the day I would officially become part of it.

Testing me wasn’t *just* a formality, there was always the chance that I had a random, super-high affinity in something like Air. That was just how things worked, sometimes. But I had been trained in the motions of water processing from a young age, I highly doubted I would go into anything but that.

Affinity Testing was a relatively simple process, pioneered around a decade ago by the Caretaker at the time. Simply put, she wondered how the electrical components built in the last age were completely nonfunctional, but our minds’ electric signals still functioned perfectly. That question led her down some very fruitful paths of discovery.

The infamous Apocalypse changed more than the night sky, even more than our technology. It changed our very nature. Carefully trained Metal Affinitied did experiments that showed that even simple experiments, like rotating magnets around a copper coil, did not generate proper electricity. Our minds, of course, used a more complex electroCHEMICAL process, but later experiments proved that even these chemicals reacted differently than recorded, if at all.

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The results of her work were controversial, but her methodology was sound and reproduced by even her detractors. Science was a process, and that process had led to some strange places. The leading theory was that everything, every object, all energies, every *atom* had been replaced by its Affinity counterpart. The theory mostly explained why some, more complicated physical processes failed, while others, like combustion, now worked exceptionally well.

It did, of course, beg some questions. Our vessel’s steam power, for example, should not work, seeing as no Water Affinitied had shown power over steam. Eldfjallaborg, the volcanic city in the place once known as Iceland, had allowed us to do some experiments proving that neither Fire Affinitied NOR Earth Affinitied could directly control the magma they redirected for warmth. Only the deep earthen channels they dug kept their city from burning. Possibly more than that, but they were a little hesitant to share all their secrets, according to the report.

There were rumors, or at least rumors of rumors, that combined Affinities were possible. That would solve the theory’s main problem neatly. I hadn’t heard of any studies in that field, which only told me that the Harmonium’s most trusted researchers were keeping their results private for now. The sad truth, my parents had taught me, was that knowledge was power, and power given out indiscriminately was dangerous. Combined Affinities would be confirmed or denied in due course.

Where the Affinity-Conversion theory held strong was that human minds and bodies had been altered to function on Affinity-based principles. What principles, exactly? Still being figured out. But an early success was the experiment of creating an amount of a pure element, granting it direct skin contact with a young test subject, and measuring their heart rate with a simple stethoscope. Why human hearts were required to beat if we were all made of some mystical essence was, again, still being figured out.

But almost without fail, if a person currently unaligned to an element picked the element that made their heart beat the fastest, they could successfully use it. This replaced the far, far weaker test of having the subject look at the Moons and self-report their mental state.

To test for Absorption, the test-ee simply had to try and absorb the element through their skin. If that failed, then they were sent on one of the support ships to kill monsters at the first opportunity. The lack of capable Generators was one of the main things holding us back from true self-sufficiency right now. We hadn’t found any way to increase their power without a monster dying within a few meters of their person.

The way the test was measured was quite simple. First, the subject relaxed for 10 minutes while their average heartbeats-per-minute was recorded. Then, a Generator handed them a newly made Earth clump, Metal bar, a bowl of Water, a light breeze of Wind, and finally… well, Fire was a little different, an aquatic snake had been bred to produce numbing venom, such that the Fire wouldn’t actually hurt the subject.

The beats-per-minute above the average was considered the Affinity Grade of the subject. 7 was the minimum to actually use the element. 12 in your chosen element was the minimum to remain on the Harmonium. My father was a Generator with Water-16, and my mother was an Absorber with a record-breaking Water-18! The only person currently onboard the Harmonium with Water-17 was a man who was also an Absorber, so she was paired with my father instead. That’s why I figured my Water level was at least-

“Water ELEVEN?” I said incredulously to the tester, an older woman who had probably tested my parents in the same way. She nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so, young man. I double-checked myself, considering who your bloodline came from. I suppose… sometimes the Affinities can be unpredictable…”

This didn’t make sense! “How about the other Affinities, then? Air? Earth? Metal? …Fire?” “Thirteen across the board, it seems, pretty rare. Enough to remain on the Harmonium, so don’t worry about that. It’s a respectable amount, no matter what they say.” No, this couldn’t be happening. Every Grade was increasingly hard to get, but it also determined your ranking on the fleet. 13 in everything but Water meant that I could, technically, choose my vocation, something many didn’t get the chance to do. But the thirteens were only allowed on the lower decks at best, only slightly better than the twelves, who had to stay on the subordinate fleet.

My parents worked exclusively on the higher decks. I would likely never see them again. I… why was it happening this way? They did everything right, I did everything right! It… it wasn’t fair! My mother came into the testing room. Just my mother. My father had probably already left. The look of pity on her face made me ache inside. She went to give me a hug, but I was having none of it. I had been raised for great things! I had been PROMISED great things! Why the fuck did the Affinities betray me now?! Everyone was looking at me and I hated it! I just wanted them to GO AWAY!

That’s when I felt something *twist* inside me. Then something felt… strangely good. Better than I had ever felt, honestly. Had I absorbed one of the testing elements by accident? I hadn’t heard it felt this good… perhaps my affinity was higher than they thought? That could-

Then I realized people were screaming. Screaming and running away. What had happened? Then I saw a shriveled corpse on the ground. One that wore my mother’s clothing.