The moment my hand plunged into the depths of the silver liquid I was sending forth my mind's own tendrils. Something jolted through me then, not electricity, but something similar, an energy that warily interacted with mind. It felt like possibilities, raw and undirected, the mass of matter energy begging to be shaped, converted into something, anything.
Carefully, I extruded my intent from the shaping of whatever was going on here, feeling another mind at work in the background. It was weak, so much so that it didn’t even register my presence. It was working on instinct, the shaping of a biotic core the only thing it was intended to do.
I felt my heart hammer in my ears as I watched, felt, and recorded everything that was going on. If it were possible to create these things, then suddenly our capacity to gain Matter Energy became unlimited. Blood rushed through my body with exhilaration as I considered the implications of what I was witnessing.
But, as I watched the process, annoyance replaced my excitement. For as much as I was seeing, this was just the surface. The core itself was being generated in part off of a template, but none of the information was anything that I could understand. It was as though I was looking at a fundamentally different language, the fabric of the construct beyond my understanding. It was one thing to try to emulate this, but the only thing here was the raw information, not the how, none of the background programming.
Still, I persisted in my endeavor, pausing only long enough to send a message to Jeremy that I was in the pen and examining the biotic, and to make sure no one disturbed me. From then, I was transfixed.
Spindles of data came from the weak consciousness of the biotic, and gradually I parsed through meaning. It came slowly, likely from the fact that this Carrier was likely near dead, and that gave me ample time to affix the information in my own mind as it went. My computer brain was capable of processing a massive amount of input at once, but even these bursts took everything I had to memorize and attempt to understand in the moment.
Moreover, I was analyzing how the forming core responded to each input, registering and copying them down. If I couldn’t understand from just looking at it, then obviously the only other thing I could do was see their effect, try to understand based on conditions. It was, as one might imagine, insanely difficult. If I didn’t have the cognitive ability I did, I’d wager that it would be impossible, or at least titanically difficult.
Learning a language like this would be intense, as though you were just parsing the circumstances to what was being stated, but only getting the same phrase occasionally. I’d lost track of time entirely there, a state of absolute focus that locked myself in my own mind.
Finally, I parsed something out of the effect, the gestalt sum of parts that I’d analyzed granting me a single sliver of information.
‘Creation’ was what that data was related to, the biotic that it would generate being the template beyond that.
That piece of information snapped into place, a waysign in the convoluted darkness. From there, I began to structure more information around it, guesstimating and replacing as I went. There were many things that I couldn’t be quite sure of without testing, and testing would be risky, given this was potentially not something that would happen just at any time. The possibility existed that the other Carriers weren’t going to be capable of generating cores.
But, the potential benefits outweigh the risks. If I couldn’t figure out what the values were behind generating a core on our own, or the mechanisms that allowed it to come together, then I’d at least try to profit as much as possible off of this one.
I forced my will upon the core, altering strands of data as it sat, careful only to modify values, not traits. I only knew so many ‘words’ to use in the cores, for all I knew any other modification might make them explode upon creation.
I estimated size, armor thickness, and overall power of muscular tissue. As I did so, there was another value that changed, some kind of data cluster that contained the sum of the biotics information, just under the hierarchy of ‘Creation’ in the whirling pool that gradually stratified itself.
Perhaps that was the Matter Energy for each Carrier?
I’d test that later, but for now I wanted something that could spawn fairly quickly, but was overall too weak to pose any threat at all. If a Unique was spawned from these, I absolutely doubted that it would be much of a problem.
There was, however, one portion that I did take the risk to remove. It was a strange collection of data, much more complex than the parts I’d been working with. By removing it, the M.E. sum of the creature plummeted.
Either I just removed it’s insides, or I might have gotten rid of the capacity for it to hatch Spindlies. Not sure.
‘I’m playing God right now,’ I thought with sudden shock, taking a step back mentally and really looking at the nearly finished schematic. ‘I’m playing God, and I don’t even feel the slightest thing towards the creatures that are going to be made weak and feeble because of me.’
An uncomfortable feeling settled on my shoulders at that, but I had to shrug it off. We weren’t in a position so great as to let such opportunities slip by us. Perhaps in the far future when we were off harvesting asteroids for our material needs, we could put things like this in our past. But for now, that wasn’t an option. If anything, I would need to push harder, more, bend these biotics to my needs whenever possible.
‘I recall a figure in Our memory,’ Wolvy piped in, ‘are we Frankenstein?’
I laughed at that, ‘perhaps. We’re closer to being that than we are to not being that, at the very least.’
‘He seemed great, created something that-oh.’ Wolvy paused, ‘Our creation won’t lead to our death, though.’
‘Well, let’s hope not.’ I murmured mentally, and then felt Wolvy examine the construct.
It hummed thoughtfully, ‘We can work out a better one in the future. This is acceptable, for a… yes, a cow. That sounds right.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I thought curiously.
‘A cow, domesticated tasty-fat-meat,’ Wolvy nodded sagely to itself, ‘succulent. This will be somewhat close, I think.’
I felt a tremor of consternation roll through me. ‘Wolvy, did you just let me waste like three hours on learning a language you already knew?’
‘Uh…’ It paused, sensing the loaded question, ‘I don’t know all of the language, the Us is the source of much of our understanding. I have-yes, that’s it, just another point of view!’
I could feel it shuffling abashedly in the back of my mind as I huffed, ‘So, to be clear, you don’t actually know what this will be?’
Wolvy said nothing for a while, but then, as I was beginning to feel my irritation spike again, it warily answered, ‘I can guess, but it’s not a guarantee. This is what this point of view sees.’
A deluge of information crossed over to my awareness, and I noted what Wolvy mentioned. It wasn’t as though there were any distinct answers, it’s own understanding exactly the same as my own. However, it noticed patterns and trends that I hadn’t, and now that I saw what it was referring too, it almost seemed like it couldn’t not have the expected outcome.
‘Curious… How are our perceptions so different?’ I mulled that over, sharing my own perception of it. I could feel Wolvy likewise surprised.
After a few minutes, neither of us could come up with a real answer, aside from the possibility that we were two minds in one, and yet could still exist in the same space. The topic did, however, come up that either I was actually Wolven and was insane and conjuring Matthew Reaper as a split personality, or vice versa.
We promised to never talking about that possibility again.
Finally, the trick of information coming from the biotic ceased, and as we allow our awareness to seep back into reality, I was treated to a surprising sight. The silvery murk of the core in front of me had condensed fully into a hive core, black and silver intertwining with speckles of shock white within. I moved, feeling my bones crackle, muscles protesting the prolonged state of motionlessness.
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“Hey, he’s moving again!” I heard someone shout on top of the wall, “Hey, Reaper, you doin’ okay down there?”
I looked up, seeing several people that I recognized from somewhere. It took a moment, but I realized that half of them were Legion, but the other half were from Alex’s group.
As I stretched, an extremely audible series of pops and snaps resounded from my body, tension releasing, “Oof. Yeah, I’m fine. How long was I down?”
The man shivered at the sounds, “Like, twelve hours, I think. No, thirteen as of four minutes ago,” he said as he checked his watch, “they were sayin’ that they’d come brief you on what’s been going on as soon as you were done.”
I nodded, “Sounds good.” At that, I clambered over the now decaying body of the Carrier. It disintegrated even more quickly than usual, likely due to the fact that the bulk of its own matter energy had gone straight back into the core to create it.
Once I climbed up, I treated myself to a view of the quickly growing city, the mid morning sun overhead. I’d had to have been going through the whole night and not even noticed. Still, it was worth it if we could make that work in the future.
“Reaper!” Jeremy called sitting in the bed of a modified Ogre, “hop in, we’re just getting finished with setting up the area for an Obelisk.”
My eyebrows rose at that, my helmet retracting from my head. I jumped from the wall, landing hard in the bed of the Ogre.
“The fuck do you weigh?” I heard the driver twist, a jolt of shock drawing his attention firmly to me.
I cringed, “Alot, sorry.”
“The bed okay?” He asked, to which I looked down.
“No dents?” I noted, not mentioning the scuffed paint.
“Good, good, I just got this damn thing fixed.” He laughed, “alright, hang in there, we’re moving.”
I settled in across from Jeremy, who was giving me a thoughtful expression, “So, what’ve you been doing for the past half a day?”
With a smile, I replied, “seeing if I can modify what that core is going to produce. We should, if it worked, be getting some much weaker biotics out of it for farming.”
“No shit?” He grinned, “Good, I was afraid that we’d have to acid bath the damn things if we tried to farm them.”
“Any word on the other Carriers?” I asked, idly glancing around. The base had expanded fairly quickly, primary access roads sprouting up rapidly, some of which were already being paved over.
“Yeah, the Reaver’s ran a few bombing runs, blew up their legs and managed to disable their organs. Seeing as you were busy, we decided to have some of our mech crews and such drag ‘em home. They’re in a big-ass dugout right now, all doing the same thing the one you were with was doin’.” He sent some quick updates about a few peripheral things, “those are side projects people are doing. No one has gone into the city too much yet, but we did find more of those crab biotics. They’re sturdy, but not as much as the Carriers. So far we’ve just been borrowing a little acid and just clearing them out. We had the volunteers clear that hive, but we’re holding off on breaking the core to see what you wanna do with it.”
“Good work,” I said honestly, “I’m surprised we found that so fast. Was it just the one?”
“Yeah, only one. We haven’t found any other biotics around the city though. It’s… ranklin’ my calm a bit.” He frowned, “Gilramore was flooded with the damn things.”
That much was true, but I couldn’t help but suppose a possible reason, “If the Carriers have been moving off in waves to other areas with cores, that would explain why there aren’t many here.”
“Why would they do that, though?” He asked, “it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“I don’t know, yet. But, we’ll see about getting RR&D out here, see if we can make heads or tails of this.” I turned my attention to the buildings that gradually became larger deeper into the base, the bulk of which were manufacturing hubs. There were a considerable number of fabricators that had sprung up, people busily feeding basic resources into them, and even a few parts for large-scale projects coming together.
The biggest project, though, was in the center of the base. What had been there previously was the armory, but now that had been moved, placing one at the edges of the now larger walls around the outpost. There was still one located nearby, but it wasn’t devoted to the task, something more for emergencies than anything else.
We’d cleared a large area, hexagonal in shape, and there was currently a collection of four cores sitting there.
“Oh, good timing,” Terry called out to us as the truck rolled up, “We were just about to contact Sis, now you get to do the honors!”
I laughed, climbing out of the truck. Behind us, there were several other vehicles showing up, and I imagined a great many others were tuning into one feed or another of the occasion. Even back home in Gilramore, there would likely be people looking in on this moment. There wasn’t any grand event for it, but this potentially the first time this had been done on earth. We might very well be the first humans to reclaim territory.
“Alright, I’ll get in touch with her, give me a second.” I said, walking near where my team was. Alice was back on her feet, and Daniel was allowed out on the condition that he was in a wheelchair to keep from straining his stomach. Fran had a permanently affixed look of amusement at the bashfulness that Daniel kept displaying, insisting that he could walk, but knowing that he was getting nowhere with her.
I pushed my awareness through the gem on the back of my hand. A sense of familiarity spread through me as I touched on the consciousness that was Sis. Now that I had a bit more of a deft hand at this, I noticed something that I hadn’t before. Sis had a massive amount of computing power behind her, at any given moment I wasn’t really looking at her main body, in all the times that I’d seen her. It was similar in a sense to what I had, though while I had tentacles of awareness, she seemed to have offshoots of crystal. At least, that’s what my mind had inserted to make sense of it.
“Matthew?” One of the shards shifted to bring me fully to attention, “What a surprise, what can I help you with?” She cheerily asked, her form shimmering holographically for a second as it seemed to materialize fully.
It was always strange to see how human she appeared, and now I couldn’t tell the difference when she’d fully materialized, even her mannerisms a perfect example of us. Though, she’d always been friendly at the least.
“We’re looking to create a new Obelisk at a location, can you help us out?” I greeted her and cut to the chase.
She hummed thoughtfully, “Of course, you do have a core ready, right?”
“We have four. We wanted to build this one up considerably more than the last one, get maximum coverage and be able to help near areas.” I stated, and then stopped, seeing Sis blank faced as she looked at me.
“I’m sorry, you said-you said you have four ready?” She blinked, “Why is it that you guys seem to just have these things lying around. It’s like pulling teeth when it comes from other groups.” She griped.
‘Here it comes,’ I braced for the tirade that would usually come at this point.
And, not one to disappoint, I listened as Sis ranted about how other groups had begun to convert cores into weaponized platforms, crushing them down into some kind of wonder drugs, and even a case where someone had long ago apparently tried to merge their tissues with it.
I had to wonder if she was glitching again, because that last one sounded genuinely insane. However, it did give me ideas on how to use our extras. When we had any extras, anyways.
“I’m fine now,” she breathed, “honestly, I think because you’re mostly a digital existence it’s so much easier to talk to you. Doesn’t take forever to say things. Biologicals just take so long to say things.”
I nodded at that, “that’s definitely true. It’s really convenient. Like, what, this would have been an hour real-time, but it’s actually a few seconds?”
She nodded sheepishly at that, “Ah, uh, yeah, something like that.” She coughed conspicuously, “anyways, let’s go ahead and get this show on the road! I’ll just access the cores in proximity to you.”
“Oh, wait, only go for the four that are next to each other,” I said quickly, “we have another one that we wanted to keep for testing.”
She arched an eyebrow at that, “another one, huh?”
“We did raid a city region.”
“Fair enough,” she nodded, “well, better get ready, this is gonna be a big one. Oh, good, you have enough space too.”
“Catch you later then, and thanks again.” We parted, my consciousness sinking back to my mind.
Around me, the others were still talking about how large they actually thought the thing was going to be. I smirked, “alright, she’ll be starting any moment now.”
“That was fast,” Terry commented, “more computer brain stuff?”
Fran shot him a dirty look, “you know, that can come off as a bit rude.”
“What? Uh, is it?” He turned to me, “does that bother you.”
I sighed, “no, not when you’re saying it like that. But it doesn’t feel great being distanced from being human.”
He frowned, “huh… didn’t think about that.”
I shook my head, “Anyways, the show’s about to start.”
As we focused on the cores, I found that other groups subtly picked up on our attention. Suddenly conversations tapered off and everyone looked expectantly to the center of the cleared plaza.
A tingle of energy rushed up my arm from the crystal, touching vaguely on my spine. The cores began to glow, and a slow and steady swirl of silver began to seep from each one. That trickle began to speed up, turning into a gout, and then a fountain of matter energy.
It swirled and trembled, flashing and shimmering in the light of the morning sun. It ascended quickly to a narrow tip, only forming a thin rod at first.
Then I heard the crack of each of the four cores, and suddenly there was a flood of matter energy, the mercurial fluid surged upwards with a clap of force. I managed to still myself from flinching away, but many hadn’t. The sudden plume of solid matter from nothing was awe inspiring.
Something else was happening that I hadn’t expected, though, and that was the sound. As the matter energy began to form, settling into its final shape, the air filled with harmonics, resounding for what seemed like miles. It was loud, but not unbearably so, and I could feel it humming in my bones, vibrating my teeth as it settled.
From the base up, it began to swirl and condense, compacting down further and further.
The bottom half of the Obelisk was normal, silvery and white with black stone, but much larger than the previous one had been. The top half, however, was very, very different. The onyx black shined even deeper, as though it swallowed light hungrily and red lights and designs flared across its surface, spiraling upwards in fractals to the very top, where a vibrant red tip resided. It resembled the tip of a spear, if it were made of ruby and shimmered brilliantly in the light, pulsing with its own radiance as it did so. The entire structure was huge, far and above what anything Damond or Gilramore had as far as buildings in height.
There was an air of awe and reverence at the sight, and a moment later, each of us heard Sis’ voice.
[To the Legion, for humanity. May you ever prosper, move forward, and never forget.] She said simply, and each of us found our eyes drew to the sizzling noise as those same words carved in red along the base on each side of the new Obelisk.
I felt pride and emotion surge in my chest. This would be a symbol for us, a reminder of our goal. It was the beginning.