Revenant is tired.
He is just so very tired.
Literally, his entire life goal right now is to get off this rock before the Explorers Guild nukes the entire system and… honestly, he isn’t quite sure as to what he’s going to do next. It’s a work in progress.
But no. Life just has to get more and more complicated.
“What are the chances of us getting burned on a stake by the first ethnopolity we visit?” Revenant asks Humility, their only source of knowledge about modern life.
“Actually lower than you expect.” The AI surprises him. “First of all, most of the ethnopolities don’t keep genetic records dating back to the times of the War of Purity. Only the older and more established have those. Unless you show up at one of them, you can expect people to realize that you’re genetically odd, but without the ‘Pure’ term being thrown around. Especially with a good cover story.”
“That still kind of sucks.” Revenant decides. He can see a few people - especially Virtue - are in agreement with him. “We’d have to live in permanent fear that we’re going to be outed. And good luck having children with all of that looming over their heads.”
“You can as well just not hide it.” Humility replies.
…
“Wait, that was an option?” Surprisingly enough, it’s Virtue that speaks before Revenant can. Then again, with her degree of Pure genes, it shouldn’t be that surprising.
“Look, the image of the modern Humanity that you’ve been getting thus far has been mostly the bad stuff. Due to the sort of people we are encountering in this hell maze.” Humility replies. “To be fair, I’d say that technology did make bad things worse… but it also made good things better. I can list you at least five thousand ethnopolities that will take you in, no question asked, for as long as you claim that you were victims of experimentation by some nasty transhumans that were trying to restore the Pure, but you managed to escape. The worst you can expect is being under light surveillance and not being allowed near military bases and other crucial infrastructure elements. Just in case you were some sort of sleeper agent.”
Humility is right, that does feel somewhat out of character for Mankind AD. 2575. Before Revenant manages to say it, Humility continues speaking.
“There are even a few ethnopolities that keep their borders closed to anyone without this sort of fucked backstory.” Humility adds. “A perfect fusion of a functional country and a refugee camp, where everyone had someone in their distant family who went through the same thing you did and the density of therapists and psychologists per square mile is probably highest of all inhabited worlds. Countries that took empathy and understanding and made them a crucial part of their national hats. In short, Mankind’s not that bad. And for as long as you play your card right, having a partial or even nearly complete Pure genome shouldn’t be that much of a problem.”
“Why do I have a feeling like it all still depends on whom we run into after fleeing this system?” Revenant asks. Humility shrugs. Looks like that’s a confirmation. Revenant switches his attention to the others. “Alright people, I won’t feel safe until we have more space between us and our friends. So let’s move out. Unless someone has anything to add?”
“One week.” Decay groans loudly. “We are here for less than a week and you have already started a war. You have no chill, Player One.”
Revenant isn’t even going to bother responding to that.
***
The biggest positive of having Singularity there?
They don’t have to stop for a rest. Singularity’s grasp of her individuality was… potent, even if for reasons that made Revenant even more uncomfortable with her very existence.
She could make others weightless, for as long as they let her touch them. Or, take most of their weight while still letting them get influenced by gravity. What was the practical application of this mechanism?
Being able to take a nap in a floating bed. All while still on the move. Surprisingly comfortable, too.
No, seriously. It looked pretty weird, but it was the ‘if it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid’ moment.
After a while Onslaught just decided that she was too much of a bother, so she had Revenant help her sit on the edge of one of the loot platforms (after Singularity made her weightless), and just sat on it from then on.
They travelled quickly, as a result. The area was pretty much completely abandoned, but like the rest of this maze, it was perfectly livable. They were just trying to gain some distance in case the Seekers or the Transhumans started using their brain cells.
Eventually, Clockmaker unleashed hell upon them all.
“So, uhm, Humility?” She was walking right beside her, uhm, robofriend(?), of course. Not far from Revenant who was busy stretching his body a bit after concluding his rather restful nap. “I have a question.”
“Yes?” Humility replies with a question, glancing at her girlfriend(?).
“Why can’t the transhumans restore the Pure on their own?” Clockmaker asks. And yes, to be honest, Revenant is kind of curious about it. “If they have the genetic records of them and the capacity to do genetic modifications, it shouldn’t be that hard?”
It is at this point that Revenant understands what Clockmaker just did. It’s going to be a lengthy talk about this world, pretty much an exposition/lore dump, except in the form of a dialogue. Because, yeah. Revenant is extremely curious, and… he is kind of done restraining himself.
“It’s more complicated than that.” Humility replies. “But to explain it properly, I’d have to summarize the history of humanity tinkering with its own genome, and…”
“Please do.” Clockmaker quickly cuts in. Her eyes are on the AI.
Revenant would have said the same, but to be honest, he can’t tell if they are just talking about it or if it's Clockmaker’s equivalent of flirting. He would feel… somewhat awkward if he butted in, so for now, he just listens.
“Alright then.” Humility replies. “Genetic modifications are fairly common, and even if you exclude biomorphs, Mankind as a whole is way different in terms of genetics than it was in your times. It all dates back to the Humanity 2.0 Project.”
Okay, this time Revenant just has to comment on it. Sorry for ruining your, errr, date? Does that count as a date?
“That sounds not only incredibly haughty but also like something that would backfire spectacularly due to some sort of boringly overdone 'Mankind intruding upon God’s domain’ Aesop in play.” A loud click of the gun’s safety being switched off in the background. “Thorn, no.”
Thorn sighs painfully before putting the gun back in the holster. It’s basically an inside joke between them at this point.
“Actually, it worked extremely well.” Humility surprises him positively while ignoring the brief interjection. “Can’t say the same about the Humanity 2.5 Project, though. But we’ll get to that later.”
Nevermind, back to reality.
“Back then the mass-scale genetic uplift program was mostly made possible with the help of certain exotech that allowed for more standardized genetic changes. It was something akin to an automatic factory producing packets of gene-altering nanomachines. Very user-friendly. You input the target species’ fully sequenced genome, and then check which genes should be erased, which should be added, and which should be replaced with which. Then, you produce the packet, inject the person in question… and all their children will be born with desired genetic changes.”
That sounded really user-friendly. And, to be honest, like something way too easy and cheap for Mankind to not get a power trip out of it.
“Humanity 2.0 was pretty much Mankind doing a bugfix for their own genome.” Humility continues. “All the known genetic disorders? Gone, together with genes causing them. All bad genes, like say, something that makes you more likely to develop cancer? Gone. There were also some minor improvements, beneficial genes that already were there in some small part of the population, found during the genetic sequencing project, now made to be common places. The next generation got smarter, healthier, stronger and lived longer. In short, great success.”
That truly sounds like it. Except, he can already suspect what was going to happen next. Namely, the Humanity 2.5 Project. And he is almost certain that he can imagine what it was.
“So let me guess…” He decides to confirm his suspicions. “... Humanity 2.5 was because humans got a bit too optimistic with genetic modifications, and tried to add things that weren’t there?”
“In a way, yes.” Humility nods. “But it was less ‘add things’ and more ‘change things too much’. It started with creating the human subspecies tailored for high and low-gravity worlds, then various other things. For example, I wish to inform you that Mankind does have catgirls now. And catpeople in general.”
Revenant just groans. It’s not that shocking to him, he lived in the world where mutation individualities existed, pretty much Wishgranter-created subspecies of Mankind (if very small in number since the Age of Heroes wasn’t long enough for them to multiply).
Still, to actually create them? Insane. Reminded him of the Doctor's experiments way too much.
“And then things got complicated.” Humility replies. For some reason, he feels as if it’s the same level of ‘things got complicated’ as them being born again in real life and discovering that their life was a lie. “Did you know that people in the Middle Ages had, generally, better teeth than those in the early 21st?”
“They did?” Clockmaker appears surprised. Yeah, to her the progress was an ever-upward line with no significant downsides whatsoever. No wonder she is surprised by the discovery that something in the past was better than something after this.
“Yes, because the people in the Middle Ages didn’t have access to so much refined sugar, meaning much less tooth decay.” Revenant was quite knowledgeable about history. Not to the level of a professional historian, but he did have some knowledge. “Where are you going with this?”
He fails to see the connection.
“Tooth decay got so widespread because Mankind wasn’t evolved to deal with the issue.” Humility replies. “It was a previously unknown environmental factor that humans weren’t prepared to deal with. There were many other cases of this mechanism when civilization was born, especially once the human lifestyle started being seriously changed by the industrial revolution. Human biology being blindsided by changes to the world. Not having nearly enough time to evolve to deal with. Something akin to that mechanism changed Humanity 2.5 Project into a disaster.”
“Elaborate?” Revenant asks while Clockmaker nods furiously in the background.
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“Tinkering with DNA is… complicated.” Humility replies. “Add epigenetics and how they can alter genetic expression, and… let’s give you an example. Imagine that you make a new subspecies of Mankind. Much better on many levels, although internally, you didn’t even touch the skin or the looks. However, you did rewrite most of the rest almost from scratch. Then, once the first generation grew up under strict medical observation and was allowed to live freely out there, you suddenly discover that a few years of moderate UV rays exposure, something that was barely a thing during the observation period, almost invariably causes a shift in the genetic expression of some genes. Leading to massive vulnerability to carcinoma. To the degree where they develop it once a year on average.”
“Couldn’t that be healed with modern medical technology?” Clockmaker asks with a confused frown. Yeah, that would be logical, the technology was supposed to improve in the meantime, and they were on the verge of dealing with that issue back then. “I figured that it would be easy.”
“It could, of course.” Humility reassures her. “A trivial, if repetitive matter. But the problem was going to invariably return a few years later, even if you re-applied the template. Now imagine that the same genetic template had, say, twenty different flaws, some of them threatening people with sudden deaths. And that attempts to repair them tended to end up breaking something else instead. Although to actually realize that, you need to let an entire generation of people grow up, only to see their genetics start breaking down on them.”
“Okay, now I can see the issue.” Revenant replies. “It’s…”
“It’s the same with the Pure, right?” Clockmaker doesn’t let him finish. Ugh. “With the data mostly lost, even if you get their full genome map, the process would last for at least a generation. Because you would need to make a test population to apply the template and let them grow up in an environment as diverse as possible, to make sure that there aren’t some random design flaws caused by even the tiniest of mistakes during the process of recreating the template or its implantation. All you need is a design flaw or two, and suddenly you need to make another test population or just the second generation of the same one, and be once again forced to wait.”
Yeah. That’s the issue that Revenant found with the situation. Judging from Humility nodding back, it was the correct issue.
“That’s the issue, yes.” The AI confirms. “This is especially hard with the Transhuman Alliance being the vestigial force that it is. I’m fairly sure that even if they tried to restore the Pure, someone, like say the Silent Sorrow or the Truthseekers Corporation, would raid their facilities just to mess with them.”
Mankind’s situation suddenly looks a bit better. Because if all the bad guys hate each other to a similar degree, most of their victims are probably other assholes.
“In the end, most of the Variants created by the Humanity 2.5 Project are still around.” Humility adds. “After the War of Purity ended, the Human Diversity Restoration Project restored some of them that the transhumans drove extinct and managed to fix all the identified flaws with their genomes thanks to advancements in technology. However, the underlying mechanisms remain. You can’t perfectly predict the new Variant’s reaction to every single environmental factor out there before actually exposing them to it on a timescale counted in decades. Lightly altering the pre-existing population tends to work well, especially if you’re only spreading naturally developed genes. Attempting to make a large genetic jump will also work, but after potentially decades of instability and hammering out the issues with the design. Which is why it’s no longer practised.”
That makes sense. However…
“What about us, then?” Revenant asks. Humility and Clockmaker give him questioning looks… or, well, Clockmaker does. But he suspects that that’s how he was supposed to identify it. “We’re apparently genetic hybrids. Are we going to be stable?”
“Most likely.” Humility replies after thinking it over for a moment. “Visitor was clearly knowledgeable enough about humans to recreate fictional characters together with their superpowers. I believe that unless you did suffer from some genetic issues in your backstory, ones that would be transcribed into your new genetic code, you’re all going to be genetically stable. At least in the foreseeable future. I, however, do not recommend having children before you have a skilled geneticist check out your DNA and tell you whether your genes have been optimized for cross-breeding. At least if you want to avoid potentially disastrous end results.”
Onslaught is going to be deeply saddened by someone putting a damper on her clear plan of going after his seed as soon as possible, Revenant decides. Then again, having children while lost in this hellish maze is risky for everyone involved, so…
… it might be better that way.
“We can safely assume then that the transhumans will pursue us wherever we go.” Revenant comments. “If only because, say, 70% of working Pure genome means that they only need to puzzle up and test the remaining 30%. Cutting down most of the development time.”
Humility nods.
If each of them is carrying a unique yet stable genetic template that’s superior to baseline human genetics, they should probably avoid mad scientists in general. Because they sound like a walking treasure trove of scientific knowledge about human genetics, and that’s without entering the subject of individualities.
What a pain in the ass.
Makes you wonder what’s the Pure DNA percentage Invincible has. 95%? 100%? For Captain Patriotic, the answer’s probably ‘yes’.
The thought alone makes him chuckle.
He also thinks that it’s enough learning for the time - especially as he doesn’t want to overuse his Individuality into an early brain update.
He leaves those two to themselves and goes to chat with Decay.
***
Less than a day later, things start happening. Because of course, they start happening again. It’s not as if they could expect anything to go nicely, and for themselves to find some defensible and habitable place that they could change into their base of operations.
They might be chatting about things (mostly inconsequential small talk to kill time), but they are attentive to their surroundings. They all have honed senses (if you exclude Onslaught’s sight, of course). They also react fast.
The person barely has the time to emerge from the side tunnel at the intersection in front of them before they are pinned to the ground by Virtue’s individuality. They yell words of protest (and some confusion) when they are slid towards the group against their will, stopping right in front of Revenant.
A kid. Well, a young teenager. 14 or 15 years old, Revenant decides. Short black hair, baggy trousers and a black T-Shirt. All of it is slightly dirty. Add the fact that he was clearly running down the corridor without a care for his surroundings (enough to be surprised by them being there completely) and…
He was running away from something.
Now that’s interesting.
“Virtue, Singularity, get to the front and get ready for company.” He orders. Singularity puts all their loot down, before rushing past him. Obediently. Revenant then kneels in front of the clearly terrified teenager. “Kid, care to elaborate on what’s pursuing you?”
Something human. That much is obvious. The kid didn’t try to shout at them for help (or to warn them about it), meaning that the chances of him suspecting them to be a part of whatever group he was fleeing from were rather high.
The kid glances at all the goods they were carrying with them. Smart. The fact that he can see some of the local military’s armour is probably not making it more likely for him to open up, though.
But eventually, he decides that he is afraid of his pursuers more than he is of those strange new people he just ran into.
“P-pirates.” He replies with a shaky voice. “F-four of them, I think. They…”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” Revenant replies with a reassuring smile while gesturing at Virtue to let him go. “We can deal with them. Stay back for now.”
He has a feeling that Humility is giving him an odd look from the back. Who does it think he is? They had that talk already. There is nothing to gain from mentally scarring that child. But if they play it right and he is from some survivor community…
For now, the pirates.
***
The fight is over in about three seconds.
It wasn’t even a fight, really. Virtue concealed their side of the intersection with a false wall. When the pirates (exactly four of them, as the kid claimed) tried to run past it, Singularity blasted them with a field of amplified gravity.
Enough for them to be pressed into the floor, unable to move.
Virtue then disarmed them, before putting them all in hardlight cuffs. She also gave each of them a hardlight gag since they were really busy running their mouths. With some variants of ‘do you have the tiniest idea whom you’ve picked a fight with’.
Hilarious. They’ve dealt with brain-harvesting alien murder machines, genocidal transhuman mechanoid abominations and science-worshipping corporate cult of mad scientists. The suggestion that they would be scared of space pirates after all of that was hilarious.
Those guys were clearly total pushovers in comparison. Even their equipment was light, one of them only a handgun and normal clothes.
He still had questions to ask them, so he had Virtue put them in one of the rooms by the side of the corridor they were walking in. Empty, like most of them. She was told to guard them for a moment.
“So…” He looks at the still worried kid. “... I think it’s time that we hear your story.”
It turns out to be almost painful to listen to. Both in terms of general content and in how cliche it was.
A small group of survivors from the New Springfield gathered up (small as in ‘~100 people’) and were trying to fend off the numerous threats around. They were doing so quite successfully until the pirates came.
Now, being taken down by pirates of all people is rather sad. Although in this case, it was actually a more… understandable situation. Since the pirates must have overwhelmed some minor surviving army outpost (or just found some abandoned equipment), they came pretending to be soldiers.
The survivors were overjoyed about reinforcements finally coming, only to get knocked out when the ‘soldiers’ added something to their water. And then wake up disarmed, and in pretty much a forced labour camp.
Minus some prettier ladies and/or boys. For obvious reasons.
Someone was really embracing those ‘post-apocalyptic end of civilization’ vibes, together with mandatory warlords with harems of questionably consenting nubile ladies lording over the surviving population.
What an insult to the concept of villainy. And they probably thought of themselves as intimidating (especially judging from the reaction of the four pirates to being attacked). Did they even figure out that the Explorers’ Guild is going to nuke the whole planet or were they trying to settle down in this maze?
The kid apparently managed to dash out of the labour camp, only for the group of pirates to go after him.
Revenant reassured him that they are going to deal with the pirates (the kid was torn between disbelief at such a small group claiming to be able to do it and hope). Then he decided to interrogate the captive pirates.
“Looks like…” Decay comments. “... we’ve finally arrived at the zone appropriate for our party’s level, ehh? Sounds almost too easy.” Revenant nods, before quickly summarizing how they are going to do that.
Not their first interrogation. And, judging from the vibes he was getting from those people, breaking them should be quick. They won’t even have to resurrect Songbird, his interrogation specialist, for this!
***
The four pirates are put side by side on chairs that they are tied to, their hands behind the backrest. All of that (rope and chair) are convincing temporary fakes made by Virtue.
Revenant is sitting in front of them, with a small table right next to him. Decay is standing behind the group, while Virtue is standing right next to Revenant.
No one else. Revenant certainly doesn’t want Onslaught to be present while he is getting the intel out of them.
“Gags off.” He announces. Virtue nods and the gags vanish in a moment. Pirates are clearly still trying to process the weird powers that are being used in front of them. “Tell me everything about your group. Leaders, numbers, bases, weapons..”
He puts a sheathed knife on the small table right next to him. It will come useful very soon. Very, very soon.
“You stupid fuck!” One of the pirates shouts back. He looks to be the biggest of them all. Probably the most important out of the group. He can imagine it working that way with the pirates. “You think we’re going to talk with you?! When our boss finds out, he’ll…”
Revenant grabs the knife and throws it over the man’s head. Decay grabs it… and then pulls the man’s head back by his hair, before slitting his throat open.
He doesn’t even blink while doing it. The look the dying pirate gets is that of tired disinterest.
Pirates freak out, the closest of them instinctively pulling away from their dying colleague as his blood is scattered all around them while screaming in shock.
He doesn’t care. Instead, Revenant puts his handgun on the table.
“Leaders, numbers, bases, weapons.” He repeats his words. He isn’t interested in negotiating or in actually talking with those people. This isn’t an exchange, this is extortion.
“I… we can’t, wait, if the boss…” One of them stammers out, clearly still in shock. This isn’t the answer that he was trying to get. So, Revenant pulls his pistol from the table and shoots the man in the head, prompting the remaining two pirates to scream even louder.
Looks like harassing people unable to defend themselves doesn’t make you a strong person when confronted with a serious adversity. Who would have thought?
He puts the gun away. Then, Virtue hands something to him. One more of her fake objects. It doesn’t actually work, but it looks convincing.
The pirates’ eyes drift from the impact drill on the table (it’s intimidatingly long) to Revenant’s face.
“Leaders, numbers, bases, weapons.” Revenant repeats his words again. And this time? This time they answer.