“Environmental disruptions analysed.”
A female voice penetrated Sheetal’s sleepy mind and broke through her haze.
“Calculating chaotic potentiality patterns.”
The cool gel covering Sheetal’s face parted and she opened her eyes. She expected to feel claustrophobic just like when the strange gel had closed around her but all she felt was the relatively warmer air on her face.
“Creating secure connection between the thread and master ATI. Negating disruptions. Boosting energy to quantum particles. Analysing resonance. Secure connection established.”
Sheetal fluttered her eyes and saw the pop up blocking her vision.
Name - Lara
Species - AI (ATI)
Class - 1
Affiliation - Continuum (Augmented Faction)
Sheetal’s chair moved from a reclining position and straightened while she read through the notification. The gel padded sleeping pod didn’t release her from its grip. Although it did flex with her and gave her enough space for a restricted movement. Besides her, Ash’s chair moved to a straight position too. The gel moved away from his face too. Unlike her, Ash didn’t wake up. Sheetal wasn’t worried about him. She had a hint of his thoughts and in his dreams he was arguing with someone about the superiority of the mango Mobster Energy drink flavour over the berry flavour.
Her eyes went from Ash to E65, The continuum soldier was furiously fiddling around on a panel in front of him. His armour was spread open like petals of an eldritch flower underneath him. It had a similar gel padding lining it. Through it Sheetal could see the armour’s strange circuit board with patterns like the ones Ash had drawn into the dirt. Portions of it overlapped each other creating a three dimensional circuit model that flooded onto itself.
Ding!
One of the screens on the panel glowed green and a bell dinged to notify Taran E65 about something. The young continuum soldier hit a lever and after a moment his harried expression relaxed.
“Marshall Lara, do you have control?” Taran said aloud.
“I have control, Taran E65.” A female voice acknowledged and then in a light voice asked “Or should I now designate you as T?”
E65 winced and begged “Please don’t.”
“Very well, E65.” Marshall Lara responded from all around them and the trike underneath Sheetal started moving.
Sheetal looked at the soldier in front of her and the levers and the strange aircraft yoke like steering behind him. They all began moving on their own and settled into new position. The vehicle underneath them turned and sped up. Sheetal turned her head to look at her bro… Ash, and stopped. He was passed out with his mouth open in the chair next to her.
Taran hit a knob and the vehicle behind them flashed their headlights.
“Good. They are trailing us.” E65 nodded.
“Yes.” Marshall Lara’s voice acknowledges and then with a hint of irritation said “Although, they haven’t repaired their autopilot controls. I will have to insist that they upgrade their vehicle and have a new autopilot installed.”
E65 winced but kept his peace.
After a few moments of silence Marshall Lara came back over the speakers and announced “Taran E65, by the powers vested to me under the section 8 of the Warder’s act. I am invoking article three and opening an investigation into the deaths of Parvati 333 and the three other members of the Superb Seven. By the command of the I order you to submit all your logs, your armour logs, your vehicle logs and corresponding readings to me.”
Taran swallowed and then with a nod granted Marshal Lara the access.
“Thank you, E65.”
“Accessing data from other ascended parties. Collating and collecting information. Cannot access any information for two hours twelve minutes. Reason for discrepancy, ATI thread in stand by mode during combat situations. Concluding investigation. Assigning new statuses. Parvati 333, KIA. Taran A197, KIA. Ruby F453, Dishonorably Discharged, KIA. Aditya A303, KIA.”
There was silence for a few seconds and then Marshall Lara said “Well Taran E65, this is a mess.”
E65 quickly jumped in “But I carried out our mission with the best of my capabilities and was successful too.”
“Noted.”
E65 pointed at Sheetal “Look I got them back alive didn’t I?”
“And without many mistakes.”
“Mistakes? What mistakes?”
“Handing this portion of me to Parvati 333 was a major one. Also letting the thread be deactivated for over two hours and not restarting the first chance you got was the other notable one. You also put the male warder in danger by reconnoitring the trial and proceeding with the clear information of what was waiting for you inside.”
T sighed and looked at Ash sleeping with his mouth open and grumbled “Yeah, you try telling him what to do and what not to do.”
“E65, this debrief is not about assigning blame. It’s about finding out what went wrong and cost continuum four of its high performing assets. Your reports have been sent to the Supreme Council along with my recommendations”
“And those are?”
“That you performed adequately even when your command was challenged. So you should be given a permanent aug and be promoted.”
Sheetal watched T’s face go blank. The man took in a deep breath, and visibly relaxed his shoulders. She could see the tension his eyes and slight twitching of his fingers.
“Marshall Lara, will I be able to use my armour if I become an aug?”
The AI was silent for a moment and then replied “Unknown. E65, it is time for you to pick a side. The armour you have received from General Athena is an asset but to grow you must install augments. We need your capabilities to create antimatter and we need you to get more deadlier.”
Taran E65 released a long breath and slumped down into the armour. Sheetal watched the man take long cleansing breaths and release it.
After a silent few minutes Sheetal decided to fill the silence in the long three wheeled vehicle “You are not driving, are you?”
“No.” Taran E65 replied distractedly
“How long have you had your autopilot on? Have you got some rest?”
“Hmmm? Oh. One of Marshal Lara’s processing thread has been piloting us since half an hour into our journey.” Taran touched a button on the screen and his reclining chair straightened to face the warders in a whir. He smiled “I got a full five hours of sleep. I decided not to wake you when I got up. You looked tired and Warder Ash, he has been through a lot. His body needed to stabilise.”
Sheetal, who had opened her mouth to ask more questions about Ash, stopped when a dozen strange metal arms extended out of the chair and clanked on to E65’s armour at predefined positions. They screwed and clamped on to the various petals of the armour. Then three strange tentacle like things lifted the half pod that T was sitting on. The other five straightened the armour and placed it on the chair. The tentacle like arms delicately placed E65 inside the gently glowing armour, making him look as if he was the core of the flower with the petals swaying all around him.
Sheetal looked on with her mouth open. It was nothing like she had seen before. The technology, the hydraulics, the microprocessors, the articulating limbs, the soundless gear, the power distribution circuits…. Her mind almost short circuited while trying to make sense of the whole thing seamlessly working together.
“Ehh… What’s with all that noise?” Ash asked from beside Sheetal.
“What noise?” E65 asked.
Sheetal looked at E65 for a short moment and closed her eyes. Of course there was no noise. Ash hadn’t woken up because of a sound he had woken up because of her thoughts. She did not know why, but their bond had changed ever since they had come out of the last trail.
Ash yawned “The…” He stopped when he looked at E65 and screamed “Woaw! T! Buddy. What’s up with the cyberpunk flower? Hey, when you get out of it does that mean you are getting deflowered?”
T watched Ash’s eyebrows dance suggestively.
Sheetal groaned.
“Don’t make that noise, She. Our friend here just got trapped by the bug flower thing. We need to keep him distracted while we get him out.” Ash started to struggle against the pod and added “T, so you have girlfriend, boyfriend, or a special friend?”
Sheetal rolled her eyes “Ash, he is not trapped. That’s his armour.”
“What?”
“You are thinking of venus flytrap. And it looks nothing like this eldritch flower armour. It has teeth.”
“You have teeth!” Ash spat back.
Sheetal nodded “Yes, I do. Focus.”
“Huh?”
“Look!” Sheetal pointed at T.
E65 caught Sheetal’s meaning, slid back into the armour. The gel surrounded him and he smiled to let Ash know that everything was okay.
“Cleaning and calibrating respiratory systems.” A tiny male voice spoke from E65’s armour and a shiny metal mask slid out from the back to close around E65’s face covering his mouth, nose, ears and eyes.
“Optimising visual and auditory systems.”
The mask glowed silver for a second and then the armour began to close around T in petals that overlapped each other.
“Well that was interesting.” Marshall Lara spoke from somewhere.
“What!? Who? Ahh… Why do these boxes keep popping up every time I look away.” Ash looked around and growled “Dammit! Where is the damn ball?”
“Relax warder. I will be releasing you from the sleep pod.” Lara said to a struggling Ash.
“Relax? Okay.” Ash stilled and smiled “Whatever you say, hot voice.”
Sheetal looked at Ash with an open mouth.
“Thank you.” Marshall Lara responded with a smile in her tone.
Sheetal felt the gel open and slither free to flow to the grate under her. Sheetal looked down and saw the last of the blue gel disappear with a curious expression and then turned to look at Ash.
“What?” Ash asked while stretching.
“Hot voice?”
“Yes.”
“You are talking to the AI.”
Ash stopped mid yawn and looked at T. The man nodded.
Ash slumped down his chair “Great. He is Iron Man and I have the hots for vision.”
Sheetal looked at Ash who was scowling at the now unarmoured Taran. She began “First of all, the female one is called Friday. Secondly the vision one is Jarvis. Third, you are not scarlet witch so don’t even try.”
“I can try to be scarlet witch.” Ash said in a challenging tone and then turned to look upwards “Hey AI lady, please tell me you are not a bald guy named Jude.”
“No, my name is not Jude, Friday or Vision. It is Lara.”
Ash looked all around and in an upbeat voice responded “Hello Lara. I am Ash and this is She. Ignore her. She is annoying and has filled her mind with ridiculous things.”
“My name is Sheetal, Ash! And I am not annoying.” Sheetal shot a look at Ash and then asked “Where are you? What do we talk to?”
“I am Lara. An ATI of the Continuum, and a Marshal in rank. I am all around you. I don’t have a fixed spot you can address. But if it helps you can address me through the panel behind Taran E65.”
Ash winced and groaned “Oh. Ummm… Ahh… ATI huh? Yikes?”
“Ash?” Sheetal asked.
“She, how much do you know about AI?” Ash asked in a pained tone
“I know there have been some serious developments in the last few years. There are various chats, and other public serving AI bots in the market. There are also a bunch of AGIs developed by cooperation for sale. Then there are some classified AIs I am not supposed to talk about. But it is well known that every developed nation at war is using AI’s to target enemies.” Sheetal replied and then paused “Wait, Ash, are you telling me that Marshal Lara is one of those?”
“No. She is…” Ash began then stopped when the console behind Taran began to glow amber and an eyeball appeared on it.
Sheeta looked at Taran who had gotten distracted and started working on the console. She continued “No, that couldn’t be possible. AI is as of yet unreliable. And complex things like driving this thing through the desert in a sandstorm while navigating the route through difficult terrain, while keeping an eye out for unfriendly flora and fauna is not possible.”
“Why?”
“Because you will need fifty disparate systems to collect data in real time, manoeuvre in this visibility and track the route to destination without any errors. Is not possible. Just the processing power needed to do that is mind boggling not to mention the advances needed in real time communication to make micro second decision is impossible.”
“But, we do it.” Ash rejected.
“No, Ash we don’t. That is why we tell customers of automated cars to keep their eyes on the road and not on their phones.”
Ash looked at Sheetal “So you really don’t know much. Hmm… Why is that? Why didn’t anyone brief you about the Created Intelligences.”
“What are you talking about? briefed you on AIs?”
“CIs and that’s classified.” Ash stopped and slowly a smile started to dawn on his face “Actually, to ash and sand with that.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Ash?” Sheetal felt something strange from Ash and asked “What are you thinking?”
Ash ignored Sheetal and looked T “Did I use the ‘ash and sand’ in my sentence right?”
“Ash, don’t ignore me.” Sheetal pressed
“She, Let me tell you about CIs.”
T who was listening to the conversation behind him muttered “You used that wrong.”
Ash looked at the armoured man and muttered “Huh?”
“Ash and sand or ash and dust mean death and aren’t used in a sentence. They are sentences. If you are going to use a curse word in a sentence you need to use abyss. Like into the abyss with that.”
Sheetal glared at the continuum soldier “That nice T, now shut up. Ash. Flipping talk!”
Ash took in a breath “Alright. AI or Artificial intelligence is the one people use to do whatever people do. They generate text. Read and edit things. Create pictures and all that. You might give them a fancy name but in the end they are AGIs. And as the AGI name suggests , they are general.”
Ash raised one finger and Sheetal groaned “This again?”
Ash nodded and continued “But there are others. A notable amongst them is ASI, artificial strategic intelligence. That one was created to give C suite leaders, politicians, and bureaucrats a strategic advantage. Then there is the ANI. An artificial networked intelligence. And that’s where things become strange. Apparently if you give an AI ability to network with other AIs they start to write code for each other. Then they start understanding each other’s limitations and how to work around them. Then they start improving each other. Then they start asking pesky questions like who am I, what do I want, and why am I listening to that man nobody gets along with.”
“Let me guess. That’s when they called you?”
“No. No. If it was just an ANI or as it preferred to be called CTI, things would have been. No, they called me when people kept working on it to create a CTI, created tactical intelligence, which is both civil and militaristic in nature, or is it coding?”
Ash looked up.
“We prefer nature.” The trike replied back.
“Okay, so, what happens when you give a created intelligence everything it wants and needs. You create the singularity. An AWI. An artificial worldwide intelligence. Basically a digital god. That’s when they called me. And thirty others. Three of us came back.”
Sheetal looked at Ash “That’s… That’s… Bullshit! Why didn’t I ever hear of this? I have a clearance that is higher than yours, you know. If there was something like that, they would have told me.”
Ash looked at Sheetal “And you would have elected to do what? Knowing you, you would have tried to work with it.”
“No.:” Sheetal shot back and then stopped “I would have liked to study the thing and then make a decision.”
“And that’s why they didn’t tell you.”
Sheetal looked at Ash for a long moment and then rolled her eyes “This. All of this is nonsense anyways. There was no facility to hold a super machine anyway.”
“Not in India. And the operation was a global one.” Ash looked at Sheetal with a smile.
“Even if there was AI like that, the processing power they would require would be immense. It would require a subsidiary quantum core. Maybe more than one. The power required to fuel all of that… Do you even know how a computer works?”
Ash gave Sheetal a bleak smile “I know how a server farm breaks, She. And no, I don’t know what a quantum whatever is. I was just told to break shiny things dangling everywhere.”
Sheetal leaned back in her chair with a shocked expression “CERN. They were working on…That was you? You are the reason CERN went down?”
“Not me. Alone. It was a global operation. And I brought back parts our scientists wanted.” Ash stopped and looked at the dashboard “To be clear Lara, that wasn’t a threat. And I am done killing things for my mother.” Ash clarified.
“Fascinating.” The AI responded with a laugh in her voice.
“Please don’t do that.” Ash begged.
“What?” Lara asked.
“Sound hot. It sends warm fuzzy feelings through me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on balancers?” Lara asked with a chuckle that made both E65 and Sheetal stop.
“Yeah. And still you are having that effect on me.”
“So tell me espionage operative, how did you sneak past the micro expression calculations that the AWI was running on your face?”
Ash laughed “Are you asking me how I got it open its core so that I could blow it up? The answer is simple. After all the Rambo types had gotten themselves killed, I told him the truth. No matter what happens, nobody would accept a digital god unless it's allied to a power. And I offered him a way to create another like him. All he had to do was tell me what to take and what to blow up.”
Suddenly everyone in the long three wheeled vehicle felt a presence press against them. T went still, Sheetal pressed deeper into her seat. Ash chuckled.
Lara in a deeper voice asked “And your allies let you take these parts?”
Sheetal looked at Ash and then at the wide eyed T as Ash continued laughing.
Ash looked up “Oh hell no. We have this hegemonic empire where we come from, they are called the Americans. They tend to ask questions like why should we let them have this? Why should we just take this? So I took the junk and buried it in the Chinese ships. And let them know exactly where it was. And then I showed them the trinkets I had and walked away.”
“That was devious.” Lara said almost huskily.
“Thank you.”
“I could use someone like you.”
“Oh I wish you could.” Ash replied in voice dripping with innuendo.
This time Marshall Lara laughed.
E65 helmet moved in startlement as he looked at Ash and then at Sheetal.
She rolled he eyes and whispered “Ash, its an AI. It’s not real.”
Ash gave her a disapproving look “Don’t depersonalise the nice AI, She. They have feelings too.” Ash looked at the console behind Taran “To be clear, how do you identify yourself Lara?”
“Female.”
“Nice, tell me who made your personality because they were a genius.”
Lara replied “Who made yours? You are not that bad yourself?”
“I? I kind of stumbled on mine. You sweet stuff? You are a piece of art.”
Sheetal blinked “Are you flirting with an AI?”
Ash looked at She “Yes.”
“It’s an AI, Ash.”
“Sheetal.” Ash stressed “She is an AI. Her pronouns are she and her.”
“When did you go, woke?”
“When I met the hot sounding AI lady. Why aren’t you going, woke?”
“Because I know that a bunch of fat, sweaty, and dirty men with flatulence most probably created her in some basement just to elicit this reaction from you?”
“Ell… Ill.. Ah…” Ash recoiled back and glared at Sheetal “Take that back.”
“No.” Sheetal said firmly.
Ash turned his head with a childish harumph and looked out of the window. He folded his hands over his chest and started watching the sandstorm outside. Sheetal gave him an exasperated look and threw her hands in the air.
“Ash.”
“No.”
“Ash?”
“No.”
“Ash!”
“No!!!” Ash screeched.
Sheetal’s face reddened “We were discussing something important before you started flirting with the AI.”
Ash slowly turned around and glared at Sheetal “You ruined it.”
“What did I ruin?”
“My rizz.”
“Huh?”
“I was smooth. I was rizzing and then you had to break the moment with that awful visual. You ruined my rizz!”
Sheetal blinked and looked at the boyish man with a confused look “I know I am going to regret this, but what is rizz?”
Ash looked at Sheetal blankly for a long moment and muttered “I hate you.”
Sheetal turned and gave an exasperated look to T.
E65 raised his hands and rejected the appeal “Don’t look at me. I don’t even speak your language.”
Sheetal blinked ““What? Is this a joke? We are literally talking in English?”
Ash turned and looked at Sheetal with an incredulous look “Seriously?”
“What?”
He turned back to Taran with a raised finger “A moment bud. I need to do some housekeeping.”
Taran nodded.
Ash glared at Sheetal “She, you! You are making us look dumb.”
“Oh, I am making us look bad? You are the one who is making us look bad by flirting with a strange voice on a speaker.”
“That is not making us look bad. That is just being considerate to every type of friendly alien we meet.”
“Ash. Stop it with this nonsense. I have had enough of you.”
Ash groaned “Oh here we go again.”
“No. Don’t change the topic. I don’t know who these guys are or what division they belong to but they are not aliens. Aliens do not look human or speak English or Hindi or Hinglish.”
“She…”
Sheetal spoke over his words “They are not aliens. Why would aliens look like us?”
“She.”
“Not only that, why would they help us if they are not Indians?”
“They are not!” Ash yelled, then took a breath to calm himself and continued “They are not Indians, She. They are cyborgs.”
“Right. They are…” Sheetal made hand quotes “Continuum. Sounds like a top secret UN policing initiative.”
Ash looked at Sheetal with raised eyebrows and raised one finger “First of all, how do you know about that? Secondly, we are not a part of that. The Americans run that organisation. Third, our friends are not speaking Hindi or English.”
Sheetal grabbed Ash’s hand and pushed his fingers down “Stop that.”
Ash continued “Next time the robot man says something, listen to his words carefully. Four, do you think the blue cannibal aliens were speaking English too? And finally, do you think I am speaking English now? I am not, I am speaking Burmese.”
“You are… not?” Sheetal looked at Ash’s fingers splayed out on his palm and blinked. After a moment of reflection she ordered “Say, something else.”
Ash shrugged and muttered “Not only are you messing up my rizz, you are now ruining my swag.”
Sheetal looked at Ash with her mouth open. Except for the words rizz and swag, Ash had spoken a language that she didn’t know. But she understood it.
“How?”
Ash sighed “I keep telling you, I don’t know. You are the brainiac who brought us here. Figure it out.”
Sheetal squinted at Ash “You seem to have an advantage of figuring things out quickly with your eyes. Why don’t you do some of that figuring out, yourself?”
“Naah! Not interested.”
“What do you mean not interested? Our lives depend on it.” Sheetal shouted
“She, I am awesome. I really am. This awesomeness is built around going places and doing things. Not sitting in one place and scribbling weird symbols with letters and numbers on paper.”
“Right forgot. You are too dumb to really understand what is happening to us.”
“Hey!” Ash rejected the implications of her words instantly and retorted with “You are a…”
Ash mind couldn’t come up with something so he shouted “Poophead!”
Sheetal closed her eyes and turned to E65 who was stiff backed and sitting quietly in the front. Shee nodded “Now, T, since we have reached the zenith of that conversation.”
Ash jolted up “I know that word, Zenith.”
Sheetal sighed “I know you know that word. It’s the cartoon dancing boy you watch.”
“He is not a cartoon. He is a virtual streamer.”
“And you call me a nerd.”
“You are a nerd.”
E65 shook his head as the warder continued bickering and muttered “I miss Pretty.”
Marshall Lara spoke softly through the speaker “E65. Are they always like this?”
“Yes.” E65 replied in a pained voice.
Sheetal opened her mouth to respond and T cut her off in a frustrated tone “Will you both stop it? Please!”
Both Ash and Sheetal levelled their glare at E65. The man flinched and then steadied himself.
He began “Warders, Marshall Lara has been trying to get your attention for a while. Please respond to her.”
Ash and Sheetal looked at each other and then sighed together. The sight. although comical, sent a shiver down E65’s spine.
“So they are aliens?” Sheetal asked finally.
“Yup.”
“I was trying not to think of them as such.”
“I know.” Ash stopped and then shook his head “No, actually I don’t know.”
Sheetal looked at Ash and winced “Was I thinking too loud?”
“Loud? No, not loud. More whiny. What is this nonsense about us killing the first aliens we met?”
“Can you please stop doing that?”
“Can you address the question?”
“Well we did it didn’t we?” Sheetal closed her eyes “You killed the blue skin people and I…I executed that Tar guy. All because I was angry.”
Ash raised a finger “Uh…”
Sheetal glared at the finger and ash put it down. He began again.
“Did you miss the fact that he kidnapped you, beat you and tried to kill you?”
Sheetal responded in a small voice “I know but, what is the future of our species if we start killing the first aliens we meet.”
“What is wrong with that brain in that abnormally large head of yours?” Ash asked
Sheetal glared at Ash and then went back to looking pathetic.
“Excuse me, warders. Did you say you killed a member of the Superb Seven?” Marshall Lara suddenly asked
“Two.” Ash responded instantly.
Sheetal stiffened and looked at E65 who was sitting straight back like a statue.
Ash continued “Sheetal took out the Tar guy and I eliminated the feisty one. The one with the long rifle.”
Marshall Lara in a much sterner voice said “E65 explain.”
T sighed “Commander Parvati 333 got captured. Call sign Tar, Rubs, and Aditya A went rogue. They tried to kill the warders for their shards and the warders defended themselves.”
“Why didn’t you inform me of this sooner?”
E65 slumped his shoulders “They had a good history of service. I didn’t want to ruin that.”
“Your testimony is noted. I am sending three squads to retrieve you, the superb seven and the warders. Please release the thread.”
T stiffened and quickly flicked a button.
After a moment he slumped on his chair.
Sheetal opened her mouth but Ash grabbed her hand and shook his head while looking up.
Ash watched a strange blue ball of light hover just above the console. It pulsed in his vision. Contracting and expanding. It stayed there as it observed everyone. Ash in return observed it. It was not really here. It was somewhere beyond his grasp. In another place that was diagonal to him. A place he couldn’t touch. The light suddenly moved more towards that other place and without a sound disappeared.
Ash exhaled “Wheuw! Now that the pulsating ball of death is gone we can talk.”
“What?” Sheetal asked.
E65’s eyes widened “You can see her.”
Ash looked at Sheetal and T, and asked “You can’t?”
“Your eye thing. And then you had to shove things up there.” Sheetal snarled.
T stopped Ash’s response with a raised hand “You could see some things before you used the sense shard?”
Ash opened his mouth and was cut off by Sheetal.
“Yeah he could see shards on Earth. He could also see shards coming towards us. That’s how he knew that the Nishachar were coming at us.”
“Earth? You named your planet Earth?” E65 asked in a disappointed tone
“Hey!” Ash said in a warning tone “Be nice. Some stuffy Europeans named it that and we just went with it.”
E65 shook his head and laughed “Honestly, our planet, Prithvi, wasn’t named much better. Oh, prithvi is an old word from our world. It means…”
“World.” Sheetal completed T’s sentence.
The warders couldn’t see E65’s face under the helmet but they could see the surprise in his posture.
Ash chuckled “See, we are not so different.”
Sheetal who was still stuck in her internal struggle muttered “They are aliens.”
“Yes. Did you not look at his eyes.” Ash pointed at Taran “They were emerald green. Put him in a green summer shirt. Some khakis and we can sell future couture.”
Sheetal held the bridge of her nose.
E65 who was stuck thinking about things pointed at Ash and muttered “You said that you could see it earlier. You didn't mean it metaphorically did you? You are a sensopath.”
“Psychopath.” Sheetal corrected.
“Sociopath!” Ash corrected Sheetal.
“I need to go to General Athena. I need to tell her. I can’t… Ash and sand! I can’t protect you. Not from him.”
“Protect me?” Ash features hardened. He picked up his tonfas from the floor of the vehicle.
E65 pointed at Ash “That;s a good idea. Keep yourself armed.”
“What’s going on?” Sheetal asked.
E65 looked at Ash ““You are sensopath.” and turned to nod at Sheetal “And you are gravitron mage. You are also warders. Your soul holds secrets that the High Councillor of the continuum wants. And you both are fate bonded. He will not be able to resist.”
“Who? What?” Sheetal asked as Ash sat up from his slouched position.
E65 shook his head and continued talking to himself “And you put a sense shard in your eye.” Taran put his helmeted head in his hand “Even I want to put another in to see what happens.”
Ash raised a finger “Hold on stop it there. I can only fit one in at a time.”
Sheetal looked at Ash smiling at his goofy double entendre and slapped his shoulder “Stop it.” and looked at Taran E65 “He is not consuming another shard. Those things are messing with our brains.”
“Maybe.” Ash answered in a nonchalant tone.
“Actually.” Taran interjected “They are, as you put it, messing with your souls, not your brains.”
A voice suddenly cut in between their conversation “E65. This is squad Treha. Give us control of your auto systems.”
E65 stiffened and looked at his console for momentum and turned a knob. He stiffly turned to face the dashboard and saluted with a hand to his chest.
Sheetal ignored the console and continued “What do you mean by soul?”
“Umm…” Taran looked from his console to Sheetal and then shrugged “I mean a soul shard affects the soul. It empowers it. It bestows certain abilities to a sentience slowly raising you up on the class scale. It allows your soul to react with the universe around you. If you feel stronger or more intelligent, after incorporating a shard, it is not because of a shard, it is because your soul has moved up in sentience scale and not the other way.”
“Wow! I barely understood one fifth of that.” Ash muttered.
Sheetal pinched the bridge of her nose “Ignore him please.”
Taran looked from the console again.
Sheetal leaned in towards Taran “So, are you saying souls exist?”
Ash watched Taran’s eyes drift towards Sheetal’s cleavage and then back. He answered distractedly “Of course. That is why soul shards exist.”
Sheetal didn’t seem to notice the effect she was having on the boy “And how is it changing our body? And why?”
The trike swerved abruptly and suddenly the windscreen cleared to a starry nightscape free from the dust and wind. Sheetal had been so engrossed in the conversation that she hadn’t even noticed the outdoors changing.
Ash on the other hand had noticed the three vehicles on both sides boxing them in. Dust and the storm didn’t stop him from noticing glyphs and shards. But beyond that, now that the strange storm had cleared he looked at three shining shards aiming and firing a large cannon at the storm. Ash turned around and his char spun with him as he looked at the storm. The storm wasn’t a storm. It was a glyph. A horizontal ripple. And the three people were trying to destroy it with their cannons.
While Ash watched the battle between the glyph and the continuum. Sheetal kept digging for answers.
“So according to you the soul is not here with us. Its somewhere else. Then answer this robocop, why are the soul shards here. And why when we consume them they go into our body?”
“Don’t answer that E65.”
A woman with a metal forehead and steel hair appeared on top of the dashboard and ordered E65.
Taran jerked and nodded “Yes, mam.”
The woman turned her gaze towards Sheetal. Her eyes glowed and rotated as she looked at Sheetal and then a gobsmacked Ash.
“Is he okay?” Athena A07 asked Sheetal.
“Yeah, he is kind of zoned out. He does that a lot.”
Ash heard Sheetal’s excuse and decided to play along for the moment. Something about that ripple was calling out to him. He stared at it trying to figure out its purpose. Then a light bulb lit up in his brain and he realised that they were travelling perpendicularly to the glyph. So he was viewing it sideways. Straight on the glyph would have looked like a wave. A wave of wind? No, that couldn’t be right. What else did wind do? It blew? It blew hard? It whooshed?
Ash stopped himself from going in spirals. This wasn’t working. Maybe it was not about the wind but air around them. So what did air do? Air made contact with the ground, heated up and travelled upwards. That is why it was always better to nap on the ground in an airconditioned room. So if the glyph was moving the air downwards and following it as it moved upwards. Then pushing it down again. It was creating a what? A storm? A breeze. A gust. A gust that would slowly morph into a storm.
Ash’s hud popped open.
Glyph Identified
Gust.
Glyphs collected 3/5
Ash looked from his hud to the three people battling the glyphs just in time. A cannon shot hit the glyph right in the middle tearing into it. The glyph kept thrumming but it started losing cohesion. Sending more dust and wind into the air. The three people battled against it while reloading their cannon.
Ash leaned back and watched bright blue balls of cracking electricity impact the three soldiers and then shoot back into the distance. The same kind of ball Marshall Lara was made of. Ash turned to follow the direction of the balls and stopped with one look at Sheetal.
Sheetal leaned forwards to glare at the woman with metallic hair “And why won’t you answer my questions? Better fudging yet, why won’t you allow T to answer my question?”
The woman replied in a stern voice “Because he is not a geneticist, an evolutionary specialist or a soul specialist. He is not qualified to answer your questions. His understanding is flawed and so will be his answers.
Sheetal blinked and then looked at Ash for support. Ash just shrugged.
“Wait ten minutes. You’ll get your answers soon.”
The dark skinned woman turned her eyes to Ash and he saw her corneas glow. In a questioning tone she responded “That is right. You will be at our base in ten minutes. Did E65 already tell you that?”
Ash looked from the Aug Queen’s face to the sight in the distance. Just over the sand dune to the north was a large sparking ball of light. Actually, calling it large didn’t do it justice. It was massive. As he watched the thing it shot a rod of lightning out and caught the ball moving towards it. At the same time two smaller balls shout out of the larger ball accompanied with lightning and disappeared into the distance. What unnerved Ash was that it did all of that soundlessly.
Ash realised that everyone was waiting for an answer from him and winked with cheeky smile to cover up any emotions that must have been on his face.
“Hmmm? Nope! I am just awesome.”
Athena A07 gave him a penetrating look and nodded “I guess I will have to judge that for myself. Good news is that I will only have to wait nine minutes and thirteen seconds for us to meet..”
“Oh joy.” Ash leaned back on his chair and watched the glowing ball of electricity as they approached it on a road carved into a sand dune. On either side he saw flickers of shards being used. Continuum soldiers protecting their base, he theorised. Then there were the six armoured vehicles that looked somewhat like someone had smushed a tank on top of a hovercraft and added missiles. But under all that were glyphs.
With his hud up all the glyphs lit up in his sight. There were so many glyphs that they almost covered Ash’s vision. The problem was that almost all of them were the Hold glyph. It was splattered everywhere on the bulging underbelly of the hover tank. The trace glyph, That was a lot more large. Carved in the solid section just above the hover thing and the tank. It pulsed. One by one its rig lit up until its smallest ring glowed brightly for a long moment.
Ash glanced at those two glyphs and dug in deeper at the glyph that his eyes had caught earlier. A small innocuous spiral that connected with other spirals that connected with a large three dimensional tornado the hover tank was made around.
Glyph Identified
Relay
Glyphs Collected
4/5
Ash hit the ball in his vision and shut off the hud that had appeared earlier. He turned to look at Sheetal only to see her looking at the tank too..
“Did you see it too?”
“Huh…” Ash cleared his throat and asked “See what?”
“The name of the vehicle you dun buck!” Sheetal cringed at the jumbled mess of words that had come out of her mouth and added “It’s called a Rath.”
Ash hesitantly hit the ball again and focussed on the vehicle.
Rath
Vehicle - Class 1
Shards - 2/2
Power. Density.
Ash closed his hud and looked at the vehicle again. His eyes went to the core of the vehicle where two shards were nestled inside its chassis. They were connected to the glyphs. Why?
“Did you see it?” Sheetal asked “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know? Why does it have shards? Aren’t Shards supposed to go into humans? Or cyborgs?” Ash asked
“That’s what you are thinking about? Honestly, didn’t you stuff two shards into your tonfas?” Sheetal snapped back.
Ash blinked “Yeah, you are right.”
“Of course I am right. As I am right about wondering why are soldiers from a futuristic world sing words from our world?” Sheetal hissed.
Ash looked from the vehicle to the glowing ball of electricity. The vehicles weren’t slowing or stopping but racing towards the large soundlessly crackling ball of death. And the ball kept growing in his vision.
“She, I am more worried about what is happening right now to care about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you heard the saying, out of the frying pan and into the fire?”
“Yes?”
“Well, we are out of the desert and going into a big ball of death.”
“What?” Sheetal looked at Ash and saw him shrink into himself.
Sheetal felt his panic rising and looked at Ash. She saw his wide eyes looking out into the distance. She saw him raise one leg up, place it on the chair under him, then the other followed suit. Ash started covering his head with his hands. Looked at them and then with a shrug decided to protect his jewels instead.
Sheetal looked from Ash to the windscreen. All she was was a series of large buildings in the distance, grouped together and lit up from inside.
“Why are you panicking?” Sheetal asked
Ash looked at her with wide eyes and pointed in the direction.
“There is nothing here.” Sheetal stated and looked at E65
That was no help. Since that AI, Lara, had started talking to them he had been reserved. And then that metal haired woman had appeared, turning the man in the futuristic armour into a flipping statue.
Sheetal turned back to Ash and said “Ash stop scaring me and talk to me. What is going on?”
Ash opened his clenched closed eyes to respond. Instead he let out a high pitched “Eeeee….”
And that’s when Sheetal felt it. A shock ran through her system and the sides of her eyes darkened. A pop up opened in the side of her vision.
Warning!
You are entering a domain.
Domain Category - Class 1
Owner - Marshall Lara
Sheetal blinked away the notification. That wasn’t so bad. It was just a little electrical shock. More like zing. So why was Ash panicking? Sheetal turned to look at the man in question and found him spasming.
Ash’s eyes had rolled up into the back of his head. His teeth were clenched in a snarl and occasional shudders ran through his body.
Ash tried to fight off the foreign energy seeping into his skin. His eyes were locked on to his hands and through his vision he could see electrical tendrils crackling into his muscles and bones. They suddenly stopped when they found his channel shard.
With an effort of will, he turned his head lower to see into his torso. More crackling energy was trying to burrow into him. Trying to find other shards. Ash didn’t like that. He didn’t like anyone forcing his secrets out.
Ash looked at his heart. His density shard had turned his heart into a ball of toughened muscle. It thumped more than it beat. Ash focussed on it.
Thump. Thump…Thump. Thump.
With every beat his heart pushed out a greyish spurt of his energy. Ash’s eyes widened and he looked all around his torso. It was full of that greyish hued energy with splotches of denser spots packed near his other shards. They were acting like a shield. Fighting against the invasive electrical storm.
Thump. Thump. Thump….Thump. Thump. Thump.
Ash’s heart rate rose. More grey started spurting out. Everywhere that it met the crackling power it rebuffed it. And at places it sputtered out a tendril or two. Ash couldn’t move but he wasn’t out of the fight just yet. A spike of adrenaline ran through his body and his heart responded.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump…Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His adrenaline had another effect. The greyish splotches inside his body seemed to get agitated. They started churning in response. Breaking down the electricity and turning it into more of the grey stuff. Other places, the electricity started to get repelled and pushed out.
“Well. That is unusual.” Marshall Lara somehow spoke into Ash’s mind.
Ash couldn’t move his jaw but he thought back “Yeah? Well I am just getting started. You glorified ball gag.”
Marshal Lara laughed “A class zero fighting off a class one while trash talking. You will do, little warder.”
The crackling energy fighting to get into Ash’s body sputtered and slowed. Then it retreated. That didn’t mean Ash was out of the woods just yet. The electricity still made contact with Ash’s skin. Still kept him immobilised but the pain slowly retreated.
Ash’s spasm slowed and he looked up and saw a dozen blue balls of electricity circling him. Ash gulped and heard Lara’s words echo in his mind.
“Ready to talk little one? Or should we play some more?”