The System

by Skyler Grant

  Sylax was screaming, her body convulsing wildly as the electricity flowed around her and into her.

  It didn't appear that she was in very good shape, but I knew that was probably deceiving. All the previous holders had been rendered unconscious for some time after taking a crystal.

  With this new crystal gone the illumination was fading from the walls. The power of the complex disappearing. Anna moved to Sylax, flinging her over one shoulder.

  "We good to go?" Anna asked.

  "There is nothing else here. I can feel that," Caya said.

  This wasn't a real answer to what had happened here. My retrieval teams were finding some data logs from the ships in orbit. We'd have to review them and wait for Sylax to awaken to get more answers.

  Anna grasped hold of the others and teleported them back to the Graven.

  20

  I had Sylax held in a testing cell. It was safest until I could be certain she wouldn't detonate. It was difficult to know what would happen with her.

  Anna, Caya, and Hot Stuff had all possessed a power crystal when they'd absorbed one of the greater crystals. The greater crystal amplified the effects of their natural powers enormously, an exponential effect in Anna's case as one of her recently absorbed crystals had been an amplification crystal that already magnified her other abilities.

  Sylax didn't have a power crystal of her own. Instead she was one of Anna's lieutenants and she had a secondary diluted version of Anna's power. That meant sharing a lesser version of her power, in this case the mingling of her power crystals along with the greater crystal.

  Normally when someone was a lieutenant and they gained a power crystal of their own, they lost that original ability. The greater crystals didn't seem to have abilities of their own however, so what exactly it would do to Sylax's powers was unknown.

  The battle logs retrieved from the ships hadn't recorded anything before arriving in the system. There was a lot of footage of them jumping in by way of singularity drives and laying waste to much of the planet before the crystal ships launched and devastated their fleet.

  The world below reminded me of Earth in some ways, various zones of starkly different architecture and technology. Only one continent had housed crystal towers and ships. The caverns were beneath it.

  Caya was dissecting a body from one of the destroyed ships. The fourth such one she'd gone through.

  "My autosurgeons can do that, and with steadier hands," I said.

  "Not as steady as mine," Caya said. Irritatingly enough, she was correct.

  "Finding anything interesting?"

  "Four bodies, three different species. None of them in the galactic archives—at least, those we have access to," Caya said.

  That was interesting. Galactic civilization didn't know everything, but they were the best record they had.

  "Any signs of genetic construction?" I asked.

  "I had the same thought," Caya said, as she tapped a few keys and allowed me access to her findings. "While distinctly different builds, they each have a very uniform framework with a lack of excess data."

  Evolution was a messy process. By default humans carried in their cells the debris of a million failed experiments. A lack of junk in one’s genetic code was a sign that a life-form hadn't crawled its way out of the muck. My own genetic lines were sleek works of art. I was a self-made machine.

  These samples were all from a single ship.

  "I wonder why they wanted such a diverse crew? I'd have reproduced some variant of the original species who built the ships and therefore would best be able to operate the controls," I said.

  "The body dimensions are similar. Either someone was testing multiple builds simultaneously, or they were showing off, or perhaps they'd been in a rush and had to include earlier models?" Caya asked.

  Of those options I found the rush most likely. The last time a council ship had passed through this region the people of it had still been gone. Perhaps someone was watching and when the world returned, moved to strike.

  I found the thought alarming for reasons that should be obvious. We did have a lot in common with the world below. We'd been sent away, seemingly to avoid a Scythe attack on Earth. We utilized power crystals and dimensional technology. It was possible that whatever had attacked these people would have the same motivation for attacking us—to attack Earth with a massive armada.

  This fleet may have fallen to the crystal ships, but it had still managed to destroy their world first. The empire didn't have the defenses to deal with a threat like this.

  "Keep me informed of anything you find out," I said.

  I found Anna watching over Sylax. It was strange to see her concern after the terrible things Sylax had once done to her.

  I said, "Unfortunately, I think she is probably going to live. If she was going to explode it would have happened right away."

  "Do you think she'll be in as much pain as I am?" Anna asked.

  "I thought the blockers were helping?"

  "They help, but they don't make it go away. I still hurt, every day. I'm always being torn apart from the inside."

  That much at least wasn't true. Anna's matrix was holding together, for all it was strained in a few places. As long as she didn't let too much of her power out at once the energy inside her wasn't fatal.

  "We'll have to see. If she maintains her connection with you I think it may well be worse. If it is broken, I don't even have the data to speculate. We've never seen a great crystal in an unbonded host."

  "I should probably want her to suffer. That would be the right thing," Anna said with a frown.

  "While you are almost nothing but negatives, sadism isn't one of them."

  "What do you make of all this, Emma? I've always been good at making things work, but you're the crazy one. That statue down there, us, what does it all mean?"

  I was not the crazy one. "I doubt it was there originally. I think we're being watched and some force out there decided it was a convenient moment to taunt us and give us a lead."

  "I don't like that," Anna said.

  In that she wasn't alone.

  "We can now make a good guess at a few of the players at least. I can't prove it, but I believe the vessels that attacked this system were either Scythe, or in some way sent by them," I said.

  "There are signs of psionic domination?" Anna asked.

  "No, but we've encountered examples of two different species, both of which have demonstrated great power and treated us like we were playing some kind of game. The Scythe and Iska."

  "They both played against us on each encounter though," Anna said.

  "I don't have all the answers. Iska, or her species, seem to save worlds from the Scythe by using advanced crystalline technology to create dimensional bubbles and shifting worlds away. Those worlds sometimes return if the species upon them master that technology for themselves," I said.

  "You think it is almost like one of your experiments then. If the test subject is strong enough, they escape from the cell," Anna said.

  As if my test subjects escaped from my cells. Well, perhaps a few in the earlier days, but containment technology had come a long ways.

  "I think something like that is possible, and if so the Scythe may view worlds that return as even a greater threat. Perhaps they originally attacked, as it seems they may have some affinity for that technology?" I said.

  Anna frowned and watched as Sylax shifted on the other side of the force field. "It is all speculation and none of it helps us in the slightest. How are the Sol defenses?"

  "The bulk of our population wouldn't survive what happened here. I do have processor cores on Juggernauts that I am keeping far from civilization as a safety precaution. Even if the Sol system got exterminated I'll be able to bring back everyone Networked—eventually."

  "Assuming they didn't just chase us down again. If we're being hunted, Emma, we need to know and we need to kill them first. If our galactic allies and overlords aren't helping us, we don't need them.
Find me some answers." Anna was using that sharp tone showing her own bit of madness had gripped her. While she might be being too authoritarian, she wasn't wrong.

  If I tried to put together a timeline of events, it would be that the world below had returned from their other dimensional exile. The Scythe had attacked, the planet’s crystal fleet survived the Scythe onslaught, but population below perished. The crystal ships had then attacked the sector headquarters and stolen the Library.

  It was a desperate act, probably a sign that the vanquished fleet felt they couldn't trust anybody to tell them the truth and that they needed to find their own answers.

  It was almost certainly going to get them killed. I sympathized with Anna's feelings that galactic society wasn't on our side, they weren't, but they also weren't our enemy at the moment and it was important to keep that being the case. We weren't strong enough to handle them being our enemy.

  If that was the sequence of events it did give us some insight into the motivation of the crystal fleet’s people though. They didn't feel that they could trust anybody and were on the run. There were other various rebellious or disavowed powers out there, but they'd be uncertain allies. If the fleet really wanted to hide I knew just how they'd do it. I had to speak with Caya.

  21

  There was one place certain of being safe from the Scythe—in another dimension. For whatever reason the Scythe seemed to be unable to make that journey. Perhaps their psionic nature was disrupted by the passage between dimensions. Large shifts often caused me to blackout, but then in addition to being psionic I did have a power crystal. Perhaps that made a difference.

  I found Caya in a zen garden. These weren't new to her, the Flawless made extensive use of them although hers kept getting stranger with time. Neat rows and arrangements had given way to more chaotic ones, designs and patterns that pulled the mind in new directions and were painful to behold for too long.

  "Stop pretending to meditate and help me to do something useful," I said through speakers.

  "Dissections put me in a thoughtful frame of mind," Caya said, stretching out, "You can talk to me now. What have you got?"

  "I think that the crystal ships are hiding out in a dimensional bubble. You're our expert on dimensional physics. Is there a way to track them?"

  Caya took a deep breath, staring at the patterns she'd created. "I already had the idea. It shouldn't have taken you this long to realize a dimensional-shifting species might hide in dimensional space. I think it probable, however I don't have a way to track it."

  It wasn't that obvious. Being in another dimension was largely useless unless you wanted to hide way or cover your mistakes.

  "I have an idea there. There are traces of dimensional shifts left on anything that has translated," I said.

  "Muted, but I'm with you so far. Go on," Caya said.

  "The planet below. Everything on it should have a distinct marker from when it returned from dimensional space."

  "And from the time it went. You're thinking the ships would share the latter, if they'd built them on the other side," Caya said.

  The air shifted, a brief dimensional distortion of shimmering red light. A figure appeared in the garden beside Caya.

  Iska.

  I was always prepared for SCIENCE, and for Caya to go insane and become a monster that needed capturing. I was ready for something like this.

  I triggered the containment barriers for the garden, or I tried. The systems were unfortunately busy melting into sludge.

  "You two are a real disappointment," Iska said, taking a puff on her cigarette.

  Caya was in motion, her combat maneuvers flawless as always, but in this case ended not with Iska trapped in some combat hold. Instead, Caya was sent flying across the room to crash against a wall.

  "Done yet?" Iska asked.

  Not even a little. Even with Anna's cookie-laden mass it was only a few seconds for me to brief her and she was teleporting in to throw a punch at the back of Iska's head. Anna too went hurtling, hitting the wall opposite Caya.

  I materialized a power dampening array before throwing a stun net. Both melted.

  "I'm here to talk and I'm kind of sort of on your side in this," Iska said with a scowl.

  "We'll listen until we figure out a way to throw a better punch. Stand down everyone," Anna said.

  "You sure? I didn't go anywhere close to full strength," Caya said.

  Iska snapped her fingers Caya flickered away from the wall to materialize standing before her. Iska looked her up and down.

  "You are down the road a bit, aren't you? We didn't get you started. Hold it in. I'd still win the fight, but if we go full strength we'd tear the ship apart," Iska said.

  "Maybe you're missing who is the more powerful," Anna said.

  "Nah, I'm calling it right. I made you a box and you stepped onto it and think we're equals, but I can yank the box away any time. I made her a box and she used it to climb a tree. I like it, I mean you'll hate it and ascension is all a big mistake, but it is a good look on someone else," Iska said brightly.

  "You wouldn't know. Not really," Caya said.

  "You get to be the tallest tree, you kill everything around you. Starve all the little ones for light. Enlightenment isn't all they say," Iska said, before moving to glare at Anna. "What were you thinking letting someone else absorb that crystal? It was obviously meant for you."

  "Yeah, because I want to imagine all the jokes Emma makes for years after I explode from overindulgence," Anna said.

  "What does it do?" I asked.

  "In Anna it would have helped to regulate her powers. Cut out some of the pain, let her really reach her peak potential with some badass reality alteration abilities as well. With a monster like you stuck it in? I don't have a clue," Iska said, taking a long draw on her cigarette.

  "So who are you and what is your role in all this?" I asked.

  "You've guessed this is all a part of someone else's game and you aren't wrong. It was a surprise when you found me the first time and I like surprises. Would be a shame if you got yourselves wiped out, and you're poking in places you shouldn't. Tell the council what you know, collect your reward, get out," Iska said.

  "You're playing against the Scythe right? You think they'd just let us walk away if they think we're one of your pieces? You seem too ridiculously unpleasant and I can only think they want to purge everything related to you from existence," I asked.

  "If they thought you were one of my pieces you'd already be dead," Iska said.

  "We should think about it," Caya said.

  "It isn't like you to surrender," Anna said.

  "We back out now, we get a nice payday. Sol gets a good head start over the other new species and we spend some time building up our technology until we can get close to the galactic standard," Caya said.

  "Whatever natural progression Earth was on got shattered. It was likely we need put our planet back together again, never rejoin the universe. I want to know why," Anna said.

  Iska shook her head. "You aren't getting answers from me, not today."

  "What were you hoping would happen? That we'd see that statue of yours? Take the loot and just walk away?" Anna asked.

  "You don't have to tug on the loose string. You don't have to walk through the sinister half-opened door. You can do what any sane species does when confronted with danger and get away from it," Iska said.

  "This is another test," I said.

  "Explain, Emma," Caya asked.

  "If this was the creature or a representative of the species that sent Earth away and it was a test, it’s a test of what? Technological aptitude or the willingness to leave safety behind?" I said.

  "And you think she presents us with the same option again," Anna said.

  "Both times we encountered the Scythe they have repeatedly tested our killer instinct. We've been challenged to contests where the only real victory came in being more murderous than they are," I said.

  "You think this is some cosm
ic game of fight or flight?" Caya asked.

  I hadn't thought of it in quite those terms, but those were the two essential modes of survival for a species. You ran and hid from danger, or you tackled it head on and won. We of the empire were fighters, we'd had to be. Perhaps that was why Iska wasn't all that interested in having us on her side.

  "You're close to a truth, but your minds can't really wrap around the specifics. I didn't come to guide you to answers, but to encourage you to survive. Do or don't it is up to you," Iska said, and in a ripple of light vanished.

  "Can we please shield my flagship so that alien entities can't simply appear?" Anna said.

  "I'll see what I can do. In the meantime maybe you can buff up so you don't totally humiliate yourself when trying to throw them off the ship," I said.

  "I'll see what I can do," Anna echoed and then snapped, "We're not playing it safe. What’s next?"

  "I'll still working on tracking signatures and still have nothing," Caya said.

  "The Library. The crystal ships were looking for something and they probably got denied what they wanted first," I said.

  "They won't even let us in the door," Caya said.

  "I can help us with that, I think. Setting course now," I said.

  22

  The Balakai was a collective of machine intelligences fascinated with the organic. They were spread over twenty-four systems, nano-processors so perfectly formed they could take any shape, and their worlds appeared to just be thriving ecosystems of jungles, rivers, and animal life.

  It was all artificial, not a bit of it even organic in the traditional sense. While they had crafted organic computers in the past they'd never been able to get one to achieve sentience. They were fascinated with me and had been courting me heavily. They also were members of the council, head of a sector government, and home to a sector library equivalent to the one that was stolen.