Unity

by Carl Stubblefield

  Affinities learned: 0/12

  Affinities mastered: 0/12

  1000 XP awarded.

  4,160 XP to level 21.

  “Check this out!” BoJack said with delight, sliding a message over to Gus’ display.

  Skill gained: Didact (Level 1)

  Didact: You have unlocked the mentorship skill tree. As a result, you gain a percentage of XP based on how effectively you train your protege. Current: (Tier I) of XP increases to skills related to your training.

  Note: This applies for one month after you have completed your final training session or when protege stops gaining XP advancement in skills, whichever comes first. Continue to cultivate their growth to maintain Didact bonuses.

  Current skills training: Ether Crafting

  1000 XP awarded.

  26,895 XP to level 62.

  “That’s pretty sweet,” Gus congratulated BoJack.

  BoJack tapped his temple with a finger. “At higher levels you have to work smarter, as well as working harder. Training positions are coveted in the Academy for this reason.” His face sobered, excitement stilling as he turned to look Gus in the eye. “Thank you for trusting me. I’ll do my best to train you well. It’s rare for the skill to unlock in general, so now that it has, you’ve opened a new path of progression for me.”

  “No problem,” Gus shrugged, trying not to make a big deal out of the chance for him to learn; he was probably getting more out of the deal than BoJack ever would. Finally, he could start progressing again. He had been training but felt like he had hit a plateau, and the XP gain was much less than he had become accustomed to when allocated based on contribution when fighting in a group.

  While it was good to learn that type of teamwork, it slowed down any kind of progression. At last, he had a bit more control over his own growth, with new avenues to explore. This could be his very own personalized academy crash course. As he distractedly thought of the possibilities, he could see that BoJack was looking at him expectantly. Did he say something and I missed it? Gus tried to diffuse the intensity of the moment, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

  “Dang, XP requirements really go up as you level. 62, huh? How is your Nth interface after the sixth change—” Stop babbling!

  Gus snapped his mouth shut, realizing he may have committed a series of faux pas asking about strengths or levels.

  Seeing his distress, BoJack’s face softened again. “Relax, I was going to explain some of the unsaid stigmas we supers have. Why don’t you keep working on your ether constructs? Don’t try filling them yet, but focus on making as many as you can. Without infusion they will dissipate, but don’t worry about that. Finish one and start working on another. Unfortunately, this is mainly a trial and error process that takes a lot of practice before you will get ideas on how to optimize the constructs. I’ll explain while we work. You have caught on much more quickly than I expected. That gives us time to discuss some other things that you need to know.”

  BoJack extended two cables in front of him which merged and formed a blade similar to a bulldozer. He trudged forward and cleared a swath of the forest floor. Gus turned his attention back to forming constructs as BoJack began.

  “I suppose the best way to start explaining is to see if you know anything of the Rockland conflict?”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar,” Gus replied, shaking his head.

  “I’m not surprised. A lot of effort was put into erasing that bit of our history. I get a feeling you know what an Nth is?”

  “Yes, I call mine Nick.”

  “You’re referring to the interface. But I guess that’s what I mean as well. They’re what allow us to access our abilities. From what I know of you, Gus, you’re new to powers and Nth assistance, correct?”

  Gus began stretching the ether again, fighting against his reflex to manipulate with anything but the faintest of MP assistance as possible. “Yeah, but I thought that was kind of not common knowledge, Nth and all.”

  “I could tell you had an idea about Nth. You responded with recognition when it was mentioned, instead of the blank looks that us veterans usually see.

  “I’m afraid that’s all tied together. There’s been a shift in how supers are trained now. In short, the Rockland conflict was a failed coup of a coalition of younger supers, augments, and hybrids. To prevent further uprisings, the system for training supers was modified in an attempt to control and manage the strength new supers could reach.

  “At its core, it was to maintain the power base of the old guard—I personally think it will come back to haunt us as we are creating a weaker, less effective group of supers. Hobbling the next generation to avoid dissent is cowardly and unbefitting what we should be standing for as supers. Inflexibility is what ultimately led to the conflict and ‘winning’ and the resultant fallout only compounded the problem.”

  BoJack threw out cables from tree to tree above the cleared space, anchoring them. He then created wide bands of material, rolling it out from his outstretched arms. The area became visibly darker and colder as the ambient energy and light were sucked out of the area like a sponge. After securing the sides of his ether tent construct, the area appeared to brighten, but not to the level it was before. It reminded Gus of a time-lapse video from early dusk to twilight.

  The sudden chill motivated him to focus again on his constructs, realizing they may need more heat than expected with all the crafting BoJack was doing. He returned his attention to making containers as BoJack continued.

  “Communication with Nth personality constructs was discouraged and it was found that, as a result, the new generation of supers could still improve their skills and level them without interaction with an interface. However, their overall levels stayed the same and they couldn’t apply any stat increases their Nth unlocked. New supers did not have access to the exact quantified data that a display offers at all.

  “Somehow, they adapted to get a general sense of where their HP or MP was. Fortunately, they could see HP bars above enemies, which is essential in battle, so things settled out and have been the same ever since. The Factions shared their findings and it became pretty universal. Know this though, Gus…”

  Gus peered over his shoulder as BoJack stopped talking.

  “The veterans are counseled never to speak of this. I could get reprimanded or even demoted for sharing what I have. I have always disagreed with it, but I’m not ignorant of the shift that’s been happening in our Faction in the last couple of years. We need to make some big changes. This has created more of a rift than it is preventing, and it becomes more pronounced the longer it is maintained. You can’t tell anyone of this, Gus. Not yet. Hopefully things will work themselves out, but I’m not confident in the direction we’ve been heading.”

  “It’s in the vault,” Gus replied and BoJack nodded, turning back to his task. From there they finished their preparations without too much new discussion. Gus was caught up in thought, both with crafting and checking his XP gains, and BoJack had fallen into a somber mood as he went inside the ether tent and was working out of sight.

  When he had finished, he poked his head out and motioned Gus to come inside.

  “Bring those ether vessels as well.”

  Gus scooped up as many as he could carry, surprised that he had made so many while they talked. He expected them to clink together as he gathered them, but they did not respond like the glass containers they resembled. Dropping a couple of them on the way, Gus elbowed into the flaps of the tent and saw that BoJack had made bunks, two chairs, and a small table at the far end of the tent.

  He set the ether vessels down on one of the cots and BoJack grabbed some, motioning for Gus to watch. BoJack created a simple piston that seemed to compress the air inside. He set it aside and the piston kept working with barely perceptible clicks. He picked up a couple more and repeated the process, then let Gus finish the rest.

  At first it was difficult to maintain the simple machine parts, but after referring to
the others that BoJack had made and altering his approach, he was able to duplicate his first piston. His next one was a failure so he picked up the initial container BoJack had infused and was surprised to see it was very warm, bordering on hot. Setting it down quickly, he put his hand over it and felt a mild heat radiate from the small container.

  “You’ll have to recharge them after a while but they usually keep going for about four hours, depending on how much MP you channel in there,” BoJack answered Gus’ unasked question when he saw Gus trying to puzzle out his next construct. “Don’t be afraid to put a lot in there, the ether can handle it, and then you won’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to recharge them.”

  Gus spent the rest of the time charging mini heaters and when he looked over, BoJack was already asleep. The walls of the tent held out the night and the insides quickly became a comfortable temperature and Gus rubbed his eyes, deciding to settle down for the night.

  Regardless of when he had made them, the pistons all fired their soft clicks at the same time and the sound relaxed him. Gus had to shake himself and slapped his cheeks a couple times as the increasing warmth was making him drowsy.

  Can’t sleep! That was close.

  Gus murmured mentally then turned and grabbed out the Quorian cube. Spinning it, he found another surface to evaluate. Purple? Why not? I need something to occupy my time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hot in Herre

  Aurora awoke, her coughing pulling her out of sleep. Orange light flickered off the low hanging clouds and the smell of the campfire was overwhelming. Rubbing her stinging eyes, she blinked and saw that it wasn’t their campfire at all, but a thick haze hanging in the air.

  Realization struck her as she reached over and shook Yuki.

  “Fire!” she yelled as Yuki moaned, curling tighter in a ball, wrapping her blanket more tightly around her.

  “Yuki, get up!” The super lifted her head pleadingly, eyes still closed. Tasting the air and licking her teeth she grimaced in disgust.

  “What the…?”

  Aurora cast the crinkly blanket aside and hauled Yuki up to her feet.

  “Hey, get away. I’m so tired…” Aurora helped Yuki walk away from the orange glow as fast as she could, urging her to move faster as she stumbled like a marionette with only Aurora to prop her up.

  Despite Aurora’s best efforts, Yuki’s lumbering foot caught a rock amid the pine needles and she fell onto her face. The impact was enough to shake her more fully conscious and her drowsiness turned to anger as she turned and glared at Aurora. For the first time she saw the hellish light reflected above and Yuki scrambled to her feet and began to run in earnest.

  “Let’s go, Aurora, stop goofing around!” she yelled as she tore off. Aurora rolled her eyes and followed after. There was enough illumination from the reflected light that they could see in front of them, their shadows stretching in front of them as they ran away from the conflagration. Yuki pulled up a collar that looked like a turtleneck and covered her mouth and nose and continued running. Aurora masked her face and created a small bubble of ionized air over the back of her hand.

  The tang of ozone wasn’t the best of smells, but it beat smoke inhalation. The sterile air had an almost bitter taste to it as she gasped as she ran. Aurora saw the back of her hand visibly darken as particulates in the air were drawn to it. The women ran downhill, half sliding, half running to outpace the flames. The clouds above began to flicker ever brighter as the fire increased in intensity. A hot wind began to flow past them as the superheated air rushed by, as if to goad them into faster flight.

  Ahead of them the trees thinned then disappeared. Yuki skidded to a stop on the rocky surface, seeing that there was a sheer drop off, looking back in panic.

  “Just go!” Aurora shouted but Yuki desperately shook her head no. Changing direction, Aurora tackled her in a bear hug and, using her momentum, propelled them both off the rocky edge. Her shoulder flared its displeasure at being used before it had totally healed. It had recovered enough she had forgotten about it, but the impact woke it with a vengeance.

  Aurora winced as Yuki screamed directly in her ear as they fell downward. Struggling to keep her eyes open she began to fly as well as she could, but they were still dropping precipitously. Her shoulder hurt the longer she held Yuki and the distraction drew away her focus as they plunged downwards into the darkness until they hit the bottom.

  Less than a mile away, Gus settled in and activated Electronic Mind and stared at the purple surface of the cube. He felt the pull inside, although there was more resistance as he entered this go around. Not much, but it felt like pushing through gelatin. Once he had squirmed through the rubbery barrier, he found himself floating. Trying to determine if it felt more like being underwater or floating in space, he ultimately decided it was somewhere in the middle.

  There had been mandatory zero-g training on Graviton’s station, so the sensation was not altogether unfamiliar. Unlike reality, he found he could propel himself along with thought. Checking his MP, he found that he had not activated flight or any other ability, but he had more influence in this plane of the Quorian than he had in the others he had visited.

  Turning to take in the surroundings, he noticed a series of floating islands off to his left. Giant amethyst crystals glowed and pulsated on the undersides of these islands, and Gus could resolve a paved pathway on their flattened tops. He drifted toward the nearest one and found that as he got closer something akin to a magnetic attraction pulled him securely to the surface of the island. Taking a couple steps, he felt as if he were walking normally, none of the sucking feeling of walking through a muddy bog that the magnetic boots often had while on the orbital station.

  Besides the path, there was not much on this island, so he followed it until he reached the far edge. Kicking a rock off, it tumbled forward into space, following the trajectory of his kick. Looking down, he could see only billowy lavender clouds, moving imperceptibly. If he peered for a while, he could see brief bursts of what he supposed was lightning, intensifying the deepness of purple for a moment before fading back to normal. There was no thunder that he could detect.

  In fact, he did not notice any sound at all. He clapped his hands and noted no noise was produced. He could breathe normally though. An attempt at talking let him feel the vibrations in his throat but as the sound reached his lips it was quickly absorbed by the air around his mouth. He tried a scream to similar effect, leaving him more aware of his blood pumping more notably from the strain of his prolonged scream.

  Looking ahead, he saw the next island ahead and above him slightly, so he backed up a bit and took a running jump. He soared upward as if assisted, the effect much like using the Bound ability. He actually overshot the edge but like before was able to change his trajectory and drift down to the next rock.

  This island was bigger, having exotic plants populating the sides of the path. As far as he could tell they all looked various shades of purple extending to an almost black on the leaves and stalks. He silently moved ahead and traversed a dozen more islands before he saw a castle looming on a massive island.

  Upon reaching it, he saw that it was in severe disrepair, with large sections missing from the walls and ramparts. The broken sections were much higher than the ground, and as Gus attempted to jump up to gain entrance to the castle, he found that he was back to normal in terms of movement. He could not drift or fly either. Looking back at the previous island, the gulf between him seemed much too wide to pass if his change in mobility stayed the same.

  Moving to one of the large sections of wall, he sat on one that reminded him of the “S” shape in Tetris. Instead of supporting his weight, the massive piece of stone tipped over like a movie prop, tumbling him onto the ground.

  Gus leaned forward to touch the stone and found that without even contacting it he could move and position it. He extended his palms in front of him and lifted the large stone easily in the air. Twisting his right wrist the
piece rotated clockwise and counterclockwise. Pushing his left palm forward or back rotated the shape away and towards him. Once again, this took no MP and he showed no active abilities on his display.

  Setting the rock down, he put his hands on his hips and looked up at the castle ramparts. Picking up other pieces of debris and manipulating them, his inner gamer began to see some distinct patterns with the broken sections on the ground.

  Gus found his original piece, which was one of the smaller ones, and manipulated it up into the broken rampart. After positioning it, he ‘set’ the piece and it clicked in place just like a Lego block, locking in position without the need for mortar. Nodding to himself, he set to work trying to fix the broken walls.

  It turned out placing small pieces first was a mistake, as there was no place for the larger pieces. It quickly became obvious that there were enough stones in the rubble pieces to entirely rebuild the section of the rampart and no remaining openings, so Gus put himself to the task of fitting everything together. The pieces snapped apart just as easily when he had to remove them, but he could only manipulate one at a time.

  Once he flipped a piece and inverted it, he could see how its unique configuration would slide into the right side of the breach. After that, the other large piece could only fit one way and this drastically cut down on the area he needed to fill. As he slid the last piece in place, the edges of the bricks flared and the rampart was whole again, becoming indistinguishable from the remaining intact sections of the castle.

  Gus found that he could no longer remove the individual pieces either. A large portcullis stood to the right of the section he had just repaired. After a minute of nothing happening, he went up to the bars and peered in, but could see only darkness as he held onto the cold steel bars. There was nothing to manipulate here, no handles or levers, so Gus began walking around the castle walls.