“Brint. What do you mean by that? Why do you not have a purpose?”
What do I say to that? Do I tell it the truth? He pondered what he would say for just a moment, aware that the more time he delayed the more danger he was in. Since the short time he had to think about it didn’t reveal any reason to lie, he decided to tell the truth.
“When I reached the proper age, every test we had couldn’t tell me what ability I had. Every other Proctan has an ability – some aren’t as useful, but at least they have one – except for me. Since I wasn’t classifiable, I instead was classified as ‘useless’ and treated with disrespect and scorn. So, in short, I have no purpose.”
The voice was silent for a moment and Brint figured it was mulling over whether to kill him because he was “useless”. The next question startled him, mainly because he hadn’t really had time to process the answer yet.
“How did you kill my Scaly Pygmy Wolves, then? If you say you have no ‘ability’”?
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Or is it just that you don’t want to tell me?”
“It’s the truth – I felt a rush of power flowing through my body, and unbidden a word emerged from my mouth with intent behind it. I don’t know where it came from, or how it works. The most I can reason out is that I must have used an ability, but I don’t even know what it was. I wonder if this is what Whinfly felt like?” he softly muttered that last part out loud to himself, but the voice apparently heard it as well.
“Who is Whinfly?”
“He was the first one of us to discover an ability, he was an Elemental Caster,” he responded, reminded of the history lesson he had just attended with Whisp the other day.
“So, you haven’t always had these abilities?”
“No, of course not, they are what saved us during the ‘Beast War’ almost a hundred years ago,” he told the voice in his head, not understanding how something obviously this intelligent didn’t know about the most important thing that had happened in the last century. The curious voice was silent for a long time, so long that Brint ended up sitting in the corner of the room and cradling his injured wrist which was beginning to hurt more and more.
“Please recount the main points in your history over the last one hundred years.”
Oh, Goddess. At least I’ve sat through all those kid’s classes so many times that I could almost repeat the lesson by heart. He rationalized that he didn’t have much choice, that he was at the mercy of whatever this entity was, and that what he was going to say was common knowledge. He began at the start of the “Beast War” and moved on talking about the general attrition of Proctan forces, the last stand at the Capital, the discovery of abilities, and ended with the push against the masses of creatures along the borders. He went on to explain the different classes of abilities, up to and including the “unique” or “useless” class of abilities.
He realized that he had been talking for what felt like hours and his throat was beginning to become parched. And the pain from his wrist was starting to make him swoon, until he felt as though he could pass out at any moment. When he stopped talking, he was momentarily startled as the voice in his head spoke again, jostling his wrist and eliciting a hiss of pain. Brint was beginning to think that the voice had been nothing but a hallucination brought on by the onset of the pain in his wrist.
“I want you to try something for me. Look at the orb floating in the air above you. Now, try to use your ability and project your thoughts toward the orb, instructing it to move towards you.”
Brint didn’t really have a reason not to do it, since he was in such pain that anything that would distract him from it would be a blessing. He squinted at the floating orb and tried to will it to move. When nothing happened, he tried again and again but still there was no movement in the orb. He almost gave up when he decided to try something else.
Closing his eyes, he focused inward, attempting to block out the nagging pain at the edge of his consciousness. He delved deeper, looking for the spark of power that he knew every Proctan had inside of them, but he had never consciously felt before. It wasn’t until he had tried looking everywhere inside his lower body that he decided to try his head. Immediately, he could feel a warm presence surrounding his brain and as soon as he touched it the power rushed through him, momentarily washing away the agony from his wrist. It only lasted a few moments, but the absence of pain spurred him to try moving the orb again.
When he opened his eyes, he looked at the orb and felt a very slight dip in what he now knew was his power level. He controlled the flying object with his mind, directing it all over the room, bringing it closer and then zipping away, only to stop before it hit the wall. As soon as he started making it do loops in the middle of the room, he felt his control rip away as the orb froze in place. A couple of moments of trying to control it again was fruitless as something was blocking his influence.
“Very good. Now, I want you to try controlling something else.”
Brint was confused, since all he could see inside the room was the floating orb. He thought that he was missing something and was about to ask what the voice was talking about, when he heard something coming from behind him. He turned around just as a block of stone about a foot wide and long dropped out from the wall, making a big *thunk* as it fell a couple of feet to the floor. Backing up against the far wall, Brint unconsciously looked for an escape that his conscious mind knew wouldn’t be there.
His breath caught in his chest and he held up his hands in automatic self-defense as he saw something emerge from the hole. The breath he had been holding whooshed out of his lungs as he saw that it was just one of the harmless creatures that he had seen rarely in the trees around the village. They would chitter at him whenever he got too close to “their” tree, but he had never learned if they had a name. The creatures that usually garnered the most attention were the ones that were the biggest threats – if it was harmless, it sometimes wasn’t even named.
It stood less than a foot tall, had a large bushy tail that curved down at the end, and had two pointed ears above an innocent-looking face with soft eyes. He watched as it nimbly jumped down from the hole, bounded to the middle of the room, and sat down, watching him with patient eyes.
“Go on, try to control the squirrel.”
Ah, so that’s what they were called. He focused on the “squirrel” and brought his power to the forefront of his mind. He was finding it easier and easier to do so, as if with practice it was becoming second-nature. He concentrated on the small animal, cautiously exerting his control, not wanting to harm the poor creature. When he felt as though he had established a “connection” with it, he thought about it jumping into the air – and to his delight, the squirrel jumped three feet straight up into the air.
Once he knew that he could control it, he had it running in circles around the room, jumping against the walls only to spring off and gain some serious air. After he had spent a couple of minutes manipulating the squirrel, he could begin to feel the drain on his power. It wasn’t a huge amount, but he could imagine that a couple of hours of controlling the creature would wipe him out.
“Very impressive. I have one more test for you.”
Brint smiled, almost eager for a challenge – especially since using his power seemed to mute the pain emanating from his wrist. While it didn’t disappear completely, it dampened it enough that he could concentrate again. He heard another noise near the hole that had been neatly sliced out of the wall previously. Turning toward the commotion, he froze as a giant portion of the wall was pushed out of the way by a pair of large scaled hands. The creature that followed the hands was so frightening that if Brint hadn’t been dehydrated he would have soiled his undergarments. As it was, he almost passed out again and only the solid presence of the wall behind him kept him from collapsing in a boneless heap.
He had never seen or heard anything like this creature that was standing in front of him. Over six feet tall and half agai
n as long, it looked like a giant lizard, except that this one had hard scales all over its body and extremely sharp-looking claws. The way it slowly walked to the middle of the room with exaggerated care hinted that it was used to moving much faster. He had never seen or heard of anything like this creature before, and he just hoped that he lived long enough to tell the tale. Afraid to move a muscle, he just stood still and stared at the deadly monstrosity.
“Don’t worry, he won’t attack unless I tell him to. Now, let’s see if you can control him.”
Brint wasn’t sure he wanted to know how the voice knew that it was a he. He didn’t think he’d be able to control the huge lizard because he was scared out of his mind. However, he didn’t want to take the chance that the voice would get mad that he didn’t try, so he tried to block out the pain, the fear, and the anxiety clouding his thoughts. Licking his lips in nervous anticipation, he brought forth the power with slightly more difficulty than before. Once he could feel it suffuse his senses, he immediately reached for some sort of “connection” to the beast, afraid that if he waited too long he would lose his nerve.
Success! He could feel the connection form with an inaudible snap, and suddenly he felt like he had a great weight land on his head. He started controlling the lizard, having it walk around the room and make a couple of laps, the power flowing through him in a torrent. Suddenly, the connection snapped, and an intense feedback pain smacked him in the head. It was so painful that he had forgotten that he had a broken wrist, and when he grabbed his forehead in an involuntary action the left wrist jostled enough that he thought he could hear and feel the bones rubbing against each other.
Screaming at the double-whammy of pain, he fell to his knees, ignoring the deadly creature no longer under his control just a couple of feet away. After a thankfully short time, the pain in his head faded to a dull throb, although his wrist was far worse off than before.
“What happened, are you okay?”
He was still in such pain that he didn’t notice the empathetic note to the voice in his head. “I think that’s what happens when you run out of power. Controlling that giant lizard took entirely too much out of me and the ‘connection’ I had with it rebounded on me.” He added under his breath, “I wish I had a Power Potion…”
“What’s a Power Potion?”
Goddess, enough with the questions already.
Unbeknownst to Brint, that last question would change his whole world.
Chapter 33 – Consequences
Throughout the beginning of the interrogation, Milton and ALANNA were struggling to contain their laughter as the Proctan they had brought back answered his questions while being a nervous wreck. They weren’t laughing at Brint – in fact, they felt sorry for him and Milton wanted to see about fixing his wrist – they were instead laughing at Milton’s fake “all-powerful being” persona he was adopting. To Milton, it felt a little like going to a liquor store as underage teenagers and pretending to act older so that the fake ID’s they presented wouldn’t be inspected too closely.
He was trying to hold it together, but when ALANNA started playfully mocking him, saying stuff like, “Pitiful Proctan, how dare you enter my presence! You should get down and lick my boots! I should whip you for your insolence, you mangy cur!” he lost it, and it took him a while to recover. When he started asking more questions, their amusement faded as he started learning about their recent history.
“Uh…ALANNA? Is he saying what I’m thinking he’s saying? I mean, the timing seems about right for when I woke up here, but how is this possible? I remember you saying something about the possible mutations my radiation could have on the local wildlife, which is why I have done my best to minimize my impact. But magic? Was that from me, or was it there all the time and was just hidden from them?”
She was silent for a long time, continuing to listen to Brint explain what had happened after something called the “Beast War” that he had heard snippets of from people in the village. As he was winding down, arriving closer to the present time, she looked at his shell and slowly said, “I don’t know…it’s possible that their abilities were there all the time, but based on the timing I don’t think so. The probability that this was just a coincidence would have to be so fucking low that it’s not likely. I know you didn’t fucking mean to do it, but it looks like your presence here may have created this fucking “Beast War” he was talking about – as well as everything that came after. Despite your best intentions, you ended up affecting more than just the immediate area; for all we know, you may have changed the entire world.”
Milton took her words in, a part of him refusing to believe what she said might be true. The other part questioned if his presence here had irrevocably changed the previously peaceful world into one full of dangerous monsters and magic. I caused the deaths of thousands of people? It’s not like I meant to, but does that excuse what I’ve done? If I knew that this would happen, would I have done anything differently? What do I do now? His internal contemplation was interrupted by Brint explaining the different classes of abilities his people had.
“ALANNA, what if his ‘ability’ is to hack into the neural communication network that I’ve established with my Combat Units and drones? He said that he never knew what his ability was before he met my Scaly Pygmy Wolves, and I believe him – it was hard to fake what happened there. If it’s true, how do I test that? And, additionally, do you think he could break into my Core system?”
“Your Core system is safe, not even I can access it without your permission except for some rudimentary sensory programs unconnected to your main system. As for how to test him, why don’t you have him try moving the sensor orb in there?”
Milton thought that it was a good idea and told Brint to try controlling it. When he was eventually successful, he observed both the physical actions of the sensor orb and the neural communication network that was being affected by his actions. He couldn’t accurately see what was happening there, so in a flash of inspiration he envisioned an overhead map of the surrounding area and mentally overlaid the locations of all his units. Each type of unit was assigned a different color, so that he could easily see what he had where. As soon as it was finished, the new screen popped up exactly like he had envisioned.
Congratulations!
You have acquired the skill: Tactical Mapping (Level 1)
You have accessed a previously locked resource, resulting in the knowledge of how to create a tactical display map of the battlefield that shows you the locations of your units, as well as the locations of enemy units if they are spotted by your Combat Units. Higher levels expand on the information of enemy units, show damage to Combat Units, and potentially offer tactical solutions.
His increased Processing Power/Intelligence, as well as familiarity with tactical maps from his gaming, meant that the new skill knowledge only caused a slight hiccup in his concentration instead of knocking him out. Why didn’t I think of this before? This is genius! Now I can see on the map where everyone is and allocate resources much more efficiently. He could think of new ways of using this information, but he pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.
When he could focus again on the map, he mentally zoomed in on the room holding the Proctan and the sensor orb. The bright light that should be his sensor orb was so dim that it was like someone had covered up a lightbulb with a sheet of dark cloth. Although he could still see it, he could also “sense” that it was under something else’s control. With a mental touch, he poked the dim light with a non-existent finger and the sensor orb immediately lit back up to full brightness. When he looked back into the room, he could see that the orb had stopped in midair and Brint was looking around in confusion. Milton kept his concentration on the orb, looking to see if he could prevent the Proctan from taking control of it if he had a direct connection to it – which thankfully worked.
Coming up with another test, he had one of his nearby squirrels run to the area with the holding cell, while two dron
es drilled their way down to the room from the surface. They were done surprisingly fast, and he sent the squirrel down to just outside Brints’ cell, when he told the man to try controlling something else. Milton and ALANNA laughed again at the fright of the Proctan when the squirrel emerged from the wall, only to relax as he saw that it was a harmless creature. Little does he know that those things are blood-thirsty.
When he could see that Brint was successful in controlling the squirrel, he started widening the tunnel down to the room. He had a theory that the larger the creature, the harder it would be to control it. Since Milton himself was restrained a bit by how much he could control at one time – at least in terms of Bio Units – he figured the same might apply to the Proctan. Larger creatures required larger Neurological Control Units, which in turn required higher processing power to control.
When he was ready, Milton sent one of his BBQs down the tunnel and waited there while Brint finished up with the squirrel. He could see that the young man was a little tired by now, probably from his constant use of his ability – however, he appeared happier now than when he first arrived. Milton drew back and hesitated, keenly aware of how frightening his BBQ would be to someone not accustomed to them. He remembered being a bit scared when he first saw them and now they were even scarier with the improvements he had made to them. Being in such an enclosed space might just push the already injured and shaken Proctan over the edge.
Well, no pain, no gain. He needed to test his theory and since this was the largest creature he had it was the best way to do that. Things didn’t quite go as he had expected.
The Station Core: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 1) Page 23
