The First Technomancer

by G Aliaksei C

  Black boxes.

  The attackers died, but some part of them teleported away, taking with them the glow any Corporate could spot in a sentient being. Did that mean that somewhere they would be born anew, into new bodies? Would they come after me?

  I stood up and stepped away from the burning bodies, approaching the aliens. The two looked at me, limbs snaking to their loot bags and weapons.

  “Should we keep moving?”

  They relaxed and the Cockroach stepped forward, offering a claw-like appendage. “I am Pessi, Grenadier. The Inson is Rarus, Gladiator.”

  I stared at the limb, dumbfounded.

  “Am I wrong in assuming handshakes are a Corporate tradition as well as Human?”

  Handshakes? I had heard of the concept, seen it in old movies, but The War turned physical contact into two extremes - intercourse and combat - leaving no space in between. A handshake could be too easily turned into an attack. Nevertheless, I grabbed the claw and let it shake my hand.

  “I am Mr. Frost. Engineer. Why the semi-Latin names?”

  “Latin?” The Cockroach frowned, still violently shaking my hand. “What is Latin? The Corporate named us.”

  “Sarcastic bastards.” It was the second time my home nation mentioned, and the confirmation provided me with immense relief. “Alright, shall we continue moving?”

  “Yes Human, we must keep moving after you regain full use of your arm.” Pessi handed me two large red-white patches. I pulled back the collar of my shirt and slapped the patches under, over the holes in my numb, tingling right side.

  Relocating to the path we returned to jogging towards our destination. My new armor whined and glowed, struggling to match my strides. Despite my makeshift repairs the suit gave me the lightness and endurance to easily run for two more hours.

  I had almost no idea how much of the gear worked. The neural interface within the powered armor somehow anticipated exactly what moves I was going to make, assisting me rather than resisting the motion. In my time such a feat required the armor to hook into an implant at the back of my neck, tapping directly into the spine. That implant was gone now, leaving me clueless as to the nature of the armor’s guiding mechanics. The shields I had seen used in the firefight made no sense either. No theoretical method I knew of could accomplish thin, material, stupidly glowing walls that formed around the body to deflect bullets. The dome generated by the staff-wielder was insanity on a different level - an impractical, wasteful approach to defense-field theory that I wouldn’t be able to explain, even if I was high enough on mental boosters to see a new dimension. It was possible, perhaps, but certainly suboptimal.

  The armor I had salvaged was far from efficient, heating up over the course of the jog, first comfortably warming my joints, then nearly burning me with the excess heat. In light of such defects I asked for a stop, giving the suit time to cool. I used the spare time to properly look around.

  For a while now I had been spotting shadows in the darkness around us. The break was an opportunity to learn more about the strange, distant motion - I flexed my Fall Coefficient, staring through the night.

  A golden glow highlighted a dozen blobs of motion shifting around us. I reached for the massive gatling gun I had just set down, already counting the number of targets. Spontaneous weightlifting is never a bad idea, I decided.

  Rarus looked up at me, tilting her small head. “You wish to practice your aim on the Shimmers?”

  I relaxed a bit. I was not the only one to notice the things. “What are the creepy bastards?”

  “They crawl out of the night and are smart enough not to attack the strong. We are not a danger to them.”

  “Fauna? Where, exactly, on the food chain?”

  I did my best to focus on one of the creatures, but my sight had nothing to lock on, the shadow seemingly shifting out of my gaze. It felt creepy, somehow, like dust shifting in a dark hallway.

  “Human, it seems you have arrived only recently. You come from the outside? From off the Rings?”

  I nodded. “Fresh off the frontlines, you could say.”

  The frontlines. The cold, the fear, the rage and exhaustion, the endless battles and countless bodies. Some of that escaped through my words and eyes, and the aliens now watched me in terror and sadness.

  “Welcome to the Rings, Corporate Human. We are honored to be the ones to welcome you.”

  The rest of the trip I brooded on the dominant feeling in me, a sense of betrayal. My first thoughts upon arriving was that I could relax, that The War was over and that I could finally rest. But death was not an escape. Instead I was shot, stripped of my implants and combat augmentations, and left out to rot in some desert. I had to fight for my life with a sword, against miniguns and an anti-tank rifle on my first night, an experience that The War could easily match.

  Towards the end of our long jog the numbers of shadows around us grew to several hundred. They kept their distance and never followed, simply watching from their positions. Their numbers cut off as we neared a light on the horizon. Crossing over the final hill, we came up on a sort of small fortress.

  2 : Casual World

  Day 2

  Back on Earth, before The War, every latitude had its own architecture based on the general weather and environment. On the equator, houses were often built light but durable, designed to keep in the cool, keep out the heat, and stay easy to ventilate. Further up and down, where the weather was often heavenly for Human life, buildings were thin, cheap, and completely inadequate for real winter or hot summers. Even further north, in Russian and Canadian territories, thicker buildings were common, put up to withstand winter. Economics played a role in these designs too, most clearly seen in post-second-modern-war European architecture - cheap, gray, tasteless cement-plate ten-story buildings with hundreds of living spaces - ugly things with narrow roads and rusted playgrounds in between, seemingly capable of withstanding a direct hit with a bomb but easily toppled to make way for cleaner, marginally less depressing constructs of metal and glass.

  The buildings I saw within the cement walls now were best described as bunkers. The wall surrounding them was littered with turrets, and the whole base was covered on top with a shimmering, transparent dome, like a dish with a glass lid in an exquisite restaurant. A huge vertical ring-like structure took up the center of the village. This city was quite well lit, but devoid of motion at this time of the night.

  If northern-European buildings were built to withstand weather far below freezing, then this city was at the very least made to shrug off asteroid showers.

  An open arch greeted us, and the aliens led me through silent alleys to one of the larger bunkers. The Inson hit the hatch, knocking with her claws as a Human would with a sledgehammer.

  The thick, armored hatch swung out. There, in the doorway, stood a Human.

  He was small, less than two meters in height. The man wore the look of a mechanic, with no weapons or armor to be seen anywhere on him, excluding some very heavy-looking tools. Clearly the confines of the city were comparatively safe.

  He had a near-perfect, distinct face, devoid of defects and the wear of age. That young, animated face framed two of the oldest eyes I had ever seen.

  The mechanic looked at Pessi, then at my chest, which was at about the same level as the Cockroach’s face-area. His black hair shifted back as he looked up at my face. His eyes widened as he focused on my eyes. I stared down, waiting.

  The moment of confusion passed, and the man nodded to me. I blinked back. The mechanic focused back on the aliens.

  Rarus and Pessi unlimbered the large bags of loot on their backs and surrendered them to the man, only to watch the goods disappear into the lit doorway. We stood outside, silently waiting, until Rarus perked up, opening her holo-Menu and tapping a claw at it. A ping made me open my own Menu and look for the source of the sound.

  The number at the top, 9,340 CC, pulsed pleasantly. I had no knowledge of current economics and could not guess the worth of a sing
le Corporate Credit nowadays. Assuming 6,340 CC had been a third of the Raider’s gear gave me little intel as I didn’t really know how the worth of the loot itself. Finished with the exchanged we headed for the ring.

  Rarus re-read something on her Menu and turned to me.

  “Mr. Frost is not your first name, Corporate?”

  “No.” I refused to confirm or deny anything.

  “Your first name is Drake?”

  “As it happens.”

  “The monument… it is a grave, is it not?”

  “Only a memorial. An ugly one, too.”

  “The Corporate… they have ships in space that can go anywhere, planets that move, they invented immortality and gifted it to us all… can they now bring back those that died before the Soul Cubes?”

  I looked up at the Inson. “No Rarus, that’s impossible.”

  She turned away, not satisfied with the answer.

  The Gate was a clear, well-designed structure, combining style and utility. There was no noise, glow or any other visible effects produced by the thin, oval arch, aside from the impossible fact that through the ring was a completely different town. I had to hold myself back from making a run around the ring to see what was on the other side.

  When you open a door in your house, you see a different room through it. If you move that door out of the wall and into the middle of the room, all your guests will think you’re crazy. But if that door opened like it normally did, and if on the other side of this isolated door was that other room, impossibly intersecting with half of the room you are in, you would have a Gate - an elegant, simple, functional method of travel across thousands, millions of kilometers.

  As we approached the arch I felt my ears pop twice. A sort of field kept the Gate contained, keeping the pressure equal between both ends of this transportation system.

  Pessi followed Rarus into the ring, passing without any visible effect. I stepped through after them, turning at the last moment to look over the land that brought me to life. Night was turning to day once more as the massive plate casting the shadow over us moved on. The near sun with its amazing halo was already poking out from behind it.

  Feeling no different than before I looked around in disappointment. This city was almost identical, if a bit larger. We had exited onto a small sort of town square. Ten Gates stood around in a circle around two slightly larger variants in the center. My tour guides were already marching towards the center, quickly glancing at a sort of map-pillar between them. Besides the map the pillar had several signs. I stared at the more interesting ones.

  For transport passage reservations, call…

  WARNING: LEAVING DANGER ZONE!

  WARNING: ENTERING DANGER ZONE!

  WARNING: NO WHEAT!!! If you find any wheat or wheat byproducts, call Union Containment Branch!

  “Why no wheat?” I asked.

  “No wheat!” shouted both aliens, turning to me. “If you find wheat, call…”

  “No, I get that.” I raised my hands. “But why?”

  “Wheat is bad! Read up on the Wheat Disaster of 0909.” They turned back to the map, and I surrendered the topic.

  The map looked like a tree of lines connecting circles in a web-like pattern, a copy of the map found in the Menu. One of the circles at the top of the ‘tree’ was highlighted, and I remembered the code written over it. Each line was marked with a letter and number, matching the symbols on the Gates themselves.

  I opened my map and located my marker. It was thousands of kilometers away from the Monument, far counterorbit of the Ring’s rotation. That distance, however, became negligible as I zoomed out to view a tenth of the Ring.

  The next half-hour was filled with Gate travel. We passed through city after city, and with every transition the surrounding structures seemed to grow and the number of people on the streets increased. I had only minutes at every location, and the constant change in time became slightly disorienting, often switching me from night to day in a single step. The single uniting feature in every town was the dome overhead and absurd, disastrous weather beyond it. In our trip I saw sandstorms, hail, thunder, snow, rain and even a firestorm.

  I imagined the stories local parents told their children. ‘Back in my day, I had to crawl to school uphill, both ways, through lightning firestorms, laying down suppressing fire to give my classmates time to cross the open areas of the frozen wasteland… and we liked it that way!’

  Finally, after several dozen Gate crossings, we arrived at what had to be one of this Ring’s main cities. Huge, decorated structures, looking like glorified bunkers with multiple floors despite all their attempts at decency, surrounded the center town square. I had to wonder what these structures were designed to survive. Nuclear weapons probably weren’t the most threatening items on that list either. Crowds poured in and out of Gates, heading into the city or towards other portals. Much of the traffic centered on three central Gates, larger and more jammed than the rest. A portion of the beings dissipated into the city. I counted over twenty alien races, with a majority of Humans, Cockroaches and slime-like things.

  Big surprise, the species name for the slime-like aliens was Slime.

  As we stood in the quickly moving line to enter a center Gate I had a moment to look around the city.

  War shops.

  Two or three bars huddled quietly between dozens of weapons, armor, and gear stores. I saw a small hangar lined with tanks and other exotic machines, looking just like a normal, pre-War car dealership. On the armored glass displays was gear that made not only me, but my companions seem cheap.

  Yet, despite the militaristic nature of the settlement, the people wandering its streets seemed… relaxed. I realized that, compared to the Humans standing around me, I was tense and wound up, all my muscles under a slight pressure that would let me leap into motion faster. My motions seemed punctuated, sharp and aggressive compared to the beings in line around us. I looked beyond, focusing on the people instead of the shops this time, and it hit me that most behaved… casually. It was as if each and every one of them had had time and reason to be relaxed, as if any passerby or vendor had time to put aside their business and chat, if approached.

  My eyes dashed around the several groups of beings talking amongst each other, and was shaken by the casual, calm nature of their conversations. Many were smiling, gesturing, as if discussing a sudden break of sunshine through the cloud cover or particularly fun match in some game… I found myself lacking in ideas about what these people could be discussing with such enjoyment - clearly it was not the temperature of the central reactor or the spike in atmospheric radiation.

  These were the faces of people living, not just surviving. I felt sudden isolation, discomfort, and glanced around people in lines around us. My tension had spread to them, the sudden, sharp motions of a Corporate obviously suspicions and threatening to the locals.

  I let out a breath, set my slow steps towards the Gate on autopilot, and began a recalibration. In fine order I started relaxing one muscle at a time. My sharp, marching steps lost their precision, slowing and narrowing. My shoulder slumped down, and the tense muscles in my arms smoothed out. The neck and face took the longest, the permanent scowl refusing to surrender for a solid minute.

  Towards the end of the calibration I had, to some degree, matched the relaxation of those around me. Rarus, the more empathetic of my two alien friends, seemed to notice the change, curiously observing the process from behind me. I looked up at her and produced a small smile.

  The Inson nodded her small head. “At first I thought you did not trust us. Your every motion seemed like an attack, every step like a charge into battle. But I now realize that was your natural state. You carry some terrible momentum that pushes you forward. This must be uncomfortable for you.”

  “I’m just not used to safety.”

  “We, Waste Ringers, are well known for being harsh and tense, especially outside of towns. Our Ring is the most dangerous and challenging of them all, and it dem
ands adequacy of its inhabitants. But I cannot imagine always being as alert as you have been until now.”

  “It’s what kept me alive all this time. Unlike here, nowhere was safe where I come from.”

  Our turn to enter the center Gate came, and we rushed through. Again my ears popped, the pressure difference between the entry and exit location different enough to cause discomfort.

  Hurrying out of the way of the people leaving the Gate behind me I had a thought of wonderment at the lack of any border stations at every Gate.

  In what seemed like the middle of a cool spring day, the glamorous city seemed a complex disco ball of reflections and light. Glass and crystal structures grew taller and taller as they furthered from the Gate Square, forming a sort of dish. Directly above, the much smaller-looking sun and halo pleasantly warmed my face. Crossing out the glowing ball were several black streaks, forming a set of halo-like rings around the star at different altitudes and angles. Despite being comparatively tiny to the star the distant Rings were quite visible, seeming to partially absorb, partially reflect the light around them.

  ‘Welcome to the Acid Ring!’ read the sign on the largest building before the Gate. I glanced at the map, locating myself on the third innermost ringworld.

  Acid Ring, also known as the Ruin Ring. Not quite as impressive as ‘Hades Ring’, but still unpleasant.

  At least the weather seemed to be more hospitable.

  “Drake, will you dine with us before we split ways?” The Inson pointed at what appeared to be an analog for a mess hall.

  “Sure. Thanks,” I muttered, forgetting my usual sarcastic remarks.

  The proposed dining place proved a buffet, with robots manning the stands. I quickly chose the line with the most Humans, picking up what I thought of as potato fries, some sort of meat, a red sauce, and water. This felt a lot like Corporate barracks, designed to pump crowds of hungry troops through at break-neck speeds. The quality of food would have to be tested before a comparison could be made, though I doubted this futuristic society would tolerate ration bricks as I did most of my life.