by G Aliaksei C
Having gotten out of line before my aliens I picked a table near the window and raised my fork to eat. The noise in the hall was quite distracting, the sound of food being consumed drowned out by conversation. In my time, one’s objective in the mess hall was to get in, eat, and get out as quickly as possible. Here, however, no one seemed to be in a rush. My eyes wandered, scanning several of the heavily armed figured sitting around me.
The process of looking around is, in my case, never connected to the process of eating. I took in the absurd sights of the mess hall, analyzing and enjoying the sights, all while consuming the food at the constant, relentless rate of a shredder.
There was a lot to see.
So you want examples? No? Too bad.
Observation one: The aliens were exotic, to say the least. If Humans evolved to live on a world with what we would consider reasonable gravity, then most here seemed designed for the whole spectrum of extremes. They were easy to spot - the ones that looked like they could deadlift train cars were from worlds where pressure turned gasses solid. The same line of reasoning made me think that the spindly, tall, thin or floating ones evolved on worlds where a Human would have trouble staying on the ground. Several were designed to fly or float, and a particular species of balloons was no doubt born on a gas giant. None were even vaguely Humanoid, which pleased me.
And, reasonably speaking, none of them should have been able to survive on an Earth-gravity, Earth-pressure, Earth-atmosphere world like the Rings without space suits, if at all. Yet, somehow, they did, seemingly comfortable in the Human-ideal environment. The floating, gas-filled creatures didn’t pop in the low pressure. The low-gravity beings moved comfortably, uncrushed by the ten-meter-per-second acceleration Humanity evolved under.
Observation two: There were Humans here - a good percent of all beings clearly belonging to my own species. They did not seem out of place, blending in well with the swarms of aliens.
Observation three: Many Humans sported quite… exotic modifications. Generally beautiful, tall and undamaged by scars and deformities of The War, a part of my kind here demonstrated absurd, individual traits such as unnatural skin color, extra arms, tails, extreme height or muscle mass. Undoubtedly the result of genetic manipulation, the modifications did not significantly change the Human nature of my kind when compared to true aliens.
Observation four: They are all trying not to stare at me. I focused, forcefully reducing my rate of consumption, taking the time to chew and enjoy the new tastes.
My eyes landed on a sheet of paper laid out upside down relative to me on the other side of the table. The sheet of paper was part of a thick, worn notebook, and was being written on by a Human hand.
The paper angered me greatly, so much that I didn’t bother to look at the writer’s face. I flipped the writing in my head and saw immediately a three-dimensional representation of the energy field being described by the formulas. Someone was doing math at the dinner table. Not my place to teach manners, but that wasn’t the source of my anger either.
The whole document was based on a single, wrong assumption.
It was all, of course, not written in any language I knew, but whatever ensured my ability to speak to the aliens also allowed me to read their languages. The math used looked a lot like what I knew, unchanged across the years of my death. Several new symbols were easy to extrapolate by the surrounding numbers, and in my mind the numbers assembled into a picture.
And what an ugly picture it was. The very basic assumption behind the theorem being derived was catastrophically wrong. I tracked the hand as it scribbled numbers, slowly shaking my head in disgust.
It was all wrong.
The writing hand froze, moving up on the sheet without writing anything. My eyes narrowed as the point of the pen hovered over the base assumption the rest of the math was formed on. The pen shifted around the formula, as if searching.
The fork paused before my open mouth as the pen tip hovered over the incorrect variable. I watched in pleasure as the value was crossed out.
Realizing I was acting rude I blinked and shifted my attention elsewhere, continuing the scan of the room.
Rarus and Pessi finally arrived, sitting next to me with their food. The Cockroach brought what could have been mashed potatoes, while the Inson set down a tray full of bricks.
For the first time I saw, with the corner of my eye, how an Inson ate. Part of her chest plate came off, revealing shredder-like jaws in the torso. Four hands grabbed the bricks, throwing them into the maw. The sound of metal and stone being crushed and torn was muffled within the alien, making me shift uncomfortably. I tried, desperately, not to imagine how I could possibly fight against such a monster.
“Good choice on the fries, Corporate,” commented the Cockroach. “They are costly on Hades Ring.”
“Corporate,” the Inson’s terrible mouth chewed without pause, yet the voice was clear and uninterrupted, seemingly emanating from an entirely different source. “What do you plan to do in the upcoming timeframe? Are you planning to settle on the Waste Ring?”
I thought the question over. “I will need to make some cash, whatever I do.”
The Cockroach perked up. “Me and Rarus plan to kill monster on Waste Ring. Collect resource and Gem. You have some CC now. Upgrade cannon, then Corporate can support friend Rarus with me! At range, yes!”
“This… is what you do to make money? Go somewhere, kills things, and profit from it?”
“That is our way, yes.”
“What other way is there?”
“The way of the Champions, to kill people rather than Beasts. The way of the miners and industrialists, to profit on the abundance of the soil and the heat of the forge.”
“And you…”
“We take out those who want to make money and learn and teach them to exterminate on the innermost Rings.”
I considered the offer. Shoot things and make money? Truly, a perfect world.
These two aliens seemed friendly, did not kill and rob me like the Raiders had tried, and shared loot more than equally.
My Corporate mind, having kept the two in an uncomfortable undecided spot, finally accepted the Cockroach and Inson as allies. That spot of neutrality felt unnatural and unusual, and I was unused to considering anyone as neither an ally nor enemy. Sitting beside two friendlies was, in comparison, much more relaxing.
I made my choice. “When and where is this happening?”
The Cockroach quickly threw me a time and location through the Menu. “Tomorrow. Make sure to upgrade your gun, yes?” Showing interest in the Cockroach’s organization improved his mood. Rarus seemed pleased too, and after exchanging glances with each other, they pulsed me six thousand credits each. I frowned, seeing my account 15 CC smaller than it should be, but then remembered the buffet. At least I had a sense of value for Corporate Credit now.
Having finished my food I got up, shaking their armored arms and promising to be at the indicated location in seven hours. The new time system would take some getting used to - there were only ten hours in a day, but every hour had one hundred minutes, and every minute had one hundred seconds, making days somewhat longer than on Earth.
Again, I caught myself marching. I had nowhere to be, nothing to do, and more free time than I knew what to do with. Convincing myself to lose some of my focus I paused on the plaza a distance away from the Gates and looked around.
I soon decided I it would not be appropriate to stay too long. This seemed to be a rather civilian location - few were holding their weapons beyond the Gate nexus. Several Cockroaches in blue armor kept glancing at me with suspicion, so I cut my surveillance session and went straight back to where I had come from - the Waste Ring Gate.
There was a short line, I endured the ear-popping once more, guessing that the Waste Ring had a smaller air pressure than the Acid Ring.
Taking a break at the edge of the new Gate plaza I leaned against a concrete wall and opened the map in my Menu. The Acid Ring whe
re I just had lunch, the third innermost Ring, was classified as a ‘Class 7 - Dangerous’. The short description claimed that all life and weather on this world involved some sort of corrosive agent, one that made lengthy expeditions away from the safety of cities nearly impossible. Unmodified vehicles slowly degraded in higher Class zones, becoming inert in days. Suits fell apart in less. Unshielded living beings died in hours.
Void be damned, I thought, That’s Class 7? Doesn’t it get worse further in?
I flipped to the second Ring from the inside. Night, or Black Ring. Permanent night. Class 8. Even the most powerful, base-mounted sensors could not see past a kilometer. Flashlights only reached out a few meters. An eternal fog that seemed to consume light. Largest count of unregistered Beast.
Almost like home.
Surely it’s all uphill from here!
I switched the map to the Waste Ring and stared at the scene it presented me with. ‘Class 9 - Extremely Dangerous’. With the ‘Danger Level’ overlay selected I zoomed in on the Monument, finding it, and the nearest Gate city, in one of the few light-yellow zones. In fact, the location was squat between zones of orange, yellow, red, black-red, and pure black fields marking increasing Class zones. The path we took from the monument to the Gate was a narrow line in Class 3 areas of relative safety between two zones of extreme danger. I had a suspicion that danger sourced from the fauna, rather than the lack of hiking trails and restrooms every one hundred meters.
The public description was quite entertaining.
Smallest population. Largest death rate. Floating islands that occasionally serve as mobile nests for local Beasts. Around ten percent of all land area is Class 8 and up. Around fifty percent is Class 5 and up. Less than ten percent is Class 3 and down. Roaming Beasts that often leave their zones. Home for the most dangerous Beast type discovered, the Shadows. Extreme weather ranging from flash-freezing storms and hail to firestorms and roaming blast-clouds.
An interesting place. I want to live there, I decided.
Closing the map I let out a sigh and focused on the positive factor - if this place was so dangerous, then living space should be cheap. I stepped away from the wall I was leaning against and began pushing through heavily armed beings towards a gun store.
The shop looked like a vast warehouse. Cannons, rifles, projectors, turrets, pistols and other forms of death-projecting devices were arranged in the middle of the hall behind glass casings. Around the perimeter beings stood at booths in the walls, talking to Humanoid androids.
I walked around for a bit, looking at the shelves. It was a pleasing sight for me, as many of the designs were similar to what I had played around with first when the Gem project began to unfold in my lab. The only distinction from normal Human firearms was the construction of most weapons, which lacked grips and triggers and was clearly meant to be modular, or at least universally handled by most species. The trigger was a key on a modular mount that could be moved around the weapon, and the lack of a grip made most rifles look like overcomplicated sticks with mounting rails and magazine ports. Weapons requiring no capacitors, batteries of power sources aside from the Gems opened a whole variety of designs that would have been impossible otherwise. I took my time wondering the rows, look and reading about the different items.
Finally, I stepped up to an empty booth.
The vaguely Humanoid android smiled at me. “How may I help you…” - a glance at my forehead, just like the Mechanic at the first Gate town gave me - “Corporate?” The sharp respect in the machines voice accompanying the last word overwrote the salesman tone and made me wonder once again how everyone knew I was a Corporate. Was it my size?
Unlimbering the Minigun off my shoulder I set it down on the desk between us. “Upgrades.”
Quickly scanning the weapon with his eyes, the android read what my Menu had told me earlier, “Class 1 Minigun, unaugmented. What would you like done?”
“I have twelve thousand credits to use for upgrades. I will be headed into dangerous territory with a group tomorrow, and they asked that I have this upgraded by then.”
“You got this… How?” The android poked the minigun.
“Took it off a corpse.” I saw no point in lying.
“Ah excellent, we do not serve Raider agents here. All good now! What zone Class will you be assaulting?”
“Ahh…” I quickly opened my Menu, locating the meeting spot I had been given. It was colored yellow, very close to the edge of an orange blob. “Yellow?”
“Between Class 4 and Class 3? You may have trouble with a Class 1 weapon indeed. May I?” From behind the counter appeared a toolbox. I nodded.
Working with amazing speed and precision the android began taking my looted weapon apart. In minutes, the gun was in its smallest pieces, scattered across the counter.
“It is in acceptable condition. For eight thousand CC, I can bring this Class 1 to a Class 2.”
Leaning over the counter a bit, I spoke in a hushed tone, “I am somewhat new to the Rings… could you explain to me how the Class system works?”
The android showed no surprise or disdain for my ignorance, and quickly began to explain. “Classes are brackets where we place gear, enemies, zones, and almost everything else. The Class value and actual quality and power of the object correlates, but not perfectly. Class describes the technology level of a piece. Class also describes the direct power efficiency of Gems. Because power requirements rise with more advanced and demanding technology, strength and Class can often correlate.
“The system is exponential - Class 4 technology requires twice the power as Class 3, and a Class 4 needs four times the power of a Class 2. Because of the vast output required to operate higher Class gear, there is no reason not to have lower Class technology installed alongside it.
“In practice this means that a Class 4 soldier is worth four Class 2 counterparts, in most aspects. However, the item in question also matters. A Class 1 tank is still a tank, and even a Class 4 pistol would have to be well-handled to damage it.” He pointed at my gun. “Your weapon is a Class 1, lacking Gems entirely. There are Class 1 Gems, but they are useless for anything more than low-power utilities. Modifying the weapon into a powered variant will up it to a Class 2.”
“How would that happen?”
The android smiled, motioning me to wait, and disappeared into the rooms behind him. He returned a minute later with a rolling tray of heavy-looking parts. Setting the tray down, he replaced the displayed parts of my gun with larger, sturdier looking bits off the tray. The new parts - all five barrels and the firing chamber as well as some lesser bits - were engraved with thin rune-like scratches, likely meant for Gem Dust. The large firing block also had several slots for full Gems.
“The firing mechanism, chamber, and barrels alone allow for much more powerful munitions, with a larger caliber. This means advanced warheads, bringing your Minigun up to Class 2. But!” I had been expecting a bigger sales pitch, and it came, “All that will cost only 7,000 CC, Class 2 Gems included. For 15,000, I can provide you with these–” He reached out and pulled up five heavy-looking barrels with large rectangular extensions on the ends, each with a small hole for a Gem.
“Requiring another upgrade in munitions, the barrels assist the chemical firing mechanism with a powered acceleration system, doubling the firing velocity of the shot. Munitions will lose the magnetic shell after leaving the barrel, making the final warhead immune to magnetic deflectors.”
My mind ran through a hundred known and theoretical physics principles, applying the resistance-based Gem power transfer method. The transmission system functioned by using a Gem as a resistance point, injecting energy into it and nothing else. In theory I could have tuned the energy transmitter to inject energy directly into matter of specific property, like metal, and had it incinerate bullets… Possibly a condition for energy injection could be high kinetic energy. Possibly, instead of U-energy, the projector could use gravitational or magnetic fields in the same manner.
I had no idea how any of it could be done, but it should have been possible. The same principle as I used for wireless energy transfer could be used to create the perfect shield.
I felt pride for my invention.
The android, meanwhile, kept talking. “One problem, the resulting Class 2 is quite deafening. And bright. And will cost you 15,000 CC, with Gems.”
“Sold.”
“Would you like Runes engraved?”
“What kinds do you have?” I guessed asking this, having no idea what having Runes engraved on the weapon actually did for me.
“For another thousand credits I can engrave durability Runes, ensuring your weapon is harder to damage.”
“I’ll pass on that.”
The android gave me his annoying salesman smile. “Very well. We shall deliver you the upgraded unit. Where can we find you?”
I clumsily managed to pulse the android the destination code of the very first city in my journey, near the monument. “But I also want a bipod and a targeting system for that.”
“Of course. Those are part of the upgrade package. Your Class 2 Minigun will be delivered to the Drake Monument Gate in a few hours. Please drop your ammunition off too, and for about 300 CC we will replace it with your upgraded variants.”
Even in powered armor moving without the massive cannon and the required ammunition was much easier. I left the shop, trying not to look for other stores to throw my limited credits at.
Still my attention snapped to the glass display filled with syringes, flasks and pills.
‘M&B: Demeter Imperium Sponsored Boosters.’
Before the display stood an android holding a tray of black pills. A large hologram over the tray read “Free samples FOR YOU!’.
Why not.
“What do these do?” I asked, picking one up.
“Last Stand Boosters! They make you faster and stronger for a time!”
The android smiled as I thanked it, pocketing the pill.
One more stop, I decided. A short walk took me into the ‘Air-Land Battalions - Land Outpost’ - a frank, brazen tank dealership. We have all seen variants of these in old movies and commercials - flawlessly clean windows, shining hulls, several of the cars on slanted stands overlooking the parking lot, bright banners and flags everywhere advertising some brand of car.
