“What about you?” Gus’ voice faltered. “Why would you put yourself at risk?”
“I am not part of his plans, and our paths do not cross, nor will they from here. So worry not your mind about me. Worry for yourself and those who accompany you. And tell no one of your unique abilities, it will go better for you if you do…” Her voice trailed off mysteriously. She glanced at Tempest and back at Gus, then nodded slightly.
In a blur, she was gone. Gus blinked and saw she faced Tempest, peering at him with stern eyes.
“You. I have but one request for your payment.” Tempest winced in anticipation of the cost of the information. “Your son lacks keys. Keys that this one and this one hold.” The crone pointed to BoJack and Prime. Keep them together until he has the keys and you can consider your debt paid.” She waved dismissively at Tempest.
“And you.” She pointed at Gus and sidled closer. “You come back when you have passed your trial of earth. We are not done, and I have a task for you. Yet you are not ready…” She moved back to her padded chair and dropped into it, collapsing as if her strength had suddenly left her. “I tire, go now.” She turned her head to the side and shooed the Crew off the circle with an indifferent wave of her hand. In seconds, the crone was snoring obnoxiously and the group turned to leave.
Gus stood dumbstruck as everyone filed out. Tempest grabbed him by the arms and shook him out of his stupor.
“What were you thinking?! You don’t want to be beholden to this woman,” he growled, looking back in panic at the Oracle. He put a hand on Gus’ back and ferried him out and down the path.
“You don’t know how she works. You should always ask the cost before you agree!”
“You didn’t,” Gus retorted. This was the Tempest he knew was lying beneath the surface.
“I didn’t have a choice! I have no other avenues for this information. This was my absolute last resort, and so I would pay any price. But you, Gus, what could you possibly need to know that badly?” Tempest pleaded, and Gus felt the defiance in him melt as he saw the sincerity in his father’s eyes.
“All of this has been a huge change, and I’m still trying to figure a lot of things out—”
“Gus, we could have helped with that.” He swept his arms, pointing to the rest of the Crew further down the trail. Tempest ran fingers through his hair. “I never anticipated this. We need to have a talk when we get on the ship.” Before Gus could object, Tempest raised a hand to forestall his argument.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know that I haven’t been able to explain. I thought we would have discussed them by now, but I know you’ve been avoiding me. Maybe if I had done a better job at telling you, then this whole Oracle debacle wouldn’t have been necessary. But who knows? Either way, there are some things that may change how you progress along your path and I know you would want to know them. You need to know them.”
As they boarded the ship, Tempest led him to a small room in the back, away from the rest of the crew. There was a table and two chairs with seat belts that resembled suspenders, coming down over his shoulders and attaching to the waist belt. The chairs here were less plush than the ones in the main cabin.
“Sorry about the accommodations, but I think we need a little privacy for this.” Tempest and Gus sat there, maintaining an uneasy silence. Tempest grimaced, struggling to find where to begin. Finally mustering the courage, Tempest began to speak.
“Gus, before you say anything, I realize I haven’t been there for you like I should have been. I’m not going to make up a bunch of excuses, but I want you to know that I’m mostly to blame for the rift between us. There’s a lot you don’t know, and I think it’s time we put it all on the table. I’m hoping you will understand a little better where I’m coming from and why I’ve made the choices I have. I’m reevaluating if a lot of those choices were wasted time, and I’m not enthusiastic about the answers.”
“I’m listening,” Gus said, folding his arms.
“When you were about seven and a half, your brother got his powers. You probably don’t know how a legacy super gets powers, but basically the sponsor has to essentially give part of themself to complete the process. It leaves the donor drained—”
“So they give up some of their Nth?”
Tempest’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that? Never mind. No time to discuss it now. It may save me some verbal dancing, however. Yes, the donor gives up roughly half of their Nth to someone. The donating super loses a significant amount of levels; both total levels and skill levels are lost as the donor has less of their original Nth to support their abilities.”
“Why don’t they just fabricate some more?”
“How? You think they just grow on trees? There are only five known facilities that can produce Nth in the world, and the resources are extremely scarce. Anyway, I’m getting off track. The plan was for your mother to do the same with you when you came of age. Ideally, it is best for someone to undergo this process when they are around eighteen or so—after puberty and most major growth spurts have finished. Your brother was a little early. The rationale is that occasionally some Nth get dedicated to mere stat augmentation, which is not as useful in the long run because stats will naturally develop as a super levels up, and often as an adjunct with certain skills. More abilities mean more opportunities. Most supers have around six. I personally have eight, which is high.” He paused, and took a deep breath and leaned forward.
“Really, eight is high,” Gus said skeptically.
“Don’t worry, being this new I’m sure you have one or two abilities tops. Don’t get discouraged; it can take years to develop abilities. But let’s stay focused on you. What happened next was kind of a perfect storm of bad coincidences. We were at your grandfather’s house. You wouldn’t know this, and I’m sure he never told you, but his super moniker was The Extractor. He had the ability to sap a super’s stats and transfer them to other supers, usually distilled into a tonic. This may be hard to understand, but information can be condensed into actual physical matter.”
“You don’t say…” Gus smirked, thinking of the Mandrite crystal.
“The process actually created a tiny crystal, but he could grind this into glitter-sized flakes and the information was not compromised. Anyone drinking these elixirs could supercharge their Nth, as they were able to upgrade themselves with the concentrated specialized information.” Tempest shook his head. “I’m not sure if any of this is making sense—”
“No, go on, it makes perfect sense.”
“Okay, well, you managed to make it into grandpa’s secret stash and, jealous of your older brother’s new powers, you drank the entire lot trying to ‘be like Alan.’ Without Nth to process the information, your own cells and DNA tried to assimilate it and the results almost killed you. If it weren’t for your mother’s abilities you would have died that day.
“She managed to stabilize the effects but when one issue was treated, another would manifest. It was all she could do to keep you alive. I don’t think she slept for three days and she was at the end of her stamina and we had depleted all of our stamina regen resources. In desperation, we contacted Dr. Weft.
“I won’t go into the specifics right now, but a deal was struck. He could use dimensional folding to bury the affected areas until you could tolerate your own Nth, but it would be tenuous. For some reason, endorphins can prematurely trigger the effect. Dr. Weft actually emphasized that it was best if you were kept in states of stress or anger, as cortisol and adrenaline had a suppressive effect and would maintain the folds he had crafted.
“However, if you got overly excited or happy, you could relapse. For that reason, I tried to keep you away from things that could possibly set you off, and I know I came across as an asshole. I was. I felt I had to be to keep you safe and I know that was hard for you. I hated doing it but I realize I held you back and crushed a lot of dreams and aspirations. I hated Dr. Weft. I still hate him. For making me do all of this, and for
the price he made me pay. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Go on.” Gus cleared his throat, the revelation hitting him like a physical blow.
“Yes, yes, I’m getting ahead of myself. The worst part was that the memories of what had happened right after involved your mother almost exclusively. Those had to be buried as well, and an unintended side effect was that not only were the memories of your mother trying to heal you suppressed, but almost all of your memories of her. When we saw what had happened, your brother and I had to go along with your assumption that she had died, fearing relapse from what would happen when you found out the truth.”
“So that’s why I can’t remember anything from that time?”
“Yes. When you were ready, the work Dr. Weft did would be slowly reversed, allowing you to access the upgrades, and the information could be translated in a controlled manner by Nth working with your own cells to handle the stat upgrades. One stat that could not be hidden or folded by Dr. Weft were increases to luck.
“There are certain cells that have special affinities for certain stats. Intelligence for fatty tissues that make the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Strength for muscles and certain hormone glands, like the adrenals. Luck is an anomaly and has no affinity, and as such is dispersed throughout the body with no apparent rhyme or reason. It is difficult to quantify as well, because it relies on so many factors.
“Do you remember when I discouraged you from running for some class election of some sort?”
“Yeah, I was super pissed,” Gus said, feeling the heat rise in his face at the memory.
“You may not have known it, but my heart was in my throat when you announced that, because if you focused your attention strongly enough, you could have swept the election, getting every vote. Your luck stat is that high. It can affect and bend reality in ways that your grandfather and I are unsure of what limits it has.
“I think that is how the Oracle is able to do what she does, seeing and picking what needs to be done to funnel reality down a certain path. It’s probably why she took special notice of you. But pay attention to me right now.” Tempest turned and looked Gus straight in the eye. “You must be very careful about what you set your mind to do going forward. For better or worse, you are going to have a big role in the future of mankind, and I’m not exaggerating.”
“No pressure, right?” Gus joked, trying to disperse some of the tension.
“Exactly, no pressure,” Tempest said, laughing. “I just wanted you to know because it’s going to be a heavy burden.”
“There is always responsibility, regardless of whether there is great power or not.” Gus murmured, remembering his grandpa’s advice.
Tempest nodded in agreement and they sat there in silence for a while, Tempest not wanting to interrupt his thoughts as he processed all that had been said.
“What are you thinking right now, Gus?”
“Tell me about the watch.” Gus held up his arm. “There’s a lot of weird stuff going on and—”
Tempest held up his arms. “Right, right. How could I forget? Dr. Weft gave that to us as a way to ease you into your stats as you level. It controls the unfolding until you can manage the increases to your stats, he told us usually around benchmark levels.” Tempest coughed and cleared his throat. “Your mother gave it to you right before she had to leave.”
“Why did she leave at all?”
“That was Dr. Weft’s deal. Until you recovered, she would have to work for him, no questions asked.” Gus’s eyes widened in horror as his father continued, as if in a trance. “There was nothing I could do. She was determined that she would pay any price to get you better, and she implored me to stay strong. It never occurred to me that with her gone, where would we get the legacy Nth to give to you?”
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. I would probably have missed that too.”
“Dr. Weft went through the conditions of his ‘treatment’ for you. Your mother left with him when you had stabilized, but before you awoke. I was so much less without her there. I was angry at the situation, and felt trapped by the circumstances and the only release was to bury myself in work. You remind me so much of her, Gus, whether you know it or not. I thought this was going to be resolved by now, but we only had the barest sliver of hope. So that’s the broad strokes.” His father exhaled deeply. “It feels good to finally tell you after so long.” His face relaxed as he sagged back in his chair, but his expression remained grim.
“I think it’s time to go get Mom,” Gus declared and looked at Tempest.
“Are you still sure you don’t mind me tagging along? I know I’ve been trying to put myself back in your life and you may not be ready. I get why you would be angry at me. If you need time—”
“No, I’d like that, Dad,” Gus interrupted. “What do we have to do next?”
“Hinansho.” Tempest sighed dejectedly, his shoulders slumping.
“What’s that?”
“You know what an augment is, right?”
“You mean like a Minmax?”
“No, I mean like a reg that has altered themselves to give them abilities or appearances that are beyond normal humans; they can be cybernetic or genetic.”
“Alright, I’ve heard of them, but never really seen one.”
“That’s because they aren’t allowed in Faction-controlled territories. Which is a lot of the civilized world. Anyway, because of this, they created their own city: Shibogu no Hinansho. Supers are obviously not welcome there, so we’ll have to figure out a way to get in.” He massaged his temples as he thought.
“I know of a slicer that could get us the access codes, but we’d need another ship. No way they’d allow this type of transport there, it’s almost exclusive to Faction use and would never make it past the screens.”
“What about the Manticorps ship?” Gus suggested and a bit of hope sparked in Tempest’s eyes.
“Okay, okay, that should work. Now we just need to get those codes.”
“Maybe I’m missing something, but she was super vague about what we should look for when we get there. Unless you have some ideas?”
“No, that’s how she works. I think it limits the possibilities if she gives too much precise information. We just have to go there and see how things develop and follow our gut. If we do what we intuitively would do otherwise, we have the greatest chance of things working out. I know it’s not very reassuring, but she does have a perfect track record as far as I know.”
“You would know better than me, I suppose,” Gus said.
“Okay, I’ll tell Erika what the plan is. We need to rest up and get that ship, we may need to make some modifica—”
Red lights flashed and an alarm sounded, obnoxiously loud.
“What now?” Tempest asked through gritted teeth.
That was the last thing Gus saw before he heard a loud metallic shriek like nails on a chalkboard, so deafening that he covered his ears and closed his eyes. There was a blast of air and sudden decompression and Gus was falling again. When he opened his eyes, he saw the other half of the transport flying away as he tumbled to Earth, still secured in his seatbelt. His father was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Eleven
Catch Me I’m Falling
Aurora had settled in for a nap again as soon as she boarded the transport. With the new ability Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that Gus had given her, she acquired a new tab on her display. When activated, she could open a window and design objects virtually with a fairly low MP cost. She found that by experimenting with simple designs, she gained new tabs that she could access, and then subtabs within those as she designed various creations.
At first, she had focused on apparel, which then developed the tabs for clothing and armor underneath it. Initially, she just played with the interface, but the more she designed things, the more intuitive things became. The epiphanies and discoveries became more frequent the longer she worked on a project.
So many ideas were springing to mind tha
t she jumped from one thing to another in a very stream-of-consciousness way, without any real direction or goal. It was incredibly fun, and almost like a game to get the proper configuration and to tweak the aspects of her designs. When she had produced a viable product, a name and stat table would appear. She could save that design at that point and then work on modifying aspects to improve stats or improve how it looked.
She had already designed some cute outfits and some shoes that she would love to try on. When she wondered what she would do with all of these designs, inspiration on different materials and how to manipulate and shape them was revealed to her.
The system prompted her multiple times if she would like to sync with an established workshop to produce either the raw building blocks or even finished products depending on her own or the workshop’s level. She would have to see if Gus could unlock a workshop in the manor to facilitate the production of the things she would need. It seemed like an offshoot of the Foundry, and probably wouldn’t cost a lot of FP. She would get around to making things that weren’t just cute but functional. Eventually.
A big surprise was that when she fell asleep, her ability created a vivid dream state where she felt she was actually in her virtual workshop. Playing with designs was much more direct and she could mold materials with a combination of thoughts and gestures. Instinctively, she knew how to enlarge, compress, remove, and edit her designs. Then walk around them, or simply have them rotate themselves to view an aspect of the model. She found herself trying to grab naps and looked forward to sleep just so she could tinker more easily with her designs.
Not to mention the XP! Even if she was unsatisfied with something, when she got to the point the interface allowed her to save a design, she received a generous boost to XP, so she made it a habit to save everything and then simply save future adjustments with a version number, which also gave XP once it was significantly improved. In the short time she had the skill, she had already leveled it to seven and added an overall level and a half of XP from that skill alone.
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