by Skyler Grant
I set them to scan around the city and soon had my answer. A powerful energy surge had struck the city, hitting strongest in the northeast.
Seven kilometers away I found what I was looking for. The crater was almost a kilometer across, the landscape in its immediate vicinity still barren after all this time.
Something had crashed to earth here. It very much looked to be some sort of meteorite impact, but the crater wasn’t quite deep enough for that.
Whatever it was, it was long gone, and from the looks of it something else had since vanished too. The crater contained the familiar shimmer of crystal dust. The churned-up earth suggested more than just dust had once been here. Actual crystals.
So many crystals that the dust was considered worthless and left behind. It was an embarrassment of riches these days.
It wasn’t something I could ignore now even in the interest of leaving the site untouched. I took all the measurements and recordings that I could and dispatched workers to gather the dust and bring it back to the main reactor.
There wasn’t really that much, but enough to get all of the city lights back on and bring back the main communication network. I might even manage a few uses of the teleportation gates.
It had always been a mystery what had caused the Cataclysm. Even in the Scholar records most didn’t seem to know. Few had survived from that time and most of those were deeply mad from having been bonded to crystals for so long.
Mechos knew, of that much I was certain, but for some reason he kept those secrets. I didn’t see how it could profit him, but I thought it must be connected to me and my creator. Mechos thought I had a purpose.
I thought so too, and I didn’t think I could let his secrecy stand much longer.
16
I didn’t have long to dwell on what Mechos was holding back before I had yet another scout team locate something of interest. This area really was one of riches, albeit far more spread out than most places I’d been.
I switched into a drone. They had found an abandoned village. A place of plainly more recent construction than the city.
Shacks surrounded a central building lined with sandstone sculptures of flawless humans.
I wasn’t detecting any signs of communication and nothing was showing up on auditory, visual, or thermal scans.
Still it was best to be cautious and I advanced my drones slowly. They were equipped with a mix of beam and kinetic weapons, and a science drone capable of scanning for any traps or hazards.
The shacks were simple affairs. Straw mats for sleeping, with chimneys and hearths for cooking. Primitive, but organised. This settlement didn’t suggest people being isolated or the settlement being old at all.
The shacks having turned up nothing much I moved the drones towards the central building. The shacks had little in the way of the ornamentation, but here it was everywhere. Paintings, carved stone, all centered on figures usually surrounded by a glow. If I was judging this properly it was a religious aspect. This building was a temple of some kind.
The interior was luxurious, again far more so than the shacks. The vibrancy of the colors in the paint and the general condition of the structures confirmed that this village hadn’t been derelict for long. A few years at the most.
I switched out of my drone and sent a summary to my council. They were quick to respond this time.
“Divines,” Sylax said.
Why did Crystal let her have a comm interface?
“I recognize some of the iconography. An Aphrodite, a Thor,” Anna said.
“A Shiva too,” Mechos said.
I said, “Would anyone care to stop making up words and start making sense?”
“If having great power and a dose of insanity weren’t enough, imagine getting delusions of genuine divinity on top of it,” Anna said.
“It was more common after the world first Broke. Every ass with a lightning crystal went around buying a hammer and calling himself Thor. There used to be Thor fights. Seriously,” Mechos said.
Anna said, “It turned out to be a really shitty idea from what I know. Crystal recombination.”
“That at least sounds interesting, which is clearly implausible for anything Anna says,” I said.
Mechos explained, “You haven’t really seen it, but very similar power sets when they kill each other can actually absorb the crystal of the defeated and grow stronger.”
“I’ve killed three other pyros. Damn, it feels good,” Hot Stuff said.
This made a degree of sense. Hot Stuff’s abilities were narrow but strong, far stronger than most Powered that I’d seen. In head-to-head matchups she always won.
“So when one of these Thors would kill another one they’d grow even more powerful in their lightning abilities,” I said.
“Not just the abilities. Crystals bonded to an individual have a flavor, a style that is partly the wielder’s and partly what they choose to be. They didn’t just get stronger lightning powers, but got closer to the human definition of divinity,” Mechos said.
“So why haven’t we bumped into any before this?” I asked.
“I’d kill the fuckers on sight if I saw one,” Sylax said.
“We would do the same,” Blank said.
“Scholars would in general. It is best to be safe,” Anna added.
It was a murderous, murderous, world.
“Well, at some point someone seems to have struck some kind of a deal to come here,” I said.
“That seems likely. In the past the Scholarium made deals like that with powerful threats we weren’t ready to face,” Crystal said.
“So if it comes to a fight, how do we kill them?” I asked.
“With difficulty. Hot Stuff just said how she is in some ways similar to one herself, and you’ve seen how abnormally defensive her ability is. Almost everything trying to harm her burns away before it can get close,” Mechos said.
I’d taken note of that. I was wary, but not too concerned. I’d managed to bring Hot Stuff down even when I was far weaker than now. Formidable was not the same thing as invincible, and the same powers that gave someone strength could also be their weakness.
“I should be of some help. With my Amplification core I should be stronger than them,” Blank said.
Mechos cleared his throat. “Maybe. You’re comparing yourself to known qualities, but I’ve met some of these back in the day. Your single Amplification core isn’t going to be a counter for someone who has absorbed a dozen of an elemental.”
Was that really possible? I had to conclude that it probably was. A pyrokinetic of Hot Stuff’s strength would be in little danger wandering the world hunting other pyrokinetics—and winning. Stretch that out over a long span of time and they might get just that strong.
“Then we’ll need all of you at your best. I’ve already had research teams looking at equipment that might play off your abilities in combat. I’ll move those requests to the top of the queue,” I said.
“Focus on solutions against electricity, love, and fire—based on those drawings in the temple,” Anna said.
That wasn’t a good idea. I wouldn’t restrict it just to those, but it would be foolish to ignore what intelligence we had on a possible enemy.
I might not have long to wait, I was getting another distress signal from a team.
17
The scout team at the village had come under attack. I had one drone go out of commission and the others signaling distress.
I switched into one of the drones still standing.
It wasn’t a Divine, or if it was they were shape-shifters. It was lions, twelve-foot tall massively muscled lions. My drone was in the middle of firing his rifle and the bullets barely seemed to penetrate flesh as a lion bound towards another drone to tear her apart with a huge swipe of its claws.
I didn’t know why the kinetic weapons weren’t working. I’d already fought one giant beast though, enough to know that beam weapons and stunners were effective, if not quite so much as I would lik
e. Unfortunately this team had neither.
I could call in the airship for support, but I’d rather not distract it from its own mission. I still had three drones on their feet. That might be enough with a few alterations.
I upgraded all three with accelerated healing, teleportation, and the Fire Matrix. Now the body of each would serve as something of a makeshift energy weapon, and the teleportation should ideally keep them from harm. The healing just made extra sure that if they got injured they should still be in the fight, although they’d take a bit of time to patch up.
With the alterations made I teleported my drone onto the back of one of the lions and seized its mane between my drone’s fingers. The fur was smoking from the touch, but at a slow rate and a fierce toss of the head sent my drone tumbling into the grass.
The grass sent up a thick cloud of cloying smoke. The lion was already bounding forward with jaws wide to take a bite and I activated a second teleport to get behind it.
A roar from a second lion sent another of the drones tumbling across the ground as if they had been punched. Enhanced musculature meant an accelerated exhalation of air. Useful to know, but not yet relevant to my fight.
I did a third teleport leaving me with only one remaining. This one was to directly under the lion. I reasoned that if an assault on the upper body wasn’t working the underbelly may prove more sensitive. I flamed the drone with as much intensity as I could. I didn’t even see the paw that got me, eviscerating the drone and kicking my consciousness clear as it died.
The remaining drones didn’t last much longer. Accelerated healing could only do so much at that level. Traumatic damage would still put them down.
The drones had lasted a total of two minutes and seven seconds since encountering the lions. A frightfully short amount of time, especially considering my stepping in to add tactical support and upgrades.
I ordered the airship to abort its current mission and deploy to the village. Even eviscerated, if I could get the drones back into a Medbay they’d come back eventually. I also wanted to capture at least one of those lions. Besides my own research, Crystal could work wonders with something like that—and right now we needed wonders.
That fight hadn’t been even close to being fair, and it was against the simple animals of this place. Still, we’d come out behind.
There was hope to that. I’d come here seeking strength and power, and there was no shortage of either. I’d simply expected us to be holding our own better.
The first thing I’d have to do is to stop swarming with drones. In the past I’d taken a Juggernaut upgrade to allow me more strength on my individual units, but I wasn’t acting in line with that.
In my rush to get the city operational again I’d been mass-producing drones, and for some functions such as research or city repair that made a lot of sense, but for combat units I needed to go with a different approach.
If I took time to enhance the dexterity, strength, and endurance of every human drone to the maximum, as well as give them telekinetic abilities, teleportation, temperature resistance and accelerated healing, I’d vastly increase their survival rate against most enemies.
I could do more than that, of course. The armor my drones wore was originally designed to impress Sylax. It was suited for Anna clones with low strength and could be manufactured quickly.
If I were designing for a drone with maximum human strength I’d be able to go for more armor plating. As well, as they’d be able to carry the extra weight for energy shields and heavy weapons platforms.
The resources to produce each drone would be daunting—with the growth vat space it required I could grow ten of the defense drones I was currently using. But I needed something that could hurt the foes we seemed to be facing. The fights were only going to get harder.
I should go with a variety of models. Kinetic weapons were more effective against some enemies, however a gauss rifle or heavy cannon were unwieldy in armor, but just fine for specialists. The same with a heavy beam cannon, or anti-air rocketry and shield-sappers.
While I’d love to design all of it myself, this is what I had people for. I put together a quick compilation of my best ideas and sent it to my research teams. The Professor could have been involved, but he’d once tried to conquer my district with dinosaurs and I thought the study of these massive lions perfect for him.
18
I’d had our remaining airship doing broad sweeps of the terrain. With the sensors aboard it could detect any signs of civilization at a far greater distance than ground units.
It had yet to pick up any technology, no airships or even communication networks. It had discovered another village. Unlike the last one this one seemed to be occupied.
I could have rushed in, but I was feeling cautious. Until I had completed the upgrading of my forces I didn’t want to pick a fight I wasn’t sure I could win. However, the long-range sensors were quite powerful and the results were encouraging.
The population was less than two hundred, and entirely female. Twenty or so seemed to be soldiers, armed with bows and spears and clad in tanned hides. The rest were pregnant, one and all at about seven months along so far as I could tell. In the central temple I wasn’t detecting any life signs at all. If any Divine were present they weren’t making themselves known.
It was a strange state of affairs to say the least. The population being all female was strange enough, but the mass pregnancy was even stranger. I’d observed human social dynamics enough to know that this was not the usual way they did things—for all that it did seem more efficient.
Were the villages constructed just to hold groups like this? If so why?
Next, my sensors were detecting a number of the pregnant women were in chains. Whatever this was, it was not a willing arrangement. I still wasn’t eager to pick a fight, but we needed allies and we needed intelligence, and these women might have both.
The question was how to get them free. The armor appeared to be made of the hides of the beasts we’d fought. It was reasonable to expect that it would share their resistance to kinetic damage. Targeted shooting might get around that, but it was chancy to depend upon marksmanship to win a fight. I was also wary of engaging in a firefight in an area with so many noncombatants I wanted to save.
I could try the acid guns. They were far less reliant on fine shooting and would work wonders on unprotected flesh, but my concerns were even greater of accidentally splashing the innocent.
There was tranquilizer gas, a nice peaceful solution that should work very well on non-enhanced humans, but again I was wary about blanketing the village in it when there were so many pregnant women.
It would have to be stunners. Their short range shouldn’t endanger the prisoners although it would be risky for my drones. Still, I was planning on changing military strategy anyways and these forces would eventually need to go back to the growth vats for proper upgrading.
It was also important to strike fast. Someone had left a guard force, so they felt there was something to fear, and that likely meant they had a way to call for reinforcements. I had to settle things quickly, if I didn’t want to face any Divine.
I opted for a short range jump with the airship appearing directly over the village, my drones lined up waiting on the ramp. Then they were dropping the few feet to the ground. I was in the head of each providing a tactical display of the positions of the guards and the prisoners.
I had a few teleporters ready for the prisoners. Inside a hut, they could extend their teleportation field to all present and bring them back to the airship where I had medical personnel and security standing by.
The guards weren’t pushovers. One put arrows perfectly through the throats of three drones before a stunner shot from behind brought her down.
The guards too were possible sources of intelligence—both for me and for the Divine. I wasn’t about to leave them behind to reveal just who had attacked this village. As soon as one went down they were teleported into a confinement cell
.
In total the operation took seventeen minutes and four seconds, then the airship was pulling up and jumping back to Aefwal.
While I called them my human drones, they did have personalities of their own. They had their strengths and weaknesses and some were even personable. Within a few hours they started to get stories from the prisoners of what was going on.
The truth was disconcerting for me, and I think a human might have found it horrific.
All children there had the same father, a man named Ares styling himself to be a God of War. Far from being seven months pregnant they were actually around three weeks along thanks to the attentions of a Goddess of Fertility named Bast. With her aid he would impregnate them and a month later they would give birth. Then the cycle repeated.
The children were always daughters. Most inherited their father’s warlike mien and went on to be trained as soldiers. Those who didn’t established another village where the whole process would be replicated.
While a part of me could not help but admire the efficiency, a greater part scorned the approach. I was the very definition of inhuman, but I also worked to see those who allied themselves with me lived better lives. I tried to take care of those entrusted to my care. These Divine preyed upon their own populace, hurting them terribly and robbing them of all possibilities in their lives, so that they might have a greater army.
I did not approve.
Disapproval seemed to be mutual. Sensors were announcing movement towards the city. Lions, dozens of them, accompanied by a woman absolutely radiating crystal power. Bast, unless I missed my guess.
A fight had found us.
19
I sounded the city’s defensive alert and opened a communications channel to Hot Stuff and Anna. As the military and civilian leaders of the city, how we ultimately responded would be their decision. As part of the information I sent over, I included the testimonies of the rescued prisoners.