“This tech, It’s a black box, sir.” Elliot said, standing stiffly at attention beside the rest of the Engineers as Admiral George Greyson paced back and forth, eyeing them with irritation. “We don’t know what’s going to come out the other side. Doug made a function that calls for souls and it worked.”

“So, souls are real, tell me something I don’t know.”

Elliot and Doug shared glances.

“We can ask for these changes, but we’re not changing the System itself,” Elliot said. “Rather than that, it would be better to modify our infrastru-“

The admiral’s fist came down on the table, sending Doug’s My Little Pony pen clattering off the edge.

“No!” he shouted, redfaced. “We are not bending over backwards, changing everything we know, because some aliens a long-ass time ago thought interdimensional mining was a good idea!”

“But sir, do we have any other way of processing Warp?” One of the engineers in the back queried. Gordy, Elliot thought his name was.

“That’s not your job!” Admiral Greyson said, pointing. “We have other people working on that. Your job is to figure out how to make the System work for us, and how to police it! A teenager learned how to talk to Higgs Drives with his fucking mind. We gave him a lucrative job in the diagnostics and repair division, but it could have just as easily been a domestic terrorist. Do you have any idea how much damage a sabotaged Higgs drive can do?”

Nobody answered the rhetorical question, because each and every one of them knew the answer. Every single child grew up with the story of the day humans lost their homeworld. From Solar all the way to the backworld of Marconen, that was the single defining feature of every culture.

“I want to be able to control the Break, I want to be able to control who gets what Skill, otherwise we have complete anarchy. One kid gets the Leadership skill and all of a sudden he’s a cult leader. I’m hearing tell of abilities that let people control other’s minds.”

Oh, no, powerful people controlling other people’s minds, that’s never happened before. The horror, the horror. Elliot thought sarcastically, keeping a carefully neutral face as the admiral continued his tirade.

“I trust people as far as I can throw them, and a fucking godlike AI giving others supernatural powers doesn’t help matters much.”

“Get it. Under. Control.” He tapped the desk to punctuate his words before storming out of the Think Tank, a literal silo where they shoved all the eggheads before the Harbingers arrived.

“So I’m working on becoming a wizard,” Elliot said, dismissing the admiral and getting back to what they were talking about before he interrupted. If something like getting cussed out bothered them, they wouldn’t be in the Navy.

“From what I’ve seen, Bent is processed Warp, like ancient gasoline vs. crude oil. And in my analogy, they are both energy sources. The System has made us living oil-spill cleaners. Simply by breathing, we’re cleaning Warp out of the environment and replacing it with Bent.”

“We know this. Whaddya got?”

“Check this out.”

Manifestation.

4/5 Bent Remaining

A stone statue of Admiral Greyson puffed into existence on the table in a pop of displaced air.

“What the hell?” Doug asked, peering down at the statuette. The caricaturized Admiral had a finger held up with flaring nostrils as he cussed them out.

“The System can use Abilities to make physical alterations and additions to the world at large, using Bent as the power source. I found a way to turn that into a Skill. For lack of a better word, I give you magic.”

“You could call it a Neuro System Interface Spontaneous Mass Generator.” Gordy said.

“Or a System Pursuant Enforced Lingering Logarithm.” Another chimed in.

“That made no sense.”

“But it spelled Spell.”

“Dork.”

“Anyway!” Elliot said, clapping his hands together to get their attention. “If we can figure out how to do it, it’ll only be a few days before people are paying bills with System-generated wealth, and you can throw the economy out the window.”

The others blinked.

“That means…”

Doug nodded along, waiting for him to finish.

“Shit’s about to get real weird, real fast.” Gordy finally filled in for Doug.

“Exactly. It’s this sort of thing that has the Admiral on edge. It’s this sort of thing that will make the Diocese very nervous.”

“How nervous?” Doug asked.

“Martial law. Come down from their crystal towers to control the situation levels of nervous.”

“All the more reason to get the work done.” Gordy said, rubbing his hands together, to a scattered assent from the rest of the crowd. Catching the attention of one of the Immortal Diocese was never a good thing. Keep your head down and do your job was the motto.

Elliot leaned under the table and flicked on Jammer, an AI brain-box that fed all recording devices plausible, non-punishable conversation based on what it’d already heard.

“Not necessarily,” Elliot said loudly, drawing their questioning gaze toward him. “As project leader I’ve been able to glean information about the progress of the other teams under more direct supervision. We are ahead of them in every respect.”

“Ahead of them? but we haven’t done much.”

“We’ve made more progress toward a solution than any of the other teams,” Elliot said, channeling Bent through his finger manually to interact with the statuette. The Admiral began dancing a jaunty jig, his little stone feet clattering on the table in front of the awestruck team.

“How are you doing that?” Doug asked quietly.

“I dunno.” Elliot said with a shrug. “It just kinda came to me. Didn’t even use a Skill.”

“That’s not like anything we’ve heard of. Only Harbingers can use Bent without a Skill.”

“Not true, there was a kid on the Jupiter ring who pulled it off. Now me.” Elliot said, allowing the statue to freeze and withdrawing his Bent, watching with fascination as the shimmering air turned into black as it entered his bloodsteam, coloring the veins of his arm.

“Listen.” Elliot said, looking at each member of his team, one at a time. “If the admiral and the Diocese have their way, Skills, Warp and Bent are going to be highly controlled and restricted. Like any other form of power, it’s going to want to accumulate at the top, in the hands of a few individuals.”

“And?”

“And they’ll be gods among men.” Elliot said. “Right now, the only thing different between us and a Diocese is a hell of a lot of cybernetic upgrades and functional immortality. They’re still fallible, they don’t have magic powers, they can’t flay people with their minds, and yet they’re treated like the ground they walk on is holy.”

“I heard about a Diocese with an implant that let her flay people with her mind.” Gordy chimed in, earning a glare.

“Do you want your kids to be stuck with a Skill called Obedience, or Humility, assigned to them when they enter middle school?” Elliot asked, changing tactics. “One that gradually nudges them toward becoming more and more content and accepting of their place in the world? This shit goes both ways.”

“Are you suggesting that we… disobey the admiral and the Diocese?”

“We aren’t disobeying anyone, yet.” Elliot said, sitting down. “They don’t know what’s possible with the System, so we’re going to ‘Get It Under Control’, just like he asked. And we’re going to make sure it sticks.”

“What are you thinking?” Doug asked, sitting down beside him. One by one the engineers sat down at the conference table, leaning in conspiratorily. They were with him.

“Right now people think the System is assigning people Skills at random. I’ve discovered that’s not true. It’s oversensitive. Our minds are like bulls in a china shop compared to the Harbingers, and we trigger Skill acquisition without even trying. All we have to do is perfect a simple overlay that dampens the connection between the human and the System, so they have to invest time and energy into learning the Skill.”

“That’s not what the Admiral wanted. People could still acquire dangerous Skills. Easier than before, actually.” Doug interjected.

“That’s true.” Elliot said, looking around the table. “But let me be perfectly clear when I say this: I will never put the decision for who gets what Skill in the hands of anyone. Ever. Skills can fundamentally change who you are, and giving up control over them is the fastest way for us to lose any remaining freedom we have.”

“Kevin, did the Diocese who tore up your neighborhood for a pleasure district need magic powers to make that happen?”

“No.”

“And Devon, how did it feel to find out your daughter spent thirty-five years in prison for getting raped by a Diocese when we came out of FTL?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” the programmer crossed his arms, expression stony.

“No shit.” Elliot said.

“They don’t need our help. If anything, it’s our obligation to level the playing field, so I’m going to make our little addition to the System, and It’s going to put Skills in the hands of the people who need them.”

There were general murmurs of assent.

“But, assuming you pull this off, won’t they just control skills at the User end, rather than the System end? Require people to Break at specific times, learn Specific skills?” a blonde haired engineer in the back asked.

“It’s a hell of a lot easier to dodge bureaucratic red tape than it is to dodge the System. If the System itself becomes a tool for government control, it will become a dystopian nightmare.”

More nods.

“So let’s make sure what we create is as egalitarian as it possibly can be, like the ideals the greatest countries of the old world were founded on.” Before they ultimately imploded.

And let’s make sure that everyone else is slightly less equal than me, Elliot thought as he watched his engineers break into excited brainstorming. He was already planning on putting restrictions and slowdowns on skill acquisition and leveling for everyone.

Everyone except the Administrators.

Every society stratified itself, sooner or later, and when it did, Elliot was going to be on the top. Elliot pushed himself out of his chair and went to the window, staring up at the world of Marconen, looming above their little lunar mining platform. Everything the light touches will be yours, he thought, grinning.

***

Kala’s eyes drifted open, revealing the orange curtains of her room above her. By her bed was a shallow gold dish full of cubed mushrooms.

Show me the rest of it, Kala thought, pulling a single cube out and popping it in her mouth, wincing as she held the acrid hallucinogen under her tongue.

I need to understand more about the enemy that lives inside Calvin, so I can save him from it.

Seer has reached Level 9!

One more level and I can be with him in his dreams…I wonder what he dreams about? Kala felt a smile slowly spread across her face as her vision grew dizzy. If I had my way it would be about me.

***

Calvin stood in front of a jeering crowd in the center of the capital, but they weren’t jeering at him. They were jeering at the former Hash’Maje held to the chopping block by several strong hands.

“Were you honestly going to give me a noble title?” Calvin asked, his foot on the lever preventing the guillotine from falling. “And remember, this is for posterity. It hardly matters now.”

Kala’s father wept, his tears falling into the basket filled with his court’s heads, a single drop landing on his daughter’s cheek. Kala’s eyes were glassy and grey as they stared back up at him.

“Giving you a title wasn’t an option when I said that.” he said between sobs. “Any land I gave you had to come from somewhere, and would weaken my holdings.”

“Could’ve just given me a plot of unclaimed land. There’s plenty to the west.”

“There wouldn’t have been enough manpower. I can’t afford to lose any strength, not when Lumentrias is aiming for the throne. And If I gave you a title, I give you a vote. Many of the nobility wouldn’t have agreed to it, and their discontent would have spurred the moderates to flee the Royal party.”

“Ah, so If I had killed your cousin and the Loyalists, there would have been enough room for me?”

“What? No, you can’t run a government like that. It would be complete anarchy. You’d have to discredit them first...”

The Hash’Maje’s brows furrowed. “Wait a moment, why are you asking me so many questions…” He glanced around, presumably spotting multiple copies of identical peasants jeering at his execution.

“This…This isn’t real. You’re pumping me for information!”

“He gets it,” Calvin said, taking his foot off the lever.

With a sick thunk, the blade cut off the head of the Hash’maje, and with a blink of his eyes, Calvin reset the Shadow-Boxing, with himself and Kala’s father in the sitting room, having a bit of beer in the afternoon.

“So, what’s it like, Being Hash’maje?” Calvin asked, taking a sip from the foamy cup. “Any advice for when I take over?”

“Insolence.” the Hash’maje said, throwing a coaster at Calvin’s head with a chuckle.

“You really wanna know?” he asked, peering over at Calvin, a shiny blush on the older gadveran’s cheeks as the alcohol caught up to him.

“Sure.”

The Calvin leaned back as the Hash’Maje griped about politics, and inadvertently gave Calvin a few names that could stand to be removed to make some room for the up-and-coming captain.

This skill is scary mean. Elliot said, making an exaggerated shuddering noise in the back of his mind. You remind me of me.

We’re just getting to the good part.

The only thing that was unaltered for Calvin’s Shadow Boxing was the Hash’Maje himself. Everything else was a fiction, a hypothetical practice situation where he practiced dragging information out of the aging ruler.

The best part was that the information he got was valid, as good as if it had come from the mouth of the man himself.

A detonation rocked the palace, knocking the beer out of Calvin’s hand.

“What in the abyss?”

The sound of sprinting footsteps came from the hall, and Calvin and his liege put their hands on their weapons. A second later, a familiar runner swung around the doorframe, using his grip to halt his forward momentum.

“Sire, Iletha has returned with an even greater monster than before, they’re prying open the gates of the Palace!”

“Fuck,” The Hash’Maje said, tossing aside his beer stein. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this…”

He glanced at Calvin, weighing his choices.

“Report to the temporary Barracks on the first floor.”

“Sir,” Calvin Said, standing up and saluting.

“I see you got better at the salute.” The Hash’Maje nodded approvingly, his face grim.

Sense Grafting. Calvin copied his vision onto the Hash’Maje’s crown, along with his hearing.

Calvin turned and ran out the door, swinging an extreme right turn and immediately ducking into a room and hiding under the bed.

Calvin closed his eyes and watched the show.

“How!?” Kala’s father muttered to himself, exiting the room and glancing both ways to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The Hash’Maje made a beeline for a nondescript bedroom at the end of the hall, kicking the paneling on the bottom of the wall, hard.

The panel of wood broke inward, separating from the rest of the wall as a thin layer of mortar broke away.

There was a clunk, and a corner of the room swung open.

I like where this is going, Elliot thought.

Me too.

Kala’s father ran down the stairs, eventually dropping down into some kind of armory. There was a plain sword that oozed malice, a suit of armor seemingly made from glass, and at the back of the wall, there was a pair of bracers made of a solid piece of opalescent stone.

Mnematite! Elliot shouted, making Calvin wince.

Nem? Calvin thought as the Hash’Maje began putting the bracers over his forearms. It looked like the bracers were made from pure money. The currency of GAdvera was based on that stone. Calvin’s entire village wasn’t worth that much.

Why are you so excited? Calvin asked.

Mnematite is the only known material sensitive to Warp, and it doesn’t just stop there. Bracers like the old man’s create a resonance when Bent flows past them. We experimented with it back in the day, before Soscath caught fire, anyway.

What does that mean?

Basically, they give you a rebate. Put ten Bent past them, they generate a field that attracts and condenses four Warp into Bent. Something like that could Make ten Bent last… about eighteen uses.

What if I just circulate it with Beli Ma?

Nah, wouldn’t work. It’s Bent altering reality that causes the reaction.

Well, we learned some useful stuff. How about we call it good?

Sure.

Calvin ended the Shadow Boxing, opening his eyes to the glare of the afternoon sun bouncing off the manicured grass. A little Knick-knack was walking in front of him, using a whirling blade to trim the green blades with inhuman precision.

Seems like being a captain is a lot easier than I thought.

They almost had enough cement to start laying the foundation. Balud’s estimates could suck it.

“Captain!” an older man’s voice said, approaching him from the side. A sergeant then.

“Eh?” Calvin asked, glancing over at him. The sergeant seemed a lot more urgent than usual. Alarm bells began clanging across the camp. What the hell?

“Scouts haven’t been coming back from patrol since yesterday and we’re under attack.”

As if to emphasize the man’s point, an arrow hissed out of the air and sank into the perfectly manicured grass between the two of them.

Baroke was on patrol yesterday.

“Why didn’t I hear about this yesterday?” Calvin asked, jumping out of his chair, heart hammering in his chest.

“I thought…I thought you had. Sir.”

“Obviously not.” Calvin said, his stomach boiling with cold anger. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea not to report that? The only thing Calvin could imagine was that the stigma of age that Grant had warned him about had finally snuck up and bit him on the ass.

Scouts didn’t return, some sergeant felt he could handle it better than the teenage captain, didn’t bother to tell anyone before he wasted time sending another group out after the first. Cut to today.

Calvin felt an arrow sail down toward his head, and he held up his hand, putting up a weave of Bent, tugging the arrow off course without taking his eyes off the sergeant. It buried itself an inch from his foot.

“Get ready to fight.”

“There’s something else. There’s a good five thousand men marching on us down the road. They outnumber us twenty-five to one.”

“Well then we’ll have to get creative.” Calvin snarled.