With a small shout of triumph, he raised his hands over his head in excitement. The screens began to light up with projections, various readings about resource production and usage. With dawning horror, he started to dig into the data for the E6 region.
“The power draw is insane… I know the numbers were on the high end before, but…” The draw on the core was high in the region before, but that had been within acceptable parameters. The numbers were now quadruple what they’d been a decade ago when contact had first been lost. “They were right…”
The man rubbed his palms against his eyes and leaned back in his chair, exhausted. Around him, the room was decorated with paraphernalia. Most of it fabricated by him whenever he found some interesting creature on his travels or screens that displayed scenic vistas of underwater volcanos or great reefs.
The thing he turned to look at now, though, was the last shot they’d gotten from outside of Veldern. We’d found a new star to orbit with a sizeable asteroid belt, but the visual feeds hadn’t worked in a few centuries. Not since one of the residents had ruptured the shields from the inside. Which was a shame. They hadn’t been essential, but they had been the only thing keeping all the visual feeds protected.
Veldern itself would survive direct impact with a planet, but the external equipment was another matter. Repairs to it were also so far down on the priority list that it was likely a fix wouldn’t happen in multiple iterations of his lifetime. Not that the word meant much to any of the staff.
“Join the staff, they said. The benefits are worth it, they said. Your expertise would be invaluable, they said.” He said bitterly to the empty air. He rested his elbows on his desk and held his head. “How long has it been since this whole mess started?”
Veldern had been a passion project for many of the staff. It had been funded by dozens of corporations and even allowed military resources, though he hadn’t known why. The whole thing was supposed to be a game for the rich, and an opportunity for the desperate. He even remembered the recruitment pitch.
Live in an ever expanding world, created through the efforts of dedicated scientists and engineers! Be provided access to free homes. Test out the revolutionary personal enhancement system, and use it to live in the fantasty world of your dreams. Those selected will be able to bring their entire family out to two generations. Be the first in this marvelous enterprise by the Veldern Corporation!
People had flocked to the artificial world in droves. No one mentioned it was meant to be a playground for the rich. No one mentioned that their lives were essentially forfeit. There was no need to. After a generation, everyone was already too entrenched.
“All I wanted to do was make cool sea monsters…” The man sighed, tears threatening the corners of his eyes.
He closed his eyes and a jolt seemed to run through him. The man sat up and wiped at his eyes. “I don’t have time for this.” He stared at the readings one more time and started to dig through the system. “I don’t understand enough to fix it either.”
The windows on one of his screens minimized and he stared at the last truly happy memory he’d had in this. He stood there, with two of his best friends. One a woman with auburn hair and wearing a lab coat stained with oil. The other, a tall man with a shaved head and a serious gaze. His smile was genuine, visible in his eyes.
“You’d know what to do…” He thought out loud.
Reaching into a drawer in his desk, he pulled out a tiny crystal and started to play with it in one hand as he looked at the image. Despite it’s small size, it was capable of holding enough data that the collective consciousness of old Terra would fit within it. It was the thing AI hiveminds used to store their core information, what made them themselves.
And inside it was the possible solution to a potentially catastrophic situation.
Was it illegal? Yes, but legality went out the window when the staff stole an artificial planet. It certainly went to shit when they’d stolen the consciousness of over fifteen thousand of the most influential people in the known galaxies. The list of which included the CEOs and heirs to some of the most lucrative corporations and high powered officials in major government.
Who else could afford to play a game where the people were real and magic was ‘real’? Who else could afford the technology to upload their minds into artificial people for a few hours at a time just for ‘fun’? Who else would be so cruel to those they had power over just because they could buy the power to do so?
The man stepped away from the monitors and opened the screen for his personal system. Everyone had one, it was required to interact with Veldern itself. With practiced ease, he navigated the menus and initiated an upload of his consciousness to the staff database. After the upload has finished, he started the process of requesting his ‘vacation’ time. With a little ‘adjustment’ he was able to put himself where he needed to be. After spoofing his information, he set the new him to instantiate after a while.
With the preparations done, he took a look around his room, unsure of when next he’d see it. Or if he’d ever see any of it ever again. “I could try and fix this myself…”
He looked at the crystal containing his friend. “But if I bring him back… maybe there’s a chance he’ll forgive me.” The man touched the crystal again, running a finger along one of the edges. “Maybe I can… make a few alterations. Delete a few memories…”
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Shaking his head, he sat down at his computer, “I’ve done horrible things, but I can’t do that. I should get this over with.”
His fingers flew across a keyboard made of light. It was unnecessary, but he’d been taught by Alexei. Alexei had always been interested in older tech. It had been part of why he’d been involved in the project, It was what he’d based the crystal data storage devices off of. It was why he’d been the one leading the engineering teams.
And it was how I was going to restore him to life.
As he worked, he attached the crystal to an interface device. The data inside was dense, and impossible for anything short of an artificial intelligence to decipher. It’d take time to upload, and he still had to find a suitable host. Nobody still alive, it’d draw too much suspicion.
Two people in the E6 region were both close enough and in the appropriate situation. It had taken hours to locate them, and the timing would be important. Both made his stomach clench, the situation hard to watch. One was a man who had lost his arm to a beast he’d barely been able to slay. The other, girl being assaulted in an alley. He couldn’t do anything about either situation, even if he wanted to. They were just… lesser compared to him and the rest of the staff.
The man winced as a second beast appeared from below the adventurer who had slain the beast. He was able to slay that one too… but it had taken his leg. “Sorry, Alexei. If I bring you back the normal way, you’ll raise too many red flags.”
With a few strokes of the keys, he started the process for the upload. The girl was already bleeding out, her killer leaving. As it started, he pulled his last resort from the same drawer he’d gotten the crystal out of. A simple looking gun, barely larger than the handle that fit perfectly in his grip. He set it on his desk, and started writing a message to his friend.
The sound of the door being hammered on began to echo through the room. With a thought, he sent the message and took the gun in hand. “This is going to suck…” He muttered and turned the gun on himself. Holding it just beneath his chin, he pulled the trigger.
A bright flash of light and the man was gone.
On the monitors, flashing warning signs appeared, then the room went dark.
A man stood over the body of a girl in an alleyway. She was small and broken, the blouse torn asunder, the skirts ripped and tattered. He redid the buttons and belt responsible for holding his pants up and looked around at his handiwork. The beautiful strokes of blood from his knife slashing the noble brat’s throat. The streaks of blood from him dragging her across the wall, a knife deep in her sternum. The entire time, he’d kept her alive with the very enchanted ring he’d gifted to her.
With a happy sigh, he pulled a small stone from his pocket and activated the spell within. A wave of energy flowed over him, cleaning him of the blood and viscera of his latest work of art. With a little skip in his step, he felt like he could stand his bitch of a wife and the brats she’d had with him. The noble slut was no longer a problem for him.
As he left, he did not notice as the girl’s wounds began to close. He did not see, as a faint glow began to surround her.
The girl’s torn out throat began to knit itself back together slowly. Bruises on her face, arms and legs began to fade as if they’d never been there. Internal injuries slowly patching themselves together. Even with all these fixes though, the girl was still unmoving.
Slowly, the girl’s chest began to rise and fall, a rasping rattle slipping past her lips. The color began to return to her body.
The girl’s body jerked, her whole body tensing, as she began to glow brighter. Her arms and fingers spasmed as some unseen change happened beneath the surface.
<+1 to Mana>
<+1 to Mana Control>
<+1 to Mana Power>
Slowly, her body relaxed, and the glow began to fade. Her body was still covered in her own blood, her clothes still torn and cut in various places. But her injuries were all but gone.
Suddenly, her eyes flashed open, and she started to cough uncontrollably. Leaning over to the side, she started to throw up, dark fluid coming out of her mouth. It only made the metallic stench of the alley stronger, now with a hint of bile.
Once done, she kept coughing, more fluid leaving her lungs, causing her to shift to her hands and knees as she tried to get it all out. When she was done, she rolled over and collapsed on the ground, massaging her chest since her lungs still burned from coughing so much.
As her hand touched her breast, her brow furrowed and she looked down. She squeezed lightly a few times, making sure she wasn’t imagining things before looking down and running her hands along her body. Her frown only deepened.
Sitting up slowly, using her hands to help brace her still weak body, she looked around in confusion. She moved her legs a little to check that they were working properly and actually hers. They were pale and undefined, like she’d never walked or ran anywhere.
She looked at her hands, flexing her fingers. They were dainty and frail, never having done any difficult work before.
Standing up, she leaned against the wall and groaned. Her gaze roamed the horror show that was the alley, but it all seemed like such a distant concern. Instead, as she braced herself to stand all the way up, she looked down at herself and grumbled, “Why am I so short?”