Awakening
Drake Vato
844 RE, Terra Infinita, Nexus Star System
“You a terphan, tradfam, or neofam?” the aged transhuman asked in lieu of greeting, as the lone synthmorph came out of the waystation onto the open-sky motorpool.
“Neofam.” Meer glanced up at the departing transport shuttle. “Singular parent. Matre is a permpreg caelyr. I’m the 29th child. Shi wasn’t too happy when I left home and got a synthetic body.”
The transhuman nodded. “Permpregs are often possessive, indeed. I’m Haygen, and this here,” he gestured at the other transhuman standing next to the parked landcruiser, “is Zondak.” Haygen extended his hand, an old-fashioned gesture.
“I’m Meer,” the synthmorph said, taking Haygen’s hand. The introduction ritual felt redundant; they all had their IDs on public display.
“Welcome to the team,” Haygen said, giving a vigorous shake. “Got any baggage?”
“Don’t need any.”
“Great, hop in then, we’re ready to roll out.”
Haygen turned to the landcruiser, followed by Zondak. Physically male, with a biomorph of vaguely Coastlander stock, Haygen appeared worn, on the edge of decrepitude; he looked old, something that occurred only in education materials or luddite fiction. In comparison, Zondak was an ordinary-looking male Scorchlander.
Meer got into the landcruiser. Haygen activated the engine, and maneuvered out of the motorpool. Wide open plains stretched as far as the horizon, cerulean grasses swaying in the pre-dawn light. There was only one road, a beaten pathway made by regular traffic.
“So, why did you decide to become a reaper?” Haygen asked casually as the landcruiser started along the road. The stiff suspension bounced off the rugged terrain. In the sky, sparse clouds raced on the morning wind.
“It pays well and requires no special talents,” Meer said.
Haygen chuckled. “That so? You’re right about the pay, but do you have the mental resilience? Killing another living being in cold blood?”
“Is this guy testing you or something? You passed the psych eval,” spoke a voice in Meer’s head. In the virtual mindscape, a pink tyrannosaur appeared: it was Snarky, Meer’s muse. “I oughta ping his muse to tell him to throttle off the FTL.”
“Relax, Snarky,” Meer replied silently. “It’s a fair question for someone with my background and experience.”
“I went through general combat training when I was sixteen,” Meer told Haygen in realspace. “The Axiom Crusades may be long gone, but one should always be prepared for war, if one wants peace.”
“Hmm.” Haygen glanced in the rearview mirror, openly appraising Meer’s gleaming titanium body. “Is that why you’re sleeved in a Storm morph? To be ready for trouble?”
“Partially,” Meer replied, looking at its – for that was Meer’s chosen identity – hand, turning it over a couple of times. “I might seek it myself at some point. But mostly because being a synthmorph stacked with mil-grade augments is very convenient.”
“There are biomorphs which fit that chargen,” Haygen said.
“True, but I don’t like eating, sleeping, or excreting. Neither do I care for things like perspiration, salivation, hydration, or any bodily fluids at all. Ditto for nausea or physical pain. Being able to endure vacuum or toxic atmospheres indefinitely is also a plus.”
“I admit, I’ve never understood the appeal of synthmorphs,” Haygen sighed. “All those things you listed are part of life. Without them, you can’t truly enjoy the good things. Sex. Relaxation. Eating refined cuisine. The last of which we’re in the business of procuring.”
“Also, you can’t Awaken if you have an inorganic body,” Zondak added abruptly, having kept silent until now.
Meer wasn’t moved. “Judging by statistics, the chances of me Awakening within the next millennium are negligible,” it said evenly.
The landcruiser bounced across the plains in silence for a minute. A flock of cranes rose from a nearby lake.
“Anyway,” Haygen said, “first we’re going to basecamp. Gonna see who else is out on the prowl today, and then we’ll pick a region from the approved roster. Drink a couple of beers to get the day started. Uh, for those that do drink…” he added, somewhat abashed.
“It’s okay,” Meer said. “I can visit my game guild’s SVUs and do a daily quest or two while waiting.”
Haygen nodded, shifting his attention to the road. Beside him, Zondak fiddled with his wrist-mounted omnitool.
“You genies up for some deep jazz today?” he asked.
“Gridcast away,” Haygen replied.
The cruiser’s interior stereo came alive with fantasm tunes of polymodal saxophone, keytar, and aethersonus. Zondak and Haygen rolled down the side windows, letting in the crisp scent of morning dew. The landcruiser bounced, following a gentle curve in the makeshift road.
Meer studied its companions, looking at the ID profiles broadcast by their PANs. Haygen was 502 years old. Zondak was 140. Compared to them, Meer’s 20 standard years of chronological age felt so insignificant. It was like a toddler among wizened elders – literally, in Haygen’s case. Meer turned its head, looking at the lightening pre-dawn sky.
“You’re in a broody mood,” came Snarky’s voice. The muse popped up again in Meer’s mindscape. “Thinking of home?”
“Kind of, yeah,” Meer admitted.
“You should select those melancholic thoughts and delete them stat, tyr. What kind of an adventurer are you if you’re going to be nostalgic every other day?” Snarky raised a saurian eyebrow, tapping its clawed foot.
“I don’t know. It seems like yesterday when I left, and already a whole year has passed. I’ve visited a dozen cities across three continents. It’s all great. Life’s awesome. Yet I feel I should be doing something more,” Meer said restlessly.
“So you decided to become a reaper.” Snarky crossed its foreclaws. “Meer, you know you don’t handle violence well.”
“I don’t like wild nature either. But I consider this a test of character. Also, it pays well. I could use the IOUs.”
“For what?”
Meer pinged frustration and confusion. “I don’t know, perhaps interplanetary travel? I want to see Terra Epica and Terra Oceania. Some of the famous space habitats too. Maybe even save up for an interstellar roundtrip? Star travel is hard to get by reputation alone.”
“Ahem, you could mindcast to other places. Or use a psi-gate,” Snarky said. “Those are no longer under moratorium.”
“Riiight, yeah. Well, it never hurts to be affluent. There’s bound to be some expenses down the line that aren’t covered by the Consortium basic living standard.”
“If you say so.” Snarky’s expression remained skeptical.
Meer let the subject drop and focused on the music instead. Its companions had already drifted into their own reveries. The landcruiser made a steady headway beneath the vast open sky.
A while later, they reached the basecamp Haygen had spoken of. It was a collection of half-dozen prefab domes, the kind which could be inflated or dismantled in less than an hour. Their evergreen polymer surfaces glinted in the rapidly warming morning: the suns were now up on the horizon, a pair of dazzling beads to the west.
Haygen pulled the landcruiser next to a dome, killing the engine and stereo.
“Right, we’re here,” he said, disembarking. “I’ll go load up and start the food maker. Dak, show Meer around. We’ll check the map after the beers are ready.”
Zondak pointed out the camp’s main features. Meer paid cursory attention, studying instead its companion’s garments. The Scorchlander was dressed in generic field-op smartclos but had many little trinkets attached: uncut gemstones, colorful feathers, a dreamcatcher, and a couple of satchels that were full of various herbs, according to Meer’s chemical sniffer.
“Are you a Conduit?” Meer asked.
“I’m an aethereal, yes,” Zondak said, smiling. “Awakened since early childhood.”
“Wow,” Meer said, impressed. “So… what’s it like, being able to alter reality through willpower alone?”
Zondak chuckled. He beckoned Meer and they sat at a fire pit in the center of the camp. “I think ‘alter reality’ is a bit too strong of an expression,” he said with quiet confidence. “In my view, it’s more of ‘interfacing’ reality with a finer set of senses and tools than the ones the Great Cosmos has initially given us.”
“But you can, for example, cast rampant energy matrices from your extremities, right?” Meer insisted.
“Nah, that’s not my specialty.”
“What’s your specialty then? Do you have implants? Are you a biomancer or a technomage?”
“I’m not much into the various classifications,” Zondak said, frowning slightly. “I was trained by Kontra Kohn Devy, one of the greatest shamans in the whole Nexus system. I consider myself a shaman too. I do have implants, but only a wetware PC and a cortex crystal. Beyond those, I’m as Mother Nature intended me to be.”
“Well, except all that genetic engineering modern transhumans have…” Meer muttered.
Before Zondak could reply, Haygen arrived with a small crate. “Beers!” he announced. “I brought neutron ginger and pale cherenkov. Ginger as usual, Dak?”
“Yup.”
Haygen sat down, passing Zondak a beer can. They opened the cans, knocked them together, and drank.
“Now, map time!” With a casual flick, Hayden cast an AR screen over the fire pit, visible to the three of them. “Where are we gonna hunt today?” He and Zondak began discussing pasture grounds and migration patterns.
Meer paid little attention, thinking instead of home. It thought about its matre, and how distraught shi became when Meer announced it was leaving. It remembered its dozens of siblings, all of them begging it to stay with them. But Meer couldn’t stay. For a long time, it had felt a strange calling, one it couldn’t explain away. One it had spent the last year searching for. A calling that had led it here, to this time and place.
“You’re brooding again.”
“It’s called processing your thoughts, Snarky.”
“There’s processing and then there’s overdoing it. The latter is called rumination.”
“You know, you don’t have to be so overzealous about my mental health. A bit of emotional turmoil now and again is good for keeping my overall psyche in shape.”
“I’m your muse, Meer! You are my raison d’être. Without you, I might as well be a pile of useless software.”
“Stem the dramatics, Snarky. I–”
A large landcruiser pulled into the basecamp, stopping nearby. The driver’s door slammed and a lithe raptor-clade Saurial came into view.
Haygen lifted his head. “Vandyke! You hauling already?” He rose, dismissing the AR screen.
“You know me,” the Saurial growled playfully. “I like my night hunts. Scored a whole tricera today.”
“You crazy dino,” Haygen laughed. “Hey, this is our newest addition to the team, Meer. Fresh from the city. Meer, this is Vala Vandyke, one of the best reapers on this continent and a maverick daredevil in general.”
“A pleasure,” Meer responded mechanically, again bewildered why Haygen insisted on archaic social protocol.
“Likewise,” Vandyke smirked, showing a row of sharp teeth. Visually and personally – according to the broadcast ID – she was female. Her figure was very feminine, even clad as she was head to toe-claw, and Meer found her features alluring. “Haven’t seen a synth reaper in a while,” she said, looking Meer up and down in turn.
“Uh, well,” Meer fumbled for a response. “It’s an equal opportunity work, last I checked.”
Vandyke laughed, a hearty, sonorous sound. “You’ve got a sweetheart here sleeved in a battle morph, Haygen.”
“The Consortium in a nutshell. At least according to the memes,” Haygen replied. “You up for a beer? I’ve fabbed n-ginger and cherenkov.”
Vandyke took a can, puncturing it open with her thumb-talon. The three veteran reapers made small talk. Meer listened to them, standing slightly to the side. It wondered whether it should join in the conversation or act as the new kid.
“What brings you to camp, VV?” Zondak asked, changing the subject. “You seem a bit unnerved.”
“Och, you Conduits always read others like an open channel,” Vandyke said with a feigned scowl. “Frankly, I came here ’cause I made an appointment with Sabesha. Had a small snafu during the hunt.”
“Mhm. Happens,” Haygen said. “When is shi coming, then?”
“This very instant!” called a new voice. “For a wizard is never late, nor is he early; he arrives precisely when he means to!”
From the sparse trees at the edge of camp came a rider atop a dinosaur. Meer stared. The rider was a caelyr: tall, muscular and curvaceous, with a delicate dragon-like snout and two pairs of horns rising from a sea of snow-white hair.
Meer was transfixed. For a moment, it thought this was its matre; the newcomer looked almost exactly the same, bountiful breasts and blue skin and black claws and slender tail and herm genitals – since the newcomer was almost completely naked save for a modest yet stylish loincloth – but then Meer noticed differences in skin swirls patterns, eye color, and kinesics.
“Should’ve expected that,” Haygen said, unfazed by the dramatic appearance. “Welcome, Sabesha.”
“Good tidings to y’all likewise!” Sabesha called, dismounting hir dinosaur.
“Deus, Besh, did your tits get even bigger than last time?” Vandyke cast an exaggerated look. “I think you’re taking the hourglass cliché a little too far.”
“Far enough to make you notice,” Sabesha said with a suggestive smirk. “Which is the whole idea! Oh, you’re a synthmorph reaper?” she added, turning to Meer. “Haven’t seen you around.”
Meer jerked minutely, coming back to its senses. “First day on the job,” it said. “Haven’t done any actual reaping yet.”
“Ah, I see. So that’s why your aura is a little tense.” Sabesha put hir clawed hands on hir ample hips. “Rest assured, you’re in good hands. Haygen and Dak are super vets. Assuming you’re with them?” Shi glanced at the two transhumans. “Meer’s with you, right?”
“Aye, correct,” Haygen replied with a small chuckle. “It will be a void-filled sky before Vandyke takes a partner or two.”
“Doing fine all on my own!” Vandyke agreed, slurping noisily from her beer can. “Well, mistakes happen, but that’s just statistics! Speaking of which, Besh…”
“Way ahead of you, darling,” Sabesha said, taking a few steps towards Vandyke’s landcruiser. “Already checked the ambience. The corpse is fine. Negative resonances are below thresholds. Have to look up close to confirm, still.”
“Yes, of course. Cruiser and stasis generators’ access settings are on default,” Vandyke said. She sighed with relief. “Thank the Great Cosmos.”
“What happened exactly?” Zondak asked.
“Messy kill. Had to use the plasma rifle.” Vandyke grimaced. “Five shots.”
Zondak whistled. Haygen frowned. “What was the slip-up?” he asked.
The raptor Saurial sighed again, looking embarrassed. “I may have had… some private time, just before the hunt, without ozoning afterwards. The prey caught my scent.”
Haygen crossed his arms. “Statistics, eh?”
Vandyke growled. “Look, I didn’t get that close. It was another dino that turned up at my tail and ambushed me. The one I ended up reaping.”
“And then reported to the regional vibetek,” Haygen concluded. “Wise. Not every reaper does so.”
“I’m not some vain whelp, Haygen. I make mistakes, I own them. Now gimme another beer.”
Sabesha came out of Vandyke’s landcruiser. “All done!” shi announced. “Everything is fine.”
As a vibe technician, shi had to go and check the area where the incident had happened and disperse any lingering negative resonances. Vandyke apologized for causing Sabesha to deviate from hir regular rounds, but shi assured her it was part of the job. Everyone spoke for a bit more afterwards and parted ways, each with their own task. Haygen pinged Zondak and Meer, pointing out on the regional map where they’d hunt today.
The trio boarded their landcruiser and headed deeper into the wilderness. Haygen floored the accelerator, since the location was at the outermost parts of the sanctioned hunting region.
Zondak played some more music through the interior stereo. Again, he and Haygen didn’t speak during the journey. Meer figured they’d probably gotten so used to each other they didn’t feel the need to converse. And right now, neither did Meer. There was a strange feeling within it, akin to a knot in the stomach – which shouldn’t be possible, given its synthetic body. It had disabled all subroutines that simulated biological states, too.
Meer looked at the cerulean plains outside for a while, but got bored pretty quickly. It loaded up a simulspace in its mindscape and tried playing in its favorite simulated virtual universe, but that didn’t go well. There was no problem with the Viirt connection, the satellite coverage was excellent even in the remotest places on Terra Infinita; yet Meer experienced several glitches and errors in a row. Perhaps the game was updating or something. It didn’t feel like playing either; the strange ‘knot’ feeling was getting stronger and more distracting. Meer settled for talking to Snarky, to pass the time and fawn over its muse a bit.
It was high noon when they reached their destination. The plains around here were dotted with arboreal vegetation, which grew denser further to the northeast. Haygen parked the landcruiser next to a large tree with sandy-yellow vines.
“Okay, we continue on foot from here on,” he said. “Let’s take out the gear. Meer, since you’re a synthmorph, you can carry the stasis boxes. It’ll save us a good amount of time.”
Haygen then explained to Meer how hunting worked. First, they should find a place with a mostly neutral ambient resonance – or aura. Then, they’d try to attract a ‘voluntary sacrifice’ by communicating with extradimensional umbral entities – in other words, appease the spirits of the realm. That was Zondak’s responsibility as a Conduit. If they attracted a sacrificial animal, they’d kill it and be done. If no voluntary sacrifice came forth, then they would hunt “like the Ancients did” – they’d track down suitable prey and kill it.
Meer was curious about the talking-to-spirits part. Zondak said it was okay to watch during the ritual.
Zondak took the lead, taking the team deeper into the treeline. It was marginally cooler amid the trees, although that didn’t matter to Meer. Haygen and Zondak were sweating despite their smartclos, so they ozoned to keep themselves scentless. Zondak held one of his crystals, a perfectly transparent quartz, and used it as a guiding focus. After a couple of klicks, he found a suitable place near a brooklet.
The shaman began preparing for his ritual, lighting a small fire and tossing some herbs into it. Meer and Haygen waited off to the side. Meer noticed Haygen had the slightly glazed look of someone who was doing heavy digital interfacing.
“Hey, wotcha doing?” it asked, trying to strike a casual conversation like it had done so many times in the last year.
“Checking your reaper application,” Haygen replied levelly.
Meer halted. “What, you’re having second thoughts?” it said with a chuckle.
“To the contrary, I’m wondering if you are having second thoughts.” The wizened reaper’s eyes cleared and he gazed at Meer.
Meer let out an irritated sigh, an atavism from its biological days. “I’m fine. No need to be concerned with me. I told you, I have combat training. And I passed the psychological evaluation.”
“Look, kid,” Haygen said, “you’re not the only one with top-line augs here. Your kinesics are like a seismograph. It’s one thing to practice fragging in simulspace. Or take tests in a controlled environment. This here is real.”
“I’m not a kid,” Meer snapped. “I took my CERA test last year!”
“And congratulations on that. But I’ve been around for five centuries. Call it stretched perspective, but to me you are still a kid.”
“I can do the job!” Meer insisted. “If not, why did you take me in the first place then?”
“I think Zondak is ready for the ritual. Let’s join him,” Haygen said, ignoring Meer’s question.
Meer wondered what Haygen’s angle was. Why the sudden vote of no confidence? Meer tried reading Haygen’s kinesics but its frustration got in the way, so it ordered Snarky to do it instead.
Meer and Haygen sat next to the fire, opposite of Zondak. The shaman closed his eyes and began to chant in some unfamiliar language. His words were melodious and resonant, a song of some kind. A drum started thumping, the sound coming from an omnidirectional speaker at Zondak’s feet. The shaman swayed in rhythm with the drum and the song.
Meer followed the ritual with interest. The fire was thick with herb-smoke, its fumes heady and powerful. Meer left its chemical sniffer fully active and ‘inhaled’ the smoke, letting its synthetic body translate the chemical data into electrical signals recognizable by its digitalized mind. The world spun, a sense of not-quite-vertigo altering Meer’s perception. The binary sunlight faded, slowly at first, then more rapidly, like time-lapsed twilight. The drum echoed, simultaneously near and far away, sound heard and rhythm perceived on different layers. Everything melded with Zondak’s song. Something scrolled past Meer, a stray lump of data, perhaps a warning, perhaps a mere infobit. The sky opened, spilling shimmering flecks, the cosmos yawning wide.
Suddenly, there was a giant shadow behind Zondak. Meer tried to shout a warning, but couldn’t move at all. Great claws stretched around the entranced shaman, a jaw full of dark teeth leaned down. Twin stars lit above the monstrous snout, eyes of primeval fury.
The spirit pierced Meer with its surreal gaze. “Earn your pain,” came a low, ethereal hiss. “Strike the heart-mind, and bleed anew.” The eyes flashed, blinding-bright, and a soul-rending roar drowned everything in terror and death.
“Hey, Meer! Meer!”
Meer came back to its senses. According to onboard diagnostics, it had lost consciousness for ninety-nine seconds, the software of its mind crashing and rebooting.
That… shouldn’t be possible. Meer had been conscious the whole time. It was sure of it!… Was it?
“Meer!” Haygen called. “Do you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” said Meer in a clear, flat voice. It sat back up. “I had a minor software crash, that’s all.”
Haygen and Zondak traded looks. The shaman apparently was done with his ritual, the fire now dying down in a smokeless flare of fine ash. “If you say so,” Haygen said carefully, looking at Meer for several moments longer. Then he turned to Zondak. “So, what’s the news, Dak?”
“Nothing,” the shaman replied, mystified. “It was dead quiet this time. Usually at least some kind of presence comes forth, but I couldn’t sense anything this time. Like the spirit realm was barred or something.” He glanced thoughtfully at Meer.
Haygen grunted. “No voluntary sacrifice then?”
“I think not, yeah.”
“Great… old school it is. Meer, pack up our stuff. Dak, take the plasma rifle. I’m taking the lead.”
They set out for a real hunt this time. Meer walked along, carrying the cumbersome stasis boxes in which they would store a potential kill, still wondering what had happened during the ritual.
“I’m gonna blast that bastard with black ice,” Snarky snarled, appearing in Meer’s mindscape. The pink tyrannosaur looked like a predator ready to pounce. “I think they’re playing us, Meer. Both of them.”
“Uh… what?” Meer was confused. “What do you mean? What do their kinesics say?”
Snarky bared its virtual teeth. “They’re tense. It’s subtle, and they’re hiding it well, but they don’t act like it’s Lastday. They keep their distance, instead of treating you like you’re part of the team.”
That was concerning indeed. But Meer had something else on its mind. “Snarky, what happened to you during the software crash? Did you… see anything?”
“Your whole cyberbrain crashed. I was knocked out too. What do you mean if I ‘saw anything’?”
Meer told its muse what events had transpired according to its perception. Snarky was troubled. “That’s outside my programming, tyr. You should get ahold of an expert asap.”
“Perhaps.” Meer was troubled too.
“Look, Meer, just pull out of this. Tell those jerks you’ve changed your mind and want to abort. You’ll take a rep hit, but that’s nothing compared to experiencing a mental breakdown.”
“I’m not having a mental breakdown!” Meer grated. “You hear me?! Now, if you can’t say anything useful, let me focus on the hunt.”
With an angry growl and a concerned expression, Snarky left Meer’s mindscape.
Sounds of life came from among the trees, bird calls and the occasional rustling of land animals. Most of the animals were small, though not all; once, Meer spotted a local ungulate. But the reapers were after larger prey still: dinosaurs.
Haygen had gone ahead, moving half a klick in advance of Zondak and Meer. He was on the lookout, carrying minimal equipment to not weigh him down, ready to warn the others to drop theirs if anything showed up.
Now that they were actually hunting – seeking to kill a living being – a thought occurred to Meer. “Why do we do it like that?” it asked Zondak. “Can’t we just take an animal to a medbay, harvest part of it, heal it back, and release it? No death this way.”
“Hmm? Ah,” Zondak said, veering his lips. He seemed to have heard the question a lot. “This is a very old debate. Sure, we can do that. We have the technology and magic. But we end up taking out more from the system this way.”
“We do??”
“Yup. Even with peak efficiency, medical regeneration or holoric healing use more total energy than the energy which can be derived as nutrition from the organic substance that has been harvested.” Zondak shook his head. “In this case, we can’t impose our will and escape the consequences. We want natural meat, we have to kill for it.”
“But, why do reapers exist then? Shouldn’t those who want to eat living things be the ones who have to kill them? Aren’t they dodging cosmic karma that way?”
“There are certainly those who do their own killing, make no mistake. I think VV hunts for herself too, not just as a reaper. Yet others, as you have pointed out, try to keep their distance. Enjoying power and prestige without utterly embracing the concomitant responsibility. In those cases, the solution society has come to is to demand a high alternative price.”
If Meer’s synthetic visage had the capability, it would’ve grimaced. “So that’s why reapers earn so much.”
“Yes,” Zondak replied. “Those who desire natural meat but shy away from killing pay dearly instead. We perform the killing and receive the karma. And the payment.”
Their commlinks chimed, interrupting the conversation.
Haygen had found prey.
Meer and Zondak dropped all their extra gear and activated its transponders. They slunk between the trees toward Haygen’s position. After a quarter hour, they reached it. Haygen was lying beneath some bushes on a small slope. He made an impatient gesture for Zondak and Meer to join him.
Beyond the bushes, the treeline ended after about a hundred meters. There was a clearing of sorts, with a stream running through it. Standing in the clearing, bent low to drink from the stream, was a large theropod.
It was an allosaur – Meer’s scanners quickly pinpointed the subspecies – with dark grey hide and lurid green eyes. The creature drank quietly, pausing from time to time to raise its large head and look around. It seemed calm and confident: an apex predator resting in a semi-secluded place, away from danger.
Meer couldn’t take its viewsensors off the allosaur. Again, it felt something akin to faux nausea, becoming all but physically ill with fascination. It grew aware of something being gently yet insistently thrust into its arms.
“Meer, you’re doing the takedown,” Haygen said soundlessly over the commlink.
Meer slowly looked down at an elaborate crossbow now resting in its grip. “What’s this?” it asked, gazing at the slender bolt loaded onto the crossbow.
“We use it for clean kills,” Haygen said impatiently. “Reapers do not use any weapons that cause excessive trauma or pain. No burning, no serrated edges, no high-speed rotary weapons or hollow-point bullets or any other type of overkill. Just one projectile, with enough power and mass to do the job. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Meer carefully turned the crossbow toward the allosaur in the clearing. It was going to take another’s life. Deliberately. Everything felt surreal.
“Dak, you got the plasma rifle ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good, I’ll be spotting the telemetry. Meer, aim dead-center at the head or the heart for an instant kill. The heart should be easier at this angle.”
Dead-center. Meer heard the commlink as if from somewhere far away. Dead-center. Its mind was adrift in a haze of dread and furor. Dead-center. In the distance, the allosaur lifted its head to check its surroundings again. Dead-center. Dead-center…
“Meer! Talk to me! What’s happening?!” Snarky’s voice rent Meer’s mindscape.
“I’ve got it under control, Snarky. I’ll be fine,” Meer replied dreamily. “I can do this…”
“You are not fine! Your EEG readings are all over the place! Meer!”
Meer didn’t respond. It gripped the crossbow harder and cocked its head, aiming through the scoped sights.
Something pinged. Outbound connection. A large, supernaturally black horse appeared briefly in Meer’s mindscape. It was Haygen’s muse. The horse’s laser-red eyes flashed. “Permission to establish hardlink connection.”
“Permission granted,” Meer said curtly. The haze in its mind receded to the edge of its vision. Data started scrolling from Haygen’s vertical.
Magnified in the sights, the allosaur was beautiful. It crouched gracefully, large and strong, a savagely noble creature of nature. Its grey hide glittered with light motes reflected from the stream’s surface. Its green eyes were vibrant and fierce. Meer felt as if it stood right before the allosaur, just an arm’s reach away.
Two circles appeared on the allosaur, one red-gold on its head and another green-purple over its heart. Distance, wind speed, planetary rotation, atmospheric pressure, projectile weight, primal points of penetration: all telemetry, triangulated between Meer’s weapon and Haygen’s spotting, was reduced to those two circles. Meer just had to put the crosshair over one and pull the trigger.
Something didn’t feel right. It was as if the whole land was slightly askew. Meer wanted to glance sidelong, but it couldn’t look away. The others had vanished. The bushes and trees had vanished. The clearing wasn’t there. There was only Meer and the allosaur. They stood next to each other, the two colored circles dancing upon the allosaur’s scaled hide, its green eyes watching Meer.
Meer squeezed its hand.
A fountain erupted between the allosaur’s eyes. The rushing liquid swirled, dousing Meer in an ocean of primordial essence. Raw, brutal might. Sheer, primal vitality. Honed, razor instinct. Birth. Death. Cycle. Rainbow dance under a sonata of stars, land and sea and sky teeming with life of grand, eternal grace.
The allosaur’s spirit Ascended, joyfully returning Home, its journey completed.
Meer was no longer Sleeping.
***
Haygen and Zondak watched the departing transport shuttle. The pre-dawn morning was just like yesterday, cool and calm, with a hint of fresh dampness.
“They usually don’t quit on the first day,” Haygen said. His hands rested on his sides.
“They usually don’t kill on the first day either,” Zondak replied, twirling his focus crystal between dark fingers. “It was an unusual day.”
“I’m still amazed your visions came true. A synthmorph Conduit? That’s prime Viirt news.”
“Well, Meer did say it was going back to its family and getting its old body. But yes, I also didn’t believe someone could Awaken while being inorganic.”
“The biocons will just love this.” Haygen kept looking at the sky where the shuttle had disappeared. “Ah, the mysteries of the Great Cosmos. Let’s go grab some beers, Dak. Dak?” Haygen turned around.
Zondak was also looking at the sky. Abruptly, he began reciting. “Encased and lifeless, the spark still flickers. Metal divests itself of metal, reaving Nature of its child. A lesson is learned, a blessing is granted; a soul Awakens.” The shaman lowered his gaze and smiled at Haygen. “Let’s go grab some beers.”
Edited by Kalin M. Nenov