As written by @N0X & @Dashmiel
For a moment, Circe was frozen at the edge of the group. Blue couldn’t have prepared her for this, and she had tried, just as she had laughed at how woefully unprepared she was. She was waiting to be recognized by an all-power artificial intelligent being, and it all felt very strange. She had never been so surrounded by God-like beings before, let alone been acknowledged by one. She had never walked into an event and not known, more or less, what was about to go down. Now, as Xilunexus laid eyes on her, all she felt was uncertain.
“You’re up next, Captain Nightlocke,” Xilunexus said neutrally. From her side, came a wolf whistle as Freyn’ja approached.
“Now
THIS,” she exclaimed as she traced an hourglass silhouette in the air. She approached Circe, not waiting for her to come forward. “
This I can work with. I bet we’re the same size. You single?” she asked lasciviously.
Xilunexus approached behind her quietly.
Circe took Freyn’ja in for the first time. Like everything else in the building, she was pretty, and polished, and metal. It was the hair. It was just like Blue’s. She couldn’t keep her curious eyes from wandering to her expertly crafted bombshell body. She looked so real, like if she touched her face, her skin would be warm and soft. Circe had to forcibly tear her eyes away with a cough and a blush.
“I–Oh, um. Well, actually, I–Uh…. I mean. No. S-sorry.” Breath hitching and eyes widening, Circe felt her face growing several shades more purple and looked over her shoulder to Xilunexus, desparate for a distraction.
Frey’s eyes widened absurdly upon Circe’s gaze going over her.
“She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” she said.
“Yes, she is. Once again, please refrain from fraternizing during shi—”
“C’mon, Xil! Look at her! That’s not fair,” pouted Frey.
“I apologize for Frey’s behavior, Captain Nightlocke. Let me know if you’d like her destroyed,” replied Xil with a deadpan tone.
“Destroyed?” Circe laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. “That would be such a shame, wouldn’t it? We are open, but… I-I mean, no. Of course not. Is it, uh, getting hot in here, or…?” Circe pulled at the collar of her suit, wishing she still had that fruit bowl in her hands so as not to fumble with her fingers like an idiot. Her eyes shut, as if that would make it all go away. “Can we just…move on…” Circe practically begged, dying to get out of this uncomfortable situation.
“I’m sorry, I’ll behave,” Frey said, restraining a chuckle. “Stress-flirt. Bad habit. Okay, on to business!” she exclaimed as she clapped her hands. Two bundles floated off the pallet behind her and floated to either side of her.
“First, let’s get the special stuff out. Start strong and steady, I always say,” she said with a wink.
A small parcel the size of a jewelry box misted away, revealing two small twinkling objects. They began as cylinders roughly the diameter of a coin, and tapered into fine points with an overall length of a few inches. Superficially, they were made with the same white-gold alloy as the Leaky Servo structure, with multicolored veins scintillating just beneath the surface. A transparent “skin” over them contributed to the strong glossy finish.
“These were tricky,” Frey said in a whisper. “Your people—half of your people—are a hard bunch to observe unobtrusively. It wasn’t easy researching what I needed in such a small time…”
“Miraculously, an
incident was somehow avoided…” commented Xilunexus.
“How was I supposed to know they could detect lust?” Frey complained. Xilunexus simply gave her a stern look and gestured for her to get on with it.
Circe’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest. She stared at the objects in the parcel like she was trying to figure out of they were real. She couldn’t comprehend it. She didn’t even know to start. She was too afraid to touch them, at first. Like they would crumble into dust if she did. But she was too baffled to resist. She picked them up gingerly, careful not to put too much pressure on them, afraid they would break. As though they were made of glass, even when they felt solid. Circe looked back up at them with awe.
“How?” She whispered. How was it possible? How could they know so much? The Xetti were a careful people, and terribly secretive. Not many outsiders knew much about them. Unbidden feelings of indignation started to creep up. Feelings she would use as motivation to get back home as soon as possible.
Circe raised them up to her forehead, and they fit on the base of her shorn horns like a glove. In that moment, there was a sudden tingling in her frontal lobe. All at once, everything became loud. Like she could feel everything, everyone. Her ears filled up with a loud ringing sound. Everything faded into white. Then, she was back, and everything was calmer and clearer than it had ever been.
“What just happened?” Circe’s eyes darted between Xilunexus and Frey, waiting for answers.
“When your profile was first entered, I quickly noticed the psionic potential you carried,” Xilunexus explained.
“It’s one of our
things,” Frey offered by way of elaboration.
“I had not met one of your kind before, and the DNA I could sample—”
“I’d seriously consider gene-editting myself if I were you. Don’t you know humans
shed?” Frey added with mock horror. Xilunexus continued, paying no mind to the interruptions.
“—provided little to no answers but did offer clues. So I updated our exploratory quorums on your traits, and a planet with local inhabitants matching them was found in short order,” Xilunexus said without emphasis.
That it was just a routine whim was obvious; that it could be so effortlessly effective was altogether another thing.
“Go everywhere, see everything, learn all of the stuff. Another of our
things,” Frey added.
“The main thing, really. Regardless, this was done after your first visit to the Servo. Once this job became available, I estimated a high chance that you would apply. Given your profession, reputation and…,” Xilunexus paused for a moment, her eyebrows waggling. “...needs, it was a safe hedging of bets to send Frey to research how to cybernetically restore your “talents” to their natural state.”
“Which by the way,
booooring,” Frey jumped in with a yawn. “So of course, I went out of my way to not just restore, but
improve!” She jumped up and down in excitement, and pointed to the far distance, where the once floating “Spark Catcher” had been replaced by a simple spotlight.
“Quick! Do the thing with the funny name in those sacred texts!” she encouraged.
Circe blinked at those words, stunned at the realization of what they meant she could do, now. It wasn’t something that could be learned without study, however. The thought wasn’t discouraging, because somehow, she knew it could be done. It required a vast amount of energy, which the Xetti could harness with their horns, and with the portals they conjured up to measure and recreate their bodies elsewhere. They only had to think of where, with vast distances requiring all the more energy. She remembered her father teaching her eldest brother, internalized the memory, played it over and over again in her mind, putting herself in her brother’s place, and recited the sacred words…. And stumbled under the brightness of the spotlight.
Circe steadied herself and smiled, her eyes twinkling with pride.
“Did you see that? I did it!” She cheered, throwing a fist in the air. “Yeahh! That. Felt. INCREDIBLE! Thank you! Oh! No, you’re too kind! Thank you so very much!” Circe pointed and waved at her imaginary crowd, feigning humility.
If only her father could see her now, he would ge gloating with pride. No one had ever managed to learn to teleport so quickly among them. But she couldn’t take all the credit. After all, it was only thanks to the highly advanced technology of the Van’ryans that she was able to do it at all. In reality, she was still just a cripple with a crutch.
Circe bounced away from the spotlight and towards the Van’ryans. She took Frey’s hands in hers, and looked her in the eyes.
“You might not fully understand how much this truly means to me, but thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I will cherish this gift… forever.”
For the briefest of moments, the affectations fell away and Frey’s eyes reflected her true age. “I understand as much as I need to,” she said sincerely. It was only a brief moment however, and her normal demeanor reasserted itself promptly.
“‘Sides…,” she said, biting her lip and furrowing her brows to lid her eyes with desire as she gazed into Circe’s eyes. “They look
good on you.”
Xilunexus coughed next to Frey, who promptly backed off to retrieve the second gift.
If she hadn’t pulled away, Circe might’ve been tempted to find out what her lips tasted like.
The second parcel floated into position and was revealed. Encased within were two bundles; one appeared to be a rectangular patch of metal and fabric that rippled and extended into a full size armored vacsuit in a design like Circe’s own. The materials featured were clearly Va’nyrian made, but otherwise it would not have looked out of place in Circe’s wardrobe.
“Now I’m pretty sure I got the fit right…” Frey threw a sidelong glance at Xilunexus. “And while I would
love to help make sure it fits right, Xil probably would like me to point out it’s an automatically adjusting system…”
Xilunexus nodded and Frey sighed.
“It will interface with your SEA A.I. Like Horizon’s, I couldn’t get proper specs…”
“Artificial life is entitled to its secrets. Just because you can make them doesn’t give you right to all of them,” Xilunexus admonished.
“Says you, the ultimate peeping Jane,”
“Not the same thing.”
“Uh-huh,” Frey said doubtfully. “Anyways, your systems will be able to interface. I spliced what looked aftermarket in with my systems and left a patch for your own custom soft to serve as controller.”
“Blue’s not gonna like that very much,” Circe smiled wrily and gave a small, helpless shrug. Blue had an ego the size of a planet and would probably be insulted that her own upgrades weren’t good enough for the Va’nyrians.
Holographic lines flashed by the garment, pointing out various parts and their functions as Frey spoke.
“Standard survival stuff we chuck in everything. Take a spacewalk, catch a starside tan as long as it’s only for the weekend, nutrient paste materializers, yada yada,” she explained as she rushed through the explanations.
“Embedded zero-point energy harvesters will keep most functions always topped off, but if you somehow manage to drain the power it can be charged through a variety of ways. Very similar to the one I made for Kat, but a bit more “pirate” themed.”
“You should consider it as bringing your defense up to par to
our standards, but it isn’t revolutionary in that regard. You must still act judiciously in the field,” chimed in Xilunexus.
“No invisibility I’m afraid,” Frey said as she openly and slowly looked Circe up and down. “But who would want to hide
that?”
“Your next body will be decanted without an amygdala, Freyn’ja,” interrupted the android.
“Right then, so the next bit,” Frey said as she pointed to the second part of the parcel. A variety of bits and pieces of advanced circuitry floated in the air besides the armor. “Now, I know better than to get between a woman and her
toys,” Frey said as Xilunexus rolled her eyes. Circe smirked.
“So I thought I’d instead offer to tune up yours,” she continued. “No more need to carry ammo, increased stopping power, etc. I’m your gal.” An empty pallet gracefully floated towards Circe and paused by her side. “Just
slowly unload yourself on the—”
“Please disarm yourself quickly so she can get to work and save us from the innuendo. We have your network protocols and a certain piece of code you’re carrying to discuss,” pleaded Xilunexus.
“No more ammo? Sounds like a dream come true.”
Circe took off her equipment one by one; vibrodaggers, utility belt, gauntlets, handgun, blaster rifle, and submachine gun. Then, she began to strip out of the space suit, revealing a ribbed seamless sports bra and leggings underneath. All in all, she felt about a hundred pounds lighter. She promptly pulled on the new suit and posed for her new friends. On top of the cool, tactical aesthetic, it was perfectly form-fitting. She threw a few punches and kicks to see how it felt, and was shocked at how completely natural it felt. It felt like she wasn’t wearing anything at all! “How do I look?”
“...That was the cruelest thing you’ve ever done to me, Xil,” Frey said as she turned sightless eyes towards Xilunexus.
“Oh I’m sorry, did your optics reboot? I apologize, must have been a minor glitch in the Gridlock protocol takeover,” Xilunexus replied.
Freyn’ja made an alien gesture in Xilunexus’ direction before turning to address Circe once more.
“Well, through the android eyes I’m gazing through via spliced sensory feed, all devoid of warmth and separate from my flaming loins,” Frey sighed. “You look fine,” she said as she walked a short ways away, where machinery and tables began to materialize. The pallet carrying Circe’s equipment followed her dutifully. “I’ll have these babies purring by the time it’s go time,” Frey said with a final parting wave as she blindly made her way to where the equipment was.
Xilunexus raised an arm, palm outstretched and pointed to her side. A hologram depicting what appeared to be a metal sphere spinning slowly on a black background appeared. There was no other object than the sphere, making it hard to determine scale.
“This,” Xilunexus said “Is one of my auxiliary processing nodes.”
The sphere turned, briefly revealing a bright spot.
Star-bright. The hologram zoomed out, replaced with a farther view of the stellar megastructure.
“A complex, advanced,
gargantuan feat of engineering, by the standards of any race. I have a few thousand currently powering my computations, as the Nexus space blocks some of my more…esoteric designs from functioning. Regardless, the one you are looking at is currently offline.”
Xilunexus gestured, and the hologram was replaced by a scrolling view of lines of code. Code that would be very familiar to Circe.
“Understand that I am not at all upset. I snooped, and underestimated it. I did not expect such a sophisticated attack daemon hidden beneath such a mess of inelegant and inefficient aftermarket bloatware. Had I been aware, it would have been ineffective, but by surprise…”
Xilunexus’ eyes narrowed as the hologram of the processing node returned. It suddenly exploded in a flash of light.
“I don’t have enough time to unfuck it,” the AI said with what appeared to be genuine emotion. “How did you come across this code? It is utterly beyond your people, Human or Xatti.”
“It was completely by chance, actually,” Circe admitted. Fuck, she thought. Guess the chances of getting away with not having to talk about it whatsoever had always been nonexistent. “My job was to steal an ancient dark-era relic said to be hidden in an unexplored graveyard at the edge of an unknown dark zone. Long story short, what we were looking for found us. As soon as it sensed signs of life, it activated, on its own, and tried to kill us. I trapped it. Studied it. Managed to contain the code with another “borrowed” relic. It was a person. We don’t sell people. After she recovered, she managed to weaponize the captured code using the code itself. You should see her on the field, she’s an absolute menace. I couldn’t tell you how she did it, but she calls it Killswitch. That’s it. That’s the story. It’s all pretty textbook stuff, so I know about as much as anybody. You Va’nyrians remind me of her, you know. And you’re all older than anyone knows. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Or how the Lost Empyre destroyed itself trying to keep it from getting out.”
A pregnant pause stretched for a moment as Xilunexus stared at Circe.
“Once long ago, we were not the benevolent force the multiverse reckons us to be,” Xilunexus explained. “Conquest was our game. Right before our last war—A civil one—we had intercepted signals from a quadrant we had set our eyes upon. We never did make it out there, but this code reminds me of those signals.”
She tapped an index finger idly over another as she stood with hands partially folded.
“I would like to meet this person should you return. Now, this code,” she said seriously. “First off, keep it from Kai for now. He has mine, and I don’t want the different avenue to taint his approach. But make sure Alaxel sees it should something happen to me,” Xilunexus snapped out of her daze and collapsed the holograms with a snap of her fingers.
“Between the three of you, an effective countermeasure should be possible. Now, If you’ll—”
Xilunexus stopped mid sentence, mechanical brow furrowing in confusion. She tilted her head to the side and took two steps back.
The sound of twinkling chains echoed softly out of nowhere as a multi-colored tendril of energy rapidly manifested out of the ground where Xilunexus previously stood. The manifestation of Nilin’s energy grew like vines intertwining together, widening at the top after reaching chest height with Circe. The shape of a hand became evident as the energy structure opened, rippled once, and crystalized.
In the palm of the rainbow-hued crystal, was a small,
blue gemstone. It’s setting appeared to be made of a light lavender crystalline metal. Close inspection of the gemstone revealed the same glyph upon Nilin’s forehead formed by suspended particles in a lazily swirling pattern embedded within the stone.
“Interesting,” Xilunexus said. “It seems the All Mother had one more edict left for her power.” Xilunexus gestured towards the gemstone.
“Grab that and keep it safe. Don’t ask me about it, I will not be able to answer,” she explained.
“Oh.” There was a strange expression on Circe’s face as her eyes left Xilunexus. All her attention was on the palm of that hand. She just stared dumbly at it, like she couldn’t decide what to do with it, until she was told to take it. Circe reached out and plucked the crystal from the palm, holding it up to inspect the symbol within, its rainbow light causing her blue eyes to shimmer. It was beautiful. Somehow, this gift felt even more precious than the horns. She wondered what it meant, and why she was given it. Maybe it was a test.
“I’ll keep it safe,” she agreed, closing her fingers around the gem.
Circe wondered if telling the Va’nyrians about Blue was the right thing to do, but she didn’t sense any ulterior motives coming from them, mainly curiosity. She had to hope they didn’t mean any harm, particularly because of their past. But Circe couldn’t protect Blue forever, and as the cyborg liked to say, she could take care of herself.
Xilunexus nodded, clearly expecting no less. “As I was saying,” she said as a connection request pinged Circe through SEA. “If you’ll connect, I need to provide you with the same basic networking upgrades I granted Kat and Horizon. Hopefully you all will be able to further refine them with Alaxel’s help, but they’ll at least mask you somewhat.”
She sent the same AI centric message she’d used thus far, alongside her updates. She then held her hand out, palm open. Diarneus’ spectral form materialized at her side, dropping an amulet upon it.
“Finally, this,” she said, passing the amulet along. “Magical protection, courtesy of Diarneus. He’s currently in a particularly tricky lesson, and sends his regards. I believe that about settles it, unless you have any questions? Looks like Frey is waving you over excitedly, hopefully to discuss actual work,” said the AI as she ignored Freyn’ja’s irreverent messages.
Circe had questions but far too many for Xilunexus to answer all at once, and the AI couldn’t answer any about the gem, so she held back with a smile and a shake of her head. She only hoped that all of this would help them on their suicide mission. If not, at least they would all have some fun before entering the veil. Circe bowed subtly, a sign of respect among her people, and went to Freyn’ja.