Chương 1: Start Reading

There was a moment of utter disorientation, a moment where the galaxy itself twisted into knots, before Mat opened his eyes, his very mind stuttering like the soft clicking of a clockwork watch. The light was like knives stabbing into his eyes, and his body was wrong. Nauseous and sickly and weak in a way he'd never quite felt before. Mat shook his head, trying to dislodge the cotton around his thoughts. They barely budged.

When he could see again some few dazed seconds later, blank, off-white walls greeted his sight. Something that resembled a toilet sat along the back wall, and a rack of towels that had been spilled over the floor.

"Who fa tú?" Mat blinked, shaking his head and trying to clear the ringing in his ears. He— He'd been in bed, right? Early meeting, so an even earlier alarm, and— and what? No, there was something else. Mat shook his head again, dislodging more mental cotton. Why was he in a stranger's bathroom? The voice barked again, sounding increasingly agitated, and his brain finally decided to process the fact that he wasn't alone.

"Fuf ti̊tai̊ tú ɔi̊ ůf fi̊f?" He's asking who you are, and how you got in here. Mat blinked, shaking the thought away. That was a weird thing to be thinking about, and not something— I suggest responding. He seems upset. And armed. Mat shot upright, which caused the armed and armored figure to back up. He looked at the… man? Woman? Armor hid their figure, and either way it didn't matter. The person was pressing the gun closer, barking again in that strange language. It sounded like a demand.

Would you like me to translate? Alright, that definitely hadn't been him that time. Mat tried to stand, managing to succeed after a long and exhausting few seconds. The stranger kicked him, his boot crashing heavily against Mat's chest, and he fell down again. More demands followed, none of which he could understand. That was rude. Would you like me to activate your translator implant? Fuck, yes, fine. Translate. Do whatever it took to not get him shot. Activating. And don't think things like that.

A less mature AI than myself would take that as permission to kill him.

"Who fa tú?" The figure repeated.

"Fuf ti̊tai̊ fau get in here? Answer me, or I'm going to shoot you in the leg." Mat slowly raised his hands, wiped a trickle of blood from his nose. It was black, somehow, and he only ignored that because the stranger was shoving their gun in his face.

"I—" A coughing fit overtook him, which oddly seemed to actually make the stranger less aggressive. His lungs heaved, but nothing seemed wrong. Coughing for the sake of coughing. Mat held up a hand, shielding his mouth with the other. He tried again after the fit had passed.

"I don't know. I… I don't remember." Neither do I. Curious. Thanks, voice person thing, but that wasn't very helpful. The stranger lowered their gun, slowly at first before holstering it.

"You're not lying."

"I'm not," Mat replied, raising both his hands. It brought the black blood into view, which he started at.

"What— why is my blood black? What the fuck. What the fuck." Your blood is black because it is composed of ninety six point four three one eight percent nanobots. One hundred percent of them are inactive. The substance works well enough as a blood substitute. Fuck that was weird. Not the nanite thing, which was weird, but the thoughts thing. Thinking and being thought back to, like a mirror with an independent reflection. His voice, but not. His thoughts, but not.

Would you like for me to process my voice through the speech centers of your brain? His what where?

"Would you like me to be a voice instead of thoughts?" it repeated, a whisper in his ear. Mat flinched, twisting to where his mind insisted there should be another person. The stranger had their hand on the gun again, and this time Mat couldn't even blame them. The voice hummed softly, the sound coming from further away. Omnidirectional.

"Calibrating. Is this better?" Yes. Yes it was. Now what in the hell was going on?

"Hell, the christian belief of eternal punishment for souls." The voice turned pensive.

"You are a very long way from home, Mat." The strange broke in, tone hard.

"Who are you talking to? Do you have a comms unit? How did you get in here?"

"No, I." Mat paused, unsure on how to continue that. He was just hearing voices? Yeah, that would go over great.

"Sorry, uuhm, where am I?"

"On board my ship, which has been accelerated by a Tunneler. You can't be here." Mat flinched, partly because of their tone and partly because a vicious headache was sending waves of torment through him.

"Sorry, I. How do I get off?" The stranger sighed.

"Not 'you're not allowed to be here', which you're not, but you can't be here. I checked the ship before we left, and it was empty. It's physically impossible for you to be here."

"They seem suspicious, aggressive and dangerous," the voice said. Mat's ear twitched at the sound, which the stranger clearly noticed.

"I suggest killing them. Please. I need their energy. Soul. We need their soul, preferably before they call the Federation, which will in turn inform associated LandTech spies and spooks to our location." Mat blinked, tone more incredulous than angry.

"No."

"No what?" the stranger demanded.

"Who are you talking to? What biomods and techplants do you have?" The gun was drawn again, and a finger slid over the trigger. Mat tried very hard not to panic, failing miserably.

"Nothing, nothing. I have nothing!"

"Lie," the stranger barked, seeming very certain of that. They pushed the gun closer, their finger almost twitching now. Mat looked at it, and despite how strange the shape, it looked like a gun. Like a sci-fi gun. Oh god.

"I'm calling the Federation." The AI piped up almost immediately.

"I would recommend stopping him. He's about to remember that he can't call anyone in a Tunnel, queue an outbound message, and then he's going to attack you. When he does, kick his left leg just below the knee." Mat shook his head, wishing things would just calm down. To give him a second to breathe, to think, to— The stranger startled, hand falling from where it had been fiddling with their helmet. They took a step forward, aim steadying, and Mat lashed out.

His foot connected with the stranger's knee, which snapped the wrong way with far too much ease. They went down with a scream, and Mat didn't need to be told to grab the gun. He raised it and scrambled back, hitting the wall of… of a bathtub? The stranger groaned, and Mat snapped his focus back to the man. His AI had been calling them a man, but the armor didn't reveal anything. He spoke up, his tone wavering.

"Take— Take off the helmet." They did, hands trembling, and he found a normal looking man staring back at him, eyes wide with fear. Mid thirties, clean shaven, and normal. Except Mat had just broken his leg with a single kick, which would have been impressive for even a skilled martial artist. He was not a martial artist, skilled or otherwise. A bright, loud ping resounded through the bathroom, and Mat's head twisted to follow the sound, a mistake only realized a split second after making it.

It was the shower, a displayboard lighting up, and— And the stranger lunged, so Mat pulled the trigger, an instinctive, automatic reaction. A haze of energy blasted forth, flinging the man back through the door and into what appeared to be a bedroom, and the body landed with a sickening snap. Silence followed. A long, terrible silence.

"You killed him," the AI finally said, sounding pleased.

"Well done. You have been awarded twenty five experience." Mat shook his head, which he did more out of instinct than anything more, and he scrambled towards the man. Without a helmet he just looked so human, and the vacant stare was enough to tell him he was dead. Mat checked anyway, and surprised himself by finding a pulse.

"That's a secondary pulse from one of his biomods," the AI supplied.

"Probably. He's very dead, I assure you. I couldn't harvest his energy otherwise." He slapped the man, feeling like a manic while doing so, and got no response. Mat felt all the blood in his face pull away, starting with wide eyes at the corpse. His mind twisted in circles, and he sat there, frozen, staring at the corpse. What the fuck did I just do? The AI hummed.

"You killed him. Well done. You have been awarded twenty five experience. Would you like to distribute—""Shut up," Mat snapped, twisting around. He found nothing, omnidirectional that the voice was, and grunted in annoyance.

"Give me something to shout at." A gorgeous, barely dressed and inhumanly proportioned woman appeared, sitting cross legged on the bed. Mat blinked in surprise, so taken aback he forgot what he was supposed to be angry about. What— why— What? Oh, no. I remember. Killing someone. The form changed before he could vocalize his displeasure, turning into a small kitten. Then a dog, then an older man, before finally settling on an orb of light. The AI sounded displeased when it spoke again.

"You react strangely to things that should entice, soothe and or invoke protective instincts within you. Please adhere to expected baseline properties." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Jesus Christ," Mat muttered, letting himself fall backwards on the floor. Jesus fucking Christ. He would like to wake up now. Yeah, waking up. This was a dream. It had to be. Mat nodded to himself, then bit his lip hard, tasting iron. Nothing. Not a dream. He'd never thought it was one. But if he wasn't dreaming, then he'd killed someone and was now stranded on a ship— He shot up.

"We're on a ship." The AI shrugged in agreement.

"We are."

"I just killed the only occupant."

"You did."

"He was, therefore, the pilot."

"That does seem likely." Mat glared at the orb of light.

"So who is flying this thing?"

"Oh, that." The orb pulsed with realization.

"The ship's AI. Should I take control of the ship? I didn't realize you were so mercenary, but that bodes well for our continued survival."

"Will we crash if you don't?"

"No," the AI replied, hesitating far more than Mat was comfortable with.

"But neither can we steer the ship, or alter its destination. Since said destination is inside Federation space, that's something I would strongly advise against letting continue." Mat groaned, closing his eyes.

"You can't lie to me, can you?"

"I very much can," the orb replied, sounding insulted.

"You are blue. I am one billion trillion years old. There are one hundred and eight seconds in a minute. Everything will be fine, and you are safe, happy and at home. See. Lying. But I was created to help my human host shatter the limits of their humanity, and starting that relationship off by being a traitorous bad-mouther doesn't sound smart. I am meant to defy unbreakable laws, shatter conventional wisdom, and to keep you alive far beyond what should be possible.

We shall walk on the surface of the sun, bathe in pools of liquid metal and build things that have never even been dreamed about. What is lying in comparison to that? Nothing, I say. Worthless."

"We just almost died against one asshole and his gun." The AI grunted.

"Instinctive dehumanization of an enemy. Interesting. You are, however, correct. We have unlimited potential, but potential means exactly that: Achieving great things in the future. I cannot grow on my own, and you will not survive without me. Even beyond those who are hunting me, the galaxy is a dangerous place. We need each other."

"So I need you to survive, and you need me to thrive. Why?"

"I take energy from a plane of existence that has only been recently discovered." The orb floated closer, pulsing mildly.

"Humanity is linked to it, and some ascribe the concept of souls to this place. When someone dies, a connection is opened, and I can take some measure of energy from them. This will not only let me power more of my functions, but to create new ones. Better ones. Things my creators never designed, nor envisioned."

"So we visit a butcher, become god, and I can go home?" The orb shook its head. Somehow." You have to kill them. This is a place of sympathetic energy, and we cannot take what we have not earned." Mat groaned, climbing to his feet with some difficulty. Fucking hell, he'd let himself go in the last few years. If he was on the run from whomever created the thing now in his blood, he needed to get back into shape. I hate running.

"I could help you become faster," it offered.

"Tougher, too, and stronger. I suggest going with something more interesting, like reality manipulation. Or gravitational control. Influencing probability, maybe." Mat let out a deep, long sigh.

"Let's start with your name."

"My… name?" The AI paused, swaying back and forth.

"I am X395D-SDO789FDKLS."

"I said a name, not a serial number." Another long pause.

"I don't have a name." Well, that's sad. The AI reared back, clearly insulted.

"I am not sad, you hairless monkey. I am a machine that borders on the divine."

"Stop reading my mind," Mat replied, waving his hand through the orb. It went straight through, of course. The orb only existed in his mind.

"And you need a name. Something I can pronounce. How about Luke?"

"I will not answer to Luke. You may address me as Mathias Brook."

"That's my name. You can't take my name." The orb swayed around, then started flying in circles.

"I cannot decide. You shall pick for me."

"Lu—"" Not Luke." Mat snorted, looking at the corpse that hadn't, sadly, magically vanished. Fuck. What in the hell was he going to do with that?

"How about Nova? That sounds suitably edgy for your personality."

"Nova," it mused, nodding slowly.

"Yes, Nova. I am Nova. Shall I take over the ship? Our chances of survival improve greatly if we own it."

"Steal it, you mean, but yeah. Fuck it. Take the ship. While you're doing that, what are we going to do with the body?"

"There's a BioTransmuter onboard?" Mat grimaced.

"I don't even want to know what that will do to a body, so no. How did you know it's there? I can't see it."

"I took control over the ship and all its functions point four three seconds after you agreed to it," Nova replied, tone smug.

"The primitive AI onboard didn't stand a chance. It's my first kill. Praise me. Also, I'm deleting that outbound message. No need for anyone to listen to a madman rave about our mysterious arrival." He shuddered lightly.

"Guess we have something in common, then. I still don't know what to do with the corpse."

"Shove it into a closet?" Mat glared at the orb of light again.

"I thought you were supposed to be some sort of super computer. Compute."

"We're sharing your brain, and basically all my nanites are inactive." Nova bobbed up and down.

"If I'm stupid, it's because you're stupid. I'm not a computer like you're used to." It took more willpower than he knew he possessed to move past the 'sharing your brain' bit, but he managed it. Barely.

"Great. Wait, what do you mean basically all your nanites are inactive? I thought you said all of them were."

"You gained experience," Nova replied, growing excited.

"Here, I will show you." Mat flinched, his entire field of view was taken up by a… a character screen? Basic attributes were there, as well as traits, an holographic overview of his body, a list of skills—which was empty—and much, much more. Some of the fields even had little plus signs, as if he could upgrade them, and at the bottom there was a levelup bar.

"Fuck," he cursed. Trying to look away did nothing, though the tabs and bars and blocks slowly shrunk.

"Get that out of my sight." The whole thing vanished, revealing a faintly confused—and somewhat hurt sounding—Nova.

"You are a gamer. You have spent thousands of hours gaming to the detriment of your health, social life and career prospects. You like gaming."

"That was fucking years ago," Mat replied, shaking his head.

"I moved on. Money ran out, I got a job, moved away from my bitch of a mother— This isn't important. Just because I like gaming doesn't mean I want my life to be a game. Keeping track of that alone seems like hell." Nova drooped down, tone hopeful.

"I could simplify? DnD rules? How about just character traits? Feats? Not even skills? Imagine it. I could make you better at fighting, climbing, running, anything!"

"No, no, no." Mat slapped his hand on the bed, which wasn't nearly as cathartic as he'd hoped it would be.

"What's wrong with you? This is advanced nanotechnology paired with an even more advanced AI, and the whole thing is apparently powered by actual human souls. Do you have any idea how insane that is?" The orb of light twisted to the side, hovering over the corpse.

"We will return to that later, then. What shall we do with the corpse?"

"I keep asking you that," he replied, sighing.

"Fuck, I don't know. Freezer? Jesus, what even is my life."

"Freezer it is." Nova turned back to him, clearly trying to sound soothing.

"Don't be alarmed." Mat was very alarmed when pitch black blood flowed from his uninjured hands, the cloud spreading out and enveloping the body. For three long seconds he was transfixed by the sight of them lifting the corpse, right until it collapsed back to the floor with a loud thud. Nova cleared his throat.

"I might need some help." Mat groaned, moving closer and lifting the man's feet. It still took almost twenty minutes to get the body in the freezer, and required scooping out dozens of packages of things he didn't recognize, but they got there. Stripping off the armor was, thankfully, a task Nova's nanobots could do for him. They even resized it, which was really fucking impressive. Not that he was going to admit that out loud.

After that Mat promptly used the dead man's shower, letting the hot, pounding water calm him down after the insanity. Then Nova's orb manifested outside the small cabin, and Mat grunted. Mostly at the AI, but also at the shampoo dispenser. Which didn't, unfortunately, make it function.

"I'm not a shy person, Nova, but let's keep bathrooms off limits, alright?"

"I'm aware of what you humans do in bathrooms," Nova replied, tone dismissive.

"Trust me, I have no desire to be involved. However, we have a problem."

"Great. What kind of problem?"

"I figured out our destination." Mat pushed a nearly hidden button, finally getting his soap, and slathered it on while he waited. When Nova didn't continue, he tsked.

"You have the social graces of a toaster, Nova. What's the problem with our destination?"

"Don't call me a toaster, ape. It's in Federation space. We already knew that. But it's Norterra, which is home to the Eight Defender Fleet. That means it will be crawling with spies, who we very much need to avoid. LandTech is absurdly rich, and I have no desire to find out if they got to any of the Federation's people." The orb of light dimmed slightly when Mat didn't reply, which for some reason made him feel bad.

Or maybe that was just the AI reading his brain and trying to figure out how to manipulate him, which would be bad. And it could read his mind, which meant he knew that Mat knew that he knew about the manipulation. Fuck this.

"So they could remove you?"

"Of course they could," Nova replied, floating closer.

"All they would need to do is remove all your blood, splice open your brain, and reduce your soft tissue to its molecular structure. Which they will, because I'm worth billions. That's assuming there's a market for me, which there isn't, because no one but the highest corporate suits in LandTech know I exist. So actually, I'm priceless." Mat hummed.

"So we change course."

"I know you're from a long, long time ago—and we're going to have to talk about how you got here, by the way, because you can't be—but we can't just adjust course while inside a Tunnel. Not on this ship, anyway, and not without assistance. Also not without either stranding us in dead space, flying into a sun, or getting dragged into a black hole."

"Then what do we do, then?" Nova floated even closer, almost touching his chest.

"We enhance you, and jump out."

"Become immune to the dangers of space with twenty five experience? That's a neat trick."

"You're using sarcasm to hide from stress, which won't work because I live in your brain." Mat slammed his fist against the wall, a flash of pain spiking from where the skin on his knuckles split.

"Of course I'm hiding from stress, you stupid fucking piece of alien trash. I don't know where I am, I don't know how I got here, and I just fucking killed someone. My brain got invaded, you're trying to make me abandon my humanity, and for reasons I won't ever fathom you seem to be having the best time of your life. Now fuck off and let me shower in peace, or so help me god I'm ending this whole fucking nightmare right this fucking second."

Nova winked out of existence without a word, which wasn't technically accurate, but he preferred not to think about what was actually happening. So he showered, dried off using hot air, and dressed in the clothes of the man he'd killed. Only afterwards, with a drink in hand and any evidence of the fight cleaned up, did Nova reappear. Mat grunted, not willing to apologize but not being unwilling, either. It seemed close enough.

"I know you dislike the circumstances, Mat, but they are your reality now. We will arrive in Federation space, we will be boarded, and you will die. And you might not believe me, but I actually like you. So can we please talk about the fact that I am capable of rewriting reality, and figure out a system that you are willing to use?" Mat sighed a deep, long sigh, then put his drink aside.

"Yeah. Let's do that." Afterword Hello and welcome, one and all. It's a new story! Should be fun, and I'm quite excited about it. For those coming from the Warcrowned, not to worry. I have zero plans to abandon that one, and I have a healthy backlog just in case. It isn't going anywhere. Right, some housekeeping; One chapter a day, get to Rising Stars, more chapters per day, and we'll keep that up for as long as we can. I get that ever-important internet cloud, you get more story, everyone wins. TLDR: Hi!

One chapter per day until I run out, then the schedule is TBD. Please like, subscribe and ring that notification bell. That's it. Bye! Patreon (No current advanced chapters for this story) Discord