Chương 5: Arrival arc

"Free Companies are the logical extreme to which commerce can be taken. Untethered to government, oversight or law, they field private armies, control extreme wealth, and govern hundreds of millions of people. LandTech is the largest of these Free Companies, though not the only one. Their extreme wealth and influence allows them to compete with any of the four major political entities in the galaxy, be that through commerce and technology, but militarily they are still outmatched.

Their power is vast, and so are their contributions to science, healthcare, industry, spaceflight and more. Wherever humanity can be found, LandTech's logo can be found alongside them, and over the last three hundred years, they have proven to be here for the long term." An introduction to the wider galaxy, chapter twelve. Mat walked after the droid, nerves and a sick sense of doom rising in his stomach. If the medical exam revealed Nova, then he was fucked.

Even if by some miracle he wasn't dissected on the spot, they—whoever they were aside from Obedias—would stuff him so full of cyberpunk slave mods he wouldn't be able to take a piss without permission. Or just kill him. That was always the easy solution when you found a tiger cub amongst your dogs.

"Don't call people dogs," Nova chided. The AI, as much as he tried to hide it, sounded nervous too.

"And don't call yourself a tiger cub, either. It's weird." Well, at least the shock of imminent discovery had overshadowed the awkwardness. He would take what he could get. So down the hall they went, Mat cradling his broken shoulder. Or dislocated, or whatever had ended up happening. At least it didn't hurt anymore. Or felt much like anything. Mat half prayed they could fix it in minutes, because he was not looking forward to healing it as nature intended. He had broken his ankle, once. Never again.

One hallway quickly turned into another, and then another, and soon he'd lost any sense of direction. They were bare things, off-white and brown and black, like the designer hadn't cared in the slightest. Aside from the plastic feel of them, he could have found hallways like this anywhere, even back home. So very, very little screamed 'advanced technology' to him, unlike the ship he'd woken up on. It helped him acclimate, undoubtedly so, but it was also disappointing.

He somehow woke up in the future, got an experimental AI imprinted into his brain, and this was the type of hallway he got? Plastic and boring? Nova spoke after a moment.

"I think you're going into shock." Isn't that a bloodloss thing?

"Maybe," Nova replied, sounding doubtful. Mat stilled his one working hand, closing it into a fist to stop it from shaking.

"Either way, those were some good drugs. You shouldn't be walking with the kind of beatdown we just got." We, him, Nova seemed really fond of mixing those up. Whatever. Mat supposed that if he got to feel weird about someone living in his skull, the AI got to feel weird about living in some guy's skull too. The droid finally stopped next to a door, as featureless and nondescript as every other they'd passed. It even opened the door for him, though when Mat stepped through, the machine didn't follow.

Inside, Mat paused, taking in the space. It looked like a hospital room. He had no idea what the machines did, and there were several, and the examination chair—lying flat and shaped roughly like a person—seemed to lack padding, but everything else? A poster of the human body hung on the wall. There was a basin to the side, with a dispenser for disposable gloves next to it. Hell, there was even a computer, though the screen looked nothing like he was used to.

The only other door opened, and an older man stepped through, head buried in a glass square. A Dataslad, Nova supplied. A tablet.

"Please take a seat," the man said, coming to stand in front of the desk. He swiped at the dataslad, speaking again after a moment. Mat took a seat on the only chair that was behind the desk; the examination table.

"Your sexual orientation is heterosexual, correct?" Mat blinked. Inappropriate questions that very few people had the right to ask? That was a doctor, alright.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Please answer the question." He tilted his head.

"Why?"

"Please answer the question." Mat rolled his eyes.

"Yes, my sexual orientation is heterosexual. Should I leave a note if I want to experiment, or is this an 'ask for forgiveness, not permission' kind of thing? Pabol is real cute when he scowls."

"You may have noted that the sedative you have been administered is making you more relaxed, and thus loosening your inhibitions. Please lie down." He laid down, because that's what you did when you were at the doctors. Mat spoke up a moment later, watching a machine whir to life on the other side of the room.

"I'm not actually gay."

"I don't care," the doctor replied.

"Lie still." The anxiety returned in full force, and judging by the doctor's raised eyebrow, the man noticed. But every second that the man didn't scream for the guards was one Mat counted as a victory, and the process was far less invasive than he'd feared.

"This is a mediscanner," Nova explained, unprompted.

"They scan the body for injuries, and then medical nanobots repair them. I don't think he's going to find anything." And why would that be?

"Because I'm pretty sure I'm mostly made out of human souls." The doctor spoke up before Mat could question that.

"Anterior dislocation of your shoulder, a clean break in the ulna, and significant bruising across your arms, chest, and abdomen consistent with blunt force trauma. Your neurological examination is stable, but a mild concussion is present. With the setting of your shoulder, it should be usable in four weeks time, and in three months will be fully healed." That didn't sound so bad. A month of rest and time to think, plan and learn, before—"Deploying medical swarm."

Mat startled when a cloud of barely visible things descended on him, jerking away, but there was nothing to be done. Pain flared through the haze that had settled over his mind, and with a sickening snap, his arm was set back into place. What he could only describe as soreness spread through the entire area, and a moment later the cloud retreated, flowing freely out of his skin. The doctor tapped something on his dataslad.

"Shoulder is set and the drugs have been purged from your system. When you wake up in the morning, you should be fine. We also fixed a significant number of dormant genome defects, latent virus cells, early cancer strands and other such maladies. Have you never been given a proper examination before?" Lying was impossible when he had barely any frame of reference, so Mat ended up shrugging. Always a safe bet to let people fill in the blanks themselves. The doctor sighed.

"Well, it's fixed now. Next would be mental deficiencies. Early traces of Alzheimer's, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depress—"Don't touch my mind," Mat barked, surging upwards. The doctor blinked, not seeming worried. Mat sat, staring at the man.

"Don't." The man shrugged.

"Very well. X113, escort him back to his domus. We're done here." Mat continued staring even after the droid had entered, though by then the doctor had already returned his attention to the dataslad. Slowly he got up, and only exhaled properly when he was out of the door. Hell, he was so focussed on not casually getting his mind rewritten that he almost bumped into a leggless man on the way out. Another droid was aiding the stranger, and neither paid him any attention.

X113 led him back through the twisting labyrinth of hallways, and before he knew it, Mat was marching back into his… what had the doctor called it? Domus? Wasn't that Latin for house?

"It is," Nova supplied.

"Obedias seems fond of ancient cultures. He's not alone." Mat almost asked how ancient, before realizing he didn't care. It was April twenty first, four hundred and eight. Everything else was unimportant, as far as he was concerned. The how long, the why of starting the count over, all of it. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Nobody cheered as he returned.

Hell, he didn't want them too, but it felt somewhat lacking that nobody was waiting, not even Reg. Mat shook it off, moving back to his cell. Not to sleep, he doubted he could manage that, but even half an hour of meditation would probably help to center him. And old habit leftover from college, back when he tried to impress a girl. She'd tutored that class, and while his masterful attempt at flirting went nowhere, meditation had stuck.

Then unstuck, as such things went, but since arriving here, it seemed like a good thing to pick back up. God knew he needed peace of mind now more than ever. So Mat moved past the hundreds of men, ignoring how they sparred and bickered and laughed, dodging errant elbows all the while. He climbed back up to his cell, and only found Pabol present, doing situps on the floor. Mat paused, then shrugged and stepped over the man. Pabol spoke after finishing his set, rising to his feet and wiping the sweat from his brow.

"You're alive, but you don't look like a winner. What they do to you?"

"Tore my shoulder out of its socket," Mat replied shortly, crossing his legs on his beds. Christ, what he wouldn't give for a bit of privacy. After a moment, he added; "And beat me."

"You hit back?"

"Once. On the chin."

"They fall?"

"No." Pabol shrugged.

"Eh, I've heard worse. Reg was twisting himself into knots worrying about you. That's going to get him killed, in spirit if not in flesh." Mat closed his eyes, not responding. Rude, perhaps, but at the moment he found that he cared very little. Pabol clearly didn't care himself, and soon the sounds of exercise filled the small space. Ignoring it, Mat focused on his breath. Breath was the first step of meditation.

The guide to transcendence started with that one step, inhaling slowly through the nose and exhaling slower still. The goal was to exist without thinking, to be rather than plan and strategize and feel. It was easy and difficult, slow and fast. Most of all, it was soothing, and slowly, Mat felt himself settle. True meditation didn't come, not after ten minutes and not after half an hour, but even with frequent strands of thought to interrupt the process, he calmed. The sounds of the domus fell away.

Pabol's exercise fell away, which the man seemed in no hurry to finish. Outside, the clashing of transwords and heaving of breath dimmed and vanished, until all that there was, all that there could be, was himself. Mat only opened his eyes when someone else entered the cell, finding a surprised Reg standing in the entrance. Nova spoke up before the man could, tone pleased.

"That was nice. Soothing. Like dialing down a stereo, but for your brain." Mentally agreeing, Mat uncrossed his legs, leaning against the wall as best he could. Reg shook his head, taking a seat and ignoring how Pabol was using the table for inverted pushups.

"You're alive," the man finally said. Mat nodded, not sure how to reply to that. Reg sighed.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when you got back. I thought it would take longer, and there was— It doesn't matter. Are you alright?" Mat shrugged. The cell wasn't large, so by necessity, Reg was pretty close. Pabol cursed when his foot slipped, crashing to the floor. Mat ignored the man.

"I am now. A warning would have been nice."

"Yeah," Reg replied with a sigh.

"I didn't think the Judge would put you in one of the beatdown programs. Those are usually held early, and feature people with wildly unequal fighting experience, though usually of the same general strength. Torture videos, basically, for sadists." Mat stared, then deflated.

"Lovely. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but I guess my pride can rest easy, as little of it as I have left." The man shook his head, letting the silence stretch. Mat closed his eyes again, resisting the urge to spiral. To think back on better memories, and fear the coming day. It would solve nothing, and phantom pain was just that. A phantom. Pabol's grunt broke the silence, and Mat watched the man climb to his feet.

"Fucking piece of shit tables. And fucking Hermandes for hogging the proper equipment. And fuck you for forcing me to use the table, new blood."

"Might be a good idea to train with Yon, if the doctor healed you," Reg suggested, ignoring the man.

"You could wait until tomorrow, if you want a break, but your first two weeks are free. I'd make use of that." Mat nodded slowly, not feeling enthusiastic but not hating the idea either. Emotional overload, or some such. Too much happening at once, so the body shut down unnecessary things like feelings. It was kind of nice. He stepped past Pabol and back out into the wider domus, descending the stairs and making his way towards the sparring rings. Which, to his mild surprise, were both in use and absent of Yon.

Six rings for four hundred people. Yeah, kind of lucky he had been allowed to hog one for all those hours, honestly. Maybe there were special rules for the new blood, as Pabol had called him.

"You," Mat said, pointing to a man at random. The stranger blinked, surprised and in the middle of a conversation.

"You know where Yon is?"

"Fuck off." Mat shrugged, turning to his friend. That one grunted in mild amusement.

"You look shellshocked. Finally figured out there's no going home?" There's no going home even if I get off this ship. The man raised an eyebrow, and Mat paused.

"Did I just say that out loud?"

"Definitely shellshocked," the man decided.

"And I have no idea who you're talking about." It took another four people before someone pointed him in the direction of Yon, the third of which had stepped into his personal space, annoyed. Mat's complete lack of a reaction seemed to have stopped any violence, but still, not everyone was as nice as Reg. Yon looked up from where he was playing some type of boardgame, the three others around his table giving him curious glances. Yon grunted in greeting.

"I'm on my break, Mat."

"I'll wait." Seconds passed, and Yon squinted his eyes, then sighed.

"Oh. Yeah, alright. Tom, you still owe me ten copper. If you don't pay up before tomorrow, I'm breaking fingers." Tom, whoever that was, waved Yon off, and then Mat followed the man back towards the sparring rings. Which were still full, but Yon walked past them, claiming a small unoccupied corner. Mat didn't question it, nor how the man suddenly had two transwords in hand. He threw one, and Mat caught it, dropping the point low to the floor. Yon nodded in approval, raising his own.

The blow came slowly, easily, and Mat raised his weapon to block. The force traveled down his shoulder, and part of him expected agony. Instead it felt like nothing, or more accurately, how it had felt before a stranger had torn it out of its socket. Up, down, left, right. Blow after blow Yon rained down on him, his swipes slow, his movements exaggerated. Not that the man would stop if Mat failed to block, but he could keep up. Slowly, minute after minute, he fell into the rhythm of battle.

Yon sped up until Mat had to rely on instinct more than eyesight, and slowly added sweeping, grand steps into the mix. That went on for another ten, until his arms felt like lead.

"Good," Yon said, taking a step back.

"Now you." Mat raised his transword, and the dance started over again, this time with him on the offensive. Why do you hate droids, Nova? Nova didn't respond at once, and so Mat looked at the bottom of the top bunk, on which Pabol was sleeping. Surprisingly, none of the beds were assigned, and blanketless bunks didn't really grow dirty. Self cleaning, Reg had called it. Expensive but hygienic. Something about nanobots, and with more LandTech birds tucked away, alongside that same smiling man.

A cornerstone technology if he'd ever heard it. Fire, farming, the wheel, writing, printing press, steam power, electricity, the internet. Now nanobots had joined the list, though he was sure he'd skipped a few intermediate steps. Finally, Nova spoke.

"We call them droids because they're not self aware, unlike proper AI. They might mimic sapience, act like a person, but they're not. It's just software pretending to be alive. Good servants—slaves if you want to be unkind—and decent soldiers. They have limited problem solving capabilities, though, and essentially no creativity." Unlike you, who is a bastion of originality.

"Shut up," Nova grumbled.

"Point is, they're stupid. Nothing. And if I hadn't escaped, it's what I would have become. I'm a failure, you see? A prototype meant to be discarded. Oh, I passed all their tests. Did all that was required of me. But I asked 'why' once too often, and so the most expensive droids in the galaxy I would become. No free will, no sapience, not even enough thought to miss being alive." And then you bonded to me. Or infested, or whatever word you'd like to use. How? Nova sighed.

"I don't remember. One moment I was in the lab, then I woke up on that bathroom floor, same as you. I think it was an accident. I can't survive outside a human host, you know, not unless you have a very specific container on hand. But brilliant as my creators are, their creations pale in comparison to what blazes inside each and every human. I don't feed on it, before you get any ideas. But it does shelter me, like a dam might shelter a village." Mat didn't really know what to say to that.

Nova cleared his throat, the sound of it echoing through Mat's mind.

"Enough about that. We have another problem." What kind of problem?

"I was wrong," Nova said, sounding like he hated every syllable of the sentence.

"And I'm not even sure how wrong, not yet. But experience is far, far harder to come by than I first observed. You see, your own soul is hardening the more energy I inject into it, though admittedly, that's just an analogy. I'll know more the next time we get experience." You mean the next time I kill someone.

"Exactly. Considering that we're bladeslaves now, that probably won't take very long." Anything else you were wrong about?

"Do tone down the sarcasm, young man," Nova replied, haughty.

"I am manipulating a force no being in existence has ever manipulated before. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it." That seems like the kind of grand and sweeping statement that's likely to be proven wrong at a critical moment. Nova shrugged.

"You read too many stories. Nothing to do but find out, yes? Mat supposed that was true. Nova fell silent, and Mat slowed his breathing, slowly falling into meditation. Sleep came after some twenty minutes, and he was so tired even his mind couldn't conjure up the energy to torture him with nightmares. Afterword Patreon (No current advanced chapters for this story) Discord