Praedyth.
The moment Void read the words, Pahanin felt Void shift. "What is it?"
Void didn't answer at once. He braced both palms on the bench and exhaled. His eyes slowly drifted to Pahanin.
Should he tell him? No, Void knew that for Pahanin, Praedyth never existed. But at the same time, it was an unavoidable story. In a sense, he knew he couldn't tackle it directly. He had to explain it differently.
When Void finally gathered his thoughts, he spoke.
"The letters make a name," he said. "Praedyth."
"Praedyth." Pahanin repeated it back to him, but the word rolled out of his tongue easier than expected. As if it were familiar, yet unknown.
"You mentioned this name to me once before." Pahanin hummed in thought, "When we first met at the shore. But, who is he?"
"He is...well, was a friend. Died before the war. The Vex erased him, or at least that was what I thought. Seeing what happened today." Void looked at the chip.
"I think he's still out there," Void said. "Living might not be the right word. If anything, he exists in the Vex network. That's the only possibility."
"You want me to continue decoding it?" Pahanin asked if Praedyth really was someone lost in the Vex network; perhaps the message was important to Void. He didn't want to delay that.
"No, not now. Even if we could decode it, we have no way to communicate back. Besides, there's no way to help him. It's best to focus on what we can do." Void replied.
Pahanin gave only a small nod and gently put the broken chip into an engram for safekeeping.
"Obsidian, project the schematics," Void called out
Obsidian rose, iris widening. Pale light climbed the ceiling and pushed the shadows back. The hologram built itself in the air piece by piece. A ring first, thin, palm-wide, inner face layered like a shell sliced to show the grain. A hollow throat ran the centre. Around it, slender veins of conductor nested tight, cardinal stabilisers set like small teeth. On command, the ring unfolded into its parts, revealing its internal circuitry.
Beside it, a second image grew into a large rifle with coils at its barrel. Barrel in segments. Magnet rings at precise intervals.
Kaviss drifted closer until the light traced his mandibles. Pahanin leaned in slowly, reading
"Holy shi*" Pahanin breathed, he crept closer to the ring's model. His heart skipped a beat.
"You don't even know what you dragged home." Pahanin raised his hand, slowly zooming into the projection.
"You know this?" Void said.
Pahanin pointed without touching. "This ring isn't just a sub-space storage. It's the Golden Age encrypted space protocol. You, how did you even get this?" He looked back at Void.
"Uh...I mean, the Vex had it stashed away. Just got it from them." Void shrugged.
"This...this explains a lot." Pahanin sighed. "A century ago, before the City made its vault system, the City tried its hardest to find it. We heard of the tech from an old Journal on Io. Found in the Lost Oasis. The Journal described how the Golden Age humans transported their materials through a compact sub-space protocol. It was the most sophisticated thing we'd ever heard of. But the Journal only ever described it briefly."
Pahanin's eyes gleamed; a memory flashed in his mind. "You'd slip it on, and you're holding a door to somewhere else. Not just that, but a door that could only be opened by the encryption on the ring. But that's not all."
"The sub-space protocol could be fleshed out like a web. Not only could you hold things, you could transfer them. Between cities, between moons, even planets. As long as there was a pylon to direct the signal, the space ring was usable."
Pahanin's lips slowly curled into a smile, "You're a lucky bastard. Not only did you find the ring's schematics, but the circuitry shows just how to connect to a network."
"Well, let's get to it then. Make rings, sell them to the city, and earn a damn fortune." Void smirked and crossed his arms.
"Yet all that luck never amounted to a smidge of intelligence." Pahanin shook his head in disappointment.
"What? You were thinking of doing the same thing!" Void quipped.
"Selling the rings? Yes. Only selling the rings? No." Pahanin chuckled. "You see, the golden age network that connected them is gone. Not a trace of it left. That means, we can make our own, no, we MUST make our own. Because once we do, we'll control it."
Kaviss followed the line, mind already moving. "So we don't just sell rings. We sell a road. A space protocol never before seen. Anyone who buys a band starts walking our path and never leaves." His lower hands flexed, pleased. "We set the tolls."
Pahanin's mouth tilted into a grin with an edge. "Even if they copy the hardware later, by the time they do, our network will be the only one big enough to matter. They'll have to pay us to use their knockoffs."
Kaviss and Pahanin were already seeing into the future, and as they spelt it out, Void grasped it too.
A space protocol that only they could control.
It was a goddamn monopoly....and monopolies meant money.
"This...this is amazing." Void sucked in a breath. " But...can you even make that space protocol? Wouldn't that be challenging?"
Pahanin snorted. "I am one of the bastards who helped write the City's protocol." He stopped, doing a small mental count. "There were twelve....no, eleven of us. We built everything from scratch. Took us a few decades, but we're the only reason the City could even put out that stupid storage Vault." The grin thinned to something quieter. "Most of that circle went under during the Twilight battle. Now?" He rolled it in his mouth and let it out. "Maybe four of us are left."
Void straightened. "You never mentioned your past."
"Didn't need to," Pahanin said. He kept his eyes on the ring. "It's been centuries. Honestly, it slipped my mind. We weren't really a close bunch either. Back then, it was every guardian for himself. Only ever came together because Osiris and the Speaker gathered almost every light bearer on Earth to help build the City. "
Pahanin smiled, reminiscing, "We all went our separate ways after that, but I kept track. Mostly."
"Who's left then?" Void couldn't help but ask.
Pahanin slid his gaze up. "This guy called The Stoic. He was a Warlock. Wore silence like a robe. Wen Jie. Another warlock, just as odd, twice as deadly, saw three moves ahead at all times. Marcus Ren, a crazy bastard, but a genius if you get to know him. And me. Last I checked, we were the only ones left from that group."
Void filed the names in his memory.
"Why so curious?" Pahanin asked.
"If..If we could gather all those names under our banner. Wouldn't we be the top tech monopoly on the shore?"
"Right. But you can forget it. Those bastards, they're all odd. Convincing even a single one would be the task of a lifetime."
"You leave that to me. But suppose we do it, what could we achieve?"
"Frankly, if the four of us work together, there's not much we can't do. Provided we can fund the thing." Pahanin nodded seriously.
"Guess I'll add that to the list." Void smiled.
Kaviss tapped the rifle schematic. "And this?"
"It's a good weapon," Void said. "We'll probably sell that to the New Lights. Might earn us a little profit."
Kaviss nodded, "I'll put out an order to Spider. We'll need some more metal."
"For now, skip any mention of the ring. Don't say a word. Don't even hint it." Pahanin cut in, looking at both Void and Kaviss.
Void agreed, "If those shrewd bastards in the Council knew, they'd probably try to take it. Worse yet, if the Reef syndicates found out, there'd probably be a war."
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A/N: Check out my Original (Last Hero of the Academy) right here on WN!
Patre*n for more fanfic content! (patre*n.com/Writers_Ablood)