Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 27 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)
Back in the scaf, with arms crossed under my chest, I was standing in the Ateeve lights, parked in its place again.
My eyes were glued to the spot at the top of the main cave, to the boulder that was sitting on the cornice there, hiding the tunnel to the surface.
I had just finished reviewing the holo of my return, dissecting it no less than the fight with the bobcat before.
The badger, and that was a badger, or at least its ancestors were, almost caught up to me, and I escaped the sure death only by the skin of my teeth… and thanks to the Ateeve's railgun tap, done by Lola.
The railgun tap, that… just made a hole in it instead of splattering its body and spraying blood around. The hole that was later closing up right before my eyes, until I put a few more needles into its brain.
I saw an energy field from a bobcat, I saw mobility and precision from a squirrel, but the badger showed me something new, and utterly unhinged—if you could heal fast enough, the damage would be just a minor inconvenience, something you need not worry about.
All little things, like pieces of a puzzle, were shifting, bumping, but were inevitably rearranging in the new picture of reality in my mind.
A reality where I was nothing but a glass cannon in a shop with bulls bumping into each other, and it was a matter of time before I was inevitably crushed, perhaps even by accident.
"Kat, I have good news, a bunch of them," Lola said, breaking me out of my thoughts, just a step away from something I felt was coming together.
"Shoot," I replied, fruitlessly trying to take hold of what had just slipped between my fingers.
"I analysed the radio feedback when you were outside. You had noticed that the connection was not ideal, right?" She asked, and she was right.
"I did notice that," I replied.
"It confirmed that Anomaly affects not only our tech, but radio waves themselves. Which made me reevaluate the civilisation presence probability, raising it to thirty per cent for the twenty-first century level and up to forty per cent for the twentieth century level, and up to sixty per cent for any civilisation below that but above the eighteenth century," she said, perhaps expecting some positive reaction, or just distracting me from the heavy thoughts.
But I was too spent to be happy, to be elevated, or even to feel any hope.
"That's good, I guess," I said, shrugging, "What's the other news?"
"Well, DOC finished dissecting the badger's body, and I identified the regeneration knot. It was easy to spot as being the most developed one, and enveloping the hypothalamus. I think that if you didn't hit it with one of your shots, the badger would eventually fully regenerate. Lucky shots, Kat," said Lola, not really making me feel any luckier, but there was something…
"Is there more?" I asked, while thinking about what was wrong with her last statement.
"Well, with new data from the badger, I was able to identify—with eighty per cent probability—the knot responsible for invisibility that the bobcat had," she said, and it clicked.
"It would not."
"I am sorry?" asked Lola, making me realise I had been thinking aloud.
"The badger. It was inside the cave, out of The Anomaly. It would not regenerate completely. Remember the test with claws? Its knot would try to regenerate the body, but as soon as the energy reserve depleted, it would stop regenerating," I said, as everything came together.
"The Anomaly is like a field, an energy, magic if you will, that supplies all these unusual abilities with power, making it all possible beyond biological limits, and the core is like an energy converter and reserve, while knots like control units…" I rambled out a stream of my thoughts, pausing when another idea hit me.
"Which means that if I target the core, or the knots… Lola, I need a visual map of the cores and knots' locations. And did you find out why needles with aetherium didn't affect the badger?"
"It did, but none of the needles stuck inside vital organs, and it healed any critical damage left behind," she replied, and I nodded.
The small crystal inside the needle was not enough to affect more than a few inches around, and certainly not enough to suppress such a strong ability.
"What was its rank?" I asked, curious now.
"It's supposed to be C-rank, if I measure it solely by size and look, but with a new detector, I could safely say it was B-rank, just recently evolved," she replied.
What a monster.
It made total sense, though. Even in the cave, I would have been able to kill it only by sheer luck, if not for the Ateeve's railgun. And even that was not enough on its own.
And perhaps, she was right. If the badger's energy reserves were big enough, it would have regenerated, because, obviously, the aetherium pressure was not enough at the boulder, not for B-rank. What a monster. And what if it were A-rank, would aetherium…
"Kat," interrupted Lola, "if you are right, and The Anomaly constantly supplies mutated animals with energy, they would be reluctant to leave The Anomaly, increasing the civilisation's survival odds even more, especially in areas where The Anomaly is either absent or at a low level of density."
And while the increased odds were thrilling, it made me think about something else.
"Lola, why did you estimate almost zero probability of my survival when Directive got triggered?" I asked, feeling like I had found something important.
"Introducing an unknown mutagen in the form of the alien organ into your body, without clear checkpoints and instructions or means to direct, support, and, if needed, reverse it, conflicted with any previously received instructions or available data, and, together with the lack of medical supplies, tech, and environment required to support such a mutation, resulted in a zero point zero one probability of success," she said, confirming what I had guessed.
"Lola, estimate the mutation success rate, accounting for the core—and probably knots—providing the successful template and The Anomaly supplying the needed amount of energy," I said.
It was making sense to me. It was also explaining why the squirrel was hunting for cores. It was springtime here, and it had to have a litter of baby squirrels, ready to go through the initial mutation.
Or it was all wishful thinking, and they inherited the mutation template by birthright. But how did the first animals do it then?
"Lola?" I prompted when she didn't reply for an unusually long time.
"Sorry, I am still processing it," she replied, and I looked up at the boulder again, impatiently tapping fingers on the left-arm armour plate.
It all looked plausible now. Just get exposed to The Anomaly, perhaps, even eat a lot of mutated animal meat, before starting on the cocktail from the core and knots. The real question was not safety, though, but the will to do the thing in itself.
Was I ready to sacrifice the way my body was, just to survive?
Would I look in the mirror in the future, seeing the disfigured or perhaps grotesque features of my old self, without regret, or would I blame my current self for choosing the easy way out?
Would I be the same?
"Probably, it could minimise risks of fatal mutations or outcomes, but there is not enough data to be sure. Without it, I am failing to calculate probabilities accurately. Sorry, Kat," Lola finally replied.
"Do you have enough data to calculate my chances of reaching the end of The Anomaly with our current capabilities?" I asked the question that I was refusing to voice before.
"Yes… It's below ten per cent," she said, and I nodded. I thought along those lines, but she added more, "that you survive longer than one day."
And that was the gist of it, wasn't it?
—
Sitting on the ground, my back against the Ateeve's landing gear, I was carving into the stone with one of the bobcat's claws. They weren't long—no longer than my index finger—and were embedded into rock-solid ST-100 substance, making a set of four claw knives with green-glowing handles.
Good for carving, not so good for anything else, except skinning animals.
For all intents and purposes, they were my first artefacts on this strange planet, in this strange place, if I were so inclined to use terminology from fantasy holos.
I theorised that the bobcat was using some "spell" or "technique" during that jump, and then it got embedded into its claws after its death.
Which was promising, because it meant that this field, this anomaly, was a two-way connection. A two-way connection that I might be able to affect during initiation, if I were to do it.
After all, the bobcat somehow grew larger than its natural size, developed invisibility, sharp claws and an energy field to protect itself, while the badger went for… what I could only call… a berserk ability to ignore and heal any damage it could get.
The squirrel, perhaps, was the one standing out in these examples. She retained her natural size and physical features, but she was able to increase her reaction time dramatically and learned to walk (or jump) on air.
As Lola had mentioned before, the initial mutation required eating the core and knots from animals, and that she had instructions on how to replicate their observed abilities later… or a method of doing so.
So, perhaps, it was also important which core to use first, for initiation.
With the bobcat's core, I might risk bulking up and growing in size, which might sound good at first—and I wanted to be taller in my teenage years—but that would cause too many changes, which could increase the risk of unwanted mutations.
The badger's mutations, on the other hand, were the second-best ones after the ability to run on air, which the squirrel had and, perhaps, I wanted the most.
An eerie image of myself—being torn apart and mending back in an instant, all while slowly walking towards my target with a hidden smile on my lips—popped up in my mind. There was something attractive about it, to the edge of being almost insane…
No, perhaps a bad idea.
Finishing up the last few cuts on the stone, now shaped into a crude image of the squirrel—the way I remembered her drinking water under the waterfall—I looked at it, squeezing my eyes.
If I could only get the squirrel's core…
Squirrel gutting the hawk in mere seconds, ten times its own size, and then jumping away…
But, perhaps, not only the badger was crazy here—they all were… bloodthirsty.
Something to think about.
—
After a sleepless night, full of illogical dreams and bloodthirsty squirrels dancing salsa in the air, I was not in my best shape, nor was I in a good mood.
Fortunately, I didn't see the squirrel by the waterfall when I ventured outside.
Ventured. What an understatement.
Crawled, sneaked, tiptoed with a fear deep in my gut.
After my previous encounters, and with my luck, it was not out of the realm of possibilities to meet a tiger at this point.
Not that I wanted to.
Standing at the top of the ledge, I looked over the meadow scattered with old stones before the tree line. Everything was as before—nothing unusual and no one around—but it didn't make me feel any safer here.
Paying more attention to the grass itself—after all, no matter how invisible you were, to leave no trace behind you had to walk on air—I slowly pulled out a few stems of it.
They were springy and didn't want to separate from the roots, but when they finally did, the strong smell of fresh-cut lawn spread around me.
Interesting.
Putting it away—into the pouch Lola had made exactly for this reason—I climbed up and began walking toward the tree line in careful steps.
Yesterday, with Lola's help, I had been memorising the core and knot locations until I fell asleep, and today I was planning to put that information to the test.
I planned to see if damaging the core was survivable or not. It seemed important to know, and might affect my plans for hunting, or… life choices.
No one attacked me on my way to the trees, and I dove under the spruce—or was it a fir?—carefully looking around.
It was early morning, and daytime predators were just waking up, while nighttime ones were already asleep, creating a perfect time for a foray into this patch of forest. Of course, if the local animal population had inherited the instincts of its ancestors on Earth.
To my annoyance, walking in the forest was not something I was skilled in or even knew how to do, and I was berating myself for every loud crack I made stepping on old twigs on the forest floor.
Deciding not to test my luck, I hid between two trees that looked to be elms, and once more thought about the way The Anomaly affected everything.
Everything was vividly coloured. And sure, it was quite possibly springtime, but even then, it felt a bit too much. At least the flora was not predatory, as I had been a bit worried it might be. Instead, it had some interesting properties that were not limited to the colour itself.
Double-checking the surroundings once more, I took one of the claw knives and cut a piece of the elm's bark.
By the texture, it was like I just cut out a piece of plastic—smooth, even a bit elastic—but the smell was unmistakably unchanged and rich.
Putting a piece of bark into the pouch as well, I reached for the nearby bush leaves. They were looking absolutely normal, if not for the slightly teal hue, and were small in size, but when I tried to pull them from the twig, they produced sparks, and an ozone scent spread around.
Nasty bastards.
Collecting different plants, leaves or roots, I was slowly moving along the trees, not going too deep into the woods.
I even found an old oak, but when I tried to cut a piece of bark from it, the claw knife that hadn't failed me before refused to cut in as easily as it had with other trees.
Almost as strong as Ateeve's armour.
To my surprise, I didn't see any animals, and no one was trying to attack me. Perhaps my initial confrontation with the bobcat, and later with the squirrel and badger, set my expectations too high, and the population was less dense than I had thought.
Though it didn't change my mind about avoiding the waterfall area, if that was the squirrel habitat, I wanted nothing to do with it—if ever.
If not for the unnatural properties of the flora, the forest might have looked peaceful, though clearly not the kind I was used to.
Time stretched, and every once in a while, I had to remind myself of the squirrel, to keep myself on my toes, to shake off the false sense of safety.
And finally, it was justified.
Barely twenty meters away, there was a creature with brown fur, no larger than the badger we killed yesterday. It hadn't noticed me yet—perhaps because the breeze was coming my way—and I used it to my advantage.
Slowly aiming, I tried to target the most probable place for the core, somewhere under the lungs.
Not suspecting anything, the creature was digging under the bushes, perhaps looking for some roots to eat.
Bear? No, too small.
Tap. Tap.
To my surprise, I got it on the first try.
There was no shimmering air around, no jumping into action, no unnatural regeneration, and, as it seemed, I got it solid.
When I got closer, it was still breathing. Heavily, with gurgling and bloody foam, but still alive, albeit unconscious, though its claws and teeth were looking dangerous.
Four more taps—to break all the limbs—and I had it wrapped up in the rope, and the live subject for Lola was ready. Now it was a matter of getting it back to the cave, preferably without getting into trouble.
Easy Peasy.
—
The teal-coloured leaves were not only good for making sparks, but—as Lola found out—were quite nice as a replacement for tea.
The taste was a bit sour, but it filled me with energy like a few cups of black tea with a minty aftertaste.
Not a bad replacement, indeed.
"How is our guest?" I asked, trying not to squint from the sour taste—I clearly put too many leaves this time.
"Stable. But feeding it badger meat didn't work. There are no signs of increased regeneration," Lola replied, and I frowned. It was my idea, after all.
I hoped that after we killed the badger, its meat would preserve the regeneration properties, as the bobcat's claws did.
"Also, there are no signs of the core's recovery. Perhaps the absence of The Anomaly's energy prevents it," she added, and I nodded in agreement.
Unfortunately, we didn't have any isolated place that would allow us to test it, and I was not stupid enough to try to put, as Lola figured out, a wolverine descendant into the bat's cave.
"If you're done with it, kill it. There's no need to keep it alive longer than we need it," I said, and finished my drink in one go.
"Agreed. Are you going out again today?" she asked, though it was just a jest—I was already dressed in what I had begun to call a hunting suit.
"Yepp. I want more of the tea leaves," I replied, putting the helmet on, "Need anything, dear?"
"Well, if you're asking, I wouldn't mind a branch of the oak tree," she said, matching my joking tone.
Though the oak was not a joke tree on its own, Lola's scanning showed that this tree was unique and contained aetherium—not much, but enough. Enough to resist the claw knives.
"I will see what I can do," I replied before walking out into the main cave and further, towards the passage to the surface.
Maybe today I would get lucky with something else, something new.
—
Practising the hunter's steps—outside edge first, then rolling inward, and never on the heels—that Lola found in the survival database, I was slowly moving under the forest canopy.
At first, it was uncomfortable—I was so used to walking heel to toe—but step by step, I was getting the hang of these hunting steps.
At least, I wasn't snapping twigs for all the forest to hear anymore.
With Lola's help, I had also learned common signs of useful plants, and had already dug out a few for her to analyse.
Too bad, I did not see any original tea bushes. I would not have minded having a proper tea, even if magical.
A slowly rising sense of danger broke my semi-meditative state, forcing me to crouch and look around for the source, but everything looked just as it had before.
Starting to back away, I prepared Sixer, holding it at the ready.
Where is it?
To my surprise, I didn't see or hear anything until I reached the meadow near the steep edge of the valley, and noticed it only because I had been watching for any movement.
An animal—a doe—flew from under the trees, with no noise or sound, except for rushing air, as if it were the wind itself.
It stopped abruptly at the steep edge of the valley wall—
Tap. Tap.
—and I didn't miss the opportunity.
Something pushed me in the chest, forcing me to take a step back, and I heard loud cracks and the noise of trees crashing down behind me.
The doe was done and on the ground in agony, so I risked glancing behind me.
There was a new, wide, perhaps five metres wide, clearing in the forest.
In surprise, I looked down, feeling something unusually warm there. A thick and wide strip cut right through the front part of the poncho and was glowing pink across my stomach on the suit.
Whatever was supposed to cut me in half—legs one way, head the other—was clearly neutralised by the poncho and then by the aetherium painted on my suit.
Shit.
Tapping the doe a few more times, just fucking in case, I looked around to see if any more of those crazy animals were nearby.
None.
Not wasting any more time, I ran towards the doe, seeing that it had stopped moving. It was dangerous, yes, but it was also a wind-based core!
A lucky day, indeed.
The place it had died was also not that far from the cavern, just above the valley, and if I push it from here…
Something heavier hit me in the back, sending me flying to the ground, not far from the doe, and on instinct alone, I went into the roll, shifting out of the way.
Long, white icicles flew past me, ripping open the ground, where I had just been. Stopping only for a moment, I glanced at the forest before jumping aside again, barely avoiding another barrage of icicles.
Wolves. Pack of wolves.
Something wrapped around my feet, and I fell to the ground again and, tearing it apart, rolled away. A quick glance told me that somehow the grass had wrapped around my heels, trying to trap me.
Tap. Tap.
There were five of them.
Tap. Tap.
I felt like someone splashed boiling water on my legs, only later noticing the white powder—no, ice—was melting there, in the bright glow of the aetherium.
Tap. Tap.
One down. Rolling aside again, tearing the grass away once more, I didn't stop to fight, but looked for a way out. I had to get down to the valley floor and back into the tunnel before it was too late.
Tap. Tap.
Shit.
Two out of four remaining wolves had a shimmering air around them—an energy shield—and it was strong enough to stop my aetherium-embedded needles.
Tap. Tap.
There was no way down. I was too far from the ledge, and the wolves were surrounding me, cutting off every other way out.
Tap. Tap.
Acting on instinct, following the sharp sense of danger in my guts, I jumped the only way I had—backward, off the cliff—leaving the meadow behind.
Not a moment later, in the place where I had just been, the wolf appeared in a blur, as if he had been teleported across the five metres—the largest and perhaps the strongest, with heavily shimmering air—the pack leader.
Tap. Tap. Tap.