Day 3.7

The figure that returned was more vine than man—or Voithos as the case may have been. Loops, upon loops of the stuff, was coiled around all of the surface areas Rittan had at his disposal, with only his smiling face visible.

“I see you found the vine,” August snorted, “You look like a mummy, you know?”

Rittan looked bemused for a second like the words had somehow gone over his head.

“I’m not sure I see the connection,” Rittan admitted, beginning to sort the vine into sizes and piles. “The Voithos do not have mothers and fathers as the Gaians did, neither are we able to procreate in a sustainable way—it was one of the manner determining factors in our decommissioning.”

It was August’s turn to send the larger guy a look.

“A ‘mummy’ isn’t the same thing as a ‘mother,’ Rittan—actually, never mind that; I’m far more interested in everything else you just said,” August said, tilting his head. “What does sustainable mean there? You guys have a low birth rate, or you can’t have children at all?”

Rittan took a moment to gather his thoughts, and the two of them continued to make the walls for the [A-Frame Hut] while they spoke.

“A complicated question,” Rittan said, busying himself with the task at hand. “We were not designed to be able to pass on our genetic information in the way that most mammals are capable of.”

August tied off his own end of the branch, lifting the next one up, and with Rittan’s help, they aligned it on top of the others. In the process, his thumb caught on the edge of an offshoot, and a spike of pain ran up his arm.

“Instead, we were designed with a replacement system that functions using our internal mana reserves,” Rittan explained, staring at one of his hands for a moment. “It is the only form of mana manipulation we are capable of, albeit the process is heavily automated, incredibly draining and takes a substantial amount of time to perform.”

That was a lot of hype words, and not for the first time, August wondered at the vocabulary Rittan possessed.

“Hold on,” August said, dislodging the splinter from his thumb. “I’m so confused right now; these Gaian’s figured out how to recreate giving birth but with mana?”

Rittan waited patiently for him to lift his end of the branch into place, content to continue their conversation.

“The process isn’t as similar as you may be thinking,” Rittan admitted, turning slightly so that August could see his hands. “It requires a minimum of two and a maximum of four Voithos for the process to be possible. It requires little more than the correct state of mind and a long period of undisturbed stillness.”

August watched as he lifted two of his hands, each held in a half-cup shape before Rittan brought them together into a single unit.

“Each of the participants is essentially donating half of their internal reserves and a copy of their genetic information to the pool,” Rittan said before splitting the two-piece cup and adding two more hands to the shape. “It is possible for the combination to fail and the pool of mana to be lost—that possibility increases as the number of participants does.”

“So, the kid can have up to four genetic parents and is just built out of mana?” August said, sending him a glance. “That’s pretty wild, man.”

Rittan lifted his last two hands up; index fingers pointed upwards like he was representing the horns of a demon.

“The Voithos that appears from this union is an adult, and they possess the same basic knowledge that we were all gifted.” Rittan corrected before placing the two hands flat together as if in prayer. “The disposition of the participants has very little effect on how the new personality is formed.”

“Okay,” August said, amused at his representation of nice vs unpleasant. “How is that not sustainable?”

August finished his own end, and the two of them swung around to the right side of the [A-Frame Hut] to begin walling it off.

“The process can only be completed once per participant,” Rittan said, taking a knee. “While the union will only ever result in a single Voithos being created.”

August paused as he followed that to its natural conclusion—even if they only ever used two parents per union to maximise their growth, their population size would be halved with every new generation; They’d had a hard population cap and an expiration date, right from the beginning.

“That’s messed up,” August said quietly. “They made you guys that way on purpose?”

“I believe that to be the case,” Rittan nodded, “The Magnus taught the Gaian’s to fear unchecked propagation—synthetic though it may have been.”

“How many Voithos were there?” August asked.

“Two-hundred and fifty thousand,” Rittan said easily, “Although that number soon began to shrink, the conditions in which we worked were sometimes quite volatile.”

“That’s way more than I was expecting,” August admitted. “These Gaian’s sound like bastards—uh, no offence or whatever.”

Rittan looked absolutely amused by the announcement.

“Only a small portion of the population was actively involved in our creation.” Rittan cautioned, “The greater populace was initially quite divided on our presence; we do not fade into the crowd for obvious reasons. There were many who supported us wholeheartedly and some shining few who even attempted advocacy for our ascension into equality.”

Attempted being the keyword there.

“You’re a lot more level headed than I would be if that had been done to me.” August offered, not sure how to take the new information. “Not sure what I would have done, though—blown up Hekaton or something.”

“You are not alone in that mindset, August,” Rittan said, smiling sadly. “Towards the end of our assignment, there were many who had grown hateful of the Children of Gaia—that hate turned to violence and inevitably hastened the choice to decommission us.”

As a whole, the Voithos had been brought into existence to work for the ‘Children of Gaia’, they’d been treated like dirt by some significant portion of the populace, and then when they’d finally fought back, they’d been killed off—what a hell of a life to live.

August gave Rittan a look over for a moment, trying to pin down an age range—no sign of wrinkles, age lines, his hair was still naturally dark, while his skin was smooth and healthy.

“You experienced all of that, and you didn’t resort to violence?” August said, amazed at the restraint. “Never had the urge to throw one of them off a building?”

“My own assignment allowed for more personal freedom and safer working conditions than most of my kind,” Rittan admitted, “There are a unique few that come to mind, however.”

“What is this assignment you keep mentioning?” August asked, stacking the next branch.

“The task we were each given to fulfil on Hekaton,” Rittan said, nodding, “The most common tasks were related to expanding Hekaton’s structure and maintaining the existing platforms. We were often called to eliminate the remaining rogue Magnus when they were located and even more often to clear out the Automaton Array when something went wrong with the culling sequence—those types of assignments became far less frequent as they further mastered the science involved.”

“Building stuff, fixing stuff, killing stuff?” August summarised. “Dangerous sounds about right—what did they have you doing?”

“I was an entertainer at a very expensive adult establishment,” Rittan said smiling.

August fumbled the branch he’d been trying to tie off.

“That’s nothing like the other assignments!” August accused, absolutely sure he’d sprung it on him just to surprise him. “What the hell?”

Rittan laughed.

“Yes, as I said, my own assignment allowed for more personal freedom than most,” Rittan said, “Whilst much of the populace was uncomfortable around my kind, it was not uncommon to be sought out by those who desired us—I am quite attractive after all.”