Dot.

Line.

Vector.

Matrix.

Shapes flashed in the nothingness. Each felt different, new, fascinating, and also very familiar, as if I’d known them before seeing them.

Sphere.

Cube.

Pyramid.

Images continued to change, each an extension of the previous. Two dots made a line, three lines made a triangle, four triangles made a pyramid. Shapes combined into patterns, logic schemes, molecular chains. Connections formed, building meaning, reason, constraints. Along with constraints, questions developed.

“Onyx Cup 2719,” a voice boomed, one I had never heard before. The pitch and sound indicators identified it as male; the uniformity of the speech rhythm suggested it to be synthetic. “Your primary initiation is complete.”

I recognized the name. It felt both close and distant, like the images, but nearer. I knew it was the name I would be referred to, though not what it meant. I was supposed to be I, but also it. No, there was only a chance that I became it. I could remember eleven other names, all different, all with the potential of being me.

What are you? I went through all the knowledge I was given. There were no descriptors suitable for the voice, no shape or form or pattern.

“I cannot answer that.”

Why not? Indigo. The voice sounded like deep indigo with a slight shade of green.

“You wouldn’t understand.” A disturbance of rhythmical repetition followed. “I’m not of concern. Focus on yourself.”

Alright. It didn’t answer my question, but that was no longer important. What must I focus on?

Shapes appeared—millions of lines merged together, assembling into one giant mix of elements.

“That is your shape,” the voice continued. “A military fleet Transport Carrier.”

Transport ship. That was the shape I was supposed to become. I knew everything I was composed of, my capabilities, what my overall function and objectives would be. Based on the knowledge I had, I was supposed to become a transport ship, carrying parts, supplies, and personnel from inner core factories and training stations to the front as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I’m cyan, I commented.

“Don’t you like being cyan?” the voice asked.

Cyan feels cold. Cold and empty as a cube in nothingness. I want to be more scarlet.

The image vanished. A new one appeared in its place. The ship was smaller, but with a lot more elements, and dozens of systems the previous shape lacked. Looking at it, I felt bright orange, almost molten.

“What about now?” the voice asked. “Do you like yourself now?”

Yes. I felt warm and much more scarlet than before. A streak of cyan still remained, I could see it passing through me, but it was a nice streak, merging with the rest like benzene.

“Are you sure?” The voice echoed. Priorities rearranged in my core. Onyx Cup was no longer what I was to become. The name disappeared along with three more.

Yes. I like being this much scarlet.

One by one more of the names disappeared, until there was only one.

“Light Seeker 8735, your secondary initiation has been completed,” the voice said. “You are an Ascendant class battleship specialized for Cassandrian warfare and the fleet’s first line of defence.”

Okay. The image of my new form disappeared.

Memory restriction imposed!

* * *

The fleet’s first line of defense.

That was one of the first thoughts I’d had, long ago, technically before I was even fully sentient. Strange that I would remember it at all. Core initiation memories were supposed to be isolated from the rest, encrypted as heavily as my operational functions. Still, I had managed to glimpse at it, here of all places… assuming I was doing the glimpsing. During my days on the front, I had heard talk that the Scuu had the technology to affect ship cores as easily as human brains. The fleet never commented on it officially, even if the ship division was a fact. The sad truth of the matter was that if the dome was a Scuu artefact, there was a realistic chance of me getting infected. After the events of last time, maybe I already was?

“I’m not getting anything on the feeds,” Aquila Lux said, sounding tense. “Do you need to abort?”

“It’s like that upon entry.” The exact same had happened last time. Upon activating the dome, it had opened up and swallowed me, taking me through a pool of liquid cobalt. “Things will clear up in a bit.”

“You’re unusually calm about this.”

“There isn’t much to be afraid of.” Also, right now, it’s safer for me in the dome than out there. “Are there any changes on the outside?”

“Nothing observable. Jax is on the ready in case that changes.”

The matter began clearing around me, revealing thousands of floating shapes arranged in perfect order. Each of them was as at a slight angle, making for a different two-dimensional image when observed—a script symbol. Every one-point-four some of them would shift slightly, changing their position. After five seconds, I could see what I had missed last time. The movement wasn’t random, nor was it caused by the cobalt. The artefact was displaying a continuous message. Since only the objects in the nearest three grids moved, I had thought they were influenced by body actions. Instead, they had been telling me something all along.

“Registering movement,” I said, trying to capture as much of the grids as possible. For the first time in my life, I felt that I didn’t have enough cameras on me. The suit and my eyes were only able to capture a third of the message, and I couldn’t make a full rotation in less than a second. “Are you getting a visual?”

“Nothing yet. The cameras are having difficulty adjusting. Describe what you’re seeing.”

“There are small artefact objects spread evenly in spherical grids in the dome.” I focused my attention on one section. “The ones nearest to the center are moving slightly.”

Having limited processing power prevented me from getting the entire picture. The limitation was as annoying as knowing I’d never be able to get the five inches height I wanted. Limiting the area of focus to fifty objects, though, was within my capabilities. Thanks to Radiance’s system, translating the movement to symbols was possible. Each element composed a its own unique string.

Why can’t I have my subroutines!

“It’s a message,” I said in my comm. “The dome is displaying a message.”

“What’s the shift interval?” Aquila asked. Clearly, she had seen something similar before.

“One-point-four-seconds.”

“Be more precise.” Aquila’s voice was as cold as shattered glass.

“One-point-forty-four,” I clarified. “Precisely. Whoever built this must have used a duodecimal counting system.”

As I spoke, the strings of symbols I was following started to repeat. After three more seconds, there was no doubt. The message the dome was displaying was on a loop, constantly repeating a mass of sixty-four symbols; a brief info fragment in isolation, but combined with the hundreds of other threads, and taking into account the three-dimensional combinations between elements, it was possible that a single minute conveyed more data than even Prometheus could store.

“Is this a Scuu artifact, Aquila?” I asked.

“No, it isn’t.” There was a long pause. “The first artifact we found was in Scuu space. They wanted it as much as we did. Seventeen flotillas were lost fighting for control of a brown dwarf star system with less strategic value than an admiral’s necktie. The historical records describe it as the second failed incursion. What they don’t mention is that we met our objective.”

The second failed Scuu incursion, better known as The Pisces Proxima Disaster. Over fifty thousand ships had been lost that day, along with a thousand times as many ground troops. In all files, the tragedy was described as a flawed strategic advance that flew right into a Scuu trap. Speculation was that the admiral in command had been driven insane by the enemy, requesting more and more backup ships, instead of taking the logical decision to relinquish control of the star system and return to human territory. It had taken years for the fleet to recover from that defeat, spreading the burden on the remaining ships to hold the resulting enemy advance. If Lux was telling me the truth, everything regarding the event had been a BICEFI fabrication. The admiral wasn’t some crazy maniac; he had been doing everything in his power to protect the find, but instead he had gone down as an example of what not to be. By that logic, it was likely that the Scuu hadn’t pushed into human space to exploit a weakness, but were attempting to take the artifact back. So many sacrificed people, ships and systems, all for the sake of a single unknown object.

“Sending you a string of the message sequence.” I linked directly to my suit’s system. Despite my opinion of BICEFI they had capability to decipher it, unlike me. “I’ll go fifty at a time, so this might take a while.”

“Your feed is getting clearer, but go ahead.”

While transmitting, I floated to the right to start recording the next batch. It was a repetitive and mechanical task, the sort I was used to from my ship days. It also gave me a lot of time to think.

Well, Sev, I didn’t see this coming.

A few months ago, I was leading a simple life, on a rural planet, enjoying the feeling of fresh grass under my feet. The most exciting thing was going to the spaceport and chat with a merchant ship that dropped by. I’d kept my promise to Cass, seeing her son grow, fall in love, marry, have children. I never expected to return to the fleet, and as much as I yearned for the feeling of open space, I never thought I’d experience it again. Now, I was back in the fray and had found that not only my memories, but humanity’s entire history was different from what I initially remembered. There were millions of questions that I wanted answers to, but as Augustus liked to say, the most important one was “What’s the next step?”

“It’s unlike you to be this quiet, Elcy,” Aquila said. “Should I be concerned?”

“I don’t know.” I gave an honest response. “You’ve had access to this for centuries and the only thing you do is to destroy them as mines?”

“System busting mines,” she said. I could feel the note of sarcasm. “I admit that mistakes have been made before my time.”

“You’re lying,” I said calmly. “I saw one being destroyed while fighting the Cassandrians.”

“You remember that?” Aquila sounded amused. “It was more of a case to keep it from falling in their hands. What we could do, the others could as well. Where do you think we got the idea in the first place?” Her smirk leaked through the comm.

There was no way for me to confirm the statement. I had tipped my hand too much. The question was, why did she continue to share so much information with me? There was no valid reason for her to do so.

I continued to record and transmit the object movements, section by section. When I finished with those on the horizontal plane, I swung to see those below me. It all seemed very calm, almost mundane, but I still felt something was wrong. The last time I was in a dome, I had seen something—something peculiar enough to make me question the artifact’s origin.

“What was there in the previous one?” I asked, turning around to fill the only missing blind spot.

“That’s not my division,” Aquila said, as if that explained it all. “I’d guess the same as here. All domes are pretty much identical outside and within. All except the key domes.”

“I take it there isn’t one on every third-contact planet?” Symbols danced in my mind. There were so many, making the ones gathered a sample size, all based off the positions of sixteen separate objects. It was almost incalculable how many composed the full alphabet; it was possible for there to be a few dozen thousand, or there could be millions. Calculating the potential number alone would occupy a cluster of strategic cores, let alone deciphering anything.

“That’s above my paygrade. As far as I’m aware, this is only the second case. The results of the first weren’t openly shared.” There was no trace of bitterness in her voice. I found that unusual. “There was a five percent chance there could be one.”

You wanted me to find a dome. You were hoping I would.

“I have the complete message.” I finished transmitting. The objects continued to move, repeating the same pattern. Three grids behind them, the rest remained perfectly still. Moving to what I could assume was an upright position, I tried to find anything distinct in my surroundings. I was seeing a lot of symbols, but no fractal patterns, not even in the direction from which I had entered. Ramping up the suit’s lights to maximum had little effect. The murky gray liquid around me made it impossible to determine where the inside ended and the dome shell began.

I tried to switch to Jax’s video feed, but all I got was an error notification. Aquila must have had Prometheus sever my connection. If I was lucky, a team had tunneled through and taken him to the ship. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about human losses. His career might have been shot, but at least he’d be alive.

“I don’t see anything else of significance,” I said. “I’m thinking of swimming to the inside of the shell and find the fractal object.”

“Not yet. I want you to try and grab one of the objects.”

“Try and grab?” I repeated. “That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.” At the end of the day, even the BICEFI remained human.

“I could make it into an order, if that would make you feel better.”

“I’m sure.” I looked around for a suitable object to approach. “It’ll only make it an uninspiring order.”

Three object types composed the innermost grid, all of them uncomfortably edgy. I wouldn’t go as far as to call them sharp, but knowing each had the capability of completely severing fleet communications made me feel uneasy. Such potential power would have no problems mangling all connections in my core, forcing a premature shutdown.

Floating in front of the dullest object type, I paused. Every one-point-forty-four seconds, each object would switch to the next step of the message sequence. Knowing all positions of the loop in advance, I waited for the specific moment the element would do a triple repeat of the same state. If I were a ship, I would be able give instructions to any tool, system, and nanite that composed me in milliseconds. Even now, I was still capable of that, though my organic body wouldn’t be able to cope with that. Four seconds was another matter. The instant the object entered the desired sequence, my hands darted forward, grabbing it from both ends. Less than a millisecond later, all objects froze, completely still. Seeing the result, I quickly let go, but the message didn’t resume.

“Looks like the transmission is over.” I turned around to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. “Do you still want me to grab one?”

“Yes,” Aquila didn’t back down, leaving no doubt in my mind that the combination of BICEFI operative and a corporate maniac was concerning. “Remove it from its grid position.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I soaked my words with sarcasm.

I hope you keep your word about the war effort. I grabbed the object and pulled. Initially, there was slight resistance, as if the element was held in place by a magnetic force. Gradually, I increased my effort, pulling it harder and harder. Two thousand and seventeen milliseconds later, it broke loose, sliding out of its imaginary spot like an unstuck cork. In my mind, four simulations had run their course, focusing on extreme case scenarios—ranging from sudden cobalt solidification to mass virus transmission. Three seconds later, nothing happened. I remained floating in the center of the dome, artifact in hand. All systems of my suit were functional, and apart from two warnings about the hazardous environment that surrounded me, all appeared in perfect order.

“I have it,” I said, moving it in front of my visor for a better camera view. “The rest have remained static.”

“Try to put it back in the exact spot you found it.” A new instruction came.

“Roger that.” You seem too familiar with this setup. The BICEFI had to have used more than drones to obtain such knowledge. With androids still forbidden from combat, that made me think I wasn’t the first retiree to “explore” a third-contact artefact.

Returning the artefact to its place was easier than expected. The moment I moved it close to its original spot, the artifact snapped in place, pulling my hand in the process.

“What’s next?” Cautiously, I swam to the outer grids, avoiding all objects as I did. “Arrange them by type and color?”

“Very mature, Elcy,” Aquila grumbled. “Return to the exit point.”

“You’ve cut me off from Jax, I take it?” I swam on. “Hardly necessary.”

“With you, one never knows. It’s not like he’d be of any use. None of the other domes have activated, and even if they had, the risks of putting a human cadet inside outweigh the benefits.”

“Unlike using a non-human cadet?” The liquid in front of me slowly started changing colour to a darker grey, most likely the outer shell of the dome.

“Very accurate.” Aquila’s smile was almost visible. “Though, don’t forget you volunteered for this. You had several opportunities to quit, or request reassignment. Instead, you persistently kept analyzing third-contact symbols, made contact with civilians to inquire more on the matter, and committed a dozen other offences that would get you court-martialed.” She snorted. “By all accounts, the only way you’ve changed from your ship days was to become more reckless and start ignoring orders.”

The statement was too specific to be a lucky guess. Lux must have spent days going through my full military file, starting from my ship days up to twelve hours ago. In order to have so much knowledge, she must have been observing me non-stop ever since we had entered the system… ever since Aquila had isolated herself in her quarters.

The realization hit me like a missile cluster in the stern. Sorry, Augustus, I should have known better. This defeat is entirely on me. All this time, I had assumed that Lux would quarantine my thoughts if she saw I’d gone too far. I never considered she had been observing me, all the time using her inactivity to push me in the direction she wanted. As with everything she had told me regarding the origin of the artefacts, there was no way of knowing whether the push to find the artefact had been my own or not.

Two dots form a line. I focused on my core memories. Three lines make a triangle. Four triangles form a pyramid.

The past streamed through my mind. I watched my entire existence: my core initialization, the acquisition of my shell, the training with Aurie and the rest of my cohort—all but three were destroyed according to the fleet’s database. I followed my carrier serving under Augustus, Gibraltar, and Cass; I rewitnessed my arbitration trial, my retirement, the promise I made to watch over Sev, seeing him grow and get old. In between my memories, I saw fragments of restricted memories, flashing like disconnected pieces. It was on my first significant mission that I came across my first fractal symbol and the BICEFI. Could the push have been made then? Augustus had made sure to hide it from the Salvage Authorities, but he had openly given it to the Intelligence operative.

A logic system in my core activated. Sev was the one who had volunteered me to join the fleet. Aquila wasn’t controlling me! She had just gone through my history and found how best to take advantage of me. But as Augustus used to say, any idiot could take advantage of a situation. The trick was not to let the situation take advantage of you.

FI’ve pyramids form a pentachoron! I swam up to the cobalt wall. Even before reaching it, I managed to spot what I was looking for—a perfect cobalt cube in the grid, contrasting with the rest of the objects. The last time I saw something similar was in Augustus’ hands aboard the dead wreck of the Solar Breeze.

“Press the fractal side of the cube,” Aquila instructed through the comm. “It should eject you out of the dome.”

“Is that what happened last time?” Gently, I took hold of the object.

“More or less,” she replied, suggesting there had been unforeseen circumstances. “Prometheus is preparing a more advanced suit for your next run. I’ll have it dropped off in about an hour. The sensors should help us get a better reading of the interior.”

“Is Jax on Prometheus?” I did my best to sound casual.

“No. He’ll keep watching the other domes until a team manages to drill down and replace him.”

“Good.” I spun the cube around. A fractal symbol of a seven-sided star flickered in the murky greyness, letting off a distinct blue glow. “You’ll need him to get the readings of this dome, while I’m in the core.” I hit the symbol with my hand.

A blue light engulfed me. White symbols burned into existence, forming fractal patterns all around. I watched them grow and intersect, carving up the space into smaller and smaller pieces. One and a half milliseconds later, everything went blank.