Chapter 009: Awakening

The Solar Republic is one of the two main contenders to the seat of the successor of the Solar Commonwealth. It was born as the Terran Republic, the brief government of Earth, established by members of the Provisional Governing Council of the Solar Commonwealth that survived the Third Succession War.

Despite its once mighty fleets and armies reduced to a shadow of its former self, the Terran Republic succeeded in winning the Fifth Terran War against the remaining national governments of Earth. With its seat of power secured, the Terran Republic changed into the Solar Republic and began slowly reconquering the former territories of the Solar Commonwealth. It continued for almost a century, until its expansion was halted by the Great Alliance, the precursor to the Confederation of Mankind.

The Solar Republic remains the most successful totalitarian regime in the history of Mankind. Close to thirty percent of Mankind lives and toils within its space. Organized religions, nationalism, transhumanism and transformationism are seen as reasons for the Commonwealth’s collapse, and thus are outlawed and persecuted.

Theoretically, the Solar Republic remains a democracy. The elections occur regularly, without delays and without frauds. That’s because there’s no need for frauds. The true power in the Republic lies in shadowy cabals of unelected bureaucrats, military officers, corporation CEOs and members of the Internal Security Bureau.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 5, page 896

***

Somewhere, Somewhen

Christopher Hall

Once again Christopher Hall opened his eyes in an unfamiliar place. But this time, the place was entirely different from everything he had ever seen.

He was standing on the surface of an open yet calm sea. The sky was covered with dense clouds. The air was pleasant, but slightly chilly and too moist for his taste. He estimated it to be somewhere close to 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

There was a city in front of him, one seemingly floating atop the sea surface. Its walls and rooftops were shined in silver, despite the lack of sunlight. A few hundred meters in front of him, someone was running atop the waves, though towards his left side.

If this is a tourist destination for angels, and that guy up there is Jesus Christ on a vacation, I swear I’m going to break.

A brief laugh came from behind. He turned around to face the source of the sound, only to freeze in place.

The thing he was now facing was humanoid in general shape and size, but that’s as far the similarities went. For a second Christopher thought it was just a human shape painted white, but it was actually made of light. Unfamiliar light - soothing rather than blinding, and appearing almost solid.

“It really makes sense that the majority of interactions between our kind started with my side going ‘BE NOT AFRAID’ right at the start, hmm?” The white shape said, its head tilting sideways. Its voice (like the body) of indeterminate gender. Christopher was almost sure if there was an actual face to be seen, there’d be a wry smile on it.

Great, another self-proclaimed angel. Ugh.

“Now you’re hurting my feelings, Chris.” Only now its earlier laughter made sense. It was reading Christopher’s mind. “‘Self-proclaimed’? Still at this stage?”

“You seem slightly more human than the first one.” Christopher announced, ignoring the angel’s words. Getting into that talk would probably lead nowhere. “Any chances I’ll get some answers from you? Answers, not riddles.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” the angel answered. Christopher sighed. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. “I can answer a question or two, but none of the ones you are most interested in.”

“Ok, so where are we?” It looked like a pretty nice place. Albeit a strange one. Especially the part with someone casually running over the sea’s surface freaked him out.

“We are currently on Europa, the moon of Jupiter.” The angel replied. “The year’s 2240, so it's in the middle of Mankind’s golden age. I’ve picked it as proof that this isn’t a dream. You never heard of it, yet if you check historical records everything you see in front of you will add up.”

“What about that guy?” Christopher pointed towards the human at the horizon that kept bothering him with his sheer existence.

“The moon’s low gravity allows one to run on water.” The angel replied. “It has become a bit of a tourist attraction. It’s still marginally better on that field than Dione, the moon of Saturn. Gravity there is so small that the polar bears the Solar Commonwealth settled there could fly around by flapping their arms.”

Christopher’s imagination suddenly bluescreened. Imagining a squad of polar bears closing in on some unsuspecting seals by flying around was too much.

“Not exactly possible from the anatomical point of view.” The angel informed him. “But congratulations! You just discovered a rather popular meme from the solarnet of this time. A polar bear looking at the viewer with absolute fury on its face, flapping its arms around to get closer and with some variation of ‘I’m coming to wreck you’ as a subtitle.”

It was actually rather hilarious. Christopher chuckled loudly at the picture presented to him by his imagination.

“So…” It was time to get some answers. “Why am I in the future? What exactly am I supposed to do? Who exactly are you?” Each question caused the angel to shake his head again. “Why? Why can’t you tell me?”

“Have you ever heard about the observer effect?” He did, in fact. It was part of physics. The idea that the very action of observing an experiment could influence the result. “Call this a champion effect. We’ve chosen you, yes. However there are things that, if you knew about them too early, could negatively influence the outcome of your actions. In more classic terms - if I tell you what’s going to happen, it won’t happen.”

“Sounds suspicious.” To say the least.

“I’m aware of that.” The angel responded. “And I know it’s suboptimal, but I assure you that I wish to keep you as informed as possible. In fact, I will keep you as informed as possible. Some of the knowledge in question is not only too much for you. It’s actually dangerous, in more ways than one.”

“How do I know that you speak the truth?” Christopher asked.

“Really, Chris?” The angel chuckled. The wind blew. The sea trembled. “You really think that entities capable of sending you to a distant future and creating such a technological marvel as your personal computer wouldn’t be intelligent enough to conjure up a believable lie? Instead we openly admit that we keep you in the dark on certain things. We never lie.” The angel had a point. But, there was a flaw in it.

“Unless you are intelligent enough to not conjure a lie.” He replied. “And instead use honesty as a feint to make me lower my guard.”

“Touche. But you have more questions, don’t you?” Angel refused to budge on the important issues.

“Yes.” It was probably the most important one. “What happened?”

“You died.” The angel said. After Christopher stared at him for a few seconds in silence, he decided to elaborate. “Of course, the meaning of the word is a bit muddled in the year 2610. You and your friend Ryan went into cardiopulmonary arrest when exposed to the Hyperspace. However Lieutenant Commander Athalia made it in time and saved you from inevitable brain death. You are currently in the medbay, connected to machines that keep your blood flowing and fill it with oxygen.”

I owe Athalia an apology for doubting his skills. I think I’d prefer owing him money though.

“And why exactly did that happen?” Everyone had seemed adamant about Hyperspace entry being completely safe.

“Well, I could answer you.” The angel said. “But Athalia is absolutely brimming with enthusiasm and excitement each time he imagines answering that question. So I’m going to leave that to him. Any other questions?” Christopher decided to give up on that field, and spent a while thinking.

“Why are you so... different from that angel that talked to me at the beginning?” The one he was facing felt much more approachable. Friendly, even.

“I’m weaker than him.” The angel answered. “By several orders of magnitude. Even if you know the shape of the pot, if you put too much water in it there’ll be… leaks.” He said, leaving Christopher to wonder what exactly the leaking part was. “Honestly, from my point of view he almost nailed the look. I have it much easier, but I’m still struggling with details.”

“It’s… difficult?” Something didn’t add up. “For a being of your power?”

“Well, we could just run a perfectly sculpted projection.” The angel replied, unfazed by Christopher’s suspicion. “But let’s be honest here. When you kidnap someone and then push him through the ages in order to fulfill a dangerous quest for you, showing up in person is the minimum level of common decency. Isn’t it?”

Christopher wanted to say that ‘minimum level of common decency’ was to ask the person in question if they agree to the mission… but it was unlikely the angel wasn’t aware of that already.

“I’m also your fourth gift.” The angel spoke again. “A guide, helper and more. The reason for your temporary death is the third gift. Its temporarily lethal onset has allowed me to introduce myself to you a bit ahead of schedule. You won’t see me for a while. In fact, I believe that this might be our first and only contact for many months, even. Consider this a time to prepare yourself.”

“You suddenly got awfully talkative.” Christopher commented. It was rather suspicious. That’s when he saw the horizon suddenly darkening. The wave of all-consuming darkness closed in fast.

“That’s because our time here is coming to an end.” The angel replied. “I can’t stay in contact for long. If I overstay my welcome, it might put an unnecessary strain on your brain. Worse, it might gather unwanted attention. I wish you a swift recovery.”

The darkness swallowed them both.

***

EGS Echo - Medical Bay

12:01 11.04.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Christopher opened his eyes in a room he almost immediately identified as the medical bay. If the immaculate white ceiling and medical equipment scattered around hadn’t been sufficient proof, Lith Athalia standing above him, eyeing Christopher with a depraved look in his eyes was a clear giveaway.

“Uhm, what are you doing?” When Christopher spoke, Lieutenant-Commander Athalia made a step backward and wiped corners of his mouth from what seemed like drool.

“Giving you a visual examination for medical purposes, of course.” Athalia replied. Christopher was confident this wasn’t the case… but he didn’t feel like investigating. That man had saved his life, he could let his ‘visual examinations’ slide for once. “Well, you and your friend gave us quite a scare.”

Christopher rose from the bed. He was wearing an unfamiliar skinsuit from some pale blue material that began above his knees and ended on his neck. It was much more scarce than the work uniform, probably some standard attire for patients. He resolved to not think about who had changed his clothes when he was unconscious.

“I… died, right?” Strangely enough, Christopher felt well rested. The headache was something else entirely, though.“Cardiopulmonary arrest, I believe. How long was I out?”

“Self-diagnosing on MY ship?” Athalia chuckled. “Well, you’re correct this time, so I’ll tolerate it. As for the last question, you were unconscious for approximately one hundred forty-five hours. Six days, in other words.”

Christopher was rendered speechless for a while. It wasn’t what he had expected.

“Six… six days?” They should be arriving in the Carmotia system if he remembered correctly. “That’s…”

“... a lot, I get that.” Athalia shrugged. “Blessings of modern healthcare. We’re all like zombies from the horror films of your times. Unless something rips your brain apart I can fix pretty much everything for as long as I get to you fast enough. Gunshot wounds, hostile nano, decapitation even. Before you ask, Ryan’s ok and already left my gentle care. We’ll talk about him later. For now, do you feel anything out of the ordinary?”

“A headache, but otherwise I’m alright.” Christopher replied. The ‘decapitation’ part sounded rather awesome, but he wasn’t in a mood to dig into it. “It feels… pretty deep inside my head, not the way I’m used to when it comes to headaches.”

“Unsurprising.” Athalia replied. “I’d be super freaked out if you were used to headaches caused by malignant brain tumours.”

“Err… come again?” He must have misheard it.

“Malignant brain tumor.” Athalia repeated. “Cancer, in short. A truly horrible killer… like, five centuries ago.” He rolled his eyes when he saw Christopher still staring at him in shock. “C’mon, don’t give me that look. I took a sample. Multiplied it in my laboratory. Tested five hundred different anti-cancer medications against it. Picked five most promising. All in the two first days of your stay here. Since then I’m using a dedicated medical nano to firebomb it directly with precisely measured doses, while also making sure that it collapses on itself in a controlled way. It’s half the size it was four days ago, so calm down.” Athalia appeared awfully talkative. And slightly tired.

“Oh, that’s… I see.” It still felt surreal to Christopher. But it seemed that he was saved twice by Athalia, in a very short order. “Thank you.”

“Ehhhh, just doing my job.” Athalia looked unusually humble while saying that. So much, that Christopher was almost sure he was just pretending.

“Why did it even show up?” It was almost unbelievable, when he thought about it in detail. He felt no headaches before his brief ‘death’. Did it just appear instantly?

“And that’s the awesome part.” Athalia said, painfully reminding Christopher of whom he is talking with. Talking about the ‘awesome’ part of getting a brain tumor stretched Christopher’s definition of sanity beyond its breaking point. “You had an extremely violent case of Awakening.”

“Awa… Awakening?” Sounds like some new age mumbo jumbo.

“In extremely rare cases, exposure to Hyperspace causes rampant changes to the body.” Athalia said. “Of course, normally it’s stretched in time a lot. Brain tumours on the edge of metastasizing don’t show up from nowhere within twenty hours. You, however, seem to be a rather unique case. Before you imagine someone suddenly turning into a mutant like in some stupid horror film, changes are typically focused on the neural system.”

He paused for a while, took out some sort of notebook from the pocket of his latex nurse suit, wrote something down and hid it. Proving to Christopher that there was at least one person around who wasn’t using a personal computer for this kind of stuff.

“Back to you.” Athalia didn’t address the unexpected spectacle. “Your neural system was such an incredible mess that I pretty much did nothing but operated on you for several days. I had to install three hundred twenty-seven microimplants to circumnavigate the parts of your nervous system that were burned out. Without that, you’d be a tetraplegic. Dead one, as your heart wouldn’t start beating again. I also had to surgically alter twenty-two vertebrae, since your spinal cord started swelling and reconstructing inside of them. In short, it was a rather busy few days for us both.”

Christopher stared at him with shock on his face.

“Yeah, I made some improvements to myself. I can stay awake for a bit longer than you, normies.” Athalia announced. Christopher decided that this didn’t stop him from being strangely talkative, and speaking increasingly quickly. “The point is, I’ve managed to patch you up to the point where the only symptoms you feel is a headache. We’ll get to the congratulatory headpats later on.” Christopher wasn’t so sure about it, but if anyone had ever truly deserved that, it was Athalia in this very moment.

“Now, I generally dislike placing too much machinery in people.” The medic continued. “It’s crude, and has many downsides. For example, if you were hit by an electromagnetic pulse or electrocuted… well, figure out that part yourself. Thankfully Mankind has figured out a way to regrow neural tissue. I’ll schedule a few dozen microsurgeries for you, during which I’ll replace the implants I mentioned with natural nerves. Bit by bit. Questions?”

“Uhm… doesn't electrocution kill you either way?” It was a dumb question. Christopher’s mind was yet to recover from what he just heard and simply wasn’t thinking rationally.

“Let’s just say that it’s easier to resuscitate someone from electrocution-induced heart attack than from electrocution-induced total nervous system shutdown.” Athalia either didn’t mind or was used to people asking stupid questions. “Now I’m going to proceed to the issue of ‘Awakening’, as you might have been curious what exactly was Awakened. And no, it’s neither the brain tumour nor my fetish for giving people a three digit number of microsurgeries in twenty four hours. The first was born, not awakened. And the second was never asleep to begin with.”

Thinking about it, it was rather obvious that this wasn’t all. Being on the verge of death didn’t count as a ‘Gift’ in any way. For a second Christopher imagined Hagrid telling Harry that he has brain cancer instead of the ‘Yer a wizard, Harry’ line.

“You have a superpower now, hooray!” Athalia raised his hands and did some awkward dance that made him look like a really strange cheerleader.

What. The. Hell.

“No, seriously.” Athalia shook his head. “I know how this sounds. I assure you that all talks about ‘psychic powers’ and so on in your time were total bullshit. Science had that confirmed multiple times. Things changed after Mankind started flying around and had its collective neural system messed up by the Hyperspace exposure. Unfortunately, it seems that brain tumours, glioblastoma, neurodegenerative diseases and mental disorders are the most common superpowers.”

Why does everything cool like FTL travel or superpowers have to have so many goddamn downsides?! Why is reality so damn realistic?!

“But, there are also actual psychic powers.” Athalia continued. “Don’t ask me how exactly they work. The answer to that question is higher on the Wall than Mankind. We know where the ‘magic’ occurs, as Awakening produces abnormal nerve bundles that light up when the power is used. We can stimulate or suppress the activity of those bundles. We have a few dozen experts throughout Human Space capable of transplanting those, but it’s incredibly complicated and has an extremely high rejection rate. And that’s all we know about it.”

Christopher wondered if Athalia was one of those few dozen experts. If he asked him, the answer would probably be positive. The real question was whether Athalia was ready to lie in order to maintain his self-imposed image of being the best surgeon ever. Unless he really was the best surgeon ever; Christopher had extremely limited contact with those.

“As for the power you got, it’s telekinesis.” Athalia finally revealed the really important bit of information. “There are some much more blatantly-overpowered-nerf-pls powers, but telekinesis is one of those which are the most universal. Especially due to the power level you seem to be on.”

“Power level?” He could only hope it was over 9000. Nothing less could save him from the craziness of the Galaxy AD 2610.

“Well, if you exclude some stupid ‘official’ rankings which are booooring…” Athalia began his answer with a rather unorthodox approach to official medicine. “... there are three levels to every power. Extremely stable but weak Embers. Extremely powerful but unstable to self-destructive level Infernos. And finally powerful and mostly stable Flames. There are two more categories that are considered myths by most people. Supremes, who are as strong as Infernos yet stable as Embers. And, finally, Divines that have more than one power on at least Flame level. I estimate you to be somewhere around the upper end of the Supreme class.”

“So… devastating armies with sheer telekinetic power?” It would really help his chances of surviving in face of whatever the ‘angels’ were plotting for him.

“Ah yes, all hail the God-Emperor Christopher Hall!” Athalia managed to do a floor-kissing dogeza and return to his standing position in one swift move. “Nah, but you can probably bounce off a bullet if you train really hard. One that’s pretty slow, and fired from enough of a distance. We have a telekinetic aboard, so I presume that once you get out of your medical complications the Captain will organize you some training. For now, please touch the back of your neck.”

Christopher did this. At first glance he didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Then he noticed that a part of his skin was strangely rigid. When he tried to push that part, he felt something under his skin.

What the…

“You don’t get the ability to use superpowers merely because the Hyperspace altered your nervous system.” Athalia informed him. “It’s a process that’s mostly accidental and calls for some human guidance to achieve a beneficial conclusion. The object behind your neck is a type of implant called a neuroamplifier.”

Another implant in my body. Hmph. I have mixed feelings about that.

“It is wirelessly linked to smaller implants spread around your body, each of them lodged into an altered nerve bundle.” Athalia continued. “Installation of both the neuroamp and the other implants without your consent is entirely legal, by the way, because that’s regarded as a part of mandatory post-Awakening stabilization. Unfortunately, no biological equivalent is available, so you’ll have to stick with some more pieces of metal inside you.”

He seemed to be relishing the fact that he could tinker with Christopher’s body legally. Even if it included implants.

“When you decide to use your power, the implants will use small electrical charges to stimulate your nervous system in a way that amplifies and focuses your power. We will now proceed to the test phase.” Athalia took a pen out of his pocket and let it lie on the top of his hand. “Imagine that it levitates and put some brainpower into this, please.”

Christopher obediently looked at the pen and imagined it rising up, faintly remembering doing something similar as a kid, after he saw some superhero movie and wanted to check if he was one too. Nothing changed, as he honestly expected.

“It wasn’t visible, but it twitched a little.” Athalia spoke. After a quick silence - filled with mandatory lack of belief on Christopher’s side - he continued. “Open up your PC, and activate the Neuroamp 17.3.4.10CH app. Then choose the ‘Telekinesis Amplification’ option, and do the same thing as earlier.”

These smartphone apps are getting out of hand.

Christopher carried out Athalia’s instruction to the letter. When he finished setting up the configurations in his PC, he concentrated on the pen once again. To his shock, the pen rose and started hovering a few centimeters above Athalia’s hand.

His amazement was cut short by a wave of… unpleasantness. His lower jaw started trembling, his right-hand fingers twisted frantically, and his left calf muscle contracted so painfully that he would fall to the ground if he wasn’t lying on a bed. He could sense his hair raising, and a pain in his back that kept growing in intensiveness with every second.

Christopher’s grasp on the pen vanished, as he could no longer maintain it due to the side-effects.

“Nice. So you are a sorcerer now. That’s the modern term. Mankind is occasionally so damn hopeless.” Lith Athalia sighed. “If you train, the side-effects should become manageable. You’ll also get stronger. Many times so. For now, try to regularly lift something up, just don’t strain yourself too much. Now, Ryan. You’re his direct superior, but he’ll probably get super talkative about it when only you meet. So just a short heads-up.”

It was something he still hadn’t gotten used to. Being someone’s ‘superior’.

“He was knocked out cold just as badly as you.” Athalia said. “But the damages to the neural system were multiple times smaller than yours. I fixed him up in the first two days. He still needs a few microsurgeries, but I had postponed that until now due to you occupying my attention a bit too much. He has also Awakened as a Supreme, but in technopathy.”

“Technopathy?” Christopher postponed the question about the fairness of the world. Why was he hit so much worse by the Awakening despite getting the same level of power?

“Abbreviation of ‘Technological Empathy’.” Athalia replied. “He can speak to machines. I mean, we all can. In his case the difference is the fact that they tend to answer. He is capable of interfacing with machines without any software and those not aboard the Echo, potentially circumnavigating standard computer security by doing space magic like some goddamn Jedi. It’s one of these ‘op-pls-nerf’ powers, though also one that tends to be rather… strange and unnerving to use.”

Lith shrugged. Christopher craved details, but instead he got a half-assed shrug. He also craved to know if Star Wars was still a thing. Knowing him, Athalia just encountered it when checking out information on Christopher’s times in the shipnet. He caught Tendrik mentioning a few things from the early 21st Century and got him to confess to doing just that.

“It should be fine unless he tries to interface with the Echo’s shipnet, but I explicitly told him that it’s suicide.” Athalia continued, unaware of Christopher’s irritation. “And I made a software blockade that will shut down his neuroamp if he tries that, but don’t tell him about it. He thinks I trust him, pfff.”

Back to standard Athalia. I want to rest. Preferably without ‘congratulatory headpats’, urgh.