The series of notifications introducing the Suit banned the ceaseless Social chatter at once. The gleaming heads were suddenly as quiet in virtual as they had been in real all along. Silence reclaimed its throne and Leigh’s eyes, like everyone else’s, quickly skimmed the ‘Truesuit Manual’. The Suit had always been one of the First Academy’s well-kept secrets and the mystery surrounding it was too big for even the angry Shi’Estna to ignore. For the moment, Leigh was forgotten.

Two paragraphs in, the document had Leigh’s eyes as wide as saucers and bugging out of her head by the end of the first page. She could barely even comprehend the words she was reading and going by the muffled gasps reverberating through the quiet shuttle, she wasn’t the only one. The archive’s first twenty pages debunked many of the certainties they’d carried through life concerning their CHIPs, nanites and energy-matter.

“My whole life has been a lie,” Arthur stated in private, not a hint of emotion on his virtual voice.

“Tell me about it,” Leigh said, eyes still running across the document.

A few seconds passed before he spoke up against, this time almost sounding upset.

“How can this even be true…” he said, “if it is… the entire population is training for something they will never need.”

“Yes…” Leigh said, unable to contradict him, “but it’s not like it’s the only reason we have CHIPs.”

Arthur didn’t immediately comment, so Leigh continued with her argument.

“The CHIPs have so many functions outside of preparing us for this… ‘real’ CHIP… think about how it lets us automate basically everything in our lives! Think of the convenience we’d have missed out on without it.”

“Still…” he said quietly, “I still don’t think it’s right to keep people in the dark like this. The Quill have too many—”

He stopped his complaint mid-sentence, but Leigh knew what he wanted to say. ‘The Quill had too many stipulations.’ She also knew why he didn’t feel comfortable complaining about them so soon after the terrorist attack. It was a view shared by many, but a few extremists made it impossible to express the view without garnering resentment from the public, especially today. On Earth, bodies of millions of innocent victims were still being gathered and put away for no reason other than the human inability to accept those that were different from them in any way, today was not a day to complain.

The Quill had arrived on humanity’s doorstep seven-hundred-and-twenty-one years ago. Their arrival instigated human terror. Until then humans had believed to be alone in the Universe. The fear only multiplied when the far technologically superior species warned them of another impending alien threat. In despair, Earth had thrown all of its weapons against the first, message-bearing ship, but the Quill didn’t even flinch when they flicked all of Earth’s best weapons aside. How would Earth survive with aliens like this looming over them from space? What chance did humanity even have, when the supposedly friendly aliens warned them of a far greater threat even they - with their incomprehensible technologies - couldn’t match?

Earth sank into a Dark Age that went on for over a decade. Despair, lack of hope and fear brought out the worst of humanity and it almost didn’t come out on the other side. The Quill had watched silently from Space as the Earth’s nations fought each other, arguing over the best course of action. Some, not seeing another option, wanted to cooperate. Others thought it was some big ruse, but most simply couldn’t understand why an alien species would come to humanity’s aid without asking for anything in return.

The arguments turned into conflicts and eventually into full-out wars as people chose sides on the alien debate. Years of bloodshed and death only worsened the situation, and humanity became a hull of its former self. It was only once the world almost managed to annihilate itself that the governments of the world came to a consensus. Limping, bloodied and raw, Earth became the United Earth Government.

Then it was the humans that approached the aliens and this time, they took the Quill warning to heart. Relieved that Earth was joining in their struggle against the unknown ‘Ardu’, the Quill helped humanity out of the Dark Ages by handing them innumerable technological advances. Without the friendly aliens, humanity would still be stuck tinkering with rockets and satellites. The knowledge came freely at first, but over time the Quill refused to hand anything else over without stipulations attached to it. Their technology gave them all the bargaining power in the human-Quill relationship.

Humans were obviously unhappy with the sudden stipulations, but there was nothing they could do; they were completely at the Quill’s mercy. There were many theories as to why the aliens changed their approach to humanity from one day to the next. Some thought it was because of the growing number of activists rebelling against alien involvement in the world’s affairs. A few thought the Quill were afraid that humanity could eventually surpass them technologically, but that theory was dismissed by most. The general belief was that the Quill simply wanted to guide humanity along a path more similar to their own.

Human ideals, beliefs, and logic rarely lined up with that of the foreign species, and so many of the technologies were not adopted in the way they were ‘meant to be’. Scientists thought that in order to guarantee that they were, the aliens simply refused to teach Earth anything unless humans did it as specified. At first, there had been many controversies, such as the Selection Modifications which required the removal of reproductive organs. At one point humans had been attached to the idea of bearing their own, but that belief weaned itself out over the decades after it was implemented and humans saw what an advantage it gave to everyone. And over time, humanity became more amenable to the stipulations, especially since most were benign, like guaranteeing that each household would be using the micro-farming techniques that had multiplied caloric yields more than tenfold.

Leigh didn’t want to resent the Quill today, it felt ungrateful, but she understood where Arthur was coming from. She had never thought of the CHIP as particularly invasive, but the Manual simply ‘notified’ her that any and all memories she made from then on pertaining to or containing the Suit would be tagged and censored once her service to the UEF was over. It was probably how the UEF had managed to keep the Suit information from the general public for so long, and it had ‘Quill Stipulation’ written all over it.

The fact that the CHIP would be able to alter her memories at the end of her Service frightened her; it really did. And keeping the primary objective of the CHIP from the general population was wrong, Leigh didn’t deny that, but today, of all days, she couldn’t muster the resentment to agree with Arthur. Today she just wanted to be grateful that she was alive and that she still had a chance to fight for her species’ survival.

“You’re probably right,” Leigh said, finally replying to Arthur. “Their stipulations don’t always make sense, but today… today I want to believe that there’s a good reason. One I can’t immediately comprehend.”

Arthur then turned to her, it felt like he was getting ready to disagree, but something on her expression must have changed his mind because he simply nodded and veered away from the subject.

“I can’t believe that the nanites are actually just the… carriers and guiders of energy-matter,” he said, with exaggerating interest, “No wonder the terms are always used so interchangeably, someone must have let it slip somewhere along the way.”

“Yeah,” Leigh said, smiling slightly, but going along with it, “even if they censor some of our memories, they can’t take it all away.”

“True…” Arthur said blandly, obviously not agreeing with her, but not bothering to contradict her anyway, “Well… At least we’re part of the population that actually gets to use the modified CHIP for the real reason the CHIP was created.”

“I know right?” Leigh said with relief, “It’s like we’re finally allowed to have a bike after wearing training wheels for so long.”

“…What’s a bike?” he asked in confusion.

“Oh…” she said, remembering that not everyone had been raised by her artifact-loving father, “just an Obsolete.”

“Ah, that…” he said a moment later and Leigh knew he must have looked it up.

A couple of comfortable minutes of silence passed as they both tried to comprehend what the Manual revealed about energy-matter. They’d skipped the awkward silence phase of their friendship entirely; it was like they’d been friends for years.

“So let me get this right…” Leigh said, knowing he already understood the mind-blowing and reality-shifting information the document revealed. He was a scientific genius, there was no way he didn’t. “The TrueSuit is us basically having the ability to manipulate the energy-matter—”

“EM,” Arthur interrupted, “I’m pretty sure they use that term so we don’t get confused with how we use ‘energy-matter’ on Earth…”

“Alright…” Leigh said, “then EM. So… If it’s the ability to manipulate it…”

“Well,” he said, “it’s technically not our ability, but the ability that the EM CHIP gives us.”

“So… technically, we’re just manipulating the… EM CHIP?”

“Mmmm,” Arthur said, “I can’t say for certain yet as I’ve only read the theory behind it, but the way I’ve understood it is that we are manipulating EMs through the EM CHIP.”

“EMs?” Leigh asked, “how can it be plural?”

“Because it manifests itself in the form of particles,” he said, “energy-matter is just energy so concentrated that it has gained density. It’s the reason why unlinked energy-matter is so volatile.”

“Oh!”, Leigh said ignoring his rant, as the information finally clicked into place, “so the energy-matter on Earth is usually accompanied by nanites, each of which ‘takes care’ of one particle?”

Arthur nodded vaguely. He had obviously grown bored with the conversation and was busy focusing on something else, but Leigh just needed to work through the process and kept saying her thoughts out aloud.

“So then ‘nanites’ are really a pair of the two. The caretaker nanite and the EM. And that’s what we got pumped full of?”

Arthur nodded vacantly again and Leigh looked down at her silvery skin. She wondered if the color came from the energy-matter or the nanites. Rubbing her cool skin absently, she went back to theorizing.

“And I’m guessing the Initiation Procedure is how we learn to work the EMs without the nanites?”

“Well,” Arthur said, finally turning to her. “You wouldn’t have to guess at anything if you’d just read the damn thing, and stop using me as your fact-checking, sounding board.”

Leigh bit her lip, feeling a little guilty.

“I’m sorry?” she asked tentatively.

“No, you’re not,” he said simply, “but just shut up and move on, you’ve got the gist of it.”

She smiled sheepishly, she was back to focusing on her manual when Arthur spoke up again a few seconds later.

“I really can’t believe they chose to keep all of this from us…” Arthur said as if compelled to share the thought, “From what I can tell there are so many different ways to manipulate the EMs… So many different uses… I don’t even know why they would want to keep it from the general public… And how.”

Leigh nodded, completely agreeing with him, but not having the time to dwell on it too much. As if reading her thoughts, Nathan added, “You should really start your IP, you’re already falling behind.”

Leigh frowned, not immediately aware of what he was referring to. The shuttle was still dead quiet, but it had been since she’d gotten in. It was social that was blowing up with activity. Looking at the history, it wasn’t hard to find the cause and center of the commotion: Charlie Delta. Who else?

“It’s on Frams!” he’d announced forty seconds ago, posting his Initiation Procedure completion rate.

[0.00001% COMPLETE]

Scrolling through the older posts Leigh saw that at first, no one had posted theirs in reply, but then Charlie had added, “Awww, you little Cogs too ashamed of your own rates?” in a mocking, sing-song voice. “That’s too bad. Guess me and Nathan here will be going at it alone.”

Nathan’s participation surprised her, but going by his stunned micro-expression in the chat’s log, he hadn’t known about his participation until it began either. He quirked his lips in some kind of inner struggle as if he really didn’t want to be a part of the competition, but a couple seconds later he gave in to whatever pressured him and posted his score.

“Fine,” he said with resignation, but going by the dismissive tone and the way he went back to ignoring social, that was all he would have to say on the matter.

His participation completely changed people’s willingness to join though, and in less than ten seconds 72% of their Ship had joined, which was where they were at now. The majority were still at 0.0% like Leigh, but she didn’t publicize it. She wasn’t about to start making anything public that she didn’t absolutely have to. From now on she was going to stay in the shadows as much as possible.

Nothing had gone as she’d hoped or expected since she’d entered the shuttle. She kept getting blind-sided by unexpected developments. With so many uncertain variables surrounding her, she was completely out of her depth. Going in blind had never been her forte. Frowning, Leigh continued to quickly read on, skimming most of the rest. The largest part of the Manual dealt with the introduction of the Suit’s Initiation Procedure. Leigh thought it would be a simple matter of turning it on, but it had an average completion time of 62.19 days, and a completion rate of 67%. Leigh pursed her lips in confusion, she’d always thought that every First Academy graduate had a Suit. What happened to those that didn’t complete the procedure?

Social continued to buzz with excitement as people started competing with each other, commenting on the advancement choices they were making in regards to the Suit. Leigh almost shook her head, marveling at the inability of those around her to not constantly be monitoring their progress in comparison to others. They’d grown so used to the competition, that they couldn’t progress without knowing what they were up against. Leigh bit her lip her inner lip in admonishment, she was feeling the desire to join in as well. She didn’t want to be considered on the basis of her Rank anymore, on account of how she’d come by it, but she also couldn’t undo the sixteen years of self-quantification. It was almost as if she couldn’t know her worth unless it was pitted against those around her.

Sighing, Leigh continued to fight the urge and opened the Initiation Procedure.

[TRUESUIT INITIATION PROCEDURE: 0.00% COMPLETE]

[CHOOSE FROM THE FOLLOWING INITIATION GUIDES:

- EM MANIPULATION: (0.0% COMPLETE)

INTERNAL: (0.0% COMPLETE) EXTERNAL: (0.0% COMPLETE)

- DIMENSIONAL MANIPULATION: (0.0% COMPLETE)

SPATIAL: (0.0% COMPLETE) TEMPORAL: (0.0% COMPLETE)

- EM COLLECTION: (0.0% COMPLETE)

SOLAR: (0.0% COMPLETE) NUCLEAR: (0.0% COMPLETE) PHYSICAL: (0.0% COMPLETE)

- EM APPLICATIONS: (LOCKED)

- EM STRUCTURE: (LOCKED)

- EM TRANSFORMATION: (LOCKED)

- (LOCKED)

- (LOCKED)

...]

The list went on for pages and Leigh suddenly understood why completion could take so long. Leigh only had access to the first couple, but she didn’t spend any time going over them. She was already falling behind. Plus. The UEF always did things for a reason, if Internal EM Manipulation was first on the list, that is where she would be starting. At least that is what she told herself in order to contain her curiosity for another time.

Opening up the guide she quickly skimmed the instructions, always keeping an eye on the other people’s progress. She also monitored the shuttle’s trajectory, not wanting to be caught off-guard again. This at least was one variable she could control, or well… at least monitor. They were thirteen minutes away from the space station where First Academy Ship 7 was currently undocking. Looking up through the shuttle’s spy-glass, Leigh marveled at the space station ‘up-close’. It was still 82,388km away, but from this distance, it almost took up the whole view. She’d seen it in vids enough times, but even those didn’t quite do reality justice.

It was one of humanity’s only direct refusals to Quill Stipulations, a massive construct that had started five hundred years ago when humanity first turned to space travel. Made primarily of asteroids and its mined metals, it was coated with a reflective layer of solar panels that both protected its inhabitants from radiation and powered the entire station. For reasons unknown to the general population, but agreed to by the UEG, humans were not actively allowed to inhabit other planets. They were allowed to stay there for the duration of their Service, sometimes lasting upwards of three hundred years, but they were not allowed to raise children outside of Earth. The Space Station was the only exception.

Amongst its sixty-seven million inhabitants there were 127,209 minors. Their Ranks were calculated just like those on Earth, but the Selects were sent down for their Selection Modifications. Curious, Leigh searched her ship’s records and was surprised to find that there was actually one person on the shuttle that had grown up there. Her name was Jade Unita, Rank 248, and there was one other that had made it into First Academy, but he was on Ship 1. Leigh frowned when she saw the girl. Jade sitting right in front of her, right next to Shi’estna. The girl sat in such a nondescript manner about her, that Leigh found it hard to focus on any aspect of her being. Eventually, Leigh settled upon the Spacie’s slanted eyes which hinted at ancient Asian origins.

As if noticing Leigh’s examination, the girl looked down from the spy-glass she’d also been looking out of, right back at Leigh. The girl’s face didn’t register an inkling of emotion, but Leigh swore she felt surprise emanating from the girl. Before Leigh could ascertain the feeling though, it was gone and the girl was back to looking out at the Space Port She wasn’t the only one, by now the majority of eyes were directed outward. Forgetting why she’d even been interested in the girl in the first place, Leigh went back to admiring the Space construct.

It’s overall shape was spherical, but there were various branches spanning outward here and there, like antlers reaching out to the stars. As they passed the side directed towards the sun, solar panels gave way to artificial lights. Living, ore processing, industrial and agricultural areas. An entire economy. An entire society. For them, an entire world. Leigh had grown up with the Station lighting the sky up at night, but seeing proof that there were people living behind the solar panels gave her pause. Even knowing that it wasn’t true, you grew up thinking that you were at the center of the Universe. There was a reason people had once held the belief. In reality though, she’d grown up in a bubble, on a piece of rock like many others out there. It meant nothing to anyone, but them. Its only worth was what they attributed to it, and it was up to them to defend it; no one else would.

Once more reminded of her duty, Leigh refocused on the first set of instructions, she was startled by its contents.

[FOCUS ON FEELING THE EM INSIDE OF YOU. EVERY SINGLE PARTICLE IS SUSCEPTIBLE TO YOUR WILL, BUT FIRST YOU NEED TO MAKE THEM AWARE OF YOUR PRESENCE. THINK OF THEM AS SENTIENT BEINGS YOU NEED TO COERCE.]

Quirking her head to the side, Leigh had a hard time thinking of the EMs as ‘sentient beings’. The instructions went against every fiber of her technological upbringing. It was almost like the UEF was asking her to believe in spiritual forces as an actual thing.

[THE PROCESS OF CONTROLLING THE EMS IS DIFFERENT FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL, AND THUS HARD TO EXPLAIN. HOWEVER, A GOOD INITIAL VISUALIZATION IS TRYING TO FIND YOUR ‘CENTER’ - THE ALTERED EM CHIP - AND CONNECT A STRING TO EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ‘NANITE’.]

Center? Leigh almost scoffed aloud. Soon they’d be telling her to gather her inner chi, or maybe they’d just skip right into magic.

[START WITH JUST ONE EM AT A TIME, FIRST REACHING OUT TO EACH OF THE NANITES IN YOUR BODY. THEN CAREFULLY EXPAND YOUR REACH, SO THAT ALL NANITES ARE AT YOUR INTRINSIC COMMAND INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING YOUR CHIP’S PROGRAMED ASSIST.]

Leigh couldn’t help herself from glancing at the other’s completion rates. Her heart stuttered in her chest when she saw both Nathan and Charlie at 0.00002%. Most of the others, including Arthur, were now at 0.00001%. Leigh really was falling behind. Feeling a cold shiver of apprehension run down her back, she found herself looking across her again. She hadn’t imagined the ill-will being thrown her way, Shi’estna was already glaring at her again. If it hadn’t only antagonized the girl more, Leigh would have rolled her eyes, but in the effort to remain invisible, she shut herself off like most of the others and focused on the Initiation Procedure.

Her CHIP easily told her the exact amount of ‘nanites’ in her body, over nine trillion. She shuddered at the thought of having to control every one of them individually, that was something the CHIP had always automatically taken care of. Singling one of the nanites currently located on the tip of her right index finger, Leigh told her CHIP to keep it there while she tried to make herself ‘aware’ of it. She caught herself looking at her finger as if it would help her see it somehow, and when she realized the foolishness of her behavior, she put her hand down in embarrassment only to find a dozen or so others doing the exact same thing.

Leigh quirked a smile. Knowing that she wasn’t the only one having trouble finding an appropriate approach settled her nerves a bit. This was nothing like anything they had ever been required to do. Shaking her head in resignation, she returned to the nanite still frozen in her finger. Closing her eyes this time, she tried to focus on it, but no matter how much she tried to ‘feel’ for it, she simply couldn’t grasp it. She had all the information in the world about it, but that was only what the CHIP was telling her about it.

A minute, two minutes and then three minutes ticked by and she still struggled while dozens of other people started moving up in the percentiles. Biting the inside of her lip she glanced at Nathan and was shocked to see little blue zaps appear on the palm of his hand. It really did look like magic. Eyes widening in horror, as the distance between her and those around her grew, Leigh couldn’t help but look at Charlie as well, only to find him already looking at her. He then did something that undulated the silvery hues of his skin and winked at her while he was at it.

Looking away, she didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, but couldn’t help muttering, “Show off,” under her breath.

“Hey,” Arthur said simply beside her, “If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

Leigh had no idea how he’d even caught on to the exchange, Arthur was leaning back with closed eyes and folded arms. His legs were stretched out in front of him. He looked like he was in a summer barbecue instead of being shuttled off to an interstellar mission.

Arthur was now at 0.00002%.

And Shi’estna’s glare was back in full-force.

She was at 0.00001%.

Leigh groaned and got back to her own procedure. She couldn’t afford to keep track of others. Closing her eyes once more, she blocked out everything else like she had on the day of Selection. Only the core CHIP functions were on, and Leigh once again tried to get a feel for the nanite. She tried all of the suggested methods, extrapolated and then moved on to whatever she could think of, but ‘feeling’ the nanite just seemed to be beyond her capabilities. Was she going to be one of the 33% that didn’t manage to Initiate her TrueSuit? Leigh clutched her hands anxiously.

There was a sea of nanites inside her, how was she supposed to focus on a single one of them? Leigh was mulling over the fact when a thought came to her and she wondered if she’d been going about it wrong the entire time. Water. She’d been thinking of the nanites as a body of water, but you couldn’t separate water from water. Sand though. Sand you could separate from one another. Hadn’t Arthur said something about particles? Immediately switching tactics, Leigh tried to visualize herself as a massive sand-stuffed doll. All she had to do was focus on one granule, one nanite. One particle.

The result was instant and Leigh felt like an idiot for not having thought of it sooner. Once she had the visual down, and the ‘nanite’ in her command, everything changed. It was like the nanite, or the EM the nanite carried anyway, became part of her and she was able to move it around at her will. But really, it wasn’t moving around at her will, it was her will. The moment she understood, she was able to link dozens of other EMs in succession. Dozens became hundreds, hundreds became thousands and then millions. For a while, she’d believed that the higher than average number of nanites in her system would put her at a disadvantage, but it was turning out to be the exact opposite. Each nanite was one EM she could link with ease. Leigh had no idea what she would do if she were required to link an EM without a nanite there to guide her.

Nanites really were like training wheels and in minutes she’d linked herself to all the nanites in her body, all 9,493,942,773,112 of them. She was moving on to the next instruction that had her removing the go-between nanites from the EM, when a notification popped up.

[THE SHUTTLE WILL BE DOCKING IN 60 SECONDS.]

Leigh startled at the message, having once more let herself get caught off guard. Huffing in annoyance she opened her eyes again and got back up to date. At 0.00003% of completion, she was still lagging behind most people, but she was no longer last, and for now, that was all that mattered.

The Space Station now loomed over the entirety of the spy-glass, but Leigh was too busy monitoring the shuttle’s progress and trying to figure out a way to get rid of the go-between nanite to pay it much attention. She was momentarily surprised by the utter lack of expression on Jade’s face as she looked at it, but then the girl looked away and Leigh wondered if she’d imagined it. Wasn’t that her home? Shouldn’t there be at least some semblance of homesickness? She remembered the way all the Earth Selects had gravitated towards it when they left the atmosphere. Jade’s progress bar was not public and Leigh found herself wondering about the girl, even when she couldn’t afford to.

Next to Jade, Shi’estna was back at glaring, but that was nothing new.

With a slight shake of her head, Leigh focused on the nanites again. This time she wasted no time trying to think of how to split a grain of sand. Instead, she relied on the power of picturing it like she had last time. This time though, she completely changed the image in her head from a grain of sand to a baby koala. It was the first thing that came to mind when she thought of the caretaker role of the nanite, she didn’t question it. The first separation was once again tricky, but once she’d successfully separated the first baby its mom, the rest came by easily. The image in her head was so vivid though, that she almost felt bad for the koalas. Almost.

Breathing a sigh of relief that she’d at least managed to get through one of the instructions with ease, she turned her attention to the next step. It required her to ‘reclassify’ the metallic substance the nanites had been made for, recycle it basically. Excited that she was really getting into the swing of things - she was slowly catching up to the others - she was unprepared for the jumble of emotions the next set of notifications brought.

[INBOX: NEW MESSAGE FROM KYLE MCMANN.]

It was her brother. He hadn’t sent her a message since… ever.

[DOCKING NOW.]

What could he possibly want from her?