I come to slightly disoriented on the Outpost’s virtual chamber, feeling the painful headache that’s a result from time compressing inside the Market. Though I spent nearly four hours inside — and my comrades nearly six — only one hour of real-time passed. Reader is already expertly disconnecting everything from his bland, metallic droid body, while Santos does her best not to puke. Yeah, that’s another thing they don’t tell you on training. The first time especially sucks.

Reader assists me with my connectors while the Outposts’ workers help Santos.

“Porra, that was tiresome,” I comment, massaging my forehead.

“Indeed, it was. Not an excuse to cuss though.”

“What the hell is going on with you, Reader? First you act like a moron and go under without warning me, but all of a sudden you start behaving so serious?” I snap at it suddenly, his strange behavior reaching the turning point of my patience.

“I’m said I was sorry already, you ass. But I think being forced to lose might have helped me grow more than many of our victories, honestly. My machine echo is whispering something to me. I’m starting to believe I won’t stay for much longer around here. The time to expand my horizons is coming — and I think I know who might replace me here.”

“Well, that’s good! But that sucks. I’m happy for you, but I want no replacement. There’s a chance he’ll know what he is doing, and I’ll miss proving you wrong 100% of the time,” I answer, the turmoil I’m feeling coming clear through my words. So I go back to what always works for me — banter. Santos tries to interrupt our bromance moment, but we ignore her puking even if it’s excessive and drenches the poor sods trying to help her.

“On the contrary, I’ve learned much about how not to do things under your supervision,” he fires back.

“Yeah, just don’t do it like my opponents, that’s the lesson,” I retort, grinning as he helps me up.

The machine echo he quoted on is something I should expand about. It turns out that the universe at large as understood a bit more about how life originates than we did. Who would have guessed? Some of Earth’s inhabitants have dedicates their lives to such pursuits, but there are whole civilizations obsessed with the study of life. Organic material throughout the universe carries an unquantifiable potential of having will, and when the conditions are just right what they call a Soul can develop, usually in the beginning of multicellular life that then tends to grown and reproduce until sentience as we know it is formed in many millions or even billions of years later. And by right conditions I don’t mean a planet in the goldilocks zone, there’s extremophile life in environments we would have never guessed,

The artificial or synthetic life as we non-technically call it goes through a similar if different phenomenons. Technical life begins with what we call machine echo. Will also is present in non organic elements, with the addend that galactic organic chemistry in a field that came to include not only carbon-based chemistry but all kinds of biochemistry. Some forms of mana also carry the potential to hold will, coming to form what they call mana ghosts. Echos and Ghosts are very similar to a Soul, only differing in that they’re practically unheard of ever forming outside of organic civilizations. There are theories stating it might be possible, but it’s never been observed.

Soul Magnetism is the phenomena of how Echo and Ghosts in close contact with organics end up creating artificial intelligences, the AIs. I’ve illustrated how the AIs try to increase their odds of reproduction by rudely putting earmarked VIs in people’s internal comps’ hoping they get the spark they need to ascend to a higher intellect; but there are other more spontaneous ways of an AI coming to be. The Soul, as I’ve said before, can be damaged if someone goes through rebraining, and it might be used as anchor for contracts with familiars as well.

That means even objects and things we might consider inanimate may hold some form of will. Percussive maintenance might mean you have an opinionated or needy object, bereft of you gentle touch. Maybe that’s the problem with Diego’s laser shotgun. Or it’s only the shoddy designing, who knows? I should add that the soul, echo or ghost is still an integral part of the organic or AI, and its part of what our subconscious is; AIs can feel their subconscious it more easily than us organics usually. Also, don’t ask someone to explain what will is unless you want to start a scientific war. It’s the secret element to recipe that scientists are still unable to explain satisfactorily.

“Barro?” Fera pokes her head in the chamber, breaking my brief writing introspection. She’s looking at us and waves to Reader as Santos is taken groggily to an advanced vapor shower. That piece of tech is on my personal wish-list, so quick and practical. A shame the army has so much glaring needs that such a useful thing doesn’t make the list. But I hope to have alleviated a good part of our most urgent needs at the moment. “Gods, they’re transferring a lot of goods here. Productive day?”

“Yeah, you could say it was… And thanks for the tip about the Barkers’ stuff. Made a pretty penny out of it.”

“You’re welcome. But something caught my attention on the report of your acquisitions, Barro. Gnodarian Slaves? Aren’t your people very against the concept?”

“Ah, yeah… Fuck, I’ll have to explain that to a lot of people. We won it in a challenge, but I don’t even know what a Gnodarian is…”

“They’re tall, smart and vicious. People buy them for blood sports or for slave-soldiers,” she explains like if it was obvious. I have a hard enough time keeping track of mythics, I can’t even begin do it for aliens.

“Maybe we just free them and send them back to their planet?” Reader suggests.

“What planet? They’re one of the Broken species.”

“Broken what? Did someone destroy their planet”

“Ah, I see,” Reader reads up on the information in a flash. “They waged indiscriminate war, wiping out at least two sentient species. They were conquered by the Paladin Swarm and suffered a Breaking.”

“Precisely, the Swarm is serious about that. There’s not a single Gnodarian on their former planet — they don’t even know which one it is anymore. They were either expelled to fringe words or enslaved, their civilization broken.”

“Fuck, sometimes I swear I forget how ruthless the Swarm can be for all they cast themselves as Paladins,” I comment.

“The advice I can give you is to never cross the line on what they consider evil,” says Fera, shrugging. “Could be worse, there a lot more mean, savage bastards around — Manarun and the Framework come to mind.”

One of the reason the Barkers don’t engage in brain-burning is the Swarm’s distaste for the practice — a fallen enemy should be respected. But they are nothing but pragmatical, and wouldn’t flinch to pay back the favor if we started doing it to their people.

“Caralho, why didn’t you bastards warn me?!” complains Santos as she finally shakes off the worse of the transition to real space.

“Wouldn’t have helped. And you deserved it,” I answer without batting an eye.

“Damn right,” agrees Reader and Fera chuckles at Santos’ evident chagrin.

“You’re a refreshing species, have I told you that?” the Jogumna says.

“Will the Gnodarians also be beamed here?” asks Santos, taking a hand to her face at the prospect of dealing with it.

“No, we can’t teleport living matter,” answers Fera with a slightly condescending grin. In her defense, it was a pretty Chipper question. “Well, we can, but they wouldn’t arrive as living, if you catch my drift.”

“How long until they get here, Fera? The ones who bring them to the Market pay the costs beforehand, right?”

“Yes, fortunately to you. It will take two weeks at the very least. They’ll travel in stasis, so they might not be very happy when they arrive.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I reply. “We’ll wait for the other goods to arrive and we’ll be on our way. I’ll message Lieutenant Colonel Polanski and report,” I add the last bit to Santos, who nods and will report her ordeal and success through her own channels. Hopefully she’ll include my suggestions and someone will actually pay attention this time. We say our farewells as she leaves to go to whatever hidey-hole the spooks go to, instructing Fera that she’ll be back to collect the goods later today.

I’m busy making my report on my internal computer, but I keep an ear out as Reader keeps on talking with the Jogumna appraiser.

“Say, Fera. Does it happen often that the Market can’t identify an item?” it asks.

“No, not at all…” she replies leadingly.

“We’ve acquired a Magical Egg. What do you suggest we do with it?”

“Not an omelet, that’s for sure. For now, keep it feed with mana — preferably not much or it will hatch soon. You could either sell it back, or try to keep it and see what comes out of it.”

“And identifying it?” he presses.

“For all the Market’s vastness, even they haven’t seen everything that magic can create. It could be something dangerous, helpful, or both. Or worthless. I can put you into contact with a fella I know, but it’ll cost you. He’s an expert on magical creatures.”

“How much?”

“I think it will cost ya 500 credits at least.” Damn, experts are expensive. And they charge you for everything, no freebies.

“We’ll talk about it. Thanks for the suggestion, Fera, we’ll get in touch.”

“You’ve got it. See you boys later, I have stuff to do,” Fera excuses herself and I wave goodbye distractedly.

My messaging with the Lieutenant Colonel is going swimmingly.

Damn good, job, Lieutenant! I’m proud of you. But what did you say about complications?

We had a couple of… Unforeseen acquisitions. You know how it goes…

Of course, but why didn’t you just pass those along?

One we don’t know enough about to value. The other… ethical reasons, Colonel.

How bad?

We’ll have to pass this on to high command — and Walks Softly and Carries a Longcannon just to be sure.

Fuuck, Barro. What the hell have you gotten us into?

I’ll have Reader send you more details. I need to return to base, Colonel. Do I have your permission?

Sure, drop a bomb and walk away. Fuck off, Barro. I don’t want to see your face for at least two weeks. And take your damn egg with you!

Yes, sir.

Swimmingly.

Hells, it was not like I could predict it, was it? They being a Broken people makes things harder. The Swarm will not accept their freedom easily, and most people won’t cross them just for the Gnodarians of ill-repute. The best scenario would see the Unity taking them out of our hands

Earth… Earth has its fair share of problems without adding aliens into the mix. There are the AIs and some Unity personnel and their families, but only in very limited numbers. Earth is going through an adaptation period, learning to deal with the mystic minorities and to substitute practices outlawed by the Unity — like factory farming. Synth-meat is okay, but they haven’t quite reproduced beef or pork yet.

My home-planet is also focused on two major tasks: cleaning up some of the damage to the environment, and building an orbital elevator to tether and anchor Orbital 1. In decades, we’ll need to start paying the Unity back for the station or to build or buy a replacement for it. Basically, they are juggling too many balls, and I’m afraid of how even the usually calm, sensible Walks Softly will react if I inadvertently throw another one in the mix. The Walker actually knows I exist — more than he would normally know from a grunt anyway. Fucking digital inclusion. My mother sends him e-mail, and Walker actually bothers to read and answer them. Urgh. I’ve told her a hundred times to stop, but who listens to the poor quartermaster?

“Hey, Barro!” greets me a familiar caramel werewolf, cheery as ever. “I see it was a good haul! We’ll need another two grav-carts for it!”

“I’ll get right on it,” the diligent Private Jones gets on it, his comparatively smaller, darker form darting out of the Outpost.

“Hey, is that your android sex-secretary, I see? Long time no see,” Diego carries on loudly, completely ignoring the stares from the Outposts’ workers.

“We’ve talked about it before, Barro. You can’t let your dog without a leash — and it’s past the time to nick both his vocal cords and his balls.”

“Ooof. 9/10, toaster. Savage,” he signs the number, smiling despite the barbed retort.

“I’ll leave you two be, don’t let your dog hump your leg, Barro. I’ll go meet the Colonel and try to sort out things. I’ll see you soon.”

“All right. Do call me if you’re gonna do something stupid like this again,” I call to him as he departs, and the AI waves. “Diego, you always lose in the slight game with Reader. Why do you even try?” I ask at the corporal, turning my amused gaze at him.

“Gotta keep him on his toes, is all. I’ll beat him someday, you can write that down!”

“I will. I am in fact, right now. This is Diego, dumb and deluded—”

“Shut up, Barro. You just need to tell them how beautiful I am, and how you secretly admire my muscular shape.”

I snort, but before I can reply, Jones reappears with a cart in tow. “I’ve got it. Let’s load things up!” It’s a shitload of heavy parts, though, and we need two hours and the enthusiastic assist of the Outposts’ crew to load it all up. I tip them a few credits every time I have so much stuff, so that explains the sullen bastards unusual mood. And they just beamed one third of the Sensor Array’s parts so far. This looks like a job for another person, so we scram before they can arrive.

We had back to our truck with the carts, stopping briefly at the Lodge to get a handful of loaders to help us out. We also leave the many parts of the Sensor Array, half of the Elemental Manarifles and True Thunder Shards, and three out of Reader’s five bundles on the Deposit next-door while we’re at it. Even with the grav-carts’ assist, it’s a chore and it takes us two hours.

“Fuck, give me Barkers— give me Diggers every day of the week if the choice is loading shit,” whines Diego as we finish stacking the crates that’ll return to FOB Pantera. Cainã is laying on the ground, breathing heavily and trying not to faint.

“I think he’s not of a working breed,” quips Jones, making me and the loaders laugh despite our exhaustion. The physical fatigue just adds up to my mental one, but a quartermaster’s job is never done. As we thanks the loaders for their help and they depart for their next chore, Reader approaches.

“Lieutenant Barro, I think it’s a good time for us to talk about your possible enhancements — I think I’ve gathered a good selection. We can only do biomech-implant or a ritual here at the Main Base, so now is the time.” He singles out one of the boxes we loaded and picks it up.

“Oh yeah, there’s that…” I say sullenly, even if it’s fucking awesome, I’m dog-tired. I’m wearing a back-pack with the damned Magical Egg, a mana-cable siphoning slowly my mana — not like there’s much more to spare.

“Don’t be so down, Barro! Pick something cool,” tells me Jones, giving me a thumbs up. I’ll actually have to pick two things, but whatever.

“While you two go and take care of that, Jones and I can go visit our wounded and round up the ones ready to return to base, all right?”

“Sure, we’ll meet at the hospital then. Cainã can take the truck there.”

“Sound like a plan. Good luck!”

I slowly trudge after my metal companion as we leave the others to their tasks, the most unenthusiastic people ever to go for an enhancement I’m fairly sure.