“Change the designation of the soul sequestered with AI sleeve 642 to Sun-Alpha. How many of the other tests are done?”

“Your highness, 611 tests are done. The rest will be completed in 3 hours.”

“Good. Isolate the feed from Sun-Alpha and send it only to Our private unit. No one else is to given access to it. Release the souls that have been tested. Let the remaining tests run to completion. Use them to gather data for the other projects. Is Bio-Artisan Zee present?”

“Your Highness, I came as soon as I got the message that we had a viable candidate.”

“Have you seen the data-coil for Sun-Alpha?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Age around 14yrs, no prana/shakti training marks, dense memory layers and it came from a bio-compatible host. Despite its age, for our purposes its as good as a newborn soul. We can easily adjust the embryo to link to Sun-Alpha.”

“Continue.”

“Your highness, far be it for me to doubt you, but this soul has no training or experience...”

“How do you think it fared against the Level 2 entropic beast?”, Empress Mara cut him off.

“Your highness, for sure the beast would have overwhelmed it. Without any protection or knowledge of evasion techniques, it would have been helpless.”

Mara smiled and sent him a comment through a secure, momentary transmission. Zee’s eyed widened in shock and fear.

“Artisan Zee, We will leave you to oversee the next steps for the linking with your artificers. Keep a sensory channel feed of the process to Our unit open.”

"Your highness, rest assured, we will not fail you.”, Zee mopped the sweat off his forehead as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

His second sent a comm-touch, “Master, what did the Empress say?”

Zee smacked her head, “Mind your own affairs. We have quite a bit to get done and cannot fail.”

He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath, taking in prana and guiding it through his nadis to his chakras, letting its cool touch calm him as he pondered the impossible words of Empress Mara, “He made 2 Level 4 run.”

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

“Are you sure?”

Nalan was pacing across the room, at the foot of the bed, trying to maintain a calm facade and failing. She didn’t respond immediately. She stretched on the bed waiting for him. After a while he stopped and look at her, then she replied, “Yes”

“But, he has no training, no experience. He doesn’t even know enough about souls and the Soulscape. How will he protect our child?”

She sighed. She got off the bed and went to him. She wanted to get this over quickly and it would be easier with him holding her. As she got into his embrace, she looked directly into his eyes and said, “Do you know someone that could fight off level 4 entropic beasts without any training, experience, prana and shakti. Can you?”

That stopped him. He was a warrior, her warrior. He knew what this meant, yet she could sense the uncertainty, confusion and fear in him. He was her first husband. It was a marriage dictated by statecraft, first of quite a few. There was no love, but there was lust and friendship. He had surprised her. Even though he came from a conservative faction and focused heavily on training and leveling, he turned out to be more than a tall and delicious meathead. He was loyal, reliable, thoughtful, smart, prideful but not arrogant, ruthless yet caring. He had become the leader of her armies, by the stint of his skill and war-craft. All the soldiers loved him, none of the courtiers questioned his merits for the role. He was also the first true friend she made. That is why this hurt her.

He wouldn’t let up. “But this is our first, fated not planned. Shouldn’t we try and get someone who would have a better chance...”

That was true. The pregnancy had been a surprise, a 0.01% chance made real. Their original discussion had kept children away for another few decades. Even then it would have been using bio-artisans to create the best embryo from both parent’s DNA and then carried to term in the royal gestation tanks. Optimizing an embryo’s bio-characteristics during a natural conception was doable but not like one that was created strand by strand. Also, it would be carried to term by her, it couldn’t be moved to the gestation tanks.

“Like who?”, she countered, “Do you know how the Sages will attack our son? Do you know what training or experience can deal with that?. I don’t. I do know that the boy will be better at it than any of the others.”

She put her finger on his lips to stop him, “The royal bio-artisans and artificers have already scanned and created an exact copy. If things go badly, we can still have our son.”

“It won’t be the same. The soul... I cannot let you gamble on my son’s life and future.”

She stepped away from him and arched her eye, “Who are we?”

“You are my wife, my son’s mother...”

“Who. Are. WE?”

“Empress Mara of the Golden Sun Empire”

“An attack on our child, is an attack against US. Against the empire. We will respond as befits an Empress. We will do what needs doing. Our decision is final. Our decision is the law.”

“...”

She kept quiet looking him straight in the eye.

A look of sadness and resignation crept into his eyes, that cut to her core, she put her fingers on his face to caress his dimples.

“Ok”. Then he looked up and added, “I wish I had been there to see that fight.”

“I can show you”, she took his hand, glad to have her friend back, “Come.”

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

“I know I am playing with our sons’ futures, with plots infesting plots, but I see no other way to protect the future.”

Mara was lying with her head in Amer’s lap, her favourite, her lover. They were on a bench in the balcony of his room watching the last sun set. He had been her fifth marriage for political reasons. He came from a small but powerful kingdom, placed strategically in the sector. He was the only son and heir. The marriage had enhanced her family and empire’s power a lot. Conquering the man had avoided the bloodshed of conquering the kingdom. Then he had conquered her.

He was not chiseled like Nalan, but he was strong and stamina, he had loads of stamina. He was sharp and witty, could always make her laugh. She suspected he was smarter than her. She had found it easy to be herself with him, easy to talk, easy to just be.

He was just listening, letting her talk. He was in-charge of her spies and personal guard. He was the one leading the implementation of this project. He already knew of her choice and had not challenged it. When she had settled things with Nalan, he had been away gathering the materials for the sutras they would be applying, gathering allies and support needed to win this. She had waited six days to unload, and he was letting her.

She was glad to have him back.

“Why don’t you tell Nalan what is really...”

“He wouldn’t understand. And he is too invested in the child to think rationally. He won’t be able to handle a plan that sacrifices it.”

“You think the boy will deliver?”

“Yes, possibly more than we can imagine.”

“You think...”, there was hope in his eyes.

“A little bit. His will is strong and he is smart, very smart.”

“More intelligent than you?”

“More intelligent, more cunning, more resolute. Even more than you.”

He smiled and let the compliment slide. He had stopped trying to correct her long ago. Instead he asked, “Is it enough? We don’t know what he will be facing, but he will be facing something capable of harming a soul.”

“I don’t know. But I also didn’t know that someone could do what he did.”

“I wish I could have seen that.”

“I can show you”, she took his hand, glad to have her lover back, “Come.”

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

It was awesome. Even though his after-life would be short lived he was loving it. He had the avatar pull in more of the MABs... for “practice”. Mara, the original, had been against this in the beginning, not willing to risk his memories. It had taken a bit of effort but he had found that the fight had only affected some obscure memories - tastes and textures that had no impact on him or his abilities. As per their agreement he was doing memory audits after each practice session to ensure only non-essential parts were impacted.

In two weeks he could solo a level 6, 3 level 5s and 4 level 4s. It felt like fighting in a video game. He had always fought only when necessary, often pulling his power to avoid seriously hurting his opponents. Being able to let go and give it his all, with no regard to consequences was amazing and unreal. He felt he would suddenly hear Morpheus asking him, “Do you think it is air you are breathing?”.

Mara visited him a couple of times in those two weeks. He knew she was not being honest with him, but the core was true. There was a child. The child would be attacked. For him that was enough. He still enjoyed questioning the holes in her stories. He never got the full truth but what he got was enough to confirm his suspicions. He realised that his questions were expected and her answers ready, amazingly they were not designed to allay his suspicions.

“You plan to replace the second embryo. Why can’t you then just do that for the first one? Instead of all this cloak and dagger stuff.”

“Yes, I can and a copy has been prepared. But it won’t be the same. The copy would acquire a new soul and be a different person.”

“Besides ...”

“Besides, the enemy is aware of my plan. There are too many people involved for there not to be leaks. I have woven together multiple threads into this, to keep them busy unraveling it. Like me they can see an overall pattern but not the details.”

“It seems like you don’t try to keep secrets.”

“I do keep secrets but I am not a fool to believe in the power of secrets.”, she sighed then repeated her father’s lesson, “An undertaking that depends on secrets to protect itself, starts protecting its secrecy instead of its objective. Don’t waste too much on preventing your enemies from discovering your plans. Instead focus on protecting the plans once they are exposed.”

“Hmmm... hit them so hard they hit the ground and then keep hitting them so that they stay down and their friends know to stay away.”

“Something like that. I don’t want to sidestep tradition, I want to end it so that they can’t keep coming at me. I am looking to take the fight to them.”

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

After Mara left, he resumed “practice”. “642, let in some level 4s, I want to try something new.”

642 looked on passively and let 6 clouds drift in to the dome. They all started taking form as they moved slowly towards him. Surprisingly the animal shapes at each level were always the same, Level 5 - panther, Level 6 - python, Level 7 - mammoth. While levels 1 - 7 were drawn from his memories, apparently levels 8 and 9 were same for all, a dragon and a lion, respectively.

He was now able to handle 4 wolves easily, 5 at a stretch. 642 knew that, maybe the 6th one snuck in or maybe 642 was messing with him. Either way he figured it was time to stretch his limits. He limbered up and switched on his fighting soundtrack. He was thoroughly stoked by this. Through many fights he had experimented with his mental state and discovered that it wasn’t that he need a blank mind or singular focus - he needed an absolutely steady mind. Blanking his mind or focusing on a singular action were the easy ways of achieving this. The hard way was to split his mind or focus. Letting one part of his mind focus on the fight, on following his instincts and keeping it rock solid, while another part could analyse and plan, or do music.

On Earth, he had eidetic memory. He could perfectly recall all images or sounds from any moment from around 3 years old. He had some images from earlier also, but no sense or understanding of them. Imagine having a record of all the horror and pain you’ve ever been through, in ultra high definition audio and video that you can watch any time, any day. He could never forget, so he had to steel himself to power through. His guru and martial arts training had helped a lot with this. But it was not all bad. During the rare moments of peace he would immerse his mind into his favorite songs or movie scenes or his moments with Rima, reliving those moments of happiness.

Now he was able to fight with a soundtrack in the background. On Earth he had never worked out how to split focus. Here, with nothing else to do but explore his abilities, he had. It reinforced the video game feeling, unlocking abilities at higher levels and finding Easter-eggs. Being able to split his mind like this was amazing but being able to keep part of his mind steady, no matter what, felt superhuman. It took that level of effort to not panic as he saw the clouds coalesce into six wo....panthers!

He looked at 642 and screamed, “642, shut this down. These are not level 4s.”

He expected a smirk before the dome would contract ejecting the panthers. Nothing happened. That damned AI avatar stood there passively, looking like a statue. He could see a slight wavy shimmer over the surface of 642, like it was covered in vapor. This was new. It felt like being in an intense fight in Counter Strike and seeing the team mate guarding your six go AFK.

He looked back at the panthers circling him. He had set the music to a training montage, he let it be. Somehow this didn’t feel like a boss fight.