Faction V

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. That really depends on how you define the ‘scream’. Or how you define the ‘hearing’ of it. Or perhaps, 'nobody'.

There is a presence that accompanies every sound: the presence of interference, deviation, differences through its maturity. It is a presence that is known by all and recognized by few, until absent. There was a chirp. There was a producer and a receiver of the sound. It struck in a microscopic way, a sound as neat as the tip of a needle, communicating a perfect topography.

In space, the sound would not travel. Bone-to-bone was another matter. Through a transition energy, the sound could be pushed as bone-to-bone even should the receiving bone be detached and far from the producer. The Coriolis made this possible. A river of winding conscious energy that worked by lacing itself between dimensions, modulating its own definition and capacity. The Coriolis bound itself between two points, while defining itself as one. It had a tension. Within it, towards the extending end, were two bodies of bone. Separate, but allowed to communicate per the grace of the Coriolis bound to them.

The receiver was a segmental structure of lab-generated bone and ligaments armoring a natural body. An imprint etched into the back of the bone suit cited Kreallus – home to the Kray, one of many human branched races. Mikban and his bone armor were rocketing to a completely artificial outfit: a vaguely spherical metallic structure speckled with silica structures, gaps, outlets, spikes, and probes.

The existence of the Vir-ships used to challenge his concept of what was alive. As did the Coriolis. He determined that it did not matter what was alive. It did not matter that nobody knew why the Vir-ships came, what their ultimate plan was, if there was one. He was an instrument of the Museum and knew no other life. He loved the Museum, and so he loved the Coriolis that had been made of its Enduring Constituents. Even the Constituents would admit that while the Vir-ships must be destroyed, they could not be defined as evil or bad. And only Ephemerals - those born of transient beings and destined to die as such - could do the deed. Ephemerals, like Mikban and his partner.

Mikban's partner followed behind him. Sens was a distinctly reptilian creature: a Rictor. His kind had managed to make a way for itself by stretching the evolutionary bounds pertaining to their metabolism: the Rictor had evolved to be only conditionally ectothermic. Sens donned his own bone suit, created from his stem cells fostered into form and function by the ship’s medic as Mikban’s had been. If they wanted to survive the path to the target through the void of space, protection was through their own DNA and the coursing tributaries of the invisible Coriolis bound to their genetic signatures.

As Mikban neared the metallic structure, he slowed to a near-stop; the flow of the Coriolis shunted. Sens met his partner – ‘his Kray’ - in a collisional dance; both carried hooks and cord but only Mikban bore D-rings and clamps. The current movements represented a simple protocol. Sens took hold of his partner and twisted into a quicker flowing path of the invisible river. They veered around the glimmering structure once before Mikban captured a hold by way of a hooked line. Sens remained above, shifting his body artfully within the Coriolis to stay in sight of his partner.

Mikban clicked, 'Easy. [I’m] getting good.'

Sens clicked and chirped back, '[I] knew where to pitch. More holds than normal. Don’t like it.'

The ship has its own pull and, once in close enough, Mikban landed feet first, fastened his cord to himself and took off dashing along its surface. His eyes scanned back and forth rapidly, his head moving systematically. A panel beaming a sequence of colors came into view. He veered towards it only to keep it in his sight for a moment longer and continued away from it. He spotted his target and dove towards the spot. He removed a device no larger than a coin that had been stuck to his cord and forcefully inserted it into a tiny crevice. Again and again, he dove and inserted, still observing the ship critically.

Above, Sens clicked, 'Don’t like this. This ship-'

Mikban looked up in time to see his partner fumble his controlled position.

Mikban chirped, '[I'm] done. Come get [me].'

There was no response. His partner was unconscious. Mikban snapped off his cord and ran in the direction his Rictor had rotated off to. He called out his partner’s name in his own tongue. Should it had been heard in the way we might understand it, perhaps it would have been loud. A scream. A whisper. It did not matter. The soundless words died in the nothing around him, but on the tail of its death rode a trigger.

The ship lit up. Two beams of light shot out, flexing and curving slightly through the Coriolis. One arched through Sens just as a rumble emanated from within the ship’s core below Mikban's feet. Sens awoke. He consumed the information around him quickly, immediately diving towards his partner. Mikban shot up the other end of his cord towards him. A moment of twisted acrobatics and Mikban was in his arms.

The Coriolis underwent a shift; they were hurling back from where they’d come.

Sens put his mouth to the ear of his partner as the Coriolis pulled in on itself, them along with it. “I’d like to reprimand you, Mikban. We had a good streak.” While in contact, they were no longer restricted to Rictor-lang.

“We have a good streak staying alive!” Mikban pealed back. The alert had woken Sens. That’s all that mattered. There was no getting home without him.

Sens clicked. 'Truth, brother.'

The push-pull back into the ship was painful. The Coriolis had to release and for a split second the frozen emptiness of space shocked their bodies. The onset of the Coriolis required a donation of the body, a shared control, and with the hands of the Coriolis removed, regaining control was not immediate; the subjects lost consciousness. They rocketed into an open bay; the door sealing behind them. Sens still held Mikban tightly, rolling on to stiff ground.

Yurimo awaited them. She had eyes of azure-iron, a stance of unadulterated confidence, long hair braided in three segments and tied up in a well strategized bun, all three tails struck out through the top-center: a lot of work that she did none of. Her blue-white ship suit covered everything aside from her head and neck. The suit denoted her association with Truyian Defense Act which included six factions serving Truyu, the home Ground of her kind and of the Museum. A barely noticeable bulge that ran down her back denoted her as not quite human. A red band was tied around her right arm verified it: she was a Constituent of the West. Museum-West. A Wester: not of a place, but of an orientation.

Her first motion was to tug Mikban from his much larger partner’s grasp and separate them on the warmed foam flooring. Though they were both unable to trigger their own motions, their bodies had been trained – programmed – to respond to input when the executive was at a loss. After a few quick twists, Mikban was released.

Then came the cleaning. Their memories would be accessed, replicated, and analyzed. Their bodies would be checked and serviced as needed.

They awoke at the baths – bone suits removed and heads resting outside warm water on an incline into a large frothy pool. Pillars of dark marble rose skyward into infinity. A ceiling existed, invisible to the Ephemeral eye. Walls of perspiring stone surrounded the pool on three sides. The fourth wall was a flat silver, circles and lines etched upon it. Hextiles extended from the fourth wall and transitioned to stone before reaching any of the other wall edges. They curved into the pool.

Yurimo kneeled by Sens, hand upon his head. Sens’ scutes and scales were ecru, lined a light silver-gray. Though he had grown past having a tail, his coloration revealed him to be a juvenile.

Mikban murmured as he awoke, “Sens blacked out. In the field.”

He said it without thinking. Yurimo was their analyst, a Truyian analyst – a Constituent of the Museum. She had taken all their local memories. The sensations that Mikban experienced could be dissected and understood by him alone, but Yurimo had particular expertise. Consuming his memories enabled her to evaluate the ship without having been there.

“I know,” She said, “What you did was fair. I wonder how long it will take the Vir-ships to detect Rictor-lang.”

Sens grumbled, “We blow it?”

“Into tiny pieces,” Her lips broadened into a smile. She allowed her pupils to drift up to the ceiling. She could sense their emotions acutely. Both sides in fear of error, they were especially hungry for praise. The hextiles that lined the walls and floors nearby interpreted it as envy, and hued a weak purple-green.

Sens shifted, “I had a dream there- from the ship. Did you take it from me?”

She crouched closer to Sens, her smiled faded, “I took a lot out of Mikban. It was an unusual ship to be sure. I couldn’t find any dreams on your end. Can you remember any of it?”

“I can’t. It was bad. Anti-protect.”

“A sense that you were hurting while trying to help?”

Sens eyes deepened; his shoulders dropped slightly. She was on target. A nearby hextile veered towards a darker hue.

Mikban sat up, brushing wet black hair from his face. He rolled over on top of Sens to look Yurimo in the eye, “Did the ship attack him?”

She exchanged slight body-movements with Mikban, a physical language adopted from the Rictor along with the snaps, clicks and chirps they used in the field. She angled her head to the left and rolled her eyes in the same direction slowly. It was possible. It would be very meaningful if it did. The Enduring had thoughts on the matter; East and West were already discussing it.

To all knowledge, Vir-ships had only targeted the Enduring. The Ephemeral were invaluable in cleansing the system of the Vir-ships as they could maneuver with little notice. The Vir-ships primarily targeted Truyu – Truyian Ground – the source of the Enduring Constituents of the Museum that birthed them. If an attack on Sens came from the ship, it would have been the first targeting on an Ephemeral.

Mikban looked to the hextiles for hints, but Yurimo was more telling. It had been a kind of attack, but the attacker might not have been the Vir-ship itself. Psychological matters were much more Enduring, but why a Truyian would interfere with an activity that only served to benefit their own kind was beyond Mikban’s comprehension.

Sens had also made the connection, “The Rollers. Did they notice anything? They would have noticed an Enduring force in their Coriolis.”

Yurimo shook her head, “Hallus and Glan thought the Coriolis blinked but it never went down. They didn’t detect other entities.”

Mikban sighed and relaxed, “Well, whatever. Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t happen again anyhow.”

Yurimo leaned in, “Absolutely right. We don’t have enough information to do anything about it.”

Mikban shifted and gripped Sens to draw himself closer to Yurimo. His tone changed. He was ready to forget it. There were more important matters.

“Holding out on me for three, now four missions…tell me you’re thirsty.”

Sens stood up abruptly, shoving Mikban off him. Mikban yelped, splashing into the water. He waded back to the edge without concern. His Rictor was prone to aggressive motions, and he knew what had caused this one. He chuckled.

“Wasn’t going to get at it on top of you,” Mikban assured him, “I know how much you hate that.”

Sens glared at Mikban before whipping around to stare just as sharply into Yurimo. She stood firmly. She waited. His glare bit long. Mikban moved back.

Sens growled, “What they did to Rumik. He hadn’t even lost his tail. Hopeless. Pointless. The Constituents could have stopped it.”

Mikban flinched. Rumik was on the other ship of the faction. If Rumik's past suffering caused him trauma, he didn’t show it. Why Sens would find this relevant now mystified him. How this could relate to the entirely consensual relationship he had with Yurimo – or any other Enduring – more so.

The outburst troubled Yurimo, but she did not touch on its placement. His behavior and further response would be information enough. She would reply slowly.

Yurimo’s eyes deepened, “Sens. We didn’t know what happened to Rumik until he made it to us.”

“Do you know if they still do it? Still abuse their young? Did you ever find out? No. Opportunity to stop the abomination and you didn’t.”

“Abomination is such a relative, subjective term. You know this well.”

Mikban poked in, “Says the god to the monster. It is true. I tell you, Sens, I would be intolerable if I didn’t get some good time in-“

Sens continued to Yurimo, “Mikban is more a child to you, Yurimo! More a child than the tailed Rictor to the full grown!”

“I’m not a child,” Mikban barely inserted.

“No constituent of the Museum,” Yurimo asserted, “would force themselves upon the undeveloped physicality of an Ephemeral.”

“No?” Sens began to perspire, “There is nothing that could change that? The Museum controls you when you are connected. The disconnected version of you can be plenty at odds.”

“It wouldn’t be me, Sens. It wouldn’t be the Museum.”

“Nothing - that could change what you think you’d do- for something so selfish? Nothing at all, Yurimo? Take out the blade and show me that you speak the truth when you say ‘no’!”

Yurimo produced a small coin. She flicked it into the air and from it pulled a short sharp knife. She poised with it confidently, bringing it to her other hand. She depressed it into her palm. A faint red showed, quickly masked by a cyan glow. The Sefrei- the healing force sourced from the Museum- assured him that she was connected as she spoke. While connected, she could not lie.

“I swear to you Sens, though I should not have to. I swear on my identity, I would never selfishly force myself on an Ephemeral. I condemn the acts that led Rumik to us.”

Sens continued to prod, “And there is nothing- nothing in the universe or multiverse or known dimensions- that could change your actions?”

Yurimo blinked. Something held her voice back. She lowered the knife. She held up her still-glowing palm.

“Sens, I would not be your Yurimo if I did those things but, I must confess, which is what you’ve driven me to: there exist horrors that can possess ones such as myself. Horrors that would challenge the alliance between matter and energy that the Museum has forged. Horrors that might make this body and mind something entirely different. I wish it were not true.”

A warm tone reverberated through the room, shifted pitch and settled. Crackling grew to accompany the sequence and a Constituent of the East stepped into the room. The audition continued, reflected in the slight of his body. His ship suit was as Yurimo’s, but with a blue band denoting his Easter proclivity. Foster was a detector, one of the controllers and the regulators, and complement to the West. His appearance suggested he had been listening. There were few places that the East did not have ears.

He brushed back bark-brown hair. Sens and Mikban acknowledged him weakly. In the sound he presented there was a communicated sense:

Awaiting to see your satisfaction/You are not wrong, nor right

Sens felt himself compelled, “Should not condemn what I do not understand.”

The sounds of the East had brought him to center. To Foster, it required barely a slight of hand. The thoughts had still escaped Sens’ before such a centering. They could not be unheard. There was meaning here.

Yurimo reached out to touch him, “Your subconscious may still remember the dream. Your challenge is a communication in itself.”

Sens squeezed his eyes shut, “The horrors you mentioned. Do you think they could be at work? Would they work to stop us? To change us?”

There was a moment of silence. Such horrors were very far away in the mind of Yurimo, but Sens’ intuition could not be dismissed. A silent dialog between the analysts and detectors was in session in the background, where no Ephemeral could see or hear.

Foster spoke up, the sound of his accompaniment fading to nothing in an instant, “Sens, you’ve undergone a shift, out of place. I can smell the difference. So can Yurimo.”

Yurimo’s eyes drifted, “This wasn’t supposed to be for another few decs…”

Sens hunched. He knew exactly what they meant. Yurimo’s projection for a few decs: she had only made such a projection for his molt. He could say nothing.

Mikban pulled himself out of the water. Sens’ eyes closed and his breath stagnated. Mikban peered at his face and examined his body. A shock rippled through him; Sens had not yet finished mourning the loss of his tail and he was already moving to the next stage.

Foster took on a serious tone, “Something has pushed this. It is far too early.”

Mikban turned to Foster, eyes wide and body tense.

Foster pursed his lips. He began humming.

Yurimo stiffened, “Keep this quiet among the factions for now. It will start slow. Sens will hold his own as long as he can. Won’t you, Sens?”

Sens nodded faintly.