Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 9B3 - : Thinking creatively with Equipment

Xera glanced at the monitor looking out at the Starlit Sea and saw a worried Ollie. She knew he was worried, because he was not swimming about: instead just floating in place. “He’ll be fine,” she said in his direction.

Ollie nodded, “I know. He will survive. But I can still be nervous about it.”

Xera sighed, “I am, too. But, he has plenty of things weighed in his favor. His Equipment, the NICIF in his body which can rapidly repair damage with enough caloric intake…I think you are worrying too mu-”

Her attention was drawn to a beeping alert in the corner of her vision. Damnit, she thought. Another Astral Incursion. She keyed up her comms to Quinn, “Get the squad up and moving: we have another one.”

“Damn,” Quinn replied, “That’s the fifth one in three days.”

“They come in waves,” Xera replied. “Until all of the local Astral Verge is cleared from any types of entities. It will be back-to-back.”

Quinn’s voice was filled with trepidation, and her words came out quietly. “What about asking other factions to step in?”

Xera frowned, “They cannot close the rift. Only my Signers can. Because if you can close a rift, you can also open one.”

“Understood. I’ll let them know to get a move on.”

Xera looked to her various Wayfinders that were floating about, helping her keep the System intact. “Josie, make sure that we are monitoring the magic-focused worlds; those ones are normally the ones that try to pierce the layers of reality.”

“Understood!” Josie’s chipper voice replied.

Jace kept going down the right pathway and came across a series of the sparking traps that he once more cut through to disable. Moving forward with caution, he made sure to scan every single inch of the tunnel before moving forward; not wanting to risk any chance of injury. The memories of the trapped room on Velenar Prime where he took a flechette shotgun to the chest was not fresh, but it was traumatizing, and he had to take several deep breaths to calm himself.

It's just another gig, he thought. Not a courier gig, but before that, when I used to break into corpo holdings with the other street folk. It’s fine. Just…breathe. Like he taught me to.

Jace made it to another door, cut through it, and kicked it in. The clattering noise echoed down the hallway behind him, and as he stepped in he found another huge warehouse-type space full of cryogenic or stasis pods. Wiping away the frost buildup, he saw that the front few were empty, and choosing a few at random, he determined that they were all likely empty. But, unlike the other chamber, this one had several side doors.

Doors that were unlocked. Jace cut a slit in the center and peeked through it. The magical prosthetic eyes were able to make out the objects inside with perfect clarity. Dozens upon dozens of cases: and on the roof, some type of turret that slowly pivoted back and forth. It looked like a small coil with a bulb on the front, and electricity sparked from it.

I don’t have Dark Matter running through me, Jace thought as he glanced down at his now-gone Cosmic Power and Ascended Power symbols. So, I’m not resistant to electricity anymore, and that thing seems like electricity or lightning focused. …My options are somewhat limited. I have mostly metal stuff which is probably conductive. He glanced down at his Anathema Arm. But this thing is a magic prosthetic at its core. It’s not part of The Cosmic System by default, it was integrated into it. So…theoretically…the electricity won’t affect it, since it is magitech based.

But Jace paused in his thinking, But what if its more technology than magic? I can’t take the risk. So, what do I have that doesn’t conduct electricity? He unshouldered his pack and began digging through. The bedroll? He thought as he pulled out the Devilsram bedroll. I mean, it’s cloth. He used his sword to cut a slightly larger slit underneath the one he had used to peek through the door, and fed the wool wrapping through the slot.

Watching through his small peep-slit, he saw the turret snap focus onto the bedroll and then shoot out an arc of electricity. He dropped his grip on it, and saw the electricity dissipate against the thick wool. It kept firing a stream, but the wool only slightly curled.

“Yes!” he whisper-shouted to himself, pulling the bedroll back, holding it up in front of himself, and opening the door. The turret locked onto him, shot forth: and dissipated against the bedroll. Holding it in one hand, he smothered the turret and then used his sword to cut it free from the ceiling. With a fzzt the device was disabled.

It’s not useless, Jace thought as he chuckled, pulling the bedroll down. Score is even now, turrets, he thought as he picked up the now inert chunk of metal and tossed it out into the room next to his pack along with the bedroll.

Turning to the cases, he cut off the lock dangling from the front and lifted it. Inside were sets of clothing; neatly folded up and layered atop each other. They had ports on the arms, legs, and stomach area: if the things were Human. But the outfit was way thinner than any human could wear, and there were several extra arm and leg sleeves. This must be what they were supposed to wear before going into the tubes, he thought as he checked the other boxes to confirm his theory. All were full of the outfits.

Going from door to door he repeated the process to disable the electricity turrets. By the time he had cleared out every room, fifteen minutes had passed, he had a pile of twenty electricity turrets that were mostly intact, having been cut from the bases that mounted to the ceiling. And, he also had determined that all of the various rooms were outfitted with bits and pieces of equipment that were suited for all manner of tasks: including finding an armory. There were melee weapons that looked like some types of maces that had large, circular heads with small bulbs. The trigger on the base of the handle caused it to spark with static.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And firearms. Some type of rifle that, upon picking up and testing by aiming at one of the pods, shot out a stream of electricity for as long as the trigger was held down. But, it heated up as it was used. Thankfully, the super-cool ambient temperature thanks to the world’s rogue-planet status meant that he could effectively fire an endless stream of lightning.

Taking one of the lightning rifles: which was bulky, but he could hold in one hand thanks to his strength: he headed back to the T-intersection, got back to the main four direction intersection, and chose to go down the opposite corridor; right if entering from the main entrance hall.

But as he began to move down, he paused in place. There was a loud, whirring noise that met his ears. Pulling back to the four-direction hallway, he closed his eyes and focused on his hearing. I should get some prosthetic ear replacements, he thought. Something that increases my aural acuity. He could hear…the sound of a drone. Something with fast-whirring blades to help it fly. But it did not sound like it was getting closer. It was holding place somewhere outside. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Maybe the Black Hole Conclave are using drones to scout out Complexes? That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Jace slowly walked forward, keeping the rifle raised in one hand, and holding his sword in the other. As he went up the now-ice-and-snow-covered stairs, he could see the deep, black of space above. No sign of whatever was making the noise, he thought.

Then, he was blown backward. Pain lanced through him, and he tried to suck in air but could not as a hole the size of a soccer ball was blown through his chest. He went numb from the shock. Someone…shot me?

The shrouded sniper would have laughed in triumph if he could, but in his current chassis, he was just a drone with a massive rifle attached to the bottom; covered with cameras and built for all manner of environments that had a thick enough atmosphere for the blades to keep it aloft.

And now, he thought, to collect my contract. He made sure to fly down a bit closer, and took a short video of the still body of Flicker as proof. Then, he flew back to the portal leading to The Cosmic Corridor. He was not hard to kill, the sniper thought. Especially once he was parted with his Cosmic and Ascended Power.

Jace was back on Earth. Somehow. He was showing Chroma and the other street kids the teachings of his mentor, and how to purify rainwater from the toxic, polluting chemicals that the fluid brought down from the atmosphere.

“Who was the guy that taught you all of this stuff?” Chroma asked.

Jace smiled and ruffled her hair as he kept operating the makeshift bellows to fuel the fire made up of dried refuse, “Well, I never got his name. I just called him my mentor, and other street kids called him that, too. But I knew him from before getting onto the streets. He visited, twice, but always kept his face hidden.”

“You never learned his name?” she asked with suspicion, giving him a mischievous smile.

Jace shook his head, “Nope. He was always well covered up, too. Survived the corpo war but was heavily scarred. And he didn’t like scaring people with how he looked. Apparently, they thought he died, and the corpos took his kid. He had a bone to pick with them, so he started telling us about what the orphanage was really doing: brainwashing us into the perfect, corpo drones.”

Chroma frowned, “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“Well, the orphan-”

“I mean him,” she said as she crossed her arms. “He never told you who he was?”

Jace frowned and looked into Chroma’s eyes, “Why should that matter?”

“How do you know he wasn’t a corpo-plant? Hmm? A guy who was meant to train up a generation of street kids so that the corpos could have shooting practice?”

Jace pondered that idea. I had never thought of that, he thought. He could have been recruiting us. Come to think of it, getting out of the orphanage was…easy. They didn’t even come looking for me as far as I could tell. Well, my mentor did hide us well. But even then, getting Chroma out was easy, also.

He shook his head and continued his pumping of the bellows, boiling the rain water and having the other, younger street kids scrape off the muck from the top until they had clear, potable water to drink that wouldn’t give them the runs. “Chroma, you might be right. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s dead. It’s just us lot, now.”

“Stick together to survive,” Chroma said with determination in her eyes. The other street kids echoed the sentiment.

Jace smiled, “Stick together to survive.”

Jace let out a hacking cough as he drew in several shaky breaths. His stomach was rumbling, and he was famished. Sitting up, he rooted around in his pack, pulled out ten of the survival meals, and began slurping down the sludge as fast as he could. The heck happened to me? He thought.

Then, the memory hit him. Someone had shot him. Feeling around his torso, he was pleased and relieved to find that his chest had healed over. There was a splatter of fluid that had stained the ground behind him, but none of the fluid was still there. I suppose I have the nanites to thank. So, thanks, NICIF.

He chuckled, “Almost fucking died again,” he whispered to himself. Scarfing down the last of the ten meals, he chugged down water that thankfully the canteen kept lukewarm so it would not freeze. Then, he saw the giant hole in the pack. Fucking damnit. What did I lose? Scrounging about and taking stock, he frowned. Lose the medical kit, the water infused with Priam’s blood for dealing with undead, and; he glanced down, my armor got annihilated. The torso, at least.

He stood up and grabbed his sword and the lightning rifle. Making his way outside, he did not see or hear any buzzing of a drone. His Cosmic and Ascend Power symbols came back, and Ollie popped into place. “Oh, thank The System! You’re alive!”

“Yeah I am,” Jace said. “Wha-”

Xera’s voice came over the comms, “Congratulations, you are dead!” A video feed appeared in Jace’s vision, and he saw his body, moments before, with an enormous hole in the torso. “A sniper known as Tonda took up Deckard’s contract and has already received the rewards. I was hiding the video from Shhiv and the rest of my Signers, but I think I’m going to keep everyone except for your medical team and those in your apartment building in the dark regarding you living. You’re now an unknown asset of mine. Time for a new code name.”

Jace frowned, “How long was I dead?”

“Dead?” Ollie asked. “You never died, if your nanites’ history is anything to go by.” Ollie gestured and Jace saw a three-dimensional display of his body; dissected into various layers, slowly replaying the moment the bullet ripped through his torso. “The second that you were shot, the nanites took blood and carried it up to your brain: insulating it as they took oxygen from the ambient air and funneled it directly to your brain. You never experienced brain death.”

“But, my body died,” Jace said.

“True,” Ollie replied. “But brain death is real death. The body can die over and over.”

“So unless they get a headshot-”

“Yup! You’re very hard to kill thanks to the NICIF. Plus, you’ve got Adamantine covering your bones. Even that hole in your chest? Look closer at the readout.”

Jace did so, and he saw that the metal was only bent inward, into the torso, but had not actually broken from the impact. “Oh. If my…ribs?”

“Sternum.”

“Right, my whole chest-area, if that was covered by a single plate of bone, then what? The bullet would have bounced off?”

“Yup!” Ollie swam around him excitedly.

Xera came over the comms, “We need a new code name. Flicker is dead. I will notify Shhiv and everyone else, as well as make new System profiles for your new code name.”

Jace thought of that for a moment. What would a good code name be?