Leviathan 4
Intro | Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Aki sat in his cabin sifting through images, at times he was moved to tears. He hadn't gone into the caves himself, Tactical rarely went into combat, but it was standard procedure for every crew member to carry carry a holo camera so he had a wealth of images to choose from. He wasn't a stranger to battle, but to see from the viewpoint of the doomed was almost unbearable. The crew knew about Aki's project and when one of the crew fell another picked up their camera for Aki. Theere was a mystical undertone to their act, they saw Aki's composition as a tribute from the viewpoint of those who fought and the crew wanted no one left out, especially those who died. It was a door to immortality for those who lived so close to death. Aki picked up his flute and tried to match music to the scene he was watching. It was the battle for the control center, Shadow and Dancr were fighting together, moving in an intricate battle dance that he was trying to score when he saw something that made him stop. It was a look in Shadow's eyes, one Aki knew very well, the look of someone struggling with another's thoughts, Shadow was a multi-mind on the verge of disintegration.
His flute-work was flawless but something was missing, his art was lifeless. The music moved with the holo-images but it was just animation, there was no meaning, no breath of life. It was him, Aki had spent his entire life with his flute and never lived. He was a loner whose only interest was his art but, though it perfected his skills, it was the flaw in his art. Aki knew what he needed to do, experience life, but he was foolish enough to let his nature rule and went to the Nhlians. He figured that it was memories he needed but to gather them would take a lifetime, time he couldn't afford to spend when for a price he could buy the lifetime of memories he needed. He knew there was a lot of training needed to become a successful multi-mind but he had the discipline to do it, his whole life had been training.
Kendar Kolo was a premier holoflutist and he determined his son would follow in his footsteps. Before Aki could hold a flute his father played for him, he'd been playing for Aki from conception. When Aki ran to his mother for refuge from Kolo's harsh training his father sent her away. His father and his flute was Aki's entire life, he had no contact with the outside world, every waking moment was music. Even after his father died Aki was driven by the plans his father had for him. He gave himself to practice and when his perfectionism was satisfied he went to his first audition. He wasn't discouraged by his failure, he slept less and practiced more but audition after audition ended the same way, "Next!" One day, in frustration, he yelled back, "Why?" The producer was surprised by the question and instead of hollering, "Next!" again he asked, "What?" "Why are you passing me over?" Aki asked, "That piece was flawless." The producer shrugged, "Big deal, I get flawless in here all the time. What makes your music stand out?"
He knew his father would approve of his decision, becoming a multi-mind was the fastest way to achieve his ends and it required discipline. In addition, he would be a rarity, there were only four multi-mind musicians in the universe, he would be the only holoflutist. The others had chosen musicians for their second minds, a way to marry two styles, Aki was going to stand out from them by choosing a non-artist for his other mind. He wanted a different set of life experiences to add richness to his work, a life outside the disciplines of art. The problem was, he'd had very little contact with people and didn't know what kind of life would give him the wealth of memories he sought. It would be five months before he reached Nhl and he spent that time watching people, by the time they arrived he'd decided. It was the mercenaries on board that caught his attention, they were so alive, and from their stories he saw they were rich with experience. There was something else about them, a deadliness that drew Aki, he understood what a taste of death could do for his art.
It wasn't the effort to hold another mind that overwhelmed him, it was the richness of the memories, the intense emotions and experiences that came to Aki in a rush. Son Ferral had seen and done more at Aki's age than Aki expected to ever do, Aki lay in his room for days living Ferral's life. When he came to himself the integration was complete, the joining of minds was considered a success by the Nhlian techs. Aki wasn't content, though, it had become more than a way to enrich his art, he liked the feelings that had awoken in him, he liked the memories playing in his mind and he wanted more. One night, at the edge of sleep, Ferral whispered to him, "You want war." Aki knew he was right and he slept in peace. He knew war in his head, knew it in his feelings but he needed to be there himself, to live in the kill or be killed world that Ferral showed him. His flute was forgotten for the first time in his life, Aki had a new instrument to practice with, he would play the sword as flawlessly.
With the great Son Ferral in his mind Aki wouldn't have to earn a name but he still had to take a rookie contract because knowing a thing and doing it are two different things. He went to the Dark Star to be tested and Cody, impressed with Aki's stats, gave him an excellent contract. The planet under contention was Mag Verm, a freshwater world, War Sanctions decreed it off-limits for combat so it became a research war on a barren moon in the sector. As usual, new weapons were being tested but combat concepts were being tested, too, and Aki was assigned to a tactical sword wing. In those days it was a new thing to assign combat wings to tactical teams and the concept was still in development. Aki liked combat but there was another aspect of war that he liked even more. He was on a crew that held open tactical briefings and he was fascinated by the thinking involved. The mental discipline to weigh all the variables and make creative life and death decisions appealed to him. The maps, the movement, the strategy, it was like writing a symphony and it was an art Aki wanted to master. When his contract ended he headed back to Nhl.
From the time he could walk Son Ferral carried a sword. His father was a swordmaster who ran a famous dojo, he taught his son the love of the blade and trained him to be a warrior. Ferral was a natural and earned his name, Son Ferral, The Boy, at the age of twelve. He wasn't the youngest merc but he was the youngest with a name. He was barely out of puberty when he took his first lead sword job, he'd been asked before but was having too much fun on the line to accept. He never rose above lead sword, he didn't want to do anything else, and after thirty years he retired to run his father's dojo. Son Ferral died with his sword in his hand and he wasn't going to let some kid make him put it down. He wasn't happy with Aki's decision to go into tactical, he wasn't about to sit out a lifetime in tents hiding from the action. His life was the sword and he was going to keep it that way.
He struggled to awake only to realize he wasn't asleep, he was standing in the middle of his cabin, sword in hand, spent from battle with a long-dead foe. Aki awoke in a bunk, uncertain how he got there, unsure of where he was. He sat up and looked around, his sword lay on the floor, seeing it brought back the dream. The images were forgotten but the intense emotions that were the crux of the dream filled him, a battle fever, a joy of life only found when facing death, and a deep longing for something soon to be lost. He lay through the day in the grip of war-hungry feelings and when he slept he was Son Ferral wielding his sword. Aki awoke with dreams still clinging to him, he got up and looked in the mirror, reminding himself of who he was. He kept to himself during chow then went back to his room, his sword still lay in the middle of floor and he wondered how it got there. Aki sat, confused, and stared at the sword with the feeling that it was trying to tell him something. "Ferral!" Aki looked up, there was trouble on the line. He spotted the weakness at once and ran to add his strength, it was what he lived for, to draw his sword and pit himself against another. Aki looked at the sword in his hand and wondered how he could ever put it down.
Aki picked up his flute and played a wild melody, a memory of the feelings that had turned him back from Nhl. It was ten years before Aki went back, by then he was ready to put the sword down and learn the tactics of war. He looked at the picture of Shadow again, there was nothing Aki could do to help, Shadow had to win the battle for his mind himself.
He didn't want to be a person, it wasn't what he attended when he made the mods to himself. He put in the emotion chip and the sensors that allowed him to feel pleasure and pain to understand people, to be a better warrior, one who knew his enemies. Being a person was a malfunction, something had gone wrong with his mods and the only way Joel could thing of fixing himself was to remove them. It hurt, every chip removed, every circuit rerouted was agony, surgery with no anesthetic, and when it was all done the pain continued. Pain and fear, fear of what he'd become, coursed through him and the overload he feared came, only, he didn't shut down as he was designed to in such a case, instead, he felt his mind explode.
When Joel left the lab Cougar was waiting for him outside his cabin. "Time to talk." the shaman said and they went inside. "It wasn't the emotion chip that caused the overload." Cougar started and Joel said, "I don't know what to tell you, I don't even know what's going on." "I think you do." Cougar told him. "I've been dreaming, and feeling things, even with the chip gone." Joel admitted then added, "But I don't know why." Cougar looked into Joel's eyes and told him what he saw, "You're no longer what you were. Not a machine, not a man, something in between, something alive." Joel had already come to that conclusion but didn't understand it, "How can that be? I am a machine... an inanimate object." Cougar shook his head, "Machines don't dream, inanimate objects don't have spirits." It made no sense to Joel, "Spirit? How could I have a spirit? I was made in a lab." "Even so," Cougar answered, "the breath of life is in you. Is it so inconceivable?" "Nothing is inconceivable," Joel told him, "but it's incomprehensible." "Does it matter how it happened?" Cougar asked. "Perhaps not." Joel replied, the how and why wasn't the problem, "I can't handle it." Joel told Cougar, "The feelings are too strong, I feel like I'm about to overload all the time." Cougar's simple answer, "We all do sometimes. Life is struggle.", actually helped.
Aki sat in his cabin sifting through images, at times he was moved to tears. He hadn't gone into the caves himself, Tactical rarely went into combat, but it was standard procedure for every crew member to carry carry a holo camera so he had a wealth of images to choose from. He wasn't a stranger to battle, but to see from the viewpoint of the doomed was almost unbearable. The crew knew about Aki's project and when one of the crew fell another picked up their camera for Aki. Theere was a mystical undertone to their act, they saw Aki's composition as a tribute from the viewpoint of those who fought and the crew wanted no one left out, especially those who died. It was a door to immortality for those who lived so close to death. Aki picked up his flute and tried to match music to the scene he was watching. It was the battle for the control center, Shadow and Dancr were fighting together, moving in an intricate battle dance that he was trying to score when he saw something that made him stop. It was a look in Shadow's eyes, one Aki knew very well, the look of someone struggling with another's thoughts, Shadow was a multi-mind on the verge of disintegration.
His flute-work was flawless but something was missing, his art was lifeless. The music moved with the holo-images but it was just animation, there was no meaning, no breath of life. It was him, Aki had spent his entire life with his flute and never lived. He was a loner whose only interest was his art but, though it perfected his skills, it was the flaw in his art. Aki knew what he needed to do, experience life, but he was foolish enough to let his nature rule and went to the Nhlians. He figured that it was memories he needed but to gather them would take a lifetime, time he couldn't afford to spend when for a price he could buy the lifetime of memories he needed. He knew there was a lot of training needed to become a successful multi-mind but he had the discipline to do it, his whole life had been training.
Kendar Kolo was a premier holoflutist and he determined his son would follow in his footsteps. Before Aki could hold a flute his father played for him, he'd been playing for Aki from conception. When Aki ran to his mother for refuge from Kolo's harsh training his father sent her away. His father and his flute was Aki's entire life, he had no contact with the outside world, every waking moment was music. Even after his father died Aki was driven by the plans his father had for him. He gave himself to practice and when his perfectionism was satisfied he went to his first audition. He wasn't discouraged by his failure, he slept less and practiced more but audition after audition ended the same way, "Next!" One day, in frustration, he yelled back, "Why?" The producer was surprised by the question and instead of hollering, "Next!" again he asked, "What?" "Why are you passing me over?" Aki asked, "That piece was flawless." The producer shrugged, "Big deal, I get flawless in here all the time. What makes your music stand out?"
He knew his father would approve of his decision, becoming a multi-mind was the fastest way to achieve his ends and it required discipline. In addition, he would be a rarity, there were only four multi-mind musicians in the universe, he would be the only holoflutist. The others had chosen musicians for their second minds, a way to marry two styles, Aki was going to stand out from them by choosing a non-artist for his other mind. He wanted a different set of life experiences to add richness to his work, a life outside the disciplines of art. The problem was, he'd had very little contact with people and didn't know what kind of life would give him the wealth of memories he sought. It would be five months before he reached Nhl and he spent that time watching people, by the time they arrived he'd decided. It was the mercenaries on board that caught his attention, they were so alive, and from their stories he saw they were rich with experience. There was something else about them, a deadliness that drew Aki, he understood what a taste of death could do for his art.
It wasn't the effort to hold another mind that overwhelmed him, it was the richness of the memories, the intense emotions and experiences that came to Aki in a rush. Son Ferral had seen and done more at Aki's age than Aki expected to ever do, Aki lay in his room for days living Ferral's life. When he came to himself the integration was complete, the joining of minds was considered a success by the Nhlian techs. Aki wasn't content, though, it had become more than a way to enrich his art, he liked the feelings that had awoken in him, he liked the memories playing in his mind and he wanted more. One night, at the edge of sleep, Ferral whispered to him, "You want war." Aki knew he was right and he slept in peace. He knew war in his head, knew it in his feelings but he needed to be there himself, to live in the kill or be killed world that Ferral showed him. His flute was forgotten for the first time in his life, Aki had a new instrument to practice with, he would play the sword as flawlessly.
With the great Son Ferral in his mind Aki wouldn't have to earn a name but he still had to take a rookie contract because knowing a thing and doing it are two different things. He went to the Dark Star to be tested and Cody, impressed with Aki's stats, gave him an excellent contract. The planet under contention was Mag Verm, a freshwater world, War Sanctions decreed it off-limits for combat so it became a research war on a barren moon in the sector. As usual, new weapons were being tested but combat concepts were being tested, too, and Aki was assigned to a tactical sword wing. In those days it was a new thing to assign combat wings to tactical teams and the concept was still in development. Aki liked combat but there was another aspect of war that he liked even more. He was on a crew that held open tactical briefings and he was fascinated by the thinking involved. The mental discipline to weigh all the variables and make creative life and death decisions appealed to him. The maps, the movement, the strategy, it was like writing a symphony and it was an art Aki wanted to master. When his contract ended he headed back to Nhl.
From the time he could walk Son Ferral carried a sword. His father was a swordmaster who ran a famous dojo, he taught his son the love of the blade and trained him to be a warrior. Ferral was a natural and earned his name, Son Ferral, The Boy, at the age of twelve. He wasn't the youngest merc but he was the youngest with a name. He was barely out of puberty when he took his first lead sword job, he'd been asked before but was having too much fun on the line to accept. He never rose above lead sword, he didn't want to do anything else, and after thirty years he retired to run his father's dojo. Son Ferral died with his sword in his hand and he wasn't going to let some kid make him put it down. He wasn't happy with Aki's decision to go into tactical, he wasn't about to sit out a lifetime in tents hiding from the action. His life was the sword and he was going to keep it that way.
He struggled to awake only to realize he wasn't asleep, he was standing in the middle of his cabin, sword in hand, spent from battle with a long-dead foe. Aki awoke in a bunk, uncertain how he got there, unsure of where he was. He sat up and looked around, his sword lay on the floor, seeing it brought back the dream. The images were forgotten but the intense emotions that were the crux of the dream filled him, a battle fever, a joy of life only found when facing death, and a deep longing for something soon to be lost. He lay through the day in the grip of war-hungry feelings and when he slept he was Son Ferral wielding his sword. Aki awoke with dreams still clinging to him, he got up and looked in the mirror, reminding himself of who he was. He kept to himself during chow then went back to his room, his sword still lay in the middle of floor and he wondered how it got there. Aki sat, confused, and stared at the sword with the feeling that it was trying to tell him something. "Ferral!" Aki looked up, there was trouble on the line. He spotted the weakness at once and ran to add his strength, it was what he lived for, to draw his sword and pit himself against another. Aki looked at the sword in his hand and wondered how he could ever put it down.
Aki picked up his flute and played a wild melody, a memory of the feelings that had turned him back from Nhl. It was ten years before Aki went back, by then he was ready to put the sword down and learn the tactics of war. He looked at the picture of Shadow again, there was nothing Aki could do to help, Shadow had to win the battle for his mind himself.
~|~
He didn't want to be a person, it wasn't what he attended when he made the mods to himself. He put in the emotion chip and the sensors that allowed him to feel pleasure and pain to understand people, to be a better warrior, one who knew his enemies. Being a person was a malfunction, something had gone wrong with his mods and the only way Joel could thing of fixing himself was to remove them. It hurt, every chip removed, every circuit rerouted was agony, surgery with no anesthetic, and when it was all done the pain continued. Pain and fear, fear of what he'd become, coursed through him and the overload he feared came, only, he didn't shut down as he was designed to in such a case, instead, he felt his mind explode.
~|~
~|~
~|~
When Joel left the lab Cougar was waiting for him outside his cabin. "Time to talk." the shaman said and they went inside. "It wasn't the emotion chip that caused the overload." Cougar started and Joel said, "I don't know what to tell you, I don't even know what's going on." "I think you do." Cougar told him. "I've been dreaming, and feeling things, even with the chip gone." Joel admitted then added, "But I don't know why." Cougar looked into Joel's eyes and told him what he saw, "You're no longer what you were. Not a machine, not a man, something in between, something alive." Joel had already come to that conclusion but didn't understand it, "How can that be? I am a machine... an inanimate object." Cougar shook his head, "Machines don't dream, inanimate objects don't have spirits." It made no sense to Joel, "Spirit? How could I have a spirit? I was made in a lab." "Even so," Cougar answered, "the breath of life is in you. Is it so inconceivable?" "Nothing is inconceivable," Joel told him, "but it's incomprehensible." "Does it matter how it happened?" Cougar asked. "Perhaps not." Joel replied, the how and why wasn't the problem, "I can't handle it." Joel told Cougar, "The feelings are too strong, I feel like I'm about to overload all the time." Cougar's simple answer, "We all do sometimes. Life is struggle.", actually helped.
Excerpt from Shadow Stalkers by S.E.Estes
Posted by RevrendZ - 5/29/2005 10:20:00 AM
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Background:
Joel came to a decision. He'd grown beyond his design and since he no longer knew what or who he was the logical thing to do was to define himself. He'd been manufactured and programmed, there was nothing living in him, so, technically, he wasn't alive. He wasn't a machine anymore, the mods Joel made to himself, the emotion chip, the sensor programming to simulate pain and pleasure, had changed him into something else. He searched all available information on sentient beings and there was nothing like him anywhere, nothing known. Also he found that all sentient, living, creatures dreamed, so did Joel and that dream was proof of his transformation. Joel studied dreams and came to the conclusion that if the dream had been proof, more dreams might bring answers.
~|~
The probability that his team would remain the same was high and that was how he wanted it so Joel spent the next two days dreaming. One dream blended into another, one a part of the other.
A child was born, he didn't know what it meant to be alive, he just knew he was. Painful light and sound then darkness. Pain, light and sound, the sound was coming from him. Movement, a comforting smell, warmth, the end of pain then peaceful darkness. Darkness and light, pain and comfort, that was life as he knew it.
A boy cried his pain, his mother came with gentle comfort, her kiss felt safe. She gave him a treat, the taste of sweet gave his life new dimension. He savored it as he watched the center of his life work in the warm haven of the kitchen. The smells of cooking, the sound of his mother's singing voice wove themselves around him and he drifted off to sleep.
Darkness and light, pain and comfort, joy, sorrow, love and hate, the feelings and experiences of a life wove themselves into Joel's mind to become a part of him.
Addagee spent most of her time in her cabin, too. The last thing she wanted to do was to attract attention, it was part of her Gholdarian nature to blend in. She hated Gholdarians, hated what they did to her, what they do to all like her. They fear her kind so they are tracked, identified before birth and implanted with a device on their first day of life. Every Gholdarian carries a sensor that comes on when a shape-changer is near and tracks their movements. Sattelites also watch them, they are always under observation unless they leave the planet. She left Gholdar as soon as she had the money, which took some time because few Gholdarians hire shape-changers. Her first transport gave her freedom but the price was heavy. Gholdarian shape-changers have yellow eyes streaked with green, people know what those eyes mean. She immediately encountered the distrust she knew so well. When she got on that first transport she was confined to quarters, they gave her no answer why but she knew. From then on she assumed the shape of people around her to avoid notice but it took a terrible toll on her. The device would become active when she shape-changed and give her headaches. It was designed to discourage changing, the longer she changed the worse the effects grew. It caused migraines, nightmares, hallucinations and, eventually, permanent insanity. Life was easiest for her if she stayed alone and kept her true form. She didn't mind, she searched the nets.
~|~
Joel looked up at the Old Man's approach. "I've got a project I need your help with." he told Joel. He sent his schematic to the Phibians and turned his attention to the Old Man. The Old Man took a seat, ready to work, "What do you know about Gholdarian biotech?"
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