Chapter 3
1147 hours, 4th Axial Rotation of Joo'Lie, Atlesian Time
Researcher Dormitory No. 3/19, Atlas Institute of Technology
"What did he say to that?"
Augustus took a deep breath.
"A textbook answer. Though not necessarily incorrect."
"Though not necessarily correct," she repeated, "Trust the ones who wrote the textbook. Because they have won the approval of the common people, and therefore they are correct."
Augustus chuckled. "You know, for all those years I've known you, I've only heard you being sarcastic a few times."
Alice did not look up from the screen.
"What was he trying to say? Reverse psychology? That is why you do not use a textbook for military tactics and strategies. Everyone knows them. But what if they are used in an era in which the knowledge of said strategy has ingrained deep within the marrow of the zeitgeist? What if nobody cares about defending against said strategy because they know that others won't use it?" asked Alice.
Augustus sat on her bed, deep in thought.
"You're thinking too hard. He wanted me to be more original…creative would be the word. Even a ten-year-old could have come up with that!"
"True," replied Alice, "But the first one was fine."
Augustus snorted. "The first one was great, in theory. Imagine going up to the Valean council and saying: My people are smarter than yours and therefore we should have the object because we have higher chances of understanding its technology than you do!"
"Well, if they have any semblance of rationality, they will hand it over to us. The fact remains that we are only allowed to study the object in the Valean premises. We still are not authorized to bring it here, where the equipment is several orders of magnitude better than those at Vale. Already several limitations have been noticed. So that's a problem."
"Indeed," said Augustus.
"They lied. Partly. I told Ironwood everything I knew about the creature, every quantum of information I uncovered from the simulations. I told him that there was an extreme likelihood that the creature would have human features. I told him that it was 1.75 to 2 times larger than the average human. On the Vale News Network this morning they said that 'the organism bears resemblance to humans in form and structure, due to extensive genetic similarities'. They did not talk about the footprint that we found, which implies the certainty that the creature is entirely human, at least on a superficial level. You told Ironwood about the footprint, didn't you?"
"I did," came the reply from behind her. Alice cast him a sidelong glance.
"So, they did implement your idea. They lied in the press conference, to the people of the four kingdoms. They lied when they said things like 'The creature bears a few similarities with humans on a superficial level' and 'The organism bears some resemblance to humans in form and structure'. They lied, and they will lie again because lying is simply a means to an end to achieve the greater good," she remarked, recalling ad verbum the news broadcast that she had watched on her scroll in the morning.
"True. But it worked. No signs of civil unrest so far. Which indicates a lack of fear, which means no Grimm," remarked the Specialist. "For now, at least."
Alice looked at him, diverting her gaze from the screen of her computer. She rubbed her tired eyes, lifting her steel spectacles. She cleaned their oily nose-pads with a sheet of wet tissue paper and placed them back on her sharp nose.
"Yes. Of course, it worked, or rather, would work. Why wouldn't it? All of civilization has been structured so that demagogues and politicians can slip in a couple of adjectives to twist the meaning and connotations of their sentences to their fancy, all so that they can get away with it. The exploitation of the interrelatedness of language and emotion has existed since time immemorial, and it will follow Mankind to its grave due to our inability to evolve past such a defect," muttered the biologist, letting out a raspy sigh.
She looked back at her monitor and typed something out with the keyboard.
Augustus wished that he could empathize with his friend's idealism, but such things had to be suppressed the moment he joined the military.
"An excellent philosophical point, but it seems that the council has more pressing issues at the moment. The organism is still out there. Even though 76 percent of the forest has been searched, they have not found anything so far. They believe that the remaining 24 percent hold the answer. Though they did remark that there seemed to be much less Grimm in the forest than there was before the thing crashed into it. Also, they told me that they saw a bunch of footprints that fit the description of the ones at the crash site. And they were found rather close to the Commercial District," replied Augustus, scratching his chin, "But that means—"
"Let's not jump to conclusions," said Alice, cutting him off, "But you may be right. It could be in the city. Hm, of course, it would be attracted to civilization. Bright lights, loud noises, the smell of food. Ironwood knows of this too. Plus…there are other reasons behind why I think it would be attracted to civilization," commented Alice, "Reasons which I will reveal later."
"Can't you reveal them now?" pleaded Augustus.
"All in good time. But frankly, I'm not sure as to what exactly is going on with the Grimm. They've never behaved this way in the past."
"But you're the leading expert on Grimm Physiology!" exclaimed Augustus with a hint of indignation in his voice.
"Physiology, not Ethology. You'd have to ask Dr. Dimitri for a more detailed opinion. I do have a few hypotheses. One is that it's…of course…killing the Grimm, hence the relatively low number of sightings," came the rebuttal from his friend.
"But just one creature? I don't think that's possible insofar as Grimm sightings have dwindled by 60 percent. After all, there are at thousands of Grimm in the Forever Fall forest," said the Specialist slowly, baffled by the conjecture.
"Of course, based on the erroneous assumption that the organism is killing them through conventional means, I would be wrong," said Alice, a sliver of amusement in her tone.
Augustus paused, thinking about the possible causes of the phenomenon. On the side note, he had already gotten used to these little insults that were interspersed throughout their dialogue. It wasn't an insult, to be fair. One's interpretation of the adjective leads to one's assumption of its intended purpose. And 'erroneous' was simply an accurate description of the assumption, and by extension, his train of thought that led to the formulation of the assumption. Such things were common whenever he conversed with her.
"I see. So you believe that it's killing them by spreading…diseases?"
"There are many other ways I can think of, but yes, there is a good chance that it's spreading diseases that affect Grimm. This possibility is the one that's most grounded in practicality," said Alice, "The Grimm can theoretically be killed by diseases, but they are immune to most, if not all native diseases due to aeons of immunological adaptation. However, like all multicellular lifeforms, they certainly can be extremely susceptible to foreign ones due to the absence of immunological memory."
"I see. Foreign antigens," replied Augustus.
Alice nodded slightly in concurrence.
"That is…one theory," remarked the Specialist.
"True. All this is dependent on the premise that the organism is killing Grimm," said Alice, "There are other possible reasons as to why their sightings have dwindled greatly after the incident."
"Well, aside from that, General Ironwood is mostly concerned that the creature is a biological weapon created by an extraterrestrial race," revealed Augustus. "The method of warfare depends on one's goals. If these extraterrestrials wanted to destroy us, they would have bombarded us with conventional weapons long ago. We'd have no chance of surviving such an attack. But that would ruin the environment, perhaps even render it inhospitable. Instead, they chose to use a biological weapon, which lowers the amount of unintentional damage to the environment. Or so he says."
"Hmm, I wouldn't blame him for thinking so. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that points in that direction. I found large quantities of what appeared to be a novel RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in the amniotic fluid of the gestation capsule," muttered Alice absentmindedly.
"What?" blurted Augustus.
Tiredly, Alice scratched the messy mop of ink-black hair that flowed sloppily across her shoulders and looked at him. It was understandable that he did not know what that meant.
"Sorry. An artificially synthesized enzyme that was probably used for gene editing," explained Alice. Her voice was mellifluous with distraction, and nonchalance rose in it as she returned her gaze to the computer screen, reading.
"You have to realize that the chance for extraterrestrial life to bear a complete superficial resemblance to humans is infinitesimal. Therefore, the organism must have been designed by its creators, the actual aliens, to have human features — for purposes we can only presume to be espionage — but qualitatively different anatomy. For obvious reasons, such a notion is substantiated by the discovery of said enzyme," added the biologist, supporting her stance on the issue.
Augustus hesitated as he listened with full attention to his absent friend. It was a mouthful, and he had no idea how she was forming these sentences with such speed and precision while simultaneously reading an article. But it was all coming together now, in a framework of concepts — at least, that was his way of understanding.
"I see. How do you know that this enzyme is artificial? Based on what I can recall, pathogens are naturally equipped with restriction enzymes that provide a defence mechanism against viruses. We need to confirm that the artificial nature of this creature to accurately gauge the intentions of the organism's creators," he responded in a hurried tone.
Alice smiled. It was a rare occurrence.
"While the structure of the enzyme drew inspiration from some examples seen in nature, I noticed the presence of non-proteinogenic amino acids or amino acids that do not form naturally. It's also highly probable that the structure of the enzyme was optimized via computational methods and simulated evolution," explained the biologist softly as she stretched her limbs, yawning as her weak muscles tensed and fell. Augustus nodded in understanding.
"I see. How does one create an artificial enzyme?" he asked. Alice yawned again involuntarily.
"Of course, they're synthesized in a laboratory, but to design and simulate a protein…Well, you need to have a computer. A supercomputer, probably, for efficiency purposes. We have plenty of those in Atlas, some of which are capable of exaflop speeds, which is why we've been able to create them over the years," she explained quickly, seemingly hinting at something.
"So you're saying that this civilization possesses advanced computational abilities?"
"Such is this implication, yes," came the pleased reply, "That they probably have the equivalent of a supercomputer."
"So what's so special about this new protein? I mean, you use similar enzymes for gene editing, right?" asked Augustus curiously.
"It will make the process of gene editing much faster, cheaper, and easier. This is a discovery that will revolutionize the field of Genetic Engineering," she said.
"You comprehend its secrets?" asked the Specialist, seeking clarification.
Alice snorted in confidence. "Of course I do. Both restriction endonucleases and the novel enzyme see a specific sequence in the DNA and make a cut in the middle of the sequence. However, the part of the protein structure that determines which sequence to cut is permanent in the restriction endonuclease. Before we found this enzyme, I had to engineer a whole protein if I wanted to target a certain DNA sequence that I couldn't target with the enzymes I had at my disposal. But with this new enzyme, all I have to do is to create an artificial guide RNA sequence to target a once inaccessible site. Do you follow?" explained Alice, her voice a shrill raspy whisper that bled transient enthusiasm.
Augustus understood, and thought long and hard about the information he had available. As of now, he had no reason to believe that the extraterrestrial civilization responsible for the creation of the organism was a benevolent one. Neither was there any reason to believe that it wished to negotiate with the authorities on Remnant. So far, no sightings of other similar objects have been reported across the four kingdoms and Menagerie. That was extremely strange.
Alice turned around and poked him in the arm. "Did you hear me?"
"Yes, yes, I know. I was just thinking. Due to this new piece of information, I believe that we have no reason to believe that the creators of this organism have any benevolent intentions. It looks more like the opposite," replied her friend hastily, snapping out of his stupor, "I have not gotten the chance to speak with the other members of the task force. It seems that they are all busy. Winter's supervising most of them. She told me that they found some kind of radio transmitter."
A radio transmitter? This new piece of information had been featured on the news in the morning, recalled Alice.
"Hmm…" she mumbled incoherently, "A radio transmitter? They haven't told me about that. Maybe there's another one on the organism itself. Like a tracker, but presumably, it can transmit radio waves over interstellar distances. As of now, Mankind's knowledge of the cosmos is extremely limited but growing. There is something that I found odd about the gestation capsule. Let's pretend that it was guided here, like a cruise missile, so to speak. It would have to have an engine to generate thrust. There were no engines on the gestation capsule."
Alice ruminated in perplexed silence. This was indeed one of the great mysteries surrounding the incident. Perhaps the thruster detached before it entered Remnant's atmosphere in a way such that it would remain in low-planetary orbit, out of sight. The reason they would do this was obvious — it would be disadvantageous for their technology to fall into the wrong hands if there was even a sliver of a chance that the primitives would understand the technology. She would have to consult the physicists and engineers to know whether the thrusters could be detached in such a manner.
A multitude of reasons, or rather, rationalizations, had been generated by the professional hairsplitters of the Atlesian Council. Rationalizations for what? Of course, in her minute online meetings with Ironwood and the Council she had expressed the possibility that the organism was a biological weapon.
It appeared that the strategies of a superior extraterrestrial nation were well within the realm of human comprehension. The means they possessed to make them a reality were, alas, not.
Alice chuckled at the notion as she recalled her talks with the Council in crystal clearness.
The absence of an engine was certainly a major blow to her theory that the gestation capsule was a biological weapon or any theory that the object had been brought to Remnant deliberately for that matter. Someone clever had pointed that out during a meeting. She too knew.
"Right," replied Augustus, "No devices capable of generating thrust have been recovered from the Forever Fall forest. Anyways, the Valean Council decided to put the kingdom on lockdown an hour ago for matters of safety, based on the latest news that the creature has not yet been found."
"I've heard…How very clever of them. I've been corresponding with the Valean biologists. It seems that they have also run a few simulations of organogenesis and are equally perplexed by the organism's physiology. It appears that we hit a ceiling in terms of understanding, so to speak, the moment we try to study the creature's physiology. But as I've said before, the machines there are outdated. The rendering takes a much longer time, and the results are fragmentary. Ironwood is in a meeting with the Valean council as we speak, attempting to persuade them to give us the object. But, until we get a hold of the organism itself, my work here on genome analysis and simulated biology is done. The other experts have a lot of work to do on uncovering the secrets of the pod's technology."
"He is," confirmed Augustus, "And it seems like General Ironwood has told you of his plans to capture the organism."
"That would be the implication of what I just said, yes," came the reply, "Isn't everyone informed of the latest developments in Ironwood's plans?"
"Not all of it. I have not been informed as to exactly how he plans to capture the organism, though we can deduce that his reasoning behind the decision to capture the creature seems to be accepted by the Atlesian Council."
"Neither have I," added Alice, "When is the next meeting? James Ironwood plans to capture the creature. He believes that it is a biological weapon, and by extension, the act of sending it here is an act of war."
Several heartbeats later, Augustus spoke.
"Correct."
"Aha, knew it," chimed the biologist.
She could be so childish at times. Augustus stared at the ground, deep in thought.
"Most of the other experts from the task force seem to be proponents of the notion that the organism is a biological weapon. But some among them have raised concerns about the apparent lack of a hypothetical propellant device," revealed the Specialist. It was nothing unknown to Alice.
"Hmm, and to defend the view that the organism is a biological weapon sent here willingly by its progenitors, what would you say to that? Would you dare to boldly presume the actions of a superior civilization? How could you — with your human intelligence and human habits and human wisdom — ascertain their intentions and the justifications to said intentions?"
Augustus looked at her. She looked back at him quizzically. He had predicted from the start of this meeting that she would eventually say something like this.
"You're not wrong — from the outset, everything the task force had done was think of alien rationales in human terms, so to speak. We certainly cannot think of logic as a purely human construct. Certainly, the design of sophisticated technology such as that from the gestation pod requires the application of empirical first principles, i.e. the laws of the natural world. Factoring in the biological prerequisites for the perception of reality to be enabled and sensory information to be relayed through an analogue of the human nervous system into a control system, logic can be accessed after a certain threshold of intelligence is met."
He spoke slowly, choosing his words with a precision unmatched by most.
"Hmm," grunted Alice, nodding mildly in concurrence, "And how would you describe the ability to tap into logic at its various strata of sophistication?"
"Well, I'd say that a qualitative increase in the sophistication of deductive reasoning can be observed as we ascend the layers. As expected, more sophisticated reasoning cannot be performed by an entity that lacks the required neuroanatomy."
"Precisely my point," said Alice.
"But there is hope," interrupted her friend.
"What hope?" Alice countered, spitting her words bitterly as though they were blades. "Hope? I don't think you or Ironwood or the Schnee fully understand the gravity of this situation. These beings who have sent this thing here operate on a completely different mental plane of existence, so to speak. This isn't about the declaration of war. We have lived in willful ignorance about the cosmos, and the truth has now presented itself in the form of a civilization several orders of magnitude our superior."
Augustus heaved a tired sigh and closed his eyes. He rubbed his eyes in fatigue for a while. And then he spoke.
"That is what I feared all along. The incident may pose a great threat to the stability of the four kingdoms, but its implications are terrifying. You and I both know that we cannot live in willful ignorance of the bigger picture. But there is nothing we can do."
There were several function rooms throughout Atlas Academy. These were used for important events, such as press conferences and top-level meetings. Fortress-like, all of them.
"Alice, you haven't gotten to know your teammates. Perhaps you should consult them in matters," suggested the Specialist.
Alice flinched in surprise at the mention of her name and cast him a sidelong glance.
"I will when the time comes. The process is quite simple — conduct research on the object, report our findings back to Ironwood. There's no need for collaboration as of yet."
Augustus shook his head. "Not yet, but soon enough you will need to work with them. What's the time now? We've been talking for a while."
"Sure have. It's 12:29 A.M."
"1229 hours. I've been here for two hours," reiterated Augustus.
"So it would seem. Are you going now?" muttered Alice, who did not wait for a reply, "I'll be sure to tell the general in writing of the…discov-no…theories that we've made. Or would you rather tell him yourself?"
"It's alright. You may tell him," said Augustus mildly, "I'll get going now."
Alice grunted in acknowledgement. The Specialist got up, stretching his once placid muscles, letting out a satisfied groan. Alice heard the sinewy popping from her friend's neck to feet as he
"I can never understand why you choose to remain in this room, even though as a senior researcher you're entitled to the deluxe suite. It's always so cramped and stuffy in here, and your bed's so small," sighed Augustus, gesturing around the cold dark room as he stood up to leave. His protestations were always in vain. For more than a decade had he known Alice, and she was quite the creature of habit.
"I'm not sure. It feels wrong to leave the room when I've known it for years. Besides, why would I need a larger bed if I'm the only one who sleeps on it?" replied Alice, much to her friend's chagrin.
Augustus looked at the woman, studying her hunched form slowly. Dots of dried coffee and other less-than-pleasant fluids stained her white pyjama pants. Her skin was pale, as always, and a fine network of veins propagated outwards underneath the skin of her cold hands. Flecks of dandruff stared back at him like stars in the night from her unwashed black hair.
If General Ironwood knew about the footprints near the Valean border, he would undoubtedly request copies of the surveillance footage of the border wall. But did he know? Augustus remembered telling the Schnee about this snippet of information, and it was highly likely that she had already told the General about this.
He had already advised the General to request for a list of all persons entering Vale from the Forever Fall border. They knew that it was with extreme certainty that the creature completely resembled a human, at least superficially. A young boy, aged anywhere between seven and nine, judging by the clear footprints it left behind. Unfortunately, any toeprints left behind by the creature could not be distinguished — for obvious reasons.
This sliver of advice was, to Augustus' supreme elation, heeded by the General.
Whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, Augustus was terrified. In some private corner of his mind, the fear that humans have always been insignificant on a universal context had always been gnawing away at him. This incident was the catalyst, the last straw on the camel's back, so to speak.
"You've been looking at me for the last three minutes, Specialist White."
The raspy voice freed the Specialist from his cogitative stupor, and his keen electric-blue eyes focused on Alice once again.
"I've never heard you call me that. Sorry, I was thinking."
"If you say so. And I'm sure that I've called you that a couple of times before, Specialist White," said Alice, this time with a slight mocking in her tone.
"I was thinking of something important. Stop calling me that. It's annoying when you do so."
"What were you thinking of?" replied Alice, singsong, in a tone that implied neither a question nor a statement. With ten long and dirty nails, she pulled away from the thick cascade of hair her forehead that sheened with oil and perspiration, letting it flow down the sides of her shoulders. She lifted her spectacles from their anchors, from the bridge of her nose and the backs of her ears, and cleaned their sweat-stained lenses with a fine cloth.
Augustus shook his head.
"Never mind. Set an alarm for 18.30. There's a meeting at 1900 hours with the research division of the task force."
"And you will be leaving now?" asked the biologist.
"Winter told me to accompany her in supervising the other researchers. I'm tired. Could use an afternoon nap right now."
Augustus yawned groggily.
"Hmm…Okay," replied Alice.
The Specialist made his way towards the exit, his sock-padded feet making no sound against the carpeted floor, careful not to step on any of the dirty clothes strewn across the ground.
The Boy Who Would Be King
0916 hours, 4th Axial Rotation of Joo'Lie, Valean Time
Vale Public Library, Commercial District, Vale
It was silent in here for the most part.
Rosa knew each of the regulars by name.
The library was, after all, where she worked daily from seven in the morning to nine in the evening. For twenty years she had patrolled the old labyrinth religiously. This place was falling apart. Funding authorized by the Valean Council had been the lowest for the fourth year in a row. It wasn't enough to repair the rotten floor and the myriad other material problems that emerged daily, let alone rekindle the stagnated flow of new books into the library's dwindling repository, and soon enough, the library will be consigned to the dustbin of history.
But Rosa did not know the name of this child.
He was not a regular — he had only shown up roughly an hour ago.
He was rather tall for a child of his apparent age, but there was nothing unusual about that. Many Valeans were tall, but he did not look Valean at all. His unblemished skin was toned an Atlesian white, and he was slender, so very slender. His skin was as pale and white and smooth as marble, and his black eyes glowed so very fiercely like fire released from the depths of opal by a carver's skillful hand. But his clothes were tattered and dirty, and the boy's lank black hair reached his shoulders — unusual for someone who she presumed to be Valean by ethnicity. But then again, everything about this child was, at the very least, unusual.
And yet, he was beautiful.
He was beautiful in a disquieting manner.
In all her fifty-seven years of living Rosa Lowenthal had never seen so finely formed a child.
His face lacked the dull, indecisive features that homogenized the child populace. It was chiseled and fine and stood out from the crowd like a sore thumb — an intoxicated scientist would have pointed out it was the product of elaborate design rather than desultory evolution. His long fingers and limbs moved with unnatural grace and swiftness, and Rosa could see the steely fibers of lean muscles scaled with a precision that was undeniably mathematical in nature underneath his long legs and arms…
But these features were so very…odd. The more she observed, the more felt the presence of something unmistakably massive in the form of the small child.
It appears the boy never blinked, not even once since stepping foot into the library. His countenance was myriad in all its interpretations, but to Rosa, it was so very indifferent to the surroundings. His statuesque, void black eyes could have been plucked from a statue of old.
Rosa was staring at a being whose material form had been crafted using techniques so esoteric that the unmodified mind could be driven insane for even an attempt at a cognitive appreciation, a piece of art in the most figurative sense of the word, a living artwork that possessed the deathless beauty of a sculpture. She did not know this, of course, but she could not help but feel so very small, so very insignificant upon gazing into those eyes.
And yet, through it all, it was thoroughly impossible for her to look away from him.
He was beautiful, so very beautiful.
Rosa wondered who this boy was, and why she had never seen him before in the town.
His literary interests were equally peculiar — he was engrossed in The Complete History of Remnant, 5th Edition, a book most commonly read by those ten years his senior.
Before that, he appeared to have read a textbook on anatomy and physiology. Whether he was simply looking at the pictures or actually reading the contents was unknown to her.
Even before that, he was reading a massive dictionary and had progressed by a quarter from the start before his interest seemingly waned. Rosa couldn't blame him for that.
The boy read a brisk pace, faster than some of the others in the library but not quick enough to elicit troublesome attention.
Inwardly, the boy who would be king sighed. A little more than an hour had passed since he entered the library. The more books he read, the more he craved. He had vastly increased his once basic vocabulary, and his understanding of the language's syntax had increased tenfold.
But he needed more. Agglomerated data poured through the newborn's mind; a maddening torrent of thought was channeled tangentially to the source on myriad levels of pure metaphor, symbolism, and analogy. On a neurological level, the impossibly complex architecture of the boy's mind differed as much from baseline humanity as they did from the earliest scions of the hominid family. The boy's constant feats of divergent, nonlinear thought and deductive reasoning were far beyond the reach of even the most gifted of human polymaths from the Old Federation.
The boy closed the book, sending up a puff of dust from between its thick faux-leather binding. The historian's tone was annoying, and his conclusions were far from the perfection that he had expected. Nevertheless, the massive compendium was a truly useful repository of information. He had not finished it — he could, if he wanted to, but a young boy absorbing a thousand pages of dense historical text in a few minutes would surely raise several red flags among the staff. As such, he read only the chapters that contained the most useful information.
The boy hungered for more knowledge.
He needed to know why the girl Ruby's scroll — or any electronic device for that matter — functioned, or rather, how they functioned. But there were no such books in this library. It was merely out of sheer luck that he uncovered a tome containing information on the subject known as 'biology', or the study of living organisms.
These creatures of his kind, they were not born from cold, indifferent husks of metal, but from warm, caring mothers. They were not assigned a number at birth. While his wounds healed in an instant, theirs took days without the help of a mysterious power called 'Aura'.
His stealthy observations of the other readers in the library yielded a similar truth — while it took him an instant to absorb the knowledge printed on a page, a subjective eternity passed before the creatures flipped the page. That was the reason why he chose to read at such a slow pace — he'd figured that sticking out like a sore thumb was rather dangerous at this stage.
Physiology — the definition of this word was not unknown to him. In this sense, was he different from the creatures? He certainly looked exactly like them, but the boy was certain deep down that he was simply wearing their skin. It was rather obvious that he was a breed apart, but he was united — with them — by virtue of belonging to the same genus.
The boy thought long and hard in sad, solemn silence as his gaze glazed over the page. He sat on the chair, perfectly still as he stared off into a distant corner of the library.
This world…Remnant, or so its inhabitants named it, had five kingdoms:
Atlas, known for being a bastion of technological innovation and military values.
Vale, known for the safety it offered its residents from the threat of Grimm.
Mistral, known for its diverse culture and art.
And Vacuo, known for its relative anarchy and lack of a true government.
Kingdoms were organized communities governed by a Council, individuals who were trusted with legal authority.
Authority
The concept intrigued the boy. What right did these people have to bend others to their will? Or so he asked at first. But for as far as the eye could see the boy saw the fruits of formal governance. There was order, relative peace, and safety against the creatures of Grimm. Without the metaphorical glue of formal governance and law and order, the life of man would be nasty, brutish, and short.
These things were the most apparent, and the boy saw that the leadership of the council was good, for the most part.
But there was another problem. The members of the council that governed the Kingdom of Vale were decided through an electoral competition. The common man, woman, and child would argue that this method of entrusting immense power into the hands of a select few was fair and therefore just, but there were glaring flaws in this system. Irrational electorates could easily be tricked into voting for a demagogue by the latter's populist rhetoric. The average man and woman, unenlightened of the sheer complexity of science and mathematics, could be easily tricked by a demagogue presenting a flawed, oversimplified analogy in substitution of the truth. With the advent of technology, consumers of information — the laymen and laywomen — propelled in the pursuit of simplicity and the discount of cognitive effort, are faced with myriad options to secure knowledge, albeit, knowledge adulterated by the oversimplicity of analogy, thus leading to a lack of in-depth understanding.
There were myriad other problems that the boy could think of, but will they listen to him?
The boy wondered if the humans knew of these potential problems. It was possible that they were fully aware but failed to act as they reaped the benefits of the current system. Whatever the case, the boy needed more information. But try as he might, the boy could not shake off the feeling that the system was wrong, and needed correction.
There was a nagging thought in a secret corner of his mind. He had been thinking about this for a long time now, along with the contents of the book, of course.
It was about the public broadcast he'd heard roughly an hour ago.
Yes, that was right after he bade farewell to the girl Ruby. He did not realize it then, of course. The polysyllabic jargon was alien to him.
But not anymore.
It had been an update for an incident involving a crashed, unidentified object. The boy knew that it was only logical to assume that it referred to the metallic case that he escaped from days ago. Apparently, they were able to study his DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, something he recalled reading about ten minutes ago. They also knew that he bore some resemblance to him, though there was no mention that he looked exactly like them — which he did. That was a good thing.
The hunt was on, it seemed. Or rather, to use a gentler euphemism, they were searching for him.
The boy remembered what he'd said to Ruby. He told her his name. He was number eight.
It was the only answer that seemed right. He should not have said that. Though he had not considered it at the time, it was likely that there must have been something odd he did during the journey from the gun store to the library. Every one of her words was laced with an emotion he knew all too well.
It was possible that she hadn't given it much thought. Then again, it was unwise to underestimate her intelligence. She might have caught on to several irregularities in his speech, his behavior, his name, and deduced that he was the creature that the broadcast had referred to. The information she possessed was priceless, and if she had told the authorities, it would have been a game-changing lead for them. It was strange, therefore, that nobody had attempted to capture him.
The instant the notion emerged, he found himself somewhere else. The antique bookshelves, the rotten floor, the old oak table, and the mild stuffy air — they were gone.
The library is plunged into darkness. Empty. Silent. Infinite in size, but it was never euclidean in the first place.
The mind of a being that never was and never will be.
The light returns, but his surroundings are different.
The laboratory is well-lit and spacious. Fluorescent tubing lines the ceiling, and white corrosion-proof ceramic tiles are the floor's only components. Delicate machinery had been propped up on gray ceramic tables, and the boy's eyes caught hold of a gigantic vat that stood at one far corner of the room.
The boy-who-would-be-king saw himself, though not quite himself, strapped tightly onto a cold steel table, back faced down. His skin is paler than ever.
The boy who would be king is dead. His heart has stopped. His face was contorted in an agonized rictus.
Through means unknown, the creatures of his kind had devised a means to end him without leaving a single scar on his body.
On the surface, at least. His heartbeat quickened. Adrenaline spiked his blood.
He recognizes the table as a scaled-up analog of the ones he saw in the biology textbooks, the ones used in the dissection of large animals. His arms are splayed out into a fallen crucifix
The boy's eyes caught hold of a gigantic vat that stood at one far corner of the room. It is filled with blood. His blood.
The boy's eyes scanned the room in an instant. Beside the simulacrum, there was a young woman in the room. She gazed upon the cadaver through a pair of cold obsidian eyes. The attire of a scientist dresses her pale and thin body. A proprietary lab-coat, a pair of vinyl gloves, and a pair of safety goggles. Her black hair was tied into a sloppy ponytail. The acronym AIT was emblazoned over the breast pocket of the old lab coat.
The Atlas Institute of Technology. The boy had read about the state-owned university in his studies. Established before the Great War, it has been to date the most prestigious university on the planet.
Wielded skillfully in her right hand was a sizeable scalpel. Its obsidian blade tapered down into nanometer fineness, and its killing edge caught the reflection of the ceiling light.
She was slicing him open. Three deep incisions were made bloodlessly across his belly as the silvery blade cleaved through impossibly dense layers of abdominal muscle. A single straight incision from the boy's septum to his bladder, and two more at its vertices for the woman to better pry his guts out.
Every incision the woman makes against the cadaver's flesh hurts him. He does not know how, or why. Logic rebelled at the very notion that he should feel physical pain at the simulated slicing of nonexistent flesh. The boy clutches his belly as it aches and aches as the scalpel slices through his mind like a flame to a nociceptor.
The boy watched until he could do so no longer. He is terrified. The scene was making him sick. He fought back the tears in the real world as the pain transfigures his reality.
0820 hours, 4th Axial Rotation of Joo'Lie, Atlesian Time
Western Sector, Commercial District, Vale
Ruby hesitated at the doors of the library.
If her theory was true, the best thing she could do was to inform the police. But then again, nobody would believe in her story that a shape-shifting alien was currently in the library.
And what if she confronted him, herself, and herself only? She certainly had Crescent Rose, and she was, perhaps, one of the best fighters in her class at Signal Academy. While armed, at least. She remembered visiting the library when she was just a child. It wasn't extremely spacious, and if a fight did break out, she wouldn't have the liberty of using Crescent Rose to her maximum potential.
If the boy was indeed an alien, it was highly probable that he was some sort of spy. Why else would he be headed towards the library?
Her heartbeat quickened, and she backed away from the doors of the library. The broadcast echoed in the background, over the tense crowd. Ruby nudged her way out of the crowd, the blood hammering in her temples.
No, no. This can't be, she thought. How could an alien have learned to speak? It couldn't have…known the language, could it? And he looked like a six, seven-year-old! The thing crashed what, two days ago? This can't be right. But then again, it could have been grown wherever the aliens are, and its creators must have been able to teach it our language. Yeah, that sounds about right…I guess.
But…what he called himself. Number eight. Even the experts seem to think that a number was engraved on the object's exterior! Shit, shit, shit! What am I supposed to do?
Ruby inhaled deeply. She began to calm down, but the turmoil remained within. So many voices, so many conflicting arguments.
Think, think! Call a grown-up!
She backed into an alleyway, away from the crowd. Taking out the scroll from her pocket, Ruby dialed a number she knew by heart.
Hurry up! Quick!
The person on the other side took several seconds to pick up. His background was noisy — Ruby heard the blaring of loud music in the background — as always.
"What is it, kiddo?"
The man's voice was deep and gruff. It was as though he had just awoken.
"Uncle Qrow! Do you know about the crashed object?" said Ruby, keeping her voice low.
The sound of the man sitting up in his bed flooded the speakers of her scroll.
"That information's two days old. Of course, I know. Get to the point, or I'm getting back to sleep. It's a precious weekend, kiddo. Where are you, anyway?"
"Actually…never mind about that. I'm in the Western Sector. Can you come down here? There's something I need to tell you."
"What? Why?"
Ruby sighed. Beads of perspiration trickled down her forehead. She was unsure and afraid of what might happen by going down this path. But she trusted her intuition. If the boy truly were human, the damage would be minimal. But if he wasn't…well…
"Just…come over!"
"Okay, okay…just give me fifteen minutes."
Qrow Branwen ended the call.
He was unsettled by the panicked undertone in his niece's voice.
And it wasn't over something as silly as forgetting her weapon's license at home. It was something awful, as though she had gotten into a major accident. Furthermore, why she brought up the incident was a mystery to him. Was it a conversation starter? Then again, Ruby wasn't known for doing such a thing. She usually went straight to the point, which didn't sit well with most people.
Whatever it was, it was something serious, and it required the help of a huntsman.
Fifteen minutes later, Qrow Branwen had traveled from one side of the Western Sector to the other. He now stood at the coordinates that Ruby had sent him, waiting.
"Uncle Qrow! Over here!" whispered a familiar voice from the left of him. It had come from the alley, and Qrow turned to look at his niece.
"What?" asked the huntsman, visibly annoyed. His breath stank of cheap whiskey from last night.
"Come here!" repeated Ruby frantically.
Qrow could tell that she was scared. Anxious, to use a better word. He followed her into the alleyway. It was dark and cold inside, but he could still make out the outline of his niece.
Ruby explained to him everything that had happened since she saw the child in the weapons store. Surprisingly, Qrow listened closely to every word she had said and nodded with newfound understanding when she was done.
"I…see," said Qrow.
"Everything about him was so weird! The way he moved, the way he spoke…but that's not all…there was something about him that I just can't properly express in words!"
Ruby was practically breaking down at this point. Qrow could tell that she was serious about this, but her story was rather unbelievable. He had never seen the child she spoke of, and so he could not verify the extent of his 'otherness'.
"Hmm…are you sure he's still inside the library?" asked Qrow.
"Yeah, I've been watching the door for fifteen minutes now. There aren't any other exits," said Ruby.
Qrow nodded.
"Well…"
Qrow looked to the ground in contemplative silence.
"Well what?" asked Ruby.
"I don't think this is a good idea, kiddo."
"What? Why?"
"Based on what you told me, there isn't any real evidence to conclude that the boy you speak of is the alien. But listen, don't tell anyone I told you this, okay?"
Ruby nodded her head, and her uncle continued in a hushed tone.
"Ironwood's given me key intel about the situation."
"Ironwood? James Ironwood, General of the Atlesian Military and Headmaster of Atlas Academy? How do you know him?" asked Ruby, visibly intrigued.
"That's not important. What is important is that the trackers he employed are still searching for the alien. They haven't found it yet, but they did find footprints near the bordering wall between the Western Sector of the Commercial District and the Forever Fall Forest. Also, unlike what the news told you, Ironwood knows that the creature looks, at the very least, exactly like a human," explained Qrow.
"Then why don't you believe me?" asked Ruby.
"It's not that I don't believe you, it's because we just can't be sure yet. Jimmy's subordinates are still reviewing the surveillance camera footage from the wall and the guard posts," said Qrow.
"Then what can you do?" asked Ruby.
"Nothing at the moment, but I'll make sure to be on the lookout for the person you described. Jimmy's also checking the lists of entrants at the checkpoints from the last two days. I'll tell them to check for the person fitting the description you gave, and then we'll develop from there. At least you provided a lead — thanks to you they'll now have something to search for," said Qrow.
"So what will they do once they find someone matching the description on the list?" asked Ruby.
"I don't know. It's classified. But obviously, they'll narrow down the valid surveillance footage to those depicting him. That's tracking 101. Then we get on to the more advanced techniques, which they'll probably use a lot," said Qrow. Ruby often forgot that her uncle was an elite amongst elite huntsmen, a profession in which the art of tracking was a key part of. Perhaps it was his frequent alcohol consumption that lowered his intelligence and caused his speech to slur, but beneath Qrow's brutish and disheveled façade was a keen and perceptive mind.
"Perhaps they'll ask him for a genetic sample, after searching for him — if they find him at all, of course," explained Qrow. "But that's the obvious stuff. Jimmy has many tricks up his sleeve — and he's not afraid to use them for the betterment of Atlas."
"Yeah, obviously," said Ruby. Qrow ignored her poor attempt at sarcasm. "And what if they do find him?"
"Hmm, probably they'll ask him a few questions, given that he speaks — assuming he's the boy you're talking about. They're not stupid — he's obviously from a…technologically superior civilization, so they'll ask him why he's here instead of killing him. Unless he tries to fight," said Qrow. His voice trailed off ominously, and he took a swig of gin.
"He told me his name was number eight."
"What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Qrow suddenly seemed more attentive now — his once slack brows were set in deep furrows, and his dull vermillion eyes regained their sharpness.
"Sorry…I forgot," apologized Ruby. She could be a little scatterbrained at times.
"Shouldn't have told me after I drank…hnghhh. Well, there's something new. I'll tell Ironwood. Meanwhile, go home," said Qrow.
"What? Go home? Why?"
"Hnghhh…things are about to get real hairy."
Night, 4th Axial Rotation of Vale, Atlesian Time
Western Sector, Commercial District, Vale
The boy who would be king slept not in a palatial bedroom but on the cold concrete floor of the alleyway. The unyielding floor was coarse and damp and reeked of filthy rainwater. Things moved in the shadows, and the boy could hear them feasting on their dead kin.
A child would be hard-pressed to fall asleep in this place, this shadow of the metropolis, this ossuary of dreams.
Sleep came easily, but the same could not be said for hunger.
The boy was hungry. For all its mystical properties, the boy's body could not violate the laws of thermodynamics. He understood these laws well and could have held a lecture on the subject, but for now, all he was interested in was their consequences.
The hunger had been ever-present. It had been a mere annoyance at the time of the boy's entry to the library, but now it was practically unbearable. His stomach coiled around itself in long, agonizing loops, snarling, snarling, snarling with need. His body was not breaking even.
It would be so easy to steal the fruits and warm pastries from the vendors on the street. He knew he could outrun them several times over, and that his strength easily surpassed that of the average citizen. But it would be wrong — to do so would be an act of injustice.
So the boy waited. Sleep came for him soon enough.
There was a voice. Lulling. Honeyed. Mellifluous.
There were several. Where was he?
The boy remembered. He remembered the library and the vision he had.
An alleyway. Darkness. Black and infinite.
The boy saw them at first glance. They were faint, spindly silhouettes, cut out from the shadows of the shophouses. They moved like water, too fluid to be human, too fast for the human eye to follow. The otherworldly sweetness of their voice turned to bitterness, and then pure disgust as the boy felt their eyes laid upon him.
Twelve of them stepped into the moonlight, circling him in mesmerizing synchrony. Around and around him they danced, cursing in the eloquent sibilance of a tongue he could not understand.
The needle sang as it sliced the cold air—
— his eye catches the glint of the dark crystal, and the boy turns away as it sings just shy of his throat.
Another came. The boy evades it again, but it makes the shallowest of wounds upon his tender skin.
The boy wants to scream, but he could not. The pain carves up his mind like a hot knife to a nerve. The pain is immediate, stabbing, ruthless as the neurotoxic concoction spreads to every corner of his body in a heartbeat.
The boy fights back the pain, but another needle strikes him. This time, it hits him full in the chest. The pain is indescribable; it lashes out at his body unreservedly, forcing the boy to his knees, begging that it would all end quickly.
The voices grow louder, that same smooth, oily sibilance. The laughter grows louder as his vision fades into blackness. There is a new voice, more beautiful than the rest by far.
Grand, voluptuous, mellifluous with grace. It speaks in a language more primal than any the boy has ever heard. It was the emanation of base concept, the moment of emotion in all its myriad iterations, a word that was both a name and a concept at once.
Slaanesh!
Hello.
This is the longest chapter yet, at 8864 words. I sincerely apologize for the long wait - it's been a busy two weeks!
I've written several action sequences meant for chapters 10+ while I've barely started on planning the immediate future. So, I guess we'll meet again at the end of chapter 4, a week or two from now!
PS. I've edited major portions of chapters 1 and 2. Please check those out!