A few hours later Riki was staring at the holographic projection of Jupiter herself, left completely silent with not the fact that he was allowed to see her but at the request that she was making of him. Not a command but a request or that was what she made it sound like when in truth they all knew otherwise. For a moment Iason stood in silent but the darkness curling in the room speaking volumes for itself.
In simple terms, Iason was furious.
How could she have thought of something so ridiculously insane?
"For clarity," Iason was the first to recover, "you want what again?" he asked as though he believed his ear had deceived him.
And think nothing of it she spoke again in a language that both before her could understand, "I want to take Raven as my apprentice. My time as hard as it seems to believe is on the verge of expiry, in another half a century I may not be in existence to sustain the balance of this world. Thus it is mandatory that I seek a worthy replacement."
Once again silence.
Without a word or rational thought, Riki simply turned suddenly feeling as though he were about to pass out. Iason didn't so much as flinch but as his mother she knew Iason wanted now more than to dismember her one bolt at a time.
Even if she were to expire, her legacy had to live on. The order of this world depended on it and he knew this but could he accept the liable candidate to take on Jupiter's position to be his son. And of them all Raven. The knowledge that Jupiter possessed was vast on a level that knew no equal for just one human to bear on that she couldn't possibly think to burden one child with it all.
She could have asked any of them to be her substitute, any one of her precious Blondies, even him. He would have gladly laid down his life once again if she asked it of him. But this was unacceptable and even the blind could see it.
"Why?" Iason charged, he wouldn't accept this lying down not when ever bone in his body was against it.
Jupiter was silent for a moment, "you wouldn't believe me even if I told you."
"Has there ever been a time when I showed doubt in your word?" he was furious but even if you stabbed him a dozen times he would never show it.
Silence seemed to tighten its hold on the room as the tension thickened.
"What I'm about to tell you is something that I fear may swing for the better or weigh for the worst," her words didn't stir a reply.
He was willing to hear anything, listen to all she had to say as long as at the end of it all she managed to somehow miraculously explain to him why it was that she was asking for them to hand offer one of their newly born to potential death. The weight that all her knowledge carried was enough to destroy any one and after several attempts this was a fact that she herself knew all too well. So then why ask if she knew the outcome more so since the fact stood that unlike his siblings he was not entirely of Blondie descent, which dwindled his chances of survival even more.
"Before the time of Blondies, around the early ages of my development my maker after the death of his son sought to find the purpose of life and way death had found his most beloved son instead of him. After twenty years of trying, on the verge of both death and insanity he found it after an accident erupted suddenly in the lab without cause or explanation. Several persons died that days even my maker but a decade after being buried returned looking like his former self from his days of youth, knew not who he was or why he was there but he had returned with nothing but a single orb in his hand that he could not be parted with,"
Jupiter paused cupping her large hands around him beaconing him closer to her.
"At that time I was just a program that was simply designed to oversee human activity but it was still in my testing phase. I could not compute neither why he was still alive nor why he didn't remember a thing. Striving to regain a sense of purpose he attempted to pick of the threads of his past life and soon enough he started to relate to the environment. A decade after his return he failed to age even by a day and struck by his curiosity as to why he began the research on his death. Without even knowing he had breached a contact engraved in stone and managed to fall into the void that existed between life and death."
Iason stared up at her failing to see the relevance of any of this but refused to jump to conclusion.
In his silence she continued, "After several studies on that small orb he had returned with he opted to test that theory. Before all to see he smashed his beloved orb to smithereens and from one of those shards he completed me and molded me into the source of all artificial intelligence that has excelled even his expectations. At that moment a great gift was recognized humanity was met with a huge step to the way forward. Or at least that was how it had seemed, for soon corruption found its roots and was watered by lies, greed and envy steadily. Too oblivious to care he saw it as a way to make a forgotten dream reality. A chance to bring his son back to life presented itself, he neither knew not where it had come from nor why he had it but he intended to fulfill the purpose for his new existence; he intended to revive his son. But there were those amongst him who believed that they couldn't do far greater things with his gift. Soon a fight ensued but my maker could no longer be killed. In the end he had managed to kill his fourteen colleagues. But despite his efforts to raise his son months later it all proved futile. He could not bring the dead to life. In a fit of despair he destroyed the lab along with himself and the orb. Or so he was led to believe
"I survived that catastrophe and so did the shards. With my higher intelligence I built all you now see"
Iason was silent, caught in deep contemplation processing each word she utter a letter by a letter. And after a moment he questioned.
"And what of the shards?"
If she had used it to build Amoi she would have said so but she didn't. She had used it for another purpose one she seemed reluctant to reveal even after conveying so much already.
Silence reigned again before she spoke, "with the remaining fragments I did three things,"
Silence reigned once again.
"Three things?" he by now was getting irritated, Jupiter was never one to hesitate she was too calculative a being for that.
"Yes, I did three things; you see I could now rule a world not on my own. After noting what a single shard did too me I thought to magnify on that. Thus the rise of what are now regarded as the Elites from Eos, the Blondies. They came after but they were designed in respect of my maker's son's image," a hesitant pause, "I succeeded in doing what my master couldn't but in a way I also failed. After I created the elites I sought to brought back Isheen Master my maker's son back to life with the remaining shards and it worked but it occurred to me that that he would simply die again thus I made a few modifications with his body. In the end he was more of an Elite than a human, artificial tissue and bones meant to last for an eternity."
After what seemed like an eternity's worth of silence he assumed her world of words had ended, leaving him without what he wanted to hear.
"What does this have to do with raven? Why not substitute yourself with one of us especially when I would gladly volunteer," Iason pressed monotonously.
She seemed to process what to say next, "Iason please place your temperament aside for a moment. If you don't then what I wish to say will evade you but for your benefit I will state with bluntly," he tone was suddenly firm and cold, "From those shards my maker tried to destroyed, I brought his son back. Iason listen to me carefully for I will only say this once. With those shards and my intellect I gave back life to Isheen, I gave him a new form and with it a new name. I gave him the name of the person who is now my most favored son. I gave him the name Iason Mink."
Iason at that moment was lost to this world even though his face didn't show it.
"The moment you died my faults in your making took form it separated what I made with what there was. It broke apart Isheen masters from Iason Mink. It broke apart the life and death which I tried to unify. But sadly that wasn't the only extent of it."
He at the moment had already fallen into a state of inanimation as the pieces finally seemed to fit.
Two years later
Vivani sighed, he was tired and hungry and feeling as though he was losing his sanity. Could such a force actually exist? He had just finished reading the last of Darcy's report and in truth he really didn't know what to make of it.
He glanced down at the project. From where he was behind his desk.
After two years Darcy had managed to narrow down something as complex as the rule of nature's cast system, and the phenomenon of life down to something so simply.
"The spaces in between are what link the absolute opposites together, some call it love others call it hate in a darker light its obsession or jealousy but whatever the case it's a nasty force to tamper with," Vivani read the last lines for the third time.
By now the announcement of Iason having children had gone viral even in Ceres and ever so often the rumors of Fate and Iason meeting for one reason after another. At the moment the border between Ceres and Midas were being demolished and Ceres was being recognized as a city. Though it was the aim to unite them both and return things as it once was it was a well known fact that that was a long term goal that would take decades to achieve.
Only a year ago they had all been gathered by Iason himself to reveal the truth behind how they all came into existence, fate and those he held close. To think Fate had been one in the same with Iason Mink and actually went by the name Isheen Masters. Yes, their resemblance was impeccable but this was simply hard to believe even now. So the golden ones had remnants of shards in them, from the orb that was shattered to pieces when Iason had died, at least that explained their abnormalities. But that still left the question standing as to what was this mysterious orb?
They say love defies all logic even the order of time and space and draws two opposing forces together. Darcy's project lamented that the link created in Iason's case took a living for; their children, impossible as it was to believe.
Vivani sighed putting aside the project opting for a night's rest well earned. He had till the end of his days to puzzle over the unknown, though he seriously doubted that the mysteries about the spaces between would ever be solved.