《The Economics of Emotion》


 1. Numa Tullus

    He wanted nothing more than to communicate. His self was so empty, so disconnected from everyone, it was almost like everyone around him was speaking a different language. Each word spoken was just a jumbled mess, each word made sense, but the collective was just gibberish, a nonsensical mess that just seemed to dribble out of his ear. This lack of connection was a raw, grating feeling. Almost like a goalkeeper, it made sure to separate him from everything that most people would consider being ¡°human¡±. He specially hated being around people, as doing so would only just reinforce how lonely he was, and this only continued to defeat him and leave him tired and drained. He tried his best to make them like him, at first all he thought was he wanted to be accepted. And eventually he was, but this didn¡¯t make him feel any better. They didn¡¯t accept him, instead all they seemed to do was accept his fa?ade, his true face still hidden by a mask.


    Not all accepted him as he portrayed though, some saw through his disguise, saw through his ugly, ugly exterior. The warped sense of self that didn¡¯t really belong to anyone. At the end of the day, he had stopped seeing himself as being human. Instead, he simply saw himself as he truly was, a shapeshifter only temporarily pretending to be human. He was a demon wrapped in human skin, long dead and even longer forgotten. He was basically just one big ¡°reference¡±, pieces of different personalities stitched haphazardly together creating this disgusting amalgamation of twisted emotions and beliefs. The time to remember who he truly was had long past anyone by, that person had died long ago and all that was left was this ¡°thing¡±. Too warped to be called human, but too alive to be called dead.


    He rarely wanted for anything outside of his most basic needs. He ate until he was full, he slept until he wasn¡¯t tired anymore. Both activities gave him some semblance of ¡°meaning¡± and as such gave him a little joy. Partaking in more than he should simply just left the taste of agony in his mouth after the momentary joy had passed him by. It taunted him, letting him feel alive only for this feeling to fade away, to be replaced by a deep feeling of hollowness. Somedays it almost felt like his entire existence was cursed and his very being so wrong his soul had rejected that notion from the moment it was aware of this incongruity.


    Not all days were as bad as others, sometimes he would feel alive, on the top of his ¡°game¡± ready to face the day and to work to ¡°better¡± himself. Yet, every time, he was once again met with a faceless crowd. All of them looking just as alien as the last, each glance was just as meaningless as the last, all meaning foreign to his eyes.


    Each day he would wakeup and go wash his face. During this time, he would stare into the mirror and back at himself. His face looked and felt so alien to him, he no longer identified that face as his, his eyes met his own with an almost clinical look. There was no flash of recognition, no twitch of the face that would convey any emotion. His mind just as blank as it was when he splashed water onto his own face. He didn¡¯t feel disgust anymore for what he had become. Before he was an angry man, angry about how everything was turning out, angry at his peers, angry at himself, angry at his family. But now there was no longer any presence of this anger. This anger had left him some years ago and it formed such an angry gaping hole within himself. At first, he was happy this anger had left him, but then he soon realized how much this anger had motivated, how much this anger had fueled him to feel anything really. Everything was painted in shades of how angry he was, it served as the backdrop of this day, but just as present as it was then, its absence now was almost startling. There wasn¡¯t much that could create this backdrop as his anger had. Now, instead of feeling shades of anger, his days were painted with shades of nothing. Somedays he felt especially like nothing, like a warm breeze floating through life. Other days he felt like a cold breeze that just as easily passed through life. He never really felt like much anymore.


    Sometimes though, in some lucky moments he would be overtaken with a strong emotion, such as disgust, happiness, joy, fear, there was a whole suite of emotions that seemingly were at his disposal in these moments. Strangly absent, almost like he had spent enough for a lifetime was his feelings of sadness and anger. These moments would spring up quickly, but then just as quickly as they appeared they would disappear again like they had never existed in the first place.


    It was a hollow experience, but he had come to live with it. Giving up and trying again in the next life had never really crossed his mind, but thoughts and plans for his future were also suspiciously absent also. He lived each day like it was his last, yet each day was just as unfulfilling as the last.


    He had once seen a doctor about his troubles, but almost like an allergic reaction his ¡°personality¡± would quickly spring up, replacing his true nature like the winter snow being melted away with the spring air. He eventually stopped bothering going; the doctors could only fix what they could consider broken. If he couldn¡¯t be bothered to show what was broken it wasn¡¯t their fault they couldn¡¯t ¡°fix him¡±. At the end of the day, it was all just a big excuse, and there wasn¡¯t much he could do about that. But then again, that thought was also just another larger excuse.


    Waking up on a Tuesday, his first feeling every morning was joy. It was an intoxicating feeling, something that seemed to ease his mind, but this joy just like the tide, receded back into the ocean of his consciousness almost like it was playing a game of peekaboo. What was left was just a raw, emptiness. To refer to it as an emotion would be categorically false, as it wasn¡¯t a feeling of emptiness so much as it was just emptiness. Rubbing his eye, he sat up from his bed in his single room apartment and made his way towards the bathroom. Washing his face with a splash of cold water, he met his gaze in the mirror like he had did every day for the past four years of his life. Once again, this netted him absolutely nothing, just a waste of time in an already wasteful life.


    He didn¡¯t remember why he started doing this, there was no real reason to do it. He wasn¡¯t looking at his face, instead he was looking into his own eyes trying to see what laid behind him. It never occurred to him how strange this really was, especially since he knew what lay behind those eyes, he was still capable of reading and understanding his own thoughts.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Just like always his eyes just looked like nothing special, just a circular orb floating in a socket. There was no flicker of anything, no lack of something. It looked how it always looked, he never understood when people said that the eyes were the most expressive part of the body. With a sigh, he broke contact with himself and made his way to the desk situated next to his bed. It was a small desk, barely able to fit a small computer, it felt more constrained than it really was but that didn¡¯t bother him at all. He didn¡¯t need more space, and the smaller the room the less felt wasted. It was a simplistic lifestyle, and there wasn¡¯t much to do within his room.


    All that mattered to him though was there was his laptop and his writings contained within. He loved writing, that was really his one passion, probably the largest thing about his life. He would spend hours upon hours working upon his story. Each addition, each rendition would bring it closer and closer to how it really was.


    The largest problem with his writing and something that he wouldn¡¯t be able to change, was the fact that he never really understood the concept of motivation. He barely knew what motived himself (if there was anything motivating him at all) and the thoughts of others were just as mysterious as the morning stars. Maybe if he had a way to understand people¡¯s motivations then he wouldn¡¯t struggle so much with connecting with them. But nevertheless, he trooped onwards. His writing wasn¡¯t based in fact, nor was it based in fiction. Instead, it was based on his own broken ideas of how the world worked. Just like his ¡°personality¡± this meant a bunch of stereotypes and cliches were route together. He believed it was clich¨¦, he almost took pride in how clich¨¦ it was. Like the saying goes, there is no smoke without a fire, and cliches are cliches because they were at one point interesting and in some ways reflect how we view the world. In a similar manner, he believed the way he interpreted and used cliches showed his true face to the world. It showed how he really felt, who he really was. Even thought this was a good chance to express himself, he never felt like showing it to anyone. None of his ¡°friends¡± would appreciate his writings, many of them would probably not even bother reading them but he didn¡¯t blame them. The person he was with them wasn¡¯t the kind of person to do those things, he lied to them just as much as they would probably lie to him saying that they had read it. Showing it to strangers online didn¡¯t do much for him either. He didn¡¯t do it for recognition. He wrote it to get it out of his system. Kept inside it would be kept in a loop, the story never progressing forever frustrating him in the endless silence of his life.


    As such, he wrote. A couple words every now and then. Just a couple notes to himself pretty much, soon they became paragraphs, just basic summaries of galactic events. Eventually they extended even further into short stories chronologizing the events of certain people¡¯s lives. He didn¡¯t write how he would react; he wrote how he felt other people would react to these events. Almost like a sick pop quiz it entertained him for a time. It was never a set-in stone kind of story, in fact the totality of read more like a history textbook that might have been found from that universe.


    Sometimes he wondered if he should change things to follow only one main character. Then he realized how almost silly that was. I mean, does it make sense that one person could have enough sway to change the world, much less a galaxy. These things were never so simple, instead they were usually attributed to one person in hindsight as historians found it more and more necessary to condense centuries into mere minutes. In other words, it was never really one person that changed this world, instead it was a collective who through their actions shaped the world around them. Just like that, the story was re-written to only feature one main character.


    Just like the founding of Rome was attributed to Romulus (whose identity was probably closer to a fictional character based loosely on a generation or two of founders). This main character active from 300 A2A to 550 A3A was attributed to certain unexplained events.  General Luxemburg ambushed the Endaria forces waiting for him above the planet Evelon primary with a contingent of mechanized infantry. How did Luxemburg find out about the ambush? He didn¡¯t, it was relayed to him by a rising star¡ªQuin. Quin was also the person who led the mechanized infantry in a rout of the Endaria. Who brought about the third great awakening and moved the era from A2A to A3A? Quin of course. Who built Rome? It was Romulus of course! How long did it take him? More than a day!


    His cleverness with the creation of this brought him enough joy to last a day, but by the next he was back to his same ways. He felt proud about how sloppily it was done. In other words, anyone who read it could tell that Quin was a made-up character, in the fact that there wasn¡¯t much to him outside of his abilities to affect the outcome of events. Plainly, it simply meant that his actions were too broad, too impactful to be a real person if this was taken to be an actual textbook.


    Trying to stimulate himself again, he created another character, Numa Tullus. Unlike Quin, whose role was to take the credit for anything galaxy shaking, Numa was a character who existed in only brief one sentence offhand comments. The kind where if you brought it up to your history professor, they would either be seriously impressed or confused as to who the person was. The difference was, Numa was a real person. Quin was a shoo-in for an organization or multiple movements, where Quin really did exist. He was a real person in this story, and while he never did anything so great as change the fate of a galaxy, he was a constant enough presence for his story to be recounted in a history textbook.


    Leaning back in his chair, looking at the screen after editing in the final reference of Quin he was just as empty as he was when he began sowing together this tail. He didn¡¯t feel anything special from it, but this didn¡¯t bother him. His space textbook was done there was nothing more to right. Thinking about it, he didn¡¯t feel content. He didn¡¯t feel much of anything, just a weird sense of boredom. Before his mind would be racing a mile a minute, but now it seemed to be slowing down.


    There was nothing on his mind, but his recognition of the fact and just general response to the world was continuing to slow down further and further. At some point he must have taken on his glasses cause his vision was beginning to become blurrier and blurrier. Thinking slowly to himself, ¡°I must be sitting down or something¡­¡±. His mind couldn¡¯t keep up with the multitude of signals racing through his body, it no longer registered the pain felt in his head, it no longer registered the pain in his heart. These were no longer a concern of his. He had moved on¡ªfully moved on.


    Slumping forward and slamming his head onto his computer, his last thought in this life was only a cold remark of wondering how long it would take before someone found his body¡­.

 2. Playing Catch in the Dark

    His eyes felt heavy, but he knew it was time to get up. The ringing in his seemed to strike the sides of his, rebounding from side to side, refusing to open his eyes, Numa shakes his head to get the ringing out of his head. With the violent shaking of his head mixed with the vicious ringing in his ears, Numa regained enough of his senses to realize that the ringing wasn¡¯t coming from inside his head, but rather from the alarm clock situated intentionally out of reach. The reward for finally managing to open his eyes was a wave of nausea so strong that it forced his eyes closed and his hand over his stomach. Rolling over into his stomach, rocking back and forth to try and ease the nausea. To him, it felt like his very thinking was being forcibly rewritten for him.


    On a physical level it felt like he was wearing someone else¡¯s skin. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but it was something he was used to. Why was he used to it? Asking himself that question got him nothing. His mind flashed with a hot white searing pain that seemed to further dissociate himself with his body, until it got to the point it felt like his mind was trapped in that of another, controlling it from the inside like some sort of sick meat puppet. This feeling didn¡¯t get better, but only seemed to intensify with time. In an almost stark contrast, as his dissociation got worse, and the feeling intensified it started to bother him less and less. He was feeling more and more like he wasn¡¯t himself, but along with all other emotion it seemed to drain from him, like he had overspent his emotions in his past life and this life¡¯s emotions were already forfeited to the debt collectors.


    Rolling over, a piece of bile stuck in his throat threatened to rise and forcibly exit his mouth. Fighting it back down his throat, Numa closed his eyes and attempted to stabilize his thinking. Almost meditating, caused him to fall back into a deep slumber all the while his alarm continued to ring off into the morning.


    Several people were marching down the hall, the sharp click of their heels on the stone floor ringing out hollowly throughout the halls. The person in the center was walking at a steady pace, not fast but not too slow either. Still, due to their stature either person flanking them had to speed walk to keep up with them. On either side of this central figure flanked what appeared to be soldiers, complete with rifles strapped to their backs and helmets obscuring their facial features. Leading them down the hall was a person of great stature, easily standing over six feet tall. Unlike the soldiers, this figure wore a full body suite and no weapons visible except what appeared to be a dagger strapped to their waist.


    The central figure appeared to be leisurely strolling down the hall, yet the two soldiers could barely keep pace with this massive figure. Reaching their destination, the central figure moved off to the side, letting the soldiers pass by them and pass through a metal sliding door into a darkened room. The reason for the central figure didn¡¯t follow them in was obvious, as the door frame stood a good six inches too short to pass through the entrance.


    All this time, there was no audible noise coming from either the soldier or central figure save the sound of their boots on the stone floor. Within the room there laid a desk, and a lone bed with a figure huddled on it, seemingly shaking. With their faces covered it was hard to tell how these soldiers were positioned to this mysterious figure, and while these accommodations weren¡¯t glamorous, they were far from a military barrack or prison cell.


    Both soldiers slung their rifles over their soldiers, and one reached a handout to pull the blanket back, while the other soldier quietly turned off the alarm clock with a simple tap on its metal frame, and just as constantly as it had been ringing previously it stopped, and with a quiet puff of air a hidden mechanism retracted the alarm clock back into the nightstand it was situated on.


    Pealing back the blanket, the soldier went to shake the revealed man awake, but seemingly stopped for no apparent reason. Looking back at their partner, they instead reached up and tapped a console hidden on their wrist guard. A button lit up on it, before slowly fading out. With a crackle of static, a garbled noise was heard emanating from the helmet. Smacking the side of their helmet twice seemed to fix the issue, as a clear male voice was soon heard.


    ¡°It¡¯s time to wake up mister, we are about to dock on the station, you are running late and if you don¡¯t get up soon you will be late.¡± The soldier seemed to be respectful to this man, but not overly so, and seemed to being nice out of courtesy and not out of loyalty. The use of mister here was interesting, as it implied this man was a stranger to the soldier, yet he was being nice enough to gently wake him up or wake him up at all.


    The situation of the man on the bed was an interesting one. His name was Numa Tullis, and he was the bastard son of Remus Tullis. This meant that while he wasn¡¯t in line to replace his liege, he was still a blood relation of his liege, and as such indirect courtesy was applied here. He couldn¡¯t refer to this man as sir, as he wasn¡¯t in line for the title of count, nor was he his superior and as such the term ¡°mister¡± was applied here.


    Groggily opening his eyes, Numa seemed to be at a loss for what he was looking out. This didn¡¯t show on his face though, as his face and eyes seemed to lack all light behind them. Replacing his face with a carving would have made this scene make more sense, as his actions seemed to imply curiosity, yet nothing seemed to reach his face. There was nothing inherently creepy about it, but the sight of Numa surveying the room all the while remaining expressionless seemed unsettling to say the least. It wasn¡¯t a pristine gaze, or a regal gaze, instead it was a dead gaze, like nothing was registering behind those eyes. Almost like there nothing going up there, to put it simply, he looked like an idiot.


    It was not an inspiring sight, and it wasn¡¯t something to pity either. Things like pity had been ironed out of these soldiers, and they had to have been. These soldiers were born during the First Great Awakening and were active during the turn after the Second Great Awakening, marking this new age. This wasn¡¯t an age of peace, the very act of living was a brutal affair, and everyone had to serve a purpose. Those who couldn¡¯t give themselves one, were granted the honor of being gifted a purpose. Usually as cannon fodder. As such, this soldier didn¡¯t pity the weak, the stupid, or anything in between, instead this soldier just saw someone who either knew his purpose already or this purpose would be enlightened to him later, therefore there was nothing to pity.


    Shaking their head, the speaker was deactivated, and silence descended upon the room again. Motioning to their partner, both soldiers walked out of the room, their mission having been finally completed, and it was now time for them to head back to their normal detail.


    Quickly exiting the room, they saluted the large person who stayed just outside the door before proceeding to head back through the long hallway. The large person, after having made their way to the side of the door earlier hadn¡¯t moved an inch since reaching that point. They had tilted their head slightly when saluted by the soldiers, but even after the soldiers left, they didn¡¯t follow, instead just standing as still as a soldier. To be fair, their suit seemed bulky enough to prevent any motions of swaying. In other words, two words came to mind when observing the suit, the first was intimidating, and the second was sturdy. To many people, looking at the suit brought a sense of comfort, it felt like the wearer could even bear the brunt of the universe if the situation called for it.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    The first couple of seconds after fully waking up was a confusing couple of seconds for Numa. The previous instance of him waking up with the alarm seemed like a fever dream, yet his queasy stomach seemed to reinforce that the previous instance was real and not part of the dream. Trying to collect himself Numa found that where his dream ended and where his life began was a line that seemed to become more and more blurred the further into his memories he got. He was Numa, but his dream was so vivid it almost felt like he was also¡­ well, him.


    It hurt his brain, and there were memories so many memories. A lot of them were foreign, in that they were different from his other memories, he couldn¡¯t remember when those memories were made or how they got into his head in the first place. What was even more alarming was the fact that these memories were devoid of any emotion attached to them, he remembered things about his life that he was pretty sure hadn¡¯t happened yet, but they were all just dates and a list of what went on. It was like remembering a password, you remembered the password, but it wasn¡¯t like you remembered how you felt when you made the password or even how you felt about the password. Instead, it was, well just a password.


    He seemed to know that in ten years he would be emancipated from his birth family, how he knew this he didn¡¯t know. There was no basis for this knowledge, it wasn¡¯t like it was a guess or an intuition, it wasn¡¯t a feeling, it was knowledge plain and simple. It was the same feeling he got when he remembered a fact from his history textbooks, but he didn¡¯t remember reading this fact in anything. It was a weird feeling, and there were many other ¡°big¡± facts like this rattling around in his brain. It seemed like these memories were attached to him of his dream, yet there should be no connection between the two, as the world in the dream was radically different than the one found.


    It was a surreal experience, and while his initial instincts were to not trust this information, but when prompted, his cybernetics confirmed that nothing had been done without his permission, but it also alerted him to significant damage done to his Limbic System. When prompted to expand, the only response was ¡°error¡±, and it just gave him the generic error that occurred when a part of the body was so damaged the cybernetic sensors couldn¡¯t quantify how damaged it was. This either meant the sensor in charge of checking was broken, or in extreme cases that body part was just¡­ gone.


    The extreme damage to a part of the brain was a worrying prospect, but this worry didn¡¯t register with Numa. Instead, it functioned just like a data point within his mind, something to take note of, something to circle back to, something that needed to be addressed, but it didn¡¯t register on an emotional level for him. If he knew what the limbic system did for the brain this would make sense to him, but he didn¡¯t know, and so this passed by him like dust in the wind.


    What he knew was that he was still confident in his (somewhat) soundness of mind, that he couldn¡¯t inherently trust this newfound information, but by that same metric he couldn¡¯t distrust it either. It was something that could easily be checked, and even if he could trust this information, he understood his knowledge wasn¡¯t the end all or be all the universes. In other words, if he knew when someone was supposed to die, and then he saved them, this could invalidate the other dates held within his hands.


    Lastly, there was a frequent mention of Quin held within the dates. Many of the dates held a title (aka in 14 A2A Numa Tullis becomes simply Tullis) and some of description of the event. It was different from when he accessed information stored in the cybernetic, as all that did was allow him to read the data, and there was a ban on AI in cybernetics ever since the ending of the first era.


    This Quin didn¡¯t have a family name, so there was no proof of this, but Quin was a rather unique name, and it would be hard sell to convince Numa that he would finally be emancipated from his family, when a new member of the main family was just born named Quintus Tullis, and ten years of age was the age when a family member was officially added to the family tree.


    Checking the time, his heads-up display showed that it was 13:00 Tellus time, a little past lunch. Silently, without much thought put into it, he grabbed an armor unit off his nightstand and placed it on his chest, and with a hiss of air being forced out, the armor deployed, fully covering him in a protective suit. While it was a full body suit, it was closer to the armor worn by the soldiers then the towering suit worn by the hulking mass of person outside. In fact, even compared to the armor worn by the soldiers it was a little dinky.


    Numa knew where he was headed, but he didn¡¯t know for what purpose. He was headed to the Universal Command Military Academy located on Martius, where he would be trained to be ¡°the finest marine¡±. Basically, he was going to be a special kind of cannon fodder. Conscripted grunts were tasked with either drowning an enemy position in corpses, making the enemy run out of bullets, or something to that effect. Marines were found in most combat zones, but there was task was a little more specific. Enemy champions, those things that were strong enough to destroy thousands of grunts and hundreds of soldiers with their singular might, were handled by the marines. Their goal wasn¡¯t to kill, instead their goal was to delay the champion enough so that their own champions could intervene. They were harder to kill then soldiers and grunts and were ¡°built to last¡± but at the end of the day billions of marines were trained and deployed every cycle, yet if you looked around there were very few non rookie marines.


    The death rate was about one in five marines would make it past their first year after graduation and only one in a thousand would make it out of the marine program alive. Unlike grunts, who usually served in that role for life, if you made it two years as a marine you would be shuffled over into leadership role in the normal military (usually serving as a squad captain).


    The armor pack he had placed on was the cadet uniform of the marines, and it would later be decorated with whatever cohort he was placed into upon official enrollment into the academy. Numa had just turned twenty, at the age of nineteen they applied for a purpose, either seeking higher education or the like, and by twenty they would continue the path they had chosen at nineteen. If one didn¡¯t receive the purpose they applied for, the luckiest ones could choose a different purpose, the rest were the unlucky ones, forced to fill out the ranks of either the grunts or the marine corps.


    Numa had willingly chosen to join the marines, as at the time glory and death on the battlefield seemed a better alternative than a knife in the dark. But now, glory meant nothing to him. Death was death, and however it happened to him. Weirdly, the thought of dying didn¡¯t bother him, but a part of him still didn¡¯t want to live. It was a weird feeling, since it wasn¡¯t a feeling at all. Numa just didn¡¯t see dying as an option, just seemingly another data point, something he had apparently started gathering.


    Silently, Numa moved about in his armored suit, trying to get a feel for how it would hinder his process. His father had supported his decision to join the marines, apparently even his dad wanted him dead. This wasn¡¯t surprising, and his father was probably happy since it meant there was no need to setup an ¡°accident¡±.


    This meant that for the most part, his father had probably sent someone to protect him during his training in the academy (which wasn¡¯t prohibited) as his death in the academy would probably be used by his families¡¯ enemies to cast shade on his family.


    Knowing what he might now know, Numa felt odd calling them ¡°his family¡±, but death was something he wanted to avoid, meaning if he was given a protector knowingly, he would abuse the ever-living hell out of them until his time to be protected was over.


    Finally getting a feel for the suit, Numa walked over to the console next to the door and placed his hand on the scanner, unlocking it for what was probably the last time as a cadet. While this wasn¡¯t his ship, it was his fathers, but it wasn¡¯t even a private one. All he had gotten was a private room on a ship transporting half of the marine cadets from his father¡¯s territory (they were travelling in a convey of two motherships). So, while there was almost no nostalgia attached to this ship, it still felt somewhat final leaving his room for some reason.


    Pausing for only a quarter of a second, Numa¡¯s hand landed firmly on the scanner, and with a blast of air, the door was opened yet this didn¡¯t feel like a good thing. In fact, it felt like nothing much at all¡­

 3. Knight Protectorate

    With a puff of compressed air and the whiz of hydraulics the paneled door opened, revealing the long dark hallway that lay behind it. The hallway wasn¡¯t dark in the traditional sense, in fact it had a quite a bit of light in it. Instead, this darkness was apparent since there was no artificial lighting. Instead, the right side of the hallway was being illuminated through a wall made of glass, allowing the observer to see through it and into the cosmos. There was no star present near the ship, but there was a multitude of stars in the very far distance, their light illuminating the hallway, yet leaving long and dark shadows within the hall.


    Stepping through the doorway, Numa hesitated before turning to meet the gaze of the person standing just to the right of the door. They appeared to be massive, but it was difficult to tell if this stature was normal or if the suit was just built to fit their frame. There seemed to be an awkward pause, where both Numa and the person in the suit didn¡¯t know what to say.


    Numa didn¡¯t recognize the person in the suit, and there was no insignia apparent just on the front facing bits of the suit. But the type of suit and prestige of the suit was not lost upon him. It was a Vindicator-class suit of armor. The attachments could vary, but it was generally a bulky suit of armor but with its dense steel plating it was very resistant to damage. It also included personal energy dispersal unit, meaning this suit could tank a direct hit from a fission cannon. Now, it probably couldn¡¯t take more than one hit, and there was considerable kickback to tanking something like that, it was still considered the best meat shield within the military arm of humanity.


    Vindicator suits and their users were referred to as one, and just as Vindicators at just that. Supposedly the name for Vindicators came from their rampant use as an apology. In other words, their partner would piss off the opposing force, and the Vindicator would be forced to ¡°apologize¡± by face tanking the incoming fire. It was really a cynical outlook, but it seemed fitting for Numa. Vindicators were usually used to accompany slower and harder hitting troops when used in combat, or for security of important persons or locations. Their ability to protect came from the ability to block most things with their face, as such Vindicators that embraced this idea carried two wrist mounted deployable energy fields, allowing for most physical and nuclear damage to be blocked. This didn¡¯t protect much from radiant and chemical damage, but the suit was filtered and plated to protect from both of those.


    Numa didn¡¯t know exactly how to react to this Vindicator. It was on his family¡¯s ship, so it was probably here to protect him, but on the flip side he could have sorely miscalculated, and his father had simply deigned it better to just wash his hands of Numa. Numa slowly leaned back on his heels, ready to sprint away from them as quickly as humanly possible. Luckily for Numa, suits like these, while being basically walking fortresses, ran about as quickly as one. In other words, these things were about as fast a supermassive blackhole, they absorbed all types of energy and mass hurled at them¡ªbut they moved extremely slow.


    Almost sensing his eagerness to bolt, the Vindicator just simply raised his hand as if the hand was telling him to stop. Watching the hand move up, it felt almost as slow motion to Numa, but whether this was because of the adrenaline coursing through his veins or if this Vindicator was just that slow, only time could tell.


    With an audible click, the internal mic of the Vindicator suit patched into its suits speakers and just coldly asked, ¡°Numa Tullis, I will be your Knight protectorate.¡± And with another audible click, the mic was disengaged from the speaker just like that. There wasn¡¯t much to it, it was impossible to talk much about the owner of the voice, it was a quick sentence and the speakers sounded like they hadn¡¯t been used in years. There wasn¡¯t much to the sentence, and it was hard to tell if the Vindicator was being short because that¡¯s who they were or if they simply didn¡¯t like him.


    To Numa it didn¡¯t matter, the Vindicator had announced their intention to being his Knight protectorate, until this contract was verbally terminated this Vindicator wouldn¡¯t hesitate to throw their life on the line for Numa. Well, in theory at least. Vindicators were big fans of honor and anything that would besmirch their good name was to be avoided like the plague. So, unless Numa went overboard, this Vindicator would act as a good shield for him.


    Strangely, the Knight didn¡¯t ask for his identifier code, a code being transmitted on a closed radon frequency which would allow anyone with the code to both identify who you were (as these codes were one of a kind) and secondly, they could be used to track the person if their signal was within the range of the tracking device. Frankly, this probably meant that this Knight Vindicator didn¡¯t think too highly of him, and probably wouldn¡¯t be laying their life down for his anytime soon.


    Breaking off eye contact, if there was any in the first place, Numa looked through the viewport of his helmet and just well¡­chilled. Strangely, there was no sense of discomfort for the situation he was thrust into, and this created an uncomfortable feeling, not because of the feeling of dread, but instead the direct reverse. It was a feeling of absence as opposed to a feeling of presence. The feeling made his skin itch, but there wasn¡¯t much he could do about it.


    After the brief pause in his gate due to the interruption of the Vindicator, Numa simply kept on walking. Staring out into the night sky, was a breath-taking view of the vastness and the expanse of space, yet again there was this disconnect between what he was thinking and the feeling. Numa recognized it was breathtaking, and almost as if expecting to feel amazed or shocked, Numa simply didn¡¯t feel what he was expecting. This lack of feeling made his skin crawl, but at the same time it wasn¡¯t registered on an emotional level. Instead, he simply brushed past it like a piece of trash left on the side of the road.


    Quickly making his way past the windowed hallway, Numa passed out of the private quarters (usually reserved for foreign dignitaries or visiting nobles) and into the main compartment of the ships. Not having to look behind him, Numa could hear the lurching vindicator walking slowly yet efficiently behind him. Almost immediately after leaving the private section of the ship and onto the main portion, Numa was immediately bombarded with so many different noises and the rush of bodies.


    It seemed that they were about to dock with station orbiting Martius. Martius was a planet in the Sol sector, the fourth planet from the star. At one point in time, it was a red planet, but now only the vestiges of this red existed. Instead, there hundreds of thousands of ships in its orbit with countless space stations in orbit, both in charge of protecting the planet and processing new recruits to the Universal Command Military Academy, as this academy occupied the entire surface and underground of the planet. In fact, only cadets and related staff lived on the planet, it was a military planet through and through.


    Walking through a crowd of people heading towards the docking bay of the ship, Numa headed in the opposite direction, a faceless cadet amidst a sea of equally faceless cadets. While most cadets would be processed at the docking bay and would then be escorted to the planet¡¯s surface through a dropship, special consideration needed to be considered for Numa. In theory, he was still a Tullis so due consideration would still need to be maintained to not tarnish the family¡¯s name. Secondly, the vindicator was too bulky to fit into the ship dropping off the cadets, and as such a larger drop ship would need to be used.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Traditionally in live combat, vindicators would be dropped from low orbit and allowed to free fall to the ground just like that, but this wasn¡¯t exactly feasible in friendly territory as the damage would be extensive. As such, a larger drop ship was being called and other exiled noblemen¡¯s children (read: other bastards) would be shipped with him. To his knowledge, they were mostly fourth or fifth children just like him


    and as such weren¡¯t entitled to much. They were most likely the dredges being cast away, and this was the best and most feasible way of disposal. They were mostly minor nobleman¡¯s children though, and he was by far the one (technically) highest ranked. Frankly though, this would probably not be true for much longer as it was an open secret onto how much his family despised him.


    While it was true there was an established hierarchy when it came to rank and seniority between the noble children, but this came with a caveat. At this age their prestige and political clout came from their families, so if their families weren¡¯t supporting them how would it be any different from just being a nameless nobody. So, for someone like Numa whose family was simply just waiting for his death, there wasn¡¯t much force he could apply to the group.


    At first, with the uncertainty of it all and the vindicator behind him they would probably at worst leave him alone, but once it was confirmed this vindicator was basically just for show and parts of his family were actively plotting his downfall, they would move to distance themselves from him or worse.


    It was going to be an isolated and lonely five years at the academy, but hopefully his time would be well spent. Loneliness wasn¡¯t something that was foreign to him, before he hated it, but now it seemed like he enjoyed it. It seemed like he was not only ok with it, but it seemed to provide this strange comfort to him. It was relaxing and comforting to him.


    Numa reasoned that this was probably because it meant that he wouldn¡¯t need to be so alert and pay attention to so much.


    Numa soon reached the center hub of the ship, the main elevator system which would take him to the top deck of the ship and the large hangar bay situated at the top of the ship which was meant for the storage and loading of attack crafts and the modified drop pods which would take the vindicators to low orbit.


    Reaching the elevator, Numa was surprised by how large it truly was. The doorway to the elevator stood twelve feet tall and about eight feet wide, the elevator was truly meant to transport behemoths. The main hub was crowded, with cadets and soldiers rushing about and to the sides of the hub where smaller elevator shoots transported people around the ship, but the main massive elevator in the center of the hub remained open, and no one seemed to dare approach too close to the doorway, instead clumping to the edges of the hub. Whether this was a matter of convenience or simply fear, it was simply too hard to tell.


    Making his way to the elevator, somehow the vindicator had been able to keep pace with Numa, even though its bulky size must have made it difficult to maneuver through the crowd. Shaking off his doubt, Numa placed a plated hand on the panel to the right of the doorway. Scanning his suit, it confirmed his identity and allowed for the elevator to be activated. Stepping onto the elevator the Vindicator followed quickly behind. To his surprise the elevator seemed to not mind his weight, and without further direction the elevator hummed to life, carrying them to the top of this mothership.


    The elevator was closer to a lift, as it opened towards the back of a massive hangar. This hangar was on top of the ship yet was situated just below the observation deck and command center of the mothership. Inside this hangar was a group of people who numbered around sixty. Strangely, they were split into odd proportions.


    One group held around ten people, and the other was made up of the vast majority of around fifty people. This second group was much harder to count, as there were many different people, some short, some tall, and almost all of them were in either suits or some form of armor. The difference between suits and armor is that armor simply covered the body (just like the armor pack being worn by the cadets) and suits were large enough to be considered extensions of the body. The biggest rule of thumb was that armor could be moved in without power, and suits could not.


    Even more surprising to Numa was that behind one of the dropships he spotted the leg to a seismic class suit. Seismic class suits were especially large and weighed heavily. They were the largest class of suit and varied on tools but united with purpose.


    Seismic class suits specialized in infantry and large-scale damage. They were fearsome in singe combat for sure, but they really were the gurus of unarmored and just mass destruction. Some versions of these suits were equipped for long range combat, with motors on their back capable of launching nuclear shells into the enemy ranks, others had massive flamethrowers. But the most iconic loadout was also where the name of the class of suit came from. This loadout was indiscriminate in its destruction, often if miss deployed would cause as much friendly fire to your troops as would create mayhem to the enemy combatants. Equipped with deployable drills on the soles of their feet, they would burry into the ground before latching onto the tectonic plates of the planet¡¯s crust. They would then vibrate using the plates on their feet, sending shockwaves strong enough to stimulate movement in the planets crust.


    Numa doubted they were equipped with this loadout, as they were very far into friendly territory, but it was expensive to both raise a pilot and to buy and maintain the suit. Frankly, this was probably just a show of strength for whoever sent off their child with this monstrosity.


    The marine life was a tough one, and one that many wouldn¡¯t be able to escape. But it was an important job, and it was sort of an unwritten rule that most noble families would send at least one of their children to serve in this prestigious core. Never one that was important, but a child of noble blood, nevertheless. While it was a dead end for most, if you managed to last the two years of active deployment and out of the marines and into the main strategic command, then you were pretty set.


    It was readily known and understood a marine couldn¡¯t last much on luck, so either they were the luckiest person alive, or very, very skilled. Either way, they were someone you wanted to have around when things got tough, and as such could have their pick of jobs. Bare minimum would be a captain position in charge of a squad of elite shock troops, but honestly the sky was the roof for how far you ran away with this.


    As such, it was common for children of nobility who either wanted to break free of their family or who were walking dead (Numa fell into this last category) to join the marines as a last-ditch effort to free themselves from whatever shackles plagued them. The only benefits commoners got from joining the marines was two-fold, one was that the marines were always recruiting. Finally, and most importantly it was the only job who would continue to pay your family after death. It was a last-ditch effort for sure, but it guaranteed that even in your death your family would be taken care of.


    Numa walked steadily over to the small group of ten, and his vindicator walked over to the much larger crowd without a word. Making his way to the group, there wasn¡¯t much of a reaction from anyone, and to be fair there wouldn¡¯t be much. A seismic class suit was present, so a dinky vindicator suit wasn¡¯t going to provoke much of a reaction, and they were all wearing identical armor packs, the uniform of freshman marine cadets.


    Outside of stature, there wasn¡¯t much difference between anyone here, but Numa knew, could see it in the way their stood there. Some were confident, some were fearful, and some were almost taunting. None of this, the indifference, the open hostility, nothing really elicited a reaction from Numa. All of this was once again a data point, something to be noted, features to be recorded, profiles ¡°created¡± and ¡°recorded¡± but nothing really reacted at an emotional level for Numa.


    This feeling, or lack thereof, was starting to annoy Numa. It was like waiting for a surprise that never came, it was a startling incongruity. It was a sickening feeling, yet if one could see his face, they would notice nothing seemed to reflect in his eyes. His eyes were like mirrors, reflecting whatever emotion was directed into them.


    Numa didn¡¯t know how long he had waited there, it seemed today was a day for getting lost in thought, but soon there was the sound of a rhythmic marching coming from somewhere turning around to greet the noise, Numa¡­

 4. The World in Where we see the Worth in Growing Older

    Turning around, Numa was quickly greeted by flashes of imperial purple and gold, it seemed that the imperial princess was here. In a strange turn of chance, marines were by far the strongest of the disposable branches of the military. It also was a mostly autonomous branch of the military, since their job was pretty much only to delay, there was no other use for them. Simply put, they were called in and they did their job and what remained would leave.


    Die hard loyalty to an ideal or dynasty was long dead, loyalty only existed to those leaders and generals who earned it. This caused a weird reaction with the marines, as those who lived past their first mission had already come to terms with their death. That meant you had basically suicidal trained fighters all willing to toss themselves on a grenade just to get it over with. If a noble wanted to revolt against the imperial family, then their best bet would rise in the ranks of the marines.


    Then, they would have a bunch of well-trained fighters, who were basically wanting to die, plus a large network of shipping lanes and logistical support, not to mention plenty of time to prepare it all as there was basically no supervision of the marine high command.


    Rumor had it that tens of thousands of years ago the current royal family overthrew the previous one using the same method, going through what would later become the marines to seize power for themselves.


    However, you looked at it, the current royal family didn¡¯t want to fall victim to their own trap. Occam¡¯s razor held true, and the simplest method rung true. The Marines created a weird power dynamic because of their leader, but if their leader was also a royal, then it would only strengthen the power of the royal family.


    It was usually the oldest who would inherit the royal throne, and as such it was the oldest who was sent off to lead the marines. Luckily or unluckily depending on how you looked at it, Numa was apparently the same age as the imperial heir and would be attending the academy with her.


    While they would attend academy together, the imperial house of Damocles wasn¡¯t exactly going to throw their heir into a suicide mission. As such, she would be attending the academy here on Martian with the rest of the cadets, and while she would be attending classes normally at Universal Command Military Academy (UCMA) she would only get the safest missions and a stealth based champion was most likely in charge of protecting her.


    Looking at the princess march towards them flanked by at least twenty-five Vindicator class suits. What was even more surprising was there was a figure in a robe standing just a step behind her. The robe was a deep black but had a single purple patch right above their heart. This meant they were a Psion, someone who could affect the physical world with just their mind. Their face was obscured by the hood, which only seemed to add to the effect of them looking like a hooded specter, something that couldn¡¯t wait to eat someone¡¯s soul.


    Rumors abounded about Psions, as they were a secretive bunch, almost considered a different race from us humans. They were a part of the military, but they could only be requested, and seemed to only take orders from those of imperial descent.


    This Psion was probably one of the champions in charge of the princess¡¯s defense. The heads-up display on Numa¡¯s helmet could get a bead on the Vindicator suits and could even measure the approximate height and overall strength of the suits, but once pointed at the Psion, greats amount of static would appear around them and would get all fuzzy and incoherent.


    Suddenly, the Psion who had their head down, suddenly looked up, and seemed to stare deep into Numa¡¯s eyes. Numa didn¡¯t blink, he didn¡¯t avert his gaze. Instead, he simply paused and returned the gaze. To some this would be an intimidating task, to some this would be easy, others this would be a challenge. But to Numa, it meant nothing. Gazes and looks had lost their effect on him, even if he could see into the Psions eyes all he would see would be the reflection of his own. Equally emotionless, regardless of the intending meaning.


    It was the Psion who looked away first, as the princess was apparently attempting trying to talk to them.


    Turning back around, Numa once again faced the group. It still appeared silent, but that was most likely because an internal voice channel had been created and people were talking amongst themselves that way.


    There seemed to be cliques forming, and they all seemed to being growing around Numa, trying to avoid him. This didn¡¯t bother Numa, he simply noted it down, and after that simply ignored it. For these nobles, they wouldn¡¯t get the same treatment as the princess. They would eventually be tossed into the frontlines and most likely meet their end there. They hadn¡¯t come to gripes with their death yet, and they would attempt to avoid it with all they had.


    At this point there were only three possibilities for survival. One was to be very, very lucky, and make it through their two-year deployment. The second still required luck but was somehow more feasible. If someone caught the princess¡¯s eye, they could be added to the marine command staff. This meant just like the princess, after graduation they would report directly to the princess and work directly for her.


    The third, and probably most unlikely one, but it required only skill. If someone showed great skill in something during their training, whether it be combat or science related, they could be poached by someone, removed from the marine program, and sent to wherever their next destination was.


    Numa was aiming for the third option, and it would be a painful one. Closing his eyes, Numa waited on the outskirts of the crowd, going over the foreign thoughts in his mind and considered what to do next. Time flowed by, and Numa wasn¡¯t sure how long had passed. But at some point, the princess had split up from her entourage and had begun to make her rounds within our group of nobles, introducing herself to each and everyone.


    Slipping to the back of the crowd, Numa attempted to exit the group and make his way to the front section of the crowd. The princess had already greeted them, and as Numa didn¡¯t want to have to pretend to speak for the Tullis family. Shuffling his way to the front, Numa suddenly stopped in his track.


    ¡°I can¡¯t see you¡±


    An unsettling voice grated on the inside of Numa¡¯s head. It wasn¡¯t broadcasted through the internal speakers of his helmet; no, it was if someone had opened his head and was yelling into the very pits of his mind.


    It was an uncomfortable feeling, but it had been a day of uncomfortable feelings, so it didn¡¯t bother him that much. Slowly turning around, Numa stumbled back as right before his eyes was the looming figure of the Psion.


    Once again, the voice spoke out, ¡°Why Can¡¯t I see you? What secrets have you hidden within your mind, little one?¡±


    Seemingly checking something, the voice passed before continuing, ¡°You aren¡¯t one of us, the collective has never heard of you Numa Tullis. Tell me, can you hear the screaming? Or is that why I can¡¯t see you?¡±


    Not knowing how to respond, Numa simply did nothing. Numa wasn¡¯t sure how Psions saw, or what they even looked like underneath their robes. But he didn¡¯t hear any screaming, and the way the Psion was positioned it seemed that they could see him. So, what the Psion meant by ¡°not seeing¡± him confused him.


    Seemingly satisfied, the Psion abruptly turned around and glided along the floor over to the group of Guards stationed by the second drop ship.


    Numa turned back around and made his way to the front of the crowd, hoping that even with that intrusion he had gone unnoticed or at the very least allowed to escape.


    Having made his way to the front of the crowd, and having successfully been ignored by the princess, Numa closed his eyes and attempted to stabilize his mental condition.


    The last thing he needed was to rely on his family name. The worst-case scenario was that of abdication and ultimately enslavement. When a family wanted to disown someone but still wanted to keep their skills their first name was removed from them, but their last name remained. Core functions would be lobotomized, and they would become the guardians of their family, serving as stewards for generations to come.


    In ten years, if these new memories spoke the truth, this would be the fate awarded to Numa. His first name stricken from the record, his frontal cortex and most of his limbic system would be removed, leaving nothing behind but an unfeeling vessel. He was interned into a golem, a type of suit that was used in manual labor. Due to the outlawing of AI after the treaty of Canis Major, a new form of automated workforce was needed. The solution? Using lobotomized citizens in place of AI. Removed certain parts of the brain removed any form of thought in their mind, meaning they couldn¡¯t be used for much. But for labor intensive simply work like excavation or farming it was the perfect solution.


    With a crackle, his internal speaker sparked to life.


    ¡°Departure in five minutes, cadets make your way into the dropship, further instructions will follow.¡±


    Following which, his heads-up display flared back to life and showed the direction in which to go. Since he was in the front, Numa was one of the first cadets onto the ship. It was a box like ship, rectangular with a flat bottom yet wide sides, there were pods stationed on the inside of the ship, whose interior was lighted by a red emergency light. Stepping inside, Numa followed the blue line that his helmed provided, directing him towards his destination. It directed him into a pod that was stationed near the back of the ship. Stepping into the pod, he was automatically clamped down and the pod slid closed.


    Numa now knew that this was a drop ship, and that the very first lessons were beginning. Drop ships were quick and efficient way of getting troops onto the ground fast. Instead of having to land, troops were literally just dropped from the sky before the pods would spring open and the troops within would be released.


    This was the first time Numa had seen a dropship equipped with single drop pods. Maybe this was the ¡°comfort¡± afforded to nobles within UCMA. Soon the pods whirred to light as they were prepped for the drop. The blast covers closed and soon with a hiss the pod was pressurized and sealed tightly. Almost as if on cue, a figure popped up on his screen. Only from their shoulders up was visible, but even that didn¡¯t show much. It was a figure strapped in a suit that was blue and black, the traditional colors of the marines. Their faceplate was a smooth black, and while there were ridges on the sides of the helmet the faceplate was completely smooth.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Nodding their head, a male voice was soon heard within the confides of the pod.


    ¡°Welcome to the UCMA, your year and a half here will be eventful. We will train you; we will raise you; we will mold you into the warriors you were meant to be. Your purpose will be clarified, jobs will be assigned. We thought we would give you the marine tour, try and enjoy the view when you¡¯re falling from orbit. Oh, and you can open the pod doors whenever you want, so try to do it sometime after you enter orbit.¡±


    With that final sentence the man was replaced with a smiley face before the transmission faded away.  With a lurch, Numa felt the dropship take off, the rush of the acceleration making him lean his head sideways.


    Only a few seconds afterwards the ship came to a lurching stop. Numa felt somewhat disoriented within the pod. With the shielding up, the pod was darkened with the only light coming from the console and the several lights on his armor. Glancing around, Numa decided to just enjoy the ride and not to worry too much with what was going on around him.


    With an audible click, the pods detached from the ship and soon Numa could feel himself gaining speed as he fell downwards towards the surface of Martius.


    He didn¡¯t know how long he fell, it couldn¡¯t have been long, maybe a minute or thirty seconds long, but before too long he felt an upward force that jolted him back to full attention. The drop pod had finally landed on the surface.


    With a hiss the door to the pod slid open, to reveal that he had landed in a field, surrounded by massive buildings that littered the skyline. Stepping out, Numa could finally come to understand just how truly large the UCMA. Even on the ground, looking up Numa could see countless other drop pods, all of which were much larger than the personal drop pod granted to him. Looking even further past the drop pods he could see countless of ships in low orbit, traveling around the gigantic planet in mere minutes. Soon, Numa¡¯s HUD lit back up, directing him a path around the other landing pods, directing him to enter the building in front of him.


    Making his way through the field, Numa soon found himself at the entrance of the building. It was a sleek building, windowed from top to bottom with reflective glass. To put it simply, it seemed too simplistic to be considered an important building. Stepping through the entrance, Numa was greeted by a large room split into different cubicles.


    Navigating this cubicle farm with directions from his HUD, he was soon led into his own cubicle.


    Within the cubicle there was a single chair, a desk, and a monitor. Sitting in the chair, the monitor soon booted up, displaying a document. The document was seemingly unimportant, just more bureaucratic work to be done before his enrollment into UCMA was finalized.


    Finishing his paperwork, his HUD soon led him to a back room, where he would meet his first instructor at UCMA. Standing at the entrance to the back room, the person glanced up at him. It was a man with a mask that covered the bottom half of his face. Glancing up at Numa, he simply stated


    ¡°Within the room there will be another instructor and some weapons, choose your weapon and show us what you got, do well and you will qualify for upgrades to your cybernetics¡±


    With that, they looked back down at their data pad, returning to whatever they were doing before.


    Stepping into the back room, it revealed a somewhat lengthy room, with a table displaying many different styles of weapons. Stepping up to the table, Numa glanced at the different weapons lining the table. On the far end there were the standard weapons, laser rifles, blaster pistols, sluggers. On the side closes to Numa there were the melee weapons. A sword and shield, spears, a couple different styles of sword. What drew Numa¡¯s eye was two twin Kamas. With a short grip leading into a curved blade seemingly take straight off a scythe. Picking them up, Numa twirled and swung them around. While it was true that his movements were awkward, to Numa they felt natural, and it felt good to wield them.


    Picking them up, Numa moved past the table and towards the instructor in the center of the room. To his surprise, it looked like the instructor from the transmission. Without speaking, a single word popped up on Numa¡¯s HUD, ¡°Attack¡±.


    Taking a couple practice swings, Numa stepped back, causing the instructor to tilt their head. Numa spotted something that the instructor thought he would miss, the built-in sluggers in his wrist, ready to send molten titanium hurtling at his head, something that his Kamas wouldn¡¯t be able to block.


    Instead, Numa stepped back, cocking his hand and threw one of his Kamas at the instructor¡¯s head. Without a single excess movement, the instructor simply brushed his hand, slapping the Kama, sending it clattering to the ground.


    In the few seconds where the instructor¡¯s vision was obscured by the first Kama, Numa sent the second one spinning horizontally at the instructor¡¯s midriff. The instructor, having seen through Numa¡¯s tricking simply caught the Kama with his other hand.


    Glancing back at the Numa, the instructor simply tossed the Kama to the ground, and motioned for Numa to try something new. The instructor was very far from being impressed, it seemed to them that Numa picked an up-close weapon but was too scared to close the difference. Shaking their head, the instructor was about to knock the sense into this kid, when Numa did something surprised the instructor. Sprinting straight at the instructor, Numa had seemingly gotten over his fear of closing the difference.


    Chuckling to themselves, the instructor raised his wrist, ready to knock the wind out of this scared cadet and put some lead in their spine. To their surprise, when he went to activate his slugger, nothing happened.


    Not being fazed, the instructor raised both their hands, ready to grapple with Numa, but this is when the instructor was surprised for the second time. Instead of going in for a punch, Numa simply grabbed the instructors¡¯ hands, and stopped. Their eyes widening, the instructor knew what was about to happen and tried to bail from the hold. Numa simply took a simpler step, activating the armor pack, he was forcibly ejected from the back of his armor, rolling on the ground in an uncomfortable display.


    Unfortunately, the instruct was in no place to mock him as soon a wild surge of electricity shot out from Numa¡¯s armor into the instructors. Both their armors were insulated against these low-level attacks, but a result in this defense is that the suit would harden and prevent movement during the electricity attack. Locked in that stance, the instructor was helpless when Numa picked up the second Kama and slammed it into the back of the instructor¡¯s head.


    With that, a whoosh signaled the opening to a door behind Numa. Stepping through, a person in a white lab coat stepped through and rushed towards the armor packs. With a second louder hiss, the instructor stepped out from their armor pack. Rubbing the back of their head, the instructor was revealed to be a young blonde man. Grinning, ¡°Wow that was crazy! I really wasn¡¯t expecting for you to do something that crazy. I guess for a noble like you these armor packs are a dime a dozen.¡± Chuckling to himself, the instructor stuck his hand out to the person in the lab coat. Handing him a packet, the instructor flipped through it.


    ¡°I can offer you a couple of things, the standard upgrade of your cybernetics, maybe a couple of armor enhancements and a built-in set of Kamas with wrist mounted ray shields. What do you say?¡±


    Numa tilted his head, like that was a ridiculous idea, ¡°I want something else. You can pretend to be my friend, but I know your one of my fathers¡¯ agents. Instead, I can do you one better, get me on the list for the gestalt upgrades.¡±


    His eyes widening, the instructor only chuckled to himself, ¡°That¡¯s actually a perfect solution. And here I thought I was going to have to kill a kid.¡± Tossing a knew armor pack over, the instructor said one last thing before finally turning fully to the man in the lab coat, ¡°That¡¯s your upgraded armor pack, forget what you know. I¡¯ll let your father know you¡¯re out of the picture, don¡¯t you forget it either, Dismissed.¡±


    With a smile that didn¡¯t reach his eyes, Numa slapped on the new armor pack and stepped through the automatic door the lab coat had stepped through. Following the winding hallway and guided by the blue line, Numa finally made his way through this massive expanse of rooms and hallways before finally entering a small waiting room.


    Sitting down on the couch at the far end of the room, Numa opened the manual for this new armor pack and studied its features.


    Silently reading, his isolation was ended when the door slid open, and someone walked in. Adorned in the same armor as him, the only difference was the color scheme. While his was blue and white like all the other cadets, this one was purple and blue. There was only one person who could wear this pattern on this planet¡ªthe imperial princess.


    With a tap, her faceplate retracted revealing a soft face with bright green eyes. Smiling she stated, ¡°You dodged me earlier!¡±


    Numa could barely hear her, as soon as her face came into vision, he could feel vision swimming and his breathing growing ragged. Surprisingly, after being trapped in a state of emotionless, his eyes were now streaming with tears. Soon his vision began to narrow, and he was soon sucked into a memory that wasn¡¯t his own.


    It was a nice autumn day, the sun was shining bright, so bright. Looking down at himself, he could see that he was wearing khakis and a sweatshirt, the typical attire for him for years now. Glancing at the girl to his right, he could see her soft face, with those beautiful, bright, vibrant green eyes. Her mouth was smiling, and he could feel it, he could feel how happy it was. It was such a strong emotion, it felt visceral, and it felt strong enough to cut with a knife. He could feel the wicked grin on his face, reaching up with his hand he brushed the hair that was beginning to fall on her face. Even though she turned her head down, he could still see the adorable blush starting to form on her cheeks.


    His vision began to swim again, and soon he was in a room. While there was light, it was a dark muted light. The light from the overhead hospital light was a gross, off-color yellow. It was luminescent, but it was also a sickly yellow. Glancing outside, he could see that the sun was nowhere to be seen, hidden by dark dreary, muted grey clouds.


    Glancing back into the room, he saw her soft face once more. She was smiling at him, that same smile that he had fell in love with. But this time, he didn¡¯t have the heart to smile back. Walking over to her, he patted her back before going to speak with the person on the hospital bed. She tried to say something to comfort him, but he just smiled with a smile that didn¡¯t reach his eyes and responded with an empty feeling of thanks.


    His vision swam once again, and he was transported to a grave. Tears streaming down his face, he once again turned to his side where she stood. Patting his back, she tried to smile too, but he couldn¡¯t see it properly, his tears obscuring his vision. Her soft face was distorted, but he could still see her beautiful green eyes. She went to hug him, but he turned away.


    With the swimming of his vision the scenery changed once more. This time he could see anything, instead it was just a voice on a phone, ¡°Perfect things don¡¯t need to stay perfect as they always were. If you can¡¯t confront her death, then live the life you don¡¯t deserve.¡± With the click of the phone, he knew that this was the last time he was ever going to talk to her.


    His vision swimming for the last time. This time he was in a small apartment that could barely fit a bed and desk. Sitting on his bed he was looking at his phone, he was reading a news article, ¡°A hit in run on Main Street leaves one dead.¡± His vision blurring from the tears, this deep, uncontrollable sadness and rage seemed to be building up in him, ready to burst out. But then suddenly, just like that all this pent-up emotion burst into nothing. Evaporating like the morning dew, he was left with nothing, nothing at all. Left with no emotion, no fear, no shock, no sadness, no anger, no happiness, nothing but just a bitter feeling of¡­ nothing.


    Putting down his phone, he simply turned on his computer and started typing. At first it was just gibberish, then it was a coherent sentence. But this sentence had no context, so he started writing down the context. But the context would have no meaning without attachments, and so he wrote those. Soon what started off as gibberish was a full-time project. Getting tired, he went back to his bed knowing this was probably one of the last times he would be able to see this world, the last time he would be him. But he knew there was nothing left for him here, he had spent up all his capital. Maybe with some luck he would be able to start anew, but he knew that the debts made in this world would follow his soul until they were fulfilled. Laying down in bed, he closed his eyes and¡­

 5. A Riptide of Events

    His eyes opening, Numa was once again greeted by light muted by a screen, and big green eyes peering into his faceplate.


    ¡°Hello? You in there? Is everything ok?¡±


    Tapping on his helmet with an armored finger left a dull hollow ringing of metal on glass in his head. Fully opening his eyes, Numa carefully raised a hand and pushed the princess¡¯s hand aside.


    ¡°Can I help you?¡±


    Numa¡¯s voice was neither angry, nor insistent, but instead calm bordering on robotic.


    A grin breaking out on her face, the princess took a step back, holding out her hand,


    ¡°Hi, I¡¯m Lily Damocles! It¡¯s nice to finally meet you Numa!¡±


    Her voice was so cheerful and vibrant, that it felt like there was almost a smiley face breaking out at the end of her introduction. For many people it would cause an almost visceral reaction of happiness, an intoxicating feeling that was completely and utterly lost upon Numa. Her voice was seemingly just as dead as his, to most her eyes would be a shining reflection of happiness.


    But to Numa, her eyes were just a dead reflection of his, dead, utterly lifeless. Completely void of any mirth or anything that anyone would call an emotion. His response wasn¡¯t calculated, but its emotionless response made him seem snobbier than he really was.


    ¡°Hello, it¡¯s nice to meet you¡±


    Seemingly unperturbed, the princess flashed one more blinding smile before with an audible click her faceplate covers her face back up. With a sharp turn, she sits on the opposite side of the room. Sitting straight up, she was most likely reading something from her HUD, a great addition if you were someone as important as her, someone who probably had mountains of reading and reports to pour over.


    There was nothing Numa needed to see, even though he was part of the Tullis family this was all but a formality. It was honestly depressing, but there wasn¡¯t much he could do about it now. Frankly, he had no loyalty to that family. While he didn¡¯t know who his mother was, he was sure she was surely dead. She had served as the shoe in for his father¡¯s sin, the sin being Numa. The only reason why Numa lived this long was because was he was the only son (he had four older sisters), and he was of Tullis blood.


    This allowed for the old guard to grab onto him like leaches, sucking him dry for all that he was worth. But now Numa had a younger brother, a brother whose very birth was apparently graced by whatever god remained in this hell scape of nonstop war.


    Numa had no use and no desire to stay chained with the Tullis title, but he also didn¡¯t want to go and become the ¡°brains¡± of a golem. Instead, he would fight for his freedom, fight for true freedom. Numa would seek to find whoever he was, as they were undoubtedly linked.


    As for the princess, he would avoid her at all costs until he had both stabilized/removed himself from the political sphere and until he had found out more about ¡°him¡±. He wasn¡¯t sure about the princess¡¯s relationship to ¡°her¡± but nothing good was gained from rushing into a situation blindly. Plus, his father had some plans for the princess especially if she was traveling on his family¡¯s ship. While technically she could demand transport from any noble within the empire, but if you basically owned a galaxy why would you ever ask to bum a ride? No, she must have been asked and there must have been a reason. That¡¯s probably why Numa got the ¡°special¡± treatment of basically being set under room arrest for the entire trip. Not that Numa minded, there was no one for him to really see or talk to, no one who Numa really trusted.


    Funny enough, the only person Numa trusted was his father, not once had his father ever lied to him. Numa had to give it to the man, he really did know how to make someone feel hated.


    After only a couple of minutes the room became more and more crowded as more and more people were shepherded into the room. Everyone in the room had an impressive aura. Judging by how all their armor packs all looked new and a little different from one another this was probably the group that had managed to impress the examiner in some way.


    Across from Numa sat a massive hulking mass of a person. They loomed at an impressive seven feet tall and built like an ox. Their armor was blue and grey like his, but impressively there were weapons strapped all over it. On his back there was an impressive looking great sword and shield attached to it. His mask was different, instead of having a faceplate like what came standard, his was shaped like a legionnaire, with impressive frills and a clear face guard. There were many scars crisscrossing his face, more alarming was that most of these scars were around his lips and mouth. Were the things he was trying to eat actively fighting back while he was eating them?


    This ox was arguing with a thin character, they seemed to know each other. This person was wearing a similar helmet, this time without any frills and a bow attached to their back. Curiously, there wasn¡¯t a quiver to go along with their bow. Turning to face Numa, the girls face was revealed. She had a striking resemblance to the Ox, all the way down to the scars crisscrossing her mouth. She resembled the Ox enough that they almost appeared to be twins and not cousins. The mouth scars alarmed Numa, but before this fact could be fully processed all emotion associated with it was packed up, shipped and sent into Numa consciousness as a data point.


    It was a jarring feeling, but Numa was already getting used to this. Before when he had succumbed to his emotions when seeing the princess for the first time was a million times more distressing then when he first realized his emotions had ¡°died¡±.


    Observing the crowd, there were many different faces, and many more still obscured. Standing out just as much as the princess and even more than the ox was a figure who was trying to stand as inconspicuously in the corner as they could, but this only seemed to people¡¯s eyes to them even more. They wore the standard armor pack of the marine cadets¡ªbut colored blue and green, the indicator for a radioactive mutant. For a race as old as humans it is inevitable that there have been mutations and branches created to the human genome, radioactive mutants on the other hand were well radioactive. They were those few blessed or cursed souls who had survived on a planet that was experience some form of nuclear winter. It wasn¡¯t that their body was immune to radiation, or they had hidden, instead their body was converted partially to radioactive particles. To call them humans still was a little bit of a stretch to be frank, but they still fought and died for the empire of humanity, nevertheless.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Radioactive mutants emitted a very fierce but stable radiation, meaning they wouldn¡¯t explode but if their suit was ruptured those unprotected would soon fall sick and die of radiation poisoning. The only issue was that radiation was an indiscriminate killer, meaning they would either kill no one or everyone, friend and foe alike.


    For a core like the marines whose job was basically to minimize losses, they were rarely if ever used in combat roles. Instead, their radioactivity was used for other, support type roles.


    Using the radiation generated from the decay of their own bodies these mutants can generate large amounts of electricity. In other words, they are used as batteries that can carry themselves. The process that allows for this is top secret, as is the result when radioactive decays finish for these mutants.


    Numa didn¡¯t spend much time staring at the mutant, there was no need. Instead Numa simply closed his eyes, he had seen all that needed to be seen in this room. What he wanted most was for this day to be over with. There was nothing more stressful than the calm before the storm, and Numa wanted no more complications added to his day.


    Walking into the room, Numa¡¯s first impressions of his instructors was a very honest one. One looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here, walking into the room and immediately stealing a cadet¡¯s seat, they proceeded to do nothing but sit there. Their armor was the standard color scheme of senior marines, blue and black, with no visible attachments. This was both equal parts normal and strange, the bulk of marines would live and die in the standard armor pack of the marines, faceless and just as equally nameless.


    Everyone in this room had some form of modified armor or were armed with a non-standard weapon, meaning they were valued higher than the average cadet. So, was this instructor considered a dime a dozen like the rest of the marines? Surely not if this much care was being put into their armor.


    Numa turned the question in his head over and over, turning it in circles, it really was an interesting question. Why was Numa so worried about it? It was an innocuous issue on the surface, but this probably marked him as an augmented, while it is true everyone had some form of enhanced cybernetics, these were mostly limited to processing and sensors within the body.


    This meant that the cybernetics were additions to people, many times just serving as interfaces for electronics and could identify internal injuries within their host. Augmented on the other hand had portions of their body replaced with advanced robotics, the bottom line was that augmented changed their bodies and many times couldn¡¯t live without their cybernetics.


    This plain looking instructor really sounded and looked like he wasn¡¯t going to stop laughing anytime soon. These armor packs were space capable, meaning airtight, in other words pretty much soundproof. This meant that he had turned on his speakers, meaning he wanted them to hear his mocking laughter. It really was an intimidating aura that was created here.


    Soon, probably having done this before and having seen enough of it, the second instructor, the one who had quietly slipped into the room simply clapped twice, diverting everyone¡¯s attention from the augmented onto themselves.


    External speakers crackling to life, this instructor stepped forward and introduced themselves and their partner.


    ¡°I am R.C. Hickens, but you can call me Commadore Hickens, and I will be your instructor and warden for the short solar cycle and a half that I get you. To my right is my assistant, you may refer to him as Higgins. He is an augmented, but you shouldn¡¯t look down on him. As of right now, most of you are worth less then him and many of you will never rise above this low bar¡±


    Walking through the room and examining each one of them, it was like a chef walking through a meat market, observing the state of the ingredients that would later come together to make a symphony of flavors. Continuing her speech,


    ¡°In you I see weak, flittering souls, each and everyone of you afraid of death. You might wear your armor with hesitation, some even wear it with stupid naivety. Many of your fellow cadets will die horrible deaths, their screams filtered out and silenced. But you, you are the leaders of tomorrow you are the few, you will become brave, for that is your duty, your purpose.¡±


    Glancing at certain individuals within the room but seemingly zeroing in on the princess and the ox, R.C. continued,


    ¡°Some will rise to greatness, while others will be swept away by the annals of time, forgotten by most, yet all of you will serve a purpose, serving within the grand kingdom humanity against foul Endaria and traitors alike.¡±


    Having completely walked through the room and apparently seen all that needed to be seen, R.C. turned to say one more thing before exiting the room, ¡°Higgins will show your barracks to you, try not to get too accustomed to how luxurious your dorms are. Oh, and welcome to commander class everyone, I hope you enjoy your stay.¡±


    Stepping out the room, she left almost as silently as she had entered. Numa noticed a couple of things from that interaction, Higgins was silently chuckling to himself, yet the shaking of his shoulders seemed to have paused with the augmented comment before, seemingly a sore topic for him. That shouldn¡¯t be too surprising though, and in a couple of rotations Numa would be joining him too.


    Standing up, and in a softer voice then expected, Higgins asked them to follow him. But by now Numa was on autopilot, just following the group from the back and not really paying attention to anything. His mind elsewhere, slowly processing all the new sights and sounds that he had seen. A lot of these sights were things that Numa had seen before, but for some reason they all felt like new information. So, between digesting his surroundings and trying to sort through this singular, irregular, emotion was taking all his attention.


    A couple of the other cadets, including the ox, attempted to talk to him on the walk over as Higgins was simply walking in silence, expecting the cadets to follow and not bothering to explain anything else. Maybe this was his personality, or maybe the augment comment bothered him more then expected, but only he could know this.


    Lily was surrounded by people, but she seemed to only be talking directly with the sister of the ox. The ox seemed have made friends with the mutant, a strange friendship for sure.


    Numa? He was walking by himself in the back of the group, slowly growing in distance with them before catching back up with them.


    No one noticed, but even if they did who would care? Pity wasn¡¯t something anyone here had the luxury of feeling. Empathy and pity were the marks of the powerful, those who had enough space to think about someone else, and that just wasn¡¯t anyone here.


    End of the Epilogue Arc


    Next: Gestalt United Arc

 6. The Guiding Hand

    Gestalt United Arc Start


    The luxury of the dorms provided to these cadets was that of privacy. Each cadet would get their own "room". Calling it a room was a little bit of an overstatement, instead each cadet was provided with their own capsule. Capsules were basically small coffins, able to accommodate a single person laying down with about a 6-inch gap on each side. There was a port on the top, housing the charging port for the cadet''s armor packs. It was more then enough space for them, as they would only be back here sleeping, if for some reason they had some free time there was a common area outside this hall of coffins, allowing for cadets to relax and socialize there.


    The princess was given a separate accommodation just across the hall from them. While everyone got their own privacy within their coffin pods, each pod was housed in a large room, so once people exited their pods all privacy was lost. Princess Damocles got her own room for her pod, which also housed her personal bodyguard and maid.


    Numa incidentally got his own room, but instead of it being a sign of status it was directly the opposite. Numa was on the fast track to becoming an augmented, and as such was separated from his classmates. In fact, the only reason why he had a room to himself was because he was the only augmented within this CO class.


    UCMA didn''t split classes based on merit, instead they were spread into different classes based on skills. Those who they believed would do their best work as commanders were put int the CO class, those with great scientific skills were either placed into TH (technical) class or MC (medical corps) class. Just like that people were separated within those cordons.


    Numa had voluntarily signed himself for the augmentation process, so this meant that he was treated as an augmented already. Numa wasn''t sure when the actual process would take place, but he had already been designated away from the group. By the time everyone had been introduced to their quarters, enough time had passed for everyone to be exhausted, having come off a long voyage into a stressful environment, into combat, all the while being bombarded with information.


    Most people were relaxing in the common area, talking to each other as cliques formed around people, those who basically had "Rising Star" written all over their face. Marines were meant to be disposable, and so the ones that had the most customized armor meant that the marines saw in them someone worth investing in¡ªthat is someone who was going to survive, someone who wasn''t just going to become a splatter at the edge of the pavement.


    So, the individuality of the armor in some ways represented your strengths, the better the armor you were supplied with, the stronger you were, the more likely you were to survive, and better yet the more likely that you might even see the bloody conflicts the Marines were built to handle. In that way, the have nots flocked to the haves and the class was divided. This was the CO class, so this meant that everyone here had some modifications to their armor, and by that metric were all expected to see some form of strength, but it was also too early to tell, and even then, there were already extreme class differentials, some had barely modified armor, and some even had completely new ones with their own color scheme.


    Nothing was truly equal here, and people naturally flocked to those who they believed could lead them to a better life. Numa wasn''t apart of this, a couple minutes after they were dismissed Numa was signaled by the augmented assistant, Higgins. Higgins didn''t speak much, instead motioning for Numa to follow, and Numa without knowing where he was going, followed without any word. The trip was short and as equally silent, nothing was said. Higgins didn''t seem averse to him, but on the other hand didn''t seem to be that friendly, instead Numa felt like he was perfectly neutral. To be fair, that''s the vibe he felt from most people, and just as he seemed to be missing his emotions, it become more and more likely that he was not reading his own emotions as well as the emotions of other.


    Either way, they soon reached their destination, it was hard to tell if they were in the same building, as they had travelled through the underground tunnels crisscrossing the planet. In fact, it was almost meaningless to gauge whether they were in the same building as this entire planet was all connected by a network of underground tunnels and rooms, in fact most buildings were skyrises, yet even then most of their space was found underground.


    The walk was quick, going down a short flight of stairs and then walking down crisscrossing hallways before arriving at an office doorway. On the side of the door there was a golden plate that read: "Room 255" and underneath that read in silver lettering: "Commadore R.C. Hickens". Upon reaching the door, Higgins paused in front of the door, most likely waiting for the Commadores approval to enter. Surprisingly, it wasn''t immediate, instead they both waited two or three minutes. Not a word was said, and Higgins remained unmoving and unflinching.


    Eventually the door slid open to reveal a simple office, containing a desk and a sofa, and two little chairs in front of the desk. Everything in the room was white, a bright blinding color. With the sterile bright white lights on top of that it made it seem like the items on the desk were floating. Higgins stepped into the room without hesitation, and Numa followed along without hesitating.


    The Commadore was sitting behind the desk, tapping away at a data pad, and didn''t bother looking up. Eventually she finished up with writing on the data pad, handing it off to Higgins, who grabbed it and proceeded to step out of the room. Once Higgins had left the room, the Commadore finally looked up and seemed to be staring at Numa.


    Numa stared back, neither could see the other one''s face, in fact all Numa could see in the commadores visor was his own reflection. Once again, no words were exchanged, Numa didn''t know why he was here, but he had a good guess.


    The Commadore was the first to break the silence, "Do you actually want to go through with the gestalt procedure?"This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Commadore, I''m sure you are aware of my situation¡ª"


    "You still have other options, you know that? I represent a faction that can protect you, not as a Tullis but as Numa, your own individual¡­"


    "I don''t want another''s power; I want my own"


    "What a na?ve answer, become one of those abominations isn''t the solution nor does relying on another''s power mean you won''t have power of your own. I''m offering a final salvation to you, a guiding hand if you will."


    "So, you represent the Guiding Hand?"


    Commadore R.C. was surprised that Numa knew the name of the organization or was even aware of its existence in the first place. Right now, it was a small military faction whose members were almost all members of the leadership of the kingdom of mankind.


    Numa had unwittingly accidently used some of the information that didn''t have a source in his brain, information with dates that were in the future. Realizing his mistake, Numa simply remained silent and waiting for the Commadore to do something. He wasn''t panicking, instead he was calm, submerged in his thoughts.


    "Yes, I''m surprised you know of us. Did your father warn you about us? Is this your price of freedom? Is becoming an abomination and losing your soul worth it? Look at Higgins, he disgusts me. All he is good for is those of a golem, a good for nothing. Things like it will lead to the downfall of the kingdom and we of the Guiding Hand will become its saviors"


    Numa knew that his father held augmented in the same disgust as the Guiding Hand did, so that wasn''t why he was wary of them. If Numa had to guess, it was probably a more partisan issue, the Guiding Hand represented a new faction, a faction that seemed to oppose the current standings of power. Numa knew that his father relied heavily on augmented as his ground troops, and it seems that the Guiding Hand''s goal was to wipe out the augmented.


    Numa simply thought it over in his head, debating how to respond. At this point, Numa saw the writing on the wall, the Guiding Hand were going to grow to power and in the process creating a schism through mankind, for those who were augmented and those who weren''t. They were probably planning on removing his father and sticking him as the replacement head, a figurehead in all but name.


    "Do not fret, my father hasn''t spoken to me about you. But your Guiding Hand isn''t as covert as you think it is. It was an interesting choice choosing one of those ''disgusting'' augmented as your assistant that handles all of your information"


    "It''s an idiot, a step above a golem. It disgusts me yes, but it seems to have friends in high places and is protected. Listen Numa, not everyone can see the light, and some even want to give more control over to these disgusting machines. So yes, I use it, but until the revolution prevails, I will need to deal with those of its kind."


    "He was the one that warned me about you, him and whoever the instructor was that assessed me"


    "An easy lie to see through, Rung isn''t an augmented, and he is actually another one of the Guiding Hand"


    "Was he the one that told you about the gestalt request?"


    "Well, yes"


    "Ah, well he is one of my fathers'' men, why do you think I asked him of all people to enter me into the program." Pausing, Numa added on to the end, "You don''t have to believe me, but it would be easy for someone like you to check the security footage, I doubt he bothered deleting it."


    Getting up, Numa simply left with the vague threat of, "Doesn''t matter to me, you took the decency to warn me, and I have returned the favor, and just as you''re free to ignore my advice, I''m free to do the same"


    The Commadore didn''t have the chance to respond, as Numa simply slipped out of the office before she could. Numa was partially down the hall before running into Higgins, who simply walked past Numa. Taking the chance to stop him, "Oh, Higgins, was it? The Commadore knows you warned me, you might want to run back your resistance¡­"


    Higgins simply turned to look back at Numa, the question mark forming on his face was so obvious that Numa didn''t even need to see his face to know this.


    Before Higgins could respond, there was a loud crack as electricity arced, and in an almost surreal fashion a round red-hot hole formed through Higgin''s head. A slug had bored its way all the way through the back of his skull and out the front, slicing through his armor and cybernetics like it was nothing. The wall in front of Higgins was now smoldering with the remnants of the slug born into the wall.


    Garishly, Numa could peek through the smoldering hole and see Commadore Hickens pointing a railer (an electromagnetic handgun that fired a slug with magnets) at whatever was left of Higgin''s skull. A quiet moment passed, before Higgins collapsed to the ground. To say collapsed might be the wrong word for it, many of his cybernetics were still firing so in a way he was still alive. His final orders to his body still being carried out by whatever was left of his cerebral augments.


    At this point Higgins was on the floor, his body shaking as the magnetic force of the slug was now truly doing damage to the exposed cybernetics. It was hard to tell if Higgins was still alive if he could even still be called alive in this state.


    Numa was first to act, crushing what remained of Higgins with the heal of his boot. Grinding the battered skull into the ground, Numa turned to return to his pod. Numa throughout this didn''t feel much, not even surprise, instead everything that transpired, transpired almost as if it didn''t affect Numa at all. Railers were one shot weapons, that is they only carried one round and even if a new round was supplied it would take a bit for the railer to recharge for another shot.


    Numa was confident she wouldn''t attack him, and he was right, instead of attacking she simply watched his back while he stalked back off to his pod. Reaching the annex to their living quarters, Numa paused to collect himself, and then stepped into the common area. A couple of people looked at him, seemingly noting him down, before returning to their conversations.


    Numa stalked through the common room before entering the room where his loan pod stood. Upon entering his pod, he removed his armor pack, placing it in its charger above his head. His pod flashed into stasis mode with the simple push of a button, the visor closing on the pod and the lights dimming to an emergency red color.


    Before setting his alarm, Using the display within his pod Numa reviewed his orders, which stated classes would be starting in seven solar cycles, and that he was expected to visit the armory to pick a weapon before the start of his first class. This weapon would be the one he trained in and would most likely be the one he died with.


    Numa had orders separate from the rest of his class, tomorrow he would be required to report down to the med bay. Tomorrow would be the last day as Numa Tullis, whether this meant it would be his last day ever or would be the start of his brand-new life, Numa had no way of knowing.


    Yet Numa wasn''t excited or nervous. Instead, it was almost like a serene experience, floating within the vast expanse of emptiness. Put simply, Numa felt nothing, and it had passed the point of not bothering Numa, it was now at a point where Numa didn''t even notice or reflect on his generally feeling of emptiness. He was free from the constraints of his emotions¡ªmaybe or maybe he had lost something vital to him¡­

 7. Safeguard, Chromedome, and Convobat

    Numa wasn''t sure how the pod was going to wake him up but having the neck brace vibrated was not what he was expecting. Basically, being choked awake, Numa''s bolted awake. Soon, the brace stopped vibrating. Rubbing his neck, Numa''s face remained as blank as ever, a grimace never even making its way to his face, Numa simply reached above, retrieving his armor pack. The armor pack was an octangular plate, about four or five inches thick and it was heavier than it appeared. Placing the armor pack onto his chest, the plate expanded, thinning down as it covered more and more of his body. Soon his vision was blacked out, covered by his armor. Soon his vision flickered back on his HUD booted up. Checking the time, it was about 09:00 solar standard hours, and Numa was due for his appointment in about twenty minutes.


    Not having anything to do other than this, Numa pushed open the door to the pod, and stood up. Rotating his arms and legs, Numa stretched before activating the guiding system on his HUD. Soon a black line was directing him to the surgical med bay. Checking the distance, Numa saw that it was about 10 klicks away from him. Stepping out of his room, into the common area, and then out the door. Numa was now outside, the building he would call home for the next year and a half looming behind him.


    Standing just outside of the building, down by the sidewalk numerous people were walking about rushing about their day. With a planet wide organization, there was work always to be done. There were many cadets milling about, exploring before the start of their classes. There were also the security forces of Martius, marching about with their rifles slung around their backs. There were even some vindicator suits marching about, the strangest thing of it all was with all these people milling about in their blue and black gear, there wasn''t almost no noise. There was the sound of the suits marching, the sound of the people walking, other mechanical sounds coming from who knows where.


    But there was still this eerie lack of something, at first Numa couldn''t pinpoint it, but then it became balefully apparent¡ªNuma couldn''t hear anyone talking. There was no sound of conversation even though there were hundreds of people in Numa''s sight right now.


    This made sense the more Numa thought about it, their armor was airtight, practically soundproof. Communication between co-workers, between friends would be done through internal communications channels. For someone new to the military this was a novel, almost scary lack of sound. A culture shock to be sure, but for Numa it was something easily overcome. Moving down to the sidewalk, Numa weaved his way through the crowds, heading towards the transportation platform in the distance. Numa was currently near the equator of Martius, and the surgery med wing was located towards the northern poles. These facilities were designated augmented only, and a portion of them were used solely for the creation of new augmented.


    Numa having made his way through the crowd, approached the main public transportation method on Martius, large pods. Simply put, people would enter the pods, input their station of choice, the pods would then automatically rise and attach to great tracks in the sky, the pods would then slide across these, accelerating until they reached their destination, at which point the pods would descend and the occupants could debark.


    Numa made his way into the pod, chose the station designated "Augmented Medbay" and sat back to enjoy the ride. Rising above the clouds was cool, but it showed just how congested the skies truly were. Countless crafts whizzed around Numa, moving at insane speeds, some stayed within the atmosphere while others made their way out into orbit, heading to larger vessels in orbit.


    Soon, Numa felt himself begin to descend. Numa was quite literally possibly marching to his death, yet none of that showed on his face or his mind. No fear was present with any of his looks, there was just a blank look.


    Exiting the pod, the designation was a lot more deserted than what Numa expected. There were people of course, yet it was nowhere as bustling as where he had come from. In fact, there were no "buildings" around, instead there were just entrances to what looked like bunkers.


    Relying on his HUD, Numa made his way to one of these hovels, a rounded building that was short. On each side there was a stationed guard, clad in the classic blue and black marine armor. One of them was armed with a pike and the other with a stun gun.


    As Numa began to approach the door, the guard with the pike blocked his path with a hand. Numa stopped, and soon Numa got a notification that the guard was scanning his biosignature. Apparently confirming that Numa had a legitimate reason to be there, the guard let Numa pass. The other guard even opened the door for him, nodding his head as thanks, Numa passed by them.


    Stepping through the doorway, Numa received a message from one of the guards, it simply read "good luck". Numa read it, and simply turned around and gave a simple thumbs up to them. The guards remained motionless, apparently not noticing nor not caring to respond.


    Instead of feeling jilted, Numa simply continued onwards through the facility. Opposed to the clinical white that Numa had begun to associate with the underground structures that he had explored before, the underground area was a dark grey, with lights that seemed to flicker.


    Some areas looked dirty, as if they had begun to fall into disrepair. Turning the corner, Numa almost stepped onto something scuttling on the ground. At first Numa thought it was some form of roach, but upon closer inspection Numa realized that it was a drone.


    Continuing with his journey, Numa ran into many more drones but not many people, augmented or not. Soon, Numa reached his destination, a lab designated "room 212". Upon reaching the door, it automatically opened. What was revealed was a darkened room an operating table at the center of the room. Right after entering the room, Numa received an update to his orders that simply read, "Get on the table".


    Not thinking about it much, Numa simply went and sat on the metal operating table, not yet laying down. Numa only had to wait for about two or three minutes before someone in a lab coat entered. They weren''t armored, so it was very apparent that they were augmented. The left half of their face was completely covered in metal, with a scope instead of an eye. The most shocking of these augments was the fourth and fifth arm attached on the doctors back. Reaching over the shoulders they almost reminded Numa of a spider''s arm.


    The doctor skidded into the room; their legs obscured by the robe they were wearing. Without saying anything, the doctor began poking and prodding with their arms taking measurements. Poking and measuring Numa like he was some prized hen getting inspected at a carnival. Numa didn''t seem bothered by this, instead simply sitting there, and let himself be inspected with no complaint or sign of resistance.


    Soon, a second doctor entered the room, with the first doctor turning to nod at them. Seeming to have been given permission, the second doctor began to speak to Numa. Speaking with seemingly no evident emotion,


    "Are you ready?"


    To which Numa replied with, "Yes"


    "Ok, remove your armor pack, I''m going to sedate you"Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Numa did just that, pressing the release, and handing the armor pack to the first doctor who took it and placed it on one of the many counters that bordered the room.


    Numa laid himself down on the table, and as he did clamps were placed around his neck, feet, and both wrists. After being firmly attached to the table, one of the mechanical arms from the spider doctor found its way into Numa''s neck, injecting him with some fluid.


    Numa could feel the void trying to take him, but he fought it for a second, barely croaking out for the doctors to not "hold back".


    While the transformation to an augmented was a painful process, and for many augmented it was a lifesaving operation, Numa wasn''t becoming a standard augmented. Instead, Numa was undergoing the procedure for becoming a gestalt augmented, a top secret augmented project that many didn''t know about. Numa was about to become the first of his "kind" or he would die, just like the hundred or so others before him.


    So, when the doctors heard to not "hold back" they paused, seemingly digested this information. They seemed to find it funny, but then seemed excited. Gestalt technology was in its infancy, it combined the relatively old function of drones, where an augmented''s consciousness might be split into their body and that of a drone, effectively creating two from one, with that of nanotechnology. In other words, instead of splitting Numa''s consciousness into two, they were essentially fragmenting it into ninety trillion different bodies, each nanobot holding a little bit of Numa''s consciousness, effectively created a hive mind.


    It was a complicated, bloody process. For Numa''s original body, there would be a couple of augments added, but most of the changes would occur in the mind. These two doctors in charge of research had refined their "craft" to the point of nine in ten surviving the operation, but everyone who survived the operation were functionally driven insane and had to be put down.


    This kind of failure didn''t phase the doctors, who felt that they were getting closer and closer to success. Soon, having confirmed Numa had fall into unconsciousness they began their work. With an almost gleeful expression, both doctors began their work, hacking and cutting into Numa, digging into him like a famished family of rats.


    Numa didn''t dream, in fact there was no passage of time for Numa, in fact he barely remembered closing his eyes, and in the next moment he was opening them up. Unlike sleeping, where Numa felt the time passing, it was completely different from now. It was super disorienting, even more so when he opened his eyes. He was still shackled around the ankles, but the rest of his body was fine. Sitting up, Numa attempted to open his eyes.


    Finally ripping the gauze over his eyes, he was immediately disoriented. Numa could see what felt like everything in the room, turning his head changed parts of his vision, but didn''t change all of it. Instead, it was like looking through a kaleidoscope, but where each different "panel" changing didn''t affect how the others changed.


    His mind felt¡­ large, in the same way you might feel your arm even though you aren''t moving it, it felt like there were other¡­limbs that he wasn''t moving. Soon, Numa was able to manipulate his vision. With a little more effort, Numa was able to organize his nanobots into forming a swarm. Ninety million nanobots wasn''t a small number, and soon a swarm large enough for the visible eye was formed in front of him.


    Numa laid back down, closing his eyes. Closing his eyes was an interesting experience, as it was like turning off a single monitor out of hundreds. Maneuvering the nanobots around the room revealed that he was alone in this room, but there was a camera watching him from the corner of the room.


    Using a couple nanobots, Numa had them enter the camera, and located the wiring in the back of the camera. Numa considered cutting the wires, but then decided to follow the wires back to the source. Not realizing just how fast these nanobots were, Numa traced the wires back to their source in seemingly record pace. Entering the room, Numa saw the two doctors again watching him lay down on the monitor. They were whispering to each other, writing down notes. A sense of foreboding seemed to flash over Numa¡ªcalling in more of his nanobots into the room there was now a sizeable swarm.


    Deciding it was time to test out his new abilities¡ªNuma decided it was time to test out the limits to his nanobots. There seemed to have been instructions encoded on the nanobots, as there was a lot of new information seemingly drilled into Numa''s brain, but he didn''t seem to notice, instead processing and using this new information at the same time he was just newly learning about it.


    Almost with a practiced efficiency, Numa had the nanobots enter both doctors'' electronics, as soon as the command was given, the nanobots seemed to gain a life of their own, tearing into the sensitive circuitry like it was the finest of meals.


    At first the doctors didn''t seem to notice as non-vital systems were affected but soon, one seemed to notice something was wrong as they abruptly straightened their back. But it was too late as Numa''s precious bots soon drilled their way to his brain, oil, and blood oozing out of his eyes as they rolled to the back of their head. With their hands clawing at their face, almost pulling it apart, the spider like doctor fell to the ground twitching, most definitely dead.


    His partner, the second doctor, was desperately twisting and turning desperately trying to free himself from these invaders, but it was already too late¡ªmy swarm of nanobots were already inside and there was no stopping them once they were inside. Tearing away at the doctor, he too succumbed to the fear and frenzy, tearing away at his face before collapsing to the floor.


    Directing my nanobots, I steered them away from the now dead doctors, and back towards their computers. This was a top secret augmented affair, not top secret as a military secret, but top secret augmented marine secret, in other words their research might be vaguely known by the upper echelons of the kingdom, it was very doubtful that other copies of their research was found anywhere else. Augmented-noble relations were very strained right now, the creation of such a powerful new kind of augmented was probably a deeply held secret.


    Either way, the Guiding Hand having already infiltrated the marines was a good thing, as it meant that if anyone trying to investigate this incident would most likely be distracted by the activities of the Guiding hand and wouldn''t even bother trying to look any deeper than that.


    Numa only had two other loose ends, the instructor who got him into the program, and the commadore. One had taken care of the other by now, meaning either the instructor had killed the commadore or the commadore had killed the instructor, Numa would just need to figure out which one had survived.


    Destroying the computers with the nanobots, Numa had them do a once over of the scientists one more time, making sure to destroy the databanks on anything on them or in them. Satisfied that all the evidence of the gestalt program had been destroyed, Numa had the nanobots return to him. This mission had been carried out by about a million nanobots¡ªthey made fine assassins for the unwary. Nanobot technology wasn''t an invention, so most combatants had defenses against this, such as an electric field generator, not strong enough for most large electronics but extremely deadly to the tiny electronics of the nanobots.


    Numa also noticed the number of his nanobots had increased, he had sent over about half a million nanobots, but by the end of it he could sense about a million of them. It seemed that these nanobots given enough resources had the ability to self-replicate, a useful function for the fragile nanobots.


    Numa at this point couldn''t hide the fact that he was an augmented, he had already been given the designation. But, on the other hand the type of augmented he had didn''t need to be recorded, and as such wasn''t. Simply put, Numa just needed to pretend to have different augmentations then he really had. To this end, Numa decided to go with the "tamer" augmentation. This type of augmentor was one who controlled a variety of drones. The number of drones able to be operated at once depended on the skill of the augmented.


    Reunited with all his nanobots, Numa began to sculp and form them in his mind. In the same way he could make the nanobots swarm, Numa had them combine creating the illusion they were in fact three different distinct drones only. One was that of a simple bipedal robot, dubbed "Chromedome" another was a bat, dubbed "Convobat" and the final was a condor, dubbed "Safeguard".


    Putting his armor pack back on, Numa felt covered once more. With a snap of his fingers, both birds landed on either of his shoulders, with the bipedal robot simply walking next to him. Both birds were about the same size, but Buzzsaw had a much wider wingspan. The bipedal robot was much smaller then Numa, only reaching up to his bellybutton. A simple thought was all that was needed to change their pigment to match that of the marines, blue and black. A striking difference was all their eyes were a glowing, intimidating red.


    At this point, Numa almost felt giddy as his personal power seemingly shot through the roof, but just as quickly as the feeling sprouted it quickly vanished, devoured by the abyss in Numa''s mind. Making his way back outside¡­

 8. The Quietest of Freedoms

    Making his way out of the bunker, Numa felt a sense of freedom, there wasn¡¯t an explicit emotion attached to that (whether it be positive or negative) but Numa felt free, like if he jumped into the air he would float away, carried away into the ether. The two guards at the door didn¡¯t take a second glance at Numa when he left, but he still took the time to give a thumbs up to the guards. While it was true that sentimentality, happiness, and approval seemed to be emotions that now alluded Numa, but the muscle memory, the instinct was still there.


    This meant that Numa possessed no actual sense of what he was feeling nor what the others were feeling, but instead had an inkling based on memory. If Numa saw someone smile he would know they were happy, not because of the innate nature of humans to instinctively read that body language and know the emotion, instead Numa would know they were happy because he had learned so, back when he still had those instincts.


    Numa continued to the pods, but he didn¡¯t let all his drones on. He entered the pod with Chromedome, but he released Convobat the bat and Safeguard the condor into the sky. He wanted to see just how fast they could go and whether they could keep up with the pod. Putting in the return destination, Numa felt the pod rise. Fully ¡°releasing¡± his deployers, Safeguard shot straight up into the air, rising way above the pod, circling above the pod. Convobat on the other hand flittered about, not following the same path around the pod.


    While it was true that Numa technically controlled his deployers (Chromedome included) Numa could feel the degradation of this connection. Instead of it being like a radio, where there is a receiver and a broadcaster, instead it was more like a conversation with himself. Parts of his mind, his soul were stuck into these machines. Taken as a sum of its parts, Numa couldn¡¯t tell, but when Numa centered in on himself he found it hard to tell what exactly himself was. Thinking of Chromedome as himself felt just as right as calling himself Convobat.


    It was disorienting, and it became even more apparent once his deployers began to move subconsciously. Numa consciously wanted his fliers to follow along with the pod, so he thought about it, but it wasn¡¯t like he was actively charting their flight path, that was seemingly done for him¡ªbut was it.


    Numa felt the parts of him in the deployers, but h also felt like the parts of him in there were almost taking a life of their own. What was even worse, Numa felt like he was starting to feel something. It wasn¡¯t a good feeling either, instead it formed this deep anxiousness like he was forgetting something super important. Deciding it was just an after affect of his new augments and the experimental nature of them, Numa chose to close himself off more to his deployers¡ªsomething that Numa would only later learn exacerbated the issue.


    Closing his eyes, Numa saw what his condor was seeing, flying miles above the pod¡ªwhile it was going much slower than the pod the distance it had gained above the pod had allowed it to move at the same pace, his bat on the other hand was moving incredibly faster than the pod, flittering above, below, in front of it never staying in one place for too long. Numa could feel that it could easily outpace the pod if he let it.


    Reaching his destination, Numa stepped out of the pod. Looking up at the sky, it was just starting to rise above the horizon. He had spent five solar cycles within that lab, meaning he had only had two cycles to ¡°arm¡± himself, even though many would consider himself armed to the teeth already.


    While it was approaching night on this side of the planet, there were still many people up and about, milling around the streets, rushing to different places. Just in front of him, Numa spotted the ox making his way back towards their living quarters.


    Slowly exiting the pod, Numa let the distance grow between him and the ox, not wanting to run into his classmates. It was this anti-social behavior that seemed to be driving many of Numa¡¯s functions right now. In an almost illogical loop, Numa wanted to live, but at the same time wanted to live alone. To fuel this meant he needed to grow his strength, meaning he needed allies, but he couldn¡¯t keep killing his ¡°allies¡± just like he had done with the two doctors, Higgins, and the instructor.


    Deciding Convobat was the most capable scout, Numa sent him off to explore the area around his building and to get the general layout scheme of the buildings of the transports. Safeguard perched himself on Numa¡¯s shoulder keenly eyeing those who passed by. Chromedome simply walked alongside Numa, following stoically a step behind.


    Stepping into the building revealed a long labyrinth of hallways and stairwells, following his memories and his HUD, Numa made his way back to his room. Unfortunately, all the rooms with their sleeping capsules were located as offshoots from the main common room, meaning there was no sneaking into his room.


    Stepping into the common area, it wasn¡¯t filled to the brim with people, but there were still a couple who looked at Numa once he entered. Some looked with disgust once they saw what was on his shoulders, others simply glanced away.


    Just like outside, there was almost no noise as people communicated between themselves with internal communicators. Numa paid this no mind, yet almost as if noticing that something was wrong his condor patted him on the back with his wing. Whether this was further proof that him and his deployers considered themselves different entities or it was some perverse sense of self comfort was yet to be seen.


    Slipping into his solitary room, Numa let out a large sigh. Half collapsing to the ground, Numa was supported by Chromedome as Safeguard circled worriedly. Waving off Safeguard, Numa crawled over to his sleeping capsule, barely managing to toss of his armor pack before collapsing into the capsule and passing out.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Not even managing to close the door to the capsule, Numa was gone by the time his head touched the pillow. Almost lovingly, Chromedome picked up the armor pack, and Safeguard picked up Chromedome, flying over to the top of the capsule, Chromedome carefully plugged in the armor pack. Finally closing the door to the sleeping capsule.


    Leaning against the capsule, Chromedome seemingly fell asleep¡ªbut as a drone do, they truly sleep? Safeguard circled a couple times before landing on top of the capsule and snuggling in on itself it too fell into whatever ¡°sleep¡± was to them.


    Somewhere out there, in the deathly night was a bat flittering around the skyline, carefully avoiding collision with different objects, carefully mapping out the city for his friend, making sure that nothing went unnoticed.


    After whom knows how long, Convobat slowly started making its way back to their living quarters, being just as careful heading back as they were when heading out in the first place. With no way to join Numa, Convobat instead chose a rooftop to flitter down on, slowly sinking into a quiet vigil, for that was what it truly was.


    Drones, whatever you called them couldn¡¯t and didn¡¯t sleep.


    The night passed by uneventfully for Numa, but not for everyone else. The princess returned much later, having been kept in meetings and briefings for ages. The MP¡¯s nights were long, a dead augmentor with a hole in his head and a long serving instructor were found on the top of a rooftop, both hanging out of a window from their small intestines. It was a tough night for everyone involved. Those in charge could feel a storm brewing, and those who knew what was going on were preparing for turmoil.


    Thankfully, or not so thankfully, humanity wasn¡¯t in a place where military might could be turned away from their frontiers and towards themselves. At most, duels would occur in the worst situations, but often a political battle was fought through military accomplishments of factions. But what truly decided who came out on top with these kinds of political battles was either a knife in the back or a letter in the dark.


    As the sun began to rise over the horizon the planet of Martius had been alive and running about preparing for the coming storm. Most students didn¡¯t know what this hubbub was about, more guards were soon seen patrolling the streets. The start of classes was delayed, and soon the noble¡¯s guards were moved into Numa¡¯s room since it was currently empty except for him and his constructs. His knight protectorate was noticeably absent from this group of about thirty.


    Three days after his escape and two and a half days after the discovery of the bodies hanging from the side of the building Numa soon found himself heading to the armory. At first, Numa simply thought he needed to grab weapons for himself, but he soon realized that Chromedome was going to need some sort of weapon, preferably a medium ranged weapon to cover our deficiencies. Numa believed that Convobat and Safeguard¡¯s talons were good enough for now. For the next year and a half, if he got that, he was going to study his nanobots and further customize his drones. Customize himself? Numa really didn¡¯t know how to approach the subject, considering he was as much himself as he was the drones.


    Making his way to the armory was much more difficult than he thought it would be, moving through the crowd was difficult, even when Safeguard clutched Chromedome in his talons and flew with them Numa had a hard time pushing through the stream of people.


    Eventually making his way to a pod, Chromedome rejoined him and soon they were whizzing towards the planetary armory. Numa vaguely knew the way, as Convobat had scouted that part of the complex earlier. Reaching the armory, Numa then proceeded to wait three more hours until it was his turn. Reaching the front of the armory, Numa revealed his palm, letting his armor be scanned. The metal mesh gate swung open, allowing for Numa to enter with his drones perched on his shoulders. Few turned to look at Numa, but not remained on him for long once he entered the section of the armory designated for augmented.


    While this separation in the armory had a logical purpose, a lot of the weapons in this part of the armory were meant to be fitted into the augments, it had become a physical reminder and something of a status symbol for non-augmented, who saw it as the ¡°natural course¡±. Numa didn¡¯t mind though, considered that once he entered the armory there was no wait to meet with an armorer. Reaching an augmented hidden within a robe, Numa slipped him a data pad. On the data pad was his approved weapons order, he had asked and been granted access to a propulsion pack, two Kamas, one long range energy bolter (LEB), and one plasma shifter. Honestly, he had asked for so much just to get a little, but his order was approved with no issues which honestly shocked him.


    At first, he thought it was the Commodore, but she knew he was an augmented and she wouldn¡¯t directly help him out like that for no reason. His conclusion was that he clearly hadn¡¯t asked for a lot and maybe should have asked for more. Locking the LEB to his back with magnets, Numa slipped the Kamas into the slots fitted into his wrists, hidden within his gauntlets. Numa then handed the plasma shifter to Chromedome who took it and absorbed it into his wrist. Numa felt the eyebrows on the armorer raise, but they chose not to comment on it.


    Finished with his business, Numa turned to leave, but as he was leaving, the armorer reached out a hand and stopped him. With a raspy tin can voice they asked, ¡°How has it been, becoming one of us?¡±


    Numa thought, but his only real response was, ¡°It has only been six days and I slept through two¡±


    Chuckling, the armorer seemed amused by his response, ¡°us augmented, we look out for each other. If you want, I can add a couple customizations to your helmet if you don¡¯t ask for too much¡±


    Thinking that he really didn¡¯t need much especially with his nanobots, he decided to ask for a long-range communications array and an infrared scoped added to his helmet. Long-range communications arrays were important for any military campaign, but they were heavy as sin, so they were usually dumped on the augmented anyway.


    Nodding the armorer seemed to approve, ¡°Good choice kid, I¡¯ll have your new armor sent to you in a couple of cycles, I¡¯ll have them install the propulsion unit too.¡±


    Thanking them, Numa stepped out of the armory, now ¡°officially¡± armed, and decided to take the leisurely way back to his living quarters. This would give him a chance to scout out his classrooms, which he had passed earlier, and give Convobat to explore the city some more. Whistling, Numa sent off Convobat and Safeguard to explore their new living spaces.


    Numa had never really considered himself a noble, and he considered the title a curse and a shackle, constantly dragging him down and endless amounts of grief. In some ways, Numa even blamed it for his mother¡¯s death. Thankfully, this new Numa was free from this feeling of grief, no longer feeling anything, a freedom in a twisted sense. With this context in mind, it should be no surprise that this mantle of noble slipped of Numa quietly and without anyone grieving for it¡ªwell except for one¡­

 9. The World in Your Eyes

    Navigating through the crowded streets, Numa almost regretted not taking the pods back to his quarters, but soon found himself on one of the many side paths that snaked through the planet. Barely being able to see the sky through the crowding of pipes and conduits, Numa moved his way through an alleyway. Once Numa had moved past the pods, Convobat had alerted Numa to a group of soldiers led by the Commadore heading towards him. Numa wasn¡¯t exactly sure what they wanted but decided to snake into an alleyway for some privacy.


    Moving through the snaking alleyway, countless pipes and vents jutted out from the sides of the buildings, as the wall seemed to become narrower and narrower. Numa had not planned for it to be this tight, and soon there was barely enough space for Numa to fit, in fact if he entered any further, he was scared that he would soon become lodged in with no way to escape. This suited him partially, as it meant that if they followed him, the Commadore and the soldiers would need to come at him one on one. Unfortunately, this fact was painfully obvious, and Numa doubted the Commadore got to where she was by being that stupid. Numa didn¡¯t really have any room to dodge projectiles, and if he was the Commadore there would be people on the roofs, and soldiers at the entrance--ready to clean up the scraps of Numa that would inevitably be thrown at them.


    Luckily for him, Numa had eyes in the sky and wouldn¡¯t be taken by surprise that easily. Numa could see soldiers exiting onto the roof on either side, garbed in customary armor. Yet they were all matte black and bore no insignia. Were they a private militia? Numa had no idea, and frankly this wasn¡¯t one of those ¡°just kill them and no one will know¡± things like before. This was going to be a loud fight, but Numa could also see just based on the numbers there wasn¡¯t going to be a way to escape without engaging a few. Sending Convobat further away, Numa had him scout further, trying to see if there were any more of these freaks coming from anywhere else.


    Jumping up, Numa began scaling the side of the building with the help of pipes. Luckily, while this part of the alleyway was thin, it was still long and so Numa found a hiding spot underneath a particularly dense section of pipes, hoping to obscure himself.


    While Numa was getting into position, so were the matte black soldiers, swarming to the side of the building, they were soon positioned all along the length of the alleyway and were prepared to rain hell down onto the alleyway once ordered.


    Soon, Numa could hear a group of people making their way down the alleyway. A voice was then heard, coming from a speaker just as authoritative as ever, ¡°Numa the Guiding Hand would like to talk to you about your involvement in the deaths of the augmented Higgins and the Instructor¡­ damn it what was his name again?¡± A voice was soon heard whispering, and then the Commadore continued, ¡°Instructor Oblitus--anyways do not resist, we will use force if necessary¡­¡± The Commadore¡¯s voice seemed both bored and patronizing at the same time, and her speech seemed to just slow down into nothing at the end, as if the effort of a quick stop was too much for her.


    This didn¡¯t bother Numa, and he didn¡¯t reveal himself either; instead, it was time for Chromedome to make his entrance and to introduce himself. But what did confuse him was the announcement of the Guiding Hand in such a public setting. There did seem like something was brewing, yet at the same time Numa was left out of the loop like usual. It seemed that the Guiding Hand were making themselves known finally. Searching his memory, Numa found no such date, instead the closest date in similarity would be in four years when the Guiding Hand gained a large enough majority to formally ban Augmented from military command, meaning they would have already needed to be a public organization by then.


    Safeguard had been flying over four and a half klicks in the air with Chromedome. The Guiding Hand militia didn¡¯t notice them flying so high in the sky and were caught off guard when a terrifying shriek was heard as Safeguard dive bombed towards them, safely dropping Chromedome to the rooftop below. After the cry from safeguard, a still silence permeated the air, punctuated with a wet splash as a soldier¡¯s head was liquified as Chromedome landed on his head hard. Turning towards the fallen Chromedome, no noise was heard but the orders to attack were apparently given as shots soon rained down on Chromedome who at first hid behind what was left of the soldier, before discarding the corpse in favor for one of the many antennas that littered the roof. Chromedome was thin enough that the antenna stack was enough to cover Chromedome in his entirety, or at least that¡¯s how it appeared to the soldiers of the Guiding Hand. In reality, Chromedome was altering his shape, making himself thinner and taller to effectively hide behind the antenna stack. Not all the soldiers were shooting at Chromedome, a few were taking potshots at Safeguard, and a few were making their way down the alleyway combing for Numa.


    The noise in the roof had begun to pickup as both sides began to take shots at one another. Safeguard had returned to an altitude way too far to be shot, and Chromedome had begun to blind fire into the group of soldiers. The soldiers were apparently ordered to take Numa and Chromedome unharmed or maybe there was concerns with damage to the buildings, so the soldiers were only equipped with short-ranged blaster pistols and null-rays, a type of weapon that used electro-magnets to admit an energy wave that functioned as an EMP that was also an effective organic restrainer, in other words and EMP that worked against tech as well as against people with brains.


    As such, Chromedome was safe behind the antenna as their ordinances were by no means capable of penetrating the antenna. Chromedome stayed behind the antenna, only peeking to take shots with his plasma shifter against those who were spotted by Safeguard getting too close to the antenna. Soon of the thirty or so soldiers on the roof, four were confirmed dead, two of which were missing everything above their chest, and ten or so were on the floor missing assorted limbs, unmoving their fates remained up in the air.


    Numa at one point had considered releasing a couple of Nanobots to kill them all but had decided against it as there was no saying the countermeasures that might have been taken against such certainties, and if this skill of his was ever discovered then everyone he ever fought would more likely then not take these countermeasures.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Deciding to take a more aggressive stance, Chromedome began to take shots, perfectly coordinating with Safeguard, who had become his eyes. Each shot soon took the life of a soldier, and within four seconds there only remained the soldiers who had previously been disabled.


    Finally scaling to the top of the building, Numa stepped onto the rooftop, which had become slick with blood. Glancing towards the opposite rooftop, Numa could see that the same held true over there too, but Numa paid it no mind. Peaking down into the alleyway, Numa didn¡¯t see the soldiers that were down there previously, but Numa could see that the Commadore was still at the front of the alleyway, apparently unperturbed by the near eradication of her troops.


    The Commadore looked up at Numa, before turning and slipping back into the crowd, flanked by one matte black soldier and the other a soldier clad in all white. Numa wasn¡¯t sure if they were both from the private militia of the Guiding Hand nor what the color of the armor indicated. Convobat by this point had returned, and Numa sent him away once again, tasked with following the Commadore and keeping tabs on her.


    Chromedome was walking from corpse to corpse, plucking anything useful from them. Electronic wallets were collected and the e-coins inside were collected. Battery packs were sucked dry, replacing the ammunition expanded in the firefight. The nanobots were powered from glucose gained from when Numa ate his rations every day, but this power could be subsidized through the consumption of energy packs, and in situations such as a prolonged firefight was basically necessary to keep conscious. Thinking about it further, Numa called down safeguard who began to feast on the corpses of the soldiers, eating both electronics and flesh. It was a disgusting sight, yet these actions soon brought immediate benefits, as Numa could feel the power coursing through his three drones. Deciding it was worth it, Numa let Safeguard have his fill, making sure Safeguard shared the energy with his two other drones. Numa had begun considering these drones his kids as opposed to extensions of himself, which soon twisted how the drones saw both themselves and Numa.


    It was a common problem with Augmented who controlled drones, yet it was never this pronounced, most likely due to the shear amount of Nanobots being controlled, as soon the number swelled to well over three hundred million. Numa didn¡¯t know what to do with the extra nanobots created with Safeguard¡¯s feasting, deciding to store some within himself, and adding the rest to Chromedome, who soon stood as tall and wide as Numa. Chromedome could now physically pass as a human in a suite, whether this would convince someone was a non-issue, as there was no need.


    Soon the only soldiers left on the roof were the maimed ones, many of which Numa could see had woken up but were now currently playing dead. Walking over to one of them, Numa simply looked down and weighed his options. Interrogation was necessary, but information couldn¡¯t exactly be trusted, and advanced techniques were both unknown and generally understood to be ineffective.


    Thinking about it, Numa decided it might be time to experiment. Chromedome began to walk over, sharp claws soon growing from his right hand. Instead of sharp claws, these were closer to needles seemingly coming from his fingertips. They were extremely thin and could be misconceived to be overly long chiropractor needles. Looming over a solider who was still intent on playing dead, Chromedome flipped the soldier over before stabbing his needles into the base of his neck.


    At first, Numa smiled, as new information began to slide into his head. He saw the most recent memories of this soldier, being deployed¡­ waiting at their base¡­ being briefed with the rest of the soldiers, each memory Numa could see, but most of these memories were a vague haze, the meaning coming across just fine¡ªbut the greater details of the area were a grey fuzzy mess. But soon, this process began to speed up as Numa began to travel further and further back into the memories, as each one became fuzzier and fuzzier. Yet the emotional aspect of the memories became more and more intense, Numa at first didn¡¯t notice as the first couple of memories didn¡¯t have much of an emotional attachment to them. But soon, these memories became more and more emotional, the death of his wife, the birth of his son¡­ these emotions ramming into Numa digging into his brain like a molten nail.


    Digging into his brain and aggravating it like some sick twisted reminder of Numa¡¯s own situation. Soon the memories began to speed up even further, but there was no gap in Numa¡¯s understanding. He always knew what the memories were, and the accompanying emotion. This blur of memories soon slowed to a stop once the final memory was reached. It was that of a man and woman leaning over someone who was laying down. Their faces were blurred, but Numa could tell they were his parents. They seemed to be happy, and the sight of their faces filled with Numa with such a na?ve sense of joy, happiness, and contentment.


    Numa soon found himself returned to the real world, on his hands and knees with tears streaming down his face. Resisting the urge to vomit, Numa noticed Chromedome had come next to him and was currently patting his back with an awkward jerking motion. Safeguard was perched nearby, worriedly watching Numa. Waving them off, wordlessly letting them know he was fine.


    Turning around, Numa took off his faceplate to wipe the tears off his face before turning towards their test subject. This soldier had bled out, dying once Chromedome had severed the connection, but after removing the helmet Numa could see the blissful smile entrapped on the soldier¡¯s face¡ªhis death had been a peaceful one.


    For some unknown reason, this comforted Numa, yet Numa couldn¡¯t tell why he needed comforting in the first place, it was almost like learning a close friend had gone peacefully in the night after battling with a terminal illness. It was an odd feeling, but soon that feeling and the feeling of contentedness from the memory soon faded away and Numa was once again left with the great void that was his emotions. This feeling was even more lonely now that Numa had been reminded what it felt like to live.


    Numa directed Safeguard to eat the newly dead soldier, before instructing Chromedome to continue with the memory extraction process, content with feeling these fake emotions, if only to feel something new for a while.


    This continued for a while, and soon Numa was left alone with Chromedome and Safeguard on the roof. They had gone through both sides of the roof, looting, and devouring both bodies and minds, and Numa had a lot on his mind. The act of memory stealing was uncommon, and this procedure was done frequently¡ªto augmented. To Numa¡¯s knowledge the procedure couldn¡¯t be replicated with solely organic cerebral cores, yet Numa had done just that.


    In fact, even trying what Numa had done was reckless and seemingly foolhardy, doubly so when it worked yet created such a visceral reaction. Why Numa had continued was beyond him, and a slightly worried Numa continued onwards back towards his living quarters.


    The rest of the trek back was one of quiet contemplation, as Numa didn¡¯t know what to make of himself anymore. There was much that needed to be understood, both about himself, the world he found himself in, and how he would interact with it going forward¡­

 10. Lonely Smiles

    Having made his way back to his living quarters, a bloodied and battered Numa pushed open the doors to his building slowly making his way past the many different people going through their daily routine. Strangely, Numa hadn¡¯t felt the urge to get to know his classmates at all, having no will nor reason to speak to them. Yet, in this moment Numa felt this powerful, almost aggressive itch to reach out to one of them and to strike a conversation with them. It was an odd feeling, and Numa attempted to ignore it, but he couldn¡¯t completely suppress it, nodding at a couple of his classmates as he passed through the common area.


    Making his way to his living quarters, Numa forgot about his new roommates as he entered a room that was many times more rambunctious than the common area. The guards had gathered a couple tables into the room and were using them for different purposes. A couple of the tables were used by the soldiers to play a game of cards. A couple of the tables were being used by vindicator operators, as an area to tinker with different parts. Navigating his way through the crowd, Numa made his way to his sleeping unit, which had been pushed to the corner of the room.


    Sliding out of his armor pack, Numa put it in his pod to be cleaned and upgraded. Finally, being free of his armor pack for what felt like forever, Numa released Safeguard and Chromedome to comingle among the guards. Closing his eyes, Numa checked in with Convobat, who was sitting outside an office, apparently having followed the Commadore there.


    Recognizing the base of the building from the stolen memories, Numa recalled Convobat back to him, deciding to check out the building with more detail later. Opening his eyes, Numa looked around and saw that Chromedome had caught the eye of a mechanic, who was showing him the different components he was working on. Chromedome was watching him carefully, nodding along and occasionally pointing at something different, at which point the mechanic would pick that piece up and begin to explain its function.


    Safeguard on the other hand, seemed to have found his place by the poker table, where the soldiers were amused by tossing food towards Safeguard who would pluck the food out of the air and gobble it down. Numa simply smiled and watched the scene, it was very enduring. The difference between a new high-end golem, a brain-dead drone and a small child was very minimal, so the guards seemed not to mind the intrusion nor were alarmed by the metallic nature of their new friends.


    Taking a seat on the floor nearest his pod, Numa took out a data pad and began reading the last reports he had been able to download before losing his noble status. There wasn¡¯t anything too interesting, as most of the stuff could have been found out with a little bit of money and access to a news portal. That isn¡¯t to say Numa didn¡¯t find anything interesting, apparently there had been multiple incursions into the sol system, but the report didn¡¯t mention if it was xenos in nature or if one of the traitor factions had broken into the sol system again.


    After the first month of classes the marine cadets would see their first deployment as support shock troops, with the CO class leading for the first time from the rear. Numa wondered if they were going to be sent to clean up these elements. Numa had never seen a xenos before, but apparently there were hundreds of thousands of species of them outside of the Milky Way galaxy.


    Numa was in the middle of speculating about these things when a large burly woman walked over. She was clad in imperial purple with silver highlights. Seeing as she wore imperial colors but was too large to be the princess, this meant she was probably one of the princess¡¯s private guards, close enough to wear more than a patch of imperial purple.


    ¡°The princess would like to see you, oh and a package came in for you¡±


    Neither overly friendly nor cold, the imperial guard said her piece before waiting to escort Numa to the princess. Receiving the package Numa could see it was his upgraded armor pack that he had ordered. Question marks abounded Numa¡¯s face before Numa was able to piece a couple of things together. The reason why he was able to arm himself so heavily was also the same reason why his armor was pushed to the front of the queue, the princess had intervened on his behalf.


    Whether this was because of his status as a former Tullis or something else Numa couldn¡¯t be sure, but truth be told Numa didn¡¯t appreciate this much political intervention. He felt like he was a pawn, a catalyst, and everyone appreciates a martyr except for the martyr themselves. Numa didn¡¯t want to die for some else¡¯s ideals, but it wasn¡¯t like he could just up and leave. He still partially considered himself human, even if those around him didn¡¯t.


    Putting on the amor, Numa didn¡¯t bother calling over his drones. There was no need, Numa figured he was safe, no one invested so much only to kill them. Standing up, Numa checked out the new features installed into his armor. It was a little heavier, with a large communications pack on his back, an antenna attached and a large sensor covering one of his eyes. Reaching up to touch it, Numa could feel that it was a long and thing oval that reached from his eye line down to his mouth.


    Turning to the guard, Numa gestured for them to lead the way. Walking briskly out of the room, Numa had to hustle to keep pace with them, but Numa really wasn¡¯t paying attention. Instead, he was fiddling with the overhauled communications system. He found that he could receive most communications from the entirety of the system, but as he lacked both frequencies and codes, there wasn¡¯t anything to listen into just quite yet.


    Quickly catching up to the guard, Numa quickly found himself standing in front of the doors to the princess¡¯s private office. The guard soon took her place to the right of the door, taking up guard with an electro-pike standing at attention. Numa stood there, not sure if he should knock or wait or do something. Instead, he opted for simply waiting by the door to be called on.


    Numa didn¡¯t wait long before the guard who had guided him there opened the door for him and gestured for him to enter. Numa calmy walked into the room, it wasn¡¯t as big as Numa had expected, but it was also true that there were more people in the room than Numa had expected. There were a couple of guards present, but most people seemed to be technicians and staff, moving about to different monitors all displaying different things.


    The princess was stationed in the center of the room, typing away on a data pad. She was surrounded in equal parts by both staff and monitors, she was managing a surprising amount of both data and people, and Numa was almost swept up in the commotion of it all.


    Standing at attention just in front of the princess¡¯s workstation Numa took the chance to do some exploring with his nanobots. Peeking over a technician¡¯s soldier with his nanobots Numa was able to get his hands on even more proprietary data, something that he desperately needed. Numa was so preoccupied with reviewing the data that when the princess mentioned being thirsty, Numa on autopilot went over and grabbed a waiting kettle of tea and poured a steaming cup of tea. Numa couldn¡¯t smell it through his mask, but just this simple action seemed extremely gratifying and cathartic to him. Handing the steaming mug of tea to the princess, Numa resumed his position, waiting to be called on. It was only after a couple seconds had passed by that Numa recognized what he did. A single twitch was the only visible confirmation that Numa recognized what exactly just happened.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Internally, Numa was very, confused and a little bit apprehensive. Numa remembered what happened the last time he had met with the princess, but Numa just considered it a one-off hallucination born from the damage to his limbic system, but just then was very different but sort of held the same meaning.


    What just happened wasn¡¯t a hallucination nor was it an over-emotional response, instead it was frankly, just muscle memory. Almost like he had done something similar hundreds if not thousands of times. This was strange, considering Numa had only been in direct contact with the princess once, and that was earlier with the hallucinations.


    The princess didn¡¯t seem to notice what exactly just transpired, but two of her aides exchanged looks. Numa recognized this but paid no attention to this because his mind was a million light years away from him. Almost as if to demonstrate just how little the nanobots and him were connected, they stayed on their original course of snooping around the headquarters, seeing if they could find any information that would be useful to Numa.


    Taking a couple of careful breathes, Numa cleared his mind of everything, for the first time since his affliction, Numa actively controlled and suppressed his rising emotions. Numa stood there, calming himself down, grounding himself in who he was, clearly defining who he was and the information that belonged in his head.


    Soon, the princess seemed to react to what exactly happened, raising her head to thank Numa before returning to her work. Numa paid this no mind and was partially frustrated by the seeming wasting of his time, as he had been in some form or fashion waiting for the princess to speak with him. Numa waited, and waited, before making his way to the door. This action caught the attention of the princess, who watched him until she realized he was opening the door to let one of his drones in, a large bat that perched on his shoulder.


    Once Numa moved back into the room the princess returned towards her work. Numa noticed this, but decided not to mention on it, instead opting to playing with Convobat. No one paid much attention to this, instead just understanding it to be the many quirks of the augmented, seeing him just as another mentally ill subhuman.


    After another hour passed by just like this, but eventually a soft voice called out to Numa, ¡°I¡¯m sorry for the delay something came out that was quite urgent¡­¡± Numa simply stopped playing with Convobat, who flew off into a corner of the room, nodding his head towards the princess he bid her to continue. Pausing for a second, Princess Lily seemed to consider her options before asking a seemingly benign question, ¡°Have you ever met a xenos? I have seen a couple, apparently, they split themselves into inner and outer. Did you know they don¡¯t differentiate between their different species? It really is a strange thing, instead they compose themselves based on their home planets position towards the core of their galaxy. The closer your planet is towards the center of the galaxy the higher you stand within the collective. Crazy huh?¡±


    Numa wasn¡¯t sure if how to respond, as this felt like a rhetorical question¡ªyet the princess still paused like she wanted a response.


    An awkward pause resumed, before the princess seemed to shift gears, ¡°So how was your meeting with our wonderful teacher, the Commadore?¡±


    Not sure which meeting she was referring to, Numa decided to play stupid about the violent meeting, deciding she probably meant the first meeting before his operation. ¡°It was fine, she warned me about the dangers of augmentation and that was that¡±


    Nodding to herself, the princess seemed to accept that answer, mulling it over in her head before she decided to switch gears once again, ¡°Did you appreciate my gifts to you? You really know how to ask for a lot of things, but I guess you do have a small squad to outfit don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yes, thank you.¡± Numa¡¯s response was short and sweet, both because he didn¡¯t want to talk too much and reveal how badly he was shaking, and because frankly, he didn¡¯t know what else to say. He was nervous, maybe, but the reaction was only physical. On an emotional level Numa was as cool as the polar ice caps, there wasn¡¯t a single emotional thought that passed through his head. It was this dichotomy which only seemed to add to Numa¡¯s discomfort.


    Clearly upset by his seemingly cold response, the princess seemed to want to get a rise out of him, ¡°So how was your operation? Is it as disorienting as they say it is? Did you even get the surgery, I can¡¯t seem to find any mentions of a certain Numa getting the surgery? Maybe you didn¡¯t get the surgery, and are only playing along with the Guiding Hand hmmm? You don¡¯t seem to care too much about me, your true rightful ruler?¡±


    By the end the princess was clearly extremely agitated, attempting to get a rise out of Numa anyway possible. Sensing that their charge was losing her cool, one of the princess¡¯s aides placed a hand on her shoulder, signaling her to calm herself. Calming down, the princess¡¯s demeanor visibly cooled all the way down to a chilling hostile attitude.


    Numa wasn¡¯t sure why she seemed so invested in his responses, but he had his ideas, all of which were just as unpleasant as the last. Choosing not to comment, Numa just stood there without moving a muscle. Doing this only seemed to make the shaking feeling worse, it was almost like Numa was fighting the urge to reach out and comfort the princess. It was an odd feeling, as this urge wasn¡¯t one motivated by a certain stimulus or emotion, in the same way someone might automatically reach for the soap when they shower, Numa seemed to almost automatically reach out to the princess to comfort her.


    Staying as still as a statue, Numa simply waited for the next commands.


    Now clearly upset, almost irrevocably so, the princess said in a voice so cold it seemed to freeze the very air being breathed, ¡°You are dismissed soldier.¡± This cold and distant remark seemed to leave multiple lashes out on Numa, but Numa simply turned and moved towards the exit. Halfway to the door, Numa was stopped by the princess who simply stated, ¡°Its good to know that you haven¡¯t changed at all, over all these years, over this immeasurable distance I¡¯ve found you again and you¡¯re just as broken as ever. You have disappointed me for the last time.¡±


    These words seemed to careen into Numa like a freighter, crushing his very soul. The overwhelming urge to vomit raised in Numa¡¯s mouth, and he barely made it out the door and into an empty hallway before collapsing to his knees and dry heaving.


    Convobat soon landed on Numa¡¯s back, apparently trying to find a way to comfort him to no avail. Instead, Convobat opted to flittering about Numa worriedly, in a way that seemed enduring to Numa. Waving his hand to signal to Convobat that he was alright, Numa calmed down and seemed to sink further into his emotionless state.


    Before, it was as if he simply didn¡¯t feel anything, but now his emotions seemed to collapse into themselves consuming the emotions of even those around him. Numa was a walking emotional singularity, one that trapped emotions and extinguished them from even those around him.


    Numa wasn¡¯t sure how long he stayed on his knees there, simply staring at the floor. He wasn¡¯t thinking about anything, instead his mind was completely empty, as empty as a desert, as baren as an asteroid. There was nothing there, no thoughts, no wants, no needs, nothing. At some point, Numa got up from his stupor, making his way back to his living quarters.


    By this point, a smile seemed to have formed on Numa¡¯s face. It was an empty smile, a lonely smile, one that never made its way to Numa¡¯s face. This wasn¡¯t someone who was healing, this wasn¡¯t someone who had overcome something, it wasn¡¯t a smile of triumph or a smile for good things to come. Instead, it was a lonely smile, one of acceptance of a situation, a smile of accepting the things to come.


    It was a smile of someone who was defeated, a smile of someone who had lost his voice. Some might have worn it with shame, some might have worn it to hide the bitter pain they felt inside. Numa wore it like a badge, Numa wore it as if to say that if this is who he needed to be, it would be who he would be. There was nothing other than survival now, no bottom line, no nothing. It was as if the final string had been cut from Numa¡¯s back. He was no longer Numa Tullis, he was no longer Numa the human. There was no need for such bothersome labels that seemed to tie one down as much as they lifted them up.


    He was now Numa the anchorless, Numa the freed. Numa was finally whole, finally united his pieces finally intertwined and connected. Breathing in the filtered air, Numa felt weightless, and he felt powerful.


    End: Gestalt United Arc


    Next: Traitor¡¯s Respite

 11. A Jovian Pursuit

    Start: Traitor''s Respite


    The next couple days for Numa were both eventful and uneventful. Classes finally began for Numa, yet the ones he attended were boring to say the least, and frankly quite useless to say the least. There was a class on communications, there was a basics on leadership, but honestly Numa felt like there wasn''t much of any value here.


    About two months in they had their first weapons class, which Numa got some use out of, able to learn how to effectively use his weapons and learn about the different weapons they would encounter, strategies to minimize losses.


    Then their training began in earnest, they learned about the different types of champions they would face, what their jobs were and how they would go about their best accomplishing it. Their job was simple, die slower than the average soldier. As such, they were taught guerilla tactics, meant to annoy, harass, and impede the progress of enemy champions and even regiments of soldiers. What champions were wasn''t a hard-set designation, an enemy champion put simply was the enemies "win condition". Sometimes it could be an encampment raining down hellfire on the kingdoms of man, and as such marines were taught infiltration and siege warfare. Sometimes enemy champions were singular troops, extremely strong army wipers, and they were taught how to perform hit and run tactics to prevent these wipers from targeting large swarths of friendlies.


    Psions were great examples of this, as the more powerful of their order had the power to completely wipeout regiments if not entire armies.


    Time passed, and soon it was time for the first mission. They would be heading to a gas giant in the Sol system, Jovian. There were groups of insurgents that had taken over the couple of mining stations there, and it would be their job in conjunction with the Sol army to eliminate the threat. Each person in the CO class was given a weeks'' notice to prepare and meet their squads. Each squad consisted of ten to fifteen people, but Numa''s only consisted of four other augmented, this wasn''t due to any inherent bias, just that there were only four other augmented designated to live combat roles.


    Walking to their meeting place, a cafeteria located just across from their living quarters. Stepping into the cafeteria, Numa was soon flagged down by a group of augmented sitting at a table not too far to them. Walking over, Numa took a seat left empty for him at the head of the table.


    Sitting down, Numa viewed the group for a half second before greeting his new comrades, "I''m Numa and I''m going to be your squad leader. I have cerebral implants as my augments, and I will also oversee recon and communications." Indicating for the person to the right of Numa to continue, the line of introduction continued. "My names Elizebth but my friends call me Liezel, I have cerebral, cranial and finger augments, I''ll oversee tech in the field and any cybernetic warfare if needed."


    The next person in line took a second, glancing at the person across from them, before stating, "My names Katas and I''m the demolitions and heavy weapons expert, and this is my brother Karthas, who is in charge of long-range operations, he''s a real whizz with a sniper." Karthas simply waved at the group, choosing not to speak. Katas and Liezel had removed their helmets to eat, yet Karthas chose not to remove his helmet, nor did he have food placed in front of him. Finally, the final member of the group went to introduce themselves, "My names Aspida, and I''ll be the shield of the group"


    Numa nodded, understand everyone''s position in the group, before quickly ordering a simple root soup himself. Soon, conversation broke out between the squad, with Numa not commenting instead simply choosing to observe the conversation quietly.


    "Wait, wait let me get this straight. You don''t carry any weapons, I get that you''re a shielder but that seems kinda crazy, no?" Karthas, being the weapons guy seemed not to be able to wrap his head around Aspida not carrying any weapons.


    "Well, that''s not technically true, I meant I assume your shield could probably smash things up right, its not like you are completely defenseless, plus you have us!" Liezel seemed to be the positive person of the group.


    "Ya, my shields are meant to defend you, plus I''m a very strong guy, smashing things could also be considered one of my specialties", Aspida proclaimed this all while raising up his arms to flex them.


    No one comments on Karthas'' silence, nor his insistence of keeping his helmet on. Many considered their augmentations ugly or otherwise unsightly, and many considered asking about the specifications about one''s augment to be rude, and improper. As such, no one mentioned it and Karthas didn''t offer anything up either.


    In the middle of their meal, they all got an alert, their briefing for their mission would be taking place in thirty minutes. Wrapping up their meal quickly, they soon made their ways. Numa would be heading off to meet with the other commanders to be briefed, while the rest of the squad went to receive their half of their briefing.


    This method of briefing was the embodiment of the compartmentalization of the marines and the kingdom of mankind as a whole¡ªsquad leaders such as Numa got a larger picture of the plans than those under them. This isn''t that big of an issue as the bigger picture can often be distracting, and many times don''t need to be known by the larger whole of the army.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    But often this leads to a lack of flexibility, especially when there is a break in the command structure due to a lack of communication or something worse.


    Making his way towards the command post, Numa parted with the rest of his squad, who wished him good luck and promised to meet with him later. Heading into the command post, his HUD soon directed him towards the basement floors. Slipping into the room designated by his HUD, Numa saw all his classmates and a couple of people Numa didn''t recognize. His classmates paid him no attention, and Numa could see the princess was purposely ignoring him. Specifically greeting everyone with a nod or a simple hello once they entered, but specifically ignoring Numa.


    Numa paid this no mind, sitting down on a chair in the corner of the room, Numa began downloading the mission data from the server provided. Reviewing it, the overall objective was to retake the mining platforms over Jovian, but the marines'' specific mission was to one, locate the insurgent leader, and to eliminate any troop transports the insurgents might have. The cadets would handle these missions, while the main marine force would eliminate the insurgent leader once located.


    The Sol corps cadets would be engaging the main body of the insurgents while the marines completed their tasks. Having learned all that needed to be learned, Numa waited patiently in his seat for the formal briefing to begin.


    A man clads in blue fatigues soon stepped up to address those gathered in the room. Surveying the room for a second, waiting for it to quiet down the man introduced himself, "I''m commander Selvin and I will be running point for this mission. The princess over here will be the marine''s liaison for this mission. Now, as many have read from the briefing a group of insurgents have captured the mining outposts of Jovian. The golems have been lost, but some of the human miners have escaped and alerted us to this. Resistance shouldn''t be that big of an issue but keep an eye out of the insurgent leader. Some early scouting has revealed that the commander is clad in some Xeno tech, and his guards are equipped with vindicator class suits. The marine cadets will be tasked with locating the commander, but you shouldn''t engage, a special marine task force has been tasked with capturing the commander alive. The secondary objective of the marines'' squads will be to destroy any troop transports and to gather as much data as you can from the insurgents, but that is a tertiary objective. Insertion will be handled by our ariel corps, and transports will be landing. The Sol corps will be landing before us and should clear us a landing platform."


    Turning to gesture at the princess, "Now I will let miss explain the jobs of your specific squads." And with that Commander Selvin took a seat and let Princess Damocles have the spotlight.


    "Ok, breakdown will be simple, of the ten squads, nine will be tasked with removal of enemy transports and once that''s done assist with the cleaning up of combatants. The tenth, the augmented squad, will be tasked with heading into the base to both hack the systems, giving us back control of the defenses of the base and the remaining golems, and using those to locate the insurgent commander. Are there any questions?"


    After a second, the ox''s sister raised her hand and with a nod from the princess asked her question, "Excuse me ma''am, but what support will we have?"


    "Good question, there will be minimal ariel support for those going after the troop transports, and none for the squad entering the backend of the facility. And if you mean support as in backup from the main marines, there will be none unless you run into the insurgent commander. Now, go prepare and don''t let humanity down!"


    And with that, Numa and the rest of the squad captains were dismissed. Now, Numa was given a very important task, and that made Numa not worried, not happy. This was something that shouldn''t be taken as an honor nor taken as belief in Numa''s ability. Instead, it meant they were disposable. The fact that it seemed they would be getting no backup, and the fact that Xeno technology was being used meant that this was probably a trap/not something cadets should be going through.


    In the theme of "trial by fire" or better yet disposability, to Numa it seemed that they were being used to draw out the unseen forces at work. Maybe these insurgents were just that for the Xenos, disposable and thus presenting no real threat, but the fact that one, the princess would only be taking part as commander offsite, and two, that a special squad had been formed to capture the insurgent commander meant this was probably a pipe dream.


    Making his way back towards his living quarters, he was soon contacted by Karthas who wanted to meetup. Surprised, Numa agreed, turning away heading back towards the command post. Reaching the building, Numa followed the directions of his HUD, heading behind the building and soon reached a tiny plaza of intersecting back alleys.


    Standing in the center of this plaza was Karthas, leaning against the wall. Soon, an internal call was setup between the two.


    "You wanted to see me?"


    Karthas'' voice was much quieter than Numa was expecting, a rasping whisper at best.


    "So how was the briefing?"


    "It was¡­ illuminating. Why did you want to see me without everyone else?"


    "My brother is talking to them now, I wanted to chat alone with you first though. I''m assuming you''ve been harassed by the Guiding Hand?"


    "Harassed? What do you mean?"


    "I mean work orders being denied, hang up on gear being issued, vague hostility¡­"


    "Uh, yeah something like that¡­" Numa wasn''t sure what he was getting at here, but he wasn''t going to reveal the extremes the Guiding Hand had taken to "deter" him.


    "Well, the Guiding Hand has a big hand in our inclusion within this mission, and in fact using cadets at all. This is a trap, but it seems to be more inclusive of a trap than just against us, the augmented."


    Nodding to himself, Numa was glad that he wasn''t the only one who felt uncertain about this whole affair.


    "How do you know about all of this, and isn''t the Guiding Hand supposed to be an underground movement?"


    Not answering him, Karthas simply waved, ending the communication, and moving away through one of the back alleyways. Wracking his brain, Numa''s mind race trying to place Karthas or Katas anywhere on his timeline¡ªor to any noble family he had heard about.


    Realizing he wasn''t going to get anywhere knowing as little about Karthas as he currently did, Numa instead transitioned to thinking about the training and planning Numa would need to do to guarantee his survival for this mission¡­