NABC 186 – Perspective Shift
186 – Perspective Shift
186 – Perspective Shift
Kastor Dross was a man who’d been fighting an uphill battle against a system that failed him and so many others all his life. He’d been a simple carpenter once upon a time, worrying only about his craft and making the connections he needed to sell his work.
He missed the times when his greatest worry was putting enough money on the table to feed his beautiful wife and their little princess.
His wife Elena stirred behind him, groaning as the strange lightbulb on the ceiling lit up, her arm reaching drowsily for his side of the bed. She found only the warm spot where he’d slept. @@@@
“Kastor?” Elena mumbled, cracking open an eye as she shielded her face from the bright light. “Blasted lights.”
“Good morning, love,” Kastor said, turning around as he fixed his clothes. “Slept well?”
“Would have,” Elena grumbled, glaring up at the light through squinted eyes. “Has anything happened?”
“I’m just about to find out,” Kastor said, taking a deep breath as he turned towards the door leading outside. “You should stay here ... just in case. I can hear people are getting rowdy out there.”
“You could stay too,” Elena said, now fully awake as she hopped out of bed and wrapped a silky smooth night robe around herself. “It’s not your job to micromanage them. I’m sure our ... hosts will handle anything that comes up.”
“I was the one who convinced them to come,” Kastor said resolutely, though his wife’s worried look made him second-guess himself for a fleeting moment of weakness. “I must go.”
“Be careful?” Elena said with a sigh, knowing better than to try changing his mind.
“Of course,” Kastor said with a loving smile, stepping over to his wife and wrapping his arms around her waist. He gave her a chaste goodbye kiss. “Take care of Kiara, she’s too curious for her own good.”
“I know, and I will,” Elena said, glancing towards the closed door leading to their daughter’s room. “Go, and try not to get lynched.”
“I’ll do my best.” Kastor grinned. “Being a politician has become a dangerous trade lately, but I’m reasonably sure I’m more liked than most of my competition.”
“The Eternal Queen was well liked too, Kastor.”
That wiped the grin off his face, his mood turning sombre.
“True enough,” he said softly. “I’ll be careful.”
Kastor stepped through the eerily familiar door. He’d crafted similar ones with his own two hands in his time as a carpenter, and there were things he saw there that he could almost recognise. Shapes, types of wood and techniques.
But it was just ... wrong. Fake.
Like how someone would try to copy it after only seeing it once, and without having access to the materials or knowing any of the techniques that went into it.
The carpenter in him was fascinated by it, but the politician was worried by its implications. Why was it here, how did it get here, and what were their ‘hosts’ trying to achieve by placing them here?
Aliens. Kastor just couldn’t get a grip on them, even with his decades in politics honing his intuition for such things into a finely calibrated weapon.
They came to his planet, utterly annihilated their sovereign, eradicated maniacal cultists they hadn’t even known of and then offered them a way off the planet.
Why? Kastor had asked himself hundreds of times over the course of the last few days. He’d long learned that predicting his opponent’s moves and actions was only possible when their intent was known. Their wants, needs and goals. The woman in the broadcast looked human enough ... but that could have been fabricated.
In the end, Kastor knew the worry was worthless, so he discarded it. He’d long known of the rot and corruption plaguing his planet’s government and bureaucracy. Still, if the aliens came around back then, and offered a way off the planet without doing anything else, he wouldn’t have stepped forward.
This was the only way to escape the chaos. Kastor thought. He’d seen the rising tensions, the warlords and the lowlives taking advantage of the central power being gone. He’d made an educated guess — a wish, really — that if the aliens cared enough to eradicate the murderous cultists and keep the rising warlords in check during their stay, then they would not allow such lawlessness in their own backyards either.
It was the safest route to take for his family, and for those of his voters who trusted his judgement.
The hallway outside was a long tunnel with the same pearly white walls and floor, all the rooms had. Those strange fluorescent bulbs hung from the ceiling, giving light to the otherwise lifeless tunnel.
Hundreds of doors lined each side, and Kastor examined them as he went, walking towards the loud argument echoing through the hallway.
Kastor heard muffled sounds behind some, while others had their doors wide open, letting him catch glimpses of a bare interior. Some people thought the doors would never open again once closed and decided to sleep out in the communal hall/mess hall at the end of the hallway.
Kastor stepped out into the open, the once distant argument now more of a shouting match than anything else.
Someone noticed him and in moments dozens of eyes landed on him, whispers and murmurs spread through the crowd as a sudden hush fell over the room.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Kastor said, back straight and posture poised as it should be. His expression was affable enough to make him welcoming but aloof enough to project confidence and competence. “Good morning. I would like to have my morning meal before anything else, but it seems there might be some urgent concerns that need to be addressed?”
Confidence and calm were just about the extent of what he could give to these scared men and women. He knew as well as they all did that there was no way to contact those warriors clad in white armour, for they all disappeared after making that strange gateway appear that transported them all here.
“I am astonished it held this far,” Selene said helpfully, blowing a lock of unruly hair out of her face. She was training her telekinesis, focusing on fine control and splitting her attention to apply movement vectors to more than one object. “Especially with that latest idea of yours. How is it going anyway? Any of them got corrupted yet? Trying to revolt?”
“Of course they are not doing either,” I said rolling my eyes. “They are autonomous drones I’ve let loose, true, but I still programmed them down to the cellular level. ... I am also running surveillance on them, so should anything happen, I can stop it in time.”
Those autonomous drones were barely above baseline humans in physical ability. What they excelled in was only the mental part, since I’d given each and every one of them enhanced cognition and memory, along with a Water Caste Tau sub-brain to help them. The last of which I’d loaded up with memories I thought would be useful for their tasks.
I couldn’t do everything myself and I’d decided that letting the humans loose on the empty arcologies without any guidance would have been irresponsible. So I made those drones to fill that role. They’ll be my public servants for now until real humans could take over.
Selene might have had a bit of ingrained bias against clones and AI of all kinds, but her paranoia was the result of the tough life she’s led in this galaxy. I couldn’t fault her for it, not when I practically stumbled my way into being an eldritch demigoddess on my first day in this universe.
I knew very well I had little actual idea what it took to not only survive in this galaxy, but to thrive for a regular human.
[Notification! Probes have reached the system’s star, begin energy farming and self-propagation?]
Set the maximum satellite number orbiting the star to one thousand for now and keep their size under a thousand cubic metres. Confirm restriction parameters.
[Confirmed]
[Maximum unit quantity for Dyson Swarm Satellites set at 1000.]
[Maximum volume for a single Dyson Swarm Satellite set at 1000 cubic metres]
[Requesting permission to proceed with energy farming and self propagation protocols?]
Granted.
While that little side project was handling itself — under the watchful eyes of a few mind-cores of course — I stretched my mind to check the progress of my other probe satellites.
Only a third of the way there. I mused, but shrugged instead of getting grumpy. I could have Blinked all of them to where I wanted them to be out in the asteroid cloud surrounding the system. However, I didn’t want to waste the energy and also feared the teleportation could be tracked by a skilled Farseer.
Those probes out in the asteroid cloud would be my early warning system. They had the best sensors I had on hand along with my most advanced stealth capabilities built into them. Secrecy and stealth would be paramount. I couldn’t allow my impatience to put into jeopardy.
I was also kinda giddy about the idea of sending out probes and satellites without breaking physics or cheating with space magic to do so. It just had a different feel to it.
“Want me to do the speech again?” Selene asked, and I considered it for a moment.
“Do you want to do it in the future?” I asked, staring at her with a deep look. “Do you want to be the voice of the mighty ruler I’m going to portray myself as? I’m not asking whether you’ll do it if I ask you to, but if you would enjoy being in that role.”
Selene stopped her practice for a second, the dozens of rocks orbiting around her in complicated patterns freezing in place as she bit her lips. “Not ... really? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said, smiling at her gently. “I’ll handle it myself. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“I appreciate that,” Selene said, sounding a bit relieved. Which I took a bit of offence to, if I was being honest. When had I ever forced her to do anything she clearly stated she didn’t want to do? “I’d much rather be your Hand, than your Voice. I’ve spent far too much of my life till now staring at paperwork and managing idiots and far too little doing this.”
The rocks resumed their orbit, speeding up even as Selene slowly floated off the ground and to her place at the centre of her own mock star system.
“Whatever makes you happy, love,” I said with an affectionate smile, which shifted into a teasing one a moment later. “I might even consider naming you the court jester if you can do tricks like that.”
A rock slammed into my forehead with enough power to go through a brick wall. It just bounced off my skin though, only doing enough to push my head back a bit.
“That wasn’t very court jesterly,” I admonished in faux seriousness. “Do you even know how to juggle rock properly?”
My only answer was another dozen rocks peppering me from all sides, which I only started evading after they started getting creative and struck my butt. Those stung.
“It seems I need to teach my jester some manners.” I cackled like an evil witch right out of the story books.
Selene just gave me a challenging grin before another pebble struck me right in the left boob. I could have dodged it, but where was the fun in that?
“Oh, it’s on!”
Selene fled into the forest with a tittering laugh, hopping through the foliage with feline grace and superhuman agility.
I followed behind her, matching my Avatar’s speed and abilities to hers.
The citizens were busy getting used to the arcologies, there were still two hours until my time limit when the portals would close. That was more than enough time to chase down my naughty lover.