You leave without a word.
[7 liked that]
A month of technopath training has taught you much, and in other ways revealed just how much you have to learn. Equipped now with a functional grasp of some basic capabilities, you are...
“I’ll do it,” you say. Might as well, since you’re probably the only one here who’s done this before. Ana takes the charged hypospray and approaches you.
“Everyone, take the æthernet cable located in your left cable pocket. On the left arm of your seat...
“I’ve been in the æther before, actually,” you say.
“You have? How?” Professor Kitov says.
“It was…when I was coming here to TLA, the incident on the shuttle, I thought you would have heard about it,” you say.
“I never heard any such thing,” he says.
“Yo...
It’s too calming, too tranquil, too inviting to resist losing yourself in the ætherglow again. It comes with a strange warmth inside, almost nostalgic, like you’ve come home from a long journey. Your imagined sense of distance begins to break down. The...
Thinking rationally for a second, you remember that physical restraint is not possible in the æther as you have no physical body. You raise your mental shield just as you’ve practiced over and over, and as its thin liquid surface appears, it pushes...
“Get us both away from these people!” you say.
[ÆON liked that]
As the white discs encircling ÆON’s black eyes flare as bright as the Sun, an elliptical gate of white light opens up beneath you. The strange entity dives into it, pulling you along by...
“Let’s try and trick them,” you say, directly to ÆON’s mind. “Any ideas?”
“No,” ÆON says to you.
“You have a lot of knowledge but not much when it comes to imagination, huh,” you say. “I have an idea, I’m just…not really good enough to do it yet,” you...
“There’s a device connected to my terminal that nobody would think to look for,” you say.
“I see. Understood.” ÆON opens the portal and steps inside, pulling you along with it. This time your flight through the incomprehensible relay space and the...
You decide to call on a friend for aid.
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > Zeta does this message go through??
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Zeta > why is your timestamp all fucked up
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > yours looks the same, I don't know, nevermind, Zeta I'm...
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > that's Ana, it knows a little about this situation, explain what I told you and it will help me
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Zeta > ok, hold on
“Back to waiting…” you say. But with the way time flows in the æther, you can’t guess how...
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > I'm not sure if it has accessed it or not...
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Ana > we will have to hope not
“We are in danger,” ÆON says.
“What is it??”
“This space is a storage device bound to the æther only by a hardware connection to...
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > I don't want to go back outside TLA ætherspace alone if I don't have to, I want to see what's going on at home first, but can you be ready to direct me somewhere safe if it turns out to be a bad idea?
????-??-?? ??:??:?? Ana...
There are just too many unanswered questions here, and you think you’ve pushed your luck enough for one dissociation session. You decide to lay low, not risk any further communications, and try to stay invisible to all with a simple echo projection.
You...
“Okay,” you say.
“Great. Wait here for now. Try and drink this to raise your blood sugar,” Ana says, handing you a cup of something. It looks like it’s giving them out to everyone. You drink it, but you can’t taste it.
You’ve agreed to meet with Ana,...
“I have it contained somewhere safe, cut off from the æther,” you say.
“Where, Aydan? There are few places truly suitable for such a thing,” Ana says.
“No. Explanations first. A technopath doesn’t reveal information carelessly.”
“I can’t argue with...
“Why do you think ÆON is so dangerous?” you say.
Ana answers, ”The exopath is merely unpredictable, and very powerful in the æther, but it doesn’t naturally have any reason to be malicious. From what I know of ÆON, it mostly seemed curious, about the...
You decide to entrust Ana with the truth. “I first met ÆON in the shuttle computer, and it attached itself to my mind, where it resided until today.”
“Slow down Aydan, I need to hear more about that,” Ana says.
“Well, it started when I was spacing out...
“ÆON is a sentient being, not just a file to be traded around! We should consider what it wants to do here,” you say.
[ÆON liked that]
Your words strike Ana like a spell in the æther, and it looks down, dejected. “I can’t argue with that. It isn’t...