By David C. Daoust
It’s like being in an abyss. So much information, so many ways to go. No way to know which is wrong, which is right. Ultimately, Clover should be okay with the idea, as an Agent of Ergos- flitting between the Black Beyond and the White Space that is their home dimension- he’d navigated Abysses others could not imagine. This however, was different. He did not know where to start, or when one idea started and another ended. It just stretched out into everything. Without a start, it felt like (extra points->) a whole lot of nothing.
Clover was seated within his scion; The darkened vehicle the Agents used to track down faulty nanites. Ultimately, to ensure the energy such nanites had quoted, was actually acquired. Most the time the nanites managed to achieve their objective. When they didn’t- when others interfered or the nanites were damaged in some way- the Agents were sent in to investigate.
The Scions were controlled as much by the Nannies as they were the Agents. All Wards knew of the Nannies limitations, and why, exactly, they needed Agents to accompany them when things did not go according to plan– Put simply, the nannies’ minds were too simple to seek out such disturbances on their own.
While the nannies were descendants of Artificial Intelligence far greater than their current state, now they were little more than helper droids. Each in turn was a fractured piece of ancient technology, only given enough information to deal with minor tasks.
There was a symbiosis between the Nannies and the Wards, each co-dependent on the other. A co-dependency far deeper than one may imagine. The nanites coursed through the Wards very veins, gave them extra abilities. Protected them in every conceivable way. The Wards were afforded more than simply flight ability, they had protection based on a kind of force-field that projected around them, like an invisible bubble. Any collision would be absorbed and redirected around the child. Even, for example, if one child chose to strike another, the fields would simply slip past each other- repelled like two magnet ends, of like poles, being forced together. Yet, it was a force-field technology sophisticated enough to allow food in– and waste out.
Really, it was all the same technology; the nannies and nanites, the droids, and the Scions themselves. All a simple intelligence, that worked with the Wards. The lines between where one started and the other ended had blurred out over the centuries. To the extent that the Wards of Ergos, could no longer prosper separately from the technology.
Of all their abilities, the most powerful, were those granted by the Scions. On mission, they could teleport from one place to another, pass through solid objects, even absorb energy directly through their blades- and send it back for use. Agents did not use these abilities when not on mission. These abilities burned too much energy, to justify use, outside of dire necessity.
Clover, however, was about to break that rule.
He was equipped only with his studies. Only with what he had learned from his days of scouring through the histories of the Galliants of Mars. Of all he had learned, he had come to one simple conclusion- The best thing he could do, the one thing he had gleaned from that horrid mess that was the War on Mars, was to actually speak to the ‘enemy’.
That was his big plan- talk.
The problem- Percy wanted to take the offensive. Wanted to ‘test the Giants’ defenses’- He wanted to control the situation. He was using rhetoric to rile the Agents up. It was working. Many of the older kids were listening. Many of the older kids were too worried for the young, to hear anything else.
‘Welcome to the club’, clover thought as he initiated the Scion. The dome over his head dropped down an inch, and with a blast of air, sealed air-tight.
The arrival of the Giant in Hearth, did not help Clover’s cause. When the giants first arrived, unconscious and helpless, Ergos was there to deal with them. Ergos was gone, no one knew where. The Agents now held a single Giant in custody, one that had no chance of understanding what was needed to be conveyed. ‘Made him a Giant that could only help Percy bring more Agents to his cause.
Clover felt ousted. Most of all threatened. Not to lose some authority he was never interested in, but in witnessing this conflict take the shape of all those histories he had taken the time to study, most of all to lose the chance to enact his plan.
For them to take any such action against, out of fear of something different or unknown, could only amplify the conflict. To act as though another’s actions threatened their own way of life, without any credence to the other’s motivations, could lead to them all in the position of the Venusborn starving in the very holes they dug.
Clover knew what he knew. He did not know how to explain it, especially to those riled up by Percy.
Clover deemed the situation ‘Dire Necessity’- it would take him two jumps to get to where he needed to be. He had the coordinates plotted…
Activating the Energy Drive, with a small unusual ‘pluck’ sound, his surroundings suddenly shifted. For just a second he hung in the Black Beyond, all the stars shining around him. Yet before he could truly take it in, he was back in the ‘White’- flying above ‘Central Way’ a Commons surrounded by the Wards main facilities. Wards were everywhere, some in Scions, some securing items, they looked as though they were preparing for a mission. Something that had not happened since Ergos had gone silent.
Percy had made more headway than Clover thought. Riled or no, that many Agents would never use the Energy Drive without a clear indication that the mission would be enough to replace the energy used. In fact, they may never call him a Hero again after this, he may even lose his place as an Agent, but using the Energy Drive was his only edge.
Reactivating the Drive, Clover’s surroundings shifted again. After another momentary flash of space, he hovered outside one of the ‘enemy’ ships.
There was only one Giant, he knew of, that had a chance of understanding him. He knew from the Agents’ scout reports, which happened to be filed directly to him, she was stationed within this ship. The problem was that no Agent had actually made it aboard the ship to report her exact location.
Clover was forced to do the dirty work himself. He was going to have to get in there, locate the woman… hope to get a chance to communicate, all without using up anymore excess energy, and before either the Giants accosted him, or, possibly, his own people ‘tested their defenses’… ‘sent them all teetering from the brink of war.
The ship was well guarded. Phasing through the hull- cost much less energy than teleportation…
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