“I’ve reviewed your recommendations for Team Sol. Care to give your rationale for the candidate you placed in the Guardian role?”

  “Of course. The role was a calculated choice. In the end, she was chosen for her unique soul resonance. Placing her at the core of the combat team was the most secure option, all things considered.”

  “A human, though? If she fails to achieve immortality, we’ll have to replace a key position, and transport costs aren’t cheap. To say nothing of the animosity that’ll be directed her way.”

  “Rather than a risk, she’s the whole reason this team has so many humans on it. Her unique resonance allows us to cut a lot of costs. Normally, we’d have to invest in the lifespans of several agents, and replace them often. My recommendation for Guardian removes all of that. She can help others achieve a more stable ascension via this ‘Soul Harmony’ the Academy studied!”

  “We’re taking some risks for this. You know how I feel about those.”

  “But the potential gains? The ability to cut costs to such a degree? And if we can analyze her in the field, maybe her gift can be replicated.”

  -MCF Meeting Log (22,451 BDEZ)

  Mari:

  Staring down the results of a truly harrowing encounter with the creature she had coined ‘the behemoth,’ Mari had to admit she was beginning to reassess things.

  The memories of the afflicted people Marielle had encountered on that colony planet had involved killing them by the dozens without too much personal risk. Even the other afflicted animals she’d seen earlier in the day weren’t too concerning.

  The behemoth had been durable, powerful, and oddly cunning despite being blind.

  Mari had made a singular critical mistake, and she was confident that without her reinforced bones and muscles, she would have died. It was a terrifying revelation, and she had the aches to make the lesson stick.

  Reflecting on it, Kris had been near to her whenever it had been properly wounded. As a blind hunter, the creature must’ve associated the pain of injury with the loud sound of her Remera, likely because of the silence of Kris’ experimental weapon.

  The behemoth had adapted to her dodging, modified its approach. It wasn’t stupid. She’d paid for the lack of threat assessment. To some extent, she felt it was better her than Kris, but it was still an inexcusable lapse in judgement.

  In the end, the changes haven’t changed much. I’m still a fuckup.

  Mari stood up and finally noticed Kris hovering over her with a worried expression.

  “Oh! Sorry, I was just reflecting on the fight.” Mari winced as pain shot through her abdomen from the movement.

  “Let me bandage that.” Kris had some medical supplies in hand, and Alynne wasn’t far away, holding the open case of supplies.

  “Wait. Let’s move back a ways. That sound would’ve drawn any more of them that heard it. And we weren’t exactly subtle.” She grit her teeth as she ushered the whole group back into the hallway, shushing any other comments until they were a fair distance away.

  “Fine. Now you can patch me up. Then we need to figure out how to handle more of those.” Mari sat down on the ground and let Kris fuss over her.

  “I can see how bad you really are, by the way.” Kris murmured into her ear as she forced Mari to bite down on a scrap of cloth. The disinfectant solution that helped to seal the wound closed burned like rubbing alcohol on the wound to her side. “Are you going to do something about your bruised organs, or are you planning to keep going like this?”

  Mari squeezed her eyes shut, and her fingers dug deep into the fabric of her pants.

  The rhetorical question went in one ear and out the other, and Mari kept her silence while bandages covered the injury. Instead, she tried to feel for the vibrant energy she had felt at Kris’ match. The singular drive that compelled Marielle as a protector was still there, and it was bound to her in a way she could still feel.

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  The sensation felt like it was guiding her outside herself, reaching into the world around her and harmonizing with her companions. She could feel Kris beside her—a bundle of worry that exuded vitality. Vilke was nearby, conversing quietly with Karin and Alynne about something. Each of them had a similar concern in their cores, right where Mari could sense her own well of power.

  It somehow clicked with her, and she could feel Marielle’s approval as she probed at those bundles of worry.

  Her new revelation immediately told her what to do. Every person around her had a knot of tied up emotions within their soul. And that was what they were. Souls. She had awakened a weak sense of the souls around her when she’d reveled in the vitality of the courtyard of the school.

  Each step became obvious. She poked and prodded at Kris’ worries like they were a tangled ball of yarn, and began unraveling them. It took a little bit to find the right snags to probe at, but she felt like the progress was unusually rapid. Before long, she smiled at the swirling golden energy within Kris’ core, and felt like she’d grown to understand Soul cultivation more.

  The path of the soul was more emotional than the mind was. Her Mindscape was a place to store memories, not emotions. She felt more keenly aware than ever of her bond with Kris. Most interestingly, probing at Alynne or Karin felt much more difficult.

  Her takeaway was that she needed a solid connection to a person to be able to reach out to them.

  After a bit of effort, she reached out a spiritual limb to her companions, drawing a clear pathway to each of them and joining their vital essences together. Then, with a subtle guidance from Marielle, she let the energy spread into her internal injuries through her meridians, quickly sensing the aches fading away. Her first proper soul cultivation technique: Fivefold Harmony of Life.

  Mari opened her eyes, and Kris was there, shoulder to shoulder with her, a faint smile on her lips. Looking down, their fingers were interlaced. She felt a warmth bubbling up within, and took a deep breath to let it permeate her body.

  “How long?” She quietly asked nobody in particular.

  “Fifteen minutes. We need to get moving as soon as you feel up to it.” Karin had a carefully neutral expression, but it failed to hide a glimmer of warmth in her eyes. Every person she had linked with the technique had likely felt what she had done, whether they understood it or not.

  “Right, give me another five minutes.”

  At the nodded response, Mari turned her mind inwards.

  “Hey there.” Marielle greeted her in the trophy room of her Mindscape, but her expression was serious.

  “Hi. Anything to say about what we just did?”

  “We, is it?” Marielle chuckled. “I’m honestly impressed. You sorted that out fairly intuitively. But we have a much worse problem.”

  Mari paused, feeling a bit of pride well up at the praise. She quickly stifled it and continued. “What’s this much worse problem?”

  “The messed up people who made you. They didn’t leave anything to chance. It seems that there was a risk of you going out of control from the experimental strain of the bioweapon. They put a kill switch into your upper spine.” Marielle held a hand out, and floating over it like some holographic display was a small device that replaced one of the vertebrae.

  “That’s terrifying.” Mari didn’t really mean to, but her voice wavered audibly.

  “‘Kill switch’ isn’t quite the right term, though. You wouldn’t die. You’d just lose the ability to control your own body. You’d fall limp on the ground, unable to move. All the better to study you as a vegetable.”

  Mari sank back, and a couch formed beneath her. She really was improving in many ways.

  “Just what we needed.” She groused in frustration. “Who could actually activate it, though?”

  “The nanites are still a concern of mine. They send messages and respond to things a little too well. Advanced technology is advanced technology, sure. But that isn’t the impression I get. I don’t have an exact reason for thinking so—maybe the odd reference to the Garden of Eden in the mission text from earlier—but I feel like there’s a person behind both those messages and the mission.”

  “Do you think there’s a chance the kill switch could be used as a tool for blackmail? I could see that. If I refuse to do as the person says, they could use that and study what’s left of me.”

  Marielle nodded, joining her on the couch. “You could escape eventually. Use soul or mind techniques to move on. But there’s another option.”

  “Can you destroy the kill switch?”

  “Sure, but it would be a pretty instant alarm that you’re not just a mortal human. Maybe Fivefold Harmony was enough of a sign already. People don’t exactly modify things within their own body. I can’t imagine the nanites destroying the device like how they enhanced your bones and muscles, so if the kill switch suddenly vanished?”

  “Good point.” Mari thought for a minute. “What about an injury? Like being thrown across the room and hitting a wall really hard.”

  Marielle grinned. “What was it that your girlfriend said before about you and creative forms of suicide?”

  “She’s not my…”

  “You’re going to move into the same house. Don’t give me any of that crap.” Marielle shook her head in disappointment. “You’ve even been kissing. Quite often, even.”

  Mari groaned. “Enough. If I get hurt again, be prepared to use the opportunity to nix that kill switch. If there’s some puppetmaster out there, I’d rather they have as few cards to play as possible. For now, I better get back to killing monsters.”

  With that decided, Mari withdrew from her Mindscape and stretched, feeling a bit more energized.

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