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⭐️ PRE SERIES
- No wonder I'm different from everyone else. Everyone like me is here.
- In all the years I lived there, it only snowed once.
⭐️ BOOK ONE
- The destruction of Beijing Beta
⭐️ BOOK TWO
Encouraging HJS - "What makes you think you can decide what's defective and what's correct?" (CH 29) combine with her operating the mech ("My old man was humoring me. Here. A noise filter. Try it." CH 41) + ("Girl, clear out slowly. Slow down, don't be nervous. You're the most talented student I've ever seen.. JSH stops the mech, CH 41)
"Young man, can you fix that screen?" (CH32 -33)
Stopping the riot with the sight of Beijng-B. "Listen to me. Listen. To. Me."
"Sc...scan for me." (CH48) + "Stars can be reborn, but what about you?" (CH 49)
⭐️ BOOK THREE
Conversation with Foucalt - Don't try and fool me with those words of yours. (CH 61, P19 - P20)
The Space Station funeral (CH 65:57)
"Rescuing" LJH from the city ladies (Ch69:84) + Fortune Telling
"Are we just animals in your eyes?!" - William Yu, the Rainbow Virus (72:102)
"Zhanlu... give LBX full administrative access." (78:144)
"Lin Jingheng, did you know you're a heartless piece of garbage?" (79:154)
⭐️ BOOK FOUR
- Turan and the sedative / the death of Lin Jingheng
⭐️ BOOK FIVE
- No wonder I'm different from everyone else. Everyone like me is here.
- In all the years I lived there, it only snowed once.
⭐️ BOOK ONE
- The destruction of Beijing Beta
⭐️ BOOK TWO
Encouraging HJS - "What makes you think you can decide what's defective and what's correct?" (CH 29) combine with her operating the mech ("My old man was humoring me. Here. A noise filter. Try it." CH 41) + ("Girl, clear out slowly. Slow down, don't be nervous. You're the most talented student I've ever seen.. JSH stops the mech, CH 41)
"Young man, can you fix that screen?" (CH32 -33)
Stopping the riot with the sight of Beijng-B. "Listen to me. Listen. To. Me."
"Sc...scan for me." (CH48) + "Stars can be reborn, but what about you?" (CH 49)
⭐️ BOOK THREE
Conversation with Foucalt - Don't try and fool me with those words of yours. (CH 61, P19 - P20)
The Space Station funeral (CH 65:57)
"Rescuing" LJH from the city ladies (Ch69:84) + Fortune Telling
"Are we just animals in your eyes?!" - William Yu, the Rainbow Virus (72:102)
"Zhanlu... give LBX full administrative access." (78:144)
"Lin Jingheng, did you know you're a heartless piece of garbage?" (79:154)
⭐️ BOOK FOUR
- Turan and the sedative / the death of Lin Jingheng
⭐️ BOOK FIVE
PRE SERIES
Monoeye Hawk ⭐️ "everyone like me is here."
this man is your entire world. for five years, you get to know him from inside the tank. monoeye hawk, he is called, when he's on the phone, but you don't ever call him that - you're supposed to call him "dad". you see him, whenever you open your eyes. he's always there. and he interacts with you. he reads to you, he sings to you, he - brings you children's books that you're over immediately, because he tells you fairy tales about people like him. but that's not you. you're nothing. you're a series of nanomachines and sensors with a human consciousness strapped inside, held as delicately as a piece of glass.
you're not a person, really, until you're five years old, because when you're five years old, you start to look like him. like the people in the books, really, because you have a body, now. it's fragile, and delicate. you can't leave the tank, but you have ten fingers and ten toes, pale skin, hair. eyes. your senses are no longer confined to the machines that you know have held your consciousness up until this point, but the senses that make someone a "human" don't work. your father wanted to help you, so he taught you how to connect to the mental network, to sync with the cameras outside of the house, to see the planet that you live in. and you took that opportunity like a fish to water. enthusiastic to learn, desperately curious and confined to a tank, you learned. you learned enough to hack your dad's personal reading device, actually, and learned more about the world than he really wanted you to, hearing him mutter about changing his own reading material. it's funny, because the books that were supposed to be scary, or - about people kissing, they weren't, to you. they were just information, and your dad's reactions make you happy. you're just happy to see him. you're happy to see everything. you think you love the world.
--
it's not until you're eight years old that you disconnect from the wide open sensory systems, because you're able to open your own eyes for the first time. you're lifted from the tank, and taken to the world outside of glass. you are placed in a bed. your brain is in a body. a real, human body that works.
...doesn't it?
it doesn't.
simple tasks are impossible. it takes you days to learn how to lift a finger. it takes weeks to return to the personal device your father had taught you how to use in the tank. months, before you can at least sort of move your hand. you are constantly fighting your own body, trying to teach it how to breathe when you don't know how to, trying to keep your eyes open, trying to see the world, and you are so, so tired of fighting. you are only eight years old.
a world that was wide open to you was snatched away. you're so frustrated you want to scream and throw a tantrum - you are, after all, only eight, now - but you can't, because your body is too weak to thrash or scream. you experience pain for the first time, and you experience it in unending amounts. your love for the world, your curiosity, shrivels and dies; you hate existing. you hate the world; you feel jealousy and hatred for the people who walk and talk and breathe and live outside of your walls, and you know they'd look at you with horror, too.
one day, you use all of the strength in your tiny body to hack into the systems in the house, and you use the AIs to smash every single mirror in monoeye hawk's home. it takes you two hours and brings you no catharsis, even to know you won't ever have to look at this face that became yours. you give up on trying to look at cayley, give up trying to interact with people, with the outside, and you use your indextrous, useless hand to write, and draw, and doodle. you read books, on weaponry and mechs. you create plans for weapons that could destroy the whole world, and based on your calculations and studies, you know they would work.
your father doesn't know what to do with you, either. he thinks you don't see it, but you do, and you - even if you hate the entire world, even if you're miserable and painful and angry, you don't ever lash out at him. his kind, worried eyes, his demeanor - you can't, and he, the rascal, takes advantage of that and takes you outside in a wheelchair one day, much to your horror.
...but when it's just the two of you, you can't hurt him. and bit by bit, he starts to expose you to the world outside, and you start to take it in, again. you have to learn this, too, how to love, how to be human, how to care again.
one day, monoeye hawk gets a call that he has to leave. you've never been alone before - every time you opened your eyes, your dad was always there, caring for you. today, he's running around like a chicken with its head cut off, promising you over and over again he'll. be back, nagging you about something or the other, acting like he's going to leave and then turning right back around and returning to tell you something else, like a cat chasing its own tail. it's amusing, and though you have no verbal response for him, you can't help but faintly smile, affectionate, because you know this - you know you love your dad.
--
he's gone for 48 hours. it's not that long.
the automated wheelchair you live your days in is on a programmed path - and is going to drag you outside for your daily walk. at this point, you're used to it, but the idea of going outside without monoeye hawk terrifies you. you try to override the programming and steer the wheelchair back - it carries you along to the elevator in the house you always take to go to the ground level, and you reach up for the control panel on the elevator itself to try and stop it. your hands are shaking, always shaking, and they slip from the control panel, and the wheelchair errors, sticking in a handrail on the elevator itself. you have to try and wrench it out, and you are so, so weak that you're covered in sweat by the time you unstick the handle, and before you realize it -
the elevator kept going.
when the doors ding! they open not to the outside, but to the basement. six floors underground - with a digitally locked door marked with a skull and crossbones staring you in the face.
the lock is the same lock your father uses on all of his devices. you hacked this when you were still a brain and nothing else. you could get into this room, if you wanted. you just had to touch the lock.
curiosity flares in the back of your mind, for the first time in what feels like centuries. you lift your hands - your motor control is fine, now, it's just the shakes, your hands are just shaking, and as you access your personal device, you take thirty seconds to hack the door, and.
ding!
almost anticlimactic, it opens, and you're looking at the face of a girl. a child. in a glass tank.
only... it's not. her face is human - she has long hair that hangs free from her head, and her body is completely naked and exposed, but she's looking away, her arms at unnatural angles, held up by the mechanisms of what you know is a breeding tank, the same kind you grew up in. and - the lower half of her body isn't a human at all. it's a snake.
at the ding of the elevator door, her head turns, and it terrifies you. she looks at you, and her expression is listless, empty - apathetic, numb to every emotion, the inexplicable and utterly broken expression of human, human pain.
you don't evne realize what you're doing. you stare at her, your heart pounding in your chest and you've moved. the security robot that must stand guard at the door is deactivated but it has, it has something, and you grab it, not even paying attention, you lift it -
your tiny fingers close unshaking around the trigger of a gun.
and you fire.
bang. the shot pierces through the glass and hits its target dead on, right in the center of the forehead - glass, liquid and blood explode backwards, showering the room as the snakelike woman jerks backwards, and you swear, you swear, she's smiling. as she jerks lifeless in the draining breeding tank, you realize in a jolt that you're standing out of your chair, and your body collapses, your useless legs hitting the ground, while your hands are still clutched around that still warm gun.
when they start shaking, you stare at it again.
No wonder I'm different from the rest of the world.
(the snake woman, with her constructed body, the way your body was made and not your own)
Everyone that's like me is here.
you lift the gun. you bring it up, your hands shaking so hard now that it's back to normalcy. you don't care. you don't want to be alive. you lift the gun, and you bring it up, up to your head, tears rolling down your cheeks, and as you're about to pull the trigger -
light flares through the room, as every single screen in this bizarre lab turns on, flooding the place with brightness. you blink, wide eyed and still crying, and as you look at the video screen you see - it's your dad.
"Bixing! Listen to me!" he shouts. it's cacophony - hes inside of a mech, barking directions and shouting at everyone around him, and he keeps looking back at the screen, at you, terrified and crying and about to shoot yourself in the head. you think, desperately, Why did you give birth to me? Why did you decide to keep me? Why did you raise me? Dad, living is too painful, but you haven't been able to speak for years and you can't voice a single word.
monoeye keeps talking. "Listen to me - I just need a little more time - two hours?! We haven't reached the transfer portal, make an emergency warp, I don't care how many times we've done it!!"
he's desperate. begging. begging you not to do it, not to pull the trigger. the signal is choppy and bad and you stare at your father's face, and you realize, his eyes are red because he's crying, too.
all of the lights turn off all at once.
you're left staring at the dead body of the snake woman, and the broken glass, hands shaking, and you wait for five minutes, caught in a moment of life or death, when monoeye hawk bursts through the door, crosses the room in half a moment, throws himself to the ground, and gathers you into a hug. (he turns his head and throws up because he made himself ill, too, but it's the thought that counts.)
the hug is awkward and uncomfortable and it hurts your body, but you drop the gun, and monoeye hawk kicks it away, and holds you. for two whole minutes, he holds you, unmoving, like he can cling you to life, because he loves you, and he wants you to be safe. he loves you.
your hands stop shaking. you only realize it because monoeye is shaking so hard that you're still.
... and slowly, you lift your hands. and slowly, slowly, you hug your father back. you bury your face in his shoulder, and silently, you cry, and hold onto him for - for dear life. ]
BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO
huang jiangshu | what's defective, and whats correct?
you palm the drink you're holding - a beer - and then pop the tab to get her attention. she looks back at you, startled, says, "Headmaster Lu," and you come to sit beside her, taking out a paper cup and pouring half of the can into it as you explain it's from lin jingheng's previous stock, but it's definitely close to expiring. huang jiangshu's face shifts to a pout. "You're still so petty! If no one's going to drink it, and it's expired, can't you let me have the whole thing?"
it makes you fond, and you shake your head. ] Half a can is enough for you, kiddo. How much more do you want me to spoil you guys? If you're not going to drink it, you can give it back.
[ as you hold out your hand, predictably, she immediately takes the cup, and you sigh, breaking the silence as she drinks. ] The error rate of your homework yesterday was extremely high, and you copied the short answer question. It looks like you just puked out the whole thing in a rush, and that's never happened with you, before. Why?
[ she gets defensive, immediately - claims she didn't copy, but you point out the flaws and obvious places (source one: the fact that you know she couldn't read the book that she tried to copy from.) and then huang jiangshu sighs and gives up, downs the rest of her beer, and takes on the best popular girl poise she can manage.
"Headmaster Lu, some things can't just be achieved with hard work. Some people are just better than others. Some people are born without an arm, or a leg, some people are born to be nothing, and are destined to be nothing. For m-- for many of us, it's just like this. We were produced as defective products. I'm sorry, Headmaster Lu, teaching us to operate a mech - that's harder than teaching a hamster to jump through a ring of fire, right?"
you make a soft noise - it seems like she has more to say, and tilt your head, keeping your reaction off your face. she's referring, of course, to being vaccuocerebral. to having no ability to sync with a mech. instead, you say, placidly, ] There's no aesthetic value in watching a hamster jump through a ring of fire.
[ she gives you a look, but continues. "Since a war started, it's going to be hard for people who can't operate mechs to survive in space, right? We don't know what's going to happen, and we can't be useless and just rely on someone else for our entire lives. Operating a mech requires top-notch toughness mentally and physically, and you have to be smart enough, and have no genetic defects. No vaccuocerebrals. Don't you think this is a natural selection? To wipe out those of us that are defective, and only keeping those that are correct?"
hm. you must make a little bit of a face. she points at you with the cup. It's not talent you're lacking, you just have to work harder, and you have to study harder - that's what you wanted to say, right? Headmaster Lu, ugh, your teachers' speeches haven't changed for millions of years! I'm right, aren't I?"
you look at her for a moment, at the can of beer in your hand, and your mind reams with memories, before you reply. casually, relaxed. ] Nope. I just wanted to say I've thought only the more introverted types would reflect on society. Not you, considering your hobby's getting into fights with a broken off beer bottle.
[ huang jiangshu blushes, mouth hanging open and the fire temporarily extinguished, and you continue, calmly, turning your gaze to her face. ] Both human society and human evolution are too long, and too complicated. When you use even less than twenty years of life experience to judge it, it's like looking at one spot on a leopard to visualize the entire animal. I've already said this to you once before: the world is changing too fast, maybe once every even ten years. Can you precisely predict what the next decade is going to be like? Your whole life is going to be hundreds of years long, and if you can't even predict the next ten years, then what makes you think you can decide what's defective, and what's correct?
[ she looks - stunned. you take a slow sip of your beer, as you continue - as you think on the eight, as you think on these tiny little lives that have become your own, these four students who you still hold as close to you as you can. ] You're still little. From what I've studied, there's no proof that people who are vaccuocerebral can't actually feel a mental network. Once you've fully understood mechs and the way they work with your brain, then you can decide if you want to develop in a different direction, instead of running away like a coward when you struggle at the beginning.
[ you want to continue, but before you get the chance, lin jingheng's voice patches through the communication system in the room - it startles you enough that you choke on your beer, and it seems like with those words of wisdom, that's the end of that conversation. ]
huang jiangshu | what's defective, and whats correct? part 2
its months later when you've landed on the trash space station full of refugees that you come to call home. though you settle into an uneasy life there, the worst comes to fruition as if lin jingheng practically predicted it - the fleet of prince cayley, the very person who destroyed your home planet, has found the space station and intends to raid it to its core. the ragtag team on this space station has been preparing for this. you, your students, and every pilot of this ramshackle army rushes to arms to create the defensive shield you've poured painstaking hours into creating through a mental network. you have barely enough pilots to make it work - barely enough trained people, let alone pilots, but this place has become your home, and you're as determined to protect it as you have since the first day you landed here.
you are in a flurry as you try and help people into mechs. you and huang jiangshu stay on the ground, and you lock yourself into mission control, fingers flying over the keyboards of your computers as you help direct mechs into their positions, as new pilots lock into the mental network, and it seems like it's going to work. you need bodies; you hand huang jiangshu a little trinket monoeye hawk gave you, once, a noise filter she can connect to keep anyone from digging into her brain too much, from hearing the people around her and she climbs into a mech. you tell her a story, about when you were little. about the misconception of vaccuocerebrals. about your own experience - about how youcouldn't even pilot your body, let alone a mech, and you tell her the symptoms. it's not a disease. it's the way bodies connect with mechs, and you know it. your body is like hers - the crushing feeling of tinnitus, the way it feels like the network punched you in the gut. you had to learn, but with the noise filter, you did. you practiced, and you learned.
she seems okay with you piloting her in the silence, in the moment of trust built between you, and clambers into a mech. it's going to be fine. but - but.
connecting to a neural network is terrifying, and takes a tremendous amount of mental strength. a pilot, young, barely twenty, begins to panic as he locks into the network and it takes over the function of his brain - he completely loses control of the mech right as it starts to take off, and it's going directly towards the thermonuclear power station you created to keep the space station itself on line. you grit your teeth and start moving like a conductor, pulling lines of coding and hacking into the system of the mech as it barrels down the launch area and straight towards the power station - and through your sheer hacking prowess, you're able to abruptly change the direction of the tracks and send the haywire mech with the unconscious pilot up instead of out.
but up isn't enough. it rockets forward, smashes through the atmosphere without any indication of slowing, and you realize in horror that it's going to crash into the carefully positioned mechs that are barely holding onto the soon to be created defense shield. they're all barely synched. one single mistake, one off mech, one crash and it could destroy everything, and you can't get there fast enough to hack into the neural network itself, you're managing things on the ground, and you turn on your personal device, slap down a number, and bark in huang jiangshu's ear. ]
Xiao Huang! I need you!
[ she startles. she's sitting in the cockpit of a mech, just as a body moreso than as a pilot. unable to sync, she was just going to be piloted by someone like monoeye hawk. you know this is risky, but you know, you know - you plead, now, turning your voice to encouraging into her ear, ] You've learned this before. I need you to take over that mech!
[ huang jiangshu makes a noise like a startled animal, and you watch her, terrified for her, heart pounding in your chest, barely breathing, as she starts to reach out. the out of control mech rockets upwards, and you think, come on, you can do this, come on, come on, i believe in you, come on. you watch her flounder as you desperately reach out for her mech, because if she can make it to the out of control mech and make it stop, you can help stabilize them both.
you can feel her. you feel the way she rushes into the mental network like she's swinging a beer bottle, and your heart rushes with pride, and you hear her tiny, stop reverberate across the conjoined network. another pilot hears her, too, and yells - Stop it! in tune. another, another, another, until two hundred voices unite together. over their fear. over their despair. over the impossible situation, the trash space station moves at one.
Stop it!, they scream, at the mech that's gone wrong. in a rush of human voices and human spirit, they grab the weak voice of huang jiangshu and they lift her, up, up, up and you see your opportunity and you latch on.
your network compatability is much higher than huang jiangshu's, and if you overload her, you could kill her, could break this tiny, fragile consciousness as she desperately tries to stop with the entire space station behind her. but these kids, they're your responsibility. they're your entire life, and you will never, ever, ever let anything go wrong, for as long as you can. like threading a needle, you push your compatability to exactly fifty percent, so you take the mental load she's struggling under and offer a helping hand, and you say, as calmly as you can, your heart swelling, stopping yourself from sounding choked up as your voice rings out as gentle and kind as the beams of the sun. ]
Xiao Huang, don't be nervous. Clear out slowly. You're the most talented student I've ever had.
[ she takes a sharp, shaky breath, and you feel her agree. you feel her move. bit, by tiny bit, her mental connection drops away, and you fill the space, picking up each piece of slack she hands you with her trembling hand, and with your expertise and her initial skill, the mech finally slows to a stop.
the whole space ship goes silent, and then - in a burst of cacophony, the crowd of people below and the pilots above burst into cheers and sobs, and you fall back into your chair, smiling so hard your face hurts, as huang jiangshu safely disconnects from the network, wipes the blood from her nose, and beams at you from across a camera's feed. ]
lin jingheng | stars can be reborn, but what about you?
a second later, there's an explosion, as just out of the range of your tiny little mech, a heavy mecha self destructs. the ecopod scatters, and you do everything you can to keep from getting smashed against the asteroids, as frantic as a tiny rodent trying to leap from asteroid to asteroid amidst stardust and aftershocks, and with careful piloting and sheer nerves and terror, you manage to get your net thrown out to gently loop around the ecopod - a piece of debris smacks into your mech and rattles you so hard it hurts your teeth, but you don't care, you don't care - you frantically open a communication line directly to the ecopod, and yell - ] Lin, can you hear me?! Please choose between losing some weight or dropping some speed here, I can’t hold on anymore!”
[ lin jingheng doesn't respond, but zhanlu's smooth robotic voice does, as the net slips free, and you swear. “Good evening Headmaster Lu, it’s a pleasure to see you.”
you shriek, half hysterical. ] The pleasure's not mine! You and your master almost scared me half to death!
[ zhanlu makes a noise. "I agree. Today was absolutely terrible." in striking contrast to his voice, another aftershock explosion slams across the asteroid belt, rattling your mech, and pushing the ecopod further away from you. "This Ecopod is created from my shapeshifting functionalities and cannot continuously provide proper nutrients and medical care like a proper Ecopod.”
zhanlu is of course, reading you the textbook functions, which you don't need. you wave him off at first, fussy and desperate and trying to focus, starting, ] That's fine, I have everything on this mech, here -
[ but zhanlu keeps talking. "And as a mech core without a mech body in a complete vacuum environment, the protection I can provide my master is equivalent to that of a mech’s built-in shield cover. My current battery power only allows me to maintain this function for three minutes, and we are now entering the countdown for the last minute; 59, 58…”
your heart drops into your stomach.
you bellow - ] Zhanlu! [ in horror, in sheer horror, no no no you can't lose him no no no - and you do something stupid, so stupid. you take that tiny little mech and you accelerate it to near suicidal levels of speed, darting past the asteroids - the safety systems start to scream at you, a single crash would explode your mech at this high speed and you inside of it, the alarms are blaring and zhanlu continues counting, and you swear in frustration as another push from the explosion pushes the ecopod, and as you throw every ounce of your mental strength into powering the mech, you start gaining, gaining on the ecopod, 500 feet 400 300 200 --
there's no time to take the net back out and cast it. it floats with you at top speed.
you pass the ecopod, then you slam your hand into a throttle lever on the dash and hit the button that reverses the internal gravity control in your mech. every object in the mech, pilot included, is thrown to the opposite side of it. your back crunches hard into the metal side of the ship, but the gravity pressing outwards has its desired effect, and it brings the ecopod in like a vacuum, directly into the net. zhanlu counts. 25... 24...
there's no time to hurt. you scramble up to your feet and rush back to the control panels, slapping a button to open the receiving bay of your mech, but of course, of course the gravity dragged in a piece of debris, a massive cargo door along with the ecopod. it shrieks and groans, as it tangles up with the net and leaves the ecopod floating, and you have to fire a particle cannon at it to try and get it to release - the door releases, but the ecopod dips free of your clutches, too, out of the net, and the panic and adrenaline turn to horror -
15...14...
you're sweating buckets, ice cold down your back as your consider a life without lin jingheng, but there's no time, no time to do anything but react - you grab the gravity switch and throw it back again, reverseing gravity for a second time and slamming yourself into the opposite side of the cockpit, but this time, it nullifies and you're able to cast out the last capture net you have. it catches the ecopod, and you choke with relief as the net makes contact -
10... 9...
- you hit your emergency brake, and open the receiving bay, and the ecopod slides safely into the welcoming cargo hold of your neck, the door shutting out the vacuum of space, which takes exactly ten seconds to safely pressurize - and, in the nick of time, the doors close and the ecopod's protection system shatters. you don't evne have time to check, but you use those ten seconds to rocket free of the final wave of aftershocks.
and then you sprint downstairs.
you stumble all over yourself, crashing into ten things down the hallway, your mind focused on one and one thing alone, one thought alone - lin's been out of contact for a full day, out of tracking range, just because he's in here he wasn't conscious what if he's dead what if i was too slow what if what if --
the door slides open, and laying in the cargo hold, ecopod now transformed back into its dormant arm form on his chest, is lin jingheng.
you sob. you can't help yourself, just one hiccuped noise as clumsily make your way to him. something is - something is wrong. he's so tiny, he's - drained, almost, drained and impossibly weak and down to nothing, his cheekbones hollowed, his skin dry and sallow, and he's bloodstained all over the place. he looks like he's lost thirty kilos overnight, he's so, so pale and you feel your blood starting to rush in your ears as you scrabble to check his pulse. ]
Please respond. [ you beg. your voice sounds foreign to your ears, like it's coming through water, as lin's head lolls lightly against your wrist and you think no, no, no, i can't, no, no, no don't you leave me i can't not without you no no no no ] Lin, please, please respond -
[ ten seconds pass.
and then you hear it. a single, small thump of a heartbeat.
you sob out a relieved sigh, and you start to gather lin into your arms. he's so thin it's terrifying. so light, it's too easy. you know, you know he's alive, but you can feel that the back of his shirt is wet and you know it's blood and his skin is unbearably hot to the touch. you shove him into a medical capsule, and you watch as the diagnoses pop up on the screen.
Rainbow virus.
That sends your heart to your feet.
Severe dehydration. Neurological processing overload.
Gunshot wound.
but he's still alive. lin's still alive. you push him into the medical bay of your mech, even if it's tiny, and you press your face to the glass window, and you close your eyes, and your brain is flooded with thoughts, of lin asphyxiating in space, of his blood vessels bursting and the explosion that would evaporate the water from his body. what would he have done, if you weren't there? he would have died. and one thought stands out above the others, as he stares down at the placid, bloodstained face in the medical capsule.
Stars can be reborn. What about you?
your despair and relief are replaced, quietly, by anger, and you curl your fists against the glass.
(because he did this on his own. because he didn't ask for help. because now, lin jingheng has to recover from the virus that nearly wiped out their civilization. because it looks like it must have nearly killed him. he did it on his own. it makes you so angry that you quietly plot how you're going to yell at him for an hour, because it's the only thing you can do to keep from breaking down in tears.)
the trash space station | the riot
the place is a mess. there's hardly any electricity, and the people who live on it are refugees or ragtag smugglers who worked for the old fart. they're rough and tumble and peak eighth galaxy, and when you get off of your mech and start to get to know them, you realize you can solve some of their problems, with a little time. in the background, you and lin discover the entire space station is powered by an old, old mach 3 mech - and the mysteries on mysteries continue. you start to fall in love with the people here the way you fall in love with the eighth all the time, and they start to love you, as you fix their video screens and you work day and night to build a thermonuclear power station with your students at your side. two weeks pass by smoothly.
but then, the rumblings of something strange start to happen. more specifically, the sixty mech 'self defense force' starts to get angry and rebellious - not at lin and you, but instead at their old leader, who is currently hidden deep in the depths of an underground prison for lin and your dad to question, because he took so long to surrender that people got hurt. (because, truthfully, operating a mech when you aren't trained to is terrifying. it's against human nature, to be knocked around in the vacuum of space.)
you find out about it from saturday, the young leader of the self defense squad, who has absolutely nothing to do with the loud protest itself. he comes to talk to you instead - the so called 'revolt' is just a protest, at the moment - but as you're talking to saturday, things start to get dicey. the men and women and refugees are getting angrier and louder and angrier, and they start to call for violence. they turn from where they're in the tiny city square towards the administration building where lin, your father, your students, the mech core and the prisoner himself all are.
shoot.
truthfully, you're less worried about the damage an angry mob can do, and more worried about lin. you already had to beg him to give you some time to keep this station from becoming bait for the warring prince cayley in order to save the people who live on it, and he will not be happy if a bunch of hooligans start banging down his door and calling him insults. you gather up your personal device and start to hack into the base itself, pulling up cameras of the networks of the base's road, finding a roadblock mechanic and throwing up a iron fence roadblock in the path of the now growing, angry mob. saturday cheers beside you, and you're pleased, but you don't even get enough time to smile.
the mob, which couldn't fight together to save its life barely a week ago, coordinates into one giant force like a battering ram. it'd be impressive if it wasn't horrible - they start ramming into the iron fence, which is rusty and old like everything else on this base. screaming, shouting for blood, for their old leader to come out, why did he abandon them, why would he treat them like this, why, why, why --
you make it on the scene just in time for your device, hacked into the network, to pop up a warning. Warning. High Energy Particle Concentration. Warning.
your eyes widen; your breath catches, as you realize in horror that lin's summoned the particle cannons on the side of the building, and he's going to fire.
the fence comes down. the mob screams in delight.
the blossom of heat starts from the particle cannon and you slam your fingers into your device and start to type, furiously - in the spare seconds before an entire group of people is turned to ashes you grab onto the base's tiny self defense shield and you throw a programming command and the entire shield concentrates in one spot like a wall in front of the shrieking, angry mob, and lin's fired particle cannons slam into it with the force of the IUS's best technology. the defense net shatters into pieces, and the entire base shakes like an earthquake, as the shrieks of rage turn to confusion and horror.
you exhale.
when the smoke clears, the defense net is gone, but the mob remains. and you know lin could fire again, if he wanted to, but you have no way of stopping it, a second time. your head whips up to the administration building like you could see him, like you could beg him not to, but you're too far away and that won't work. you have a golden chance in this moment of confusion, and you seize it.
you summon two medical robots. saturday makes a confused noise but you ignore him, as one finds your arm, places an antiseptic, creates a sanitized safe zone and then injects something into your arm. there's no time for anesthesia, and the pain is violent enough to drop you to your knees, but you feel the familiarity of power go down your spine like lightning, and that's all you need.
opium biochip activated.
you turn up the features as it changes your mental capacities. camoflauge. invisibility. and you push them outwards, out to your surroundings and the network you've created. you create the illusion - the slight, soft hum sound that echoes through the brain of every person in the mob. the camoflauge sweeps over a row of houses, so they suddenly vanish in a sweep of bright light white, and the logo of the cayley pirates appears in their place, and the tiny, useless mechs in the mech bay change too, into the illusion of massive, terrifying cayley mechs with all of their guns pointed directly at the planet.
you switch your attention - blood drips out of your nose - to the massive multimedia screens in the center of the space station that you fixed a few days ago, and you reach into your own files, and the people of the trash space station see it.
they see the sky filling with mechs and then, missiles. hundreds and hundreds of every side, unflinchingly, dropping down, down, down - the anger turns to shrieks of fright and terror, people trying to scramble away from doom and despair and misery and -
the video turns off, and you straighten.
the crowd is silent, dead silent. several of the members of the self defense force have fallen to the ground. others are crying. horrified, shocked by the fact that what they saw wasn't real, relieved, and - stopped.
you clear your throat. ]
I'm sorry for what you saw just now. I was debugging the terminal and unintentionally turned on the footage from the news of the bombing of Beijing Beta. [ silence. the crowd looks to you for answers, shocked and stunned.
in the middle of the crowd, a young man starts to sob. it takes your attention - you realize that he's next to a wall, and he's having a hysteria reaction, that he's balled his fists up and is punching the concrete, enough that the startled mob members turn to look at him. you rush over to the man, unable to bear watching, and use the super strength afforded to you by the biochip to take his hands. ]
Listen to me. [ you coax, to the screaming, crying man - ] Listen. To. Me.
[ and, slowly, he does. he takes a deep, hiccuping breath, snot trailing down his face, and you exhale too, some of the tension in your shoulders finally starting to break. you're talking not just to him, but to the entire crowd, turning your voice from gentle and soothing to delivering facts. ]
You guys have mechs. That makes you militant in the eyes of those people. [ of the ones on the video - the very same people who destroyed your home. why would you have that footage? because beijing beta is where you lived. it's where your school was. your friends lived. it's a place that you called home, and in the blink of an eye, ares von and the cayley pirates destroyed it.
you won't have that again. ] If you all try and destroy the mechs in the storeroom like you're thinking right now, you'll blow up your entire planet, and the energy of the explosion will draw the Cayley pirates here like you're throwing them a dinner party. Right now, we're safe, but the first time Prince Cayley was kicked out of the Eighth Galaxy, it was because he ignored these underground channels. He's not going to make that mistake again, and when he comes here, it will be a matter of time before he kills us all.
[ silence ripples across this crowd of haggard faces - some old, some young, crying, scared, silent. your heart aches for them, but you have to be firm in the words you deliver for this exact reason. you look across the crowd as you stand, finally releasing the hands of the man who was beating himself up on the wall, who wipes his face and makes a squeaky sob noise like a conch.
you take a deep breath. ] If you don't want to die like that, then put your Self Defense Squadron uniform on tomorrow, and report to the mech bay, and come see me tomorrow. Roger that.
[ the silence passes, again, slowly. you rub the man beside you's back, and watch, as one by one, the angry, furious mob starts to disperse, silent, heavy with the weight of what their future can hold. you saved them from lin's irritation.
now, you can only hope they can save themselves. ]
BOOK THREE
nuwa project | you could say i'm a homunculus, the ship of theseus.
[ but then a hole opens up and drops them very unceremoniously in front of a screen. the light flickers on, and lu bixing sighs, having exactly enough time to mutter - ] Please be normal. [ before it starts. ]
BOOK FOUR
Lin Jingheng, Elizabeth Turan - "The young man's hands began to grow numb."
BOOK 5
LU BIXING | Six Hatch Marks | cw: suicidal ideations, self harm
you're working. the eighth is a mess in an aftermath of the battle with the seventh galaxy, and zhanlu has been destroyed. you have to fix him. you spend one hundred days in your house, alone, sending out missives. speaking to prime minister edward, too sickly to do much, taking over his duties where you can. you try and fix zhanlu.
five hundred days into your restart of life, prime minister edward passes away, of sickness, of old age, and you officially take his spot. you, as the new prime minister, host the state affair of his funeral. there was a eulogy. you think you remember people looking at you. staring. watching. you remember the caskets of nothing and the tombstones and now... you're home.
home. for five hundred days, this is where you've spent all your time. five hundred days ago, monoeye hawk and lin jingheng perished, in the battle for the seventh galaxy. five hundred days ago, your entire world ended.
there were no funerals, then.
when you first arrive at the home of engineer 001 and commander lin, as the sign cheerfully reminds you, hanging over the door, you make it all the way inside. you go to the kitchen. the ai of zhanlu, in butler mode, greets you, you think, but it sounds like it comes from underwater. you go to the refrigerator. you think - a drink. i need a drink. and you open the fridge. there's hardly anything in it - supplies in the eighth galaxy are heavily rationed, right now, and alcohol is no exception - but at the back, an unopened bottle of beer, and as your hand curls around the neck, you remember -
you see the mental image, of lin jingheng in his pajamas, bedhead, staring at the beer bottle like it personally wounded him for being so disgusting, and putting it back, and sulking to the kitchen table to a cup of cold tea, instead, and for some reason, the grief and the memory snaps the last remaining piece of your stability in two.
you scream. you just scream, at the top of your lungs, as the image vanishes, the bellow of a miserable animal, and the whole world goes dark as you stagger to the area of the house where the medical capsule is, you bang your fist on the edge of it in your frustration and start asking it, i need a hallucinogen, i need an opiate, i need drugs, give them to me, i need it, i don't want to be awake, i need it, i need it - and the capsule doesn't respond. you're shaking too hard to do anything or type anything and your fingers claw in desperation at the metal. you scream, again, despairing, drowning, miserable, slam your fist against the capsule again.
zhanlu's voice comes over your head. soft, quiet, concerned - you scream at him, too, the AI unable to do anything but warn you. "Headmaster Lu, I can't accept those requests right now, you're too unstable. Headmaster Lu, this is your first warning."
he's an AI. he has to listen to you. you ignore him, shaking, almost hyperventilating, and after the second warning, you snarl - ] Zhanlu, give me a gun.
[ because you've lost everything. in one fell swoop, in one moment, you've lost everything and you can only run from it for so long. you've worked so hard. you've done so much, to not look it in the eye, but the grief is a monster that lives under your bed and in your brain and today it rips you in two. it's all-consuming, like it was when you were a child, and zhanlu can't ignore you, and as the gun is placed into your hands, you start to bring it up, to your head, start to --
then
zhanlu projects footage on the wall in front of your head.
you forget everything.
you sink down to the floor, and you watch the clip again. you watch it again. you watch it again. you watch that clip hundreds of times and you don't sleep, and the next morning, you drag yourself to your desk, grab a pocket knife, and carve a single hatch mark on your desk. you push yourself to standing. you turn off zhanlu's automation function, so he can make conscious decisions, because you - you can't be trusted with yourself, all the time. you know that, now you've fallen and burnt to ashes, and now you have to rebuild yourself. one scratch mark says i fell, and i nearly quit, but i dragged myself to standing.
--
three years pass in the new independent era in the eighth galaxy. you are their leader, the face of their revolution and their prime minister, and no one outside of your home knows the turmoil that you go through. they can't see you that way. in those three years, a group of pirates and black market illegal merchants reemerged, emboldened by the chance to disrupt the economy you've worked so hard to build. it launches the galaxy into a war that lasts three long years, and you command your military forces and your political forces like an expert. you are an expert, you're the prime minister lu bixing. you can do anything.
five more scratch marks are carved into your desk.
you promised prime minister edward before he died this - if you fell seven times, you'd get up eight. these are your falls. these are your dips into despair that are so deep that you want to die. you want to die. locked into the misery of your ruthless job, alone, you want to die. you want to die, you want to die, you want to die.
you can't die. the eighth needs you.
after the first one hundred days on your own, your house is invaded by other engineers who come to help you work on zhanlu so he's no longer just in emergency mode. it takes you all a total of four hundred days to get him online, but the other engineers are so crowded and messy that you force them out, and you need to move things to the attic. the attic is untouched and filled with lin jingheng's things. you could almost see him next to you. you could almost have him there.
you light up a cigarette. you inhale, just for the sake of the familiarity. to feel like he's there, that you could see him, that he's not gone and you were just delusional the whole time, stupid -
- the smoke burns your lungs, and you start to cough, violently, violently, and you take the cigarette and you smash the burning end into your arm until the pain is so bright and smart that it forces you to come back to your senses. he's dead. lin jingheng is dead. nothing will bring him back and he is dead.
two hatch marks.
another day, you find yourself trembling as you inject a biochip in your arm. it's an opium biochip - the kind being used to create 'perfect humans', though the data is incomplete. it won't be, for you. it becomes your pet project. you work. you experiment on yourself. you inject yourself, over and over again. you work. you work. you don't sleep. you rule the eighth galaxy, you unite its forces through carrot and through stick, monitoring public executions and supply rations and economic growth and population happiness all at once, and you pull an entire galaxy to its feet while you tremble on your knees in the dark.
three hatch marks. four. five.
(you download all of the video data of lin jingheng in zhanlu's system. you watch every single part of it. you work. you work, you work, you work, you throw yourself into your duties and at night you take drugs and force yourself to sleep only when you need to, or when zhanlu forces you to, like a tiny hand tugging at your pinky finger when you're about to let loose on the world.)
--
in the seventh year of the new era, one of your students, brilliant, brilliant mint, pilots the first program to travel through the heart of the rose, the wormhole at the edge of your galaxy, your natural barrier. you are told not to go, but you go, anyway. what's the worst that could happen? you'll die? you don't care. you go on your own.
the people in the eighth praise your courage when you return with fresh research for mint's project. you didn't die. instead, you gathered data, and from the inside of the wormhole, the data gathered gets you the visuals on what happened when the seventh and the eighth galaxy fleets, respectively, were destroyed. your father's ship. lin's. gone. destroyed, in the blink of an eye.
you come home from your trip. you order captain turan to station patrols around the wormhole, now that it's active. you lock yourself in your lab. you take a strand of lin's hair you extracted from the couch and you open a breeding tank in a fit of madness nad you think, i could just reconstruct him, because you could, you're a genius, it would be easy, it would be so easy, and zhanlu blows up the breeding tank.
you stay in the dark lab for three days afterwards, but when you emerge, the knife comes out, and you scratch the sixth mark into the wood of your desk.
--
the final hatch mark is the product of your research, nine years into the new era of the Eighth Galaxy.
you stand there on the precipice. you stand there, with your completed opiate biochip research. with this completed project, with all the tests you ran on yourself, you've given yourself those abilities. you are fast. you are strong, you are, in essence, the perfect human, and you've found a way you could transplant it into anyone. tested on mice, tested on yourself. you have learned that the rainbow virus can be used to break humanity down to ashes, and rebuild them as something greater. you know, now, why you lived through that first outbreak.
you could have an army of superhumans, you could take over the IUS. you could take over the entire universe. it has taken you nine years to prove this scientific theory, and you found out that it's true.
(you could wreak destruction, on the people who took your father and lin jingheng from you.)
you stare at the papers in your hands. they tremble.
this time, you don't call captain turan. this time, you don't call the engineering department. this time you don't deliver the research. you go to your office. you work, all day long. you come home, and you stare at the papers.
you walk to your lab, where you've secretly kept those strains of the rainbow virus, papers in hand.
and you set the sample and every single paper ablaze, and destroy it for good.
when you return to your desk, you mark the final hatch mark.
if you fall seven times, you have to rise eight.
with a storm in your heart, you turn away from destruction.
with a storm in your heart, you rise. ]
prime minister lu bixing | see you all next time.
two fleets have descended upon the eighth galaxy, two massively powered, heavily armored fleets of mechs ready to destroy your beloved homeland for its insurrection. it's been seventeen years since the rebellion - seventeen years since your entire world was turned upside down, and you have worked far too hard to fix the broken pieces of the galaxy into a unified whole for this to happen.
to your left is the fleet of the Interstellar Union System - the government you once belonged to. led by chief woolf, archtect of so many of your despairs, of your system's suffering, who calmly informs you that you must return to the union or face consequences. you would politely love to tell him to kiss your ass.
to the right, the fleet of the freedom corps. led by lin jingshu, lin jingheng's sister, hellbent on destroying the IUS and taking over the galaxy. hellbent on destroying everything. they launched a missile at one of your planets, earlier, and while the missile defenses held up, it could have been catastrophic.
they're holding that entire planet hostage, at the moment - planet serbia, just on the outskirts of the heart of the rose, the wormhole that connects you directly to the first galaxy, and a tiny civilian ship of refugees. that's just fine - you were aware of this, and you were aware of the fact that the central IUS troops are here to fight, too. in fact, you open the door and let them, moving your wormhole troops to manipulate the very space and time fabric to give them same passage through the dangerous heart of the rose. they may just destroy each other. you're going to give them the stage to do it.
you sit back in your chair, and then, your entire life changes, because a battered fleet of mechs appears, before the two forces can even think about trying to destroy each other, and cuts through them both like butter and creates a route for the civilian ship to zip to safety, out of the middle of a chaotic, three way battlefield. you're stunned, in the moment, staring, watching, because you don't recognize any of the mechs that are there, but a voice cuts ito the opening of your communication channel that you created to talk to lin jingshu and chief woolf, and you realize in stunning shock that the voice belongs to a ghost.
a voice you've only heard in your dreams, for the past seventeen years.
“Long time no see, everyone." says the long dead commander of the Silver Ten, Lin Jingheng. "It’s been sixteen years, but it seems like none of you have grown up even a bit.”
--
that was about ten minutes ago, and it's turned into chaos. you've lost track of all conversation as your scramble desperately for zhanlu, because you think your heart is going to explode if you have to process this and this isn't the time. you think, i've finally lost my mind. you stare at the projection, of the man with his hair just slightly grown out, skinnier than you've ever seen him but with his eyes the same fearsome gray you fell in love with twenty years ago, and you get a relaxant. the strongest one you can. the drug seeps into your system, and you take it for clarity in the insanity of this moment. chief woolf begins to argue, that the silver ten belongs to the ius. You have no right to fight against us, Lin Jingheng. Turn your weapons on the Freedom Corps and rejoin us, and we won't have you executed."
lin jingheng scoffs and starts to sail through the battlefield, not intending to help either side, why would he? he's coming back. he's coming back to the eighth. he's alive. you let the relaxant flush the nuclear explosion in your heart.
calmly. too calmly. you stand up.
you signal your fleets to move through the wormhole, and you break into the communications channel, with your voice as calm as the ocean. ]
The Silver Ninth Squadron isn’t absent today, Commander. [ the silver ninth, of course, is elizabeth turan - she's piloting your fleet. you lock your eyes onto lin jingheng's as your image appears in the communication feed, and your fleet melts out of the wormhole completely undetected. ] The Silver Ten belongs to the Union? Sorry, but I also have an objection.
[ lin jingheng looks utterly stunned. you give him a calm, gentle smile. ] Welcome back, my commander.
[ and then turn your attention like the point of a knife to chief woolf and lin jingshu. ]
My apologies, I haven’t introduced myself yet. [ courteous. diplomatic. genial. ] I am the Executive Prime Minister of the Eighth Galaxy, Lu Bixing. Our galaxy’s Galactic Expedition Team was initially exploring a newfound territory in space when we suddenly discovered the existence of an active wormhole area. We naturally passed through it and didn’t expect to arrive in the First Galaxy; we had no intention of interrupting everyone’s meeting here today. However, because our men happened to pass by and were blocked by our fellow galactic fleets here, we had to make our appearance out of courtesy to retrieve them.
[ the second in command of the IUS fleet flaps his mouth before he introduces himself in return, and you tilt your head as you explain the situation. oh, yes. we cut ourselves off from the IUS because we no longer need you. in our isolation, we created our own government. the man stammers that you can't do that, and you smile as you remind him of a lesson as you'd school a child. ]
I'm sorry, General. The meaning of an ‘Independent Government’ is that we have full sovereignty as a governing body in a fully-recognized territory. We hold equal governing rights as the Interstellar Union and are not an autonomous region within the Union. We do not recognize the legal and governing system of the Interstellar Union, nor do we need the recognition of the Union.”
[ silence. you have ten minutes until this drug wears off.
you decide to drop the metaphorical bomb. ]
Our poor rural lands in the Eighth have a population made up of vaccuocerebrals -- nobody’s even seen what Eden looks like in their lives, including myself. We’ve never been through higher education like everyone else here and were isolated from civilization for hundreds of years; these are facts that still remain relevant today. And for the Eighth Galaxy to obtain equal rights was the greatest wish of that Commander when he was alive. For me, this was the will of my father. Commander Lu Xin.
[ and just like that, you inform chief woolf with a smile on your face that not only is your revolution complete, but it comes with the legitimacy of the very commander the union betrayed years ago. you are the son of your father, commander lu xin, as you have just learned, and you are carrying on his dream, and you will not ever return to a state where anyone can take advantage of you, ever again.
you continue to speak, as calm as can be. ]
In that regard, the Silver Ten belongs to me. If you'll excuse us, I'll be taking my men, the Silver Ten, and my Commander back to the Eighth Galaxy. The wormhole is quite unstable, and we can't stay for long.
[ your fleet hums as they connect to the mechs of the silver ten, including lin's. he hasn't stopped staring at you. the drug is about to wear off, but you've almost finished, the little feral child who swept in and defied the union like it was a casual conversation.
you flick your hands over your keyboard, absently. ]
Oh right. [ as if you forgot, you add, lightly: ] Here’s a parting gift for you all.
[ and then, you hit a button.
a missile launches from your mech - it exceeds the range of an IUS missile because your engineers are the best in the world, and with no fanfare or warning, it slams directly into a freedom corps ship. there's no time for them to react, or defend themselves. not a single missile warning. the ship explodes into a fireball, sending a ricochet of chaos through the entire battlefield as it scatters the ships around it.
you speak one last time into the communication channel, once again, like you're delivering a basic lesson to a stupid child. ]
According to my observations, this particular pilot had bad aim and seemed to have misfired toward my men earlier. We may be poor, but we don’t like to also owe others, so here’s a missile in return. See you all next time.
[ Click.
and with that, you turn your fleet and proudly sail away with the entire world's jaws hanging wide open at your back. ]
PRIME MINISTER EDWARD | "What have you done to yourself?"
STARRY SEA ACADEMY | "We're here."