Risen: Shatterverse - The God War

An Uncomfortable Discovery

I chuckled at that. So we did. So, after a brief explanation about my ability to look into probability, I related the story of how I met Captain Cammie Teal and her Terran Ascendency comrades in Garolan's cell network and offered to rescue them. And the subsequent vision of the Battle of Merkur that allowed my passenger and I to retrieve all of them as well.

"The Terran Ascendency!" Alys breathed in amazement.

"It would seem you share our father's ability to find allies wherever he went, Two," Miranda deftly pointed out. "But your opportunities to do so are buried in the heart of battle. Where his came as he rescued and brought back fallen species, such as ours."

"Which is incredibly awesome, by the way," Alys enthused before frowning. "But I don't understand why they're in those synthetic bodies. Weren't they living beings when you found them in the cells?"

I smiled wryly.

"Well, that's the fun part. They weren't. They were memories that the Collector, which we now know is named Garolan, stole from their reality using one of my probability visions, which I call 'shatterverse visions'."

"Memories that thought they were living people?" Miranda said with a frown of her own and I nodded.

"Garolan didn't give them the chance to understand the nature of their existence. It just convinced them they were alive then proceeded to use them as cannon fodder in the deepcore sim where it was torturing some of our captured soldiers."

"Visaria's grace, that's horrible!" Alys said, eyes wide in shock.

"Needless to say, they were more than happy to let me rescue them after I explained the nature of their predicament," I said dryly.

I was about to go on when a thought occurred to me. Rather, a strange sort of HUD appeared in my field of vision and I watched as, in a small window, the steel and poly face of a terran suddenly changed color.

- Are you shitting me? - I asked into my mindspace. - There's a way to personalize those faces so they don't have to walk around all looking like synthoids? -

- It took a little more diving along my genetic memory line. But, with the help of your temporal sense, I retrieved the remainder of the databases regarding our AIs, - my passenger said with not a little smugness. - Along with Garolan's original scan that retrieved the terrans it used in that cell space. -

I frowned, catching both Alys's and Miranda's attention. But, when they went to ask me what was happening, I held up a finger.

- But Garolan mined that clean, did it not? We got everything that it pulled out of that vision, - I said.

- No, it did not, dead man, - the t'sang revealed. - Yes, it retrieved a large number of the essences that were trapped in that vision, but not all. -

"Damnit," I growled. "Intercomm on. Major Illusik, it's Specialist Two. Does General Chohawk have a moment to speak with me?"

The vishani officer was quick to reply.

"He's currently in a meeting, Specialist. But he left instructions that if you were to contact him directly, he would step out to speak with you," the major indicated. "May I know what this is in regards to?"

"A memory scan has yielded another shatterverse vision into your reality," I tersely replied.

"He will meet with you immediately," Illusik said. "Please make your way to the Sector One administration building!"

"On my way," I said before looking over at the two visari. "Intercomm off." - POD, standby to jump myself, Specialist San'Miranda, and Specialist San'Alys to the New Atlantis admin building. -