January 14, 2112
Night-Shade
Meditating on her bed, Night-Shade allowed herself to give in to her ability. Using the relaxation to fuel the transition, she pulled herself from her body, astral projecting herself within her quarters. She knew she wasn't supposed to, but she had the urge to explore the highly guarded Station 51. After all, who wouldn't?
In that very moment, she could feel a sensation she had never felt while using her ability. There was a presence, very faint and far away from her. She looked in that direction but saw nothing beyond the walls of her room. Strange as it was, she didn't desire to investigate it any further. Her curiosity was already taken by what lay beneath her, by what lay within Station 51.
She then let her astral body fall through the floor for a few seconds. She stopped on a brightly lit hallway. The first door down on this lower level was off to the near right. She pushed her body through the door with no effort, phasing through it like a ghost.
Men and women were in the process of putting together ships, none of which looked like any she'd seen previously used in the ARW.
Must be new models, Night-Shade thought.
As there wasn't much of anything of interest to her in the works, she left the room and moved on. The next few doors also had some experimental starships inside. She figured that was what this floor was used for.
Leave it to me to find the boring floor, she thought, with a sigh.
On that, Night-Shade decided to let her body phase down a few dozen floors and see what happened. So she did, closing her eyes to anticipate the surprise.
She forced herself to stop falling through floors and, with a small inhale, opened her eyes to a dark room. She was unable to see anything at all. She was blessed with the ability to spy on anything she wanted, completely undetectable, but apparently being able to see in the dark was too much to ask.
Not knowing where to go, she decided to walk forward until she could see something. After phasing through what seemed to be a wall, she could see again, but not that well. The room was dark, with a cubicle in one corner, opposite an elevator, and next to a reinforced door complete with a security panel.
By the elevator was a sign that read, "Sublevel 44: Unknown Beings Catalogue."
Not sure exactly what to make of it, Night-Shade decided to take a look in the cubicle. Curiosity had her pulse rate up, and she took half a peak around the wall, almost fearing being seen despite knowing that would be impossible.
Nothing, nobody. The cubicle was empty except for a holographic monitor over a one-person desk. She frowned, disappointed from the reveal. That very emotion was what then drove her past the door leading into a new hallway full of mystery. Like the previous room, this was just as dimly lit.
Night-Shade approached the first door, and the sign read, "The Broker," in quotation marks.
The Broker? Night-Shade perked up at the thought. I wonder what's inside.
She ventured in to see a chalkboard at the back, with a meeting table in the center of the room and chairs surrounding it. Nobody was present, and the lights were also dim. Night-Shade started to think this level was not in use at the moment.
She ventured over to the chalkboard, which was covered with words and pictures with string lines attached to them, creating a web. The center picture was of an ancient room of Egyptian origin. Night-Shade had no idea where that would be. Two pictures showed masks of jackals. At the top left was a list of names:
The Broker
Jyruckal
Sinnerman
Rumpelstiltskin
Swallower of Millions
Reality
Undertaker
The list went on to the bottom with at least twenty names. Next to that was a list of Egyptian prophets, rulers, pharaohs, and even biblical names. At least that's what Night-Shade speculated, as she was unsure herself. That was only one of many lists. Nonetheless, she began to understand this room had the sole purpose of identifying who and what The Broker was. At the top right, the word "human?" with a question mark was displayed over a list of projects:
Project Gravebeyond
Project Pyramid
Project Zoxza
Project SAR II
Each of the projects connected into chains of string leading to pictures. There were so many, she knew she wouldn't have time to look at them all. But one did catch her eye. A picture of The Broker from a distance. It was blurry and forced Night-Shade to take a closer look.
It was definitely him; mask, kilt, and everything. He seemed to be striking a deal with a bearded human male. The location was secluded, near trees and a fence. To the back right, she could vaguely see the outline of a shed made of rotting wood and covered with vines.
Peering closer, she froze when she noticed a distorted spot next to the shed. In shades of gray, it looked to be an outline of The Broker, but only his upper chest and mask were visible. The shock of it all was that this couldn't be The Broker. He was near the man. It must be a camera glitch.
Once she realized what she was seeing, her mouth twisted. The picture didn't make sense. The Broker claimed he hadn't been on Earth for centuries before meeting Kalvin. Yet this picture looked to be of Earth, maybe a hundred or two hundred years ago. Could The Broker have lied? Then again, the black and white image could be a simple result of not being able to see in color while out of her body, and it stood to reason this location could still be around in spite of the now seldom used type of construction used to create the barn. One thing she knew for sure, The Broker was a lot more than he claimed to be.
Her heart jumped to her mouth at the sound of a knock. She relaxed some when she realized it wasn't from this room. Which meant it must've been on the door to her quarters where her motionless physical body was resting.
Night-Shade closed her eyes and thought about her body and its location, and in no time at all her metaphysical form returned to its origin. She opened her eyes and could feel her back against the mattress and the sheets up to her chest. She searched for her lamp with a free hand and pulled down on a string to turn it on. Her eyes adjusted as she got up from her bed and headed to the door, still in her sleeping attire. She pushed a button to the side of the door, and it slid open.
Standing in front of her was Ayeko. "Your bed is unmade. Were you asleep?" he asked.
"It's two hours from midnight," Night-Shade responded, still rubbing her eyes.
"Yet it's still daytime outside. Funny how that works. Also, I'm somewhat sure that the asteroid this station resides on rotates around this sun at the same speed that it rotates on its own axis. Which, ah… I think that's how Earth's moon, Independence, is too."
"You talk too much," Night-Shade tittered, her vision still foggy.
"So I've been told." Both his eyes and nose crinkled.
"So--" Night-Shade egged him on with her hand.
"So?"
"So what brings you here?" she asked.
He hit his head with his palm. "Right. Ah… so Tank Brockman beat up some guards and left through the front door. Soooo… that's, like, a whole situation."
"What?! Does Kalvin know?"
"Duh! Of course he knows. Weren't you listening? He beat up guards on the way out. Plus, this is, like, a super high-tech facility--"
"Yeah, I get it. But what are you telling me for?"
"Kalvin has a least a hundred guards out looking for Tank, but this asteroid is completely covered with trees, so he wants us to look, too."
"Show me the way." She grabbed her shoes by the door and put them on. Not long after following Ayeko, Night-Shade positioned herself by his side. "Why do you think Tank would do that anyway?"
"I don't know Tank on personally level… 'cause of the whole he-can't-talk thing. All I know is what I've heard from others. So I can't say what his motivations might be."
"And what about what Kalvin said to him? Think that has something to do with it?" she asked, with big eyes.
Ayeko was quizzical. "Not sure what you mean? What did he say?"
"Well, uh… remember when Kalvin wanted to detain The Broker? He said something to Tank - something along the lines of remember what we spoke about. He said that to Tank before commanding him attack The Broker."
Ayeko gave it a moment. "To be completely honest, I really don't know what he meant by that. But Kalvin-- Knowing him, he probably has something on Tank. That… or he made him a deal of some kind. Same kind of thing happened to me when I was discovered with an ace ability."
"Kalvin made you a deal?"
"He did. He sure did."
Now that Ayeko mentions it, Kalvin did promise Night-Shade quite a lot when he first spoke to her. But what she cared about most was that Kalvin generously offered to help provide for her community back home. In a sense, it was a deal disguised as generosity.
Ayeko continued. "Most people don't see what that man goes through. Kalvin, above anything, is driven. He yearns to win this war and practically kills himself to find a way beat our enemy. The guy barely sleeps… always going here and there and all over the galactic systems as needed. This project, the great Project Aurum, is just another idea of his to win. Did he ever tell you the purpose he has for putting all the aces under one roof?"
"He didn't," Night-Shade said.
"He means to put us together and train us. We are meant to be the team to kill the warlords, which Kalvin believes will destabilize the Wersillian Legion and make them easier to defeat. And as far as I know, he plans of bring James Stone, Geariic, and Alabon into this project with Drayvan and James taking the lead."
Night-Shade had no idea.
Ayeko gave her a shrug. "Anyway, that all is likely still a whiles away. Don't let that stuff get into your head right now. We have something more important to worry about."
They had finished their walk from her quarters to the already open main gate. In spite of seeing it before, she was still surprised at its scale; the size of a basketball court and thicker than a tree trunk. When they arrived, the guards let them outside.
Rain poured down, and lightning lit up the sky every so often. Dark clouds swirled over the sky. Night-Shade knew of few asteroids with atmospheres such as this one. With terraforming technology, it is possible to create more, albeit time consuming and expensive.
"I thought you said it was daytime here?" Reluctantly, Night-Shade stepped into the freezing drops of water with a pouting expression. She regretted not changing out of her sleepwear.
"It is, but I guess the clouds are blocking out the sun," Ayeko said. He didn't seem to mind the rain as much as Night-Shade.
A perimeter fence lined the outside of the gate, with a few guard towers within the walls. Thick, tall, and metallic, the fence buzzed with and an electrical current. Behind Night-Shade, a near vertical mountainside shot straight up for hundreds of meters, and many turrets were built into it.
They neared the gate of the perimeter fence just as some more guards were leaving to find Tank. They had a few tracking dogs with them and some handheld devices unfamiliar to her.
"That stuff won't do them any good," Ayeko motioned to the device.
"What are they?"
"Multi-purpose tracking pads. They can detect motion, scan for footprints and disturbances in the brush, and can even identify the path that the target went down."
"Impressive."
"Sure… for pretty much anything except for mordazuls."
Ayeko and Night-Shade passed through the gate and entered the endless forest that spanned in all directions. The brush wasn't thick by any means, so they could see far in every direction. Though it wouldn't make it any easier to find just one person among the woodlands.
Ayeko and Night-Shade took their first steps into the slick, wet mud covered with fallen leaves and sticks.
"So what's different about a mordazul?" she asked.
They both stopped to talk by a tree hanging over a rock, roots expanding over a small ravine below them. They were not far from the station entrance.
"They are notoriously known to be evasive and elusive--"
"Evasive and elusive mean the same thing." Night-Shade laughed.
"Well, whatever." He smiled. "You get my point. But I'm sure you want to know why they are so stealthy."
"Sure."
"They have a way with sound and vibration manipulation. The palms, backs, and feet of a mordazul are very responsive to vibrations of all kinds. Did you notice that totem that Tank had over his back?"
Night-Shade nodded.
"All mordazuls grow them. Kind of like how turtles grow a shell. Just as your vertebrae grows as you near adulthood, so does a mordazul totem. And that is their focal point of vibration and sound manipulation. When a mordazul touch their palm, back, or feet to it, they can use the totem to do various things involving sound and vibrations. A few such perks are moving without creating any sound, feeling every distinct vibration as they move through the forest… which allows them to replace anything they disturb perfectly and avoid breaking anything such as sticks--"
"What about tracks?" Night-Shade asked.
"Ah, yes… as they moved, they can release vibrations through the soles of their feet, which prevent tracks from forming."
Night-Shade's nose crunched up, and her eyes focus on him. She could tell Ayeko gathered her disbelief from her expression. "That sounds too farfetched to believe."
"Okay, well… maybe I did over exaggerate the extent that mordazuls can do all that stuff," Ayeko admitted, "but even if they can't completely cover their tracks, they are easily good enough to fool those sensors."
"That doesn't bode well for us, then." Night-Shade took a seat on the rock. "Might as well just sit here and wait. There is no way we can find him."
"What's that thing about a needle in a haystack?" Ayeko asked rhetorically. "Still… better to try than sit here wasting space. Why don't you astral project or something and scout around?"
"Honestly, that form isn't any faster than my physical body. It really only helps when I need to search places I can't enter on my own or places that may cause me harm."
"How's that work anyway?" Ayeko sat beside Night-Shade.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, if someone were to shoot you while you were astral projecting, would it hurt?"
"Nobody would be able to see me."
"But if by some chance a bullet came at you--"
"It would just go through me as if I were air."
Ayeko pondered on the thought for a moment, his eyes up and his hand to his jawline. "Go through you. You mean just like our friend, The Broker, when Kalvin stabbed his knee."
Night-Shade was silent for a moment. "I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, exactly just like that. Even still, he couldn't have been taking a metaphysical form, because we could see him. And he could interact with objects. I can't do any of that."
"So there are differences, obviously. But maybe there are similarities, too. Did you notice anything when using your powers?" Ayeko fiddled with a small leaf.
"I never used them near The Broker. But--" Her thoughts wandered away from the conversation and back to earlier.
"But what?"
"But I was in my metaphysical form before you knocked on my door and--"
"And what?!" Ayeko pushed, with excitement in his voice. His hands were rubbing together, and the pace only got faster.
"There was something different. I could feel something in the distance, and I'm not sure how to describe it."
"Well, damn! I think it's about time you try again. Wouldn't you say?" His eyes begged her.
Night-Shade nodded and closed her eyes. She entered her metaphysical form, and there it was. That feeling from earlier was still there. She turned her head to the direction, and it was somewhere deep past the trees. She left that form and returned to her body.
Night-Shade pointed down the tree line. "It came from that direction."
"Then let's go!" Ayeko jumped to his feet instantly and headed off through the trees as fast as his feet would carry him. His steps were quick, and Night-Shade was a bit annoyed at having to keep pace with him. Mud sloughing up her legs and rain water pouring down her body, she was not in her element.
"Ever since we met The Broker, something about him bothers me," Night-Shade let her inner thoughts creep out loud.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, his talk of souls like… like they are undeniably real. If that were the case, wouldn't that confirm the existence of an afterlife?"
"Actually, Kalvin did mention something about this during the briefing he had with Drayvan, Tank, and me. Hmm… I remember him mentioning that every person carries energy, which I think he said has been proven by the Order of Aegis long ago. Kalvin mentioned no afterlife but did say dying bodies are believed to release energy upon death, which, in a way, can be seen as a soul leaving the body. I mean, it could make sense if The Broker had some way of collecting that energy. But really, all the complex details are out of my field of expertise."
Night-Shade scowled to herself. "I don't know. I always believed in scientifically provable things, not magic or fairy tales."
"I'm a thousand percent with you on that. But one thing I know for sure… The Broker trades for something. That I know. He doesn't seem the type to go away empty-handed."
They went silent for a while, letting their pace pick back up. Over a river they passed, around dozens of trees, sliding in the mud more than once. It even seemed like they weren't going anywhere at some points. Every minute that passed made Night-Shade itch more and more to turn back, afraid that she wouldn't find Tank. Afraid that her sense of whatever was in the distance was actually nothing at all.
She was wrong.
There he was! Many meters further into the forest stood Tank Brockman. Standing there, his gaze was fixed on a row of trees and shrubs. That's when Night-Shade saw those same greeneries move and out stepped The Broker.
She had a hunch that's why Tank left. After all, why else would he. Even still, she couldn't help feeling uncomfortable.
"Come on. We need to back up our teammate just in case." Ayeko ran towards the two, followed by Night-Shade.
Tank noticed and frowned as they approached. Then his expression darkened with aggressive intent. Ayeko, who was a couple meters ahead of Night-Shade, slid to the ground just as Tank spun his totem off his back and swung at Ayeko. Luck had it that he missed.
Now behind Tank, Ayeko held up his hands. He pleaded, "Tank, calm it down, buddy. We're here to help."
Tank wasn't listening and started the motion of slamming his totem to the ground - an attack that had devastating results earlier.
Ayeko yelled, "Damn you!" He created a golden bubble around Tank and drastically slowed Tank's attack to a point that he looked motionless.
The Broker, amused by the whole situation, walked up to Ayeko from behind. He placed his long fingers over Ayeko's shoulder. "No need for all this unnecessary violence. I expected that Tank would seek me out."
"Why would he?" Ayeko asked.
"Let him loose, and we shall find out together." The Broker stepped back and formed a chair for himself from the ground with almost no effort.
"Fine. But he better not cause any more shivf."
Ayeko released the bubble. As he did, Tank's motion was set free and he nearly completed the slam he started beforehand. But he stopped himself short. His eyes met each of the aces for a moment as he put the totem on his back. And when his eyes met Night-Shade, she could see despair and desperation.
"Tank, please don't do something you'll regret," she begged.
He ignored her and marched past Ayeko, standing in front of The Broker. Ayeko and Night-Shade watched from the sidelines, not knowing what to do.
"Speak your mind in any way you can, I will understand your words," The Broker assured.
There was silence for almost a minute. Ayeko looked back to Night-Shade, asking with his expression what they were supposed to do.
The Broker smiled. "Your fellow enhanced has spoken to me."
"How?" Ayeko asked.
"He spoke in a way only a mordazul could understand."
"And you, apparently," Ayeko added. "What did he want?"
Tank nodded to The Broker, giving him approval.
The Broker informed, "Tank wished for me to take away his ability as an enhanced, thus returning him to how he was before he transformed into a monster... as he put it."
"Damn it, Tank! You can't be serious!" Ayeko shouted.
Tank turned to face him. His skin seemed to be making small motions like tiny waves. His eyes were red, and tears were falling.
The Broker spoke. "Tank claims he must. Everything went to ruin when he transformed. He lost his fiancé. His friends and family didn't recognize him. He said they called him a fiend."
Tank looked over at The Broker with painful eyes.
"And he's not happy with me for not speaking each of his sulking words exactly as he wished," The Broker snickered.
That mockery lit a spark in Night-Shade. "Is something funny about that? Do you find his pain amusing?"
"Beings of this galaxy carry so much emotion." His tone was uncaring.
"And that means nothing to you? He has lost everything, and you react to his suffering by finding it funny."
The Broker disappeared! Night-Shade felt fingers reach over her right shoulder, and from her left side, The Broker's mask was inches from her ears. She was frozen with shock and panic. The others stared at the scene, stunned and at a loss of words.
The Broker spoke in her ear loud enough for everyone to hear. "Let me tell you all something about suffering. The strong look to suffering with open arms, for suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance is what fuels accomplishment. Only the weak dwell on the sufferings of their past and let themselves be burdened by it." The presence of The Broker disappeared once more, and he reappeared in his chair. "I know you want to strip yourself of these powers, but in this I cannot help you," he said to Tank.
Tank slammed his fist to the ground. But only seconds later, he fell to his knees in tears. He hands now in the dirt, he was hunched over.
The Broker ignored Tank. Instead, he directed his stare at Ayeko. "Ayeko. Tell me what you know of the origin of your abilities."
Ayeko's eyes were on Tank, but he answered nonetheless. "I know only what Kalvin has discovered. Our abilities have something to do with some 2nd Big Bang and are linked to our genetics."
"There is some truth to that, but the picture is far greater. Ace abilities are not only tied to genetics, they are engrained in one's soul. And an ace's soul is incomprehensibly more complex than a standard soul… such is the reason I cannot help Tank. It's beyond my capability."
"And why should we believe such a ridiculous claim?" Night-Shade asked.
"Ask Kalvin why he was never able to create more aces. Science only got him so far. Take it from the being who has brokered deals for souls since before any of you ever existed." He paused and looked over the three once more. "This was interesting, but I must bid you farewell. I have a meeting with the divine Day-Bringer to prepare for."
The Broker left them no time to react as he evaporated into effervescent particles. He was gone, leaving Tank an emotional catastrophe and both Night-Shade and Ayeko without words.