Kai held his breath, his hands gripping the handle of the tool-box so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
From a distance, Kai saw that face.
Beneath the hood of the ethereal cloak, there was only darkness, save for a pair of eyes that seemed to glow with a stark white light, contrasting sharply with its body.
Don't make a sound, Kai thought. Although he didn't know what would attract the creature, Kai tried his best to remain undetected. He was well aware that fighting that thing with a half-full compressor and pliers was tantamount to suicide.
Suddenly, the creature stopped. Its hooded head slowly turned toward the spot where Kai was hiding.
Kai froze completely. His heart pounded so loudly he feared the sound itself might draw the creature's attention.
The few seconds that passed felt like hours.
Slowly, the Null Servant resumed its crawling, turning its body and swiftly disappearing from Kai's sight.
Kai let out a long breath. The straight route ahead of him was supposed to be the fastest way back to the workshop, but to hell with that, he wasn't going to risk running into that creature.
He turned and tried to detour, relying on his instincts as he guessed where Diogenes' workshop was located. Kai walked quickly, half-running in some of the open spots. His eyes remained vigilant, scanning his left and right, while his ears strained to catch even the slightest sound other than his own footsteps.
Thirty minutes later, the silhouette of Diogenes' workshop finally appeared. The dim yellow light slipping through its window felt like the most relieving sight he had encountered all day.
Kai quickened his pace, grabbed the door handle, opened it, and immediately slammed it shut.
Clang.
Kai leaned against the door, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.
At the far end of the room, Diogenes, who was hunched over assembling something at his workbench, stopped his activity. The old man didn't turn around, but his head tilted slightly toward the door.
"That was fast, it's only 11 o'clock," Diogenes said casually. "What did you get today?"
Kai walked past Diogenes' workbench, roughly took off his boots, and set the tool-box on the floor.
"One low-tier and a half bar in the compressor," Kai answered, collapsing onto the cot.
"One low-tier and a half bar, and you shut the door as if you were just chased by something." Diogenes finally swiveled his chair, looking at Kai with one eyebrow raised. "What happened?"
Kai stared at the dark ceiling of the workshop for a moment.
"I saw a Null Servant," he said flatly.
Diogenes' hand, still holding the wire cutters, paused.
"Where?" Diogenes' voice had changed.
"A few hundred meters from a junk hill."
"Oh, by the way, I saw something like a settlement from the top of that hill."
Diogenes looked thoughtful for a moment, then casually waved his hand.
"That's far enough from my workshop, so it should be safe."
"Uh, but I think that creature saw me."
Hearing that, Diogenes frowned, before he laughed.
"Heh, someone who has become a Null Servant can't use their bodily organs. So, that creature can't see, hear, or anything else. All it has is a sort of sensor or instinct to detect data sources, before ravenously devouring them.
"Because of that, even the Overseer Syndicate has squads of 'tamed' Null Servants. They're very useful for seeking out data sources in Sector 9."
Kai remained silent for a moment, processing the explanation. It was somewhat a relief to know the terrifying creature was actually blind, but the fact that a data-detecting monster was roaming the place where he scavenged still made his hair stand on end.
He then let out a long sigh and glanced at Diogenes' workbench. The old man's hands were already busy tinkering with something again.
He walked closer and, just like before, asked, "What are you fixing this time?"
Diogenes snorted and showed the radio he had dismantled yesterday.
"For today, you just dismantle that freezer. I'll fix it later," Diogenes said, pointing a finger to the side of his desk.
A dull, mini freezer stood there. Its shape was a rigid box, full of deep scratches on its outer casing.
"The main cooling module is dead. I'll be the one to fix it later, but you just dismantle it," Diogenes said.
"Um, where do I start?"
"The back panel," Diogenes answered flatly, already busy with his own work at the desk again. "Remove all the cover screws, then separate the compressor from the main frame. Do not cut the copper pipes."
Kai took a screwdriver and pliers from his tool-box, then rotated the position of the freezer.
He found a row of dirty screws along the edge of the panel. The first screw turned quite easily. The second one too. But the third screw absolutely refused to move.
Kai forced it, and a harsh grinding sound echoed.
"Stop." Diogenes set down his work and looked over. "Twist slightly to the right before turning left. Rusted screws need to have their grip broken first."
Kai tried it. He pressed the screwdriver, twisting slightly to the right until a faint crack of rust sounded, then turned it to the left. The screw turned.
"...Oh." While dismantling items during his scavenging runs, he had never cared whether the objects were damaged or not. It was different now.
"Remember that on your own for next time."
Kai successfully removed the entire back cover panel of the freezer. The inside was filled with a rigid web of cables and dull copper pipes twisting around a large black cylinder.
He tried to pull the cylinder out with his hands. It was stuck. Something was locking it from below.
"It's tight," Kai muttered. He then grabbed a small crowbar from the table, preparing to pry the base of the cylinder free from its mount.
"If you pry that, the pipes will tear. The data cooling gas will leak and you will die of poisoning in this room in three minutes," Diogenes said indifferently.
Kai slowly stopped his hand. He stared at the black cylinder again.
"There's a locking nut underneath it," Diogenes continued. "Open it using a wrench, don't pry it."
Kai set the crowbar down. He grabbed a wrench, feeling around the narrow bottom of the cylinder until he found a thick nut covered in greasy dust, then turned it. It required extra effort, but finally, the nut came off. The black cylinder could now be pulled away from the frame.
"Good. Now clean the remaining rust on the connector socket."
Kai took a wire brush and started scrubbing.
He spent almost an hour just dismantling the back of the freezer. Separating the pipe web without bending it turned out to require extra patience. Several times he unplugged the wrong cable socket, was reprimanded with short, flat sentences by Diogenes, and then tried again. More often than not, he felt around blindly, his screwdriver slipped, and his hands were stained with black lubricant.
But Diogenes didn't help him. The old man just kept working on his own business.
"Enough for today, go study," Diogenes finally said.
Kai tossed his screwdriver carelessly onto the floor. Then he walked slowly to his cot and lay down.
Exhausting, he muttered to himself.
Well, at least this is useful for now.
After closing his eyes for a moment, Kai got up and leaned his back against the wall. He then grabbed his tablet and turned it on.
He exited the Aeterna Public Knowledge learning application and browsed through the other apps.
Hmm, history, math, chemistry, physics... ugh, for some reason I want to sleep.
But he then pressed an icon depicting a ship that seemed to fly with two main sails. Below it, the text read: Aeterna History.
Inside the application, there were many choices. He then chose the top one, which bore the title: Aeterna Origin.
With a bit of laziness, Kai began to read it.
In the past, this world was round. Not a stack of megastructures supporting each other. Not layers of sectors tiered from zero to fifteen. Just a large sphere rotating around a star.
Heh.
He didn't fully understand what it meant, but he kept reading.
That world was named Earth.
Last documented historical record: Year 0 of the Aeterna Calendar — The Great Exodus.
For thousands of years, humans inhabited the surface of Earth. They built civilizations, tore them down, and then built again upon the ruins. Their technology advanced, but not fast enough to outrun the consequences of how they used it.
Environmental Record, Year -200 AC: Average global temperature rise: +3.8°C from baseline. Polar ice cover area: remaining 12% of baseline condition. Rate of sea-level rise: +2.3 meters from baseline.
"Diogenes, what year is it now?" Kai asked suddenly.
"872 AC," Diogenes answered shortly.
Kai nodded and continued reading.
Environmental Record, Year -100 AC: 34% of landmass classified as uninhabitable. Global food production dropped by 61% from peak capacity. Active resource conflicts: 47 hotspots.
Environmental Record, Year -12 AC: Ecosystem recovery threshold permanently breached. Projection: no remaining path to recovery.
Year -8 AC — Initiation of Project Aeterna. Initiators: House Graham, House Vael, Clan Castien. Initial Classification: Top Secret. Official Recorded Purpose: Exploration of alternative habitats outside.
The three major families did not wait for the world to truly die. They had already begun building the escape route long before anyone else realized that an escape route was needed.
The fleet they constructed did not use technology available to the general public. Its funding sources were never independently audited. Its passenger manifest was never fully published.
Passenger Selection Criteria: "Capacity and competence." — Internal Archives of House Graham, Year -3 AC.
Total population departed: 1 million souls from Earth's estimated population at the time: 6.8 billion.
Kai paused.
1 million out of 6.8 billion.
Wow, great, he thought sarcastically.
He couldn't imagine how much 6.8 billion people actually was, nor did he understand the full weight of those words and data.
Year 0 AC — The Great Exodus. Fleet left Earth's orbit: March 16, Year 0. Condition of Earth upon departure: Not recorded in this archive.
The voyage proceeded without a definite destination. They searched for a place that could be inhabited, that allowed for life, anything that could replace what they had left behind.
However, what they found was not that.
Year 7 AC — The fleet entered a spatial anomaly not found on any navigation map.
Description of anomaly: A region surrounded by dense fog of unnatural density. No stars detected. No navigation signals could be received from outside the region. All propulsion systems of the fleet stopped functioning simultaneously upon entering the fog boundary.
Conclusion of navigation team: The fleet cannot leave.
They were trapped.
In the middle of the fog that they could not read and could not penetrate, they found the only thing that was there: a platform. Large. Flat. As if it had been waiting before they arrived.
Then, they landed.