I glance around at the variously apprehensive, upset, and thoughtful faces of my crew. Nobody looks happy.
“Thoughts?” I ask.
“What is to say?” Denish throws his hands up. “We need best engineer to not die. He is best engineer. Even if he is bad, or even if he is good, is less important.”
“He’ll be our captain if we wake him up,” Adin points out. “Unless Tal can hack the AI or whatever?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. “If we ...
2023-03-14 13:38:31 +0000 UTC View PostOutside the giant glass windows and door of the medical ward, snow fell. Inside the medical ward, I folded hospital gowns.
It felt absurd to be doing this. I was less than two weeks away from trying to save the world, and I was wasting time folding hospital gowns? Why was I here?
But I had an apprenticeship to do, and I was going to do it, damn it. What was I supposed to do between slowly gathering supplies and saying goodbye to friends? Sit in my room and panic? I picked up a gow...
2023-03-13 13:42:31 +0000 UTC View Post“One hundred and fifty years,” Max repeated. “Perhaps two hundred.”
“Two hundred – and you guys didn’t think to mention this before? I thought we were working with, like, months! A couple of years at most!”
“You’re working with two weeks, I’m given to understand,” Max reminded me. “You won’t have access to the Heart from Fionnrath.”
“That’s not what – Max, our entire country is barely two hundred years old!”
“It’s seventy five ...
2023-03-10 13:49:42 +0000 UTC View PostAll of our AMAs contain spoilers, but this one contains more spoilers than most! Watch out!
Ask me Anything 8 -- Max
Can the undead janitors cut off limbs and have them reattached by Malas, and if so do you know if, and what the functional limits of this is?
Yes, limbs can be reattached if they are fresh enough. We try not to lose them in the first place; the more damage you have, the less stable your body.
Do you have any memo...
2023-03-08 07:24:40 +0000 UTC View PostI leap to my feet. The first stupid, stupid thought to go through my brain is, “Oh no! Zombies!” Which is, of course, ridiculous. It’s not zombies. That’s the alarm for…
Um. I’m not actually sure what that alarm is for. It’s not one of the few I was trained for as a colonist, and being the Galaxy’s Worst Captain, it hadn’t even occurred to me that now that I was in charge of a spaceship I should probably, you know, make sure I know all the emergency procedures.
A...
2023-03-07 14:21:49 +0000 UTC View Post“You know,” Kylie said, “there’s another reason why this secret message might have been handed off so clumsily. With a fake birthday present and everything.”
We were sitting in one of the tunnels leading to the Lake of Inquisition, safe from prying eyes, puzzling over Gertrude’s articles. I frowned at her. “There is? Kylie, this is from the best legacy mage kid in – ”
“Usually, yes. But look at this. There’s some attempt to conceal a message, but not up to he...
2023-03-06 13:47:31 +0000 UTC View PostI lay on the beach, on what had been dry sand, but the tide was starting to come in and the crest of every wave kissed my bare toes. I lay me head in Saina’s lap while she carded her fingers gently through my hair. Some way down the beach, I could see Hammond, trying to give us space while also keeping us in sight to fulfil his bodyguarding duties. I tilted my head up to look at Saina instead. She was haloed by the sun, the glare making the sparkle of her externalised spell almost invisible...
2023-03-03 13:45:31 +0000 UTC View PostThe next video showed mostly the ceiling. My tablet must have been set down on a desk or something.
“So you’re saying that was the spell amalgamate you met during your Initiation?” Max asked.
“Yeah.”
“Huh. Strange.”
“‘Creepy as all fuck’, more like.”
“I mean, that it’s here. That it still exists. I assumed that some spells clumped together temporarily in the Pit, but why are they still together? Has it just been… exis...
2023-02-28 13:42:39 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s movie night.
We’re about four years out from Hylara, and one of the things keeping us all sane is movie night. Tal insisted on the name and it stuck, even though we also share audio, holograms, books, and occasional games. Every six days, one of us (we have a rotating schedule) picks some form of entertainment that they like, something between one and four hours long, and we all experience it together. It ensures crew bonding time, gives everyone motivation to find good enterta...
2023-02-28 13:37:44 +0000 UTC View PostIn the video, we descended the staircase.
The diameter of the staircase was much larger than most, the central stone pillar being the entire width of the sculpture above, so there weren’t that many actual rotations. The pillar was right in the middle of the flat wall of a huge semicircular room, so for half of each turn around the stairs we were facing a white stone wall, and the other half we could look out into the room.
The room itself was largely featureless, made entirely o...
2023-02-27 13:36:15 +0000 UTC View Post“So you’re allowed to talk to me, then?” I asked, scrambling over my bed and pulling the curtains shut. “Is something wrong? Should I wake Kylie?”
“I… wouldn’t do that,” Max said. “I get the impression that she doesn’t like me very much. And no, the others don’t know I’m here.”
“That’s not… she… seeing you was just a bit of a shock for her, I think. An adjustment.”
He shrugged dismissively, like he didn’t care one way or the other what...
2023-02-24 14:17:12 +0000 UTC View PostI wait for the other shoe to drop. I wait for us to discover some new horrible thing about the stage 2 patients, or for the AI to try to kill us all over something stupid, or for someone to develop some deadly health complication as a result of the synnerves in our bodies. It… doesn’t happen.
There’s no reason, I suppose, to expect anything sinister to happen. We’ve been living with this AI for months and while I don’t trust it to make good decisions about our lives (it did ne...
2023-02-21 13:35:46 +0000 UTC View PostStacey left her location on on the school map, so it was no trouble at all to track her to the library. She was combing over some kind of complicated rune diagram with di Fiore, but looked up and smiled brightly when she saw me. “Kayden! What’s up?”
“Hi.” I braced myself against the sudden wave of mild nausea that trickled through me, but it was quickly gone. “I have a problem I want your help with, if there’s some time later when you’re not busy?”
“Sure! I was...
2023-02-20 13:35:19 +0000 UTC View PostStacey didn’t have any particularly difficult questions for me. She asked me a lot about the problems and perks of being a familiar, of how magic affected me and how that impacted my life. It was fortunate that the questions were so basic and easy, because I wasn’t focused at all.
I was thinking about the magic wand in my bag.
Fionnrath’s Destiny had said that we had an unfinished version of the vessel we needed on hand, one that Max had begun work on, and we needed to finis...
2023-02-17 13:34:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Artificial intelligences aren’t truly intel – ”
“Nope!” Tal raises a finger. “Artificial brains aren’t truly intelligent. Circuits can’t do what neurons can, no matter how you design or program them. But you know what can do the job of neurons? Neurons. You guys have seen those robots with the mouse brains, right?”
“They’re cute, but useless,” Lina says. “Nobody’s going to put a pile of mouse brains in charge of an interstellar ship, no matt...
2023-02-14 13:46:30 +0000 UTC View Post“Um,” I say. “Yes. It does.”
“Nope! The ten per cent category is, so far as I can tell, a zero per cent category. Every single person you’ve tried to revive from that category has gone into fits and either immediately ripped their own brains out via their faulty cranial port, or ceased functioning as soon as you cut power to their stimulators. He,” ke points to Adin, “is a DIVR from the eighty per cent and upward group. She,” ke points to Tinera, “is from the fifty t...
2023-02-14 13:45:29 +0000 UTC View PostMy next day off was also the day I’d agreed to give an interview to Stacey, the ‘magihacker’ I’d met at Josh’s party. I spent the morning with Kylie, searching through our possessions and Max’s noted for absolutely anything except the little glass test tube that could qualify as the ‘vessel’ from the prophecy, and turned up nothing. The search almost made me late, and I found myself rushing to Stacey’s room to make our meeting.
I needn’t have worried. When I got ther...
2023-02-13 13:32:21 +0000 UTC View PostSo we went to the medical ward, painted the runes in blood, opened the door and cleaned it very thoroughly before walking through to avoid a lecture from Malas, and stepped out onto the desert sands.
“It always seems a bit weird,” I remarked, “how we walk sideways through a door in order to move upwards to the ground right above the school.”
“Yeah,” Kylie said. She sounded tense, probably thinking of the tragedy last time we were here. Or the time she was almost murder...
2023-02-10 13:35:21 +0000 UTC View PostWhat's the coolest thing in Haven?
Me, obviously.
What's the worst thing in Haven?
Hmm, probably the way it strongarms children into perpetual servitude and educates them to spend the rest of their lives in this giant magic cult. That, or the egg sandwiches that get served at lunch. TOO MUCH MAYONNAISE.
Would you prolong your time in a tier just because of the color of it?
I make a point of getting as close to th...
2023-02-07 14:13:42 +0000 UTC View PostI lie back and stare at the ceiling, deep in thought. Tinera stops nibbling on my collarbone and pulls herself up onto her hands to glare down at me. “You’re working.”
“What? No, I’m here with you.”
“You’re working here.” She taps my skull.
“There’s a lot going on! People are waiting on me to make decisions, and the complications – ”
“Uuuugh you’re such a nerd.” She drops herself back down and lies her head on my chest. “What are you t...
2023-02-07 13:33:55 +0000 UTC View Post“So,” I said, “I was in bed, and – ”
“Are you hurt?” Malas asked. He took my chin in one huge hand and shone a little light in my eyes, checking for pupil dilation. “Any change in your head pain?”
“My head’s fine. I – ”
“I’m going to have to scan you again,” he said. “I know it’s unpleasant, but you did come in presenting unexplained symptoms, and with your familiarity link…”
“I get it, I – ugh!” I grit my teeth against the...
2023-02-06 13:41:08 +0000 UTC View Post“Max,” Kylie said, faintly, disbelievingly.
“What the hell?” I tried to lunge forward again, but the janitor restraining me knew what they were doing, and had my arms behind my back in some kind of immobilising hold that I couldn’t twist out of. “I cannot believe you! Seriously, what the fuck are you playing at?! You let us think you were dead! Everyone thought you were dead! Do you have any fucking idea what you put us through?!”
Max, looking startled, stepped back....
2023-02-03 13:39:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe agent strode into the room and looked the prisoner up and down. The man was small and tired-looking, his clothing ragged, but only a little roughed up – he must have surrendered quickly. He was tied to the only piece of furniture in the small room, a sturdy chair, with his hands bound in front where the agent could see them. He squinted up at the agent without any apparent fear.
“Solomon the Fisher,” the agent said, glaring down at him. “Where are the children?”
“I...
2023-01-31 13:33:29 +0000 UTC View PostThe corpse’s kill switch had been successfully destroyed by the electrostatic shield, so we spend a day carefully lowering everyone under the ship and bringing them back up. We’re really careful about it, taking our time and using a lot of tethers, but it still looks terrifying. I’m glad, selfishly, that I don’t have to go under.
So. That’s that little problem dealt with. Our situation is still a time bomb, escorting a bunch of sleeping colonists to a new home where ten per ce...
2023-01-31 13:32:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe back wall of the room was gone. Instead, the storage room stretched on, twice its original size, and a quick inspection of the shelves showed that this stock was magical in nature, magical potions and poultices and what looked like a shelf of enchanted medical equipment hidden behind a locked glass door. I wasn’t interested in any of that; I’d already surmised that this was probably how the more restricted and rarely needed medical supplies were stores, though this seemed like a lot m...
2023-01-30 13:37:11 +0000 UTC View PostI’m not an idiot. I knew the stuff he’d said about helping clear Cheryl’s name was bullshit. Not the position she was in, all of that sounded like it was probably true, and he might even believe she was actually framed (although he was probably pretending to agree with me on that, too), but Fiore wouldn’t take on the Council like that. He’d done what he could to protect me from being put under geas, in a mild and nonconfrontational kind of way, because I’d been his responsibility ...
2023-01-27 13:48:58 +0000 UTC View Post“So why zeelite stuff?” I ask Tal over a breakfast of preserved oats and two-day-old bread. Adin has been banned from strenuous activities like kneading dough by the doctors so that his muscles and the skin and synnerves for his new artificial foot can heal.
“Um, because it looks awesome?” Ke frizzes up kes ball of hair with a tiny comb and flashes me a smile through bright purple lips.
“Uh… huh.”
“And also, their view of the world… the preneeks who invente...
2023-01-24 13:31:40 +0000 UTC View Post“It, uh, it… what?”
“Well, that was a fairly major political complication that was quite neatly resolved by simply giving up Kylie. Now, governments don’t tend to take drastic actions in petty revenge, but they do have a tendency to work to eliminate dangers. Your friend proved herself to be the kind of troublemaker who could create a lot of dangerous situations in the future, so it makes sense that they’d want to deal with that.”
“Yeah, it… yeah!” I frowned at...
2023-01-23 13:34:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe stone key felt unnaturally heavy in my pocket as I headed to the medical ward. Unnaturally bulky, too. I kept having visions of someone finding it in my pocket and figuring out what I was doing and…
That was absurd, obviously. People didn’t just go around searching my pockets, and someone seeing me with a key would obviously conclude, ‘oh, Kayden has a lockbox or something,’ not, ‘it must be an illegal copy, let’s check it against all my keys to check!’ or that it was ...
2023-01-20 13:32:03 +0000 UTC View Post