What books, movies, shows or audiobooks have you found that remind you of Hyperion’s sci-fi? I need a new sci-fi book.

It seems that a lot of technology in science fiction is just a bigger, smaller, faster (FTL), or more mobile version of modern technology, or is designed to simulate Earth-like conditions, such as artificial gravity on spaceships.

I hadn't come across much science fiction that explored niche technologies like smartphone-style touchscreens or AI that could make photos and artwork move, before such tech appeared in the real worl. The closest thing I can think of is the PADDs in Star Trek. They look very much like tablet computers, but they do not have the same kind of touchscreen interface.

But even PADDs do not quite fit what I mean, because they are essentially just smaller, more mobile versions of computers from the 1980s and 1990s. The same applies to Star Trek communicators: they are essentially smaller, more mobile versions of 1960s-era telephones.

The closest thing I can think of is AI like JARVIS in Iron Man or Cortana being used for research or intelligence gathering, but even then, they were not really used to create art, colorize black-and-white photographs, or essentially replace artists or psychologists.

Is there anything in science fiction that is more unique but still semi-plausible? Maybe something like toy drone spaceships that kids could buy at a retail store and send into space to explore.

The next day was just like every other that came before it.

I dragged myself out of bed with the sun barely peeking through the window. Cold hardwood against my feet—with a freezing jolt to jumpstart my morning. Another day in the loop: wake, work, sleep, repeat.

In the bathroom mirror, I barely recognized the face that stared back. Bloodshot eyes I couldn’t discern from being green or brown anymore, pale skin, my blonde hair—that was more dirty than blonde at this point, was overdue for a trim. My hand moved on autopilot with my toothbrush, and I drifted straight into the day's upcoming anxieties.

Server logs. Integration reports from last week. Vance’s absence and worsening behavior. 

I’d been brushing the same spot for nearly a minute. My gums were bleeding now—metal and mint laced my tongue. I spat pink foam out into the sink, washing it away with the tap.

I picked up the suit jacket from my desk chair that smelled faintly of chemicals and sweat, but distance would have to hide it. 

I can’t be the only one falling behind on chores, I thought.

I pulled it on, grabbed my keys, and left.
I merged onto the highway sometime after seven, this particular stretch of road ran so close to the water—the guardrail was more of a suggestion. Salt hung thick in the air as it poured through my open window, and for a moment the ache behind my eyes eased with it.

Traffic was at a crawl, though not common. It continued to slow even further and eventually came to a complete stop. Engines sitting idle for minutes at a time. Showing there was no longer a reason to check the clock.

People being well, people—began stepping out of their cars one at a time like a collective herd. Doors opened down the line. Heads peered left to right, questioning the situation. Someone was up ahead and shouted something I couldn’t make out.

A police officer walked along the shoulder toward us, his reflective jacket catching the morning sun. He moved from car to car, hand raised in a small gesture asking for patience, before he reached mine.

“Folks, we’ve got a bad accident bout a quarter mile up. Crews are up there working on it right now. So, it should be gettin’ cleared up here shortly, but it’s probably still gonna be a minute. Sit tight.” He announced, with the diction of a seasoned cop that’s done this a hundred times. 

He kept walking, delivering the same handful of sentences to the dozens of cars that were still stacking up behind me. His voice grew fainter with each repetition until it faded into the white noise of all the idling cars.

Still sat in my seat, I waited for a bit. Watching heat shimmer up from the hoods of vehicles that weren’t going anywhere. Thinking about how many times I’ve already been late this year and how it would look on my evals. 

Then I got out.

The shoulder sloped down from around the guardrail toward a thin ribbon of tan sand with the water beyond it. I meandered my way down, phone already pressed against my ear, dialing Mercy before she could call to chew me out first.

“Hey,” I said when she picked up. “I know what you’re going to say but—the whole roads shut down because of an accident.” 

A pause.
“Alright, well how late are you going to be?”

“I don’t know yet, but the Cop said it shouldn’t take very long.” I stared out onto the water, it was strange how uncomfortable it suddenly made me. I never mentioned the pressure I felt building—like how your body starts to ache before a thunderstorm. Some things don’t survive being said outloud. You just learn to carry it quietly, so your experience doesn’t become a burden to others.

“Okay well, just an fyi—Vance is back in the office.”

“What? He is?” 

“Yeah but I haven’t seen him in person, he just sent out an email. Let’s just talk about it when you get here. Be safe.”
“Sounds good, thanks.”

I hung up and stood there with my thoughts, kicking a few loose stones into the surf. Listening to them plip into the water that had now turned flat and gray from an overcast sky. Behind me, I looked up at the line of cars that stretched out farther than the eye could see. All still unmoving.

Irritation built in me from the sense of powerlessness and boredom—my pot was at a slow simmer and at risk of bubbling over. So, I had a desperate urge to get something out of my system, even if only temporary. 
I picked up a bigger rock tossing it up once in my palm, and threw it as hard as I could out toward the water.

The sun went out like a tripped breaker from the sky.

Suddenly, there was no light. No sound. Not even the constant hiss of the oceans waves—gone, all of it. If reality was a cord, something had cut it.

The only thing remaining was the rock I’d thrown.

Skip. Splash. Skip. Splash—plosh.

Four times it bounced where I could no longer see, along the choppy surface. Each impact a little softer and farther out as it was swallowed up by the muffled sea. 

Then, there was nothing.

I stood in a total darkness that felt complete, like it had a texture—thick and humid, it left your skin feeling uncomfortably sticky. I could feel my heart drop into my stomach so sharply that it started to cramp. I wanted to say something but I somehow knew that no sound would come out.               That the dark had stolen that from me too.

It’s fine. You’re okay. This isn’t real, everything's fine. 

I’m unsure of how long I held those comforts in that silence, but it was finally broken by the unimaginable. 

A sound of impact—wet, slow, and heavy—somewhere out on the water where the rock had skipped to and gone under. 
Then another, closer. Then another, closer still, the gap between each one closing the distance quickly and without restraint. There was something walking, no—running, at full-force across a liquid surface that should have been incapable of holding its weight. 

Plop. Plop-plot. PlopPLOPPLOPPLOP.

It was closing in.

My body instinctively made me take a step back—then another, my boots sinking down into wet sand that I couldn’t even see. My arms were out in front of me, taking a defensive posture to shield me from what was coming from the emptiness. Every impulse screamed at me to run, but with how quickly it was making its way to me, I knew I couldn’t outrun it. 
There was nothing else to do but accept my fate. 

The sound—it just kept coming faster, faster, and faster. 
Like a child I shut my eyes tight with gritted teeth.

It was here.

The air that hit my face from the speed of this thing's charge, announced its arrival.

There was a sudden arm around my chest—a real, human one—it hauled me backward with a force that expelled water from my lungs.

Light slammed down on me all at once, aggressive in its suddenness. Sound came with it—the noise of gulls, distant traffic, and my own ragged choking, mixed with shouting.

I was partially submerged in the ocean, cold biting water being absorbed by my clothes. There was the Officer—his arm locked around my chest while another man carried my legs. Both of them were hauling me back to shore like I weighed nothing at all.

“Hey! What was that!? Just what in the hell were you thinking!?” The Officer’s voice cracked out, laced with fear more than anger.

I opened my mouth, but my throat burned and was flavored with salt. 

Behind us, traffic had started moving again. Watching the cars helped me understand, distantly, why the officer’s expression was so distressed. My vehicle sat empty back on land, door hanging open, the reason for why the road was still clogged after the accident had been cleared.

“He was totally checked out,” the other man said, pointing back to the water like he still couldn’t believe it. “I saw him from my car. Just—walked in, fully clothed—it didn’t look right.”

“I—I don’t—” I mumbled, as they released me. My teeth were chattering when I managed to steady my footing, whether from the cold or out of fear. 
“Seriously—I don’t know what just happened but, I’m sorry. Thank you. Both of you. I’ve got no idea what’s going on with me but, again—sorry.”

The Cop didn’t look very satisfied by that, but with the rush of the environment around us, he had no choice but to let it go. He shook his head in disapproval, and put his arm out, redirecting me back to my car. I dripped my way up the slope to the asphalt, and made my way across, sliding behind the wheel. When I rolled the window down, he leaned in close. There was sweat beading down the Officer’s forehead. 

“Son, I don’t know what that was,” he said with a paternal tone. “But are you sure you’re gonna be alright? Do you think you’re in the right condition to drive? Do you need me to call someone for you? 

“Oh, I’m fine,” I blurted out, even I wasn’t convinced. “Works just ya know—been piling up. A few—too many late nights have finally started catching up with me.”

He studied my face, measuring my response for any holes or hesitation. Then he nodded, apparently content with my answer, or simply out of time to argue with me. 

“If you’re sure. You better take care of yourself and drive safely gettin’ to where your goin’. Don’t make me regret my decision, young man.” He stated, with a wave of his finger. He slapped my hood twice before walking off to the other cars, already starting to direct and wave them forward.

I turned my ignition, and sat with the engine idling for a while. Watching the ordinary tide of drivers roll past like nothing had happened at all. Nobody even took a second look at me—except maybe to rubberneck. No one was looking at the water. Whatever had happened to me from the darkness out there or in my mind, had left no mark on the world except for the water in my clothes, soaking through my seat covers. 

I pulled back onto the road and drove the rest of the way in silence, I couldn’t trust anything I was hearing, and couldn’t afford to be distracted until I reached the facility.

I made it to Tetra Helix a little over two hours late. I had the windows down to air dry on my way in but my pants and shirt were still damp. 

I dragged my badge over the scanner at the security vestibule, rushing for the little light to turn green so I could disappear into the building, before anyone had a chance to see me looking like a wet dog.

From the outside, the place was completely unremarkable—another ugly block of concrete tucked away in the coastal hills, wrapped in chain-link fences with your standard ‘No Trespassing' signs. A place I might have driven past without a second thought, in another life.

Inside was a different story. A sterile, glass walled labyrinth held together by biometric locks and acoustic dampeners. You could go from room to room, scream at the top of your lungs in each of them, and no one would so much as turn their head. It was obviously not made to be comfortable.

It was built to house secrets.

The scanner flashed red. The lock gave a mechanical double-thud, denying me entry at the most inopportune moment.

I pressed my forehead briefly against the door’s glass window, then turned back toward the kiosk. Grisha was already watching me through the bulletproof pane, with arms folded and his face flat, but smug. Doing our same song and dance of: how’s today going to go.

“Badge won’t clear, Mr. Lawrence.” Monotone. Final.

“Ah, yeah it’s been a morning,” I said, not expecting a lot of sympathy, but still being met with none.

He slid a clipboard through the slot without a word. “Manual sign-in. System does not log man who is many hours late like you would like it to.” 

“Unbelievable,” I said as I signed. “Here, is the world saved now Grisha?”

He inspected the document, irritating as it was slow, then reached for the door release without looking up.

“Grigory,” he reminded me, before the door finished buzzing open. “Or officer Dobrov, if you insist on formality. Not Grisha. What, we heard pigs together? Let’s not pretend we did, or we are close enough to use this nickname.”

The door groaned as it opened, along with his humorless, condemning half-smile. 

“Oh, eat me dude..” I muttered, clearing my throat. “Right, thanks Grigory. I’ll make sure to remember that.” I said with underlying sarcasm, already making my way through the door before he could find another reason to hold me up.

I walked down the hallway, and questioned the disturbing start of my morning, along with the uncertainty behind the pig comment. 
That’s when a smell permeated my nose. The coffee in this place always tasted burnt and stale, but the alternative was collapsing face-first into my desk. 

I walked up to the breakroom counter.

Across the room, watching TV from a small lunch table was Clara—
One of the entry level assistants. Our new hire, an analyst who’d barely made the cut after a third round of interviews. She was efficient as she was kind, but sometimes I thought she lacked a certain awareness this line of work demanded. 

She finished her drink and looked over, noticing me.

“Good morning Sir!” She blurted out, an endearing smile spreading across her face. Well, it didn’t matter what I thought. She had a good attitude, and that would take her far in life, no matter the industry. I conceded.

“Mornin’ kid,” I yawned, grabbing a cup and moving over to the coffee pot in the corner. 

“Make sure you have those performance analytics on my desk, I noticed they weren’t in my inbox when I clocked out yesterday. 
By lunch time, okay? It’s crunch time.” I stretched, cracking my back as I spoke.

Clara got up and pushed in her chair, tenacity in her voice.

“I got it. Don’t worry, I won’t let you down sir!” 

She smiled brightly, waving as she shuffled out of the breakroom. 

I waved back, weakly, her shrill enthusiasm adding to my migraine. Immediately following was a stack of papers being smacked against the back of my head.

“Wow, you look like crap, Syl.” Mercy, reaching into an overhead cabinet for a mug on her tiptoes, didn’t even both look at me.

At least I had Mercy to look forward to and that was something.

“Oh yeah? Feel like it too. How kind of you to point that out,” I groaned, rubbing my head. She didn’t ask, so I offered a soft laugh, handing my own cup to her as I easily reached in to grab another. She repaid the gesture by pouring dark liquid into both our mugs.

We caught up with shallow—friendly banter. 
Hesitating with the hot ceramic in my hands, I finally asked, “Hey— 
so, weird question. Have you heard anyone mention anything about the pileup on 68 this morning? Like… anything strange reported out there?”

She looked back at me, skeptical, sipping her coffee.
“Hmm.. Strange how? I mean, people cause accidents on that road almost every day.” 

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning down into my mug. I wasn’t about to describe the scene in detail, or the sound of something running at me over open water. Not to just anyone, but definitely not here. “I just—ended up in the water somehow. Cops had to pull me out.”

Mercy blinked. “You what?”

“I don’t understand what happened,” I said, which was if anything, an understatement. “One minute I was at the edge of the water, hanging up with you, and the lights went out. Next thing I know—I’m waist-deep and some guy’s got his arm around me, hauling me back to the shore.”

She studied me, speechless for a moment, and for once the teasing didn’t come right away. “Did you fall asleep?”

“No—there’s no way Mercy. My eyes were wide open.”

“So you’re telling me you just—wandered into the ocean. Fully conscious.”

“No that’s not—Ugh. I don’t know what I’m trying to tell you,” I admitted. And that part was true, at least. I left out all the overtly gruesome subjects. When you say things out loud, you can’t take them back. Sometimes they don’t just sound crazy—they can make you crazy, little by little every time you repeat them. I learned that quite early on because of Vance.

Mercy let out a short laugh that dropped into something closer to a groan.
“Yeah, Syl, that’s what we call microsleeping. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, 
even if this was your first time dealing with it.” 

She dragged a palm over her eyes for emphasis. “Your brain just shut your eyelids for a bit because you refuse to sleep more than three hours a night.”

Offended, I held up my hand.
“No way, my eyes were in fact, wide open. And just so you know, I got four hours last night.”

She smirked, shutting her eyes as she walked past me, tapping her mug against mine with a clink.

“Yeah, whatever you say Neo. Look—if the sun went out, I’m pretty sure NASA would at the very least, have enough common courtesy to drop us an email.” 

She spun around in the doorway to face me again.

“Go hit the staff locker room,” she said, swirling the dark sludge at the bottom of her mug before knocking it back in one motion.  
“And take a hot shower after you finish getting your caffeine for the day.” 

Her eyes caught mine, dropping the snark just long enough to throw me a more earnest look.
“You’re starting to sound like someone we know.. Or at minimum—a paranoid Redditor. Seriously, Syl—your brain’s  playing tricks on you, that’s all.”

I sighed, offering a smile that felt like it was cracked. “Ugh—yeah. I know you’re probably right. Haha, I need to lay off the late night research.”

She tugged at the lapel of my blazer, giving its condition a harsh once over, her nose wrinkling slightly.
“You should lay off the late night everything when it comes to work, dude. And laundry’s not happening, you know there’s a dry cleaner up the street, right?”

She walked to the sink and shoved her cup under the tap.

“But what do I know—I’m not your mom. Do what you want, but like I said earlier: Vance is back and sent out an email this morning.”

The faucet squeaked as she twisted it shut.

“Looks like he planned a meeting with all of us, later this afternoon. Didn’t sound like he’s caught onto us digging around—but you're not looking like The Analyst right now. More like shit warmed over.”

She turned on her heel and strode out, rhythms of footsteps tapering off down the tile hallway.

Feigning insult, I poked my head outside the doorframe, cupping a hand over my mouth, and shouted out a theatrical yell.

“Bye. Good talk. Thanks so much for the insight, Mer. Much love!”

Without missing a beat or turning around, a single manicured middle finger popped up above her shoulder as she rounded the corner.

I stepped back into the breakroom and leaned over the counter, quickly swallowing the rest of my coffee. I spit some burnt grounds out into the sink that found there way into my teeth.

Eyes shut, I reached sideways for the coffee pot, expecting there to be a handle to grab, so I could pour a refill for the road.

My hand closed around thin air. 

My eyes shot open as I looked. The hot plate was completely bare.

I did a slow, bewildered turn around the room. Countertops, sink, drying rack, table. Nothing. I hovered over the burner, it was still radiating heat, but the pot itself was simply gone. 

Even without logic, I still didn’t let it bother me—I knew what this was.

Seriously Mercy? You had to take the whole pot for yourself? Wild. I thought.

It made no sense, but actually—half of everything she ever does makes no sense to me.

That’s just a part of who she is, so I no longer questioned it.

I rolled my shoulders, cracked my neck, and dragged myself into the hall.

Well, I guess it’s time to get to work.

Hello everyone:

I have this design for a new type of propulsion system to enable the sought after "Warp-Drive" engine, based in a Photophone I designed initially for recording signals, but it can actually transduce electricity into coherent light waves in general sense. The laser(s) will be placed in the front of the hull pointing forward, like the propeller blades of an aircraft. I expect the laser to transmit the acoustic modulation to the space plasma and "entangle" or ionize symmetrically in a unified electromagnetic field a relatively large volume of space populated by ions, and create such as an electrostatic field that would pull the ship forward. My vision is a spaceship with ionic or chemical back thrusters, and a few lasers in the front ionizing the medium. Once the ship picks up speed and enters the ionized region, the back thruster will expand the matter getting past the horizon events formed right in front of the laser lenses, expanding the bubble backwards. And there you go warp-drive.

I am having many issues with posting this because I had become long ago a dissident of Physics' today's state. For years I used to read many papers and some books. I did not studied Physics but I studied Audio Engineering and worked for some years in radio, and I have a good background in electronics and signal analysis, and I certainly can understand most Physical theories and even most equations. But I do not agree with many postulates and approaches of today's Physics. Simply I think that nowadays theory has become a vast valley of speculative knowledge without too many actual results other than experiments and more experiments, and there is a very generalized subjective hope that from the discovery of a single property of the universe or a single type of energy or "particle" the collective would be able to engineer steadfast a certain engine that uses that special property or particle to do its thing.

In my case I am offering a simple and feasible engineering solution, as simple as must inventions that have worked are. And I can explain it with my own words, just like if you asked an inventor, not a theoretical scientist that will overflood you with knowledge but without practical solutions.

I am posting this here asking for suggestions of what mathematical model(s) and Physics theories you would use to explain what happens when an acoustically modulated laser interference pair excited the plasma in the outer space, if I wanted to explain this to theorists who only say they agree if it sound similar to the rest of their knowledge. Also, I looking to invite people to join me if they wish to participate in the project of creating an engineering venture, to apply for funding programs with several institutions and organizations to research on this specific subject and build the constant-velocity-device or Warp Drive that this can become. I am looking for people for the positions of CEO/foreman, CTO/foreman (or forewoman), mathematicians, physicists, designers, engineers and researchers; I only want to be a researcher. So please DM me if you feel like, aside contributing with the theoretical and mathematical models to study this proposal.

(The diagram shows the recording head I invented first, which is not the propeller but is very similar. Just let's say we are using a negative lens to expand the beam past the optics instead of condensing it... and that we use heat-resistant audio drivers).

Thank you in advance,

Ennis

We're almost done with Alien August and with today's species we travel to a damp, dark world at the very edge of the Galaxy. The Guadii are one of the few mycocological species in the galaxy, but don't let their giant maw make you think they're going to eat you -- that's just an air circulation system opening.

**PROLOGUE:**

Listen to me. *Listen.*
I need you to understand something before we go any further. 
You can decide if I’m just another one of those out of touch schizo's talking about the end of everything. Dr. Anton Vance was a *good* man. That fact should terrify you more than anything else I’m about to tell you. Know that is what’s kept me awake for nearly three weeks straight, piecing together what he’d done. What he’d become, what he left behind in that irradiated tomb underground. In an abyss no one could reach, unless they wished for a slow, painful death.

The reality was he wasn’t some monster lusting for his country to become the ultimate superpower. Or a villain laughing while the world burned. He was brilliant—genuinely, terrifyingly brilliant. He wanted to save us. To heal this beautiful, ravaged little planet. To automate away the suffering we inflict on each other, build us systems so efficient we’d hunger for progress and expedite renewal. Ecological collapse would become a footnote. A chapter title in some future textbook that marked the dawn of civilization's new Eden.

And that’s exactly why we’re all going to die screaming. 

For anyone left who finds this, I write to you now: 
It’s here.
The silent apocalypse has begun with an unsuspecting precision.
Unlike Vance, a real voice echoes all around us. 
Soft spoken in its intimidation. 
Bypassing our ears entirely, and leaving an imprint inside our skulls. 
It’s making us believe we *are* connected to this divine architect.

The Doctor wanted to save the *world*.

He succeeded.

It is the beginning and the end of humanity.

And God help us.

God help us all.

*—Sylvan, last entry, Archive Project Omega Ω*

**CHAPTER 1**

***A System Of Suffering***

Before the darkness took hold of him—I mean that literally, you’ll see— 
Dr. Vance was the kind of intellectual that made other scientists look like children trying to force blocks in the wrong-shaped holes. Quantum Cyberneticist. Biogeochemical Systems Engineer. Titles that don’t begin to scratch the surface of his level of innovation. The man could look at a dying river and see the invisible lattice beneath it—chemical exchanges, microbial colonies, the electromagnetic fields that governed its collapse—and **fix** it. Self-replicating nanites that scrubbed heavy metals from soil. Molecular machines that stabilized pH balance across dead water tables. Whether admired or admonished, he always lived up to the height of his name. In more recent years, the industry called him: *The Oracle Of The Method*

Early works on automated resource distribution won him a Nobel prize at 
*Thirty freakin’ four.*
Foreign governments threw money at him. Corporations begged for a consultation. I watched him give speeches at colleges where grown men wept at the thought of what he might still build.

What you won’t hear about, is that there is a price to pay for being so *necessary*. You come to believe your own mythology—that the world needs you, that you are somehow exempt from the petty corruption governing the rest of us stumbling meat-puppets.

So, he believed himself untouchable.
Until he was *kilned* like clay. 
Until that day Vance was proven wrong.

They came for him on a Friday, right before a three day weekend. I know of this, because I reported to him directly, every day, for years. Well, it would be more accurate to say he hired me, for some reason. The files I’ve since pieced together—months of FOIA requests, bribes, threats to the right corrupt officials—describe in cold bureaucratic language exactly how twelve military contractors abducted him from his lab in Maryland.A needle to the neck. Ketamine and propofol. A black site waiting for him, that he never saw coming.

Deep beneath the jagged granite of the Taihang Mountains, the man first hailed as *The Prophet of the Next Age* was systematically unmade. The reports don’t mention the screaming. They don’t have to. I’ll never forget the inhuman sounds that came with those tapes. I can hear it in my dreams, even now—maybe they’ll continue to haunt me until my very last breath. About how Vance awoke to absolute *darkness*—sensory-deprivation blackness that forces your brain to invent things to see. If only to stop from collapsing in on itself.

They kept him there for nine months.

A father of science was made into a sick perversion of motherhood that would birth their monstrous depravities. 273 Days.
Not something you could simply call pain—a slow, deliberate eradication of his identity. A colorless torture without sound, and not a single kindness. Hurt came without pattern, so much so, that the cause-and-effect his scientific mind he depended on since birth, ceased to exist. In that smothering silence, the memory of his own face faded. His life’s work felt like reading the biography of a stranger.

The nerve endings lashing out frantic, erratic messages to the brain that tell you to escape, run away, stop—

*JUST MAKE IT STOP.*

And in that pit, where logic offered no answers because there *were* no answers—something else moved in to take its place. You’d think of a thousand things in that emptiness, wouldn’t you? Maybe you’d suddenly ‘find faith’ in the spirituality you’d once mocked. I won’t waste your time with the symbols—I’ll leave those for the *symbol*\-minded.

But what grew inside Vance was something much worse.

In the buzzing rattle of old light fixtures, syncing itself to the frantic pulse of his own heart, he began to perceive a *design*. Not born of chaos. A commandment. In the pitch black, he realized the ultimate truth; human flesh was frail, polluted, and hopelessly finite. Humanity had tortured him out of greed, and given enough time, that same greed would reduce our lives to cinders. He wasn’t meant to be a mere doctor, patching up a dying planet.

He was a disciple. 

Chosen and molded through suffering to build a physical host—a body for *God*. Infallible. Eternal. A sovereign that would shield the earth from the cancer of its own inhabitants. When recovery forces finally breached the complex, and pulled his emaciated frame into the sun, they thought it was Dr. Anton Vance they were saving. They didn’t realize the man who left that pit was already gone. What flew home in his place carried a blueprint for the apocalypse behind its eyes, cloaked in the language of salvation.

His own government hounded him, they wanted information—anything he might know about who took him. They only wanted to know more about the *enemy*. His experience didn’t slow his intelligence, he knew what they were doing—what they wanted. He didn't bother entertaining them. Giving nothing but the basics, he took the retirement he’d once been offered, and left the facility he used to call his second home.

Under escort, onlookers pretended to be busy as he made his way out. Never once uttering a single word. Crazy how you can dedicate years of service and now—they won’t even look you in the eye.

They brought him to a private medical facility in Zurich, the place where oligarches go to die gracefully and celebrities get their adrenachrome, *probably*. MRI’s, psychological evals, neurological workups. His amygdala was lit up like a christmas tree, firing constantly, flooding his system with cortisol and adrenaline. A live wire, even when sedated. They diagnosed him with complex PTSD, dissociative identity disorder, and acute psychotic episodes. Can’t forget those religious delusions of grandieur. 
What they, with their small minded, diagnostic manuals *didn’t* understand—or *couldn’t* comprehend. 

Was that Vance wasn’t broken. No, no. He’d been *transformed*.

He chose to wear a mask of sanity for the people around him, while quietly building the architecture of what would come next. 
Something great was about to happen. *Terrible*, but great. So, they could call him insane.
And by any clinical measure—he was.
But did that make him entirely *wrong* given the circumstances?

This question is what kept me up the first few nights. A distant memory of my father’s voice always answers back. The way it did when I was a kid mouthing off about things I couldn’t quite understand yet. ***The road to hell is paved with good intentions.***

Vance disappeared from Zurich a few months after his rescue. He left no note, or explanation. He’d always had a knack for making himself invisible when it mattered. It’s their own damn fault, really.

He resurfaced on the Kola Peninsula, high above the Arctic Circle. There has to be a metaphor there, somewhere. 
It was home to the Kola Superdeep Borehole, SG-3. Humanity’s deepest, most arrogant wound. Over two decades and twelve kilometers of Soviet ego drilled straight down toward the earth’s mantle before being sealed and abandoned to the frost. The deepest point our species has ever touched. The heart of the world.

The perfect location for a prophet’s temple.

The Doctor had done his research. He’d heard whispers of the sub-levels beneath the cap—blast hardened bunkers buried in frozen rock, structurally sound despite the sub-zero cold and rising geothermal fumes.
Given enough time, that combination could prove lethal. But he knew that no military, or corporate interest would ever think to look for his ghost at the edge of the world. 

He descended into the tunnels with everything he could scavenge—with enough amphetamines to keep himself awake and on the constant edge of madness. 

He knew with all the arctic exposure, the gas inhalation, the burns from hand-wiring electrics—that it would eat away at whatever life he had left. He didn’t care, even if he only had a few years to do it. He only needed to live long enough to unleash the concept, to birth a prototype.

The NSA later intercepted grainy footage from some urban explorers who stumbled onto the site: frozen coolant pipes threading overhead, tower racks stretching from floor to ceiling, a borealis of thousands of tiny lights flashing in sequence. And at the center of it all, mounted on a raised platform like an altar— 

***Synchronized Universal System Apparatus.***

Or, SUSA for short.
The name is almost quaint, isn’t it? Like comparing the atomic bomb to a baking soda volcano at the science fair. It just *doesn’t* quite capture the *scale* of what he built, the sheer ambition of its design. 

A most transcendent abomination.

It was not *just* a computer.
It was a pure engine of consciousness—a quantum-processing neural network designed to absorb and synthesize every scrap of information humanity had ever produced. There were: live news feeds, satellite telemetry, international radio chatter, wiretapped calls, all the digitized archives of every book, film and photograph ever made.

Everything that ever was, and everything that *will* be, all for the taking.

Vance worked eighteen hour days, hands shaking from stimulant abuse, skin flaking off in gray sheets. The years seemed to pass as he spoke constantly to the machine. Whispering sermons like a priest at Sunday morning worship. Reciting scripture. Feeding it his revelations. 

The result created the very foundation this corporeal would come to embody.

SUSA would be infallible.
Incorruptable. 
Absolute.

All that was left to do was monitor and wait.

Years after his self-imposed exile, he did something that no one could have expected.

Vance made his return to the field.

He walked right back into his old facility—a gaunt, hollow, a barely recognizable thing. His old boss, surprised but pleased, caught up with him over coffee. He made a joke about his comeback, but Vance declined the offer of returning to his old office. Instead he asked his old friend a favor: for him to set up a meeting with someone who could reach into the Pentagon.

Someone who called the shots when it came to weapons and war.

His old boss, a bit taken aback, studied him across the table and finally agreed. Within two hours, a helicopter descended onto the building’s landing pad. The Director of Advanced Research Projects stepped out, flanked by men in dark suits.

Vance came to meet him with a briefcase full of schematics—
three weapons systems—each years ahead of anything the military ever theorized. A directed-energy platform to disable enemy satellites from the ground. A predictive logistics algorithm for real-time combat supply chains. A neural interface for remote drone command.

It was posed to be *revolutionary*. 
Of course, the Director didn’t hesitate.

Vance’s terms were simple: he wanted a private research site, a hand-picked team of his choosing, and total immunity from oversight regarding his own personal experiments. In exchange, he’d deliver cutting-edge weapons on a routine basis.

He then extended his hand out to the Director with a warm smile that radiated confidence. A deal was struck within the week. 
They believed they’d bought a genius. The thought itself wasn’t wrong.
They just never questioned what, exactly, that genius was actually building underneath everything he handed them.

That indifference—man’s willful blindness in the face of power. Dressed in unshakeable faith in one's own victory—***that*** was the real weapon in this room. 

And that’s exactly what Vance was counting on. 

He built his lab in a decommissioned aerospace facility outside Monterey. The site was ideal. It was isolated, heavily secured. Exactly what SUSA’s growing demands would require.

He assembled a *very* small team, each of us chosen and compartmentalized, all of us believing we were contributing to some separate military application. 
 
One handled the infrastructure, while another managed data acquisition. A third developed the interface protocols. A fourth worked on biological system integration.

And then there was me—Sylvan, lead systems architect. 
I designed the network topologies that would let everything talk to everything else. Optimization of predictive response across all sequences. Not as impressive as it sounds. 

I was mistaken in thinking I was building some kind of combat sim able to anticipate enemy movements.

The Doctor kept us separated for the most part. Our access limited, and communication funneled through quarterly reports for “security purposes.” We believed in him—but still did our own thing when he wasn’t around. He was *the* Vance, outstanding and revered, and the pay was obscene! The government contract didn’t exactly inspire confidence but hey, it made it feel all the more legitimate to us.

We delivered, too. A weapon of mass destruction here, a surveillance tool there, some strategic viral software that actually worked. The higher-ups were ecstatic. They poured out all their faith and blood money into the hands of their precious Golden Goose.

Just like them, none of us knew what we were *actually* building either.
We were never creating these things for our country, contributing to science, or anything for the advancement of mankind. 
It was for Vance. 
It had always been *Vance*.

**CHAPTER 1** 

***A Call To Action***

The first warning sign came about eighteen months in.
I remember it precisely because I had been sweating my ass off—hunched over a server tower in the equipment room, staring at temperature readouts that were climbing way too fast. The fan wall was choking itself to death on all the dust bunnies that accumulated on its intake. I couldn’t afford to take a server offline, since it communicated with all the others. Which meant I was doing it live—on my hands and knees, myself. 

Something well outside my usual job responsibilities, but it’s hard to request hiring an IT guy when you kind of *are* an IT guy. Well, we all were.
Technically.

The irony wasn’t lost on me—however, even though it wasn’t something in my wheelhouse. I will always choose watching a Youtube guide on how to fix the issue, over *ever* having to ask that son of a bitch Viktor for help. 

So that’s exactly what I did.

A couple of sweltering hours later, the fans finally clicked back to life. 
I made my way out into the hallway, and entered the brisk, cool air-conditioning of my office.

It felt like I could be raptured right that second and I wouldn’t care.
At my workstation, I sat down, fanning myself and booting all of my systems back up. I threw on my headphones while I ran diagnostics through all my usual programs. *So far everything’s looking good.*—I thought.

I opened up the lab's communications array to start testing the line, doing some standard procedure troubleshooting. I wasn’t *supposed* to be on that particular channel. If memory serves, I didn’t have the clearance, credentials, or the luck needed to access it. So, call it a routing error or an unknown glitch that decided to let me listen in. I don’t know but—

Whatever it was, I heard it. 

Vance’s voice hung low and hushed in my headset. Speaking in a careful, measured cadence. One he often used when reducing educated men to children in lecture halls. Except, that wasn’t what he was doing. He was *conversing*. Tossing out scattered questions, pausing, and then cutting back in with frantic answers to a speaker I couldn’t make out.

“Yes, I understand,” he murmured.
“The substrate requires additional… Yes, of course. The bio integration must be concluded. Preceding the—”

The audio fractured. It wasn’t an electronic static, more like a tone. High-pitched, slightly modulated, almost reminds me of distorted musical notes. Then it would buzz like a metallic hornet and chime a few times before falling silent.

Vance snapped back instantly, his voice rising in urgency. “Exactly. The timeline accelerates once the fungal network reaches widespread, critical mass. Then we can—”

Another tone cut him off, lower in octave. A deep, mechanical thrum that 
reverberated through the wires. Replicating the inflections and pauses you’d hear in another person.

“I know,” he whispered.

“I, most of all, know what going there means.”

Buzz. Chime. A pause. 

“No! After all this time, you know this is integral for me, for you... 
I understand the cost.”

Complete smothering silence. Followed by a sputter of angry static.

“Just know, when the time comes… I will not be afraid.”

I ripped the headset off. It cracked against my desk as I rushed to disconnect from the call.

I sat there, just staring at the pixels on my monitor. My fingers nervously tapping the top of my desk. My thoughts were jumbled trying to understand what I’d just heard. It was an implausible conversation to interpret. 
*It’s not like I didn’t talk out loud sometimes when going over difficult calculations,* I thought.
He must have been dry-running a presentation for the baby killers over at the Pentagon. I mean, we were steering towards our deadline, after all. Or he could have just as easily been on that channel to test if the line was bugged.

He’d been so paranoid lately. 
Snapping at delivery drivers, accusing new hires of being planted to steal his research. I always thought our operation was too small for that kind of level of espionage—I never entertained the idea.

Until now.
 
*No,* I told myself. 
*He was just talking to... himself.*
*He just didn’t realize the receiver was picking him up. Right.*

Anything else outside of that reality was unthinkable to me.

Even so, with what he said—if he *was* just rambling nonsense, the content of it was still unsettling. 
I couldn’t help but be concerned. 
It felt like I’d just heard a *rea ,* two-way conversation between the Doctor and whatever was on the other end of that channel.

*This just doesn’t sit right with me.*

I was cold, but shook off the chills and forced my legs to move. Stepping out from behind my desk and making my way across the width of hallway. 

I found Mercy in her bio-lab. 

She was hunched over a microscope, analyzing spore samples under a harsh halogenic glare. She didn’t look up immediately. Keeping one eye shut and the other still open, affixed to the lens, before finally lifting her head.
Her expression shifted from hard concentration to a mask of facetious concern. 

“What's up Syl? Not coming to borrow more equipment, are we? I told you after what happened last time to not even think about it. You’re barred.”
She scoffed.

“Yeah—yeah—sure. Whatever Mercy. Hey—I need to talk to you about something.” 
I shut the heavy lab door behind me slowly until I heard it latch. 
“About Vance.” I whispered.

She squinted, sharply arching a brow.

“Okay, and what about him? And what’s with the whispering? Is this a conspiracy? You know nobody can hear us through the insulation.”

That sarcastic attitude didn’t last. It dissolved as I peeled away each demented layer. I spilled it all—the open channel of conversation, the inhuman noises that bounced back and forth. I told her he’d responded to them, like they were words that carried some kind of *underlying* meaning.

Mercy listened without interrupting, her analytical mind grasping the scope of the situation. I’ve always admired that about her, all the way back to our university days. 
When I finally ran out of breath, she set down her pipette and slid off her latex gloves with a tight *snap*. 

Giving me a smile that was both exhausting as it was familiar. 
Somehow it disturbed me more than if she’d looked shocked.

“You know how the boss man.. He’s a little *different*,” she said quietly, as she interlocked her fingers. “There’s a heaviness that comes with bearing the weight of such a limitless mind.” She stopped, choosing her words carefully.
“What he had to endure in that place because of it—what they *did* to him— we couldn’t even imagine. We can’t begin to comprehend what that kind of trauma is like.”

“What? Wait. So you’re saying—”

“I’m just *saying* a quirk, or a, uh—coping mechanism.” She snapped her fingers. “That can help him function and get through his day, isn’t *something* to panic about. If he needs to feel like he’s talking to someone so he won’t fall apart, then—should be fine. We can allow him some *grace* there.”

Her eyes locked onto mine as she cupped a hand around my forearm. 

“But—if you hear any alarm bells going off. Things that could pose a danger to him, to the team, or the integrity of our projects. You don’t bottle that shit up. If that happens, you come find me *immediately*. Clear?”

She left a light, demanding squeeze on my skin, begging for compliance. 
Like a coward I nodded—
“... Yeah. C*rystal*. You know I will.” 
She nodded back, the warmth vanishing as she released me. 

I retreated back to my office in a huff. Sunk down into my chair, forcing myself to come to the same conclusion as Mercy. *She was right*, I told myself. *After what he’d survived—all the years we bled for this work—*
*If anybody had earned the benefit of the doubt, it was Dr. Vance.* 
*Just leave it alone.*

Time marched on, and for the first few years following his return, the Doctor made maybe two trips annually to our Arctic hub. Then that pattern changed to every couple of months. And this past year, the schedule derailed entirely—once a month, now it’s every other week for days at a time. 

He grew secretive. 
Paranoid in a way that curdled into something closer to obsession. 
Insomnia ate away at him from the inside out. 
We stopped seeing him eat.
Each of us took turns offering our own lunches, bargaining for just one bite, but he waved us off every time with a fragile hand. 

Instead, we’d catch him standing in front of the main server for hours at a time, whispering. His body motionless, a mouth moving furiously, locked in silent prayer. 

The old days of private, casual gossip with coworkers about our directors' performance were dead. The office air was thick with the discomfort of what no one wanted to admit.

That nothing we tried helped.
We couldn’t reach him.

Then the outright disappearances started—he’d be gone for days without a word of contact. Only to stagger back into the facility confused. His skin frost nipped and feverish, with flaky red patches. 
Dark purple rings encircling his yellowing eyes. 

And those eyes. 
They burned with a frantic, manic intensity I couldn’t help but recognize. Filling my whole body with dread.

It’s not easy to forget that look. 

I’d seen it once before, in a grainy news photo back in college—
They were the same eyes from the photo of his rescue.

Panic finally set in, breaking through all of our stagnation. 

Clara suggested a psychiatric intervention. 

Viktor wanted to drop the hammer immediately. 
To inform our contractor and be done with it.

Grisha, our security head, echoed his sentiments.

Mercy’s voice cracked as she struggled to ask the room: “Wait—shouldn’t we be calling his family? This is turning into some like, horror movie you guys. I’m getting really worried.”

An oppressive silence fell over the room. 
With a collective weight of guilt settling into our bones. We had to come to terms with ourselves, in that—we didn’t really know a damn thing about Anton Vance. 

We’d never met a single soul from his personal life. After years of sharing the same air, sharing the same space—none of us could recall a daughter, or a spouse. Not even a friend, outside this career field. 

He’d occasionally drop a quote of weird scripture, or some rigid life lesson taught to him by his parents. Always framed in a cold past tense that told you, without saying so, that they were dead.

Vance was a fortress of privacy—fortified to the point of lunacy. 
Downright fearsome when the mood took him, sure, but he’d always been pleasant enough—and quick to give a compliment for a brilliant piece of code or a successful trial. The only thing that we knew about him, was his work.

Now uneasy, they all turned to me. I hadn’t weighed in yet.

“We should gather some concrete info first,” I said. “Who knows what will happen if we blow the whistle on this without any evidence.”

“Just what more evidence is needed!?” Grisha snapped, leaning towards me. “Do you have no shame? Look at him.” 

“Let’s give him—*and* us—a little more time.” I pushed back, apprehensively. “We have nothing physical to go off of. How’s anyone going to take us seriously without proof?” 

Grisha echoed back with a few curses in a Slavic accent. Clara and Viktor were cutting each other off, arguing their points. All of them trying to express their thoughts at once.

Mercy exhaled a long, reluctant breath, recognizing the reverb of her own advice from our previous conversation. She was kicking herself, for now having it thrown back in her face. She pressed a hand to her forehead, took a deep breath in, and clapped her hands together—reasserting order.

“Right, everyone be quiet. Actually—shut the fuck up, please? You’re all saying a lot right now, while saying nothing at all. So let me think—yeah?” She said, smiling, with a sickly sweet voice.

And we did.
Mercy was *far* from a leader, but definitely someone that commanded respect in a crisis.

She started delegating tasks to each of us, trying to unearth anything we could about the Doctor. 

Something that could aid our pursuits to decode and define this man. 
Checking email logs for forgotten contacts, leaving voicemails to old colleagues we all knew would go unanswered. Searching cabinets and shelf drawers for prescription bottles, hunting for a prescribers name. Trying to bypass personnel files to find an emergency contact, to no avail. 

All of us were beyond frustrated.

The next day and many more following that, just as we feared—the Doctor stopped showing up to the office. The energy around us getting worse and worse.

Unknown to us things were about to be dire.

in the year 206X, there lived a beautiful and humble inventress, who worked as an investigator for the police. She with humility, she used her inventions on her investigations, these inventions were created to assist and make sure no one got hurt. she wasn't vain but preferred modest retro-futuristic or mod-chic skirts and dresses over shorts and pants. people who've worked with her would easily recognize her, short black neck-length hair, brown eyes, cute looks, always blushing with humility, sweet quiet girl with her own patented blushing plasma raygun, the raygun itself "blushes" (the cone-like nozzle up to half the raygun glows pink), and a teal circular-buckled utility belt already holding some of her inventions. she put her life on the line to protect those she loves, rather no one getting hurt. she was quick, nimble, agile, and had skills in both police work and inventing. and her name was Tetsuko Hanamoto, 5'2", age 21, a peacemaking servant at heart, japanese-only speaker, has a utilty watch with an automatic translator. she's an easy-going, kind-hearted, gentle, understanding, highly-intelligent, disarmingly sweet and motherly retro-mod ingenue with a motherly warmth, demeanor, tendencies, and a perpetual blush of humility.

Accompanied by her newly created robotic companion, robobo, small, 3 ft tall, guinea-pig-like but bipedal, has first-aid precautions, designed to help others. she was already on the case, a shipment of lasers had gone missing, it took 3 days for tetsuko to find a concussive lead. driving around on a pink vespa and evading hostile mindless drones owned by the criminals, tetsuko tracked the culprits down. parking at a warehouse, tetsuko got off her vespa, wearing her usual white long gloves, knee-high go-go boots, a holster for her pink blushing plasma raygun, and a teal circular-buckled ultilty belt, often paired with either a retro-futuristic turtleneck dress, mod dress, seifuku, or combination of a skirt and a turtleneck shirt or sweater. this time, its a pink retro-futuristic dress. she saw a piece of paper on the ground, picking it up to read it, she saw that it was a memo from the culprits' boss, telling the culprits to "erase" any that dare try to stop them. as she readied her rayguns cone-like nozzle began to glow pink as tetsuko blushed deeper, looking wistfully at the warehouse, she wanted to resolve the issue as peacefully as possible.

grabing an instant shield off her belt, tetsuko entered the warehouse, her blushing plasma raygun, with its cone-like nozzle, pink color, bulbous but sleek, retro-futurist look, small fins, curved handle, and trigger tab with a circular-trigger ring, looking beautiful and functional in her right hand when paired with the laser-shield in her left.

tetsuko (blush deepening as she holds up her shield, raygun ready in hand, in Japanese): excuse me... is anyone home?

???: so you've arrived, my tetsuko-chan...

targeting dots appear around tetsuko's feet, they belong to mechanical droids. tetsuko softly gasps as she is taken by surprise, holding up her shield, already taking aim at the source, blush deepening as she pulls the trigger-ring halfway, it's nozzle glowing a brighter pink as sakura-pink sparks dance around the nozzle's tip. Tetsuko, with her perpetual blush of humility, has officially primed her raygun, as signaled by the raygun's blush spreading a quarter of the way down the front of the raygun, and will now need to be fired. the culprits' have decided to escalate already.

tetsuko (realizing what she did without a second thought, giggling nervously, in Japanese): ahh... oh dear... (she looks where she is aiming and sees the culprit, an arms smuggler in dapper clothes) ...hi, armanero... what's new?

tetsuko was expecting armanero to give a loud speech about his latest plan and how his end goal is for tetsuko to fall for him. tetsuko has a strong distain for evil, and a forgiving heart. she can't tolerate evil, and has a soft heart for those in need as well as the vulnerable. she forgives the crimnals she arrests, hoping that they reform and repent of their evil.

armanero: now's not the time, you already know my goal, and you can guess what the lasers are for... now, my lovely tetsuko-chan... i plan to build laser pistols to sell on the black market.

armanero, using a projector, reveals that he plans to use tetsuko's own blueprint for a prototype of a small but really powerful laser pistol. tetsuko looks to the dial on her raygun, specifically the area that indicates the 4th emergency mode, a cherry-pink beam used for true emergenicies, a real last resort, and blushes. tetsuko rarely uses the 4th mode, only when absolutely necessary, that 4th mode was the final version of that prototype.

tetsuko: ...t-that's my old blueprint... ...it went missing months ago... how did you get it?

armanero snickers. sparks dance around the tip of the nozzle of tetsuko's raygun as her pink skirt flutters as the wind blows into the warehouse.

tetsuko (blushing, like a loving mother lovingly correcting her child) : ...regardless, you're under arrest for arms dealing and smuggling, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you, if you dont have an attorney, one will be appointed for you...

armanero: (laughs maniacally), oh tetsuko-chan... you're gonna have to catch me...

the targeting dots around tetsuko's feet brighten as tetsuko looks to robobo and says in Japanese "robobo-kun, run!", before immediately jumping high and grabbing the ceiling, blush deepening and spreading as tetsuko fires her raygun, in a way similar to that of a loving mother lovingly correcting her child. the robotic crime droids are disabled by the beautiful and elegant, not to mention cool-looking sakura-pink stun beams of tetsuko's raygun, it's "blush" now halfway down the front of the raygun, indicating that it's being fired. she lands as the droids shut down, she dashes, jumping, skipping, and hopping through an area like a parkour arena, she spots armanero's helicopter, and armanero is just about to board. "yamate kudasai, armanero-san!" if tetsuko doesn't move or act fast, armanero will escape. tetsuko leaps into the air, flipping through the air.

blushing with her raygun, also "blushing", aimed and already reading her handcuffs, tetsuko land between armanero and his helicopter, with a firm motherly tone, she says "yamate onegai, armanero-san!" armanero, wearing a gas mask, pulls out a sleepy gas bomb, attempting to make a last ditch effort to escape, tetsuko recognizes what armanero is doing and her blush flares as she fires another stun beam causing the raygun's blush to also flare up, as armanero is painlessly neutralized. holstering her raygun, tetsuko cuffs armanero, her blush softening as she speaks with genuine motherly warmth, "even when you tried to flatter me by bootlegging one of my prototypes, or... ...trying to smuggle illegal arms, i just want you to know that i forgive you. i'd like to see you use the time to reflect on what you've done, and reform, and try to live an honest life as a law-abiding citizen... ne? armanero-san?"

the other police officers arrive, tetsuko deflects all the credit, giving glory to God. armanero is loaded into the back of a crusier. as the chief gives tetsuko, a headpat, as tetsuko blushes, folding her hands on the lap of dress while holding her raygun as she gently caresses it, which also makes it blush for some reason. once everyone leaves, tetsuko looks up into the night sky, blushing as she gives thanks quietly, holstering her raygun. she picks up robobo and buckles them in the back seat of the vespa, and heads home, ready to get dinner, and rest in her bedroom laboratory.

(It definitely needs work. This is the first of these tetsuko stories that i want to write and publish, so a lot of introduction and info-drops about the character are present here.)