Psychosomatic Output: 300 Units

  Synaptic Rank: unbound

  Jericho rubbed his neck where Arthros hand had just been. His heart was racing from the unexpected encounter and his fingers trembled. Arthros really was insane, if he was that upset. Jericho was a good fighter but he wasn’t some sort of freak.

  He groaned and put his head in his hands. When would the head trauma end? How many more blows to the head could he take before his brain had the consistency of mashed potatoes.

  Graito had moved with a supernatural speed his eyes couldn’t even register, and he was supposed to fight that? What even was that.

  He picked himself up off the floor and noticed for the first time two Hokkonians standing by the door. He jumped with a shout of surprise.

  Have they been there this whole time? His face burned from embarrassment. Had they seen what Arthros did to him?

  The Hokkonians were identical in every way, and significantly shorter than any other Hokkonian he had seen before. Though they still loomed a few feet over his head. Yet what they lacked in height they made up in dense muscle. Arms and legs bulged underneath skin tight uniforms. The broadness of their shoulders would have rivaled the great apes he used to read stories about. Yet despite their impressive build, they were staring at him with a child-like curiosity and nervousness.

  “He’s awake, Scor,” the one on the right said.

  “Obviously Flux, the Commander was just in here dumb ass.” The one on the left said.

  “You’re the dumb ass, dumb ass.”

  “Real original come back.”

  Jericho blinked hard, maybe he was imagining things, Graito really rang his bell.

  “Heard you tried to fight Graito,” Flux said.

  “What a mistake that was!” Scor laughed.

  “I think he knows that dumb ass.”

  They even spoke the same, it was impossible to discern a difference in the sound of their voices.

  “You could always fight us,” Flux grinned.

  Scor gave a solemn nod “not that it would be a fair match.”

  “But it would be a good test for a Pilot, our fights are often unfair,” Flux pointed out.

  Scor broke into a smile, and glanced at his partner. “For our enemies.”

  Flux was a perfect mirror of his companion. “Stay out of my brain.

  They headbutt eachother and broke into a harmony of laughter. The fresh wave of pain was evidence enough that he wasn’t dreaming. Though he would be concerned with himself if he had somehow manifested the image before him.

  He watched as the two ceased their laughter at the same time and turned to look at him, an expectant look on their faces as they spoke in unison. “Well?”

  “Uh, well what?” Jericho said.

  Scor and Flux shared a look, “Do you want to fight us or not?”

  “I, uh, I mean no why would I fight you guys. I don’t even know who you are.”

  Scor tapped the tips of his teeth together, “Arthros didn’t mention us?”

  Flux flicked his teeth with the tip of his tongue, “I’m sure he would have said something about us.”

  “Well we did miss his welcome,” Scor whispered.

  “We were sparring though.”

  “I know that dumb ass-“

  “Arthros did mention something about you guys!” Jericho hurried in, unwilling to sit through another argument between the two. “Scor and Fluxor?”

  “So, you do know who we are,” Scor looked annoyed.

  “I go by Flux, we’re the single-syllable bros.”

  “I told you not to call us that.”

  Flux snorted, “Look dumb-”

  “Where am I?” Jericho interjected.

  He risked a look away from the two aliens. He was in a moderately large room. Probably pretty small for the average Hokkonian body, but it still looked state of the art. The walls were dark grey and bare, with no windows. Besides his hammock, the only other furniture was a desk standing against the far wall.

  “You don’t know you’re in your room?” Flux looked concerned.

  “Do humans often forget what their own room looks like?” Scor hid a grin.

  Jericho closed his eyes and sat back down in his hammock, the relief he felt with his lids closed was instantaneous.

  “Is he sleeping again?”

  “No Flux, you dumbass, he’s ignoring us.”

  A finger touched his forehead and his heart nearly stopped. Weren’t the twins standing by the doorway? His eyes shot open to reveal two cheerful faces peering down at him. Somehow the hokkonians had crossed the room in an instant.

  They’re just as fast as Graito, maybe even faster.

  “I’m – I’m not ignoring you,” Jericho stammered, “My head just feels like its splitting apart, it’s not so bad when I close my eyes.”

  The Hokkonian twins looked at each other and nodded knowingly, they proceeded to give him gentle head pats.

  Jericho tried not to flinch when they touched him. They seemed kind enough, but after Arthros bizarre outburst he couldn’t be too careful around any grey-skinned aliens.

  “I’ve never met a human who wasn’t a slave before,” Flux exited Jericho’s personal space and stood up to his full height. Scor followed suit and soon both of them were stretching their backs as they stood over top of him.

  “And Jericho is more than that, he’s supposed to be a Pilot.” Scor said, playfully nudging his brother.

  They both giggled, but Jericho sensed it wasn’t the same mocking chuckle as the others. They really just seemed to enjoy each other’s company and anything relatively amusing.

  “I will be a Pilot.” Jericho corrected.

  “Oh, I have no doubt about that.” Flux said, his tone shifting to serious. That was a refreshing change of opinion. He had half-expected another punch in the face, or at least a snark about his size or race.

  “If Arthros says you’ll be one then you’ll be one, it’s as simple as that,” Scor confirmed.

  “Wait, really?”

  The Hokkonian brothers shrugged in unison, and flux bent down slightly and pointed at Scor. “Twins are extremely rare.”

  “Birth Defects they say.” Scor muttered.

  Flux snorted, “yet here we are.”

  Scor smiled, “My Synaptic Rank is four”

  “Same with me.” Flux said.

  “But when we fight together, our Synaptic Rank is ten.” Scor puffed out his chest.

  “Is that good? Obviously I know ten is better than four, but is ten considered impressive?” Jericho asked.

  They both gave him an incredulous look, “Rank ten is the best, it doesn’t get better.”

  Jericho frowned, he was almost certain Arthros had made a comment about being ‘unbound.’ If that was Arthros’ Synaptic Rank, it had to be best.

  “What about an unbound rank?”

  They froze and the look on their faces was enough to sink his heart. Did he say the wrong thing?

  “Where did you hear that? Did Arthros tell you?” Scor whispered.

  Jericho sighed and shook his head. He was too tired to make up a lie. “He mentioned it once and I heard him call himself that. I don’t know, maybe I misheard.”

  Instincts warned him against sharing his own Synaptic Rank. If Arthros wanted everyone to know, he would have said something when they landed.

  Flux sighed, “Alright so-”

  “Shut up! You know Arthros doesn’t like talking about it!”

  “Well obviously it’s not a secret anymore, Jericho should know!” Flux snapped.

  Scor growled something unintelligible and folded his arms.

  Flux scratched at the spines on his scalp as he thought about his next choice of words,“We don’t know where the term came from, but we do know that there has only been two Synaptic Rank unbounds, ever.”

  “Officially, there could be others.” Scor cut in.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Flux nodded, “Technically, yes we can’t scan everyone in the universe. Statistically there are more. Regardless, if you’re an unbound, that means your pysmetra is unreadable.”

  Jericho furrowed his brow, “What’s pysmetra?”

  Scor palmed his face in dramatic fashion, “Do you know anything?”

  “It’s becoming increasingly clear that I really don’t.”

  The two brothers started to laugh. It was an infectious sound and Jericho found himself joining in. It felt good, like exercising an unused muscle.

  “Okay, so Pysmetra is the brainpower while Somata is the body power, they’re both put together to calculate your psychosomatic output.” Scor said.

  “That makes sense, Arthros mentioned that output when we first met.” Jericho said.

  “Good, and that's what your Synaptic Rank is based on. The higher the total output, the higher the rank, with ten being the maximum. It’s really not that complicated.” Flux nodded.

  “Then where does ‘unbound’ fall on that scale.”

  The twins glanced at each other, “unbound isn’t a Synaptic Rank.”

  “But-”

  “That’s just what Arthros calls it, what he’s really saying is that he doesn’t have one.” Scor said simply.

  Jericho didn’t know what to say. He was trying to piece the information together but his headache was making that difficult.

  “How?”

  The twins mirrored each other as they shared another look, shrugged, and spoke, “We don’t know.”

  He was about to reply, but his stomach interjected with a rumbling protest. When was the last time he ate something? Kleth’altho? Arthros said he had given him something to fill his belly when he was unconscious, but that wasn’t the same. He wanted to actually chew on something.

  “Hungry?” Flux asked with a grin.

  Jericho nodded, “I’m starving actually.”

  “I’m hungry too,” Scor said eagerly, “Let’s go to the cafeteria.”

  “You’re always hungry!” Flux snorted.

  “As if you’re not.” Scor shot back.

  They begin to wrestle. Jericho watched them go at while he stood up and stretched. His muscles still ached from their abuse, but at least his headache was starting to subside. He was surprised to discover his broken bones no longer hurt, whatever Arthros had given him during the trip really did the trick.

  “Guys, are we going?”

  The twins froze mid headlock. Jericho couldn’t tell them apart, but he guess that it was Scor who was winning.

  “Just waiting for you.” Flux grunted.

  They hurried out of the door. Jericho paused briefly to check his reflection in the mirror by the door. The form fitting blue and gold uniform looked good on him. Short sleeves and durable yet flexible pants. It was nicer than anything he had ever worn before. The sight alone was enough to turn his spirits and ran after the twins with a grin on his face.

  The three of them walked a brisk pace through the halls. The brothers tried their best to to give him a proper tour, but between the arguments, laughter, and spontaneous wrestling Jericho barely understood half of what they tried to tell him.

  What he did put together was that every division had its own dorm. A facility equipped with everything a pilot might need, from recreational activities to state of the art training simulations. Every dorm was connected by the hangars, but apart from that massive port there was no other way to get into another dorm. That was for the best, it kept the aliens safe and allowed them to live and train free of any distractions.

  The twins claimed it got a little suffocating to be kept in the facility all the time, but Jericho had a hard time believing that. The dorm was massive, and comprised of an endless network of brightly lit corridors.

  They eventually reached the cafeteria, not before passing by the arena and the doors to the engineer bay. The cafeteria was quite large and filled to the brim with more tables than necessary. Along the opposite wall was the counter, where steam and smoke drifted lazily towards them bringing an aroma of spiced meat. Jericho’s stomach rumbled again and he could feel his mouth filling with saliva.

  “Ah my favorite place.” One of the twins said.

  “I thought you said it was the arena.” The other said with a nudge.

  “Second favorite then.”

  Jericho pushed past them and walked right up the counter, almost in a trance. The food smelled so good he felt like he could float. Behind the counter was an older male Hokkonian, with a bright smile and a filthy apron that hung down the length of his torso. He wore nothing else on his upper body, but his spines stood erect on every inch of his body.

  So those spines aren’t just on their heads and neck, but everywhere?

  Jericho shuddered at the thought of embracing one, it would be like cuddling a cactus. An image of Randrea floated into his mind, if she kept her spines flattened…

  The shirtless chef turned to look at him and his smile dropped. “What are you doing here? I didn’t request the help.”

  Jericho’s cheeks coloured and the twins hurried to intervene.

  “He’s with us, Scrai,” Flux said quickly, placing a hand on Jericho’s shoulder, “Whatever he wants.”

  The Hokkonian snorted, shook his head, and gestured towards the screens above the counter. The day’s menu was written in strange runes completely different to the Universal’s alphabet that Jericho was used to. He found it strange that the aliens spoke Universal but wrote in a completely different language.

  Flux leaned close, “Best to go along with it, buddy, I have a feeling Arthros isn’t ready to reveal who you are just yet.”

  The aliens hot breath washed over the back of his neck and he itched irritibly. Flux was probably right. Doesn’t mean he had to like it.

  The three of them grabbed their food, Jericho let the twins order for them, and they ate feverishly. The brothers consumed twice as much food as he did, and even started to pick away at the scraps still on his plate. The meal was certainly delicious, but the spices were strange and it made the meat tingle as he chewed.

  “So if Arthros’ doesn’t have a Synaptic Rank that doesn’t mean being unbound is necessarily the best.”

  Scor wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth, “Theoretically you’re right, the ‘unbound’ part refers to his Pysmetra, his is unreadable. Which means he doesn’t have a limiting score to bottleneck his somata score.

  Flux burped, “And if his somata can grow indefinitely along a limitless pysmetra… ”

  Arthros interest in him became clear. If it was true, then that meant he had the potential to surpass all of them. Jericho felt a strange twinge of excitement and apprehension at the epiphany.

  “Then his psychosomatic output could be endless.” Jericho finished.

  “Theortetically!” Scor nodded, “I think his current output sits around 10,000 Bio-units though we’re convinced he’s regulating that score to keep his real strength hidden.”

  “It’s way too clean of a number.” Flux scoffed.

  “Wait how do you guys know his scores.”

  Scor held up a hand, on his forefinger was a metal ring, “With this, I’m sure you’ll get one soon enough. It’s basically a tangible connection to your AI, and we use it to communicate with one another.”

  “Plus there are some fun games on there.” Flux grinned.

  Scor jabbed his brother in the ribs.

  The ring flashed with a green light, same with the ring on Flux’s finger. The twins seemed surprised and they shared a look.

  “Were being summoned to the arena.”

  Jericho eyes widened, “By Arthros? What for.”

  The two shared a sly grin, “hopefully you didn’t eat too much.”

  ***

  They walked briskly down the hall to the arena, and Jericho tried to ignore uncomfortable sloshing of food and drink in his stomach. He silently begged for this not to be a training session, but the way the twins practically skipped to the heavy double doors he didn’t have high hopes.

  The arena was a huge domed-shaped room with bright lights that shone down from the ceiling. The floor was made of a rubbery material, soft enough that it wouldn’t cause any serious injuries but hard enough to gain stable footing.

  The other pilots stood in a line watching them approach. Arthros at the center, hands clasped behind his back. On the mat in front of them was a large painted ring, with a small circle in the center.

  “Hey Commander!” Scor said, emphatically waving his entire arm.

  “We were just showing Jericho around,” Flux said, “We were hungry so we went to the caf.”

  “When are you not,” Randrea smirked.

  Arthros nodded and motioned to the small circle in the middle, “That’s alright, Jericho please stand in here.”

  Jericho did as he was told, nervously dipping his head to the other pilots. He strode to the middle, hyper aware of himself to the point where he was convinced he was walking with the grace of a foal.

  Everyone’s here, watching me. I shouldn’t have eaten so much.

  “Unfortunately you’re training has to start immediately.” His voice was cold, but his eyes were devoid of their anger from earlier, “The other pilots are here to observe your first session, that is a tradition for the eighth division, just ignore them.”

  Jericho nodded but he wasn’t sure it was possible. From Randrea’s playful smirk to the burning hatred in Graito eyes he was anything but focused.

  Just breathe, they’re spectators, nothing more. Preforming in front of crowd isn’t anything new.

  “What exactly will I be doing?”

  Arthros face twitched, “you need to start from the beginning, a physio-neurological test.”

  Hadn’t he already passed the test on the ship? An excited murmur swept through the spectators. Graito’s lips twisted into a sinister smile.

  “To pilot a HWND you must learn to master the neurological requirements along with the physical, and understand how the two coincide. “ He gave Randrea a nod, “You will be piloting the greatest weapon ever created, but if you cannot control it then you are useless.”

  Randrea strode over to Arthros and handed him a fragile looking metal contraption. It was all wires, and twisted into a crude manipulation of a halved sphere.

  Jericho narrowed his eyes, “what is that?”

  The Commander walked over, caressing the contraption in his massive hands. He carefully lifted it and placed it on Jericho’s head. After some manipulation, the wires sat snug around his skull. The thing was weightless, like he was wearing air.

  Arthros ignored his question, “Heavily Weaponized Neural Dragoon. So powerful and mentally demanding that it would be impossible to pilot on your own. My people, being the pompous idiots that they are, decided nothing was unachievable and sentenced countless poor souls to brain liquifying death.”

  Jericho swallowed at the horrifying thought. The other Pilots looked grim.

  “It wasn’t long until the Hokkonian engineers came up with an idea, a means to share the load so to speak. An invisible and weightless co-pilot that could sit inside the HWND along with its pilot.” Arthros dipped his head at Jericho, “You must learn to co-exist within a crowded mind, and still continue to function on a level that far exceeds the normal. That device on your head will simulate a fraction of the pressure that a normal HWND would exert.

  Jericho itched absentmindedly at the device. He had almost forgotten about the AI sleeping in his brain. He gave Arthros a serious nod, “So what do you want me to do.

  Arthros blinked, “I want you to stand up.”

  “I’m already standing-“

  Without warning the device activated and an immediate pressure was felt all around his head. He felt like his eyes and the back of his head were going to simultaneously explode, and within a matter of seconds he lost vision completely. He sagged to his knees and would have screamed but he found he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t do anything except writhe on the floor. His mind blanked and his animalistic instincts took over, he clawed on the floor like a rabid beast and bucked his hips as violently as possible, desperation filling every corner of his mind. Just as he felt himself start to slip into a comforting nothingness the pressure lifted completely.

  As quickly as it came it was gone, and aside from a dull throb in the back of his eyes he was fine. His arms and legs trembled as he pushed himself back up to his feet. The other pilots howled in laughter, some of them doubled over.

  Randrea only stared, an unreadable expression on her face. He gritted his teeth and felt his face redden. At this feet was the wire crown.

  What happened?” He gave himself a careful examination.

  Arthros tilted his head, “Exactly what I cautioned would happen, were you not listening.”

  Jericho fumed, “I listened to every word, but why didn’t you warn me you were turning it on!”

  The Hokkonian’s eyes widened, “Why would I?”

  There was no use arguing, Jericho grunted and scooped up the neural device.

  “You’re frustrated.” Arthros commented.

  Jericho made a line with his lips and shoved the device back on his head, despite the way his stomach flipped as he did so. “I’m frustrated because I lost.”

  “Are you dead?”

  Jericho tongued his split lip and tasted blood, “No.”

  Arthros clacked the tips of his teeth together, “Then you haven't lost.” He motioned at his head, “you were able to remove the device on your own.”

  Jericho brushed his fingers across the delicate wiring, “you didn’t stop it?”

  Arthros shook his head.

  He looked at Arthros with a newfound horror, the Commander was facilitating his training but he was a far cry from a safety net. If that torment had gone on any longer… He shuddered at the thought.

  “Now,” Arthros said, a brief glint of anger in his eyes, “use your brain this time.”

  Fear gripped his heart and he started to panic, “wait what if I can’t-”

  The pressure mounted before he could finish his sentence and it immediately brought him to his knees and then face first onto the training floor. This time the pain didn’t go away and he blacked out entirely.

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