I woke up with a gloomy mood, that I have come to have a lot lately; murmured the usual hello to Otty, and shuffled my feet to the bath, where I used my refurbished version of a demon-tech waste recycler, then took my self-made teeth cleaner, sticking it between my teeth and shuffling back to the room with sleepy eyes, to get dressed for another depressing day in this dark abyss. I looked like a grumpy old man, but to tell you the truth, I felt like one too.
Surely you know some of those bad awakeners that don't care if the world is burning around them for a few hours after waking up, but I am usually not like that. It was actually a secret mark of pride of mine that I was among that rare breed of people who rise full of energy and ready for a nice morning jog as soon as we are out of bed. In the past few weeks, however, it gradually became harder and harder to force myself to get up.
In this era, everyone is aware of the downfalls of living in space and how to counter the bad influences. With billions of people across the galaxy living on space stations from birth, such knowledge became common sense. However, when I took my spaceship maintenance specialist course, I was made to study the topic in depth.
One of the articles that I read on the course explained how important light is for humans.
Well... basically it described all the races that evolved for thousands of years with the sun constantly present in their daily lives and the sufferings their bodies undergo when that said sun has been taken away from the consistency of their lives.
Of course, the side effects of sun deprivation differ for each race. Some races cope with a lack of sunlight more easily; others find it more difficult. There are even those who don't need light at all and don't really care, so they would laugh at humans who have one of the worst side effects of light deprivation, but they have lots of their own problems, such as the metal surface of the ship that makes their tactile-sensitive feet suffer, so they need to use foot massagers twice a day to avoid sensory atrophy. Having a vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight, in my opinion, was not as bad.
Back then I kept to the opinion that, as I was not training to be a medic, all that knowledge about other races was useless. So, I mostly concentrated on humans as it directly concerned me. The rest of it I just saved into my ghost assistant's library as unnecessary, and to tell you the truth, I was right about it, because for my entire life I have never needed to refer to that saved data even once. But human side effects, I remember quite well, without needing to check my saved articles.
Basically, it states that closed-off rooms with no light, such as underground shelters or spaceships, may cause depression, gloominess, sleepiness, snappishness, and short-temperedness, followed by difficulty rising in the morning. Basically all of what I felt in the last few weeks. So it was no secret to me what was happening to me.
You might think that realization of the root cause of the problem might somehow alleviate the side effects, but to tell you the truth, realization that I am stuck in a situation where I am both underground and on a space station at the same time makes me actually twice as gloomy and depressed instead.
Yeah, the reason for this sour mood is constantly staying in a dark, confined space. Even though I am aware of what is going on, there isn't much I can do.
To counter it, I need daily doses of good ol' sunlight, and on spaceships and space stations there are usually many solutions for this problem; from special lighting in the halls that look like a clear blue sky above your head, to special holographic chambers where you can imbue yourself not only in light but also in beautiful scenery and audio accompaniment, making you fully feel like being on the planet.
No sense in pointing out that such chambers are mostly for elites, and commoners like me would have no access to them, but as a maintenance guy, I've actually had the luxury of sitting in quite a few of them. After all, it was, you know… "important part of the test process" following some adjustments or a scheduled check-up. Spaceship's top-brass, of course, knew that we maintenance staff were just using it as an excuse to use the chamber for a bit, but as long as we were not too impudent, and management was not too stupid, we were allowed this privilege.
Well, when management was too dumb, or some young upstart among officers with no experience would start complaining or outright ban us from that privilege, they suddenly found that this chamber would shut down on strange breakdowns very often, so they learned the lesson quite quickly.
Anyway, I literally have no power to implement any of the listed methods. The electric power I can produce with the amount of 4GM particles at my disposal would not allow me to power the holochamber even if I built it. Even lighting the rooms I use as living space is too much of a waste for me at the moment.
The most light I ever see is when I do some work with my hands; the rest of the time I just rely on gloomy green light coming off my horns and suit, torchlight, and glowing walls reacting to the maintenance unit, but they also cannot just glow all the time and need rest time, just like my own 4GM particles. But, as you understand, this lighting is far from what our human bodies need for healthy functioning.
I could have made a small room full of bright lights for sunbathing, but what a waste of time that would be, to spend hours in it every day. Although I am more and more inclined to equip such a room lately, to use it at least once a week, even though it would waste battery charge needed for the forger workbench.
As I dressed, I picked up Otty and we went to the dining room. While our breakfast was printing, I took several pills, threw them in my mouth, and washed them down with water.
Special nutrient additives are a partial solution when you don't get enough sunlight. But as you can see from my example, it's not a panacea. It has been long proven that ingestible nutrients cannot fully replace what your body would have generated on its own under ideal conditions.
The injectable nutrients, though, are another story. However, filling your blood with injections without monitoring bodily functions may cause more harm than good. That's why it is done only when you have special medical equipment, like a body scanner, or a life support capsule. Which I don't. And don't even know how to build.
You might think, why don't I have any schematics when I've repaired dozens of them in my service job, but do you think people are so stupid? Of course you'll be checked on possession of any secret data when you leave the ship or station. Such schematics cost money and are given for the job, but no one would want their secrets to be freely traded, so there are measures companies can take to prevent piracy of their technology.
Even if you are lucky and manage to bring them off the ship without being caught, you would be easily found once you sell them, as each of them is marked with a secret code that will point out the culprit. And believe me, the consequences would cost you your life. When you steal from a big tech company, you steal from the powerhouses that back it, and you don't want any of them as your enemy. I never understood the idiots who actually risked it and shook my head in bewilderment every time I heard of someone getting caught trying to smuggle any technology away, just to lose their life for the meager amount of money they would have gained from it. How stupid.
Of course, I could legally buy the scheme for my personal use, but the price is beyond what I would be able to come up with anytime soon. Besides, the scheme isn't the only expense in such a machine. The software and all the chemical formulas would cost me just as much.
Then again, even if I had the gall to ask my bro Keith to buy it for me, I would not be able to charge it to use it daily or even weekly. So what would be the point?
However, Keith sent me some recipes for ingestible nutrients that he bought for me without my even asking. I presume he might have sensed my snappiness lately and also realized I was down on Cry.
No, I still did not tell him the reason I was in such a dire state, but I think he realized it to some extent. All he asked me when he understood that I was in serious trouble was where I was, so that he could come and pick me up, but I once again evaded answering, only saying what I had already told him before.
Accident happened, and I don't know where I am, so I am stuck in the arse of the galaxy, inside an ancient maze with no idea how to get out, is basically the cover story I came up with.
I don't think he believed it, after all he knew I was working on the Arena and I never mentioned that I intended to move until I got into this sticky situation, so he might have his suspicions, but he let it go and did not mention any of his guesses. I believe he trusts me that if I could get out or if he could actually help, I would ask; and if I did not wish to answer where I was, there should be a good reason for it. I did not like lying to him, and he did not want to force me, so he just helped me however he could without many questions.
Otty's thought of "Come on!" or "It's ready!" invaded my mind, waking me up. Seems like I dozed off while waiting for our breakfast.
We experimented a lot with Otty's telepathic ability in the last month, and learned to communicate quite well. In the scope, he was capable, at least.
He seems to be an entirely sentient being, no dumber than any race in galactic society, if only with some peculiarities. His idea of healthy dialogue, for example, is to simply convey such ideas as "it's much", "it's color", "it's warm" or "it's liquid", which from my point of view are a total waste of Cry. But it may be just the difference in our worldview on things, and I am the one who seems strange to him, trying to convey lots of other stuff that he does not care about.
On the other hand, his weird speaking may be a direct consequence of suffering in solitude for who knows how long, or a consequence of great mass loss.
After all, his whole body is just a gel-like substance that serves as both brain and body. Looking as he greatly gained in size in the last month, now having a size of four fists, I can assume that the small body with which I found him may have been caused by the evaporation of his mass from a long period of starvation. Which means that in the past he might have really needed such a huge cell to be hosted. But it also makes me believe that he may gain more rational thought in the future as his body/brain keeps growing back now.
At first I was worried by the fact that Otty weakened from this skill's use, but he himself did not seem to mind and chatted away with delight.
He really did turn out to be quite a chatterbox, and would send me all kinds of his thoughts. Mostly about food. With his bigger size, he can now gobble his food faster, but still too long for any human standard.
As I bit into my taco, I finally noticed an unread message notification in the corner of my view. Surprisingly, it was not from Keith, but from an unknown person not listed in my contacts. I opened the message and read through it with confusion. It took me a few moments to understand what the topic was about, before I remembered the thread I had left on the Arena's forum.
"Look, someone actually answered me." I muttered with a small smirk. Otty just ate his portion without a bother. He learned to understand when I wanted to speak to him and when I just muttered randomly, as I would concentrate my thoughts to let him read them easily if I was really talking to him.
It seemed hard at the beginning, but I found myself doing it almost unconsciously after a month of our cohabitation and having only each other as conversation partners. I actually started to find my voice sounding strange to my own ears, as I have barely used my mouth for anything other than consuming food these days.
Conversing in our thoughts seemed a lot easier, and with it, keeping my thoughts inside without voicing them started to feel more comfortable than muttering to myself, because inside my head is where they could actually be heard by someone other than me. In my head, I was not alone within this abyss.
The gist of the stranger's message was that this guy had seen my post and replied to me quite some time ago, but I did not answer for a long time, so he tried to reach out to me on a private channel but could not get hold of me either. Well, that was understandable as I was out of the retransmitter's reach. That's why he decided to send me this delayed message, which used a different type of communication principle and basically could reach anywhere in the galaxy.
The problem with such delayed messages was that they may contain some files that your ghost assistant may need to pre-download as they were already sent to you by the person, which may serve as a means to send some malicious stuff that in the worst case may even corrupt your ghost assistant or fry your horns control.
That's why it was generally accepted to block by default any files you did not agree to be sent beforehand, especially from someone you don't know. It was considered rude to send you something without previous notice; so people had no right to take offense if they were blocked entirely afterwards.
This person, though, seemed courteous and did not try to send anything other than text, asking me only to check the thread and reply when I could.
When someone leaves you a message on the forum, it would be checked by the powerful software of the Intranet security that would isolate anything it deemed harmful, so having this kind of proxy in the conversation with a stranger was a lot safer. But not one hundred percent safe.
Yes, Arena's forum is deemed to be among the safest in the galaxy. But still some people would resend the files from one intranet to multiple others just to double- or triple-check their safety with other defense software because the security software of each intranet relies on different algorithms, and it may be possible to make a malware that could pass through one, but extremely hard to make it pass several checkups.
But for people like me, this method would be a luxury, so I would have to preview what kind of answer he left on the forum and see whether this fellow had any ill intent before I decided to download any files if he left something in his reply.
Which is why the name he introduced himself by made me extremely wary. To be more precise, his last name. I did not know every powerhouse in the galaxy. There were just too many to remember all of them by name, but I do know quite a few powerful family names, and the Shalsheed family is among them.
Had this guy given off some sleazy sense, I'd think this was a scam and that he used this fake name to seem more legit, hoping I was an idiot, but…
Daneed Ashad Shalsheed, the name this guy introduced himself with, sounded very familiar. I ran it with my AI assistant and indeed found it among the information I had in storage.
This exact name was mentioned in quite a few exploration and archaeology articles I've read in the past, and it was not just some random guy.
Daneed Ashad Shalsheed, at least the real one, was an elder of one of the most prestigious sects in the galaxy and a true powerhouse at the very top of Arena's rankings. A true immortal, who had enough 4GM to stop his aging. Elite among elites. He'd be what people would call a Lord, second only to a King in old times. Even people like my bro Keith, coming from a well-off family, would have to kowtow before this elder whenever he passed by.
As for me, I would normally not be worth being spat upon when such a person walks by. Just being in the same room may be offensive to people of his status, which would result in my death.
That's how wide the difference in our status was. I was too insignificant for people like him.
Obviously, people of this caliber did not give out their private contacts easily, yet this person deemed my thread important enough to actually contact me on a private channel.
So now I faced quite an ugly situation that already started making me feel more depressed than I already was.
If this guy was the real deal, it would mean that I have attracted the attention of someone extremely dangerous and would have to be very cautious in dealing with. And ignoring such a person's message could be deemed very uncourteous.
Yes, even when I am inside an impenetrable fortress that no one can get into. People like that can actually kill you from across the galaxy.
Did I mention 4GM particles can reach you anywhere? That's right, this is useful not only for delivering messages, but for frying someone's brain as well. It would just waste a lot more 4GM than saying "Hi" across the galaxy, but nothing overly difficult for someone with that man's power.
On the other hand, if someone dared to use his name as a fake name for scamming people, it is either a very self-confident and very professional scammer or a lunatic with no fear at all. It need not be mentioned that trying to use some powerhouse's name in a scam would turn you into an enemy, and a target of quite a few guilds that deal solely in assassinations if that powerhouse would somehow to find out about it.
"Fuck, just what I needed to raise my mood in the morning." I said, with a sigh full of indignation that made Otty turn one of his antennas toward me, as he sensed my quickly souring mood.