Foundation of All

Sean looked up from the bloody upper half of his severed torso that had been left embedded in the rocks to the side. He wanted to look away, but his eyes kept getting drawn to it. He had regenerated from that? He had always thought about immortals as… untouchable. Forces of nature bringing terror to the worlds they visited. Plaguebringers bring pestilence and disease with every touch. And now he was one? He… he just had to wait and the woman would come back and explain everything. She would make it all make sense. Now that the swarm was gone the panic in his chest was rapidly fading away, slowly dying down as no more beetles reappeared from the empty woods around him.

Apparently he wasn’t a Plaguebringer according to the woman, which was a relief. It was only after the woman left that everything she had said began to sink in. There was some kind of immortal government that was in charge and he wasn’t supposed to be this far out of the Human Galaxy. Would they arrest him for being here?

Sean saw the woman guiding her speeder through the trees at a measured pace. She silently pulled it up and parked the vehicle right in front of him. She dismounted and stood next to the hoverbike for a second seeming unsure of herself before approaching him again with a firm expression.

“So, uhm. Sorry about before,” she said, her voice wavering a little with tension, “I assumed things were different, and I know this must be very confusing for you right now. I- Just sorry. Want to start again from the beginning?”

She lifted her hand and held it out to him.

“I’m Emily Stenson. It's nice to meet you.”

Sean stared at her outstretched hand in slight confusion. What was this gesture? He stuck his hand out as well and positioned it a handspan away so they weren’t touching. She looked nervous as she stared at him and her body was strung tight with tension. Sean held his hand away from her and her eyes flickered with confusion for a moment before her face flushed with embarrassment again.

“I’m Sean Turretson. Nice to meet you Emily,”

Emily lowered her hand and Sean followed her lead. She stared at her hand that had been held out for a moment before looking back at him.

“Sean. I… I haven’t heard a name like that in a… very long time. Sean.”

“Uhm… Okay,” Sean said, a little weirded out by the intensity in her voice. He quickly tried to change the subject, “So, ah. Immortals. This…” he gestured to the blood everywhere and his corpse embedded in the rock, “Should we leave before more beasts smell the blood?”

Emily shook her head and refocused on Sean seeming to have forgotten he was there for a moment, “Ah, yes. Good idea, I have a shuttle and we’ll be safe in there and I can take you to my ship in orbit,” She said, “Hop on my speeder and I’ll take you there. It's only a few minutes away.”

Sean hesitated as Emily climbed on the speeder before looking around him. There really was a rather large amount of blood here. And he was coated in it as well, even if his new clothes managed to cover most of it.

Before getting on and after a second's hesitation he took off the bloody rags that used to be his former clothes and left them on the ground in a lumpy pile, leaving him only in the silvery bracelet clothing. That done, he quickly walked over and hopped onto the seat behind her. She started driving off and Sean held onto a little handle in front of him embedded in the hoverbike.

After ten or so awkward minutes of silence between them they arrived at a clearing where an egg-like ship sat with four legs holding it in the air dominating the large clearing. It had odd spikes and bumps all over its dull gray surface and stripes of black paint coated its surface at all sorts of strange angles.

Emily and Sean dismounted the bike and after typing a code into a panel on the ship a hanger door opened and a ramp extended out to a garage. Emily came back and started driving the hoverbike up the ramp to park it back in the ship. Sean kept staring at the ship, trying to figure out what the strange patterns and protrusions could possibly be for, his inner mechanic forcing him to try to solve the mystery.

“Camouflage.”

Sean jumped as Emily’s voice sounded from in front of him. He looked at her and saw that she had relaxed fractionally from how tense she had been before. On seeing his look, she chuckled slightly and gestured to the ship.

“The weird shape, the black paint. It scatters the light when it hits the ship and makes it stealthier than something that was smooth. That’s what you were looking at, right?”

“Yeah…” Sean replied, “Thanks, Emily. That makes sense.”

They stared at each other for a moment. “Well, ah. To the ship,” Emily said before she turned and marched into the ship as the silence grew awkward.

Sean followed behind her. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go at the moment and she seemed to be trying to be nice even if she was a little strange…

There were no windows as they left orbit, only the dull roar of the shuttle and Sean being pressed against his seat telling him that they were moving at all. After a while the engines suddenly cut off while Emily pressed various switches and monitored a whole board of dials and displays. Sean opened his mouth to ask a question before closing it again. Emily looked very busy and he didn’t want to distract her and make her mess up whatever she was doing. He knew at least that much from his time repairing the defense turrets around his town.

Eventually there was a heavy clunk and Emily sat back and let out a sigh of relief. Sean felt a little forces pressing on him as the shuttle continued maneuvering a little bit. Seeing that everything looked finished Sean asked the question he had been wondering as he watched Emily operating the shuttle.

“You don’t use an AI pilot?” he asked her.

She looked at him and shook her head, “No, as much as I’d like to let one of them do it, it's a risk. They work perfectly until they screw up, and then they really catastrophically screw up whatever they’re doing when that happens. As an immortal it gets annoying to constantly switch them out and root out the corporate or government spyware built into all of them. It's way easier to just go old school and do the piloting more manually. At least then when you crash you know it was your own fault and not some software bug.”

“Speaking from experience? I mean… I’m still wrapping my head around all of this. You must have done so much. I’ve heard so much about immortals and what they do,” Most bad, " but what does it really mean?”

She looked at him and with a final clunk the ship finished docking and there was a hydraulic hiss somewhere in the ship of a door opening. Emily unstrapped herself and stood while looking a little conflicted, “Come on, the main ship is way more comfortable. But… yeah. Luckily it's only happened two or three times that an AI actually destroyed my ship like that under me. But once it happens you keep thinking about it whenever you fly. Better to retain some control of your flight yourself rather than stressing about it all the time.”

Sean stood and followed after her down the metal hallway to the border between the shuttle and the main ship. They stepped through the hatch and the main ship hallway seemed just as cold as clinical as the shuttle they had just exited.

“I guess I get that,” Sean said, “My parents were the same about maintenance robots. They always said repairing they would work perfectly on the turrets we had until there was a complex problem and then break everything else trying to solve something it didn’t understand.”

Emily gave Sean a surprised glance, “Your parents are mechanics? If you want I can head back down and bring them here, you’re a wanted man down there but I can do whatever you need. Give them enough money for them to be filthy rich, relocate them somewhere else. Bring them up here to the ship. Whatever you want.”

Sean looked at her in surprise. “Really? You would have done that for me so soon after you met me?” he said.

“Yes…” she said, “You… you only have so much time with your mortal family. It's important to cherish them while you still can. Money means nothing to me, but it could be everything to them.”

“That…” Sean felt his eyes water slightly and his voice lowered into a whisper, “I wish I could. I really do. But they’re dead, murdered by Intuli and his father…”

“MURDERED!” Emily shouted, shocked, and stopped walking, “Jesus, I mean. I’m so sorry Sean. Do you need help for your revenge? I can help with that too if you need it.”

“What?” Sean said blinking, “Revenge? But… I… What about that immortal council? Aren’t I some sort of fugitive on the planet or something? I just kind of assumed…”

Emily shook her head and looked emotional, “No. Listen, if you leave you won’t come back here for centuries at the least if the council has their way. Everyone involved would be long dead and then they’ll just… You have to resolve things now before the people who did this to you get away with it. Then we can get you out of here to a calmer sector where you can start adjusting to your new life.”

“Speaking from experience?” Sean asked hesitantly, unsure where her instant support was coming from.

“Yes… I… too many to count. Literally, I’ve forgotten most of them because I waited too long to respond to something.”

“Look…” Sean said, “Thank you, really. For saving me from the swarm and bringing me here. But please be straight with me. Why are you helping me like this? Why do so much? I’m trying to understand, but you seem awfully invested in my problems for someone I met hours ago.”

Emily kept walking and turned right and a heavy metal door slid upward with a hydraulic hiss. Behind it was a well furnished room with a couch and several chairs scattered around. There was a thick red rug on the ground and the walls were plated with some kind of wood. A wave of warm air washed over Sean to contrast with the cool air of the metallic hallway they had been in.

Emily walked inside and sat down in one of the luxurious chairs. Sean followed her lead and sat opposite her, Emily still having not responded to his question. They stared at each other for a moment as various expressions flickered over Emily’s face as she stared at him.

Eventually, she sighed. “Look, I understand how strange this must be for you. Living forever with the consequences of your actions is a new concept for you. You’re new to immortal life and that’s why I want to protect you so much. There’s a lot of bad situations and people out there that spoil what should be the best period of your life, and I don’t want that to happen to anyone else if I can. These first few centuries… Your whole life if you can manage it…”

She trailed off and looked nostalgic, “They should be to improve yourself, adjust to your new life. Pursue your passions in a way you never could as a mortal. Explore the cosmos, build something, write a few hundred novels. Terraform planets, create new life, move stars. All of it is possible with enough resources and the knowledge you can learn when given all the time in the universe to study. Anything you can imagine, you can work toward. That’s what I want for you. For all the new immortals. Just like it was back then…”

“That’s… that’s a lofty vision,” Sean said in shock, imagining it. Moving stars. He had heard the rumors, but most had discounted them in his home. Despite all the miracles of technology, surely that was impossible. I mean it was a star.

“And how old are you?” he asked, “I mean, I thought old man Henzar was old and he was only two hundred and ten. I’m just having trouble imagining living that long I think.”

“Old,” Emily said before smirking, “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a woman her age? But… Alright, fair. I’m over a million years old, I’ll tell you at least that much. Way older than that, but that gives you a sense of scale at least.”

“A million… That’s… that's… a very long time. You look good for your age. And you remember it all?”

“Thanks!” Emily said, seeming to get into a slightly better mood before shrugging and pinching the skin on her arm and pulling it up as if to show him how smooth and unwrinkled it was, “Same looks as I had a million years ago. And as for memory… Well, I forget things obviously. But given a refresher or if it was exciting or impactful then I can recall most of the interesting bits,” She tapped her temple with one finger, “You’d be surprised just how much storage space there is in your brain. The regeneration takes care of Dementia and neuron loss and all of that. So, yeah…”

Sean sat on that information, pondering for a bit, “That’s it?” he eventually asked, “After how long you lived you just want to help me basically because you can?”

“Yep,” she said, “Pretty much. Sorry if that was too much at once. There’s just so much to tell you and I didn’t want to overwhelm you with information. But just ask me and I’ll do the best I can to help. Or I’ll leave you alone too if you want, I don’t want to be too pushy…”

“If you’re so old shouldn’t you be incredibly wise and dignified or something?” Sean asked, a little amused at her nervousness, “Why do you care what I think of you so much?”

She jolted up and laughed a bit, “Ha! I wish. I just don’t get to meet too many new immortals these days and I have… a long history. Let’s just say that a lot of the others don’t like me very much. It is kinda stressful meeting someone totally new, ya know? The youngest immortals I usually talk to are usually at least a couple thousand years old.”

Sean thought of his insular town, knowing almost everyone’s face and name growing up. Everyone always knowing each other's business all the time. They hadn’t hated him and his family, but they certainly weren’t well liked in the community despite how important their work was.

“I guess I kinda do,” he said, “I’m still in shock I think, I’d be way more nervous about this if my thoughts weren't spinning in circles so much right now.”

Emily shot up from her chair, “Ah! Yes, I’ll show you the guest quarters and you can get some sleep. It helps settle your thoughts even if our regeneration takes away any actual need for rest. Feel free to explore after you wake up, the doors already scanned your biometrics when you walked in so they’ll open for you in the common areas automatically.”

Emily helped Sean lead him away and helped him settle and show him how her model of shower worked. The room was truly luxurious, ten times better than Sean’s parents' old apartment. After some fiddling he retracted the silvery clothing back into the bracelet and thoroughly scrubbed himself clean. When he was done and dried off he walked back into the room and collapsed into the bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.