Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

[East of Gehen]

Gehen. A mass of buildings that blanketed the rocky jut cresting the horizon.

To the south lay the shifting sands of the vast Elluhada, and to the north lay mountains of rock. Behind them, to the east, lay Liberation's Reach and the great raised spine that was the Amate Range.

Facing westward as they were, all they could see was the sprawling factory-complexes of Gehen's Eastern District belching exhaust into the Desert air. Unlike Saltilla, Gehen wasn't enclosed. It was a carpet of prefab dwellings that seemed to stretch on forever. They were about 20 kilometers from Gehen (maybe a kilometer downhill), and 3 kilometers from the Elluhada boundary.

Betelgeuse stared out the windshield of the truck, observing Queen She's battered women-soldiers setting up camp. At the edge of the egg-shaped area was a temporary tentage that had been erected on a hill, its insides enclosed by multiple layers of clear plastic and lined with OLED tube-lanterns.

Within that tentage sat Queen She's favorite manservant, the handsome and statuesque Rafayel. He reclined on a canvas chair and oversaw the to-and-fro of the Queen's minions, glancing back more than once at Betelgeuse' truck idling about 200 meters. Rafayel the thong-clad, Rafayel the chad-jawed. The man had a kingly mien that was almost absurdly incongruous with his scanty dress and sweat-sheened torso and legs.

The Queen had charged him with setting up camp, and he oversaw the whole operation from the comfort of his climate-controlled tentage.

'Queen She the Feminist,' Betelgeuse couldn't help snorting. Voke, Edith and Misha were squeezed to his right, arguing amongst themselves over pointless things. Betelgeuse tuned out their inane mumblings and continued his silent observation.

He couldn't help it. He liked it. He liked to observe. The curse of hypervigilance. It made him wonder and wonder often about the craziness and confusion of the world. He liked order, and yet he benefited from chaos. It was how he survived Saltilla. It was how he'd made it this far.

He thought back to the idyllic days before the Analysis. There had been a question that Elder Bennett posed as part of the Edom-Zeta Ethics curriculum, a question that had confused Betelgeuse because at first it seemed to have a simple answer, and then it had many answers, and finally none of its answers seemed to be satisfy Betelgeuse.

Why aren't people who they say they are?

The question, for Betelgeuse, was really: why aren't I who I say I am?

The Elders persuaded the children to create, out of this question, a journey of self-discovery. But for Betelgeuse, the journey turned in on himself, until he realized at last that it was all a lie. There was no self to discover. The 'journey' was nothing more than walking in place.

People weren't who they say they were because the people came before the sayings. The thing that people were, what they were in fact, this thing became before it could be designated—by others, by society, and by the Incunabula.

Recursive thinking was confusing. That was why human beings were so confusing, because they thought recursively.

A commotion was raised in the middle of the worksite. Betelgeuse watched closely. One of the women had collapsed whilst dragging a heavy tent-pole across the ground.

Seeing this, Rafayel took to his feet and brought a receiver to his mouth, his biceps, deltoids and back catching the bright light in all the ways which emphasized their definition.

"You there!" he said. "Don't slack off!"

The speaker carried his voice throughout the work-site. The downtrodden women raised their heads.

In the distance, the fallen woman shuddered, but could not regain her feet. Not surprising. Most of them had made the 40-kilometer journey on foot, leaving about a tenth of them behind to be claimed by the Elluhada. They were all close to death. The woman on the ground almost disappeared into her clothes.

'Disposable women, like the disposable men of Earth,' Betelgeuse thought. Everyone was disposable, after a fashion. Betelgeuse wondered where Queen She got her women. Like the Sand-Marshal, she had a cruel power over them that wasn't merely the function of the compulsion.

"Forewoman Duniper," Rafayel called, turning his head, his ass-cheeks flexing. Betelgeuse felt an almost irrepressible urge to laugh, but he forced it down. A tall woman, one of the Queen's honor-guard, stomped up to the curled form of the collapsed worker.

The Forewoman loathed Rafayel, Betelgeuse could tell. But under the Queen's volatile rule, who could defy her favorite?

"Strip her," Rafayel said. "We don't want to waste oxygen."

Lowering her head with forced deference, Forewoman Duniper bent down and forced the struggling worker onto her back, then ripped off her breathing apparatus, oxygen canister and all. The worker-woman scrabbled at the Forewoman's heels, but failed to find purchase on her heavy steel boots.

Then she was just left there, trying to hold her breath, flailing uselessly and gradually expiring. It took almost 15 minutes before she stopped moving.

Her comrades stepped past her trembling form, some with bemusement, others with quiet sorrow. But none lingered. No one could afford sentimentality.

The body was left where it lay, the others making small circles around it as they went about their tiring physical work. Betelgeuse found himself wondering where Queen She's other manservants were—wouldn't it be more efficient to have them help out with the camp? But then again the Queen was highly protective of her men. Maybe she didn't want them to strain their perfect muscles and risk them getting hurt.

The other women moved slowly and ponderously, fighting against their exhaustion as a pitiless Rafayel watched from above.

'The Fem-D look up to Queen She, Filippov said,' thought Betelgeuse, steepling his fingers before his face and frowning at the strange feeling rising within his gut. Edith was brow-beating Voke over his 'stupidity'—where did all that anger come from?—but all these fervent emotions were passing over Betelgeuse.

He wasn't following the conversation. He was submerged within himself. He could feel Voke, Misha and Edith becoming entangled in some squabble that didn't really matter.

They didn't care about that woman dying silently. They had seen so much death they were desensitized.

But Betelgeuse was different. He felt it. He wasn't yet desensitized. Perhaps the strange Etching he had manifested within the Saltillan Underground was making him feel the weight of others' perspectives. He felt everything, and unlike his companions he couldn't escape into desensitization.

It was a heavy burden to bear.

Memories of murder were manifesting within him as something difficult to describe. Where was the domineering voice? The insidious one? He felt alone.

He remembered murdering the dark-skin girl in Saltilla. He remembered snuffing out Salleh. He remembered everyone he ever killed—Belekov, his wife and all the 'innocents' that must have gone with him.

He wished he could think of killing the Sand-Marshal's minions like putting down cattle. That's why he'd delegated it to Misha and Voke, hoping somewhere deep within himself that Voke's prayers would absolve him of guilt.

With the help of his Incunabulum, Betelgeuse had broken out of the control of human societies, but became enslaved to his conception of self-as-nothing. Now the Overman ruled him, precluded all recourse to the divine, left him without the ability to blame society's morality, leaving him with nothing but stoic endurance. He killed those people, the Overman said. The world was harsh and cruel, and Betelgeuse couldn't even blame it for being so. The Overman had taken away every possible mechanism for shifting blame.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He didn't have the luxury of Voke's God. He couldn't blame the Incunabulum like Edith. He couldn't appeal to kinship like Thete. He couldn't push the responsibility onto a leader like Misha and Douglas. He couldn't even pretend to be desensitized.

Tenzhian knew what it was like. That was why he had harbored so much guilt over the killing of Private Joy, an eon ago now. Betelgeuse remembered the long hours they'd spent in the APC, waiting for death. As he meditated upon it, he realized what it meant to experience guilt.

More than ever, Betelgeuse felt a quiet connection to Tenzhian. Somewhere deep within him, he hoped Tenzhian had survived. He hoped Tenzhian wouldn't blame him for Entuban.

All I can do is bring Entuban back to Tenzhian and pass on the memory. To transcend the limitations of society and break it apart, I must learn the rules. I must learn how much energy inheres in the connection of person to person.

When I break society and turn it to my will, it must be in full understanding of the gravity and pain that it will cause. That's what it means to transcend.

Betelgeuse blinked. The dead woman was still there, surrounded by shallow gouges in the red soil. His mind shuddered to imagine the expiration of another life, but outwardly, he revealed nothing. Queen She's minions turned their eyes from the corpse. They had to survive. They couldn't afford to care for others. In a sick and warped way, they still believed in their Queen. They believed that the violent Queen was the legitimate Queen, even though they hated her. She was all they had, was their thinking

I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't this. Ideology refracts and enhances systems of control. It morphs and enslaves the women to Queen She.

It was the same with the Sand-Marshal. The faith of his minions was so powerful that they'd rather sacrifice their mind than to give in to my command.

The mind is indeed an engine for its own indoctrination. Father, how can the yoke of ideology be more difficult to subvert than the compulsion? Now that I am outside ideology, why don't I feel stronger? Why do I feel alone?

It all goes back to the compulsion. It is the sole aberration in the genetic history of Man. What is its connection to the powers that the Incunabula have cursed us with?

Betelgeuse glanced sideways. The argument was still raging, and its protagonists were Edith and Misha. Voke was sitting between them with his mask off and looking very uncomfortable. He had never been good with conflict.

"… She's absolutely crazy. I'm saying that you fucking can't!" Edith squealed, her anxiety reaching fever-pitch. Her hair was frizzed up and her Bloaming tumor seemed to Betelgeuse to have grown slightly from the pressure of the last three days of travel. Or maybe her cascading emotions were causing a negative feedback loop that was exacerbating her symptoms.

Betelgeuse realized belatedly that the argument was slowly spiralling out of control.

"It's his decision," Misha countered adamantly, glancing surreptitiously at Betelgeuse as if waiting for him to back her up. "He said he'd go with the Queen, which means that he will."

"No!" Edith raged, her thin body wracked with fear and revulsion. "It's a death sentence and you know it! Betelgeuse' place is with us, not some fucking whore! "

"Nothing you or I can say can override his decision," Misha pressed, gritting her teeth, unwilling to back down. "B.T., says he's going, which means he's going. That's that."

"Hey, you need to calm down. We can't be fighting each other," Voke said gently, placing a hand on Edith's shoulder. She whipped around more violently than necessary, shrugging off Voke's palm.

"Fuck off, Voke," Edith returned vehemently, whipping the back of her hand across Voke's cheek. "Miss me with that 'holier-than-thou' bullshit. Shut up and keep quiet."

Voke retreated into himself. He didn't retaliate. He didn't have the capacity to.

Betelgeuse frowned. As usual, he settled into silent observation. The others were ensconced in their own worlds, as if the woman who'd died outside was less than worthless. This was the power of ideology. The nascent ideology that he had established (but not yet named). Ideology blinded his own crew to everything but what they considered good for the crew as a whole. Wasn't that good? Shouldn't he be satisfied?

"Edith, what are you—"

"Oh. I get it," Edith snarled, interrupting Misha, her voice becoming lower and more savage. The timid and frightened Edith had been completely and absolutely supplanted by an all-consuming rage that lashed out without justification.

"You and Voke are together," Edith continued, jabbing her finger accusatorily into Voke's chest even though he had already been bullied into submission."You've created a fucking cult. I've seen what you've been teaching her and the Privates, Voke, you take your God and put him above Betelgeuse and the crew. You're subverting him—you're all traitors, fucking traitors—"

"You're a kakkin' crazy bitch! A god-damned lunatic!" Misha screamed back, slamming the urn she was holding onto the dashboard so that she could make use of her own hands to signal in wild and dexterous ways that Edith was, in fact, a demented bitch.

Edith's emotions began coiling dangerously. She was still afraid. Her deep and fathomless well of fear was feeding even greater heights of rage. Betelgeuse felt that she was on the cusp of manifesting an Etching.

Not good. She's going psycho.

In the circumstances, she was liable to suffer from hyper-Bloam mutation. Her Bloam-caused madness wasn't going to translate well to an Etching. Betelgeuse sensed she might become what Salleh had—something monstrous. And then they'd all be screwed.

"Calling me a bitch now? You're a fucking slut! You've been fucking Voke in secret—I just know it! You and Voke want Betel out of your—"

"Quiet," Betelgeuse said, tamping down Edith's feral emotions with the compulsion and gripping her thin shoulder at the same time. Edith whipped around, and her angry expression quickly fell. A sudden emptiness gripped her heart. The tumor on her neck looked red and swollen.

"Betelgeuse, she's a liability! We need to—"

"I've told you to be quiet. I won't say it again," Betelgeuse returned sharply, cutting Misha off with a firm and authoritative tone. Misha didn't need to be compelled to know that Betelgeuse meant business. Voke glanced appreciatively at Betelgeuse.

The mood teetered for several seconds on the brink of no-return, before receding into calmness. The crisis was averted.

After a minute of silence, Betelgeuse said: "I'm going with Queen She because she's linked to something bigger. We're all caught in a web..."

—A web created from ideology—

"... and its high time I trace it back to its source. And I've told you guys that you have a job to do."

"Yes," Voke nodded sullenly. "We can't fight among ourselves. Trust that B.T. has a plan. As for us, we need to get Thete medical attention urgently. You're not thinking right, Edith, we gotta get you on immunosuppressants ASAP."

At this, Edith's emotions flared, but she kept hold of herself. Betelgeuse was starting to wonder if it would be wise to leave her with Voke and Misha.

"Here's how it's going to work," Betelgeuse said, folding his arms, realizing that he had to make the hierarchy clear in order to insulate the whole structure from infighting. "I'm going to take Filippov with me, and I want Voke and Douglas in charge. Misha, the Queen thinks you're the Colonel, but you are to function under the joint command of Voke and Douglas. Edith, the same goes for you. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Misha bowed her head, and Betelgeuse saw that she accepted his command calmly and absolutely. Edith echoed Misha with a slight reticence. She disliked Misha and Voke, that much was clear to Betelgeuse.

A fair-skinned man appeared from the far end of the work-site. It was Private Altunis, their driver, running towards them. He looked like he had a message.

"Voke, I leave it to you to inform Douglas. I want you both to work together—our lives depend on it. Now quickly, do you remember what you have to do?" Betelgeuse asked, locking gazes with Voke.

"Medical attention and an appropriate graft for Thete, and immunosuppressants for Edith. We need an off-world bank account set up before we can monetize the Incunabula and non-necessities," Voke said, rattling off the relevant points. Edith and Misha listened silently.

Betelgeuse nodded. While Douglas tended to be apathetic, Voke had an eye for detail. But Douglas had the capacity to make hard decisions Voke couldn't contemplate. They complemented each other.

"Queen She wants us to defend the camp-site, but you'll send a separate truck down to Gehen and make sure we do what we need to do, regardless of what's happening here. Misha, remember: you answer to Voke and Douglas—not Rafayel, not the Queen," Betelgeuse said.

"Your wish is my command, sir," Misha returned deferentially. Edith glanced irritably at her, scoffing quietly.

"Here comes Altunis," Betelgeuse said, pulling on his mask and ensuring the rest had done the same before rolling down the side-window.

"Sir!" Altunis said, coming to a halt and hailing Betelgeuse with a salute.

"Stop saluting me," Betelgeuse snapped. "Is it the Queen?"

"Roger," Private Altunis replied, looking apologetic. "She's about ready to move out to Gehen's Eastern District. She wants the truck due to her, and she wants you to commandeer it."

"A supply run?" Betelgeuse asked.

"I don't know about that. But she's saying now she wants five more men, other than you," Private Altunis shrugged.

"We can't let her do this," Misha volunteered from further inside the cabin. "We gotta push back."

'Changing the terms,' Betelgeuse frowned. 'But she thinks I'm going over permanently to her. She's in for a surprise...'

"It's fine, Misha," Betelgeuse said, letting himself out of the truck cabin onto the red soil. "So—Gehen, then General Rabid."

"Yes, sir," Private Altunis replied. "And the Queen is adamant that the rest should guard the camp."

Betelgeuse turned, sensing Rafayel's gaze on them. He was watching them closely.

"Okay," Betelgeuse said. "Go get Fuller, Alterk, Nahdi, Hazzan and Filippov. You're with me too. We'll see what the Queen needs us for."

As Private Altunis sped off down the convoy, Betelgeuse glanced back and caught Edith watching him over the side window. Her expression was uncertain, as if she didn't want him to leave.