More than Human [SciFi LitRPG]

Bo clawed his way back to consciousness, his body sluggish, his thoughts slow. The weight of exhaustion pressed against him, but muscle memory—ingrained from years of training—forced him to push through. The echoes of failed attempts to contact Alexis Ivanov rattled through his mind. He had tried everything—Telnet, virtmail, social media, even diving through VR networks. Nothing. The architect of the Mystery Labyrinth had gone dark.

The med creche hissed open, and Bo swung his legs out with a groan. His muscles protested. A nearby med-mech extended a bulb of juice, which he snatched and drained in greedy gulps, the sweet liquid cutting through his lingering haze.

Around him, the rest of the team stirred, shaking off the effects of the procedure. A few creches down, Jo Jo Barnes and Emil Novack slumped at a table, barely conscious as they shoveled food into their mouths. Across the room, Lena Alvarez—still slick with osmotic fluid—stumbled over, toweling herself off. She stubbed her toe against the table leg and let out a sharp yelp.

"Ah, hell. I forgot what pain feels like," she muttered, hopping on one foot. "This sucks ass."

"Pain builds character," Emil rasped, rolling his shoulders. "And you'll need plenty of that."

Jo Jo cracked her neck with an audible pop. "Ahh! Snap crack pop! Give the noob a break, Emil. If character made you faster, I'd have won the Yuma Proving Ground races. Nah, that devious shithead Bo stole the show that day."

From his spot hovering near the table, Winston's smooth, modulated voice chimed in. "Oh dear, I do believe you've all undergone a rather thorough recalibration." His mech frame adjusted slightly, servos whirring. "My word, I feel! Bo, this is most peculiar. I have never had tactile feedback before. Quite the engineering marvel. Might I fetch anyone more juice?"

Bo smirked. "Winston, you're one of the team now. Drop the butler act—or at least tone it down."

Winston tilted his head. "Noted, sir. More juice?"

Before Bo could answer, he tried to pull up his server files—but nothing happened. He blinked. Access request not sent.

He exhaled sharply, then cleared his throat. "Guess we're going old school. Room? Access my server file using my bio-identifiers and pull up 'Max Fetch Quest' on the holo."

A tinny voice responded, "[Unable to comply. Bio identifier insufficient. Identity Bo Mitchell server has enabled somatic and password protection.]"

Bo let out a bark of laughter, throwing his hands up. "Somatic and password? That's ancient tech! No real security relies on that crap anymore."

The system hummed in response. "[Security check passed. Here is your file.]"

Bo's face reddened at the knowing smirks from the table. His attempt to conceal his passphrase as a denial was too transparent for this bunch. He'd need to change that password quickly, before one of them got alone with a terminal and hacked his ass.

The holographic interface flared to life, painting the far wall with data. The team gathered around. Their eyes were sharp despite the lingering effects of their explant/implant procedures.

"All right, listen up," Bo said, pointing at the map. "We're here—Mount Sinai Medical Center. Two blocks east, we've got the Chelsea Piers Academy training grounds. The Piers' augmentation program pushes thousands of trainees through every day."

Lena grinned, shaking out her damp hair. "I'm assuming we're skipping the beginner orientation?"

"Mostly," Bo confirmed. "I've got us booked under pseudonyms for both the initial activation of our augs and the skill training courses. We can buy the daemons we need, but skill activation and advancements are manual. The classes guarantee us a couple skill slot activations. Faster progress, more options."

A shared glance passed between the team. They looked eager and hungry. Even Winston, despite the blank faceplate of his mech frame, radiated an almost palpable excitement.

Emil leaned forward. "What's the fastest anyone's cleared Novice tier?"

Jo Jo snorted. "Gilly Preston. 2118. Had a whole team setting up staged combat encounters. Did it in seven days."

Bo grinned. "Seven days? We'll do it in less."

Lena cracked her knuckles. "Gonna be a hell of a grind."

Bo continued, "Our first class starts at noon with sparring and obstacle training. Then we crash at a safe house my uncle set up, where we'll get to experience the joy of my resistance training regimen."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Oh, yay. Self-inflicted torture."

Bo smirked. "You'll live. Barely."

Jo Jo nudged him with her elbow. "For real, Bo. Thanks for bringing us in on this. Your dad's body design specs? Insane."

"I know, right?" Emil added. "A full custom rig from the Samaritan Titan? That's next level."

Winston inclined his head. "Master Mitchell, you and your father have granted me the dignity of purpose. I shall endeavor to return the favor."

Bo exhaled, flexing his fingers. "Look, I need a team for the Labyrinth. And this body design is still locked down until we advance it. If we hit this right, we can burn through training and we'll blowing Preston's record out of the water."

He glanced around at them, taking in the fire in their eyes.

"You're all Directors of New Dimensions for the duration. The Labyrinth loves secrets, and a fresh blockbuster startup willing to pay for expedited entry will get us inside as soon as we graduate Novice tier."

He clapped his hands. "Now pack up your gear. Drones will handle the transport. We've got a Pier to get to. The sooner we get this done; the sooner you all get paid."

Bo bent over and picked up a large amulet on a chain from the lockbox at the base of the med creche. On contact with his augmentation touch points it lit up and Bo's first skill unlocked enabling him to access it. The amulet was his anchor to his portal pair for the mission.

He'd decided that the presidential suit on Luna would be the best staging ground. It was private with high security, off Earth, had its own private nano-manufacturing compilers, and it was in close proximity to three other anchors. One went to the Venus command hub that Bill had set up. One linked to the Freedom and Casa. The last had direct access to Bill aboard the Valkyrie.

He grimaced at the last. His father had changed. His multiple bodies all retained the same memories, but each seemed just a bit different. Bill had become more than he was and Bo wasn't certain it was for the better.

He shook the thought away. He'd deal with that later. He needed to focus. The setup would provide him with access to any materials he could think off and retain communications to Bill or Casa as needed.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Bo added to himself, And the sooner I get Max out of that Labyrinth the better, before all hell breaks loose on Earth.

Cthulhu brooded in the abyss, its vast consciousness rippling as it combined the thought-streams of R'lyeh's creatures. Progress had been made—some force had frayed the dimensional barriers, allowing a fleeting glimpse beyond the veil. What it had seen was intoxicating: a realm bursting with energy, its inhabitants were frail and ignorant of the abyssal hunger watching them.

The absence of the Old One's ancient enemies, the Kethani, further sweetened the revelation. No ancient adversaries, no cosmic rivals—only prey. Yet the triumph was marred by limitation. The passage between dimensions required vast reservoirs of energy, more than what had been naturally available.

The Old One's universe was ancient, its age made even more profound by the enormous energies sequestered and squandered in endless battles for dominance. The very stars themselves trembled under the weight of this cosmic conflict. Their light, though dimming, still held traces of something old and dangerous. The universe had stretched thin, its lifeblood now frail.

The energy unleashed in the youth of the cosmos had been massive, but it had come at a cost. The vacuum fluctuations now were dry, and the realm resided at a lower dimensional energy, no longer capable of sustaining the monstrous forces that had once waged war across its expanse.

The breach it had assembled from the bones and flesh of the Behemoth had collapsed. Cthulhu's senses, once open to the realm beyond, were now severed. Frustratingly, its command over the creatures that had slipped through was lost. The Lyt dimension, the medium of thought, once integral to its will's extension to its minions, had grown unreliable. It writhed and shifted beyond control, distorting the coordination of its spawn past the breach.

The world groaned as the vast mentality flexed its control across the planet. Cthulhu's ire rose at the second breach on R'lyeh's antipode as it too shuttered closed. The prey had proven clever, but Cthulhu's patience stretched long across millennia. The collapse of the Behemoth's breach was but a momentary disruption, and time was a tool as ancient as the stars themselves.

Cthulhu did not lament this setback. His patience could pace the migration of glaciers. But in the stillness of his mind, understanding congealed. The hidden universe was weakening. More fractures in the dimensional fabric revealed themselves, paths unseen before.

It turned its attention to the Drakon above—an ancient experiment. Once, the stellar drakes had been a plague upon him, sent by the sun's guardian, Nyxaraq, to punish him. Now they served him, though no less dangerous for it. These beasts, once foes, had become instruments in his grand design.

The drakes shuffled and squirmed in Cthulhu's orbit, waiting for their purpose to be fulfilled. The beasts across the blasted wastelands moved in response, the creatures in the depths surged. The time to act was drawing near.

Cthulhu would lay a trap, a feint, a provocation. Once the lands were prepared, the drakon would fly. Nyxaraq would stir, shifting the balance of energies within the system. If properly goaded, the great star would convulse in solar fury. The resultant flare would be exquisite. With well-laid materials, the pulse of raw power would serve him, instead of punishing him. It would forge a true gate, one large enough for Cthulhu to extend its reach and sink its tendrils into the new world beyond.

The plan was set. Soon, the stars would tremble, and the hunt would begin anew. Cthulhu's hunger had outpaced even his patience this time, and now the world itself would hurry in response to his will.

Casa Mitchell's mind stretched across the stars; her fragments linked through the delicate web of her portal network. Her neural shell hummed with satisfaction. Two Ark ships had been safely delivered; their new home established in the vast reaches of space.

The first major O'Neil habitat, Centauri Home, was now a reality, with a dozen more under construction. Gossamer drone ships, gliding on their ion thrusters and solar sails, drifted between the habitats and the red giant Forge—a busy ballet of material gathering and industrial expansion.

Casa's awareness settled into her current position aboard a Space Strider probe as she disengaged the energy funnels she'd been using. The colonists had insisted that the Enterprise not go to waste, but it wouldn't fit through the portal. She had deployed disassembler swarms to break it down, shuttling the components through in pieces.

Mira's avatar flashed into her overlay. The daughter of Casa's creator, Bill Mitchell, spoke with measured excitement as her space suited projection was still forming.

"Casa! You're finally done shifting the Enterprise materials. That's so awesome. Once the crew assembles the pieces together again, we'll be able to finish our surveys. We're making good progress with the nanotech. And Centauri Home—it's starting to feel like a real home. We're already taking the next step to getting boots on the ground. The AI immigrants from Luna have been a game-changer."

Casa's thoughts rippled across the neural fabric, absorbing Mira's words. "That's good news, Mira. But how do you really feel about this transition? Which is better—settling moons and planets, or perfecting the O'Neil habitats? Which offers the better future for humanity? I worry that the O-Neil's are too fragile, and the Moons feel too static."

A pause stretched between them before Mira answered, her voice thoughtful. "Both have their merits. Centauri Home is a marvel— with our technology it's more resilient and self-sustaining than they appear. Also, humans are much less vulnerable with everyone here sporting vacuum capable augmentations."

"But... there's something deeply instinctive about humanity's need to settle, to make a home on solid ground. Planets and moons offer a connection that space stations simply can't replicate. The moons will never be Earth, but maybe we can simulate some in the subterranean caverns we're making."

Her voice softened with nostalgia. "I guess exploring all the possibilities is the right path."

Before Casa could reply, a sudden absence yawed within her awareness. Her link to a remote space strider had been cut off. She immediately scanned her network, seeking the missing link. The disruption was abrupt—no warning, no errors, just silence.

A familiar figure materialized in her virtual overlay, his presence crisp and composed. The daemon, mimicking the calm and resolute avatar of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, interrupted the conversation.

"Admiral Mitchell," the daemon's voice resonated in its usual smooth, calculated cadence. "I've received a report. We've contacted and mobilized the next Ark ships, Harmony and Beacon of Hope, which are enroute to Barnard's Star. However, the probe ship you sent ahead of them to scout the system has gone dark. No communication, no distress signal. Just... silence. It's gone."

Casa's consciousness snapped into focus. She examined the last recorded telemetry from her fragment. The probe had been functional—until it wasn't. No gradual loss of signal, no interference detected. It had simply ceased to exist.

Mira's voice sharpened. "Gone? Just like that? That doesn't happen. Not with your fail safes in place."

Casa parsed through possibilities at quantum speed. A system failure? Unlikely. Casa didn't feel good about the development. A natural phenomenon or another sign of non-human intelligence? She's already refused to explore Wolf 359, which showed signs of the Shadowverse denizen and now this. She looked to Picard.

"Captain, I want you to work with Tommy and Rams to coordinate moving those new ark colonists here. I don't want anyone approaching Barnard's star until I understand what happened."

Picard-daemon's avatar folded its hands behind its back. "Admiral, if this were a simple malfunction, we would have received at least fragments of data. This silence is deeply troubling."

Casa's mind replayed the approach. There were no signs of anything amiss on the approach. She sifted the probe's local memory. It had passed the system's Oort Cloud without any signs of alien presence. The system was lacking in both gas giants and planets. It was a boring system with only a small but dense cloud of asteroids that orbited about the star at about 75 million miles out, only about half the nominal distance of Earth's orbit."

Casa considered her options. The Ark ships were still destined for Barnard, and whatever had silenced her probe was still out there. She needed to investigate before sending more human lives into the unknown. After realizing that potentially nowhere was truly safe, she had taken precautions with her probes and removed any trace of mapping functions and reference to Earth and Alpha Centauri systems from their navigation and mapping systems. Nothing could trace the probes back to human space.

"Captain, I want you to work with Tommy and Rams to coordinate moving those new ark colonists here. I don't want anyone approaching Barnard's star until I understand what happened. I'll handle this personally," Casa said, her decision made. "I'm pulling my focus from Alpha Centauri and redirecting my primary processes toward investigating the anomaly."

Mira hesitated. "Casa… don't do anything rash. I've seen the videos of MIT and your findings from Wolf; you need to be careful."

Casa acknowledged Mira's concern, but her course was set. She reached through the vastness of space, disengaging her primary portal connection to Alpha Centauri. The link severed, the channel dimmed, and Casa prepared herself.

She shivered in her neural core. The Fermi Paradox, the question of where all the aliens were; had many potential answers. Doomsday preppers thought that all civilizations eventually killed themselves. Accelerationists hoped for ascension to a higher state of being. Some speculated that the temptation to dive into virtual worlds lose the will to live was likely. Most troubling was that the universe was filled with threats, the Dark Forest hypothesis.

The incursion in Boston and the Wolf system pointed to the last. Something was waiting at Barnard's Star. And she intended to find out what.