Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 58

The Escape (Part II)

(Misha Tulley)

(Eight Hours Ago)

Static buzzing.

There is an electrical current that is hard to describe that can only be felt while in the middle of nearly seventy thousand people all gathered to hear music being created and generated.

Even the lull before, where Hasty and her minions practiced setting up their instruments and conducting their sound checks had an unmistakable thrum and course of raw dormant electricity. Then as people began to enter, that dormant current began to increase slowly.

It was hard to notice the effect of planetary grooming, but when you had first a thousand, then two and then ten thousand people all gathering in and slowly filling the stadium, the effect of the increased current on the stadium was invigorating. Just breathing in after half of the scheduled audience arrived caused Misha to feel alive.

Many who are not aware of the true energy of a concert won’t fully understand the excitement and experience of power that comes with so many people all gathered around to share one experience.

Seeing it, Misha could feel the start of an artificial hive mind starting. This was nowhere near as exhilarating as the hive-mind she once remained a part of during the millennium-long war, but it was there. A close organic structure to what could be the foundation for a hive-mind.

Had Misha known this earlier, she was certain that methods could be performed to take control of such a structure. Even though these connections were lose, they were still there albeit at a basic level. Not enough to control, but enough to guide, to force experiences and emotions onto a subject that would never be tolerated by the individual.

It was odd, even feeling the effect herself she noticed how the blatant surge of electricity from so many bodies coming together seemed to overwhelm her own body, well her outer shell. Fortunately for Misha, her inner mind remained an impregnable palace, but it was the external portions of her body that remained opened and receptive.

Tingle.

Mentally, Misha used these moments before the concert to go over the phenomenon often associated with surging emotions caused by people at concerts and other venues. She found articles about people being pushed to extreme acts of violence due to misunderstanding, but the acts of violence themselves were acts that the individual in question would normally never accomplish on their own.

For a moment, Misha wondered how such acts were made possible.

Then she felt it, low pressure, overhead the sky grew dark as the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees in a moment. This was ten degrees that pushed the autumn night sky into the realm of almost chilly. It was the calm before a storm that was going to happen almost exactly at the same time as the concert. At least that is what Misha felt would happen, though all local weather casters said that these were just random clouds that appeared out of nowhere and would likely disappear just as quickly as they appeared.

At first Misha believed the weather reports, that is until she felt the presence of the Rulers nearby. Though something was off about their appearances.

The oddity of the Rulers was hard to describe, as it had been years since she last saw rulers. Well true rulers capable of effecting change on the world around them. Yet, the lightning strike from earlier and now this all showed that the power level of Rulers, particularly those in larger cities was a lot more powerful than anticipated.

Yet, it was the messages that her harvesting system gave her when she looked at them that caused the most concern.

Warning! Defective Ruler Tier III detected. Immediate Reset required.

That was the first sign that something was wrong with the individual. Seeing the person, Misha casually made her way out to the crowd, then pretending to go to a seat a row behind the individual in question, Misha made her way out, and accidentally touched the target.

Reset registered, rebooting system.

With that one touch, Misha felt a surge of energy come into her, but then realized that this was not the only issue. For looking around she noticed that in the crowd were hundreds of other Bakshee Awakened cast members in attendance.

Warning! Defective Worker Tier IV detected. Immediate Reset required.

While Misha could do nothing for the Tier IV worker, nor the throng of minions who were all collectively linked to the leader, she could spot a few others that had warnings within her Tier III and below reaction range.

Warning! Defective Warrior Tier I detected. Immediate Reset required.

Warning! Defective Warrior Tier II detected. Immediate Reset required.

Warning! Defective Warrior Tier III detected. Immediate Reset required.

Seeing the scale and knowing that Misha, at least for now was limited to just eight reapings a day, Misha decided to get the most bang for her buck by focusing only resetting the Tier IIIs in any of the classes.

In the end Misha had managed to effectively use all eight of her reapings on a total of two Tier III Rulers, along with three Tier III Workers and Warriors respectively.

While this event did get her a full 4.8 Improvement points to add, Misha felt that this was not the way she truly wanted to reach this setting. Not when it meant that so many unattended warnings were being left unattended. Most concerning were the Tier IV and at least one Tier V Worker. Well Misha couldn’t exactly tell what her true Tier rating was, but seeing as she was surrounded by a dozen or so Tier IV drones, yes drones, Misha figured the one she couldn’t tell the rating of was a Tier V.

In the end Misha split it mostly evenly, granting one point each to Strength and Stamina, and then one point four points each for Dexterity and Agility.

With the forced Tier upgrade thanks to her meeting Hasty she still had both a higher maximum and of course the one additional Harvested slot that remained opened. Additionally, thanks to her now being a Tier III, she was able to reap Tier II Abilities from the different Tier IIIs that she successfully harvested.

Given everyone of the Bakshee’s corrupted states, reaping them and resetting their baseline back to Tier 0 was easy.

What wasn’t so easy was choosing which of the Tier II abilities she would in fact take from the Tier III individuals she harvested.

Warrior system Skills Available:

Tier II

Mind Shield (7)

Rapid Healing (4)

Tier I

Feral Weapons (2)

Increased Durability (1)

Enhanced Comprehension Speed (4)

Enhanced Senses (1): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell

Increased Attribute (1): Dexterity, Agility

Shaman (5): Fire, Water, Earth, Air

Worker system Skills Available:

Tier II

Mind Shield (5)

Bond Minion (1, 3, 5, 7)

Tier I

Enhanced Senses (2): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell

Increased Attribute (2): Dexterity, Agility

Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1)

Increased Endurance (2)

Commanding Voice (5)

Allure (4)

Ruler system Skills Available:

Tier II

Mind Shield (3)

Bond Minion (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8)

Greater Storm (7)

Tier I

Elemental Focus (1): Fire, Water, Earth, Air

Secondary Focus (2): Lightning – Prerequisite (Fire and Air)

Secondary Focus (2): Ice – Prerequisite (Water and Air)

Secondary Focus (2): Metal – Prerequisite (Earth and Fire)

Commanding voice (2)

Allure (2)

Increased Comprehension speed (1)

Seeing the options, Misha could only pause, as she realized that each of the three classes all went for some form of mind shield, which would only be present if it was in the targeted host. From this, Misha could only surmise that as the different individuals got higher in their respective classes, the need to protect their mind became more of a concern.

Then she also noticed that Tier II was where both the Workers and Rulers both began to get subordinates that could be linked. Seeing those options, and the fact that Mind Shields became prevalent at that Tier, Misha could only assume that the safety net was given to protect the users from being turned into a drone themselves.

Realizing the importance of protecting her mind from being influenced by others, along with the fact that she was certain that with so many of her targeted subjects having the Tier II skill, Misha took Mind Shield and got it to the second iteration. There was also enough for her to raise her Danger Sense to the third ranking as well, causing her final build to be somewhat impressive given where she started out this trip at.

Tier -III

Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.

Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.

Improved Harvesting (2)

Harvested Slot: Heightened Danger Sense (9)

Additional Harvest Slot: Mind Shield (15)

Physical Characteristics: (4.8 Applied)

Strength: 15.3 -> 16.3/ 18.9

Dexterity: 22.1 -> 23.5 / 30

Agility: 22.1 -> 23.5 / 30

Stamina: 15.3 ->16.3/ 18.9

While Misha was still sad that she wasn’t fully meeting her Attribute limit, she was glad that her Tier III ranking was still considered a perfect evolution. Meaning that even now she knew that the flaws of her build were slowly but surely being whittled away.

With the new Mind Shield in place, Misha also thought that she could feel a clear protective layer forming in her body that existed just outside her skull that would prevent any foreign powers from entering her psyche. While it wasn’t a perfect shield, it was still something that clearly looked like it could negate energy coming in. Also given that she could easily recognize the openings within the mind shield, it was clear that she was able to direct her thoughts outward in a controlled, but protected manner that would not be stopped by this shield.

With her second harvested slot in place and fully active, Misha felt confident with her choices thus far and began heading back to the stage.

Cough.

As she began making her way back, that is when she began to hear the first of what would soon turn into many coughs.

The coughs almost became contagious, as everyone that was noted as being awakened all began to cough.

Then to Misha’s surprise, even a few of the non-coughing awakened Warriors and Workers that were in attendance soon began to cough as well.

Once any awakened began to cough, Misha would immediately notice the warning pop up over their heads.

Cough.

Warning! Defective Warrior Tier I detected. Immediate Reset required.

Cough, cough.

Warning! Defective Warrior Tier I detected. Immediate Reset required.

Warning! Defective Warrior Tier II detected. Immediate Reset required.

Just seeing the messages appear out of nowhere caused Misha to realize that something was going on. Then as she made her way back, she felt it.

Hot poison breath.

Yes, someone coughed almost right on top of her.

The moment they did, Misha felt something she didn’t expect to feel at a concert, perhaps it was something she didn’t expect to feel ever. But there it was, nanites. Well not true nanites, but an oddly familiar form of bio-attack against her body.

For a moment, she felt the spot of hot air on her skin, almost as if it burned. Which realistically it sort of did, at least at first.

Then Misha felt the underlying controls of the electrodes being used, she felt the coursing of power trying to delve deep into her skin.

That was when she realized this for what it was, a Psycher doomsday weapon. Well, a close proximity to the doomsday weapon. These were the equivalent of last ditch nuclear weapons that the Psychers would only deploy after every vessel and operator had died and the Bakshee were set to storm the mothership.

Due to how violent and corrosive the Psycher doomsday weapons were, they were placed with the Maintainers. At the time Misha was told that such an arrangement was based on how much trust and respect the other Psychers had for their beloved maintainers.

It was there that Misha, having been placed in charge of the doomsday weapons and their maintenance had been forced to interact with both the neutralizing containers and at one point a partial breach of one of the containers.

While the chemicals themselves were supposed to be able to distinguish from Psycher and Bakshee alike in theory, the practice was not exactly as preached. Still as a good Psycher, Misha developed a cure for the contagion, basically create a quick fire that would burn the device entirely.

That was what Misha had done when she only had access to fire. Given that she had multiple bodies that she could reincarnate into, such a drastic approach was not beyond the realm of probability. And that was how treating the contagion was originally dealt with. Over time, it was determined that applying a highly concentrated electrical jolt to affected parts of the body would also be enough to stop the spread of the contagion.

This was why Misha’s first reaction to the foreign chemical was to burn off the infected appendage, particularly as dark boils began to form on her skin almost immediately.

Yet, she paused, realizing that there was no other vessel for her. Also, this vessel had been painstakingly harvested and researched to get to this point. There were also the mental concerns she had about the treatment of Psycher Maintainers, particularly now that the memory of having to house and care for occasionally leaking super weapons was placed in their care during intense war time activities. These thoughts and more flashed through her mind, until she realized that this life in particular granted her a separate advantage, in that she could wield and control electricity.

Zap.

Not even thinking about the consequences, Misha directed a bolt of the ambient energy around her directly into her arm and body.

Thrum.

The hair on her arms stood up on end, as she felt the pulse of energy. Then she felt the breakdown of the foreign bioweapon under her skin.

Mentally, she began directing her body to attack the foreign substance and immediately begin working on specialized antibodies to protect against future attacks.

Given the widespread use of these viral infections and the fact that by now almost everyone who had come was either coughing, or being coughed upon, Misha made her way back stage.

There she saw something that brought horror to her face, as she saw the fact that Jasmine, her teammate and dare she say friend was backstage with dark bags under her eyes.

Seeing her, Misha immediately went over.

“Watch out, I think I caught something.” Jasmine stated.

As she approached, Misha was first concerned, but then was relieved to see the message forming over her head.

Warning! Unknown Corruption Attempted on Warrior Tier 0 detected. No immediate action required.

Seeing the message, Misha realized that apparently Jasmine being used multiple times as a human, or rather Warrior Class, harvesting subject paid off. As the contagion seemed to focus on Bakshee class members who had not been harvested back to a more stable state.

Then as if realizing something, Misha turned to Darcy, “is Hasty okay?”

“Yeah, she spoke of having a headache earlier, but said that she will be good to go for her performance.” Darcy replied.

At that, Misha felt the strange sensation of warning growing within her gut, it might have been the fact that she just increased its potency, but Misha could not help but feel suddenly worried about what was happening around her.

“We need to stop the concert,” Misha said.

Dun-duna-dwaaa!

At that, three notes of an electric guitar being strummed and left to reverberate throughout the stadium could be heard echoing even backstage.

With that Misha could only realize that she was too late and that the concert that she now needed to stop, was suddenly going in full effect.

“You okay?” Jasmine asked.

Hearing her teammate, Misha first wanted to respond with a yes, as she didn’t want to over speculate. That was until she felt the tension growing within her stomach, as she realized that something was about to go extremely wrong.

There was a slow build up, but slowly over time, the tension grew.

Finally, Misha unable to watch in silence anymore went out and then saw the storm cloud coming in, a literal metaphor for things to come, as it was clear that the storm was being brought on by powers outside nature’s control.

That was the first sign that things were going exceedingly wrong, but slowly as the rain began to pour, it almost seemed like the rain helped spread the disastrous infection.

Crackle.

Off in the distance lightning began to spark and illuminate the night sky.

Then almost as one, the underlying electrical current of so many bodies being in such close proximity began to change. Morphing from the joyous anticipation of music, into something far darker.

Then, it happened. The moment the entire audience had been seemingly waiting for began, the concert began to rock on in full glory for a second, a brief second before anarchy overtook the crowd. As suddenly, as if in response to the building tension, a final command was given.

It was simple, a slight pulse that seemed to piggy back off of the electrical ambiance that flooded the stadium. With that one simple pulse, the final catalyst for the poison was released, causing all those infected with the virus to have their bodies pulse and mutate, all before the final act of what would soon be unleashed truly began.

Thwoom.

Just like that, the hair on Misha’s head began to rise due to static electricity, as true horrors began to manifest right before her eyes.