CHAPTER 5: NEW POWERS, NEW PROBLEMS

Chapter

Eli woke to the colony stirring outside his door. Sixteen hours had passed since the crystal, and he still hadn't fully processed it. His body felt the same as always, which was the strange part. Like a machine rebuilt from identical components that somehow ran quieter than before.

He sat up on the bunk and ran a hand through his hair. The quarters were spartan, standard issue, metal walls and minimal furnishings with just enough room not to feel like a coffin. The sword he'd crafted during the long voyage hung on the opposite wall. He glanced at it sometimes without meaning to. A reminder of slower days.

"Morning, sleepyhead." Sage's voice arrived before her hologram did. She flickered into existence near the desk, already wearing the semi-formal outfit she'd settled on decades ago, silver-streaked hair and all. "Been watching your systems. No anomalies, in case you were losing sleep over it."

"Wasn't," Eli said, stretching muscles that didn't need it. "But thanks."

He closed his eyes and reached inward. The interface appeared immediately, clean and immediate, as though it had always been there.

Profile. Name: Eli Falken. Age: 187. Race: Human (Bio-mechanical Variant). Level: 1. Essence: 0/1000.

"Still there," he muttered, opening his eyes. "I half expected to wake up and find the whole thing was some stress-induced hallucination."

"No such luck," Sage said, perching on the edge of his desk the way she did, mimicking a posture she had no physical need for. "So what's the plan? Walk into Alex's office and announce you've been upgraded with alien magic?"

"Not exactly." He moved to the sink and went through the motions of washing his face. The cool water was grounding, even if his skin didn't need cleaning. "I want to understand what I'm working with first."

"100,000 skill points and nowhere to spend them," she said. "The suspense is genuinely painful."

"Funny, coming from someone who can't die." He dried his face on the towel by the sink. "But yeah. Let's figure this out."

He sat cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes, reaching for the skill interface. It opened in his mind like something organic, not a screen but a new dimension of awareness. Thousands of options organized themselves before him.

"Jesus," he said under his breath.

"Care to share with the class?" Sage moved closer, circling him.

"Enchanting, Runecrafting, Elemental Manipulation." He kept scrolling. "Space-Time Alterations, Matter Conversion, Health Restoration."

Then something stopped him cold.

"Teleportation. 50,000 points."

"Now we're talking," Sage said, her hologram's eyes going slightly wide.

He read through the description. Instantaneous travel between points in space. Range and precision scale with Intelligence. Destination must be visualized or previously visited.

"That's half your points for one skill," she said, though her tone didn't quite match the caution in the words.

"Worth every one of them." He kept browsing. "The tactical applications alone. Instant repositioning, emergency extraction."

"What about storage?" Sage offered. "You complain about hauling the science team's equipment constantly."

"Dimensional Storage. 25,000 points." He found it. "Creates a pocket dimension. Size scales with Intelligence."

"So Rodriguez never gets to watch you groan under a load of soil samples again."

"Truly a loss for everyone." His fingers tapped against his knee as he considered the remaining points. "25,000 left. Something for combat."

He settled on it a few minutes later. "Seeker's Bolt. 25,000 points. Concentrated energy that targets structural vulnerabilities."

"That pairs with Revelation," Sage said. "Identify the weakness, then hit it exactly."

"That's the idea." He opened his eyes. "Teleportation, Dimensional Storage, Seeker's Bolt. Mobility, logistics, offense. A foundation."

He stood and rolled his shoulders. "And I have a feeling I'll earn more points doing exactly what I'm already doing. The documentation was pretty clear about that."

"So you're decided?"

"Decided." He closed his eyes and confirmed the selections.

The knowledge didn't arrive like new information. It arrived like remembering. Complete and fully formed, as though he'd spent decades building each skill from the ground up.

"Well?" Sage asked.

"Like someone handed me a lifetime of practice in about three seconds." He extended his hand and focused on Dimensional Storage.

Reality folded inward just beyond his palm. A subtle distortion, easy to miss if you weren't looking. He reached into it and his hand disappeared to the wrist.

"Eight cubic meters," he said. "Items stay in stasis. No degradation, no time passing inside." He pulled his hand back and the fold sealed itself.

"Handy," Sage said.

He focused on a point across the room. His body dissolved into particles and reformed there instantly, no lurch, no disorientation, nothing.

"Whoa." He looked back at where he'd been standing. "That was completely effortless."

Sage's hologram flickered with something that looked a lot like excitement. "That's going to save us an enormous amount of time."

"The third one probably needs open space," he said, glancing at the walls. "Unless you want craters in the habitat modules."

"Fair point." She checked the time. "Though you may have to hold off. Someone's coming."

A knock sounded at the door.

"Who is it?"

"Dr. Rodriguez," came the reply.

He opened the door to find her in yesterday's lab coat, soil still ground into the fabric at the elbows. Dark circles sat under her eyes like bruises.

"Morning," he said, leaning against the frame. "Early start or never stopped?"

"Never really stopped." She stifled a yawn. "Those blackberry bushes you planted. I wanted to check them before the day got away from me."

"And?"

A reluctant smile pulled at her mouth. "They're doing well. Better than expected. Your technique was surprisingly competent."

"High praise. I'll update my résumé immediately."

She rolled her eyes, though without her usual edge. "I wanted to thank you properly. The faster we get real crops going, the sooner we stop living off those meal replacement shakes." She patted her hip with a grimace. "All carbs, no nutrition. I swear they're engineered to make people miserable."

Eli laughed, genuine and unguarded. "Back in my operative days, long deployments meant MREs for weeks. If the job didn't burn enough calories, you came back a few pounds heavier every time."

"How did you deal with it?"

"Fasting," he said. "And honestly, vanity. Hard to meet anyone at a bar when you're sporting a tactical muffin top."

She blinked, then laughed. A real one, not the polite version she usually produced. "That's the most honest thing anyone's said to me since we landed. Everyone here is so focused on being colony heroes, they forget we're still just flawed people under all of it."

"Most of you are," Eli said, gesturing at himself. "I got the upgrade package."

"And yet you still care about how you look," she said. "Maybe you're not as different as you think." Her professional composure settled back into place. "Anyway. If you're looking for more to do, I could use help with the potato seedlings. First real food crop."

"I'll stop by after patrols."

She nodded and turned to go, then paused. "You know, Falken. You're not what I expected."

"Oh?"

"For a walking weapon, you're almost tolerable company." She disappeared down the corridor.

Sage reappeared the moment she was gone. "Making friends. Remarkable."

"She's sleep-deprived enough to lower her standards," Eli said, closing the door. "Come on. Let's go test the last skill."

The wilderness beyond the perimeter was quiet. He found a clearing about two kilometers out, well past any observation range.

Purple vegetation moved in the alien breeze. The red dwarf sun threw everything into crimson. Along the forest edge, six-legged herbivores grazed, their iridescent scales scattering the light in shifting colors.

"Revelation first," he said.

The skill activated and the world split open into layers. He could see structural composition in the trees, biological activity in the soil, energy patterns in the air. The herbivores at the edge of the clearing were suddenly transparent to him, circulatory systems and nerve clusters and digestive tracts all visible.

"I can see everything," he said quietly, turning a slow circle. "Those animals over there. Full internal anatomy."

"What about me?" Sage asked, materializing beside him.

He looked at her and stopped. "I can see your code. The actual architecture behind the projection. Mathematical patterns, processing algorithms, energy distribution."

"Mildly invasive," she said, though her tone suggested she found it more interesting than objectionable.

He focused on a dead trunk about fifty meters out. Through Revelation, the density variances were immediate, the structural weaknesses obvious. A junction near the base had begun rotting from the inside, a critical failure point just waiting for pressure.

"Now the other one," he said, raising his hand.

Energy gathered in his palm. Purplish-white light coalesced into a compact sphere, humming with potential that wasn't quite heat or cold but something that existed between both. He released it.

The bolt didn't travel in a straight line. It curved, subtly and precisely, and struck exactly where the rot had compromised the wood. The trunk exploded from within. Fragments scattered in a clean circle. What remained was a shattered stump and silence.

"That was efficient," he said.

"Remarkable precision," Sage said, studying the debris. "It adjusted mid-flight and hit exactly on the structural flaw."

He looked at his hand. It felt completely normal. He picked a rock formation about two hundred meters out and activated Revelation again. Microscopic fault lines ran through the geological structure like a road map.

This time he formed three smaller bolts at once, each assigned to a different weakness. The release felt natural. The bolts struck along the fault lines, and the formation separated cleanly, large sections sliding apart with a kind of geological calm that was somehow more unsettling than the explosion.

"The tactical applications combined with teleportation," he started.

"Are significant," Sage finished.

He dissolved and reformed atop a rocky outcropping nearly a kilometer away. From the height, he activated Revelation and scanned the valley.

"Hexaraptor pack," he said. "Half a kilometer northeast. Six of them. Post-hunt, based on what's in their digestive systems."

"Wait." Sage's hologram flickered and destabilized, then sharpened into something cleaner than usual. Her eyes went wide. "Eli. I can see them too. Not through your feed. Independently."

He felt a quiet satisfaction settle in his chest. "I wondered if the System would extend to you. Looks like it recognized our connection."

Her form shimmered as she worked through the new input. "I can analyze plant cellular structure remotely. Monitor neural activity in creatures a hundred meters out." She turned slowly, processing. "I can filter the information streams, focus on specific elements. It's adapted perfectly to how I process data."

She pointed toward a distant ridge. "Unknown predator species on that hillside. Quadrupedal, extensive heat regulation. Probably nocturnal based on pupil dilation."

"Should we head back?"

"Let's finish first." She waved off the suggestion. "I'm observation only, but this is worth mapping."

He focused on the original clearing and brought them both back.

"I have access to all three skills," Sage confirmed, "though Dimensional Storage is a conceptual challenge without hands."

"You can be my spotter," he said, and was about to continue when something pulled at his attention. A shift in the information Revelation was feeding him, faint but insistent.

"What is it?" Sage asked.

"Someone's outside the safe perimeter." He pushed his awareness outward and the data came back in a rush. A colonist, roughly a hundred thirty meters out, heart rate elevated, cortisol spiking. Geology team, based on the equipment signatures. He pushed further and found the threat almost immediately. Low-slung, camouflage-capable, moving through the undergrowth toward the colonist's position.

"Ambush predator," he said. "Closing in."

He teleported.

Dr. Landry was crouched over a soil sample, completely absorbed, when he appeared three meters behind her. The predator froze. Through Revelation he could track its decision-making almost like reading text: threat assessment, risk calculation, the biochemical moment it chose withdrawal over attack. It began backing away, its skin shifting to match the undergrowth as it went.

"Dr. Landry," he said.

She lurched upright and spun. "God. Where did you come from?"

"You've crossed the safety perimeter. There's a predator about fifteen meters northwest."

Her eyes swept the tree line. "I don't see anything."

"It uses biological camouflage. Pack your equipment and walk with me."

She moved quickly, hands not quite steady as she closed her sample cases. "How did you get here? I didn't hear a vehicle."

"Perimeter monitoring had your position. I was already close on patrol." He gestured toward the settlement. "Let's move before it changes its mind."

They walked in silence until the boundary markers were visible, then behind them. The predator had continued withdrawing the whole way.

"Thank you," she said, exhaling slowly. "I was following a mineral vein and lost track of where I was."

"Easy mistake. Just be careful next time. The fauna here doesn't follow Earth rules."

She studied him for a moment. "You didn't make a sound. I didn't hear you approach at all."

"Synthetic body," he said. "Has its advantages."

That seemed to satisfy her immediate questions, though she watched him a beat longer than necessary before heading toward the science hub.

"I can't be everywhere at once," he called after her.

Though that was becoming less true by the hour.

Back inside the settlement, Eli cut through a corridor toward the common area without really meaning to. Revelation slipped into his awareness almost on its own, and before he could pull it back, the world had already opened up.

He could see through the walls. Colonists moving through their routines, vital signs, stress markers, emotional states pressing at the edges of his perception like radio signals from nearby stations.

...need to recalibrate the atmospheric scrubbers before nightfall...

...pretty sure Rodriguez is hoarding the good coffee somewhere...

...wonder if the security guy ever does anything but patrol and brood...

He stopped walking.

The last one had come from a cluster of younger colonists around the corner in the common area. He focused, against his better judgment.

...so serious all the time. I mean, have you seen him training? It's like watching a machine pretending to be human...

...heard he used to be human, though. Like, actual flesh and blood...

...still has a nice ass for a robot...

He cut off Revelation before anything else surfaced and stood there in the corridor for a moment, something warm and faintly embarrassed moving through systems that weren't supposed to support embarrassment.

Sage appeared at his shoulder. "Something wrong?"

"I need to figure out how to filter the surface-thought component," he muttered, already changing direction to avoid the common area. "The younger colonists apparently have opinions about my anatomy."

Her laughter arrived directly in his head. "The stoic security operative undone by colony gossip. I'm going to treasure this."

"Remind me why I keep you around?"

"Because I'm your only friend," she said cheerfully. "And speaking of which. Don't you think it's time to talk to Alex?"

He exhaled. "Fine. Let's go explain to our colony administrator that we found alien magic technology. I'm sure she'll take it completely in stride."

"Your optimism is a gift," Sage said, falling into step beside him.

They moved through the corridor and Eli found himself cataloguing the people they passed, not just names and roles anymore but stress fractures and small joys. Dr. Patterson quietly unraveling over failed cultivar trials. Engineer Diaz stealing glances toward the hydroponics bay with an expression he probably thought he was hiding. Officer Chen doing the math on ammunition reserves with the tight focus of someone who didn't like the answer.

He'd always understood his purpose as protection. But this was something different. For the first time in a long time he was actually seeing them, not the colony as an asset to defend but the people inside it, specific and flawed and real.

A century alone with Sage, and it had taken becoming less human to remember what human actually looked like up close. He wasn't sure whether to find that funny or just true.

Probably both.