Writing Wrongs

(Starspeak)

I could see Macoru.

She was standing shoulder to shoulder with her brother, appearing to scrutinize the cult's corpse just as closely as Mavriste.

The hairs on my neck were still standing straight up. For the eleventh time in an hour, I pinched myself, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

Considering I'd lived through this nightmare once already, I thought I was handling things pretty well.

"You're sure it's a fake?" the Royal asked me.

"It's obvious," I said. "The limb proportions are off. There's deformities all over the face too."

"…I don't see them," Mavriste admitted, leaning closely.

Macoru's illusory figure flickered and dimmed as he walked forward, moving her out of his line of sight.

She did not wink out, however. Even in her blurry form, her head turned toward me…noticing that I could still see her, even when she was behind Mavriste?

I scanned my mind again, looking for any stray psionics that didn't belong. Nothing.

"You haven't seen that many humans," I told Mavriste.

The corpse was certainly humanlike, but it fell into the uncanny valley. Fairly deeply too. The eyebrows were a smidge too wide, the skin around the jaw had slight bulges to it, and the eyelashes were too fine. Dozens of little details that would have all been excusable on their own came together to create an obvious fake corpse.

I didn't know what kind of bioengineering went into fabricating fake flesh like this, but whoever had done the actual sculpting part had definitely worked with a human reference. But likely just one, because otherwise they would have done more work to approximate the average appearance.

"We traded some impressive treasures for this corpse," the Royal said. "How are you sure the corpse is a fake and that the deformities aren't related to the body's decomposition?"

"What's the temperature in this freezer? Below freezing?"

The Royal nodded.

"Like I said, we spent some treasures acquiring the body; we wanted to preserve it."

"Yeah, and Vorak bodies have those fat stores—the body chemistry thing. I can't remember what it's called, but the skin beneath your fur doesn't decompose when frozen. In death, the layers tighten and actually become less permeable to bacteria."

"They do?" the cult leader asked, surprised.

Mavriste frowned, unsure.

<Vas meoku,> Macoru said to her brother. <Ti yogash il mantur.>

"Autodermic embalming," Mavriste recalled. "It doesn't occur at all temperatures…just a narrow band below freezing."

<Only about half of all Vorak have the gene for it too,> Macoru added, this time in Starspeak. She stared right at me while she spoke too.

She'd fed him that answer.

"…Point is, humans don't have that," I said. "This corpse has been frozen here for the last two years, but look, the skin is still intact. It's even still pliable on the arms here. This corpse is in way too pristine condition to be human."

"Ah," Mavriste said.

"Don't get me wrong, we're still taking this corpse," I said. "But I'll sweeten the deal: tell me everything you know about where this 'corpse' came from, and the Lightbringer will do his best to ruin their year."

The Royal frowned at my name drop, glancing at Mavriste.

'Them?' their expression asked.

Mavriste gave a nod.

"…Now I really wished you'd have killed me," they admitted. "My name would have lived in infamy along with yours and the blade's."

"That sword was named?" I asked curiously.

"Not anymore."

·····

Mavriste and I pushed off in our sailboat less than six hours after we first arrived. It'd taken us a healthy twenty-four hours to sail this far south, but it would take less than nine to sail back to Pudiligsto, even with an extra fake corpse's worth of weight in the boat.

We'd arrive in the late evening.

"It's the hurricane, see?" Mavriste said with a smile. "Normally the winds down the coast move south or east. But the hurricane has things shifted. It's pulling wind northward. Or…it's being pushed north by an unusual wind. Mmm. Not actually sure which, now that I say it out loud."

"You instill just so much confidence at the helm of a sailboat, don't you?" I drawled.

<Oh—> the ghost of Macoru's past started to say something but cut herself off.

I eyed her.

She was hovering off the side of the boat, not quite pretending to fly. Lounging, almost. If she were any lower, she'd appear to be swimming with inexplicable speed just ahead of our sailboat's quite impressive wake.

We really were moving fast.

"…So are we going to talk about the [elephant] in your brain?" I asked. "Because I already spilled about mine."

"…Technically it's in both our minds," Mavriste said. "Bear with me if I seem reticent. I didn't want to share this at all, frankly. But I'll admit your expertise is overwhelming my silence, just…"

"Bear with you," I nodded.

I wasn't just being accommodating. If Mavriste had come into his superconstruct in even remotely comparable circumstances to mine, then this was a deeply emotional topic.

Even Jordan, whose superconstruct was forged in relatively peaceful times found explaining the finer points of its function to be a strangely intimate detail to share. It was like sharing a piece of your soul, because every one of us understood on some instinctive level, that these creations reflected… something fundamental about us as people.

<You want me to try a stab at it?> Macoru asked.

"<Can't possibly hurt,>" I shrugged.

<I was asking Mav,> she glowered.

Mavriste's gaze lost focus while he sent a message to his sister.

<Okay, okay,> she nodded.

"<Whoa. Whoa,>" I stopped them.

"What?" Mavriste asked.

"You didn't notice that?" I asked.

<…He can hear what I send to you, but not what you send to me,> Macoru noted.

I pointed at her approvingly as if to say, 'see?'

Mavriste looked between us a for a few confused moments before clutching his head exasperatedly.

"You want me to take over the helm?" I asked. "I can at least hold our vector steady."

"…Yes. I appreciate that," he said.

We traded spots on the boat, and he sat silently while he composed words.

<You want me to give him the technical specs? I know he can hear me say this, but he might be satisfied with just that. The painful emotional parts of the tale—>

"<You can gloss over those,>" I said. "<I don't know everything about this type of psionic construct, but I know it takes very rare states of mind to create one. I don't really need those details, I can imagine them well enough.>"

"Can you?" Mavriste asked quietly.

Not a challenge. No, his tone was on the verge of…disbelief. Like it defied his very potent imagination.

"…I made my superconnector when I was alone on the ship that abducted me," I said. "There was one other survivor. We both fell unconscious when we traversed a Beacon. I woke up. He didn't. Then he did. But in the middle there, I believed I was going to be truly alone in the universe. And so I made a way to connect with…anyone. Didn't realize exactly what the thing did until a year or two later. But…I remember how it felt. How it still feels. Because I know, even though that's all in the past, and I've got dear friends and strong allies…I know it's not impossible to feel that way again. So the moment still haunts me."

It really was like sharing a piece of my soul with a stranger. But as badly as I liked to keep my life private, I trusted Mavriste, and I wanted to understand psionics more than I wanted to keep to myself.

"Connect with anyone," Mavriste repeated. "Are you familiar with the theory of Adept activation significance?"

"Yeah, the first thing you manage to create has rather decent odds to reflect your intense needs or desires at the time," I said.

"We create what we need," he nodded. "Some say we create because we need."

"I've dwelled on the idea extensively," I said. "I think my superconnector is not an exception."

"Well ask me a question about my 'superconstruct'," he said. "Because I really don't know where to start."

"<Macoru, you're not dead, right?>" I asked.

"No," Mavriste frowned, at the same time she answered with the same <no.>

"No, the Mac in my head is…a statue? Perhaps a map? None of these captures the truth," Mavriste said, almost biting his cheek trying to fumble his way to the right term.

<I'm not a real person,> Macoru offered. <At least, I'm not the real Macoru. I'm just very closely based on her.>

"<Is that what your superconstruct does? Scan and create copies of people's minds?>" I asked.

"<No,>" Mavriste said. "Not people. Not just anyone."

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"<Each other,>" I deduced. "<Macoru's got a copy of you in her head too.>"

He nodded.

"We…interface? I'm not sure what the word in Starspeak would be. We pass information psionically, every few days, updating each other's…in our home tongue the word we picked was taoshiastigen. But that's not really helpful here? Trying to translate it is difficult."

<Imagine a person important to you,> Macoru offered. <Someone close to you, who's still very different from you. Someone who makes you notice the flaws that you can help about yourself. Someone that reminds you of the best parts of yourself to reinforce and the worst parts of yourself to keep in check. Now imagine looking at a sublime painting of that person, and don't all those same emotions and reminders still come welling up? That's what our superconstructs do. They give us both perpetual perspective that an individual would otherwise lack.>

Nai or Tasser should have come to mind. They did, even.

Just not first.

No, if there was someone who'd watched my back from the inside of my own head, the one who'd been ready to counsel and advise me, perpetually at any moment…

Daniel.

"She makes up for what you're lacking," I said. "She even uses the emotions you're not. When you panic, she stays calm. When you're subdued, she's energetic."

Mavriste's eyes widened. Macoru showed the same amount of surprise.

"That was not a guess," Mavriste said. "What do you—how do you already know that?"

"Because that human I mentioned? After he woke up, he tried to kill me. We were both delirious. Hallucinating. Or maybe we weren't, and we were just two stupid kids who forgot how to be human. Point is, he died while I was still connected to him. I killed him…and ripped him right out of his own head," I explained. "I didn't say the moment 'haunted' me without apt reason. But…we worked it out. He saved my life a few times from inside my head. But…then he fell apart. He died again, and I felt it. A human being disintegrated inside my soul and I felt every nanosecond of it."

<That's why you asked if I was dead,> Macoru recognized. <I must be like a dead spirit walking to your eyes.>

"<Daniel appeared just like you do,>" I said. "<Illusory. Wandering across my field of view, offering commentary. You have no idea how much I thought I was hallucinating.>"

"<We might,>" Mavriste said. He looked like some health had returned to him. "This is not an easy time to discuss for me or my sister, but I'll admit our hour was not as…traumatic as yours."

<We both thought the other had died,> Macoru said. <It was a warzone. A bomb went off. Neither of us was actually caught in the blast, but we were on opposite sides of the site, and we both thought the other had been vaporized.>

"<You created your superconstructs simultaneously?>" I asked. "<That doesn't seem like coincidence for twins.>"

<You know we aren't actually twins?> Macoru smiled. <I'm older by three years.>

"Almost to the day though," Mavriste pointed out.

I snorted.

"<Still, doesn't seem like a coincidence. It's mostly unfounded at this stage, mind you, but I have a theory about psionics affecting locations in a similar way they can be embedded into objects.>"

<Something nonstructured, I assume?> Macoru asked.

"<A lot like proto-psionics if the theory holds,>" I nodded. "<This hurricane could actually be a chance to put it to the test. I think mass fear was interfering with some of our radar constructs during the storm itself.>"

"Then that theory would hold we developed similar superconstructs at the same time just because we were in the same place?" Mavriste said.

"<The same context, more than just the same location. You were both feeling the same way at the same time for the same reasons.>"

"That aligns with some of our thinking too," Mavriste nodded. "Initially, each of our copies was strictly based on how each of us thought the other person was. But we've kept updating them with our own real experiences."

"How noticeable were the differences at first?" I asked.

<Limited, even from the start,> Macoru said. <The continuity is rather hard to put into words.>

"<Continuity,>" I noted her choice in words. "<You mean between definitely being a copy created in Mavriste's head and then getting updated with new, real memories from…>"

<The real me?> Macoru prompted.

"<Yes. Sorry, didn't want to imply otherwise.>"

<No, I understand.>

"Your specific phrasing from earlier sticks out to me," Mavriste said. "You described it as your friend's 'soul disintegrating inside yours', yes?"

"<Close enough,>" I said. "<Why does that stick out?>"

<Because I'm not Macoru,> Macoru—er, not- Macoru insisted. <I'm an exceptional copy, made in her image specifically to evoke her, but I'm not actually a soul. I'm more like a guidebook or a training dummy with impossibly complex parameters. I'm not truly a person, just a very convincing approximation.>

"<Many would say that if an approximation is indistinguishable from the real thing, then it functionally is the real thing,>" I said.

<But I am distinguishable from the real thing,> Macoru frowned. <The real me isn't inside my brother's head. I can tell the difference between 'me' and 'the real me'."

"<You still think of Mavriste as your brother,>" I noted. "So from your own perspective, are you Macoru's copy or just Macoru?>" I asked.

<Hard to say,> Macoru admitted. <Feels like it could change as the wind blows. Does it make sense if I say I feel like both my own copy and the real Macoru?>

"<I guess I'm disquieted by the idea of the Daniel in my head not being 'the real Daniel',>" I said. "<He felt real. He acted real.>"

"Ah. You are concerned with ensuring you don't abeoyutasig your friend's memory, his 'ghost'," Mavriste said.

Abeoyutasig. That was an obscure word to translate into English. It didn't have any concept of species, and instead only looked at the idea of intelligent beings. People.

It meant 'dehumanize'.

"<Yes,>" I said.

It wasn't lost on me that we'd just talked about Adeptry responding to intentions and needs. I'd said it myself. He felt real. I'd needed him to be real, even as I had looked him right in the eye and said he was just a hallucination.

…I still needed him to be real.

"My head is beginning to hurt," I admitted.

I wasn't trying to come up with a clever name, but in the lull of the conversation, one popped into my head.

"[Simulacrum,]" I said.

Mavriste mouthed the word. I could almost see him trace through the English-Starspeak dictionary.

"Very similar to the word [simulation]," he noted. "What's the difference?"

"It's complicated. I think? The word's really old, but my gut instinct is that simulacra are…'snapshots'. Imitations in a specific moment. Simulations feel more 'continuous' to me. They're progressive."

<I think that's more apt than you realize,> Macoru said. <Because I know I can't learn new complexities. I can digest and process information using skills the real me possessed when the 'snapshot' was taken, but I can't really learn new ways to think.>

"We experimented with that," Mavriste nodded. "Macoru shut her simulacrum of me out of senses and tried to teach me some new games. My simulacra could learn the rules, but couldn't conceive of how to apply certain strategies inside those rules."

"<And you tested it against your real mind,>" I guessed, pointing at Mavriste. "You learned the game too, and unlike your Simulacrum, you were capable of having an epiphany about the rules and strategy of the game.>"

He nodded.

"Once I shared my memories with the simulacrum, he became capable too. Once again your phrasing is apt. 'Epiphany' is an excellent way to describe what they seem to be incapable of."

"<And you concur?>" I asked Macoru's sim.

<I do,> she nodded. <Personally, I think it goes further than that. I think we're only capable of emotions and processing because we're hooked up to a real person. I think you could deactivate me, embed the psionics inside something stable, and just leave there, and I wouldn't think at all.>

"<You make yourself sound almost like a parasite,>" I frowned.

<Parasites harm,> Macoru said. <Based on what we've learned here, I think symbiosis much better describes the interaction. But no, symbiosis is between two life-forms…our premise here is that I'm not really alive…oooh, a virus! Viruses aren't technically alive, right? But there are parasitic viruses that take over real living cells to reproduce. I could be a viral psionic symbiont.>

"Doesn't 'viral' connotate contagiousness?" Mavriste pointed out. "As far as we know, the simulacra are irreproducible."

<We can quibble about definitions if you want,> Macoru shrugged.

It was all a problem of definitions. What actually qualified a person? Where did the brain end and the mind begin? Had I really just ripped out Daniel's soul, or just blindly stumbled my way into the same modeling concept Macoru and Mavriste had?

Or were they wrong? And their 'Simulacrums' really were people, really were souls?

That just led to the same problem of definitions. Who could define exactly what a soul was?

I must have been wearing all my questions and turmoil on my face, because it was Mavriste's turn to try encouraging me.

"Here, give me the helm. I'm feeling better," he said. "Let's change the subject too. No need to chew through all of it at once."

I let him take over, grateful for the break.

<Oh yeah, I'm really curious about the fake corpse,> Macoru said. <You seemed to think you could find out where it came from.>

"<Think about it,>" I said. "<That corpse can fool most aliens, but not any who have spent a long time around living humans. Whoever made it?>

"They used a reference," Mavriste nodded. "But not a living one."

"The real corpse is in the hands of whoever made the fake," I nodded. "The Royal—cult leader, I mean, they said that they expected to able to sell it for even more than they paid. But they couldn't."

"…Ah," Mavriste got there before his sister.

<What?>

"Nobody was buying a rare alien corpse because the market was saturated," he said.

"Mark my words," I nodded, fishing my handbook out of my pocket.

It beeped a few times while I dialed and set it to speakerphone.

"<…Caleb?>" Sid picked up.

"<On our way back,>" I said. "<It was a valuable trip.>"

"<Really? We were sure it was going to be wasted,>" he said.

"<Bet you I only need one guess as for why?>"

"<Uh…>"

"<You found a corpse,>" I said. "<Don't know where yet, but I'm betting you found it.>"

"<Yeah. This sculptor—wait how were you sure?>"

"<Because I found one too,>" I said. "<We're bringing it back. But check your corpse more carefully. Ours is a fake, and we're pretty sure there's more floating around out there.>"

"Wait—the sculptor," Mavriste started, cutting himself off when he was unsure if my handbook could pick up words that were only audible.

I gestured for him to continue, holding the device up to him.

"<The sculptor, were they high end?>" he asked.

"<Yeah. Real rich. Real eccentric,>" Sid answered.

"That's a type," Mavriste said. "An eccentric cult with disposable spending? An oddball sculptor looking for a fresh provocative new inspiration?"

"The seller wants to make top [dollar]," I noted. "So they're targeting their sales towards deep pockets."

Deep pockets like…

I almost crushed the device in my hand.

"<Sid, forget what I said earlier. Get aggressive with Ingrid. Someone out there is selling fake human corpses to interested rich Vorak with more funds than sense. Tell me that doesn't sound familiar.>"

"<Yeah. Loud and clear,>" he said. "<Anything else?>"

"<No, nothing that can't wait until tonight.>"

"<Sail safe,>" he said.

"Cadrune…" Mavriste said ruefully. "You asked us if we might see if we could 'check in' on Ingrid when we returned to the city?"

"Yeah. I think that needs to happen sooner, not later," I said.

Mavriste smiled, thin and razor sharp.

"The Missionary Marines are ever at the disposal of requests."

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