“Okay, then. What else?”
“We will add a bit of our own upgrades to your muscle fibers, like carbon nanotubes coated in a graphene net, which will add a significant boost to your strength. Your skin is a bit easier, as it resembles that of the People enough that we can again modify their methods. We can give you a high resistance to radiation.” She stopped and looked at him. “That’s it. We have already tested these upgrades on a clone body grown from your DNA, so we know that we can do it.”
Adrian looked at her, impressed. They had already tested it out using a clone body. Cloning was forbidden in the Empire, technically. Humanity had experimented with it even back on Earth, but quickly they’d realized that there was something wrong with clones. Some said that they lacked souls, others that it was simply a mistake in the process, but every human clone that had been born had gone insane. And there had only been a few before cloning was banned. Technically, it was forbidden for a brain to be cloned. They still grew body parts and organs for those who couldn’t be helped without them. When she said a clone body, she referred to exactly that—an exact body double to Adrian, only without a brain. No consciousness, only flesh, mechanically kept ‘alive’ by machines.
“You said that these changes would have some drawbacks?”
“Yes. You won’t be able to use Vitakinesis to heal your bones or muscles. At least, we don’t think it would work, but we know very little about psionics. We believe that you would need to rely on our medical nanites. You should still be able to affect your flesh, organs, and blood, but nothing else. That psionic wasn’t designed with our upgrades in mind, and we still don’t know enough about them to be able to modify them. Also, you will be needing more oxygen in order to function, so we will need to increase your lung capacity.”
“And how long would this procedure take?” Adrian asked.
“Three months for the procedure, during which you will need to be put under. And another four months of recovery and rehabilitation,” Seo-yun said.
Adrian grimaced. “Seven months… I was hoping that I could have this done faster.”
Seo-yun smiled at his comment. “We can’t rush if we are going to do this, Adrian. There is too much room for error.”
“She is right, Adrian,” Iris said as she appeared above his shoulder. “Nothing like this has been attempted before.”
“I know. But that means that I won’t be able to do it now. Not when we are about to restart the war with the Sowir,” Adrian said, disappointed.
Seo-yun twitched when he mentioned the war. “Actually… there was one more thing I wanted to talk with you about…” she said hesitantly. “I think that there is another way that we can approach the Sowir problem, perhaps with less bloodshed.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow in interest. “Laura didn’t tell me anything,” he said.
Seo-yun shrugged. “I think that she is a bit overprotective of you. And I can understand that, but there is something that we haven’t tried yet.”
Adrian was just about to ask her what when it came to him. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You want me to talk to the Sowir prisoners.”
Seo-yun looked away guiltily for a moment, then turned back and looked him straight in the eye. “We have been trying to figure out the reason for their actions. And while our prisoners have been adamant that it wasn’t because of telepathy, I know that it is a part of it. The Sowir have never before encountered another intelligent race that possessed it. We have a chance to learn more about them, maybe even open a line of communication. Don’t tell me that you don’t want a better solution than us just wiping them out,” she said loudly.
“You know the reason why I haven’t been allowed near the Sowir,” Adrian said slowly. “I know nothing about my telepathy, I can’t even make it work on other humans; I have no one to teach me how to use it, let alone how to defend myself from other influence. And the Sowir have shown that they can use their telepathy to reach into our minds. We don’t know if me having telepathy will make it harder or easier for them to influence me.”
“I know, but we need to take this chance. You might even learn something about how to use it. And I promise you that I will lower the risks as much as possible. We will have the prisoner restrained, and at the first sign of something off from you, or on your signal, I will release sleeping gas inside the room,” she said eagerly.
Adrian narrowed his eyes again. “You have already put things in place, haven’t you? You knew that a chance of learning more about my psionics is something that I couldn’t turn down.”
She gave him an impish smile. “I have known you for a long time, Adrian. I understand what makes you tick.”
“Fine, but no word about it to Laura. And we need to do it fast. The war summit is in five days.”
Seo-yun clapped her hands happily. “We can do it tomorrow, I’ll make arrangements.” She stood and looked fondly at him. “Thank you, Adrian.”
Chapter Two
Sanctuary
“You’ll knock us out if I start acting strangely?” Adrian asked, for the tenth time.
“Of course. I’ll have Luna monitor your vitals, but I won’t do anything unless Iris says so,” Seo-yun responded, reassuring him. In the background, people moved around the mobile station.
Adrian sighed, trying to get rid of the last of his nervousness. The Sowir prisoner had been put to sleep, then restrained and transferred outside to a specially built container. They would wake her after Adrian entered so that they could see her reaction, which he thought would be pointless, as the Sowir telepathy translator wasn’t in the room; the Sowir wouldn’t fit inside with restraints on. The only reactions they would see would come from Adrian.
The data from the sphere suggested that Adrian’s telepathy could adapt to telepathy of any other being, and allow them to understand each other as if they were speaking the same language. Only they had no idea if Adrian’s telepathy was properly developed.
“Don’t worry, Adrian, I’ll make sure that we shoot you in the head at the first sign of you turning into a mindless zombie,” the floating holo of Iris said.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Adrian retorted dryly. “You are not making me feel any better.” He took another breath to gather himself, and then he started walking down the long path to the container. Akash and Sora, his constant shadows, stayed behind, watching him go. It had taken a lot of convincing to get them to stay, because while they couldn’t speak with him, they were incredibly intelligent, and could understand him perfectly.
The Sowir telepathy had a tentative range of around 150 meters. Which was why the mobile monitoring station had been placed outside of that range. The container was rigged with sleeping gas canisters that would knock both Adrian and the Sowir out if anything went wrong.
He reached the container and entered, hearing the click that confirmed he was locked in with the Sowir. He didn’t worry about his safety physically; he knew that he could take the prisoner even without any weapons, especially now that he had limited access to kinetikinesis. What he worried about was that he wouldn’t be able to keep the Sowir outside of his head. To date, the Sowir hadn’t been able to influence an intelligent being to the extent to take over, only distract. But they didn’t know how him having telepathy would factor in that.
“Okay, wake her up,” Adrian said over his implant’s comms to Seo-yun and her team.