Index Casualty (BL)

3. protocol

Veoc leaned forward with one hand extended and took off his gloves. His fingers were pale and slender, the long digits reminiscent of a musician. Gu Yuzhi's eyes lingered on them before flicking to the man's impassive face.

"Let me give you a demonstration," Veoc said, and Gu Yuzhi's eyes darted down again, only to see a faint cloud of dust. No—the dust had an origin in Veoc's hand, breaking off his skin as tiny glittering pieces to shimmer in the air. Gu Yuzhi's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Nanomachines are humanity's answer to the future," Veoc went on. He moved his fingers and the dust in his palms instantly converged in the center of his hand to a soft glowing sphere. "We are injected with them at birth so they can assimilate to our bodies, with supplementary doses supplied until early adolescence. They serve many functions—" The ball of light scattered and suddenly reformed into a wicked-looking knife, before dissipating into a 3-D sculpture that Gu Yuzhi vaguely recognized as his own face. "—but play a key role in maintaining our superiority in the universe."

Veoc waved his hand again, and the sculpture shifted and converged to a fist-sized cube covered with intricate wiring and nodes: a diagram of a nanomachine enlarged to human vision range.

"The civilian population will never need more than a 2.4% nanomachine concentration in their bodies," he went on. "Government officials average a little higher at 5%, while military servicemen carry the largest proportions with a minimum of 8%. We use them to monitor our health, improve our quality of life, and increase our fighting prowess. You however, were discovered to carry 0% nanotech within your body during the initial analysis, so Major Argent took the illegal route of introducing them into your bloodstream without consent."

Veoc paused with interest. "If he had succeeded, you would no doubt be recognized as one of our species. However, if your body rejected the implants, it would put your identity under suspicion. Such strong repulsion is rare among ordinary subjects, but very common in Artifacts." He clenched his fingers, and the nanomachine model floating above his hand suddenly caught sparks and burned away in a burst of flames. "I infer this is why he was so insistent you 'weren't human.' Naturally, I'll confirm the results myself later."

The firelight flickered in Gu Yuzhi's eyes before he rose to his feet and walked towards Veoc. Behind the transparent barrier, he regarded him carefully.

"Artifacts are objects of power?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then what kind of artifact am I?"

Veoc replaced his glove and folded his arms. "Preliminary scans indicate a strong tendency towards support and defense roles."

Perfect, that was his exact role in the apocalypse.

"What about the ability users?" Gu Yuzhi asked.

Veoc quirked a brow. "What do you mean?"

"What role do they play in this world?" Gu Yuzhi pressed. "They don't need nanomachines to use their powers and they can pass them onto their children. Isn't that much less hassle?"

Veoc was silent for a while before he asked, "What kinds of powers?"

Gu Yuzhi frowned and began to list them off. There were fighters who could call down lightning or summon wind and fire, defense types who made walls of pure earth to block their mutated peers or beasts from attacking, and healers who cleaned up water sources, treated diseases, and closed up wounds.

"Are there really humans like that?" Veoc sounded intrigued.

"Yes?"

The major general shook his head. "I've never heard of them. Perhaps their powers died out after humanity moved into space."