If the Architect could control the dead, what was stopping him from controlling the bodies of dead crew personnel? The crew putting their lives on the line to fight back might do more harm than good.
25 FOSTER
The Architect’s ship
En route to Sirius C system, Interstellar space
May 22, 2050, 03:08 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster had a feeling her captors didn’t want her dead, at least not yet.
She was brought out of the holding cell she shared with Mavron under the firm and painful grasp of two overlords. They assertively escorted her through the ship. Its halls were dark and gloomy and its engines made very little sound, allowing her to better hear what was going on in other compartments of the ship. She heard voices, chatter, people talking. Crew members on their off time perhaps?
They passed an assortment of pods attached to the walls, she saw the grunt soldiers strip out of their armor and place themselves into the pods, they all looked human, rather, Poniga. Their bodies were covered in wounds that should have been fatal or at least debilitating. One grunt’s skin was heavily charred like he had been caught in an inferno, another had a wide hole through his abs. She saw the interior of the grunts armor and the control triggers for the lasers that were mounted on the sleeves of their armor. She caught a glimpse of unarmed overlords passing by, they lacked major wounds on their body, and their heads were heavily augmented with cybernetics.
Her unwanted trek through the ship came to an end inside a room at the far end of the ship. It was surrounded from the walls to the ceiling with windows that peered out into space, it almost felt as though they were in space, like a massive balcony patio floating in the void. A swimming pool was below her, and above the pool was a footbridge that led toward a raised platform where a wide golden chair adorned with jewels lay in front of the window looking out into space.
The overlord escort dragged Foster across the bridge. She looked down and saw creatures swim through the pool below; they looked like mermaids and mermen. One came up to the surface of the water, she flicked away the beads of water that drenched her sultry face and watched Foster as the overlords hauled her across the footbridge. She grinned at Foster in an evil Siren-like manner, and then laughed. A second rose up to the surface a brawny male with a chiseled chest. He too, began to point and laugh at her while lights in the bottom of the pool gave them an exotic glow.
The walk across the footbridge ended, and Foster was pushed onto the floor next to the wide golden chair. She got to her feet and looked at the figure that rested on the chair. It wore armor like the soldiers she had seen, only it was crimson red and had sharp spikes that arched away from the sides of its massive helmet.
Half-naked male and female servant Poniga sat with the armored figure wearing loincloths and half-robes. Some held trays of food for it to feast on, others held and poured bottles of wine for the figure to drink from, three others from behind carefully glided towels across the sleek surface of its armor, keeping it glistening and shiny. The Poniga looked at Foster negatively as if she had done something to offend them. Foster took a step toward the golden chair which triggered the servant group to step in front of the crimson-armored figure attempting to shield it with their bodies as the two overlords next to her used their spears to block Foster’s path.
The crimson-armored figure touched its Poniga servants on their shoulders as it rose up from its rest and whispered into their ears. Slowly they began to fan out, creating a path which allowed the crimson-armored figure to walk toward Foster and circle around her, its helmet moving up and down as it examined her body. It stopped in front of her spreading both its arms apart, two Poniga from behind began to remove parts of the crimson armor away from its body, leaving the task of loosening its spiky large helmet for last.
The armor fell off first, Foster saw the leathery skin on the body inside of it. Then the helmet fell to the figure’s feet as the two loyal Poniga servants retreated backwards. Foster couldn’t believe the face she saw from under the helmet.
A large reptilian head.
Four eyes.
It was a Javnis.
The Architect was a Javnis.
“Oh, my lord,” Foster said.
“You are different,” The Architect replied in a strange language, Foster recognized it as the Poniga language from her recent engram experience.
“Architect, I presume,” Foster said in the alien tongue.
“You speak the language of the Poniga, good.” The Architect walked circles around Foster again, this time examining her with his own four eyes. “But . . . you are not Poniga; your technology is far too advanced. I took many steps to ensure they didn’t advance beyond what I allowed the Qirak to provide for them. Therefore, you came outside of the system.”
“Yeah, we kinda moved in a few days ago.”
“Linl? No, the markings on your outfit do not match their language, and I instructed them to never travel to this realm again as long as I rule, punishing those that defied me. You are too primitive to be Lyonria.” His finger pointed backward toward his gold chair, Foster saw her ePistol and EAD resting on it, the electronics and wiring on the inside of them had been pulled out.
“Well shucks, you got me, I’m not Lyonria.”
The Architect pushed his face closer to hers. Close enough for her to feel the heat from his body and smell the alien odor from his face. “Where are you from?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Where are you from? What is your place of origin?”
“Oh! Tennessee, Nashville to be exact, but it doesn’t exist anymore thanks to the empire.”
The Architect’s hand rose up as the EAD was pulled off the chair into its hands via telekinesis. The holographic screen of the EAD activated and its contents displayed, snippets of data files pertaining to the Carl Sagan’s and Radiance database. She cringed at the thought of how many security protocols he managed to bypass to get that far. True, Foster was well aware psionics had the ability to access computers with their thoughts, but such a skill required years of training and cybernetic implants. The Architect had no such visible implants and probably never experienced any Radiance psionic training, what he was doing according to Radiance’s knowledge of psionic powers was impossible.
“You are human, according to this,” The Architect said. “Impressive, I did not expect your kind to advance this fast. When I last visited your planet you were extremely primitive, using spears, swords, and arrows as weapons.”
“If you knew that already, then why did you ask?”
“I needed to test you,” he said as he looked deeper into her eyes. “I needed to see where your loyalties were.”
“Did I pass or fail?”
He smirked at her. “You tried to hide the truth; you tried to deceive your god.”
Foster laughed at his statement, and mockingly said. “You’re a god now?”
His telekinesis wrapped around her arms, legs, and back, forcing her body to the floor and to kneel in front of him. It was painful, especially when she tried to move on her own terms. Simply thinking about moving her legs or arms sent sharp pulses of pain into her muscles and joints.
“I am a god!” he yelled and pointed at the Poniga and Sirens swimming circles in the pool below. “These Undine and Poniga know the truth. They know that I am the Architect. I am the one that created life in this system, I am the one that allowed them to live, I am the one that provided them with a planet which they can call home. I am the one that protects the Poniga from the heat and radiation of its parent star; I am the one that sought to forgive the Undine for their devotion to Tiamat rather than wiping them out. And I have asked for very little in return.”