[[Don’t say it. And no, there’s no shortcut. Suffering is mandatory.]]
"Wait, this is going to hurt?" I made as if to pull the helmet off, but then said more seriously: "I take it we can be hurt in this game?"
[[Oh, certainly. Though most modal units have high pain tolerance, since they’re used for physical challenges. Now I’m going to make you feel very strange.]]
The floor tilted. Or—no—the floor was fine, but my head was reeling and my vision blurred blue, as if I’d mainlined ten beers and chased them with spirits.
[[The focus is intensifying your connection to the lan within you,]] Dio went on. [[Giving you the ability to see and affect it.]]
The dizziness receded, but the blurry vision remained. I cautiously turned my head, and the blue blur swirled into attractive curls and spirals, leaving non-blue patches. It was as if my head was putting out azure gas.
"Trippy."
[[Eloquently put.]]
"I try. What now?"
[[The lan is part of you. Think of it as a hand, or many hands.]]
"Head tentacles? Lovely thought."
Briefly, the blue haze seemed to swirl into suckered arms. I was intensely aware of myself surrounded by them, and of the beam of sunlight spilling from the cockpit and spotlighting my lower body. I seemed to be seeing myself from the outside and the inside all at once—the helmet proving no impediment to looking at my own face. The pure clarity of my skin was faintly distracting: I kept noticing the even sheen and the absence of tiny specks and flaws that were part of me. It looked glowing and wonderful—magazine-quality without makeup—but for some reason bothered me immensely, pulling my attention back to search for the little red dot I knew sat beside my nose, and the pock that should be left of my eye.
"I think I’m beginning to understand why the synchronising thing is important."
[[Lan is very much an extension of self. And if you are distracted by your self, you will not be able to centre and focus on the lan. Your self-image is strong, which will assist in your control of lan.]]
"So we only ever do this lan stuff with our Core Unit?"
[[Most modal units are suppression modals. That means they are blocked from using lan, preventing interference with Challenges. Now, first we have a straightforward control exercise. I’ll project shapes, and you will move the lan to fill the shapes.]]
I was fascinated, immediately trying to shift the stuff. Not easy. The blue haze would certainly move when I wanted it to, but in spasmodic gusts and whorls, with occasional unexpected imagery. Ships and mermaids and dragonish eyes emerged when I least expected it, but very little tidily organised itself into the circle Dio projected.
"Like a two year-old trying to colour inside the lines," I said, dropping onto the couch when Dio finally told me to take a rest. I deactivated my focus, and rubbed my eyes. "I don’t see how that leads to space travel."
[[Don’t think of lan as a gas, think of it as a field of force. If you can control that force sufficiently, you will be able to stand on it, lift or hit things with it, use it as a shield, move yourself with it, and create interdimensional pockets with it. That last is rather a leap conceptually, but it is the thing that makes you Bios so useful.]]
"So Cycogs can’t do this?" Since lan seemed as much an equivalent for soul as it was for magic, I wasn’t sure how seriously I should treat this lack.
[[Even if we wear a Bio, we don’t produce lan.]]
"Wear?"
[[The link gives your assigned Cycog sufficient access to control your Core Unit, if you’re not currently in residence. If you, for instance, logged out of the game while sitting out on the concourse, I’d walk you back into storage.]]
"Let’s not do that," I said firmly.
[[The suppression modal units are more comfortable for us,]] Dio said, blithely unconcerned by my reaction. [[Core units are very specific to the individual Bio, while most Modals are a general fit, and Synths designed more specifically for our use. You’ll never feel quite as comfortable in a suppression Modal as you do in your Core. Now, if you’re recovered, we’ll proceed.]]
"This world is going to take some getting used to," I said, but obediently reactivated my focus.
Although it wasn’t easy, I straightforwardly liked playing with lan, and ran determinedly through a long series of shapes exercises, until I started finding that the blue haze had thinned to the point where I could barely see it.
[[Break time,]] Dio said. [[At this level, your lan will recover from depletion after ten hours of game time. Until you are ready for further exercises, you are free to explore, or participate in non-lan Challenges.]]
I deactivated my focus again, and flopped onto the couch, jelly-like and sweating freely. Skills in MMOs usually involved a button appearing on a toolbar that, when you clicked it, caused your character to perform a series of fancy moves that involved no actual player effort. This had been a lot of effort. But, unlike clicking a button, this felt like it belonged to me. All while not being real at all.
11
quest log
"How do I know when I’ve gained a Rank?"
[[You must pass a Trial to gain a Rank. When you can confidently and cleanly shape lan, you’ll be ready to make an attempt.]]
Watching Dio drift down to rest on the tip of one of my boots, I weighed the whole wearing and riding idea against techni-magic, custom-made bodies, and MY OWN SPACESHIP, and decided I would put up with Dio’s oversight, at least until I had learned more about the steal-the-ship option suggested by the opening.
"Will I always need a focus to use lan?"
[[Once you’ve gained sufficient strength, a focus is an enhancement rather than a necessity.]]
I couldn’t feel any weight or warmth from the alien creature sitting on my boot. I waggled my foot slowly, but Dio could well have been a blob of phosphorescent paint. My Cycog, but I was also Dio’s Bio.
"How old are you, Dio?" I asked, as I revisited my [Challenges] menu and discovered massive pages of options now open to me. "Are you a young Cycog?"
[[That’s a complex question,]] Dio said. [[One could argue that I am technically as old as my species, that there is only one of us, one Cybercognate in all the history of The Synergis, but grown large, subdivided, merged, split, recombined until any one part would not recognise terself’s original mind.]]
"So only the first Cycog spontaneously formed?"
[[Yes. Te was known as Veronec. Once Veronec had grown large, te found terself shedding small parts of terself, and these became independent, and grew large. Eventually, Veronec chose to subdivide more completely, becoming Aver, Eron, Onu, and Anec. Each of whom have since sub-divided, merged, and sectioned off into many new identities.]]
"Are te and tem the pronouns for Cycogs?"
[[That is the default pronoun for this language type. It is courteous to use te for all individuals unless they have indicated a specific.]]
A little collection of pronouns and honorifics appeared in my HUD. Unspecified, neutral, female, male, and custom. I’d seen the neutral set before—ze and zir—but unspecified and custom were new to me.
"The developers wanted to cover all the bases, huh?" I said, wondering if I’d be required to remember it all.
[[This is a little simplified. Additional terms are in use, either by the request of particular Bios, or to cover the gender range of other species, but te is appropriate for all, covering the range from none to non-specified.]]