We showed them everything we knew. The two guys were amazed, as you'd expect, and Gus’s eyes blazed when he saw the stats screen.
Name: Mick Greenall
Age: 32 GY
Transcendence Level: 54
Strength: 80/1000
Agility: 74/1000
Speed: 78/1000
Intelligence: 40/1000
Constitution: 86/1000
Wisdom: 25/1000
Mental Resilience: 39/1000
Mental Clarity: 14%
Potential: 72%
“Not bad, mate, not bad at all. Now, come on. Let’s go and look at Gus’s,” I said.
Name: Gus Vallance
Age: 30 GY
Transcendence Level: 56
Strength: 81/1000
Agility: 65/1000
Speed: 60/1000
Intelligence: 70/1000
Constitution: 35/1000
Wisdom: 52/1000
Mental Resilience: 31/1000
Mental Clarity: 30%
Potential: 86%
Like Astrid, Gus’s Mental Clarity was already remarkably high, all things considered. But it made sense when you took into account his personality: he processed things carefully. It probably helped that his Intelligence and Wisdom were fucking sky-high, relatively speaking. I could imagine Ember quietly seething that his Potential was higher than hers. Mick probably wasn't too happy either. His Potential was the lowest I’d seen so far.
We walked through Gus’s Mindscape. His Cognition Room didn't look too bad at all. Plenty of work to do, but that wasn't a surprise. We explained the best process for tidying them, pointing out that Ember and I often worked in tandem to lessen the boredom, which was something they could do between them if they were comfortable being in each other's Mindscapes.
Unsurprisingly, they were more than happy to be in each other's heads. Although whereas Gus’s eyes showed an almost rapturous hunger for ordering his room, I sensed nothing but dread from Mick.
Once we had told them everything we could, I said, “Right, guys. It's been emotional, but now me and Ember have a shit-load of inventory to do. We’ll all start training together from tomorrow. If you discover anything useful in the Mindscapes, let us know. We need every edge we can get.”
“Sure will, Captain. This is amazing, what you’ve done for us. Really amazing,” Mick said. Gus was lost in Gus's world.
“Bah! Behave yourself, Mick. We're a team. And, I’ve been meaning to say thanks again for levitating me on Xonico when I asked. Beautifully done.”
“Xonico was my favorite time,” Havok mused.
“You’re welcome, you mad bastard. Although you didn’t give me much choice,” he laughed.
“I don’t need help levitating any more, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty more mad endeavors in the future.”
He nodded, a serious expression on his face. “We’ll be there, Captain. I promise.”
“I know you will, Mick.”
We all left the captain's office and went our separate ways.
Back at our own quarters, Ember stopped me before I could enter my Mindscape.
“Shaun, should we mess with the climate controls a bit?”
“Oh shit, yeah! For the constitution boosts? I can’t deny, that’s a good idea.”
Ember nodded smugly while she messed with the controls for our room. The drop in temperature was instant. She shivered wrapping her arms around her. “Oh fuck that,” she said teeth already chattering. “Let’s try low oxygen this time, huh?”
Within a few seconds the temperature was back up to ambient, followed by a noticeable shortness of breath for me.
“Right, that should be low enough to make a difference without killing us,” she gasped. “Now let’s go Mindscape side.”
“Yes, let’s,” I said pulling at the neck of my suit, feeling like I was slowly suffocating. We would be doing the inventory work separately now to make the best use of our time, which I was sad about. “Best hold on to Havok, Ember. Just in case you messed up with the levels.”
“I didn’t mess up, but I will all the same, thanks,” she smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. We both sat on the bed with Havok between us.
“I’ll keep you guys safe. You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Havok said in our heads. Then, we entered our Mindscapes.
I appeared in front of the terminal, relieved to not feel like I was dying. I stared blankly for a few moments at the glowing screen. “Boring!” I shouted. “Come on Havok, hit me with something good!”
“I have just the thing. It’s called metal.”
“Sounds good, pal,” I said, as heavy thrashing guitars screeched through my mind. It helped me to get past feeling overwhelmed from the sheer amount of work that I had to do at the terminal. I soon got into a flow.
There were plenty of things I had no clue about, things that could have happened at any time in a five-year-period, but the newer representations of memory were easy to file. I imagined my 75% Mental Clarity was being put to good use in the work. I toiled for most of the day, a whole seven hours. It wasn't until I was coming away from the inventory terminal that I checked the notification at the bottom.
Rebuild mind-database: 3% complete.
Depressing, but at least I had a frame of reference to go with my Mental Clarity stats. I figured I would get an extra point in Clarity every time my Rebuild went up by 4%. So if it took seven fucking hours for a lousy 3%, then this was going to be a long, slow process. If I kept to this pace, it would take around 230 hours to reach full Clarity. We’d be nowhere near done by the time we landed in the Perseus system.
The following days saw the training commence. Acclo made sure that all the ships were following the same, or similar, training methods. We made sure to keep in touch and abreast of any problems arising. I named our group the Alpha Team – Ember wouldn't let me call it the A-team, and apart from Mick, who supported my call, nobody else cared enough.
We practiced levitating and fighting together. It was massive fun! Calegg and Koparr shot fire at the new fire-resistant targets, while Elyek and Acclo turned invisible and flanked our imaginary enemy, moving in after four volleys of fireballs. Mick, Gus and Ember floated along behind me, levitating metal balls at the training bags ahead of us, and deflecting the odd training-laser that came their way with their
