Point Zero by Aer-ki Jyr (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

“Azoro has been around a billion years?” Morgan-063 asked. “And hasn’t been able to speak with anyone that entire time? Only watch and observe with impunity?”

“Yes.”

“Now my head is really hurting,” she said, rubbing her temple.

“It’s a lot to process, and I’m only learning tidbits. I get exhausted on short conversations, and he can’t share any of his own memories until I develop a lot further.”

“Can he harm you?”

“He could kill me easily now that I’ve made the breakthrough, but he can’t touch anyone who hasn’t. He’s promised to teach me how to defend myself against such an attack in time, but development is going to be slow. He helped me stabilize my second breakthrough by pushing on the connection and essentially boring out a hole that wouldn’t close again. That, combined with the physical changes you are all going through, meant I had one hell of a vacation blackout wise.”

“What does Azoro want from us?” Davis asked.

“Payback, someone to talk to, a civilization worthy enough for him to bestow the knowledge that he is pointlessly carrying since his own race is gone. He said he watched the survivors fragment and devolve until they were wiped away into the dustbin of history. There are none left for him to find and teach even with our help. But our Lightside philosophy is to his liking, and his race is described more as builders than warriors…which is one reason I suspect they were defeated. Just my suspicion there. We haven’t gotten into any of that history yet. Too much other vital stuff to cover in a few minutes of conversation every few weeks.”

“So you barely know anything about him?” Jason pushed.

“He didn’t waste time with smalltalk, and he already can read my thoughts and has been watching all of us long enough to know the subject matter. It’s been brief, but very informative. And a lot of our conversations have involved my current transformation. He didn’t know about Essence back in the day, but he’s added a lot of knowledge since then, so he’s been helpful. Point number one is to stop pressing and just let the transformation play out. No training. Just back off and let it run its course. I got scolded a few times on that, but he was right. And my metabolism has now fully stabilized so I have the option of resting as much as I want. Yours should adapt the same way due to the same need.”

“And your growth?” Kara asked.

“We ran out of room for more psionics long ago, so I guess the universe finally said ‘enough, you’re getting bigger’ whether we like it or not. You’ll all probably end up a similar size. As for my other changes, I can now manufacture ambrosia internally at a far higher efficiency rate than our industry allows. I have zoom vision and bioluminescent eye rings which act as a flashlight in total darkness. I can also see a bit more spectrum, including gamma. I have a Sav-like brain enhancement that is actually a new organ within my brain. My skin has become color sensitive, in that it will respond to the environment or my emotions with armor shifts. I can’t control it, it’s automatic,” he said, pulling up one of his sleeves to show a mildly blue arm that looked normal with a little pigment added. “This is sedentary state, while stress turns me red, speed green, and taking hits makes me turn brown. There are probably more, but I haven’t been able to do much training and am taking my progression very slowly. Each color is adaptive, similar to how Vorlon technology remembered taking weapon hits and made itself more resistive to each one. My skin now does the same.”

“So if we shoot you…?” Jason asked.

“Gonna try that later,” Paul said honestly. “I’ve also got some funky alterations to my Saiyan mode I haven’t yet explored. It’s much more elastic, but beyond that I’ll have to get back to you. Muscle cell density has increased beyond Humanly possible, bone structure enhanced to the point of being Spartans without the medical implants. I keep getting telepathic pings as if I need to connect with people who aren’t there, so we may have a hive mind like thing going above and beyond what we had before. I’ll have to wait until you guys catch up to explore that,” he said, seeing Erin’s head fall back as she lost consciousness.

“Damn,” Sara said, looping her arm around Erin’s and pulling her towards her so her head could rest on Sara’s shoulder rather than hang back at an odd angle.

“I could comment on that being how boring I am, but I went through the same stuff, so I understand,” Paul said as he glanced out at the others, seeing some barely hanging on. “I also have developed an additional organ that neither I nor Azoro know the function of that encases my spine. It’s not armor, and so far it doesn’t seem to be doing anything, but the transitional flux is gone, so I don’t know about it. Let’s see, I also got upgrades to all of my psionic tissue except bioplasma. That actually got removed somehow, but my Bra’hem is still here and also upgraded.”

“Rensiek?” Arron-010 asked.

“Still here and boosted, so I don’t understand the bioplasma thing. My left arm evened out in weight as it added additional bioshield nodules, most of which are currently inert. There is also compacted genetic coding of a type our instruments can’t fully process, so I think we’re at the very beginning of the development of our new race. And yes, I can reproduce. My blocks have been erased, though I don’t know how compatible I am with Human or Saiyan right now. Something else to look into.”

“Wait…” Morgan said suspiciously.

“Do you want more advanced