Kick the Sphere 38 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 38

-VB-

Creating machines, devices, or even a simple tool that run off of spiritual energy was not as easy as the memories made it seem. 

For one, normal materials didn’t hold spiritual energy well. Regular aluminum, iron, and copper slid off spiritual energy like they were the opposite poles of a magnet. Bronze, for some reason, seemed to take in a bit of spiritual energy. It was better than iron and steel but the difference between a bit and none was the difference between 0 and 1. Infinitely more than nothing but too small too matter. With that “bit” of spiritual energy in a bronze plate, it could withstand one more bullet from Negev. I mean Rebecca, who wielded a gun of her namesake. 

… I’ll go with Spiritual Bronze Meter or SBM. I just made it the fuck up to measure spiritual energy, because I don’t want to do everything without a unit of measurement. It made life easier, especially when I had to explain things to people.

“... which is how this naquadah-bronze plate can hold 300 SBM,” I explained to Rebecca and her little court of Reupgrade. All of Reupgrade’s T-Dolls were here as were three more “trusted” members. And why were they here?

Well.

I realized that I can upgrade T-Dolls with SBM-imbued materials, which gave them their own spiritual energies to play with that slowly refilled.

See, that was what was great about spiritual energy; it wasn’t a physical energy that dissipated to achieve entropy but a willful essence that sought a specific form and shape. Like how souls generated spiritual energy, an object imbued with spiritual energy could, and would, regenerate spiritual energy as it sought an equilibrium that they had previously achieved upon their enchantment, which was good enough of a term for the SBM-imbuement process. 

“And what can I do with … 300 SBM?” Rebecca asked curiously. And she was definitely curious. She saw how a thin bronze plate could withstand a bullet from her negev when it shouldn’t have been able to. 

“You can probably fly indefinitely,” I hummed. “Not fast but definitely hover as long as you want.”

Jennifer, Type 64, whistled. “Does that mean I can just float around everywhere? No need to walk?”

I raised an eyebrow at the T-Doll who had been becoming lazier and lazier as time went on. “... If you really want to, then, yes, you can float everywhere.”

“Gib upgrade. Now.”

I rolled my eyes. 

“And what about for us, milord?” the human subject of the Reupgrade asked. 

I looked at him. Like most human members of the Reupgrade Workshop, he wore something of a cross between a surgeon, mechanic, and soldier and both of his legs were cybernetic upgrades. Someone who couldn’t walk before Reupgrade helped him with T-Doll parts? 

“If my girls are happy with you, then they might share what I give them. I’ll include instructions for how the naquadah-bronze can be shaped into different tools for those without cybernetic implants or prosthetics,” I replied. 

Over time, I felt more accepting of the … worshipers. It was hard not to when they went out of their way to respect my wishes as best as they could. Only the most stupid among them tried to force their zealotry upon me by trying to force me to “act like a god.” They properly policed their own numbers, generally, so I only met two… three stupid zealots. 

Most of those were from the Temple of Ares.

And before purchasing Mantra Generation, he had a legitimate excuse to not do whatever it was they wanted. I wasn’t a god. I was just … powerful.

Now, I didn’t have that excuse. I had literal divinity (of a sort) running through my veins. I personally reshaped the world and imbued spiritual essence into objects. 

I waved at all of Reupgrade as they left with my gifts of more than three tons of naquadah-bronze, no doubt readying themselves to upgrade their founders and creating tools and weapons for the followers. 

Once I was alone again within the Factory, I found myself questioning it all. 

Was I truly divine? Those who used Mantra would inevitably think so. Or at least those around them would. If I was divine and perhaps the only known divine in this galaxy, then did my actions dictate what divinity meant from now on? 

The question unnerved me as much as it weighed down and frustrated me.

Those kinds of questions weren’t things I cared about. I just wanted a good … life.

… Good life.

What was a goof life? 

Ugh, I’m starting to get philosophical and I don’t like it. It’s like one of those wiki walks. You press whatever link comes up first in the wiki entry and you always eventually end up in the entry of philosophy with The Thinker plastered right there at the top. 

… What did I want? I already got everything I wanted in life. I was personally powerful. I had a big family, though I didn’t have a wife or biological kids. I certainly had a few adopted ones among the orphans, though I couldn’t quite say that I was close with any of them. Less a father and more of a perpetually distracted uncle. 

I didn’t need to worry about the outside world either because the replicators and zergs were doing a goddamn good job at making life miserable for everyone else. The Capellan Confederation, which was an already collapsing Successor State that was three generation away from becoming a minor power, just lost half of its territory to the zergs alone. The replicators were eating away at strategic worlds while converting barren, rocky worlds into replicator worlds. The Duchy of Andurien had fallen to them and so many more were under threat, and they - the Free Worlds League - deserved it for attacking me. 

Nobody asked them to come to an abandoned system that they neglected and left behind with a fleet of jumpships and dropships.

It made me wonder…

Just a bit.

Tiny bit.

And maybe my newfound divinity - however weak and small it was compared to what it could be when I considered its origin - made me think of things that could be better if … someone were to have a heavier hand upon the rest of the Inner Sphere. 

There was no need for control. No need to dominate. No need to wage an endless war to satiate a greed or need that didn’t exist within me.

But would it hurt for me to exert some influence? To bring an end to the current state of the Inner Sphere? 

Would the brief pain now not be great if I could establish peace later?