Chapter 16 - Ethics

  "The extent of atrocities performed leading up to and during the System's descent was only understood by the general public decades after they occurred. To keep matters palatable, human experimentation on unwilling participants became common, as did slaving. Powerful men and women of the old world were so fearful of losing the influence they once held that they would do anything and everything to keep that power. The most famous example is none other than Old San Fran."

  - Lecture in Introduction to Ethics, Philosophy 101.

  ‘Damn, these kids are excitable,’ Solis thought as he stared at his mana pathways. He used the same trick Hans had, the one where he could see and feel his mana much better when he was between skill activations. He thought of it like having his finger on a trigger. It was ready to fire at any moment, but he still had time to aim his shot. Instead of actually doing any aiming, he was inspecting the metaphorical gun that was his mana.

  The mana didn’t really conform to his veins or any discernible channels to the point that calling them pathways felt more like a falsehood than a misnomer. His body, specifically his skin, acted more like a membrane for the mana. The mana pooled all over his body, denser in his chest and brain, but thin in his arms and legs. He found he could move it around, but it was not the smooth flow of water. It was like using a fan to blow smoke around an unventilated room, which is why he used the whirlpools to move it, which gave him an idea.

  He compared his internal mana to his external mana and found something interesting. External mana naturally had [Corruption] attached to it, with the mana gathering around the tar-like substance. He let a little bit of his internal mana out and watched it. It floated in the air, drifting from side to side until it found [Corruption] and then latched onto it.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ he wondered.

  Solis wanted to try something out, but helping Ana choose her skill came first, and he needed Samir for it too

  “Hey, Hans, can you go get Samir for me? I want him to check something. There’s no rush for him, but you should come back fast or else your sister will choose her skill without you.”

  Hans sprinted off to get Samir, and Solis spent a minute closing the small holes in the wall between themselves and the trapped crickets. He would tell everyone, but not at that very moment. It would be disruptive to Ana.

  After he was done, he turned his attention back to the other sibling.

  “So I know you were still debating about your system question last time, but this is less important than that. The questions take forever to charge. Any EXP you get that doesn’t go to a level up due to your cap goes to regenerating your System Question. Mine’s only at 5% and I used it right away. All to say, those are important, and you should take your time with them. Just selecting a skill to use for now? Not as important. You can always get rid of it when you max it out.

  “I already selected my skill.” Ana said, a little smug, then hesitated. “Actually it’s a class, but Samir told me I could abandon them at any time.”

  Solis gave a thumbs-up from his spot on the floor. “Yep, classes are different. What’d you pick?”

  “Metalurgic Dancer”

  “What’s it do?”

  “I can control metal.”

  To illustrate her point, she levitated Solis’s knife into the air and slashed it across nothing, talking as she did so. “It behaves like an extra limb that floats around.”

  Solis nodded. “I gotta say that was a lot easier than Hans.”

  Ana looked at him like he had just been surprised that the sky was blue. “Duh.”

  —

  After ten minutes, Solis could hear Samir grumbling as he made his way through the crack to the dome.

  Solis smiled.

  “Hey Samir, I’m gonna need Purify ready. I’m trying something. Right now, actually.” It was far smarter for him to wait and confirm Samir was ready, but he was reasonably confident it would work, and more than that, Samir was a safety net, but one that could tell him not to do what he was just about to do.

  If he was fast about it, he could just pretend he was stupid or something. It was better to ask for forgiveness than permission, too.

  With far more understanding than last time, Solis took the barest fraction of external mana from the air and pushed it past his mana membrane. He could feel the thick oil-like corruption hitching a ride, but that’s what he wanted. As the Corruption passed the mana membrane, it latched on, but Solis was prepared and pulled it away with a combination of [Mana Manipulation] and a pulse of [Anchor] -- shutting the membrane tight as it all passed.

  Unfortunately, the Corruption clung to Solis's membrane, and he could only tear off small chunks of the tar-like substance. Activating his [Division], Solis directed one stream of thought to focus on watching the small chunks of [Corruption] while the other one watched the larger chunk that was trying to eat through his mana membrane.

  He became enraptured by both. The smaller chunks were swarmed by other motes of mana, which covered its surface and ate away at it until only motes of mana were left. Most interestingly, there were more mana motes than before, which meant that mana could convert corruption into more mana.

  The larger chunk kept trying to eat his membrane, which brought the nausea back, but he raised a hand to forestall any help for the time being. His mana wasn’t trying to pull the [Corruption] off of his membrane, but rather it tried to do what it had done to the smaller chunks – swarm and eat. While it was doing just that, the corruption was burrowing through the membrane, trying to get more of Corruption inside him.

  Seeing the problem, Solis swirled his mana in whirlpools, battering the chunk over and over with force until it dislodged and went careening into the space in his chest. He watched in fascination as the [Corruption] seemed to take on a mind of its own and began piloting itself back to his membrane. He swirled the whirlpool faster, not allowing it to reach.

  After the mote of corruption was torn from his membrane, the nausea vanished entirely, despite it still existing inside his body. He maintained his focus, moving the chunk of corruption to the center of his chest to keep it as far away from any wall as possible. A part of him wanted to try putting it in the center of his brain because that was the spot away from any wall, but he had the impression that would be a distinctly awful idea.

  Deactivating [Division], Solis focused all of his attention on swirling his mana until the chunk of corruption was entirely dispersed into mana.

  “Well, ain’t that a kick in the head,” Solis grunted.

  For his troubles, he was greeted by two System prompts and an exasperated Samir.

  He started with the System prompts to ignore the consequences of his actions.

  Solis read his rewards with a dumb grin. He had been on the right track then; all that remained were the consequences of his actions.

  “What was that?” Samir grumbled out. “You shouldn’t have had any more corruption in you.” The doctor spoke calmly and with a detached professionalism.

  “I was thinking that mana and corruption were intrensically related. Higher corruption zones have higher mana regeneration rates, I got corruption when trying to retrieve my external mana, and when I used too much mana I gained corruption.”

  “Okay.” Samir said flatly, and Solis started to sweat.

  “Well, I saw that my external mana had a little corruption, so I figured I’d see what was actually happening. I thought the best way to do that was to reabsorb one chunk and see what happened. It would’ve been a lot less than I absorbed the first time, and that was only 0.1.”

  Samir’s expression barely changed, but he looked from Ana to Hans. “Translate… you two give Solis and I a second. Ira and Dimitri were working on something and could use your help too.”

  The siblings hesitated, but looking between Solis and Samir, they scampered off back into the cave system.

  “I will be speaking as a medical professional first, then I will be speaking as one of the adults in the room. First, what you just did is called self-experimentation. It has had a long, storied history of success and failure, and its continuation is considered controversial.”

  Solis flinched. He didn't like where this was going. He did not want to be lectured. Consternation he had expected, but somehow Samir's detached tone was worse.

  "I didn’t put anyone else at risk, just myself, and I brought you here just in case.”

  Samir said nothing, staring until Solis was done talking, then he continued. “As I said, it’s been used to great effect before, when the need was great, and the work was dangerous. Some argue it’s a noble thing to put oneself in danger and not others, but the difference between you and them is that you have not spent years gathering statistical evidence, proving need, opportunity, and harm mitigation. You have no training, and even with training, for every success story of self-experimentation, there are many more who irreparable crippled themselves.”

  “You could have healed me. It’s your entire class,” Solis pushed back.

  “Do you know how my class works? Truly know, or are you just guessing? Did you know how this [Corruption] worked before you tried anything? I said nothing when you took your mana back into yourself because you had no reason to believe it would have negative effects; you are living in a changed world, and got injured. I did not say anything when you made this dome because that was a moment of great need, and I doubt you knew the consequences. I see no great need at the moment, safe and surrounded by rocks as we are.”

  “What was I supposed to do then? Nothing! If you haven’t noticed, we’re stuck here, and I’m trying to gain any advantage I can," Solis pushed back harder, feeling the need to defend himself.

  “You are choosing not to hear me. You had time to wait, to think about it, to talk to the doctor you’d be relying on to save you if anything went wrong. I am a Doctor, not your parent or guardian. If I say it’s a poor idea, I am speaking in that capacity, and if I suggest alterations or prior experimentation not on yourself or others, it is to make something safe for the worst-case scenario.”

  Solis had nothing to say. The words came to mind but wouldn’t leave his throat. He was upset, angry even, but he knew that was ego talking. He focused on that, trying to separate himself from his actions and see how he'd feel if the situations were reversed.

  Samir was right, as much as Solis hated to admit it. The entire reason he acted so fast is that he didn’t want the fucking medical doctor to tell him something was a bad idea.

  Arrogance. The realization of what it was made him shiver.

  “It’s hard,” Samir’s voice softened a touch. “Everything is… different and confusing, but just because the world has gone mad doesn’t mean that we have to. As I said when we first met, I am prone to worrying. If you have thought of this, it is not hard to imagine others haven’t, and not all are willing to put themselves on the line first.”

  “I— I would never go that far. I’d never— not on another person.”

  “You brought me into it. Without my consent, you brought me into a potential medical emergency that may have taken precious mana away from our ability to eat and drink. Not to mention I may not have even had the mana necessary to save you if something went wrong. You are not alone here, Solis, in all aspects. That comes with advantages, yes, as well as responsibilities.

  Solis tasted ash in his mouth, and he felt numb, but also that he might like to lie down and fall asleep for the next week. “I’m sorry. I understand.

  “Good, now, speaking as one of the adults in the room. I’m glad you are unharmed. I understand why you did that, but did you have to do it in front of the children? They do not need to grow up thinking its alright to put themselves in danger due to impatience.”

  Solis looked up to the ceiling, internally chastising himself further. “Yeah, you’re right. That was really dumb, on a lot of levels.”

  Samir’s expression finally fully softened, and the older man shrugged. “Meh, you seem properly regretful, so it is a learning experience. Smart people learn from their mistakes, and from what you just described, while a little thoughtless, you are not without your intelligence. Just make sure to point it to the right ends.”

  “Will do doc.”

  “So, what’s next.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, certainly you aren’t going to give up on this line of thought here? Unless I’ve misread you completely that doesn’t seem like something you’d do. So, what’s the next idea. Let us discuss.”

  “Oh… uh, yeah... Right, so, do you know anything about membranes?” The shift had caught Solis off guard. He had been beginning to wallow, and it took a second for his brain to change tracks. He almost didn’t say anything due to self-pity, but it happened so fast he hardly knew what he was saying before he did.

  The Doctor raised an eyebrow, “Vaguely, why?”

  “Well, we have a mana membrane inside of us now. I think its purpose is to keep mana in and corruption out. If that’s true, we’d regenerate mana when the ambient mana in the air scrapes against the membrane and is let through. More [Corruption] means more mana, so higher regeneration rates. It also seems like mana can convert [Corruption] into more mana. So, I was thinking I could do both. I could gather the mana ambient in the air, but I could also take in a manageable amount of [Corruption] and cleanse it into mana. I could double my mana regen rate.”

  “As I understand it having [Corruption] in your body is excessively painful and disorienting.”

  “Only when the [Corruption] is attacking the mana membrane. If it’s not attached to the membrane you don’t notice it at all.”

  Samir hummed to himself, thinking something over, “What’s the plan to control the amount of [Corruption] you let in and what are you classifying and ‘manageable’ in this context.”

  “Well, that’s the part I need help with, actually. I’m not sure.”

  He explained the problem in as great detail as he could, noting all of the observations he had made and the exact procedure of his impromptu experiment. Surprisingly, Samir did have a few suggestions.

  “I know of three ways. Small holes in the membrane so small the debris can pass through, but it sounds like the “pressure” from outside is too high for that. The other kind would a type of protecteive layer. If you had another thicker membrane just inside the first, then you could shove all the corruption through, and it wouldn’t be able to get to the inside of it and do damage, but there’d be no way to control how much. The third would be like a heart valve system. You have chambers that you send the [Corruption] into. An airlock would be better, actually. One chamber on the outside. You close it when there’s enough corruption and open your membrane, letting only the trapped corruption inside.”

  Solis nodded along, drawing a diagram on the ground with a stick. “I think I got it. I don’t know how I’m going to … make more membrane or solidify mana to act as a wall, but this helps a lot, but it gives me a good direction. Thanks, Samir.”

  “Warn me before you try anything,” the Doctor said, “There’s also more you should test before you try. We should categorize a unit of corruption to track what managable levels are.”

  “Yeah, I’ll let you know before next time. I’m going to give a day or two. Just rest for a while.”

  “Good, get some rest when you can. We all need it. I’ll bring you food when its ready.”

  “Yaaay. Crickets.”

  “If there’s one reason to get out of these caves its that.” Samir chuckled, standing. “See you in a bit.”

  Then, Solis was left alone to think.

  He really was no better than ‘Father’ sometimes. He was his blood; how could he have forgotten? It wasn’t just enough to do good; he had to be better. Otherwise, what was it all for? How else could he ever balance the scales?

  He didn’t know, but after a little while, he realized he was moping. He wanted to get up, but couldn’t bring himself to. His mind told him to do it, but his body just wouldn’t listen.

  Then people began to trickle into the dome, carrying bowls of nutritious cricket soup. They were talking, laughing lightly. They gathered around, and Solis finally got the strength to sit up.

  There, in a dome in a jungle underneath a mountain, with only a hand crank lamp that they had to take turns recharging, the five of them ate dinner.

  It didn’t feel normal. It was certainly surreal, but it felt nice. It felt like they cared, and Solis desperately clung to that feeling.

  ? Consumer of the Fourth Anchor ?

  by Miko Melina

  A little monster with a big heart and an even bigger appetite.