#egom

Egom got shot in the head. this damaged his Veil chip and made him reconsider his life.

While he was recovering, Egom was slowly learning to live without the hivemind. In its absence, His thoughts go to how quiet it is without messages, answers, and commands ticking in like a persistent hum in the back of his mind.

How odd it is not to be told what to do, to rest and think, to meditate…

And being alone. No reassuring messages or voice of care and unity. It's scary, but in a way that brings a great sense of freedom with it.

The medical recovery wing is usually a quiet zone, apart from the low hum of machines, the occasional doctor or nurse checking in on patients who are out of their vats of healing fluids.

So it's like a lightning strike from cloudless skies when everyone is suddenly talking about messages from the Empress, For citizens to go home, urgently.

Egom never got any of the messages, he wonders if it's because of his head injury, or his chip being damaged, but he knew what was happening, people talk and everyone being called back sounded like bad news, the war couldn't possibly be over, there was talk about the fleet deploying a new weapon, about the empress herself being on the flagship, in person!

About it being the end of anything that opposed Cy-dejjin!

About an impending apocalypse.

Egom decided in the quiet hours of night that this wasn't blood he wanted on his hands.

And  in the chaos of everyone packing up to leave.

Egom stayed behind.

And oh how eerie it is. Everyone of your kin starts leaving their off-planet dwellings and other systems to go home.

Leaving their other lives behind, their friends, positions and jobs as if pulled by a string tied so tightly around their minds that ignoring it is impossible.

"It's urgent."

"I have to leave."

"it's an emergency."

"I have to go home."

"I don't know when I will return."

But time passes, and nobody returns, the borders close. And it's all so quiet, eerily quiet.

Until a Dense psychic hum shakes the planet's core… And all the worlds closest to their homeworld burn.

...

Luckily by then, Egom was already on the move, finding work, finding family, not bound by species but by goals.

And he used his skills to make a living, a pilot, a drugrunner, a smuggler! Piracy might be against the law, it might be keeping him on the run, but it's keeping life interesting, and it's good company!

So when he years later, spots one of his own ilk by chance, he took that chance and ran with it, getting the boarding crew to grab him and drag him onto the ship.

Jet, the captain, wanted to leave the youngling behind on the trading vessel but Egom demanded he was brought on board, with the open possibility that they can drop him off somewhere if he's trouble.

Not telling anyone about the possibility of a tracking chip in the young alien's skull.

...

He doesn't say much at first. But Cade as he lets himself be addressed is looking more than a little worse for wear, bruised, bloodied, thin.. more so than what Egom remembered Drones looking from before the destruction.

When he sits in the small cabin the pirates hurriedly rebranded the "holding pen/interrogation chamber" he appears more like a caged animal that is too polite to cower in a corner.

Scared at first, Cade only talked when asked, but with Egom's reassurance, and with a little bit of first aid, some stitches and Egom prodding Cade about his profession and what he was doing in the cargo hull, his headwound, and most importantly his obvious lack of a chip, Cade seems to relax at least a little.

Egom makes himself easier to trust, he reveals he himself isn't under the veil and hasn't been for decades. He can tell easily that Cade is relieved, but that he still has his guard up.

Egom asks Cade about the war, and about what happened after the destruction. Surprised when Cade claims he knows nothing about it.

That sets off a million red warning lights, flags, sirens, and all the rest.

Cade tells Egom about how times have changed.

Egom being from the old era, before the three empresses closed the borders, back when their singular mother ruled and things were more open, back during the war before he was shot.

He hasn't seen the way the planet changed to be more robotic and controlled.

Sure it was very high-tech even back then and people did have implants in their heads for communication but nothing like how Cade is talking about.

Cade not knowing about the war and why the borders were closed makes that worry worse, the war was a big deal, and to know the younger generations don't know anything about it confirms his thoughts.

What Cade does know is that the Border was closed for the safety of the empire. And that Empress was kind and patient.

Cade tells that after the Mother empress' death, her daughters split the throne, and share the responsibility. Also shared a much more technological vision. One more controlled and perfect.

New programming for chips, knowledge shared, memory banks for those who excelled so their skills would not be lost on death. Your wisdom lives forever.

The process of mating, taken care of, genetic libraries, need a new doctor, we grow one! No more complicated births, the youth is programmed, brought up communally, then taken under the wing of one of the trade house families, and since the knowledge from the best is already instinct, teaching is fast, and as technology soars, so does life expectancy. There is no fighting and everyone agrees its for the greater good.

Their perfection is a society controlled and polished, everyone knowing their place and their duty.

Machines filling in where the people cannot.

Machines helping those who strive to perfect their arts.

Machines becoming part of you so you can be perfect.

...

Egom feels his guts crawl when Cade talks about the Veil chip. How its equal parts information and communication networks and propaganda machine. Everyone has one implanted, it knows where you are and what you are doing, it helps you do your task to the best ability, it keeps you safe, it gives you information, it gives them information.

Without one, you are invisible to the empire, their information doesn't reach you, and you cannot reach them.

Egom voices his worry about this, prodding Cade about why he managed to remove his chip without it forcing him to stop.

From this he learns that Cades knew his chip was damaged from the start. That he used to get some information, but most of the time it was only a garbled mess of what it should be. A low hum like a migraine in the back of his mind unless he focused.

It was a constant source of worry, he was scared that if he told anyone, he'd be picked apart to figure out what was wrong with him, or sent in to be repaired, whatever that might entail. He feared he might not come out on the other side the same person as he went in.

Cade's wall starts to crumble, fast.

He rambles, that he knows he wasn't set to be a biotech engineer medic, his specializing in replacement limbs is just the easier choice because it's where you deal less with other people and more with just numbers and equipment.

Cade seemingly believed that perfection was always out of reach for him. He asks too many questions. He doesn't understand things that come naturally to his peers, the others are getting messages that he doesn't get. Literally.

...

He lights up when Egom mentions that he is the pilot of the pirate ship, leading the youngling to talk in length about how his own passions were never medicine but much more tuned to speed,  giddily talking about racing and piloting, at night, and in secret, engines, tuning, and how it was just a small skimmer, just a hobby, something to get his mind off his life and everything.

It's obvious to Egom that Cade hasn't talked to anyone in ernest in a long time about anything other than work, and it's all spilling out of him.

And on that topic, he learns Cade was just skilled enough in life to get by, as long as he kept his head down, his anger in place and his flaw unnoticed. He put on a front and tried his best to blend in.

 Everything is fine, nothing is wrong.

 Everything is fine, nothing is wrong.

 Everything is fine, nothing is w-.

Cade goes quiet, as if he accidentally let himself get guided onto a sore topic.

the youngling throws out a quick "sorry" rubbing his padded metal hand over the knuckles of his other thoughtfully.

After a moment of silence he starts on why he left.

Cade had thrown himself recklessly into his work. As if getting himself hurt was an excuse to chase robotic perfection, to carve away his chitin and replace it with metal in a desperate hope it might make him better? Maybe people won't notice his quirks and his disconnected state of mind….his mistakes.

Won't notice HE is a mistake?

His ears droop and he is visibly uncomfortable.

Egom considers putting a hand on the younglings back for reassurance, comfort? but knows this is a learned response from living with an alien crew, he isn't family to Cade and it would probably freak him out.

Cade talks about how he knew something was always wrong and fucked up with him, he tried to remove the chip himself, maybe he can take it out and fix it, or at the very least get rid of the noise. But once it's out, the veil, tho already tattered and frayed, gets lifted.

Cade knows he can't go back, he's been an outcast his entire life and he can surely fend for himself out there? Right?

So he decides to leave.

He rambles on about planning, avoiding surveillance.. and a distraction in the form of a bomb. making Egom cock an eyebrow at how easily the youngling goes in detail about the explosion being bigger than anticipated, it's not something he is trained in making, after all, but it was placed in the hopes that the least people would be hurt..

not that it would matter. He had no plans to return, and if he failed. A quick death was an option that had crossed his mind more than once.

Then it was the hurried act of stowing away, hiding, and tending to his head before throwing a bribe or four to jump to another ship at a refueling station.. Only for his plan to completely derail when that ship got boarded by.. by them, the pirates. But that might be for the better, he was finally off the grid, he was safe, saved? right?

...

Egom gets up, telling Cade he will be right back, he needs a moment to think. To consider his options.