The original Egregore Engine — the Markov-Kane Reactor, developed by the UCF in 2038, from this point referred to as “AC-0” — was a rudimentary technology. It was effective and highly efficient, superseding the energetics of essentially all conventional carbon fuels. However, the imperialists did not correctly understand the weight of the technology they held. AC-0 represented a genuine revolution in scientific development, a technology which should, in a correctly guided society, birth a whole new branch of scientific inquiry. It did not. In the Imperial Core, the technology withered, became stale — the imperialists only seeking to make the AC-0’s most essential mechanism smaller, faster, lighter. They did not seek to develop it. The People could abide no such thing. We did what they could not. We studied the underlying principles animating the mechanism. We dismantled them, out of necessity, and at terrible human cost. And we rebuilt them into something more advanced.
Preface to PRA Official Specification Document for the Parapsychological Energetics Affect Core, Mark 1 (AC-1), authored by the PRA Joint Parapsychological Energetics Research Cooperative
AC Research Lab People’s Memorial Museum, Yan’an Underground Complex 1, China, PRA, Earth, 05/02/2230, 1042 hours
The volunteers who offered themselves for the research have been honored. You see them around you.
Offered themselves for the research. These people… They chose, to be burned up as fuel, for… For a prototype? For research?
Flechette walks up to the wall. Begins looking at the portraits. Not mugshots, or photos for identification — no, these are candids. People in the midst of the moments of their lives. A beautiful someone smiling and leaning over a stove, captured in the moment of making a meal for their children. Someone laughing at the park. Someone else, in deep focus, playing a ball game. A person painting on a canvas, facing the camera, only the back of the canvas visible to the camera. The photos seem to recoil from the idea that these people were numbers, statistics for the creation of a machine. The life, the love in these photos screams: I was a person. I was here.
And now I am not.
Flechette looks down at each attribution. Hoping to honor them, by at least knowing their names.
She cannot read them. The names are written in a script she cannot understand. Their voices calling out, but silent to her.
Flechette stands there, staring at the wall. Fists clenched, shaking.
“What are you doing.”
Ka Zhengming has entered the room, silently. Flechette does not jump. She turns to them, ashamed, and looks directly into the soldier’s unwavering eyes.
“Zhengming.”
“Yes.”
Flechette breathes a shaky breath.
“Will you please read me these names. I… I want to know.”
Zhengming stares at her, illegible as usual.
Then, they walk up closer. Stand next to her, side by side, facing the wall.
“Ka Lǐ Jiànguó. Soldier.”
“Ka Wáng Xiùyīng. Astronomer.”
“Ka Zhāng Àimín. Caregiver.”
“Ka Ligaya Bautista. Factory worker.”
“Ka Perla Dimaguiba. Carpenter.”
“Ka Tomas Magsaysay. Historian.”
“Ka Chén Guìfāng. Architect.”
“Ka Liú Wèidōng. Soldier.”
“Ka Sūn Zhìqiáng. Factory worker.”
“Ka Jong Malsun. Farmer.”
“Ka Choe Kwangho. Office worker.”
“Ka Nguyễn Văn Tâm. Teacher.”
“Ka Trần Thị Hoa. Farmer.”
Zhengming continues reading down the line. Flechette listens. Remembering. Memorizing. Tears stream silently from her eyes. She mouths each name in her own silent voice. Name after name.
As Zhengming reaches the end, Flechette whispers to herself:
“Thank you.”
Zhengming studies her for a moment. Flechette does not look away from the photos.
Zhengming speaks.
“I will show you to your quarters.”
Before they leave, Flechette is offered the room to change out of her pilot’s uniform. Zhengming brings her a common citizen’s uniform and closes the door behind them. Flechette studies the folded clothing. Feels the texture between her fingers. The thought strikes her that, as of this moment, she is definitively no longer a soldier. She’s not yet sure what she is.
Flechette and Zhengming walk together, just the two of them, through the streets of the underground city. As they pass, a few people look at Flechette, and look at Zhengming knowingly, before nodding, or saluting Zhengming. Most people simply walk past, offering Flechette the kindest gift of being understood as simply one of the crowd.
The People. Flechette turns the words over in her mind. The People. Not “people,” rabble, civilians. Not even “The people.” The People.