Coeus?

“

Aether is like many other colonies completely self-sufficient. The one kilometre thick plate on which the colony's city is built on has several levels with green houses, fields and gardens where food is produced. The walls and ceilings project a complete imitation of Earth's day and night cycle to provide a suitable environment for cattle and all daily necessities. The lower areas of the colony aren't used as living space because it's necessary to have far more free area for plants than for the population itself.

The park level is one of the most important recreation areas for Aether's population. Many other colonies follow similar strategies to provide for food and fresh air.

Aether is currently employing about ten thousand people only to take care of these environments. That's about a twentieth of Aether's population.

”

-Architecture of Aether

***Sol, Aether***

***Hedeon***

I try my best to sleep, but the mansion's walls are simply too thin. This Cyla girl is a real bomber, but she is also a screamer. I don't like that. At first I and Melan tried to counter the noise pollution by doing it ourselves. But those two simply have more stamina than us. Or it's the blessing of being freshly in love. I don't know. Maybe I am getting a little old.

Turning around I find Melan sitting next to me in our bed. She is reading a book and grinning like the devil. “Mh... Melan. Honey? What's so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. The book is really good. That's all.” She answers distractedly and coughs erotically.

I take a closer look at the book. “Honey, you are holding the book the wrong way.” My eyes automatically wander up to hers. “And why is your left eye closed?”

Melan licks over her lips, thinking of an answer. “Because-”

But I decide to act before she can finish. Bending over to her, I force her eyelids apart to find the second eye-socket empty. “Okay. Spill it! On whom are you spying this time! I thought you left your old life behind. No industrial espionage any more. You promised!”

“I am not spying! At least not like you think... oh! That's so bold of them!” Melan gasps heavily.

“Bold? Them?” I furrow my eyebrow, but the moaning from the floor above us gives me the needed hint. “That's so low of you Melan. They are our grandchildren. From now on you have no right to call me the pervert in the family! All I did for Gideon was pointing the way to a nice locality for young people to mingle with each other.”

She answers in a whiny voice. “I just needed to make sure that they are doing fine. So I watched the start. And then one minute more and a little longer. And before I knew it they were done and went for a second round. I know it's wrong, but I couldn't turn my eye away. It's like in the old days when I still earned my money with hard work. Sometimes those younglings need a little help to find each other. If I hadn't helped them, Gideon would probably be fifty when he starts thinking about a proper relationship. But he is good. I kind of see why Cyla stays with him against all odds.”

Then she suddenly turns to me and pulls the blanket away. “Time to get started again! You had enough rest.”

***Sol, Aether***

***Gideon***

“I can't stand this. Why do I get reports on the dome and anti-matter projects? I've no interest in them. Hire a competent supervisor and leave me alone. Just tell me when they are finished.” I complain to Hedeon.

Grandfather puts on a bemused smile. “Nobody expects you to supervise them, it's just a report. You are only expected to read it, nothing more.”

“It's still annoying me and taking up time. Even if I read them inside my own VR it's nonetheless using up my ability to concentrate. Please tell the guy who writes those things that he has to limit his lengthy explanations to the essential points. No more than one page. I don't need a thesis on particle acceleration.” I grumble.

“I'll try to convey the essence of your words to the person in question. How about greeting the normal representatives? They will arrive today.” Hedeon informs me.

“Great. Do we already have an idea how we can deal with them? They'll need a watchdog to ensure that they won't get eaten alive.” This isn't going to turn out well. “If they get into an argument with a random person and the person in question uses magic on them...” I imagine the mess of an unprotected normal smeared across the floor.

“We've already assigned a 'guide' to each of them.” Hedeon hands me another report. “I doubt that we can do more.”

I look at the report and let out a deep sigh upon reading the headline. Population density in regard to the city's industrial area. Yes. Exactly what I am looking for.

A secretary opens the door and takes a look into the governor's office. My office. “I am sorry to disturb you, but there is a faceless and he says it's very urgent.”

Wonderful! “Send him in. We might as well deal with it sooner than later. At least this sounds like something mildly more interesting than our other issues.” I wave my hand for the secretary to hurry. She is a small, petite woman and doesn't do much more than being a door stopper, but at least she has enough bite to ward off people who just want to pester the governor.

The one who enters is no one else than Ed. I immediately recognize his stature and his voice. Of course he already congratulated me on my new job. He called me right next day after the media announced my new position.

Ed doesn't waste time and slams a form with a lot of stamps and signatures onto the table. “You have to stop the relocation of immigrants to other colonies right this moment.”

“No.” I answer. We need to get rid of them, especially since Aether might journey to the gathering with the aliens. If I could I would also send most of the population away, but it's a little hard to tell someone to leave the place where he lived his entire life. I would be pissed.

“It's an instruction from the elders. There are some issues we have to deal with first. Actually I want you to lock down all outgoing traffic from Aether.” Ed answers in a hushed voice.

I raise an eyebrow. I wanted something interesting, but that goes too far. “And the reason?” I take the official order and read it, then I connect to Aether's governmental network and issue the necessary commands. After I am done I hand the form to Hedeon who studies it with great interest.

“We've a problem and I think that it was imported with the immigrants from Earth.” Ed reaches into his pocket and retrieves a small, transparent plastic bag. It's filled with several black bars, about two centimetres in length and five millimetres in width.

“Looks like guinea pig poo! Do we have a vermin problem?” I reach with my hand for the bag, but a very sinister feeling stops me. This stuff contains power. Is it an enchantment or a curse? I take the bag carefully between two fingers and dangle it in front of me to study it. “And that is?”

“It's called Fog and it's a very potent drug. We found it with a dead mediator who was working for OFA. Apparently he tried to fly to the highest point of the diamond dome that's being constructed and take a close look at it. But he was an earth-mage and used up all his power half the way up. So dropped two hundred metres to his death.” Ed explains.

I blink. “I think it would be best if you sit down and start the story at the beginning. I've no idea what Fog is and why that guy would even attempt something that stupid. We should be happy that he removed himself from the gene pool and won the Darwin Award. And why do we have to shut down our traffic over this?” Earth magic is on the other side of the magical tree. There is no way that this guy had an affinity for gravity magic.

“Seriously? Didn't you take history lessons in school?” Ed gasps. “And what's the Darwin Award?”

I wave my hand like swatting away an annoying fly. “Of course. I learned what was absolutely necessary to clear the tests. It went into one ear and out the other. I am glad I managed to forget most of the useless information. And the Darwin Awards are handed to people who killed themselves in the most stupid ways possible.”

Ed takes the chair across from me and sits down. “In the earliest days of civilisation, there was a group of mages who perfected a certain ability. They bound power inside their own blood by the means of a ritual. We are calling it blood-magic. The created Fog can be used to control others.”

If a mage takes Fog, the drug will give him a short power boost. That in itself isn't a problem, but it also influences your mind. You feel more powerful and all your abilities are enhanced together with your ego.”

“It's like going on a trip to heaven and you feel like a god. It's also lowering your judgement of danger and heightening your self-assessment to achieve that. Unfortunately you aren't actually as godlike as you feel and if you do something stupid or impossible you might end up dead. Very addictive stuff. The normals also called it Ambrosia, the food of the gods.

Once you come down from your trip you feel like shit. All your feelings are turned into the negative. That's why many commit suicide without having their regular dosage. The addiction kicks in almost immediately for normals. Their only luck is that they are less powerful and have less ways to kill themselves.”

I drop the bag back onto the table like a venomous snake. “No wonder that it felt so sinister.”

“Yes, some are sensitive to it, but most mages feel nothing from simply looking at it. I can sense it too. The blood is a medium for a very powerful hex curse which invades the energy resources of the host. You dissolve the drug in water and drink it.

Back in the old days the mages who created this stuff used it to enslave the normals and play gods. Zeus, Aphrodite... all those Greek gods and other deities all over the world were actually mages.”

“The elders let it go for a long time. After a while the idiots who created the drug started to believe in their own myth and started acting accordingly. The stupid normals weren't much help either. They worshipped them and tried to actively spread their religions, fighting wars over differences in ideology.”

“They had their gods and reasons to fight each other before that too, but after being fuelled by drug crazed fanatics they really lifted off. The elders put a death sentence on everyone who misused his abilities like that. It was the first and only real war among us mages. Well, it's not a good point in our history and most curriculums tend to skip over the events very fast. Maybe that's why you didn't pay attention.”

My mind races and I clap my hands together. “That's just too good to be true! All the conspiracy theories which I can build on that. If you dissolve the stuff and drink it, then does that mean that all those religions on Earth are somehow based on it? The holy grail? The Last supper? Oh, that fits perfectly! Please tell me that Jesus was one of those mages. He distributed his blood among his followers to keep them in line. Wait, I think the Islam has something similar.”

“Most religions have rituals where you drink something or which are somehow related to blood.” Hedeon throws in.

Ed nods slowly. “That's true. Jesus was one of the last survivors of that war. It was long and we fought mostly in secret. Unfortunately information sharing was very slow back in those days. When we heard of him and put him down he had already created a new annoying religion. One that turned out to favour killing those who think different on top of that. At least in its early days.”

He gestures with his hand to forward the discussion. “You get the gist of it. We need to find the person or persons who are the source of the drug. Once he manages to escape to a random colony it'll be indefinitely harder to find him once he goes underground.”

“But why did he distribute the drug at all then? Hadn't it been better if the source kept a low profile until he is an official citizen.” I ask.

Ed shakes his head. “There are screenings and truth tests for new citizens of our community. Once we have him inside our system he'll have to resort to measures like the Revelation Wing and hide on some forgotten asteroid. Luckily the drug has a short expiration date. That's why we are sure that it wasn't just imported.”

“The dead mediator had access to his own personal shuttle and scheduled a flight to the Forge for today. I think he was bribed to use his transportation rights to get the source to the Forge. From there he could have bribed his way to an identity and started his own little drug empire. We were just lucky that the mediator killed himself with the drug on his body. The source will already know that something went wrong, even though we didn't let anything out over the media.”

“I see. Do you have any idea how long it might take to identify the person who caused this.” I ask.

Ed shakes his head. “We are working as fast as possible, but we have to do the full questioning. In the worst case scenario it might take until we've worked our way through all the immigrants. Two weeks at most if the source doesn't go underground.”

I groan. “I can already see the stack of petitions and complaints reaching the ceiling. And all this right when we get the observers from Earth.”

***Sol, Aether***

***Cyla***

I am just about to finish up my work when I get a call. It's Amia Jefri, pyro-mage and a major pain in my butt. Also one of my best friends. For a moment I struggle between feelings of jealousy and friendship until I decide to take the call.

Amia's smiling avatar forms in front of me. “Cyla! I am so glad that you managed to answer right away. Are you currently in Aether? I think you mentioned something the last time we saw each other.”

“Yes.” I answer.

“Oh, marvellous! Please! Let me crash at your place for a while. I really need help.” Amia places both her hands together in a pleading gesture. “I don't want to sleep on the street or in one of the emergency quarters.”

I think my face must've shown my shock because Amia starts explaining in more detail before I can ask what happened to her.

“Haven't you heard what happened? For some reason the authorities shut down all outgoing flights and teleports. Everyone who leaves Aether has to undergo a full screening and there aren't enough faceless to do the job. Travellers are blocking the whole dockyard and there are no places to sleep. I already requested a room at twenty different hotels and all of them turned me down.”

That's troublesome! I indeed didn't hear about it.

“Please! You are well off Cyla. I am sure that you have a big place? Just let me sleep in the drawer and you won't even notice that I am there. We could go on man-hunt like in Oibras. I'll try to find you a good one.” She winks at me.

Yeah, not having told her in detail about the events after Oibras sucks. For some strange reason I didn't want to tell her about Gideon and me when I met her on Mars. I guess there is no way around it now. “I am sorry Amia, but I am currently in a relationship and freeloading myself. But you can come to my partner's house, I'll ask if you can stay until the end of this crisis. It isn't my decision though.”

“Oh, thanks anyway. Where do I have to be? I'll promise to behave!” Then she squints her eyes at me. “Why didn't you tell me that you are in a one guy situation? Is he someone influential or a snob? What did you get yourself into.”

Well, you already spread your legs for that snob! No, I can't tell her that. I snatched the guy whom you set your eyes upon and we indulge every day in activities like baby making and sharing minds? Not a good answer either. What can you say in a situation like this?

“Cyla? What haven't you told me?” She asks with a doubtful voice.

“Do you remember the cute, depressed guy from Oibras?” I ask.

“Of course, he is all over the news. He apparently became the governor of this place. If I would be flexible enough I would bite my own ass for not securing him properly that night. Such a catch is a once in a lifetime chance.” Amia calls out.

At least it doesn't sound like she is still laying any claims on him. And she didn't call him afterwards, did she? No, even Amia isn't bold enough to do something like that. It would stink of digging for gold.

“You see...” Aw, fuck it. I'll simply be blunt about it. “That's my fiance. We were kinda forced onto the mission we talked about and I was his co-pilot. Since then he lays me every day and we are the best buddies ever. We are also intending to sign a marriage contract and just yesterday we took out each others chips to tie the knot. He was really enthusiastic since then.”

Realizing Amia's blank expression I hurry to apologize. “I am so sorry for not telling you. But back then on Mars it wasn't -that- serious, yet. As in baby making serious. And I was embarrassed and envious that you got to bed him first. On top it now feels like I somehow stole him away from you. Even if I know that it's irrational of me. I don't know. So, sorry?”

Amia stares at me for several seconds. “Wow.” Then she blinks. “Just wow. Not about you and him jumping into the feathers, I mean he and I never talked again after that night and it has been over eight months. I already knew in that club that he is your type, so I let you try first. But you telling me so bluntly. I am amazed. He has some influence on you. The old you would have hidden it until I met him in your house.”

She turns her gaze to the ground for several seconds. Then she looks up again with a devilish grin. “Do you think he is up for a threesome?”

“Don't push it or you sleep on the street!” I snap back. “Even the best friendship has a line you don't step over.”

She raises both hands. “Okay. Just wanted to confirm. So will you tell me the address?”

.