Scribble 10 : Top Secret Documents

Hello, Wanderers. Once again, we meet in the city where everyone could stand and hold hands equally, the city that finds its inhabitants, and not the other way around.

This scribble set in the same place as the previous stories about Remniscience, but instead of a story, I wrote this more like an essay on Remniscience itself, and set in early age far before the Remniscience become commonplace.

Of course, in reality, there is no such thing as Remniscience. Just like there is no such thing as Aether or World's Edge.

Let the scribble begin.

Scribble 10 : Top Secret

WARNING! The following document require Level 6 (Top Secret) clearance. Personel with insufficient clearance is FORBIDDEN to continue accessing this document, failure to comply with this requirement would result in immediate disposal of personel with less than Level 4 clearance, and memory termination for Level 4 or higher personel.

[Start of document UNSED-NTK-15001]
Introduction to Remniscience.
Dr. Gerard R. L., UNSED Exobiology Division

Humanity had developed FTL travel for exactly a century yesterday, and yet we barely spread ourselves further from the five closest stars from our homeworld. It's not really surprising, as our terraforming technology is far from complete, and constructing infrastructure in an entire planet from scratch require vast amount of time.

In 2132, just as we completed our first terraforming attempt, one of our researcher had proposed currently ongoing project B-107 to alter humanity's genetic sequences to match specific planet's biosphere instead of forcing the planet to match our biologic needs. The project was approved, and the application of project B-107 accelerated our colonization of Proxima Centauri for approximately 70 years. (Details on Project B-107 could be found in public document UNSED-PUB-19921). (Details on genetic alteration process could be found in document UNSED-NTK-9962, Level 5 clearance required)

In the light of its success, project B-107 also applied in the colonization of another four closest systems to Sol, thus reducing the previously estimated time needed to colonize the systems from 3 centuries to just 50 years. But that was not the only result of project B-107.

In order to suit our body to a planet on adjacent star systems, project B-107 altered human genetics to an extreme degree. A side effect of this alteration is growth of normally impossible synapse networks and cellular structure, leading to the development of previously unknown sense and perception unique to the inhabitants of a certain star system, Alpha Canis Majoris, better known as Sirius.

The unique perception ability, dubbed Remniscience, allows approximately 7.8% of the population of Sirius-TR-889 colony to perceive the flow of electric current and manipulate it in limited fashion. Genetic research concerning this ability suggest that this ability could be inherited, and that in coming generation, the number of Remniscient subjects would grow to 12.5% of total population. (Genetic structure concerning Remniscient ability could be found in document UNSED-NTK-10872, Level 6 clearance required). (Detailed testing log concerning Remniscient ability could be found in document UNSED-NTK-10768, Level 5 clearance required).

This development opened a whole new field of science for humanity. Surely the result in Sirius could be reproduced in another environment, and there are possibilities of different Remniscience perception develop in another star system as side effect of project B-107. A laboratory to specifically research the gene responsible for Remniscience, and its extended variation, is --proposed-- currently active in Procyon-GT-110 colony.

Remniscience gene, like every other gene, is subject to mutation by radioactive or chemical processes. Remniscience is predicted to grow in perception sensitivity and manipulation power as it inherited down to next generation. Proposal C-887 by General Convent to form a specialized division in categorizing and dealing with Remniscient threat as it became imminent is pending approval from UNSED High Command. (Detail on proposal C-887 could be found in document UNSED-MIL-1102, Level 6 clearance required).

Similar genes to ones found in Sirius-TR-889 colony is also found in several other colonies. Albeit no unusual ability has been reported from these colonies, it's highly possible that after several genetic adaptation, new Remniscience genes could be developed in those colonies, with different direction from currently found in Sirius-TR-889.

While whether the Remniscience would be beneficial or threatening for humanity is subject to debate, it was decided among the UNSED High Command that advent of Remniscience is dangerous not for the entirety of humanity, but for human native of Earth. Due to it's artificial origin, the Remniscience gene is incompatible to the original structure of human gene, and thus cannot be inherited by human offspring with either the biological father or mother originating from Earth. Installing Remniscience gene to human from earth has proven to be fatal, and as the traits carried by these genes would render one's body unsuitable for Earth environment, further trials are not advisable.

To put it short, Earth humans are not capable of generating Remniscience power, while humans from everywhere else could.

This emphasized the threat Remniscience possess towards Earth.

Before the advent of UNSED in 2088, the nation that then called NSR and would later called APAC had a secret agency in their nation called Covert. It was found from the recovered intelligence that one of Covert's 12 director had researched about effects similar to Remniscience as far back as 2002, which predates the NSR itself. It is currently unknown how Covert managed to research such incompatible concept to Earth human with relatively low fatality of 43%, while UNSED research in this matter had resulted in 100% fatality.

This research, spearheaded by Covert operative known only as Number Eight, might provide us with methods to prevent Remniscience threat from becoming out of control. The details regarding this research could be found in document UNSED-NTK-778, requiring Level 5 clearance.

[End of document UNSED-NTK-15001]

Scribble 9: In this world, there is no Magic.

Hello again, Wanderers.

As I was discontinuing the previous scribble, I wrote this scribble instead. Please forgive me m(_ _)m I just lost the material and motivation to continue it, and it happens quite often, actually T_T

This Scribble is a bit depressing to write, and it's not even a coherent one. I don't know why I felt so depressed when I wrote it, nor how could I wrote such depressing Scribble in the first place. Heck I don't know why I started this whole blog things, and in the end I just cannot stop, even if it has no reason anymore.

Or even if it has one to begin with. Gosh, it was really depressing, I need to cheer myself with some comedy anime or something, y'know, to balance myself up.

Scribble starts here

Scribble 9: In this world, there is no Magic.


A piece of autumn leaves brushed softly at the window right beside my bed. The almost bald maple tree just beyond my bedroom window reminded me that its almost time for autumn to go, and winter was coming to replace it.

And yet I still stuck here, in the same place as I was yesterday, and the days before, reminiscing at the time long past, with the person who no longer here on my side. The clock ticked with mocking tone, as if detesting my very existence, as if asking me, "What the heck are you doing here?"

"I was waiting." I said to no one. "For someone, anyone, to tell me how to fill what I lacked, to tell me how to return to those days I discarded without second thought."

It would be really nice if Magic actually exist, if there really someone who could return everything I had lost just by muttering few strange words or drawing strange symbols. Instead, here I am, contemplating how nice it would be if Magic actually exist, only to be disappointed when I woke up next day and I still have to struggle with the same damn thing I struggled with yesterday.

But in this world, there is no Magic.

And so no matter how long, no one would come to rewind the time, to let them who had left me alone in this cold and harsh world, return here on my side.

I woke up lazily from my bed, dragging my feet across the room to the door that leads to the bathroom. It's a calm and peaceful morning, one would call it boring and yet another would wish for it more than anything else. But for me, this was anything but peaceful, even though I won't deny that it was calm. Too calm.

Just two weeks ago, a woman would drag me out of my bed just after preparing the breakfast.

Just two weeks ago, a girl barely two years older than me would be waiting for me in the dining room, skimming over her math textbooks in desperate attempts not to fail today's exam.

Just two weeks ago, a man would be reading the newspaper at the veranda with a cigarette between his lips, despite his wife's constant protest.

Just two weeks ago, the morning would be a cheerful and peaceful moment for me, something that this morning just two weeks after is anything but.

My body moved on autopilot, somehow acomplishing the task of bathing, changing into school uniform, and making coffee to go with my toast. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't even drink coffee, as I was insomniac enough without it, but now I didn't even put any sugar in it. Sleeping less than three hours last night did nothing to my exhaustion this early in the morning, so my coffee is more or less justified.

Regardless, I managed to bring myself to the school, to the monotone classroom I wished to end sooner rather than later. But the end of the class would bring me back to the crushing solitude that I desperately tried to escape, and yet I tried nothing to bring colors to my life that had been empty since last two weeks. More than anything, I was afraid that I was simply using the person who had sincerely filled the blanks in my life, just as a replacement for those who had left me to my own devices.

To crush those smiles, to pretend that I accept their sincere smiles, would be insulting, to say the least, to their unblemished intent.

And so I walked, ignoring those hands who had honestly wanted to reach out to me, even though I knew that I was hurting myself, even though I knew that I would only broke more heart. Maybe I was just shielding myself, scared that the next time I took one's presence to be granted, it would only carve another scar on my heart.

Again, she offered the same smile. And again, I ignored it. She should've known by now that it would hurt her even by just trying, but she kept doing it, day by day.

"Why?" the question hung in the air, more to myself than anyone else.

"Why indeed." the question echoes through the emptiness.

Maybe it's for no reason at all.

Maybe it's fine even if it has no reason.

Maybe it's fine, to simply smile, to at least return her intent.

But the seconds I steeled my resolve to smile back the next time I saw her, Fate took her away from me, as it had everyone else I considered important in my life.

This world has no Magic, and time cannot be rewound. As such, regret drowned me just like the days before.

When I could reach back to her.

When I could return her smile.

When I could grasp her hands.

But I did none of it.

And now I can't do any of it anymore. Because time cannot be rewound, unlike the spring on the mechanical clock.

"Why?" the word felt heavier than it was.

"Why, indeed." the ticking of the clock mocked me once again, as if asking, "Why are you still here?"

Why gave me wings while knowing I won't be able to fly either way?

Woke up, bath, uniforms, coffee. Didn't even breakfast anymore, not since she went away. This monotone life was crushing me, but if another person left my life the way she did, I would actually break into pieces. Thus I savored the monotone routine, trying halfheartedly on everything, while achieving nothing.

Before I know it, I started writing, of a world full of Magic, where time could freely rewound, where mistakes could easily be undone, where I could meet everyone that had left me. Where every single apologies I never brought myself to say, could be delivered to everyone that mattered on my life.

Where I could tell her, that I was sorry.

"May I sit here?" a soft voice intruded my silent rampage upon the previously white paper in front of me. I raised my head to find a pair of blue eyes, staring intently at the empty space right beside me. "If you don't mind my presence, that is." those eyes turned towards me as their owner said the words with the same soft voice.

"I don't know, they said I brought misfortune to those around me, so if you don't mind getting some of those misfortune, then do as you wish." the owner of the soft voice giggled as a presence that accompanied the voice filled the space beside me.

"I guess a little misfortune would be worth it. You're interesting person." clumps of snow gently settled at the window, as I closed the notebook where I wrote the world of Magic, and placed it back to my bag.

"It's winter already, huh?" I accidentally said that out loud, gaining another chuckle from the owner of the soft voice.

"Yeah, yeah it is." under those blue eyes, a pair of thin lips formed a smile at my careless words. For the first time, I looked at the owner of the voice, from top to bottom. Chocolate-colored straight hair, extending past her waist. Oval face, with complexion as pale as the pages of my notebook. Blue, almond-shaped eyes that piercing with calculated gaze. Her slender figure was clad in soft pink long-sleeved shirt, with darker pleated shirt and plain black sneaker over similarly plain socks.

She was beautiful.

For the first time, I smiled. "Can I have your name?"

"Only if you gave yours first." her blue eyes challenged me, as she chuckled again. I returned her laugh with one of my own.

"Alfred, Alfred Reinn-Lasch. You might know me as the boy who lost all member of his family." she seems to be unfazed by the fact, her cold gaze still as sharp as it was, if not sharper.

"Not just family, it seems. Well, I won't intrude any further on that matter. I'm Amelia, Amelia Eidelfelt." my eyes widen at the mention of her family name. "You might recognize me as the sister of the girl who passed away earlier this year."

It's cold. Why were everything so cold? Oh, right, it's already winter. But the pain in my heart dragged me back all the way to mid autumn.

It's dark. I thought I still have a few hours until sunset, but instead of crimson sunlight piercing through my eyelids, the throbbing pain on my head blanked everything.

"Hey, are you okay?" her voice echoed in my mind, dragging me back to the crimson stained world.

No, I wasn't okay. How could I? But I didn't say anything.

"I'm not here to blame you, nor to console you. I'm here to slam the cold truth down on your face. Whether it would be your doom or your salvation, it would be up to you." her expression was stern, as if the girl who had giggled just a few minutes ago never existed.

"Fair enough."

"Good." she took a deep breath, before looking at the window at the far side of the wall, likely reminiscing about time that would never return.

"She told me a lot about you, about this boy in her class that never smiled back to her. She made that a challenge to make you smile, a challenge she never completed."

"This is going to break me." I felt brittle, like every words that escaped her lips would shatter me into a million pieces. I hate this feeling.

"I never told her that I have been silently watching over the same person, day by day." she continued despite my interruption, and surprised me with her simple statement.

"Wha-"

"Before I know it, I stalked him, almost obsessively, falling deeper and deeper for him. Everyday I saw you on your silence, slightly growing a hope inside the futility of my action."

"But I can't bring myself to tell her. Even if she didn't tell me, it was evident by her passionate way she was talking about you that she had fallen for you, and I know if I told her about my feelings, her conflict would break her. I know I was just being stubborn, but I can't help it." she smiled bitterly.

"I won't ask for the impossible. I won't ask to replace her in your heart, and perhaps it would be cruel to ask so." she stood from her seat, and for the first time I saw the crystal clear liquid dropped from her face. "Farewell."

No. I'm done running away from everything.

"Wait." I tugged at her sleeve.

"Please, let me go."

"No. I'm done running away. I have to finish everything that I had put on hold since then. And I'll start with you."

"I don't care. You might've decided to stop running away, but that decision had nothing to do with me." she pulled her arm, taking it away from my grasp "I'll keep running, as far as I have to. It might be unfair for you, but what isn't?"

"That's true."

"After all, in this world, there is no Magic." she left me alone, her words echoed through the empty hall, now colder than before.

"Wake me up." I pleaded to the walls, the window, the clock.

"Please wake me up and tell me everything's just a dream."

But the judging second hand of the clock only spun with the same mocking ticks. "What's wrong with you? If she's going to run, then chase her! If she refused to stop, then run alongside her! How could you stop at the same fork of the road?"

Should I run after her, I wonder?

If only, there exist Magic that let me know the answer...

The Scribble ends here

Scribble 8: Which kind of Human are you? Part 3

DISCONTINUED this is the last part of this series, I wont continue to the next part. Sadly.

The Scribble start here

Colors.

Once, there were seven of them, mercenaries that were known by the colors they left in their wake: Red, Blue, Green, Gray, Yellow, Orange, White.

The unfortunate band of mercenaries had enough power to destroy a planetary government single-handedly, and as only Colors could even put up a fight against each other, they naturally gathered together. For nearly a quarter century, they became the most feared organization in Black Syndicate worlds, their infamy even heard to the central government of the Five World Alliance and the Deneb Confederation.

And then, one day, the organization dissolved.

No one, not even Raina and Ray who were part of the original Colors, know where the other five went--Kurayami no Iro was the only splinter of the Colors that publicly continued their works in the business--although saying a Black Syndicate mercenary group 'public' is just as vague as saying a sushi is 'cooked'.

Well, at least the rice used in sushi was cooked.

"Hey, Red, hey!" Ray's voice woke Raina up from her daydream.

"Yeah? What is it?" Raina lazily dragged her seat--without much effort, really, as it was magnetically floating five centimeter over the floor--near Ray's.

"I was reviewing the plan for the Deneb Confederation invasion against Five World Alliance, when I found this." a media player filled one of the screen with black, before a man in his thirties appeared.

"Green. One of the original Colors specialized in chemical weapon."

"Yeah. This file was encrypted with old Colors standard, knowing only former Colors members would be able to open it."

"The fact that it was embedded within DC's war plan means..."

"He was working with them, or he infiltrated their ranks. Either way, we can't be sure before we saw the entire recordings."

"Greetings, my old friends. Yaah, it is pretty refreshing to have places for all of us to shine again, isn't it? After all, the only place to have every single member of Colors under the spotlight was all-out open war, no? Anyway!" he smilled mischievously, his dazzling white teeth contrasted his dark skin. "I look forward for the time we could try to kill each others again, just like in the old day. Green out." the screen went black, with the logo of media player in the middle of it.

"This is bad. I feel like he was pitting us against each other, and he was the one between the sudden invasion from DC to FWA."

"No doubt in that. He probably still at one of the Black Syndicate's organization, igniting the war to crush at least one of the three great factions, and then crushing the others on their own."

"This plan would undoubtedly leaked to the FWA, and Colors who worked with them would also receive it."

"If only we still have Gray with us... but then again, he probably also working behind the scene of this war, hopefully to prevent it rather than accelerate it."

A member of Colors could topple planetary government on their own, so having one of them in either side of this war could greatly change the outcome. If all of the original Colors were involved in this war, one faction is guaranteed to lose, as that faction would short one Colors compared to the winning faction.

"Well, let's just salvage the crashing cargo ship and decide what to do with it later--we could simply return it, no?"

"Yeah, let's focus on the task at hands."

The next day, as promised a cargo ship crashed to the former base of Agis vel Yuh, loaded with crates of electron blasters.

"I know that DC is far more advanced but, isn't this taking the reality too far into fiction?" Ray muttered while he swung the sword included in the crate. The 'sword' itself was just a thin metal pipe shaped like a fluorescent light bulb, the actual blade would appear when the electron beam activated, exitating the surrounding air and forming a deadly ion blade that could cleanly cut through steel beam.

"And this isn't even their real fighting force, this is just watered down version of their weaponry stolen by AvY." he sighed while putting the sword back down into its crate. They decided to only take one crate filled with myriad of electron weapons--swords, blasters, vehicle-mounted blasters, pseudostable continuous electron beams (think flamethrower, but with electron beam), and electronic interference weapon that could punch a hole against any shielding and fry any electronics inside, probably scaled-down version of their battleship main cannon.

The two of them entered the hovercraft loaded with the crates, and Ray began to drive in silence.

"Are you troubled by something?" without taking his eyes away from the navigation system, Ray asked the silent Raina.

"No, I was just pondering over the video Green sent us, and how little I know about the other Colors member. I only knew Green as bioweapon specialist, but it turns out he also has the aptitude for information warfare. Heck, we lived together and I don't even know if you actually liked the color blue or that's just because your specialties."

Incidentally, Ray's specialty was electronic warfare, but he was also skilled in weapon and spaceship engineering, although not to the point of being able to manipulate hyperspace driver in high precision like Legis El did to Agis vel Yuh executives.

Ray laughed as he placed her left hand in her head. "You shouldn't be worried too much about it. On a side note, I do like the color blue."

"Are we really going to fight in this war?"

"Well, I'll follow whatever you said. After all, this kind of war is more suited for you than for me."

The day of the Deneb Confederation invasion was growing near.

DISCONTINUED