Malkus. Hub Actual
Malkus knew he shouldn’t have been there, but the lecture was particularly interesting, due to the magnitude of data strands that intersected with the speech. It was beautiful to see such a montage of energy: intersecting, collaborating, concluding, colliding and continuing along the paths of intention. In the past he would have spent hours drifting unnoticed along the streams, a leaf in the wind or a cloud in the sky, to quote someone he’d once listened to. However, those were the times when the world-storm didn’t impinge on his reality, now, his every move, thought and flicker was scrutinised. Time was a religion that communicated no obvious rules and regulations but expected, nay demanded, you to obey. Even when you knew it was a construction, a reality within a reality, it still had a way of imposing itself. Malkus remembered a time when the religion of time hadn’t been so forceful upon him, when he’d a freedom to express all his talents without them being noticed or conformed to the authority’s regime. The world-storm had changed that- it was still changing that. He had been a stream rider, gatherer or a ‘data retrieval agent’, for thirty standard years and had actually heard of the World Storm in passing. Mostly it was termed an apocalypse or the end of days, but it was one of those filed pieces of information that was of little or no value when travelling the stream. It became significantly more pertinent when one of your fellow stream riders ‘accidently’ crashed into his own data stream and discovered, before perishing violently, a world-storm in the future of Malkus’ people. It was even more significant when you weren’t sure when the ‘Storm’ would be arriving. As stated, Malkus’ colleague’s mind fractured, devoured itself and his body exploded before he could say anything more than- ‘A World Storm’.
The first storm to directly unleash itself was not upon the world around Malkus, but within the leadership of the data retrieval agency. Panic, fear, accusations; after all, it was questionable that an experienced stream rider would ‘accidently’ run into his own data stream. Eventually, a plan was formed; the remaining data retrieval agents would attempt to use a wide-ranging search to isolate any reference to world storms, in the hope that they would find the string of information that would give them a solution to the now impending apocalypse. This seemed a particularly roundabout way of getting to the information, but a more direct attempt to uncover the information would leave the data retrieval agent vulnerable to crossing his or her own line and being obliterated while getting nowhere near the information. Malkus and, he assumed, other stream riders believed: if the supply of data retrieval agents was not so limited, then the council would happily bombard the time line with agents- using them like cannon fodder. However, the retrieval agents were a rare product of a failed experiment: a genetic, cultural and scientific anomaly that Malkus’ people had lost and rediscovered. In the recent past, the Elders of the Liveka had authorised an experiment into the nature of human consciousness and particle explosions, there was rumour that an unstable Elder had pushed through the experiment by investing their own funds. In addition, the site of the experiment was a small moon orbiting a gas giant of little relevance in an obscure system on the edge of known space, so if anything went particularly badly there was massive distances before a catastrophe could affect those who mattered. (Not that they were expecting one of course.) Nevertheless, the experiment appeared to be a complete write off, no results or data of any great value were returned to the Council of Elders in any of the first forty cycles. Not until the grandson of the original sponsoring Elder discovered his grandfather’s documents did anyone investigate what had happened on Moon A. What they discovered was a project gone horribly wrong, death, destruction and carnage that had split the moon in half. However, in optical orbit of the moon was an auxiliary laboratory which had survived the carnage intact, the details of what was found inside remained off limits to all but the Elders of the era. Currently only certain Elders were privy to a redacted version.
The only real clarity could be found in that shortly after the discovery of the laboratory- the data retrieval agency was created. Formed out of a select group of genetically ‘special’ individuals, who were conscripted to work alongside a handpicked group of analysts, the data retrieval agency used the mysterious technology of the laboratory to travel data streams of multiple dimensions. Effectively, they used the breakthroughs of the Moon A Labs to gain insights into advancements found in other dimensions. The advances had been immense, across the board: medical, energy, military, health, philosophy. The impact of the advancements was almost immeasurable, it wasn’t as if Malkus’ people were cave dwellers. However, the details of the advancements had secured the long-term future of the people. Ironically though, throughout the 75 or so years of the agency, the stream had not revealed a way to create or multiply the numbers of DRAs. Malkus and his colleagues were unique individuals with chemical, genetic and ‘other’ markers, which appeared to only recur in a select group in a generation. The Liveka had covered a minor area of a solar system in citizens; Malkus’ generation was over two hundred and fifty billion beings alone- the total population of the Liveka was ten trillion. They had only found six DRA’s in the twenty years of his generation, currently there was only thirty two active, fourteen in training and fifty in preservation, retirement or healing. Simply put, the stream riders were the pinnacle of his people, the foundation of their current golden age and rapidly becoming the only source of redemption- Malkus was priceless. He knew it. Not because the statistics were readily available or even that well known to Malkus; no, it was because of the way, even the Elders treated him with respect. He who had been born defective in the eyes of his parents, who would have been killed at birth in times gone by, the classic genetic mistake, was honoured by those who in turn were honoured by the majority of ten trillion members of his civilisation.
Such a position would normally have given to a mentality of pride and hubris, but it was the nature of stream riding that cut down the potential catastrophe of a rouge personality. The sheer häftighet of the data streams, the realities within realities, the beginning and end of universes, time being played out as a poem, song and an orchestral extravagance. It was terrifying as well, to see the violent birth and death of life, the abundant existence and swift retraction. The responsibility of such opportunity weighed heavy, not so much on the need to find information, but managing the knowledge, the visual experience and the recognition that as much as a stream rider viewed the streams, they themselves were part of the stream. Most of those DRA’s in healing were there to recover from psychological disruption. Malkus himself had been into rehab on two separate occasions for minor issues, a case of transference to a heroic figure and over empathising with a disabled person in another data stream. They were dark times, when Malkus lost track of his core reality, which left his health to suffer and threatened his long-term mental stability. Retirement, even of one as young as he, was never out of the question and given his inherent inability to conduct any form of life outside of the agency, it was effectively a death sentence- at least in his own mind. The counsellor suggested otherwise, but Malkus was not given to that train of thought, he was not willing to sacrifice such a unique life. In his opinion, this motivation made him one of the best wave riders in the team; because it was his life, he had no plan ‘B’, he lived on the edge of one reality, viewing millions more. He also considered this quirk of thinking to be one of the reasons that he was so calm in the face of the storm, he had been facing a version of this storm all his life. So, Malkus ignored the panic, obeyed his masters’ better suggestions and pursued Varses.