Of A Humanity Before

They walked the first two streets in silence, content enough to observe the sights. He had rarely visited the outer districts; his work confined him to Ardiseg Hall or sent him outside the city. In recent years he had seen less of the latter, though if anything the amount of work trampling him only seemed to grow. Because of this, the tall, blocky, utilitarian complexes around them were unfamiliar and exotic. He didn't mind the comparatively uglier exteriors, not that the factories would mind.

"Sir?" At his side, Ni-6 tilted back, arms tucked behind his neck. He stared at the canvas of black above as if to see the cavern roof that…that they didn't know existed, in all honesty. The Gaiss Hollow was hardly a natural phenomenon that habitually followed common scientific law. "What do you think of the Aud?"

"I could tell you many things, but I don't know which in particular you're looking to hear."

"Sorry. About their movements, why they're doing what they're doing, those sorts of information." A lone pebble came into their path, and Ni-6 kicked it without much thought. It bounced away, managing to sound to the Prime Beacon's ears offended and ecstatic in equal parts at being flung.

"...do you know what a god is?" The words came out quiet, but with the district around them near-silent, it was like a sonic round. He could hear Ni-6 redirect his gaze, but he didn't look over at his junior. Instead, he mirrored his earlier pose, leaning back with his arms behind his neck. "I know they're not in the Ninth's archives; I've searched myself."

"No. Should I?"

He shrugged. "Some of the Ancients still tell stories, passed on from Ancients before them, and Ancients before those Ancients. Several of them involve gods, beings beyond mortality and capable of manipulating the laws of science with as much ease as we can manipulate the temperature of rooms."

"That sounds like the Aud, sir. Are they gods?"

"They'd be terrible if they are, though I do see where you're drawing the idea from. Aud are abnormal, strong, fast, durable; they don't want to stay down, and almost don't seem capable of dying peacefully. And as the color of their fur changes, their physical abilities and intellect only grow more terrifying. They do sound like gods, don't they?" He shook his head. "Still, I don't think that's the case. As great of a foe as they are, a god would be so, so much…more."

"Then what are the Aud, if they're not like us, and they're not gods?"

"Something we don't know, and that makes them worse than they already are. It's bad enough to face hordes of nigh-unkillable creatures regularly, but to do so when you don't know what they are, where they come from, what they're capable of at their apex, what their goal is--or even if they have one, or something as simple as how they're born?"

"I don't want to sound crude, but that isn't what I asked."

"No, it isn't," he acknowledged. But this wasn't a question he could answer simply. Humanity couldn't, simple as that. The Aud were an enigma wrapped inside a conundrum surrounded by a fluffy question and stamped in pure confusion. Aside from theoretical specialists and other professions of that nature, it was impossible to draw a definite conclusion. Tool hadn't told him much about the Aud either, though whether that was because of a lack of information or some other constraint, he wouldn't have been able to tell. "I suppose how I see the Aud is a punishment."

"On us?"

"On humans, yes. Humanity. We attended the Light Institute in different eras of education, so tell me: among the material in the historical courses, were there any references to human conflicts?"

"Human conflicts? As in humans against humans?" Skepticism laced Ni-6's tone, though it was still tempered by respect. The Prime Beacon sighed, berating the Ninth's ever-changing curriculum in the recesses of his mind.

"Yes, that's the simplest way to put it."

"We had those? What about the Aud?"

"Oh, humanity needed to contend with the Aud as well. The Ninth's archives don't have any preserved records of humanity's history before it came to the Gaiss Hollow and near nothing for the first fifty years after that. But of those we do, they reference one thing with predominance: war. War against the Aud, yes, but also human wars."

His eyes closed, and he imagined what such conflicts might have looked like. He was unsure when WAVs entered the picture, but his sensibilities generated images of prototypical suits of armor, perhaps forged from an experimental predecessor of scutumsteel. Though ranged emplacements existed, much of the fighting would've occurred in close quarters, with pairing blades and blocky, metal-capped fists. "Can you imagine? Back then, we had already tasted what the Aud could do, and we don't even know if there were many high-tier Aud then, or any at all. Yet what did we choose to do? Make war on ourselves, displaying unimaginable selfishness and lack of foresight. What about humanity before the Gaiss Hollow? I don't think we were of a different mold then, either."

"But what about today? There hasn't been human-on-human violence as far back as our modern historical records go!"

"I reckon that's because we needed to acknowledge we were weakening ourselves before the Aud had the chance to, sacrificing precious lives and war assets for meaningless victories. We were doing their work for them."

"So what are you saying? Humanity is evil?"

That proclamation was a step too far. Utter and with vehemence, he disputed it. "Come now. At most, we share elements of evil." He leaned to the side to ruffle the younger man's head, earning him a begrudging smile. "How could you be evil? What about Pa-5 or your brother? Was your brother evil?"

"No," Ni-6 responded faster than he blinked, surprised at how quick the answer came.

"Good. Now, where was I?" He retreated into himself to collect his thoughts. "My point was, that if a humanity besieged by Aud was still capable of making itself the enemy, what about humanity before that? Humanity's past might entertain war and stretch back for hundreds of generations. It may be longer, though I hesitate to make that claim. And should this be true, the Aud came along because of our ways."

Ni-6's lips, about to open, sealed into a thin line and he looked away. The new information wasn't something he had been privy to, and he had to reevaluate his current outlook on humanity. The Prime Beacon watched on as they walked, half buried in regret. He had gone through the series of realizations gripping Ni-6 now once, after spending more off-duty hours than he should've to explore old, aged documents from unknown years ago. He'd blamed restlessness once, though now he could admit it was nothing aside from his unwillingness to sleep, fearful of whatever dreams he would confront.

"We're here." They had reached the edge of the district bordering the wall. Staring at it from an elevated distance, and looking up, unable to see the top even if he craned his neck, were two very different experiences. Lifts stretched the height of the wall, bringing patrols and supplies up for exchange on a semi-regular basis. Further down, he remembered there were old-fashioned platforms with ladders and stairs to access them. It was with thankful breath he exhaled, relieved that, unlike Ardiseg Hall, the wall wasn't constructed with "tradition" in mind.

Their destination was also built into the wall, one of the boxy scrapers lacking any sense of refined architecture. It was larger and taller on the outside than most of the factories and refines behind, on account of its purpose. The two traversed the remaining distance and came to a door, where they inserted their bands into a slot by a door panel. After going through the normal scans, they collected the bands, returned them to their biceps, and entered.

Because the majority of visitors in this district were employees of the Directory, those of the Fifth, the scraper lacked a greeting space or something of a similar function. Instead, one of the reception staff led them down a long hallway, asking occasional questions, which he let Ni-6 respond to. They came into a room with rows of protective gear.

The two of them wore safety headgear, an air-filtering apparatus, and a second skinsuit that went over, this one thicker and more insulating against harmful elements. Once everything was in place, the staff brought them to a stairway and left them there. Ni-6 offered the way to him, but he was content to let the younger man go first. They climbed, him counting out of habit.

At the top, they entered into a wide space with a viewing window. Ni-6 paused, never having visited before when the facility was bustling with activity, but it was familiar to him. He only stopped long enough to nudge Ni-6 and steal a glance out the window before heading for one of the adjacent doors. Outside was a vast, visually infinite space.

And it had to be, since they were in a mechanics complex erected to repair damaged Titans. Powerful anti-grav fields suspended the Titan in question in midair. Beneath the distant floor of the complex, massive anti-grav generators were hard at work, sucking, ravenous, at the energy network to continue functioning. Its long, segmented body was straight, stretching from head to tail for kilometers. Even with the head faced away from them, he could make out the thin outline of the bulging eyes jutted out from the sides of the head, glowing even now.

Having completed its first operation, the Nyx Breaker was back home. It looked the part of a returned hero, too.