Chapter 36

In the core of Tera's temple, a few black beetle-like things – sinistrals – had consumed the remains of the painfree elixir. A transformation had taken place, the void wrapping itself around their greedy hearts. Haze flowing freely into heir bodies. They feasted on the writhing masses that were the other, lesser sinistrals, their skin turning oily and slick, their bodies growing engorged and enlarged. These would become known as darklings. Born in the darkness, with bodies a colour to shame even the depths of a starless midnight. If not intelligent, they were certainly more so than their smaller cousins from which they had sprung. They were creatures who belonged more in the Otherlands, which shadowy creatures such as Cado and Blucks called home, or even in Sorrow, with its corrupted denizens.

The darklings hunted the sinistrals. Catching them in fine nets of Haze. Reeling them in to make a meal. Eventually eating enough to split off another darkling, wriggling its tortuous path through skin and flopping onto the ground to search for prey.

They welled up and out of the temple like an oil slick, devouring all they encountered. Snatching up everything the sinistrals had missed,either from their stupidity or because it had been out of reach. Sometimes swallowing sinistrals whole when they could find them.

The sinistrals had learned enough to know that there was a new danger now. Something more dangerous than what had begun hunting them earlier. They managed to communicate in some way the darkling had no access to. Perhaps the dropping of pheromones, or maybe they tugged on some net of Shar that connected them all. Whatever the means, they all now knew to flee these darker versions of themselves.

The darklings were not ready for the surface. If the sinistrals avoided the light, the darklings despised it, shunning it entirely. They scuttled back into their nooks and crannies before most creatures would realise the sun was near rising, burrowing into the sandy earth if nowhere was available, which was more and more frequent as they spread like a bacterial growth across the desert.

It was during the day that those predators created by Avan hunted these lovers of the dark, snapping jaws at them in their alcoves and fissures. At night they attempted to ambush the darklings, being the smartest of the three species. If they failed in their ambush and were detected before they could get a killing blow in, the darkling would usually realise, snaring them in a haze web.

The first of the sinistrals arrived at Ironcore more than a day before the first darklings. Unable to break into the residents' storehouses or hydroponic growth systems, they swarmed into the underground city. For a while they were viewed as nothing more than pests, but they were too destructive for that to continue. The city banded together to fight them off, realising that these things behaved like a virus, moving to one place, consuming resources as quickly as possible, then moving on. A sense of urgency about their simple movements, something like a frenetic panic hinted they were on the run, but from what?

Ironcore was populated by the Kulus. A whole city of human-robot hybrids, grown gigantic from their perfect nutrition and keeping themselves secret from the rest of humanity to avoid being threatened by war. They had long ago learnt the secrets of hiding electronics from the immune system; coating fine electrodes in synthetic organic cells, surface proteins entirely encasing the metal and matching the body's own. They had to be tailored individually, but that was the price paid.

With the loss of electricity from the world, the gigantic hybrids were surprised that their implants continued to work, albeit not in the way they were necessarily designed. Antennae allowed them to communicate directly with one another still, or to assert some level of control over simple beasts. Enhanced eyes allowed them to spy out living creatures, even through some solid materials, provided said materials were not overly thick.

Is was the use of the Shar field that allowed this, and though they had never encountered it before, these scientific people were quick to begin reasoning about it, proposing theories of what had happened and what would happen. There was discussion of mysticism, legends told of people who had the abilities the entire Kulus civilisation seemed to have gained, and more abilities besides!

Within a few days of the old technology failing, they had begun to set up new systems for food production, sanitisation, water purification and the other things necessary for civilised living. They were quick to grasp that life was the key. They were quick to realise that the sinistrals had unaccountably large levels of this visible life force and that the darklings seemed to have none, but were sustained by some other force that was similar to Shar in the same way it was similar to the electricity that Shar had replaced.

Plans were begun to harness this other force. Darklings were captured, experiments performed, even as they and the smaller sinistrals were fended off.

When the sinistrals that had been modified by Avan arrived, they were dubbed dextrals as they seemed to be in opposition to the sinistrals. They did not have destructive tendencies and appeared willing to interact with the Kulus. Movements were made to train and domesticate them. Breeding would be a problem; they reproduced asexually and genetic technology was no longer available, at least, it was unavailable to the best of their knowledge. Still, get enough of them and expose them to some sort of radiation – Shar might have the useful properties, who knew? - and they should begin evolving different traits.

The Kulus debated where these things would have come from. They reached a majority consensus – over 75%, which defined a major majority – that these new species were somehow related to the failing of electricity, but could not reach anything more than a 20% consensus on any theories as to how they were related, which was 5% lower than that required for a minor consensus, which was in turn required before a course of action could be committed to and even then only if there were no other theories with minor consensus. This system was designed so that progress could be made, even in uncertain climates.

The Kulus had depended very much on the use of enhanced animals, typically enhanced through a combination of genetic modification and electronic implants. Some of the more heavily implanted animals had trouble now, their life forces apparently being insufficient to power all their robotic equipment. On the flip side, batteries appeared to no longer be necessary, and most broken electronics continued to work, even when severely damaged. It was as if the electronics had become part of the body.

The first big breakthrough came when it was realised that their bodies would slowly heal the implants if damaged. The animals were often sent to do the more dangerous tasks; it was one of the reasons they were created after all; and when one's reinforced arm was crushed, the Kulus decided it may have to be put down. Subsequent investigations revealed it was not as wounded as originally expected, and examinations performed even later revealed that the wound was completely healed, including the damage to the steel carapace. Further experiments were formed before a near-100% consensus was formed that implants could heal themselves. Bodies now accepted, rather than rejected extensions.

Other experiments confirmed that darklings could not be improved upon using implants, but that sinistrals and dextrals could. A brain interface for a dextral would save on training, while body implants could make up for breeding. Sinistrals were just too simple. They could be put to work in the same way cockroaches were – converting detritus to soil – but did not need to be enhanced for that purpose. They were good enough at that in their natural state.

That all three species made good and nourishing food – particularly the sinistrals – was the next big breakthrough. It cut down on food processing costs by over 8% as fewer steps were now needed to be taken to produce protein from garbage.

The final breakthrough was discovered when someone tried to talk to a dextral over their antenna. The creature obeyed their command. Again they tried, and again it obeyed. This mind control was discovered to work for both sinistrals and dextrals, and would form the basis of the new machine workers in Ironcore, working as extensions of their masters' bodies.