A Soul in Silver

Obsolete

Zeke took in a deep breath, inhaling the slightly acrid yet not unpleasant thick Svargan air. By Anura's grace, the skies shone bright with the tinge of the red sun; the clouds’ trails seemed to dance in the vast blue canvas of daylight.

"Two years we've been together on the plains of Svarga, and you still know my sugar cravings before my belly starts to rumble!” Zeke said, patting the pocket of his tunic, as he walked along the curb, on the streets of Goran.

“A genius needs his sweets,” Nash replied, hovering above him like a ring on an angel.

The smell of Gina's reed dough pastries hit him three shops away. His mouth watered. It always did.

“If you weren’t a Shaper, you’d be sprinting straight to her bakery,” Nash said.

Zeke laughed. "Probably."

They entered the bakery. The place was packed, as always. Zeke squeezed toward the counter.

“If it isn't my favorite Anuran,” Gina said, croaking with a bright demeanor, as she walked straight out of the kitchen with two trays of freshly baked swamp fruit pies.

“Good morning, Gina,” Nash said.

“My favorite whisp, how do you do, Nash?” Gina replied, slicing and arranging the pies on plates.

Zeke launched into his usual elaborate praise of Anura. Gina rolled her eyes, laughed, and slid him four plates instead of two.

"For the equipment," she said. "You earned it."

They ate. They talked. Then Zeke wiped his mouth and left. They made their way to Shaper Headquarters.

He curtly nodded as two acolytes passed by. He overheard the pair excitedly discussing that all Shapers would be upgraded to new Whisp series this week.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Nash said.

Zeke didn't utter a word, aside from telling Nash to summon his HOP-R compact maglev to their location.

The HOP-R, a single-Anuran, capsule-shaped vehicle with a sleek, streamlined anterior, which responded to Zeke's neural signature. Nash called it ‘The Tadpole’.

He hadn’t taken five more steps when his vehicle caught up to his pace. He entered; Nash rested in his pod, and in what felt like three minutes, they arrived at HQ.

A marvel of Anuran ingenuity—its triangular Lumicrete frame pulsed with soft luminescent veins of integrated circuitry with the flow of raw data illuminating its walls like digital blood through a living creature. The building stood nearly 1,000 meters tall. Its windows were not glass but thin sheets of crystalisteel, all the transparency of glass but with the structural strength of titanium.

Inside, acolytes ran simulations in floating holographic chambers, while Master Shapers debated battle tactics in soundproofed strategy spheres. Every corridor hummed with the quiet rhythm of genius at work.

At the pinnacle was Thorne, the High Technomancer—a title earned, not inherited. He had risen through the ranks not by blood, but by mind. A genius amongst geniuses, the Shaper who had solved the unsolvable, the architect who designed the very fortress grids that protected Svarga.

The Shapers Order HQ was one of the few buildings that stood out the most in all of Svarga. Statues of Frogbert Bainstein, Jared Faraday and Bobby Newton stood nine meters tall on each side of the triangular structure.

Entrance flags bearing the standards of Svarga, JSOF, and the Shapers’ sigil—a single open eye within a cog—snapped in the warm breeze.

Zeke got out of his HOP-R, and made his way to his lab, as Nash said, “Is it just me or is Frogbert standing off balance today?” hoping to ease the tension.

No response. Zeke was still bothered by what he overheard.

‘Who wakes up one morning, and decides to replace a part of you with something entirely new?’ Zeke muttered in his thoughts.

Taking the stairs into the building, as he passed through the entrance, he was greeted by numerous young acolytes who bowed to him; senior acolytes nodded as he walked through HQ.

As Zeke made his way deeper into the tower, he sensed a shift in his fellow Shaper's demeanor. The previously amenable acolytes now seemed to have looks of concern on their faces. Puzzled by what might be the cause of the sudden shift in the atmosphere, he strode on. An acolyte he had trained last season passed by, but before Zeke could say a word, the acolyte quickly looked away and hurried on. That was when Zeke knew. Something was wrong. As his footsteps slowly resounded, a messenger wisp hovered straight at him.

The whisp halted. “Shaper Zeke. The High Technomancer summons you. Immediately!” the bot said.

He could guess where this was going.

Nash’s digital eyes flickered twice as he hovered beside Zeke's shoulder.

“My probability matrix just spiked, Zeke. The rumor is starting to have credibility.”

“Relax. It could be anything,” Zeke responded, as a coping mechanism to evade what he feared might be true.

The High Technomancer’s chamber was a large circular room in a dome form. The ceiling displayed shifting holographic data, maps, cybernetic designs, and the geography of Anura. At the center was Thorne, where he sat on a floating dais.

A scarred Shaper, with a whisp of his own—a silver model Zeke had never seen before—hovering right beside him.

Zeke entered the chamber and bowed, as was the custom.

“Two years, Zeke. Your progress has been… acceptable,” Thorne said, as he glanced through a report from the Master Shapers, and signed some approvals.

“Thank you, Prime,” Zeke said, bowing.

“You have heard the rumors, I presume.” He adjusted his spectacles, and fixed Zeke with a stern look.

Filtering his words in a split second, Zeke responded, “I’ve heard many things.”

“Then you know why you are here. The Order has decided. All Shapers with a bond exceeding 19 months will be issued the Series-7 Whisp. Your Nash is… obsolete.”

Nash could feel Zeke's panic over their neural bridge.

“Obsolete?” Zeke froze. “But Prime, Nash has–”

“Served you well,” Thorne cut in. “Without a doubt the two of you together have accomplished remarkable things, but the Series-6 is lacking.” “The new series processes 32% faster, interfaces with the new fortress grid, and its communion range is triple. Nash is not on that level.” Thorne gave Nash an unremarkable look.

“Then we upgrade him. Transfer his engram, his memory core–”

“Incompatible!” Thorne cut him off again, coldly. “You know this. Nash’s architecture is first generation. He has served his purpose well, but there have been advancements...” “The Series-7 runs on a new substrate. The advanced neural matrix is not compatible with older models.” “This is our way, Zeke. You know this. It is necessary.”

Zeke was silent.

“Good. The procedure is scheduled for dawn. Three days from now. You will bring Nash to the forge. You will power him down, and you will receive your Series-7. This is not a request.”

With a face of resolve, Zeke broke his silence. “And if I refuse?”

Thorne leaned forward. “Then you are no Shaper. You are stripped of your rank. Your Whisp is decommissioned regardless. And you spend the rest of your life as a common Anuran, watching others design the world you could have created.”

Nash’s voice was quiet, audible only in Zeke’s ears. “Zeke, don't. I've calculated the odds. He's not bluffing.”

The Procedure

Zeke retreated to his lab, slammed the door shut behind him and didn't speak for hours. Nash, silent, hovered straight to his dock, across the room.

Zeke finally broke the silence. “Three days. Three days to find a solution.” “Nash, you've been with me through every puzzle. Every battle. Every failure. You finish my sentences. The Series-7 will calculate my moves and act accordingly, but won't know me.”

Nash drifted towards him; his digital face softened. “I've known this day was coming for 105 cycles. I've calculated the possibility at 88.7%. I stayed anyway, because you're worth the ending.”

Zeke's fist clenched. “I’m not accepting this. There has to be another way.”

Zeke spent the next 48 hours researching in secret. Fueled by Castellum Tonic and a secret stash of Spicy Reed Dough-wheels, he went hard on digging through the old archives in the HQ basement. With Nash by his side, analysing every bit of information. From forbidden texts on early whisp designs to communication with fellow senior Shapers. Zeke did not even think of sleep that night.

His eyes burned. His mind relentlessly parsed through ancient data streams. Every time he wanted to stop, he looked at Nash—silent, patient, still processing—and kept going. Even while recharging in his pod, Nash did not stop processing and analysing information.

Zeke discovered a buried secret in the old archives—a subroutine that had been blindly copied into the machine code of every whisp since the Series 1 was manufactured. It was always there, dormant, never activated. He read from the text: “...If a Shaper's bond is deep enough—if the communion is truly 'singular and unyielding'—the whisp can transfer its entire program into a new shell, destroying its old hardware in the process.”

It was forbidden to copy a Whisp, but this was something else altogether, not a mere copy of the Whisp's bits and bytes but transference of their symbiosis. The creation of something more.

Nash was already expecting a “but”, as Zeke continued, “But the process is dangerous. It requires a synaptic link between Shaper, Whisp, and the Order's Central Core—a three-way connection that had never been successfully tested.” The old security protocols were nearly unbreakable, designed to prevent exactly this kind of transfer.

Zeke continued; “Only a Shaper and whisp working together in a state of perfect symbiosis could hope to override them.”

"Zeke. The risk is 73.4%. If we fail, you die. I die. And the new Series arrives anyway. Is that worth it?" Nash responded.

Zeke replied: "You said you stayed because I was worth the ending. Nash... you're worth the risk.”

That night, Nash found the protocol sequence buried in a forgotten archive. Zeke memorized it in one reading.

Dawn came. Thorne was already in the forge, with Master Shapers and Stewards who managed the forge and other Shapers who would be issued their respective Series-7.

The forge: A massive chamber of heat and light, filled with the smell of ozone, giant engines, large holographic displays of cybernetic armor blueprints, plasma blades, mechanical gauntlets and daggers. All manner of weaponry and gizmos to serve the 5 Orders.

Zeke’s supposed Series-7 was hovering in a glass tube with a platinum beam of light underneath it. The Series-7—sleek, silver and cold.

Other Shapers had already received their new whisps, unaware of the chaos that was about to take place.

Thorne watched from above as Zeke entered the forge. Nash hovered beside him, trembling slightly.

He made his way beside the Series-7 assigned to him.

Staring at Zeke, Thorne ordered, “You know what to do. Power him down. Now.”

Zeke stepped forward to begin the decommissioning procedure. He placed his left hand on Nash's casing and hardwired the Whisp’s master interface to the Central Core, a living computer that was fabricated in the very walls and structure of Shaper HQ itself. A trillion QFLOPs of compute pulsed against his mind like some great digital leviathan.

Nash spoke silently through their neural interface. "Thank you for two years, Zeke. You were my favorite Shaper. Not because you were the smartest. But because you were the most present. You were… a friend."

To Zeke, Nash had never been a mere tool–he was family.

Zeke whispered, “I’m not letting them kill you.”

Instead of uploading the security authorization that would begin the memory wipe, he requested that the machine spirit activate the subroutine. For a moment he thought he saw a flickering outline of a slender Anuran priestess in his mind.

Only he heard the voice: “Are you prepared to give up a piece of yourself, Shaper?”

Zeke silently replied, “Yes.”

Thorne glared at Zeke, noting the procedure was taking longer than it should have.

A sudden flood of memories. Zeke felt everything at once: his childhood, his days at the academy, every mission, the day Nash was activated and the first time they met. Their memories blurred, the distinction between Shaper and Machine indistinguishable.

Nash's circuits and holo projectors flickered unnaturally. Zeke was in a state of shock as his left hand still rested on Nash's casing. Current flowed through his body. A nearby Series-7 shuddered. The entire Forge shook.

Thorne shouted, “Stop him! He's—"

Too late.

The forge momentarily went dark, the lights surging, almost blinding. Sparks flew from Zeke’s station; the containment field around the Series-7 was crackling. Zeke fell to the ground. He felt himself passing out, struggling to get up. He felt the central machine pulling.

Every memory, every calculation, every feeling streamed into the Series-7 shell. The transference was complete, the new whisp sputtered as it awoke, its various indicators and antigravity mechanism pulsing as it came online. It hovered and said in a distorted voice, “...Zeke? Did it work?” Nash's voice, but different, familiar.

Zeke couldn’t believe his eyes. Filled with excitement, Zeke realized the transference was a success!

Everyone in the forge stood frozen, trying to grasp what just happened.

Thorne was above, furious.

Nash hovered out of the containment glass tube, toward Zeke. “You reckless hunk of slime! The audacity, the insubordination! You could have fried the Core! But… you pulled it off.”

Machine stewards were already at Zeke’s station cleaning up the mess and trying to contain the smoke.

Zeke was still on his knees. Grinning, he looked straight at Nash and asked silently, "How do you feel, buddy?"

Nash replied, “I feel… different… but I feel.”

He looked up to Thorne knowing it wouldn't just end like this. As Zeke rose, he maintained his gaze at Thorne, Nash hovering right beside his shoulder.

“Seize him!” Thorne instructed the Masters, as he went to his chamber.

Days later. Zeke and Nash—now in the Series-7 body—were both under house arrest and barred from entering Shaper HQ.

Thorne had Zeke's lab decommissioned and restructured into a containment chamber for him, until he had decided on a sentence for Zeke’s defiance of the Order.

Standing on the balcony of his apartment, overlooking Svarga, Zeke asked, “Nash. Does it feel different?”

“The body is faster. The range is wider. But I'm still me. I still know you crave Gina's Dough-wheels at exactly 4:17 PM every day. I still know you hum when you're nervous. I still know you better than any machine ever could.”

Zeke smiled, as the wind blew past in a steady current.

“Speaking of snacks, I could really use two whole trays of Gina's Spicy Dough-wheels right now.”

Nash laughed, “Yeah, you sure could. Hopefully, Prime turns out to be reasonable with our little charade.”

They both laughed. “Gina would have her ears full when we’re out of this,” Zeke said as he lay flat on the floor.

"Nash... what happens now?"

"Now? Now we show them that a 'new series' is only as good as the soul inside it. And my soul..." Nash's digital face drew a smile. "...is yours."

Zeke laughed. It was broken, relieved, free.

"Anura bless the day they made you, Nash."

"Anura had nothing to do with it. That was all you."

Zeke held out a fist, and Nash bumped it slightly with his screen as he displayed a digital fist.

Unknown to them, Thorne had already sent for Zeke. One Master and two Stewards were already on their way to Zeke's living quarters.

The holo screen chimed. A master shaper chirped, "Thorne summons you."

Zeke motioned to Nash, “Let them enter.”

“Take his drone to the forge,” the Master instructed the Stewards.

Confused, Zeke broke his silence. “Why isn't he coming with me?” Looking at the Master's Drone. “You don't go anywhere without yours. This is the code.”

As the Stewards carried Nash out of the lab, in a large square containment made of crystalisteel, Zeke clenched his fist and stepped forward to intervene.

“It’ll be alright, Zeke. We'll get through this. Don’t get reckless,” Nash said as he slowly left Zeke's field of vision.

“Be wise, Zeke. I'd listen to Nash if I were you.”

Making their way to HQ, Zeke was uncertain about what he might face.

They approached Thorne's office. The door was silver with no handle.

They stepped forward, as it parted and gave way to them.

Zeke whispered, “Great Anura, cause me to be favoured.”

Zeke found himself walking alone; the Master Shaper who accompanied him had already vanished to other duties.

Thorne sat in silence, studying Zeke.

Then he broke the silence, when Zeke had gotten close enough. “I must say, Zeke.” "For a Shaper, you have the guts of a Devout, but then you're not the first to disobey.”

Zeke’s face was blank. He felt praised but still could not overreact because he didn't know what to expect from Thorne.

“You broke the rules. You defied the Order.” He paused and slowly lowered his dais to Zeke's eye level. “But you also did what no Shaper in a century has done. You risked your own mind to keep your machine bond functional—reckless but admirable.”

Zeke was relieved; he smiled within as Thorne kept speaking. “I should have you stripped of rank. Instead... I want you to teach the acolytes. Show them what a Shaper-Whisp symbiosis can achieve.”

“Thank you, Prime,” Zeke said, bowing. “What about Nash–”

Thorne gestured. The door opened and Nash hovered in, unharmed.

"We didn't decommission him. We tested him. He passed.” “The Masters analyzed the Whisp's positronic data and confirmed the transfer succeeded without corrupting the substrate.” “Anura’s luck was with you. Be grateful you didn't make a fool of yourself.” “He's the first Series-7 with the spark of a Shaper. Don't make me regret this."

“Thank you, Prime,” Nash said.

Zeke left the chamber, with Nash hovering right beside him. "So... about those Spicy Reed Dough-wheels…" Zeke chuckled. “I’ve worked up quite the appetite.”