Dark Suit watched impassively, absently flicking a speck from the sleeve of his impeccable suit. Gray Shirt held her up so Cycle Leathers could have his fun. They’d been at it for a while now, and Lanie didn’t have much defiance left. Her right eye was starting to swell shut, and blood ran down her chin from a split in her lower lip.
She’d woken up not long ago in this bare room with its cold concrete floor. When her eyes remembered how to focus, one of the first things to resolve had been the drain in the middle of the floor, staring up at her like the baleful eye of a cyclops. Her overactive imagination treated her to images of her blood being hosed down that drain, and she’d shuddered. Her head still swam from whatever they’d injected her with. It had been hard to pull her thoughts together. Almost as soon as she’d regained consciousness, the beating had started.
“Just tell us where you put the Samsara Stone. It is very simple. We don’t need to know who hired you or how you got into and out of the museum. You need not betray any loyalties. Tell us where the stone is, we will get it, and this nightmare will be over for you. Chalk it up as a bad job and move on,” Dark Suit said, his tone oh-so-reasonable. He paused and watched her face, but seeing only hatred and defiance in her eyes, he went on, “Do you even know what it is you stole? How special that stone is? The secrets it holds? No?” He tsked, shaking his head in disappointment. “Such a shame. You would die for a client who did not even tell you the depths of the pool into which you were diving?”
Lanie didn’t give two shits about the client. This contract, like most of her contracts, had been anonymous. There were cut-outs in place to isolate both sides. She did have some professional pride and a deep-seated hatred for bullies that made her not want to give these assholes anything just on principle. But neither of those was why she stayed silent.
Lanie wanted to tell them, but she didn’t want to die. They would probably cut her open, gutting her like a deer, to get the stone back instead of just waiting for it to pass. They would kill her without hesitation. She was pretty sure she wasn’t going to walk away from this in any case. They’d made no effort to hide their faces. That was always a bad sign. She had something they wanted, and, for now, that was keeping her breathing.
Dark Suit nodded to Cycle Leathers, who smirked and slammed another fist into her gut.
This blow was harder than the ones before, and Lanie’s knees buckled. She couldn’t hold back the whimper that escaped. Gray Shirt had to support her full weight, and her vision flickered. An electric pulse washed through her, and for just a moment, she felt like her entire body had been washed with fire. She went limp as she lost all control of her body. Her vision continued to flicker.
“She’s just about unconscious. We ought to give her a little time to think,” said Gray Shirt, his voice a hoarse whisper, as if it had been damaged at some point.
Cycle Leathers grabbed her hair and lifted her face. He peered into her eyes and released his grip, allowing her head to drop forward again. “Yeah. It’s no fun this way.”
Lanie hit the floor hard enough to send another shock of pain through her. She had no control over her body at all. Blue and white light continued to flicker in her vision, and it felt like a ball of fire had ignited in her stomach. She heard the footsteps of the three men as they left the room and the click of the door closing. She lay there on the cold, bare concrete, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
She’d been in some tight spots, but nothing like this. Ever since she’d woken up from her drugged sleep, she’d been waiting for her captors to leave the room. She was very good at getting through locks. Getting into locked rooms was her thing; getting out of one wasn’t much harder. Now, her chance had come, but she couldn’t move. Her body wouldn’t respond. Something was very wrong. She tried to lift her hand, twitch a finger, blink, anything. Nothing moved.
The last blow to her gut had done something, broken something. She’d been worried about the stone sitting in her stomach, and she wondered if that last blow had pushed the hard object into some delicate organ and done serious damage. Or broken it into shards that were cutting up her insides.
The flicker in her sight slowed and settled to a single line of light hovering in the air before her. The line resolved into characters, letters. At first, it was Sanskrit, then the letters seemed to roll, becoming Cuneiform, then Hieroglyphics, then Phoenician, and other alphabets and symbols, including Cyrillic, several forms of Asian characters, and many more she couldn’t recognize. Symbols flicked by faster until it settled on the alphabet she could read. There were two words, and they flickered through several languages, finally stopping on English:
Initializing Interface
Three more words appeared under the first two:
Language set: English
Then both lines disappeared, replaced with the words:
Scanning Akashic Records…
The ellipsis at the end vanished and reappeared one dot at a time, like a “working” icon on a computer loading screen. The words themselves were a glowing blue-white. When those words appeared, she felt something, for just a moment. Like she’d reached out a hand she didn’t know she had and touched infinity. It was an odd sort of vertigo, like some immeasurably vast space had opened up around her and she could feel… forever. It made her mind whirl, and made her feel like the tiniest, most insignificant speck before a cosmic eternity. The sensation lasted only for an instant before fading, but it left her reeling.
What the hell? Lanie tried to blink and shake her head, but she still couldn’t move. The fire in her stomach began to pulse, pushing outward with each beat. Lanie strained against her uncooperative body, trying to move an arm or a leg, or even twitch a finger. She was a prisoner in her own body, and her lack of control was driving her to the edge of panic. She could feel her heartbeat increasing, her breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps.
Records Indexed.
Unlocking Potential.
The heat in her center pulsed outward one last time. Then it broke apart and washed through her like a boiling tsunami. If she’d had control of her vocal cords, she would have screamed from the agony of it. It filled her from her core out to her fingers and toes. Even her eyeballs felt like they were going to boil away, and her brain flow out of her ears as molten slag.
And then it stopped.
It left behind only the memory of pain, and an energetic tingle and lethargic wet-noodle sensation that felt like a well-used muscle after a good workout—only it wasn’t a single muscle, it was all of her. The words floating in the air changed to a list:
Greetings, Seeker Lanie Manovich.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Body: Mortal (F) 10%
Mind: Mortal (F) 11%
Soul: Mortal (F) 8%
Past Incarnations - 157 (viewed - 0)
Dharma - Way of the Thief
Sakti: 8
Attributes:
Strength - 10
Dexterity - 12
Endurance - 9
Vitality - 10
Perception - 14
Willpower - 10
Intelligence - 14
Wisdom - 8
Charisma - 10
Health: 72/100
Stamina: 63/90
Prana: 30/140
Chakras:
Unawakened
Gifts:
Improved Recall
Intuition
Skills:
Computer Science (Apprentice)
Locksmith (Apprentice)
Electronic Security (Apprentice)
Observation (Apprentice)
Acrobatics (Apprentice)
Free Running (Apprentice)
Melee: Hand-to-Hand (Novice)
Ranged: Handguns (Novice)
Stealth (Apprentice)
Disguise (Apprentice)
Languages:
English (Native)
Spanish (Functional)
French (Poor)
German (Functional)
Your growth potential has fully awakened. Learn from your experiences in this life and those that came before. Gather Sakti and advance, Seeker.
You have 8 points of Sakti to distribute. You may use them to refine your mind, body, and soul, to improve your attributes, to actively refill your prana, or to awaken chakras or gifts. Use the power you have gathered wisely to awaken the divinity within you.
Would you like to use your Sakti now?
What. The. Hell? Lanie read over the text twice, trying to understand what she was seeing. She’d played enough video games and tabletop RPGs to recognize a character sheet when she saw one. She took in a deep breath, and as she did, she realized that the strange paralysis had faded. She had control of her body once more.
She pushed herself to a sitting position. Her whole body ached from the beating she’d taken, but compared to the unbelievable agony that had flowed through her a minute ago, it was bearable. She groaned and wrapped an arm across her midsection where the worst of the pain was. The words were still there. They moved with her, overlaying her vision like some sort of VR display. Even with her right eye swollen almost shut and making everything else seem blurry, the words were clear.
She carefully felt around her head for any device that might be creating the projection, but found nothing. She winced when she gently probed the area around her eye. She was going to have one hell of a shiner, but the socket felt intact.
There was nothing on her that could be making the words, and she didn’t find any incisions where something might have been inserted into her. The walls of the room were bare concrete, except on one side. There were two large ventilation grates up high on the wall. That was an obvious place to hide a camera and projector, but no matter where she moved, the words stayed. Even when she covered her eyes with her hands, the words were still there. Technology was getting pretty advanced, but not this advanced. Anything man-made that could produce a floating display would be large enough to find, and she didn’t find anything.
Her investigation was taking too long. Her captors could come back at any moment. She needed to find a way out of here, but her curiosity pushed past her common sense. The last line asked her a question, so she answered it. “Yes.”
The words changed again, the character sheet vanished, and was replaced with a menu:
Attributes
Chakras
Foundation
She stretched out a finger to try selecting Attributes, but the words were always in front of her hand. She couldn’t touch them. She focused on the word Attributes and imagined clicking it. The word glowed for a second, and new lines appeared, one for each attribute with up and down arrows. She experimented by clicking the up arrow for Strength and saw it go up a point, and her Sakti total dropped by two.
Ok, two points per attribute. That means I can add four points, total. Let’s see what else there is. She clicked the down arrow to reset her selection and moved to the Chakras option. Clicking that brought up a list of seven items with names she wasn’t familiar with, and wasn’t certain she could even pronounce:
Muladhara
Svadhisthana
Manipura
Anahata
Vishuddha
Anja
Sahasrara
All but one of them was grayed out. Only Muladhara glowed. She clicked it. Rather than expanding a submenu, this time her whole display changed. Now she saw a red flower with four petals floating in front of her. Each petal held a grayed-out word and phrase:
1. Root - The strong foundation.
2. Shield - The walls that protect.
3. Primal - The hunter, not the prey.
4. Shadow - Safe in the dark.
Under the flower was an option to awaken the Chakra for four Sakti points. She backed out to the first menu and chose the Foundation option. It had only three options in its submenu:
Body
Mind
Spirit
But all of them were grayed out.
None of this made any sense. She’d heard of Chakras. There had been a poster with dots of color at a Yoga studio she’d tried out a few years ago, but she hadn’t paid much attention to it. Now she wished she’d looked closer. What were Sakti points? How did she earn more? Why was this happening? What did it mean? She had so many questions, but no matter what she focused on, there were no help menus.
Lanie found herself getting frustrated. She was scared, in pain, trapped, and probably about to be murdered, and the universe was trying to get her to play some sort of game where she didn’t even know the rules. She nearly decided to ignore the whole thing, but her intuition and her curiosity said that would be a bad idea. If this game interface thing was really offering her a chance at power, she’d be a fool to pass it up in her current situation.
Without putting much thought into it, she went back to the Chakras menu and spent the four points to awaken the Muladhara Chakra. As soon as she spent the points, she felt something within herself change. A wave of energy passed through her, originating from the base of her tailbone and spreading outward. It wasn’t painful like the last change; rather, it left her feeling more stable and grounded. The ache in her ribs didn’t vanish, but her breathing came easier. Her legs felt like they might hold her weight again. A new message appeared superimposed over the glowing red flower of the Chakra menu:
Muladhara
The root. Stability. Safety. The needs of survival. The Past
You gain +5 to all physical stats and +5% to all physical stats.
You may now choose your Path. Choose carefully, this choice cannot be undone.
Find Karmic Links to view past lives.
The options on the petals were no longer grayed out, but now they each had a 3 beside them. She selected the Shadow option.
Would you like to choose the Path of Shadow for 3 Sakti? You may only choose one path.
“Yes,” Lanie said. She knew she should take more care with this, but she felt time pressing down on her. Out of the four options, being safe in the dark just felt right. Hiding and being overlooked had been her best defense for most of her life. Another message replaced the last one:
Take care. Choosing the Path of Shadow has far-reaching karmic implications. Do you wish to proceed?
“Yes,” she said, again, although this time she was a little less certain. None of her reasoning had changed, but that didn’t stop a little knot of worry from forming. The words vanished, and for a moment the screen she was watching darkened, as though a shadow passed across it. A shiver ran across her skin, raising goosebumps, and her eyes started to itch and burn before returning to normal. When the sensation passed, the buzzing, flickering fluorescent lighting seemed just slightly brighter, and the dark corners of the room were just a little less dark.
She was now down to only 1 Sakti, and the other three options turned gray. She wasn’t sure if they’d grayed out because they were no longer available, or because she didn’t have enough points to activate them. A new list of options appeared as red triangles branching out from the Shadow petal, but the words on them were grayed out as well. Lanie read the new message that popped up when she’d confirmed her choice:
You have chosen to walk the Path of Shadow. The Path of Shadow and the Way of the Thief are a narrow ledge to walk. Take care that you do not fall into the darkness.
You gain the ability Shadow Sight.
Shadow Sight 1: You can see in the darkness as though it were dim light. You can see in dim light as though well lit. Shadows reveal their secrets. Perception +3
“Great, dark vision. How does that help me get out of here?” she berated herself. She ignored the ominous message that had come with the power. She had to survive before she could worry about the philosophical ramifications of her life choices. She waved a frustrated hand at the display, wishing it would just go away, and to her surprise, it did. “I think I’m going insane,” she whispered, “Or maybe it’s brain damage.”