Nucleus

The first thing Matthew would notice would be light. Bright, blinding light that completely surrounded him. Once his eyes had adapted, Matthew would then see the planet.

It was difficult to tell how large it was, but it was a large glassy black sphere simply hanging in the void. Clouds and waves of color seemed to be surging deep beneath its smooth surface. Additionally, he would be able to small black circles appearing around it constantly, with small black glass shapes traveling to and from the surface.

Matthew was now at Nucleus, the VARIAtech homeworld, located within the space between spaces. Nealaphh was still near him, still spinning softly and emitting a soft green light. His voice seemed to travel directly into Matthew's head.

"Please, do not be afraid. You are safe here, and we want to keep you safe." his in his balmy, soft tone.

Matthew was nervous. Luckily, there was nothing around to age, disintegrate, or freeze in time. But, the rift could do far more then that and he knew it. But the Rift seemed to "disagree" with being there. Matthew was practically glowing, literally, as Rift energies swirled around him.

"Who are you? What do you want with me?"

Matthew had about as much trust for people as...well, he just didn't trust people. At all.

"We want to offer you a home." Nealaphh said. Matthew might vaguely realize that they were drifting closer to the planet, but with the scale of everything that was going on, it was hard to be sure.

"We know of how you struggle. It is unfair. Harsh. Here, you would not be hunted. Here, you would be welcomed." Nealaphh said softly, his small form rotating gently.

"And why should I trust you? The people I know discarded me as a nobody, and the people I don't know have tried to use me for their own purposes. Hell, some people want me as a trophy. What makes you any different".

His hair turned gold for a split second. An effect of the Rift. He did notice they were getting closer. "Where are we?"

"This is my home, and the home of many other people like you. People who were hunted and persecuted." Nealaphh buzzed softly. Just then, a large, black crystalline slab full of color and light drifted past them lazily. It seemed to be on a direct collision course with the planet. Just when it seemed like it was about to impact, however, it slowed down and then seemed to ooze and combine with the planet, its internal light instantly merging with the color storms beneath the surface.

"This is Nucleus, the home of VARIAtech. We were once flesh and blood like you, but we found that we preferred to exist only as minds, free to think and roam the universes." Nealaphh continued. As they were getting closer, it might become apparent that they were actually moving startlingly fast.

"This black substance is called unimatter. We can put our minds into it and shape it into any form we want. It is what makes our bodies, our buildings, and our space ships."

He looked at the black substance. He felt displaced here, but that might be from the nausea of teleportation. His curiosity outweighed his suspicion. "Why? Isn't it annoying, having to deal with other people. The crowd of thoughts". Matthew had the occasional nightmare of crowds of people crying and suffering around him. A mother just giving birth as the entire building exploded. Sometimes, he wished he was that baby, thinking it would be a better life to lose a parent then have them hate you.

"Why? What do you gain from this?"

Nealaphh was silent for a moment as they generally touched down on Nucleus' surface. It was a slightly disorienting experience. The ground was perfectly smooth, and the horizon in every direction was completely flat, so much so that you could almost make out the curve of the planet.

Under foot there was a constantly roiling, flashing storm of color and energy; the minds of millions all thinking in unison. Conversing, feeling, sharing...

"I understand that your experiences differ, but we of VARIAtech rejoice in togetherness. Cooperation is our universal desire, and to be able to instantly join your thoughts with those of another allows for complex thought on an entirely new level. The pursuit of pure mental perfection...that is what we stand to gain." Nealaphh said, his voice becoming just a tad frantic.

"We can understand that you do not wish to join us. But at least let us help you. Watch over you. Your power is something that must be nurtured and understood...not stolen and controlled. We wish to help you understand it."

"'The pursuit of perfection shall only lead to chaos, as the only perfection is imperfection'. It's a quote I once heard, or read. I can't remember. Another one being 'We like people for their traits, and love them for their flaws'. I spent a lot of time reading. My parents hated me, I never had any friends, and people always treated me like crap. They never beat me, but sometimes I felt like that made it worse..."

He adjusted his jacket, and something became barely visible on his back as it slumped down. If anyone was to look closer, they would be able to tell it was similar to a bar code, only it was in his skin. As if you could scan it like you could a box of crackers at the groceries. In truth, Matthew didn't know it was there. No one ever told him. But he might as well have known, seeing as he sees himself viewed as a commodity to the eyes of others. Those with power or scientific interest or money but wanted more.

He found himself looking around. "If you are a consensus, then why would you need cities? Couldn't you just exist as some sort of unified blob then? Also, how do you stop yourselves from getting bored? You must know every movie and every book, and I don't see how it's possible to play games if your all united".

Matthew's curiosity had taken hold. He knelt down and closer examined the black ooze. "Do you still feel? And die? Can you feel the pain others have felt?"

Nealaphh was only too happy to answer Matthew's questions. The boy have still felt a vestige of suspicion about where he was, and understandably so. But his curiosity indicated that he was not completely defensive.

"Ah...well. That's where you're misinterpreting. We of VARIAtech do form a large cluster of pure mental existence, but we still retain individual identities within the scope of the whole. It is what allows us to create, think, and diverge. If everybody simply shared the same thoughts, there would be no possibility of progress. As for the cities...well...even eternal psyche's need a pass-time." Nealaphh said. All of a sudden, the ground beneath Matthew's feet would section off, and a large square around them began to pull them down into the planet, like a giant elevator. There was little that could be seen at first, but then, without any warning, there came a blast of warm air as they suddenly descended into a massive cavern, larger than could be imagined.

From the sides of the walls jutted ornate sculptures and structures, all weaving together and branching off to form intricate lattices and networks. Individual colored lights moved along the black-glass pillars, making them seem as though they were almost highways with a rainbow of different little bugs skittering along them. As they passed close to some of the monumental structures, the clusters of light all bunched towards the edges, as if eager to get a look at Matthew.

"Each individual glow is an individual person, free of body and physical restraint. This black substance, the unimatter, is what can house us and give our minds a place to come home to. We live as a collective, but we interact freely. We draw entertainment from comparing ideas and creating new theories. Seeing who can imagine a more complex physical structure, and so on." Nealaphh said, pausing for a moment as the slab of unimatter beneath their feet ferried them through the air, passing over countless crystalline wonders.

"We do not feel physical sensations such as hunger or pain...but we do have emotions which grow deeper and more complex than physical bodies could permit. And yes...sometimes individual consciousnesses fade from us, drifting into the Quantum. It's also entirely possible for a vessel housing one of us to be destroyed, allowing that mind to drift away. And yes, we can feel the pain of others. Every single one of us is what you would call 'psychic'. It's what allows us to access eachother's minds and have more complex and intimate conversations than you can imagine..."

Matthew barely processed this. Barely.

"Isn't that painful then? Feeling all the pain others felt throughout their lives?" he asked, as the warm air hit him. This warm air started to make him feel a bit hot in his jacket, so he took it off and stuffed it into his bag. With the jacket gone, the bar code encoded into his skin was now much more visible. Matthew had no clue it was even there, but it was designed to grow with the person it was encoded on.

There were really only a few instances people had bar codes on them. One was that they were or are a slave, in which case the bar code when scanned lists purchases and the current owner. The second was that they were born during the rule of The Republic, which was permanently absorbed over a century ago so that was highly unlikely. Every citizen was genetically encoded with a bar code, that contained their identification, criminal record, awards, achievements, family relations, address, and various other records. The third was used as a money system on the world of Titus, which became a part of the Pandorian Alliance six years ago. They could scan it to store or spend money, and it was basically unstealable, excluding a few high tech options. The fourth was used to mark prisoners on the Volcanic World of Vraxis. Any prisoner, or child born to a prisoner, received this bar code to identify them. It was used to let them know how much time they had left from a scanner, or to mark a pick up.

As Matthew looked at everything moving, he had this small feeling not to trust these people. Or, person. Unified people? Giant entity? Giant entities? Tiny Entities? Large amount of tiny entities? He decided to stick with person.

"Wait, does that mean you can read my mind?" Matthew asked. In truth, if they tried to read his mind, they would have a .00000000000000000000001% chance rounded up. As Matthew was so closely joined with The Rift, trying to read his mind would result in the person almost certainly reading the mind of quite literally any other living being in existence, or ever did exist, or ever will. The Rift spans both space and time, and therefore you could end up reading the mind of the first human in existence.

As Matthew said this, the Rift seemed to become a bit more active, bringing the wheel of a United States Jeep from the 1950s. Just one wheel though, not the whole jeep. "Whoops".

As the jeep tire bumped into the unimatter, it almost instantly froze in place and was slowly subsumed by the crystalline substance. Once the entire structure of the wheel was crystallized, it was instantly absorbed into the floating platform, which seemed to expand somewhat as it did so.

"It can be, but the pain is mitigated by the fact that we are also capable of comforting each other. We could try to read your mind if we wanted to, but we choose not to. What we do do is feel your mind. Your conscious thought. The ability to sense the presence of other minds without accessing them is crucial for interacting with the world around us. It is how we recognize each other. Unfortunately, in order to do so, we must establish a connection with your brain, which from what we've been told can produce an irritating mental buzz...so...apologies." Nealaphh hummed softly.

"So, just to clarify, you are together yet separate, a hive mind yet individual, and logical yet emotional? Throw in some explosions and this would make a great George Clooney movie" Matthew mentioned as he saw the tire get absorbed. He had to admit, he was uncomfortable with the idea he himself might be absorbed. The uncomfortability took physical form with a strange feeling. The rift did not work always as one expected. Not only could it bring objects and people through, age things, and what not, but it could change the weather, whisper thoughts into the heads of others, and do a variety of nasty things. It's one of the reasons his parents hated him. He was slowly driving them insane.

It might not be as prevailent, but they might feel a bit worried. Maybe for Matthew, maybe about Matthew, maybe they might get worried about something completely unrelated to him. That was the Rift doing that.

Matthew might not have completely realized it yet, with everyone after him, but the Rift serves him. Something rumored to span space and time, to be in existence everywhere and every when at once. Rumored to be a sentient being. And it served this one boy. It didn't make him invincible, but it made him damn valuable.

"So that is what that buzzing was?"

Nealaphh remained silent throughout Matthews observations. It seemed as though he was having a hard time grasping what it meant to live inside of VARIAtech. Which wasn't entirely unexpected given both his age and the fact that he was probably unfamiliar with being bodiless.

"That's not quite it...maybe in time, you will understand. But yes, when you feel that buzz, that is just one of us 'looking' at you." Nealaphh hummed softly. Their mobile platform came to rest at the foot of a particularly austere looking construction, one with tall, towering pinnacles and sharp right angles.

"The purpose of telling you all of this...is to establish that VARIAtech wishes to ally with you. You are special, and we wish to understand you, but not at your expense. So overtime, we hope that a mutual comprehension will be reached. In the meantime, we wish to extend you the offer of a home." Nealaphh said a large doorway sliding open in the gleaming structure...

Matthew was certainly confused. It was something he was familiar with though, so he shelved that. He was confused about why his parents were so easily able to abandon him. He was confused about how people could lack humanity he thought people were born with. He was confused about what made him so special, why he seemed to be the only one who could control the Rift. He was not a stranger to confusion, but he was getting tired of not having answers.

He felt somewhat...unsure when he, or they, said looking. Did they just mean looking, or was it some sort of scan or something? This at least momentarily brought back his suspicions, though he shelved any vocal acknowledgement of it for now. Still, the way he/she/it said looking...he wasn't sure violated was the right word, but it made his cautious.

As he looked at the building, he heard a whisper. "He cannot hide forever. He is human, and he has needs just like other humans, despite his ability. We will find him, just as we always do...". It was the rift, he knew that. He was unsure if the others...other...whatever, could hear it, if it was in his head or out loud. It could have been a warning, or a reminder. The Rift could have given him something said in the past, or will be said in the future, or was currently being said.

In truth, Matthew understood the Rift more then anyone else, he believed. Based on what he had seen, the Rift seemed to have some sort of sentience, at least partially. That, or it was really coincidental and strange. Whenever Matthew was close to starving, it would always give him food or money for food. When in danger, sometimes it made men turn on each other. It told him the truth of things, and gave him warnings. And he realized what this was then. Matthew, having tons of experience, deciphered what The Rift was telling him, or that he thought it was telling him if it was sentient.

"You use this...material...to make your ships, bodies, and weapons. But like how it can absorb things, can it make them? Otherwise, I may need to acquire some things. Like food..." He then thought of something else. "...or a shower, considering its been forever since I had one of those...". He realized that even if they could, it was unlikely he would be able to stay cut off from the rest of the universe forever. But, this...place...may give him a safe place to sleep, at the very least...

"I both thank you, and warn you. The people after me...they have resources. And believe me, they are not beyond killing people to get what they want".

"Ah yes. The caveat of unimatter is that while it can change its shape, it cannot change its form. If you require living facilities, we can arrange some for you on your normal plane of existence. But know that you may always seek refuge here." Nealaphh said softly, the room seeming to come alive with dancing lights.

"As for the people who threaten you...VARIAtech is not beyond killing people to protect what we deem crucial and special. We assure you of your safety. Speaking of which, I will partition a small part of my mind to stay with you at all times..." Nealaphh said, a small fragment of his prism-like body breaking off and joining Matthew where he stood.

"If ever you should need to contact us, you can speak to it and I will hear. In the mean time, where would you like to go?"

Matthew nodded, examining the structures. As it spoke, Matthew thought about his offer as well as considering other factors and elements as well. He was still unsure and untrusting, as this was not the first time an offer like this was made to him. He could feel the Rift teeming with Energy as well. The idea of a refuge was better then nothing, and more then he had. After all, Matthew had a little caveat of his own. He might control the Rift in a way no other can, but The Rift was unpredictable even when controlled.

Matthew has more people after him then he would care to count. He suspected they were tracking him somehow, but he wasn't sure how if they were. And The Rift, it doesn't like it when Matthew is threatened. That, or whenever he felt threatened the Rift responded instantly, and sometimes unpredictably. And sometimes, the "defense" would have a very generic targeting logic. Not Matthew.

As the fragment came to him, he considered things. The list of things he needed, and the list of things he wanted. Of course, everything that he needed he also wanted. For one thing, he cannot always rely on the Rift to bring him food. And it had been over a month since Matthew had cooked meat, two weeks since any meat at all. But even more then food, he needed a place to sleep and wash up. "Right now, I could use a place to rest and a place to bathe. And preferably someplace safe".

The words had this cold sting when he spoke them. It wasn't because he missed those things, it was because he was aware he shouldn't even have to think about them in the first place. "Wisdom comes from experience and understanding".. He could hear the Rift whisper in his ear. The Rift spanned space and time, and as Matthew was at the center of it basically, he had this one theory that subconsciously, he was witnessing, experiencing, and understanding every moment at once.

"So unless you have a bath here, I need to find a place with a bath and a bed I can use safely". In truth, Matthew only needed the bath. He could easily sleep on the unimatter, he had slept on harder surfaces. He then added something. "And maybe a change of clothes too, or something to wash these ones with".

"There is a vacant penthouse apartment on Lady Une drive that we keep leased in the event he need to host a guest. We would be happy to send you there. Its refrigerator is fully stocked and all of the amenities are available." Nealaphh said softly. Behind Matthew, a portal would twist its way open, the view of a lavish yet rather cozy looking high-rise apartment appearing on the other side.

"If you require someone to cook for you, I am sure I could find someone within our Consulate who could be of assistance." Nealaphh continued.