The Mech Touch

5931 Hekkel

Ves stared at Hekkel.

Hekkel stared at Ves.

The two had been going about it ever since they entered of the living rooms of his current home.

Meanwhile, Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine giggled as they gathered around Lucky and poked him around.

"Meow!... Meow!... Meow!..."

While the kids showered their attention onto the gem cat, Clixie conspicuously rested on the top of Hekkel's distinctive archeshell.

"Miaow."

The vigilant expression on the Rubarthan Sentinel Cat's head showed that she had been keeping an eye on the alien captive for a time.

While there was no way an unarmed arche could pose a threat to Gloriana or any of the kids on account of their personal shield generators, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Not only were the guards keeping a close eye on the arche, but they had also installed a couple of restraints and safeguards that could instantly immobilize the alien as soon as he made any threatening actions.

Fortunately, the arche had yet to rebel against his captivity during the weeks he had stayed in the company of the Larkinson Clan.

Ves did not stare at Hekkel because he was weirded out by the alien's presence.

He also did not stare at the alien because he was captivated by its relatively small but beautiful crystalline archeshell, though it did make the arche a lot easier on the eyes.

It did not surprise Ves that his wife had actually taken a liking to Hekkel. His archeshall was beautiful, exotic and symmetrical. It was as if the turtle-like alien had turned a large gem into his own shell!

Despite the arche's remarkable-looking shell, Hekkel did not seem to take a lot of pride in his appearance.

The alien's mind and spirituality expressed clear submission towards humans in general, but Gloriana in specific.

Ves had a feeling that the arche normally shouldn't be so subservient towards other races, even in captivity.

It was rather pathetic to see how far this arche had fallen. The alien had lost all of his spine. There was nothing left in Hekkel aside from fear and a slavish desire to serve his supposed 'Glorious Queen'.

The hatch slid open to allow Gloriana through. The confident wife strode towards Hekkel and patted the alien's archeshell with her archemetal glove once again.

The brief touch seemed to perk Hekkel up. A strong surge of happiness and reassurance welled up from the alien as he derived a lot of positive feedback from the brief touch.

Ves cleared his threat. "How have you kept your new companion so… docile? Earlier, you told me that you made use of Alexandria's ability to connect with Hekkel's spirituality to subdue him by force. I never imagined that she could be used this way, but I guess it makes sense. I don't sense any active connections, though. Is it safe for you to interact with him this way?"

His wife smirked at him. "Hekkel here is a good boy for an arche. There is no need to employ Alexandria on a constant basis in order to keep my new Glorious Servant in line. He may be an alien, but he is not that different from humans once you become more familiar with arche culture and society. I did not solely rely on Alexandria's persuasion to dominate Hekkel all of the time. By combining my companion spirit's efforts with an intensive training program, it has taken remarkably little time to fully indoctrinate my new alien help. I no longer need to employ further reinforcement sessions to keep him in control."

Gloriana's treatment of Hekkel seemed to have produced the desired result, but it only made Ves more uncomfortable.

It did not escape his notice that Gloriana's domination of Hekkel shared a number of parallels with the Subjugation King's attempted enslavement of Ves.

The methods and techniques may be different, but the goals were similar enough for Ves to feel a lot of sympathy for Hekkel!

Slavery was a fundamentally repugnant institution to Ves.

It was one thing if humans or aliens fell into captivity.

It was another thing to strip them of their rights as sentient beings and reduce them to the status of property!

From the moment someone turned into a slave, that individual was no longer able to enjoy as much fulfillment in life.

This was antithetical to his design philosophy.

The only reasons why he tolerated this new circumstance was because it clearly helped Gloriana and because the victim was an alien.

There was no need for Ves to express any sympathy towards members of races that were hostile to red humanity.

Aliens did not enjoy human rights by definition. Anything was permissible as far as most human powers were concerned.

Besides, it did not look as if Gloriana mistreated Hekkel. She had trained her alien captive so well that the arche had learned to enjoy her attention!

"So." Ves said as he leaned back on the couch. "Tell me about your new friend here. Is this the arche that you intended to connect with a neural interface?"

His wife shook her head. "No. That was a different arche. To be honest, the neural interface attempt did not proceed smoothly. There were… complications."

Ves picked up on her momentary distress. He instantly became a lot more alert.

"This was a risky operation from the beginning. I'm glad that you made it out alright. What happened?"

"The arche selected for me has never shown too much aggression or resistance when the mechers captured him and the rest of his crew. It was only when the neural interface established a connection between our minds that the captive became angry and violently tried to attack me through the connection."

"Did you get hurt?!"

"I did, but I already managed to recover, so do not be concerned about my health. I do have to admit that the operation could have ended much worse for me. The reason why the arche reacted so poorly to me was because he came into connection with a completely alien mind that did not possess an archeshell. I belatedly found out that this is a completely abhorrent concept to his race. The arche are able to interface with each other by touching their archeshells. Never has there been a case when a human, especially one without an archeshell, has interfaced with an arche. The alien wanted to kill me. Since he was an arche warrior, his aggression was strong enough to be able to inflict real harm."

Ves had always taken into account the possibility that this poorly conceived operation would put Gloriana at risk.

She went through with it anyway because she was afraid of getting left behind by her husband!

"Since you managed to get out of it with your mind and sanity intact, I take it that you found a way to resolve the problem."

Gloriana smiled. "I did. Before the mechers in charge of the operation activated an emergency stop command, I managed to save myself."

"Maow."

A red spiritual cat emerged from her forehead. The elegant Queen Cat arrogantly lifted her head, as if she was afraid that no one would take the initiative to praise her magnificence.

Ves put the pieces of the puzzle together.

"I see. The arche warrior gained the upper hand in the neural battle that you inadvertently started. You weren't able to fend him off by yourself, but once Alexandria forcibly pulled the resisting alien into her design network, the tables had turned. The combination between you and Alexandria has become strong enough to put the hostile alien in his place!"

"Bravo, Ves! You successfully deduced the course of events! As soon as Alexandria came to my aid, I indeed managed to thwart the alien captive's effort to destroy my mind. My companion spirit and I ultimately managed to destroy his mind instead."

"So the alien is dead."

"Yes."

"Good. What was your state after you managed to extricate yourself from this dangerous experiment?'

His wife let out a sigh. "My mind was in turmoil for multiple days. Part of it was due to the harm inflicted by the hostile arche. However, much of it was due to the very messy alien knowledge that has passed through the neural connection. When the arche attempted to harm me, he pushed his own thoughts, emotions and memories into myself. I had to spend a great amount of effort to sort them and remove anything I deemed undesirable. After I managed to recover, I was left with just enough insight and understanding of archetech to determine that I partially succeeded in my goal."

"I see. The reason why you wanted to interface with an arche so badly was to achieve a breakthrough in your understanding of archetech. Did you fail to get enough to be able to incorporate archetech into our mech designs?"

"Not necessarily." Gloriana elegantly shook her head. "I already studied archetech on an intensive basis for the last months. I already know much of what the arche had managed to pass on. What I did not understand during my literature reviews and tutoring sessions is how extensively archetech is tied into the arche and their archeshells. One of the most important lessons I have learned that it is extremely suboptimal to work with archetech without interfacing with it like it was designed to. Archetech is not an advanced form of machinery. It is a highly intricate form of organic tissue that happens to be made out of metal and other hard materials."

"That… sounds reasonable. Shouldn't it be possible to control archetech without transplanting an archeshell onto your back?"

His wife nodded and lifted up her hand. It was covered by a beautiful multicolored glove that was covered with a relatively thick application of archemetal.

"As soon as I recovered, I set out to make my Archglove with the help of several experts from the Red Association. The Archglove is uniquely designed to interface with my advanced Arachne 01 Cranial Implant Set. When I tested it out on several pieces of archetech including the archeship that you managed to capture, I discovered that it was only partially effective."

"What do you mean by that, Gloriana?"

A disappointed expression appeared on her face. "The Archglove is flawed. To be more precise, it is impossible for a human to properly interface with any piece of native archetech. Our species simply aren't wired to control this variety of advanced alien technology."

"That is to be expected, but I guess that you managed to find a workaround."

Gloriana smiled. "Indeed. I became inspired by the almost disastrous interfacing attempt. I requested another arche captive, one that is much weaker and easier to control. The mechers sent Hekkel to me. He is a relatively young arche engineer who is only over 2 centuries old. He is not trained to serve as a warrior and lacks the aggression of one. Instead, he is raised to serve as an engineer and a technician aboard the larger archeships. Hekkel occupies a junior position in his militarized society, so he does not possess a deep understanding of more advanced archetech, but he has a solid understanding of the fundamentals."

Ves understood why Gloriana valued Hekkel so much now! His eyes widened as he realized what she had done!

"His knowledge has become your knowledge! With the help of Alexandria's design network, you can forcibly interface with his spirituality and directly copy his extensive understanding of archetech! This… this is brilliant!"

Ves wondered why he didn't think about it before! It sounded very similar to how enlightenment fruits worked!

"That is not all, Ves. Hekkel is more than a tutor of archetech to me. He is also my interface for archetech. You see, my Archglove is not able to fully interface with any archetech, but it is different if I use Alexandria's spiritual connections. While my companion spirit is unable to form a connection with a lifeless archeship, she is able to do so with Hekkel, even when he is interfacing with archetech! This has allowed me to invent a brand new methodology that has impressed the mechers! Through my newly invented workarounds, I have managed to gain full control over archetech!"

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