meet your maker

In the vast high definition screen, the image of Venus stretched like a fever dream, endless oceans dotted with emerald archipelagos, each island a city-state unto itself. The product of centuries of terraforming. Clouds of rose gold drifted across the alien seascape, making the planet look like a marble crafted by some cosmic artist. 

Kai stared at the surface, mesmerized, he could distinguish some of the masses even from this vantage position. He had spent years poring over the sparse maps in the Jovan sovereign book, gazing at the continents in the different inhabited planets of the solar imperium. Venus and Mars had entranced him the most. Venus was described as a land made up of seas and tropical islands with futuristic greco-roman inspired architecture. Approximately 80% of its surface was covered by water, the little landmass present in form of archipelagoes. Each cluster of islands was ruled over by a palatine family, situated in the major city states. This led to venus being referred to as the union of the nine cities. Referring to the nine major cities where the palatine families ruled, the crown jewels of their respective island clusters.

It was surreal to see it now, all laid out in front of him in such vivid detail. And with his superior recollection of the images, he could identify some of the landmarks he'd spent years immersed in. Nova Athena's spires glinted in the distance, seat of Hierarch Astra and her Furies. Beyond it lay Veridius, Terrano, Callow, and the other island powers that made up this vast thalassocracy. Clouds of rose gold drifted across the alien seascape, making the planet look like a marble crafted by some cosmic artist. The screen abruptly flickered off, leaving him gazing at the dark surface of the screen. At his own reflection.

A stranger stared back.

The face wasn't his. The body wasn't his. Nothing was his anymore.

His new hand, pale and strong but unfamiliar, pressed against the cold surface. The missing pain in his shoulder where the android had nearly torn his arm off hours (centuries?) ago only emphasized the unreality of his situation. He was taller now, more athletic, his frame corded with lean muscle he hadn't earned. His fingers traced unfamiliar features, trying to reconcile them with two sets of memories, his own, and those of Cassian Von Deyrs, the body he had just transferred into somehow.

Fragments of Cassian's past flickered through his mind. He was barely 18 years old. Son of Palatine instructors, Argave and Emma. They were dead now, and he felt a strange feeling of sorrow that wasn't quite his, as images flashed through his mind. Memories jumbled up, that he could not quite place. A hasty chase through the skies of Venus, and their eventual capture. A huge imperium knight using his glowing sword to lop his mother's head off. Her eyes full of remorse as she died. His screams. His escape through a rubbish chute, into the arms of rebels, only to be hunted down again. The final moments before darkness, staring up at a barrel of a pulse rifle, the grin of the imperium knight clad in glowing armor as he squeezed the trigger. The sheer terror he felt then. Cassian was dead for sure, but why were his memories and feelings so vivid, so much like his? In Emma's face he could see Mia's eyes and the overlapping of memories hit him hard, dropping him to his knees, the fresh wounds of what had happened to him bleeding again.

"Disorientation is expected," chirped the voice behind him. "The genetic memory overlay can be quite... disconcerting."

Kai stood up and turned to face the speaker, the diminutive creature that barely reached his waist. Its oversized eyes gazed up at him, dark like two pools of an abyss. He suppressed a shudder. He knew what it was, but it was still surreal to see something he had always imagined as a mere fantasy in the flesh. An Ixaytl, one of the genetic manipulators who ruled from their enclave in Havenmount. They were the architects of the homunculi. Homunculi were artificial humans created en masse, genetically altered to serve specific tasks. The cogs; squat, strong and with low intelligence, performed manual labor. The dolls, ethereally beautiful and trained in the arts of pleasure, served as courtesans and pleasure givers, and clippers, nigh identical mass produced clone soldiers died in droves fighting the alien threats in the Kuiper belt.

"Here," the Ixaytl said, manipulating controls on a nearby console. A holographic mirror materialized in the air before Kai, offering a full view of his new form.

Red hair. Chiseled features that seemed designed to project authority. Eyes with red pupils that held an intensity he didn't recognize. Bronze, tanned skin. The face that stared back was perfect, too perfect. He looked like a Palatine, one of the enhanced humans who served as humanity's warrior class. But something was wrong. He knew from both sets of memories that Palatines were created through a process called the apotheosis, which harvested their reproductive material before rendering them sterile. They weren't grown in labs like this.

The laboratory sprawled around him like a temple to twisted science. Massive tubes lined the walls, each containing suspended homunculi in various stages of development. He recognized the distinctive builds, the brutish frames of cogs, the lithe forms of dolls, the uniform shapes of clippers destined for the front lines. The air hummed with machinery, and somewhere deeper in the facility, he could hear the distinctive whir of a barisan device the technology used to control homunculi through specific frequencies.

Which meant he was one of them now. Not a true Palatine, but something forbidden, a shade; a perfect copy created through the Ixaytl's most closely guarded secret, for cloning of normal humans was strictly forbidden under imperium laws. The ixaytl operated under stringent measures, only cloning body parts as replacements, and providing genetic adjustments to make the rich humans who desired to be stronger faster and prettier. A far cry from the apotheosis ritual that crafted the palatines, but enough for those who weren't strong enough to pass the harsh tests at the institute where the imperium knights were forged and prepared for the ritual. Shades were a closely guarded secret, created as a copy of a human being just before their deaths, and through awakening their genetic memory could remember everything before the deaths of their originals. This was a morbid form of immortality.

He was one of them now. A copy. A thing. A slave to the Barisan device.

The reality of his situation hit him like a physical blow. He stumbled, nearly colliding with the Ixaytl, who smoothly produced an injector and planted it in his thigh. Sedatives flooded his system as metallic arms emerged from the ceiling, guiding him onto a waiting gurney.

"Easy now," the creature soothed. "Your neural pathways are still adjusting."

As the drugs took the edge off his panic, training from both lives kicked in. *Observe. Analyze. Survive.* He had hijacked Cassian's revival. But why? Had whoever was masquerading as his father planned this? He tried to calm down and assess what he knew so far. He was aboard the Andromeda, the orbital facility belonging to an ixaytl. He didn't know the particulars, or whether the ixaytl knew he was housing the memories from someone of a different time all together.

As he lay paralyzed, the stages of grief hit him in rapid succession. Denial came first, surely this had to be a simulation, a test, something his father had programmed into that pod. But the cool metal under his back felt too real, Cassian's traumatic memories too vivid, raging inside him. His new body responded to every movement with unnatural precision, each muscle and nerve refined beyond normal human standards.

Anger followed, a tide of rage at everything that had led him here. The androids that had hunted him, his father's cryptic warnings, Mia... god, Mia. Was she really dead? Had all of that happened just hours ago, or centuries in the past? His fists clenched, new muscles coiling with strength that wasn't his. Somewhere in his jumbled memories, he could feel Cassian's own anger at the death of his parents. And the despair he'd felt staring at his own his death.

The bargaining phase was brief but intense. He found himself mentally negotiating with the universe, promising anything if this would just be a dream. But the Ixaytl's movements remained precise and real as it adjusted monitors and checked readings. Through the observation window, he could see Nova Athena's lights burning like stars against Venus's eternal twilight, a constant reminder of what he now was.

Depression settled over him like a shroud as the full weight of his situation became clear. He was trapped in the future he'd read about as a child, a future where humanity was divided into rigid tiers, where homunculi were treated as disposable tools, where the Hierarchs and their Palatine servants ruled through carefully cultivated bloodlines and enhanced bodies. And he was trapped in it as something even lower than a homunculus, a forbidden copy that shouldn't exist at all. A slave to a device and the whims of the ixaytl.

But then, unexpectedly, clarity emerged through the emotional storm. He had something no one else in this time possessed: knowledge of what was coming. The Jovan Sovereign wasn't just stories anymore, it was a roadmap of events yet to unfold. If he could survive, if he could navigate the complex politics of Venus's noble houses...

He had to get out of here, find his way into the institute, survive the tests, the training, and qualify for the apotheosis, become an imperium knight, a palatine, only then did he have a chance.

His eyes fixed on the Ixaytl, who was now approaching with another injector. "Just a final stabilizer," it said cheerfully. "Then we can begin proper memory integration—"

Kai moved with speed that surprised even him. His new body responded with liquid grace, one arm snaking around the creature's thin neck while the other locked its arms. The creature's bones felt brittle under his grip, like a bird's.

Defensive turrets emerged from the ceiling, tracking his movement. The Ixaytl raised a trembling hand, and they powered down.

"Now," Kai said softly, increasing pressure on the creature's throat, "let's talk about who I am. And why I'm here."

The Ixaytl's massive eyes widened further. "I-I'm just a servant. You are Cassian Von Deyrs, restored through approved protocols at my master's request. The genetic memory transfer should have been seamless—"

"Should have been," Kai interrupted. "But you knew something was wrong when I woke up. You answered questions about Venus without surprise, like you expected confusion. Why?"

"During integration... ancestral memories can surface. It's normal to need grounding in specific times and locations—"

Kai's grip tightened. "Try again."

The Ixaytl wheezed. "The process... my master used an unorthodox method. One I've never seen. Said it would achieve something new—"

"Your master. Who?"

"Versyrs," the Ixaytl gasped.

The name sent ice water into his veins. Even as a child, that character had terrified him. shadow manipulator who operated outside even the Ixaytl's usual bounds, whose experiments defied their most sacred taboos. The knowledge of what he was going to do in the future, what he was planning weighed on Kai. The deaths of millions. If he was involved...

A sudden jolt of electricity surged through the floor, sending Kai convulsing. His grip on the Ixaytl broke as his muscles spasmed. Through blurred vision, he saw a door slide open at the far end of the laboratory.

Footsteps echoed, measured and deliberate. A figure emerged from the shadows, impossibly tall and wrapped in flowing robes. Beneath them, Kai glimpsed a grey peacoat and a black brocade vest, the kind of calculated elegance that spoke of old money and older power. But it was the mask that drew his eye, a bird's visage crafted from burnished copper that had oxidized in places to create mottled patterns like dried blood. The beak curved downward in a cruel hook, its tip gleaming with an unnatural sharpness. Where eyes should have been, mercury-pool lenses caught and reflected light in impossible ways, giving the impression of something vast and cold watching from behind that metallic face. 

The figure moved with inhuman grace, each step precise and theatrical. It knelt beside Kai's twitching form, head tilting at an angle just slightly wrong for human anatomy. A taloned finger, more mechanical than organic, traced Kai's cheek.

"Tut, tut," came a voice like liquid nitrogen. "Poor Esteban did nothing wrong. No need to wring his neck."

Before Kai could react, that hand shot out, closing around his throat. He was lifted from the floor as if he weighed nothing, legs dangling as the masked figure rose to its full height. Through the reflective lenses, Kai thought he caught a glimpse of eyes that held no humanity at all.

"Finally," Versyrs said, the words precise and emotionless, "we meet properly, Subject 10173." The mask tilted, studying him like a curious insect. "I am Versyrs, your maker. And we have so much to discuss about your... unique situation."

The talons tightened, and Kai realized with dawning horror that his knowledge of the future might not be the advantage he'd thought. Whatever his father had done, whatever plan had brought him here, he was now in the hands of a monster who operated in the shadows between Venus's great houses. He had hijacked a body crafted for an unknown purpose. And somewhere out there, a barisan device held the power to control his every move.

And this was only the beginning.