He remembered everything.

From the time of his first introduction to society, through the early years of his work, and the many events that followed after. He was a changed creature quite significantly, once he had worked for the despotic Vrul council on a world under silent siege, and then he had taken to interplanetary ventures out of his own curiosity, and then he had defected to an alien ship for his own entertainment. A decade ago krill had stepped foot on a human ship through the merit of curiosity and a desire for knowledge.

Today he was secure in saying that he understood humanity more than anyone in history ever had.

He understood life more than anyone ever had.

Humanity was special, of course, but it was all part of a bigger picture, and the truth he saw now had been ears in the making. If only his former self had known what was to come....

And now here he stood, on solid ground, the dean of his own hospital, head surgeon, the first to discover the true nature of the mind body connection and manipulate it to his own ends. The power in his hands felt godlike.

Wrong

He was playing with something he knew he didn't understand, and he knew what happened to those people.

It didn't turn out well.

Sitting in the darkness of his office, Dr, Krill examined the scans from his last major surgery. Funny how symmetrical this all was. This entire venture had begun with a scan of Adam Vir's brain, so it was almost poetic that his understanding would end here, with another scan of Adam's brain neatly labeled with its new anatomy.

The Nexus Anima, at least in the human brain, was located deep within the brain stem, well insulated from more cosmetic injury. The Nexus itself was well connected to the body's vital functioning, but especially to the beating f the heart. As far as Krill understood it, the Nexus threads began to fray as soon as a heartbeat was no longer detected causing the thread to eventually snap. Keeping the heart beating could artificially keep the thread from breaking. Still, the mind and the soul were certainly separate meaning the body could outlast the soul on certain occasions.

It didn't take much to sever the Nexus.

"Am I interrupting your mad scientist brooding."

Krill's antennae hummed as he turned away from his diagrams. Riss was standing in the doorway a cup of tea in each hand, "thought you might want a break."

"You thought wrong, but you may enter anyway." Krill said scuttling over to his desk where the two sat to share the tea, again which wasn't actually tea but warm sugar water.

Riiss peered around Krill's shoulder, "And what is all this? Feeling a bit nostalgic today."

Krill turned to glance over his shoulder at the waiting diagram, "Wouldn't you. Our lives used to be so simple all I had to do was keep the humans from dying, which I admit is no easy feat, but at least then the entire universe wasn't hanging in the balance."

Riss leaned back in his seat a particularly human look of amusement on his face, "And how does that make you feel.

"I will throw this mug at your head,." Krill threatened mildly.

"Now that would be domestic violence."

Krill harumphed once and then eased back into sullen silence, "Do you get the feeling that we aren't doing enough."

Riss paused and shook his head, "What do you mean?"

"I mean it seems like lately we are simply in a reactionary state. Something happens and we respond to it, but we aren't really proactive in dealing with the problem. We simply sit here and wait for things to happen as everything around us stalls out. It wasn't like this when we didn't have a planet. When we were on the ship it felt like we could anticipate and react before things happened, but now we are just trying to protect home base."

Riss swirled the mug of tea lightly in his hands, "You fear we are in a state of mental stagnation, not making our problem worse or better but simply waiting for soemthing to change."

Krill nodded once and then sighed looking down at his desk.

Riss tilted his head, "But there is soemthing else?"

Krill sighed deeply, "I miss the old days. I miss being on a ship and part of a crew. Granted I certainly don't miss almost dying every other week but....."

Across the desk Riss smirked, "It sounds like you do." He set his mug down on the desk, freeing up all four of his arms to properly articulate, "Fact it doctor you have always been addicted to the danger of things, and no don't argue with me here. You throw a fit about how dangerous things are and then claim to want to avoid them while running straight for it. Now you are here planeside with a secure job and secure facility, you never see action, and I have never seen you so miserable in my life."

That caught Krill rather off guard as he sat back in his seat, "I am not miserable."

"You are entirely miserable. You want to be aboard a ship again, you need adventure and danger. You need exposure to new and exciting problems. You need mental stimulation." He motioned to the diagrams before him, "This is the first real problem you have been able to work on in almost three years. We have all let ourselves fall into a cycle of doing nothing ever since Behemoth was destroyed and kay was born. And you have stagnated worst of all."

"And what am I to do?" krill said throwing up his hands in exasperation, "Am I to abandon my post at the hospital, and what would I do then anyway. The ship has finally settled down, we don't fly like we used to anymore."

Riss taped fingers against his mug idly, "I have been giving the issue some thought, and I believe soemthing needs to change.

"I am listening intently."

"You are right, we have stagnated, we have failed in our duty to take the fight to our enemies and in so doing we have stalled here on this planet. It seems as soon as we took a home base all of us changed, and not necessarily for the better. We need to take the fight to the void."

Krill huffed, helium sack inflating with momentary annoyance, "And how are we supposed to take the fight to someone we don't even know the location of?"

Riss gave him a cold little smirk, "maybe that's the problem. Finding the void. If the Makers have a physical location than it isn't far fetched to assume that the void does as well."

Krill shook his head once, "The void's entire purpose is to destroy reality at the seems and that includes the idea of time, matter and location. How do we find something that is actively trying not to have a physical presence."

"They are trying to destroy it because they don't like it, which also means they are bound by it." Riss tapped the side of his head, "The Void has been forced to obey a set of universal laws that it does not accept like time and place and matter and dimensionality. By the sheer fact that those laws exist means that the void MUST conform to them."

He certainly did have an interesting point.

"You claim that there is a void Revelation somewhere out there."

Riss nodded, "I imagine so. I also imagine that whatever that is defies our current understanding of nature and its laws. It won't be a place or a time like we understand it but some sort of warped version. The void will have tried to destroy it all to spite the architect, so any interaction will be either dangerous or maddening."

"That sounds...."

"Interesting does it not."

"Dangerous."

Riss laid all four of his hands flat on the desk, "But you know I am right."

"Have you brought this issue to Adam." Krill wondered

Riss shook his head, "hardly my place, we do not know each other very well. Personally I was hoping you would bring the issue to him."

Krill shook his head, "I don't know." He sighed, "It seems in the intervening years, our friendship has, not so much as dissolved but drifted apart. I remember when we used to be much closer. Sometimes it feels I am not within the inner circle enough to make a claim on his time."

Riss laughed, "I disagree, and I am sure he does as well, but this is a good time to rekindle what once was. Now is as good a time as ever to break our stagnation."

***

"that is what we know so far." Adam finished hands clasped gently behind his back as he paced around the command floor boots thudding gently against the polished black surface. Blue light filtered down from above illuminating the central table which now seated all the major members of the Arcadian government: Eris, king james, Conn, Sunny, General Kimball, David, Lord Celex, who had taken on his Celzex form for no other reason than his own amusement.

Krill sat in his own seat sandwiched between David, the director of aerospace affairs or soemthing similar, and Thomas, the minister of health. Any other day he might have pondered the role of nepotism in their appointment to government, but today he had other thoughts to discuss, and was now waiting for the right time.

"The void has infiltrated Maker ranks." Adam was saying, and all around him the room had churned into agitation, "Maker dissenters are being turned into double agents for the void in order to take the makers down from the inside. It is unknown how far this corruption spreads, but it is not impossible that they lay among our ranks. Peace talks are currently being held with Earth, and we have now rejoined the Game but we must consider the future. How do we plan on dealing with this problem?"

King James shifted slightly in his seat," is this even our problem to deal with. This is the Maker's war."

Adam turned to lock eye with the king, "It was until the void started meddling in our affairs. The makers can no longer protect us. It is time we look to our own for a solution." He slammed his fist on the table crating a dull thud that echoed through the room as he emphasized his points, "We need to do this, for our sons and daughters."

A murmur of agreement rose up.

" The Makers are occupied with their war, to occupied to care what goes on here. The Universe as we know it is in a state of flux. The Martian/terra war has come to an uneasy halt, and all current and former members of the GA are again looking at an uneasy truce. We have already been divided once, and we cannot allow it to happen again."

"Stagnation!"

Krill hadn't realized he had spoken, until the entire room turned to look at him. He wasn't sure when he had planned on speaking, but he supposed now was as good a time as any. Technically he didn't even belong on the council. He was simply a doctor, and while influential he was not necessarily important within the arcadian government.

He locked eyes with Adam, and the man's expression changed very slowly to a look of contemplation.

He must have heard Krill's thoughts before they could be voiced, but he didn't say anything as krill slowly rose, inflating his Helium sack to make himself more visible to the room, "We have stagnated. Arcadia has become our safe haven, but it has also become our ball and chain. We have tied ourselves down to this city and this government, and for good reason, but it will stop us from doing the things we need to do."

"Explain." King James demanded.

Krill turned, "We need to take the fight to them. Riss and I have been discussing this in detail, and have come to the conclusion if the Makers have a central physical location than it makes sense that the void does as well regardless of weather they want to or not. The appearance of Arcadia has tied us down to one location, made us reactionary when we must be the aggressors."

He glanced over at Adam and sunny.

Arcadia, and a son.

Kay, through no fault of his own, had temporarily clipped his parents wings grounding them. Krill certainly did not blame them for that but it was true. A strange expression passed over Adam's face and krill wished that the man couldn't hear his thoughts but knew there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Stay with kay now.

Or create a world where he can live without fear. One will make you feel better and one will secure the future for your son.

He did not say these things out loud, but he knew they would be heard.

Sacrifices were going to have to be made.