The Mech Touch

Moving a bunch of bones piled on top of each other was quite exhausting. Ves could feel his calories burn and his recently-healed muscles beginning to strain again.

Each time he moved another big bone that belonged to a species that probably massed at least five times as much as an average human being, Ves questioned the wisdom of his current activity.

He contemplated whether he should continue to make his way to the lowest floor instead of busying himself with trying to explore a funeral pyre that had no direct relations to his current predicament.

However, everytime he wanted to turn back, he could not actually do so. It was against his nature as a mech designer, an explorer and an innovator to leave a stone unturned, especially if it was a particularly interesting and fascinating one!

It was not as if there was anything more interesting for him to study. Ves had walked through a lot of hallways so far. He also sent Blinky out to peek inside the cells along the way to see whether he could find anything else aside from kidnapped and confused humans.

Nothing.

Ves had the strong sense that this ancient prison used to be a lot cozier and more furnished than in the present day. The spaces were a bit too big and there were obvious functional chambers that clearly should have hosted areas such as a mess hall, an exercise room and even an indoor farm.

All of them had either decayed until even the dust had blown away or the previous operators of the facility had emptied it out after a decision had been made to wind it down.

Ves previously thought that the facility had been abandoned in an orderly fashion, but he couldn't figure out how the current display fit in that picture. Why go through so much effort to empty out all of the hallways and chambers, only to leave such an obvious mess behind?

It didn't help that he had no idea about the alien race that previously built and operated this prison. The nunsers, orvens and puelmers possessed radically different cultures. Each of them treated their captives in different ways.

Then there were the phase whales, who seemed to have a preference for locking up their misbehaving kind for whatever reason.

As Ves continued to remove more bones from the central heap, the transphasic stone floor became more and more littered with old but still fairly solid alien bones.

The materials fascinated him quite a bit. Some of them looked as if they had grown completely naturally while others possessed clear signs of augmentation and reinforcements. The bones of one particular species happened to be completely made out of fabricated metal!

Just handling them gave him different ideas on how he could utilize them in various different projects. From creating artifacts that could house new alien design spirits to using them as the structural components of a new form of combat armor that explicitly complemented his identity as a phase lord, but the lack of phasewater significantly dampened his enthusiasm.

He could already guess that he could turn them as hard as first-class armor plating as long as he infused them with a lot of phasewater, but was it worthwhile for him to go through so much trouble to enhance a bunch of old bones?

"Keep going, brother." Helena said as she put more energy into sustaining her manifestation near the miniature totem that he stored in one of the cavities of his Unending Regalia. "You've almost uncovered the bottom. I can sense it. We are getting closer to unveiling the remains of the one who this funeral pyre is dedicated to. This is so exciting! I finally get to experience the feeling of digging up a precious alien relic like you for once! You should call me out for more excavations like these in the future, okay?!"

Ves breathed a little deeper in his armor as he had just put aside the latest heavy bone. Despite the modest volume of the bone, the use of heavy metals including transuranium elements caused them to become a lot heavier than they looked.

Once he managed to move a large waist bone out of the way, he could finally discover whether he had wasted his time or vindicated his decision to dig deeper.

"That... is not what I expected." Ves spoke as he grew stunned at what he found.

Even his sister became speechless for a moment as she hovered by his side.

A few seconds of total silence passed by before Helena decided she wanted to take a closer look. She leaned over and brought her 'eyes' closer to the distinctive looking skeleton.

"Am I looking at what I think it is...?" Ves asked in a befuddled tone.

"I may not be a biologist, but I still know enough about bones to see that your initial guess is not off the mark. There are differences that can be explained by different growth circumstances, but I can state with confidence that we are most definitely graced by the sight of a human skeleton!

A human skeleton!

Resting in the center with its arm bones clasped on its chest lay a human skeleton!

Although Ves did not have a habit of playing around with bones, this was not the first time he encountered a human skeleton.

Aside from that, Ves also possessed a good understanding of the human physique including the makeup and proportions of every bone due to his mech design and especially biomech design studies.

Mechs often imitated the human form, so mech designers had to understand the former in order to understand the latter!

This was why he agreed with Helena's assessment and knew for certain that this was undoubtedly a human skeleton!

"How the hell did a human skeleton end up in this ancient alien prison facility?" Ves questioned. "Did I misjudge the age of these bones? Maybe an unlucky pioneer or colonist accidentally stumbled into this pocket space and prison and somehow ended up in a fight against the descendants of ancient prisoners."

Helena shook her head. "That cannot be true. The passing of time is too obvious in all of these bones. The aura of death that they had once been saturated with has almost entirely dissipated, leaving little else but dust behind. The human skeleton has lingered here just as long as the larger alien bones that you have handled. They come from the same period of history."

"This... this is too ludicrous! How can this happen?! Is it possible that we are looking at an altered orven skeleton instead?"

Of all of the varied native alien races of the Red Ocean, the orvens resembled humans the most.

Yet even then, no one would be able to mistake an orven for a human!

"Don't be silly, Ves. This skeleton most clearly has one pair of eyes instead of two. Orvens are also taller than average. There are also other differences in the growth of their bone structure that are obviously different. This is a genuine human skeleton."

"How...?"

Ves could not explain how a human skeleton ended up so far away from the Milky Way and Old Earth where their race supposedly originated from. Shouldn't ancient humans still be living in caves and hunting mammoths at the time the owner of this skeleton ended up in this pocket space prison facility?

As Ves continued to puzzle over how he could reconcile this find with what he knew of established history, his sister paid attention to an entirely different matter!

"We are looking at a genuine historical record that can definitely change humanity's perception of its own ancient past if we reveal its existence!" Helena exclaimed! "Do you think I can earn credit for this discovery even if I don't have an actual identity in human civilization?"

"That will never happen!" Ves insisted!

There were far too many things that could go wrong with such a revelation. Humanity had always believed that it was a young race that rose up from Old Earth in relatively recent history and rose to dominance like a rocket.

This short but proud history had given the human race a lot of confidence. Whereas many other races had risen to the stars much earlier but barely managed to occupy a few star sectors in the Milky Way, humans had already conquered half of the galaxy in a fraction of the time!

If anyone came out with strong proof that humans had not only treaded the stars much earlier than that, but also insinuated that Old Earth might not be the planet where they originally came from, then all hell would break loose!

"The Terrans will kill us if we try to spread this discovery!"

The smug but powerful Terrans always took an inordinate amount of pride for maintaining control of humanity's ancestral home planet. Not even the Big Two could take it away from them as any attempt at doing so would cause the Greater Terran United Confederation to launch a doomsday war against the rest of human space!

In fact, even the Big Two would do their utmost to suppress the news and silence Ves, perhaps permanently. The myth of humanity's prodigal rise was far too valuable. Damaging it would damage the confidence of every single human, causing them to become more timid to the point where they no longer dared to conquer alien territories anymore.

"Interesting." His spiritual sister spoke as she poked her intangible finger through the skeleton. "Interesting."

"What is interesting?"

"You should take a closer look. No, just touch it. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you will find."

Ves reluctantly did what she suggested and leaned over to touch one of the leg bones of the skeleton.

"What the..?!"

"Do you feel it?" Helena grinned like a sister who just introduced her younger sibling to an awesome new toy! "You can feel it, right? These bones are anything but ordinary. They may look like they come from a random human body, but they are much, much more than that. You just need to infuse a little life into them to activate their dormant potential!"

Even though Ves did not touch the bones directly, he could feel as if a hungry void attracted his Spirituality!

It was as if Ves had just come across a battery that had remained empty for many ages.

What would happen if Ves decided to 'charge' this battery for a bit? Would he be able to activate the functions associated with the bones?

His curiosity overruled all concerns. He wanted to know what would happen if he fed this dormant beast.

Against his better judgment, he cautiously transferred a trickle of spiritual energy.

The leg bone eagerly slurped up his life-attributed energy and seemed to come to life in an incredibly noticeable manner

"What?!"

The bones actually began to light up for no apparent reason!

Ves examined the leg bone a lot closer but couldn't see or sense the presence of any circuitry, electronics, spiritual constructs or anything. The spiritual energy he donated was simply settling into the leg bone as if it had entered a pool that had literally been dry for ages.

A small part of his spiritual energy even spilled over to the adjacent bones. Their hunger and eagerness to fill up their empty pools were even greater!

"I think one fact is clear." He spoke as he slowly let go of the bone to see whether it would do anything with the infusion of energy.

"What is that, Ves?" Helena asked.

"These bones aren't left behind by a regular human being." He responded. "In fact, I am seriously starting to doubt we are dealing with the remains of a member of the 'human' race in the first place. This fellow might have looked indistinguishable from ordinary people back when he was alive, but you can argue that he actually belongs to another race entirely! This is especially the case when it seems that his bones are completely natural, which appears to be the case!"

When Ves briefly came into 'contact' with the leg bone and infused it with a little life, he gained the sense that it had never been altered or augmented in any way.

It had grown into a spiritually reactive material in a completely organic fashion!