The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) Read online

  Of course her Artifact substantially increases this ability, but it also enables her to inflict the Dharma Clock on individual victims. This attack crucifies the victim and forces him or her submit to first psychological then physical trauma according to “guilt” they feel based on criteria—genuine, manufactured, or twisted—set by Brin.

  Hilene Tanser

  Specialist, Titan Squad

  * * *

  Category: F-Gene Fighter / Psychic

  Discipline: Darkness Piercing Spear Hand / Intangibility

  Height: 45 kg

  Weight: 150 cm

  Gravity Rank: 30

  RPP: 1,350

  RMP: 4,500

  Birthdate: 10,676.304

  Artifact: Attenuated Splitter

  Artifact Rank: 20

  Dark RPP: 27,000

  Dark RMP: 90,000

  Active Dates: 10,700-Current

  Residence: Root Palace

  When Dark, Hilene becomes sheathed in a perfect, flexible shell of silvery steel, with an oversized helmet that completely obscures her face. Some have speculated that the the predefined design was meant to emulate the look of the Gun Golems that so plagued the Empire years prior to Hilene’s inauguration as a Shade.

  Hilene’s psychic ability to become intangible highly augments her RPP, making all of her physical attacks extremely potent since they can bypass any defense while transmitting maximum damage. Besides allowing Hilene to temporarily split into 10 independent duplicates, the Attenuated Splitter further adds to her deadly strikes by identifying structural weaknesses in any and all targets.

  She is an expert with the Darkness Piercing Spear Hand, winning the Artifact Competition of 10,700, in which she voluntarily and under no obligation fought without the benefit of her psychic power. The nickname Secret Weapon fits her perfectly.

  Nils Porta

  Specialist, Titan Squad

  * * *

  Category: Psychic

  Discipline: Juggernaut Form

  Height: 175 cm

  Weight: 70 kg

  Gravity Rank: 30

  RPP: 2,100 (7,100)

  RMP: 5,000

  Birthdate: 10,675.015

  Artifact: Alloyed Splitter

  Artifact Rank: 20

  Dark RPP: 42,000 (142,000)

  Dark RMP: 100,000

  Active Dates: 10,700-Current

  Residence: Root Palace

  Nils Porta’s innate ability is to restructure his body into a single alternate form. The reconstruction, though painful, is essentially harmless to him, but results in an inhuman configuration, with bone piercing through the skin to form a dense carapace studded with sharp spurs. In this form, he gains free movement through limited telekinetic means and a kind of radar sense that allows him to sense his surroundings and navigate. The Alloyed Splitter has taken some of the horror—and all of the pain—out of the transformation and improved upon it substantially. He becomes a juggernaut of impossibly strong alloy able to break apart into smaller, identical versions of his larger self, which can swarm like insects and reform a single solid at will. Because his power is essentially physical Porta’s RMP is added to his RPP when transformed to give a more accurate reading of his actual strength and hardness.

  AFTERWORD

  This book has taken roughly fourteen months to write, which was longer than anticipated, especially when I had such a strong start. But here it is. It will essentially function as a bridge between trilogies, the first of which should already be known to you. The second trilogy is actually where I started fourteen years ago. It was a silly attempt to create buzz with a website for a completely fictional TV show I was selling as real: Skeleton General Skull Kaiser! Needless to say, the world is still ignorant of Skull Kaiser.

  Starting in the middle can be very interesting, but we always have to go back and tell how everything started, right? Otherwise, where’s your investment? Anyway, while I’m very pleased to have this volume out (and you reading it), I can’t express enough how gratifying it is to have come this far with four novels versus numerous episode summaries of a nonexistent show. I still have the rest of the story to tell, at least in a proper format and in proper order, and I think that I’ve proven that I’m probably way more than ready to tell it, but that was a challenge for me for a long time (the first novel didn’t come out until 2011).

  Life presents obstacles at every turn. There are countless reasons why I could have stopped writing, but never why I should have stopped writing. I don’t know how other writers work. I don’t know that I could emulate anyone else’s method, which is not to say that I have a method per se, but as haphazard as mine is, I was able to ride it to now. I guess what I’m trying to say is this: If there’s one person reading this who has the kernel of an idea that refuses to die, I urge you to nurture it and never give up on it. It may take fourteen years for it to bear fruit, but once it does it’ll be yours and no one else’s.

  Chris Eisenlauer

  March, 2014

  My Blog

  The Approaching Infinity Encyclopedia

  Find Me on Facebook