music: one step beyond

“Contact the ship. I’ve recovered the artifact.”

The words rang in Gu Yuzhi’s head as he took in his surroundings. 

Twelve—no, fourteen people. Two more that pose a higher threat than the rest and we’re currently stranded at sea.

An icy breeze ruffled his damp locks, making Gu Yuzhi subconsciously tremble. The shock of suddenly emerging from the water had numbed him to the cold until this instant, and his eyes took in the distant landscapes of glacial shores and ice seas with resigned acceptance.  At the very least, his healing abilities made him an asset for any groups of survivors in the apocalypse. Although he’d failed to find a stable unit that lived long enough to count as family or even friends, he never had to worry about being labeled as expendable. 

So. Staying put it is.

A flicker of light caught his attention and his gaze swiveled left to see a burning hulk in the water nearby. That must have been the ship he came from, though it didn’t answer the question of how he got here in the first place. He wondered what other ships were around for them to contact when a shadow fell across his face. Looking up, he saw the man carrying him peering down intently.

Strong jaw, dark hair, blue eyes. Sturdy physique and stance, most likely a combat type.  type. Clean shaved, so pays attention to personal grooming. Height should be 180cm…at least.

“Are you cold?” the man asked.

Gu Yuzhi’s eyebrows creased. Seeing the man talk was like watching a badly dubbed movie—his words didn’t match the movement of his lips. That was weird.

The stranger frowned slightly and tried again. “Can you understand me?”

“Boss, are you sure that thing can even talk?” 

Gu Yuzhi followed the sound of the voice back to the eyepatch-wearing man, who had finished speaking to his wrist to stare at them both. Wow, rude.

“He has a mouth, Argent,” the man carrying him pointed out the obvious.

“Yeah, but does he have a brain? Lemme see!” Argent bounded over in leaps and strides, his visible violet eye gleaming with excitement. “You don’t get many examples of sentient artifacts, even if they look like people. If we run a scan on him here—”

Gu Yuzhi saw the world shift as his carrier deftly sidestepped his eager companion.

“Boss!” Argent complained.

“We need to be decontaminated first,” his leader replied.

“Geh…! Well Boss, you be careful too. Your radiation readings are normal, but you’ll need a full checkup later.”

“Noted.”

Gu Yuzhi grew puzzled. From what he sensed, none of the people here were carriers of the infection. Even the ocean waters had been harmless, or else he would have hesitated before breaking out of his coffin. As for radiation exposure, well—human physiology had never been quite the same after the end of the world.

Still, Argent backed off to give them room and once again, Gu Yuzhi felt a stare. He looked up to meet those now familiar blue eyes. 

“Artifact,” the man spoke, and Gu Yuzhi witnessed more badly-synced lip-dubbing in real life. “I am Major General Veoc of the Delta Division Imperial Army. You are hereby claimed on behalf of the Aphelion Empire and will be temporarily granted rights under the Limited Sentience Act 11.24B. Do you comprehend?”

“Boss,” Argent looked almost embarrassed as he peeked at the soldiers around them who were pretending they were blind and deaf. “He’s not really human, he only looks like on—”

“What kind of name is Veoc?” 

Of all the questions in Gu Yuzhi’s head, only that one made it past his mouth.

There was a beat of silence. Then Veoc leaned down curiously and quirked his brow. “It’s government-issue.” He shifted Gu Yuzhi in his arms so the teen was closer to his face. “What’s yours?”

“Parental issue,” Gu Yuzhi replied easily. “Can you put me down? I have legs.”

Veoc did as he was told and Gu Yuzhi immediately regretted it when he realized his socks and shoes were soaked. He looked strange anyways, wearing a formal dress shirt and slacks under a well-tailored blazer. Someone had evidently outfitted him lavishly before putting him on ice. Why they’d do that, he had no idea.

“Y-you, you...” Argent finally managed to find his voice. “You can talk? And—and joke, no—understand sarcasm?”

“He has a mouth,” Veoc observed. “A working brain too, evidently.”

“Yeah, I was born with both,” Gu Yuzhi added modestly. “Do you have a blanket or something? It’s freezing.”

“Boss,” Argent’s eyes darted towards Veoc. “This isn’t normal. I advise you to handle him—no, it—with extreme prejudice—”

"Major Argent, shouldn't you be preparing boarding procedures with the rest of the men?" Veoc cut in. There was no sign of temper in his tone, but the silver-haired officer shut up immediately with a chastised look.

"Yes, Boss!"

To Gu Yuzhi's satisfaction, the guy actually turned around and went to work. Meanwhile, Veoc crouched down to open up one of the emergency packs on the lifeboat before throwing Gu Yuzhi a heat-retention blanket from inside. The young man wrapped it gratefully around his head and shoulders with an exhale of relief. Though the rest of the crew were still a mystery, he ignored them for now to give Veoc a short bow.

“Thank you for the help. My name is Gu Yuzhi and I’m a bit lost,” Gu Yuzhi admitted, “Where are we and what year is it?”

“Why do you want to know?” Veoc asked simply. 

“Human curiosity,” Gu Yuzhi answered, and watched with interest as Argent's hackles all but rose to the skies behind them. 

“You’re obviously not human,” the eyepatched man was muttering under his breath. “No one could survive having that inside of them.”

Before Gu Yuzhi could ask about “that,” a hum filled the air as the skies darkened. His head snapped up to see a silver disc glittering with lights appear above him, expanding outwards in undulating ripples of heat until they were covered by a metallic ceiling with no end in sight. 

The thing had to be about 20 football fields wide.

“Gu Yuzhi,” A hand rested on his shoulder, and Gu Yuzhi glanced back to see Veoc looming over him. The man was definitely 188, no, 190cm tall.

“Let’s talk on the ship,” said the blue-eyed giant.

You mean that spaceship up there?

Gu Yuzhi’s mouth twitched. It seemed like he’d been asleep for longer than he thought.

—

The year was 9021 A.E. (Aphelion Era), they were hovering over the planet Glaciem, one of the Empire’s sparsely inhabited territories in the eastern quadrant (whatever that meant), and Gu Yuzhi not only looked nine years younger than his actual age, but had also failed the human test.

Well, not quite failed, but his DNA results did come out inconclusive. 

“What are you guys measuring me against?” he joked when Argent waved the results screen triumphantly in his face.

“The rest of the human race, what else?” the silver-head retorted, then jabbed a finger at the glass wall separating them. For security purposes, they had put Gu Yuzhi in confinement for observation during his mandatory quarantine for the next two weeks. The place was basically a sealed room with a glass wall that could be adjusted to various privacy settings, with more daily comforts than the cells reserved for prisoners. Inside the rectangular space was a bed, washstand, bathroom stall, and table with chair, as well as a one-way window that looked out to the stars beyond. 

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Artifact,” Argent added a warning. “Don’t try anything funny.”

“I have a name,” Gu Yuzhi clicked his tongue, but Argent just huffed.

“You only think you do. You’ve probably imprinted memories from your previous owner, so don’t go putting on airs.”

“Do your artifacts usually come with personalities as scintillating as mine?”

“I’ve already said, it’s not yours,” Argent huffed. “At the end of the day, a replica’s nothing more than a well-made fake.”

“I don’t think I’m faking it,” Gu Yuzhi shrugged, but Argent just sputtered and began furiously typing on his screen. 

“I’ll show you the data. You can’t deny the facts when they’re right in front of your fa—” He stopped when a gloved hand reached out to pluck the data screen from Argent’s fingers.

“Major, trade secrets,” Veoc said smoothly as he shut down the screen.

“Boss!” Argent straightened up with a salute, then stepped aside to yield the chair he’d been perched on to his superior. 

Gu Yuzhi grew alert as well, if only because the major general had changed into his official uniform on the ship. Besides the usual military cap, boots, and uniform, a long silvery-blue cape draped off his shoulders like liquid while a futuristic pistol-like weapon hung on his hip. He looked sharper and more focused than on the lifeboat, his posture impeccably straight as he sat down on the chair. Gu Yuzhi studied the various medals of honor on his chest and even the spotless white of his uniform, but didn’t find any familiar symbols.

“Major general,” he nodded politely. They had changed him out of his formalwear into nondescript gray clothes made out of some fabric vaguely like cotton. Compared to Veoc, Gu Yuzhi looked ready to go to bed in his pajamas.

Veoc didn’t reject the title as he crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. “How are you settling in?”

“Well enough,” Gu Yuzhi replied honestly. “I’ve never had this much space for myself.”

“They’re very modest quarters, Gu Yuzhi.” Only 400 square feet, a minimum for one person to live in comfortably.

“I stopped living at home when I was 10,” Gu Yuzhi replied simply. “Before that, I shared a room with my brother.”

“Boss, don’t encourage him,” Argent muttered from beside Veoc. “He’s making up backstories now.”

Gu Yuzhi smiled guilelessly before moving to sit on the bed. In this way, he was directly facing Veoc, but unlike the major general, he kept both feet planted on the floor and his hands resting over his knees. 

Open posture. Not hostile.

“What’s next?” he started off. “And how did I get into that coffin?”

“Unfortunately, we were unable to retrieve the container for more intel after you broke out,” Veoc replied. “I sent down scouts, but it had already fallen off the sea shelf and into the abyss.”

“If it sank so fast, it must have been made of more than just ice,” Argent reasoned. 

“There was that suction force in the water,” Gu Yuzhi pointed out, but both men regarded him oddly.

“We recorded no unusual activities from the ocean depths,” Veoc replied. “You might have suffered vertigo after regaining consciousness so soon.”

Gu Yuzhi doubted it, but he didn’t argue. 

“As for what we’re doing next, that will depend on you,” Veoc went on. “The medical wing gave me your test results. Thanks to your proficiency in reasoning and language, you have been acknowledged as possessing a fully sentient mind. This grants you certain rights, but your classification as a Humanoid-Presenting Artifact still takes precedence. Thus, you—what are you doing?”

Gu Yuzhi was staring at Veoc’s lips because the weird, mismatched dubbing had started up again.

“I’m thinking that your words don’t match your mouth,” Gu Yuzhi commented.

Veoc immediately reached up to touch behind one ear. “Wireless translation makes interspecies communication effortless now. I’m speaking Standard Galactican, what about you?”

“English,” Gu Yuzhi replied, because that was all he heard.

Veoc and Argent exchanged looks before the latter took his data screen and keyed in a search term. Moments later, he touched a screen and a hologram popped up, visible to everyone’s eyes. The major general read the title of the article on-screen with the tiniest trace of doubt in his tone.

“....a dialect of Ancient Gaiaen?” 

“What’s that?” Gu Yuzhi probed.

“It was once spoken by the Latter Day Survivors during the final days of Mother Earth,” Veoc confirmed as he began reading through the entry. “before the establishment of our colonies and intergalactic relations rendered it obsolete.”

“Ugh, you must be as old as dirt,” Argent looked disbelievingly at Gu Yuzhi. “People don’t even know how to pronounce those words anymore.”       

“So doesn’t that prove I’m human?” Gu Yuzhi rebutted.

“All Artifacts can trace their earliest origins from Earth in some way,” Argent rebuffed. “If anything, this just convinces me beyond a doubt that you’re one of them.”

Gu Yuzhi smiled and stifled a flare of impatience. “If you put it that way, all humans can trace their origins to Earth too. Have you compared my DNA to any of theirs?”

“We don’t have records dating that far back,” Argent explained. “Even so, genetic mutations haven’t completely changed our DNA makeup. A human of today still has 98.79% resemblance to those of yesteryear, but you can barely manage a 95%!”

“That’s still an A+,” Gu Yuzhi pointed out.

“Statistically, it's a failure," Argent contested hotly, “Anyways, the test was already trashed when your body rejected those nanomachines—” He suddenly shut up and sent Veoc a panicked look. “Shit.”

Veoc’s gaze had cooled significantly. “Your uncle always said you talked too much.”

“Boss—no, major general!” Argent blustered. “I wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t—”

“10 rounds in the training simulator and man the night watch for a month,” Veoc rattled off coolly, “and we won’t speak of this again. You’re dismissed.”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” Argent saluted and ran out of the room posthaste.

Gu Yuzhi looked after him with equal parts ridicule and pity.

“My apologies,” Veoc’s smooth tones pulled his attention back. “He’s been spoiled since he was a child.”

His listener nodded numbly. Why does it feel like I’m listening to a father make excuses for his son?

“It appears your fundamental non-human rights were violated,” Veoc went on. “How would you like to seek compensation?”

Gu Yuzhi blinked. “Run that by me again?”

—

Ruyi

note: the aphelion empire may have ruled for 9k years, but humanity first left earth 20k years ago so yeah, gu yuzhi's not just ancient but prehistoric.