Chapter 5: Secrets in the Code
Ryan looked down at the body of Liam "Swift" Davies. It felt wrong, somehow, to just leave him there.
But what could he do? Carry him back to the Outpost? He wasn’t nearly strong enough for that, even with the temporary +1 Strength from Boulder’s boot still faintly buzzing in his muscles.
And there was the small, slightly morbid thought: Liam had an Aptitude. Liam had essence.
A shiver ran down Ryan’s spine. Extracting from a dead animal was one thing. Extracting from a dead person that felt like crossing a line he wasn’t sure he wanted to cross.
But his SSS-Tier system, "Ultimate Infinite Extraction System," didn’t seem to have a "moral objections" filter.
The Interface was already helpfully displaying:
Target: Deceased Code-Bearer [Liam "Swift" Davies, Fading Vital Signature]
Aptitude Detected: Hyper-Awareness [D-Tier]
Potential For Essence Extraction: Yes
"Code-bearer?" Ryan murmured. "Is that what we are? Like lines of programming in this giant, scary god Verse game?" It made a weird kind of sense.
He hesitated. His system description had mentioned "deconstruction and assimilation of essence." Liam’s "essence" was tied to his Aptitude, his "Hyper-Awareness."