Chapter 203

"You can read minds?! You’ve gotta be joking!"

Taro’s voice echoed down the corridor of the Battleship Plum as he shouted at Phantom’s retreating back. He’d been dragged out of the lounge after Phantom hit him with the classic, "We need to talk."

"It’s not like I’m peering into your soul, nor is it a perfect science," Phantom said, glancing back over his shoulder. "Think of it as... highly educated guesswork."

Taro stood there, mouth agape, waiting for the punchline that didn't come.

"It’s basic Deciphering," Phantom continued. "If you know which signals appear with what frequency, you can deduce the words and their meanings. It’s even easier if you’ve got a few decoded snippets to act as a Rosetta Stone. You’re a prepper, Taro; surely you’re familiar with the concept?"

Phantom stopped and looked back toward the lounge they had just vacated.

"The catch is that, unlike a radio signal, you can’t exactly 'intercept' a thought. Or can you? Indirectly, yes. Brainwaves are just electrical signals. If you can observe the flow, you can read the data. Simple, right?"

Phantom gave a playful shrug. Taro wasn't sure if he should be laughing or calling an exorcist. "I mean, Earth had EEGs, but those were for hospitals..." he managed, offering a weak, pained smile.

"I’d love to see one of those devices sometime. But here’s the thing: we currently live our lives surrounded by an infinite number of EEG sensors. We’re being measured in real-time right this second. Care to guess what’s doing it?"

Phantom pointed a finger at the ceiling. Taro looked up, his eyes widening as the realization hit him like a freight train.

"BISHOP?!"

"Bingo," Phantom said with a beaming smile.

"But as you know, the Drive Particle Detection Element is a total black box to us. Peeking inside a BISHOP Control Device is basically impossible—it’s just as complex as the human brain. But what if you could 'see' the simplified functional communications being tossed back and forth between a brain and a BISHOP unit?"

Phantom emphasized the word "see" and then went dead silent, looming there as he waited for Taro to catch up. Taro’s brain whirred into overdrive. When the penny finally dropped, he audibly gasped.

"Etta... no, wait. Etta wouldn't do that. Plus, she’s always stuck on the Plum. But if there’s someone else out there who can do what she does..."

Taro trailed off into a frantic mumble. He realized Phantom had started walking again and scrambled to keep up.

"You don't lean in and whisper secrets into someone’s ear anymore, do you? No. Whenever you’re in public talking about something high-level, you use BISHOP-linked comms for the sake of counter-intelligence. Right?"

Phantom kept his eyes fixed forward as they walked.

"Well, yeah... I mean, we're brainstorming twenty-four-seven. We talk shop in the cafeteria, the hallways... Marl and I have discussed everything in front of—oh god. Everything? Every weird idea? Every private gripe? Is my entire life just one big open book to these people?"

Taro’s face went a sickly shade of blue.

"Not quite," Phantom corrected. "I doubt there are many Sonarmen as gifted as Etta. The crew on the Plum is safe, but once you head back to the station... well, we might need to vet the office staff. I should have warned you sooner. My bad."

Phantom reached a door and waved his hand. The door hissed open at BISHOP's command, and Phantom gestured for Taro to enter.

"Wait, is this... Phantom-san, is this your room?"

The interior was a madness of wood. Taro felt like he’d stepped out of a spaceship and into a boutique antique shop. Wooden furniture—designs Taro recognized from home—was crammed into every available inch. Even the cold metal walls and ceiling had been meticulously covered in wallpaper. The contrast between the hyper-futuristic corridor and this cozy, old-world den was enough to give Taro whiplash.

"They let me go wild with the decor," Phantom said. "You drink coffee, right? I managed to score some decent beans. Let me brew a pot."

Phantom moved with practiced grace, beginning to grind the beans. He was using a hand-cranked coffee mill—an ancient relic by Taro's standards—and Taro watched the process with genuine curiosity.

"It’s an Antique I picked up from a noble in the Odo-e-B9 Star System," Phantom explained. "I could tell from the residue that it was for grinding beans, but the base was missing. I had to improvise the stand myself. Did I get it right?"

Phantom held up the mill. Taro squinted at the glass base, digging through his hazy memories of Earth.

"Actually, the bottom part was usually wood, not glass. It had a little drawer-style tray where the grounds would pile up. Usually, there’d be a metal brand name plate on the front, too. Though... maybe some of them used glass?"

Taro mimed the drawer action with his hands. Phantom nodded thoughtfully. "A drawer, you say? Interesting. I’ll have to whip up a prototype."

"Mmm, smells incredible. You just can't beat that aroma." Taro’s face finally relaxed as the rich, toasted scent of coffee filled the room. Coffee wasn't exactly a staple in the Galactic Empire, and Taro offered a silent prayer of thanks that the culture had survived at all as he took a cup from Phantom.

"There’s that famous Edemia drink, of course," Phantom spat, leaning against the kitchenette. "The flavor profile is similar to coffee, and it’s dirt cheap. If you ask me, it tastes like scented mud water, but the Empire treats it like liquid gold. That’s probably why real coffee hasn’t caught on."

"Edemia... Oh, Alan drinks that stuff constantly."

"Oops. My apologies to his palate. Keep that 'mud water' comment under your hat, will you?"

"Eh, he’s a self-proclaimed 'taste-deaf' idiot anyway. He says the military trained the sense of taste right out of him or something."

"Ho? So he’s Special Branch? Land Combat is usually the bottom of the barrel, but the Special Branch guys are the cream of the crop. I hate to be rude, but that’s surprising... though, given how he handled the Nuke Defense Battle, I suppose it tracks."

"No, it’s definitely surprising. I still think he’s lying," Taro scoffed. "Usually, the military elite are MMK. Why the hell is he still a virgin?"

"MMK?"

"Short for Mote-mote de komacchau—'So popular it’s a problem.' I think it was an old Earth military acronym."

"Good heavens... Earth’s military sounds remarkably frank."

The two shared a laugh, the atmosphere turning uncharacteristically peaceful. They chatted about nothing for a few minutes until, without any warning, Phantom’s tone shifted.

"There are more than twenty stations like the one we found. And I’m fairly certain Etta and I were born in one of them."

Taro froze, his coffee cup halfway to his lips.

"The humans raised there are almost all candidates for Enhanced Humans. Talent for being Gifted or a Boosted Man is largely hereditary, so a closed environment is perfect for breeding. 'Thick' bloodlines lead to errors, sure, but they also produce freakish genius. You’d think they’d just use genetic engineering, but... there must be a reason they prefer the old-fashioned way."

Phantom looked genuinely puzzled. Taro shifted in his seat, his skin crawling.

"The Empire... no, let’s be specific. Coleman was obsessed with the idea of artificial human evolution. He churned out Boosted Men like a factory line. There were nearly three thousand kids in my cohort at The Facility, but I’d guess only a handful of us are still breathing."

Phantom tucked his cup away into a shelf. The muffled hum of an automated cleaner vibrated through the room.

"The Facility... was it like a school? Did you know Etta back then?" Taro asked.

Phantom gave a sharp, ironic smile. "No. Our enhancement categories didn't overlap. And calling it a 'school' is a bit of a stretch. I don’t recall being treated like a human being, and the 'curriculum' was purely focused on lethality. To Coleman, it was a farm and a laboratory. We just called it The Facility, but his official name for it was New Eden. 'Paradise'... what a joke."

"A farm... wait. When you say Coleman, you mean the Coleman, right?"

"I honestly don't know which Coleman I mean. And no, I'm not being cryptic. I’m being literal."

Taro scowled, thinking he was being messed with, but Phantom just shook his head.

"The predecessor to New Eden was the Imperial Military Applied Physico-Chemical Research Institute Facility B. The founding director was none other than Dan Coleman. The details are on this chip. Have a look."

Phantom handed over a data chip. Taro hesitated for a second, then pressed it to his terminal interface. As the data scrolled through his mind, his face contorted.

"What... what is this?"

"Bizarre, right?" Phantom shrugged.

"That research facility was founded roughly two thousand years ago. The military records are crystal clear on that. Luckily, the director was a registered citizen, so his DNA Information was still in the Data Bank. And here’s the kicker..."

Phantom leaned in close, his expression vanishing into a cold, empty mask.

"The DNA is a one-hundred-percent match for the Coleman who died right in front of us. Not just that—if you dig deep enough, you’ll find Coleman’s footprints scattered across every era of the galaxy’s history. So, Taro... do you think they’re all the same man?"

Phantom’s voice sounded like a ghost story whispered in a graveyard. All Taro could do was sit there, trapped between shock and total, crushing confusion.