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[Skill-Eater] Chapter 39: Backstory (One Year Earlier)
🕑 Added 2024-07-15 17:24:01 +0000 UTCThe story of how Edge wound up on the most dangerous planet in inhabited space had begun a little over one year ago.
Back then, he was drifting through life in an endless daze, every bland day the same as the last. His tepid existence was defined by his meaningless job. His impact on the world was no more substantial than the shadow he cast.
Day by day, Edge had grown ever more dissatisfied with AI-governed society. His only escape was the Prison World broadcasts. The thousands of individual channels forming the feed. He only had a few acquaintances, all of them online. People who shared his passion for the life and death adventures that took place on Ord every day.
It was better than nothing, but his so-called friendships were only a millimeter deep. Paper-thin bonds lacking any true intimacy.
The only bright spot was his relationship with his mother. The only family he had left after his father and brothers had died in a freak transport accident. But she was lost in a daze of her own, addicted to simulations of happier times. Living in that bittersweet past was far too painful for him to join her, although they met up in the real world from time to time.
Lacking any reason to get out of bed in the morning, Edge became increasingly obsessed with the magical world of Ord and its vivid outlaw society. It was the place where they sent the worst of the worst. Criminals powerful enough to destroy entire cities and decimate factions.
Of course, not everyone trapped there was a mass-murderer. There were plenty of lesser undesirables too. People infamous or unlucky enough to have received the death penalty on thousands of planets throughout the galaxy.
Before the catastrophe, there were endless lines of portal-ferries floating in orbit, waiting to offload their condemned and collect the finder’s fee. The reason that the wardens were always happy to pay was simple. Thanks to puppet tourism and the simucast relay network, Prison World was the biggest entertainment industry in the sector by an order of magnitude.
The feed became Edge’s obsession. He was addicted to a way of life that was a stark contrast to his own shallow existence. Enthralled by a planet where peril and mystery lurked around every corner. Where every decision mattered, and fortunes were won and lost in the blink of an eye.
Eventually, he reached his breaking point, unable to take another day of his endless tedium. A glacial treadmill governed by unfeeling machines. He took out the biggest loan he could get and combined it with his life savings. Then he wagered it all on a series of high-risk, high-return investments, gambling his future on the long-shot chance that he would be able to buy a puppet and finance a Prison World run.
For the first time in memory, Edge had felt something stir. A twinge of excitement when he signed his name on the dotted line.
On that fateful day, he had drawn a line in the sand. Now, there was no going back. He’d either make it to Ord, or he would spend the rest of his life in debtors’ prison on one godforsaken rock or another. Either way, his dreary existence would come to an end.
He had watched his investments constantly, hitting refresh every minute while praying for the numbers to change. But the first set went bust, and the second as well, his chances dwindling down to nearly nothing.
Then, during the lowest weeks of his life, fortune had chosen to smile upon Edge at last. In defiance of the odds, several of his riskiest investments panned out, multiplying his savings within a matter of days. He put his profits into something safer, and those had worked out too, letting him reach his goal by the end of that month.
When the realization came crashing home that he’d actually done it, his deep depression had transformed into manic joy. At long last, he could afford to create his own channel on the feed. He was heading to Ord after all.
In that moment, his entire worldview changed. Edge found an endless well of determination inside himself that he had never known was there. The patience and resolve to take hold of this chance with everything that he had. To lay the groundwork for success before he left his home world behind.
He paid back his loans and kept working to make up the difference, taking extra shifts to afford a full course of high-quality training modules and expanded access to the feed. He trained for an entire year with unwavering diligence, practicing every skill he thought might help him survive on an alien world. Edge achieved basic proficiency in tracking and outdoorsmanship. Bartering, fighting, and dozens more.
He spent every waking moment that he wasn’t working learning everything that he could about the people who lived on Ord. Studying their profiles and the choices they made, so that he would be able to fit in once he arrived. He decided that he would start his run on the Ivory Plains, using Puppet Town as his base of operations until he was strong enough to head toward the frontier.
Then at last, the day arrived. Edge received word that his puppet was fully grown and ready to be imprinted. That a stasis tank and bandwidth on the simucast relay was reserved for his use in one month’s time.
During those final four weeks, he spent several hours with his mother every day. Making new memories and saying goodbye, just in case they were seeing one another for the last time. She was in good health and still had another hundred years ahead of her in ideal circumstances. But you never knew what tomorrow would bring.
Despite everything, his meaningless life, and his perennial frustration and dissatisfaction, Edge loved his mother fiercely. They were the only family that the other had, and she’d always treated him well. At least when she was living in the present.
His mother told Edge that he was special, and he knew that she meant it. Even when every other aspect of his life made it clear that he wasn’t.
She rode with him to the stasis facility the day that his consciousness was transmitted across the stars. Her hand holding his own was the last sensation that his old body had ever felt. Her smiling face was his final vision. A whispered, “I love you Edge,” was the last sound that his ears ever heard.
After he hugged his mother for the last time, the pod closed as he waved goodbye, sealing him inside. Gas had flooded the chamber, and then he felt nothing at all. The drugs kicked in, his pod froze his body, and an endless void had risen to engulf him.
At least he’d had the foresight to forward the royalties from his feed to her account. Whatever he’d earned before the disaster should have been transferred to her already. It wasn’t much, since his run had only just begun. But it was his way of showing his appreciation to the one person who had actually believed in him.
Edge wouldn’t be standing here today without her support. I love you mom, and I miss you. It wasn’t supposed to be forever.
