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  “Stagnation kills,” Paul thought aloud, “because your body deconstructs the strengths that you’re not using until you have just enough strength to carry out your daily efforts…and if that’s sitting on a couch and watching TV, your body is going to get very, very weak waiting for you to decide which direction you want to go for your next customization.”

  “Then when you’re put in another situation,” Jason followed, “that is more difficult, your attrition skyrockets because you no longer have the strength or adaptation that you used to have. The more attrition you take, the weaker you get from wear and tear and then it snowballs.”

  “Or you overload,” Morgan finished, “and die of a heart attack or other organ failure,” she said, laughing ironically. “And what are old people expected to do after they finish working?”

  “Retire,” Paul answered. “Meaning less activity, which causes a further loss of strength. They claim they’re too old to do what they once did, but by stopping the activity they are in fact making themselves weaker. It’s completely ass-backward,” he said, face palming his forehead in realization.

  “Add in systemic damage,” Wilson carried on, “and you have your answer for why someone grows old. The way to reverse the damage is to raise your healing rate above your attrition rate. If you can do that, time becomes your ally, but in order to raise your healing rate and keep it up, you have to train and keep training. Activity isn’t enough, it has to be targeted training, which most people have no clue how to do.”

  Paul’s mind suddenly flashed back to his family and their resistance to training or any kind of self improvement…and he realized they were doomed to grow old and die if they didn’t change their ways, and soon.

  “I take it this works the same for all races and species?” Morgan asked.

  “That’s another social taboo to face,” Davis said, anger evident in his voice. “What constitutes a person? Humans have held that ‘animals’ were less than Human and therefore not people, but again, have you ever thought about what the actual difference is?”

  Paul blinked in mild surprise. “With the news of super-intelligent Dinosaurs out there ready to enslave or kill us…yeah, the concept has crossed my mind.”

  “I suppose it would,” Davis admitted. “But think of it the other way. How is a dog different from a Human infant? Many dogs are more intelligent and more capable, but society still labels the child a person and the dog as an animal.”

  “I’m starting to lose the connection here,” Jason admitted.

  Davis steepled his fingers in front of his face, thinking. “What defines a person? What defines a machine? The difference is simple, and can be compared to Wilson’s race car. The car is a machine, but a person is a car with a driver inside. You,” he said, pointing to Paul, “are inside your body. Your pet dog also has a driver inside its body, so does a bird, a chipmunk, a rat, a Dinosaur. How small can you get before there is no driver and only a machine?”

  “Can a single celled organism be a person? Is there room enough in there for a driver? I doubt it, but then again since I don’t know for sure what a driver actually is made of, I can’t tell you where the dividing line is or how to physically measure it, but there is a distinct difference. It’s not biological, because a plant is ‘alive’ but there’s no driver onboard, which makes just a very complicated machine…a biological machine, but not a person.”

  “I can see that,” Paul said, “but I’m not making the connection either.”

  “What is the difference between a dog and a child that has never learned to speak? Neither can communicate with words, but can through other means. Both can learn, both can grow, both can adapt.”

  “Training,” Morgan said, almost to herself.

  “Exactly,” Davis confirmed.

  “Still lost,” Jason said.

  “Same here,” Paul added.

  “Every race will grow old,” Morgan explained, “unless they can comprehend the concept of training. That’s why animals don’t live forever, barring the whole food chain thing. They don’t know how to train, but if they did, physiologically speaking, they could adapt and customize like we do.”

  “Interesting point, but I’m still lacking here,” Jason said.

  “A race’s…scratch that, an individual’s intelligence capability has to be sufficient enough to understand and implement the principles of training in order to raise their healing rate high enough to overcome the attrition. Otherwise they ‘grow old’ and die,” she turned to look at Davis. “Unless they can lower the attrition level to match the healing rate, if that’s even possible?”

  “Which is a point of interest for me, personally,” Davis admitted. “I don’t know if it’s possible or not, for Humans or other races, but it’s something worth looking into. Even if we can lower the environmental attrition, it would bring marginal individuals into the fold.”

  “I see where you’re going,” Paul said, catching on. “Nature isn’t life, it’s death. Civilization is what brings hope, or more pointedly, knowledge does.”

  Davis smiled widely. “Well said. I would also add ‘power,’ both for the protection and advancement of oneself, and that of others.”

  “Your manifesto for Star Force?” Jason asked.

  “Yes, if you take my full meaning…”

  Morgan smiled. “For all the races of Earth, not just Humans.”

  “You can leave out the Earth bit,” Davis amended, “but correct none the less.”

  “Defenders of life throughout the universe?” Paul offered a bit tongue in cheek.

  “That’s better,” Davis responded in kind.

  “Hold on a second,” Jason said, raising a hand for emphasis. “Does this lead to talking dogs somehow?”

  Paul looked over his shoulder at him. “We already have talking dogs. Check YouTube.”

  “Not what I meant,” Jason said, glaring at him.

  “It is a fair question to ask,” Davis said, obviously having tread this course before. “We know Humans didn’t originate on this planet, but our origin is still a mystery. And while evolving from a single celled organism is quite ridiculous, our recorded history is too short to determine if significant amounts of macroscopic evolution are taking place. Can an entire race advance to our level? Can our race advance to higher levels?”

  “Are the V’kit’no’sat at a higher level?” Paul almost interrupted to add.

  Davis nodded solemnly. “A scary question that, but one we have to broach none the less.”

  “Kind of makes you look at things differently when we’re not at the top of the food chain,” Jason commented.

  “The food chain is a function of nature, of the jungle,” Davis said. “It is the antithesis of civilization. We should protect and aid the lesser races, not exploit them.”

  Morgan frowned almost sarcastically. “I don’t disagree, but you sound like a conflicted naturalist. Protect nature by destroying it with civilization.”

  “Once you start seeing lesser races rather than animals, ‘destruction’ becomes ‘aid’… but then you realize how little you truly can change, and have to console yourselves in doing no harm while helping out where you can. Nature has a wonderful side to it, but in truth it is mostly a horrific, chaotic nightmare that we have to fight against as individuals and as a collective. Civilization and nature will always be at war. Like our bodies, civilization also suffers from attrition and must heal the damage, else it will consume and destroy it.”

  “The jungle consumes everything,” Morgan quoted.

  “Wait a second,” Jason interrupted again. “You’re not just referring to wildlife preserves when you refer to the jungle and nature…you’re talking inside our own society too.”

  “Quite right. Roads and buildings don’t hold back the chaos of nature. Look at an out of control soccer game that turns into a deadly riot, or a crime spree that ensues when a city’s power gets knocked out. Good people don’t do such things, but most people are not good. Most are n
ot evil either, but most are followers and will go with the flow, which is why civilization is a means to save people, whereas nature will lead back to their destruction.”

  “But back to training,” Jason deferred. “The stupid ones won’t make it, just as sure as the lazy ones won’t unless, as Morgan stated, the attrition levels can be reduced.”

  “In this case knowledge is life, and lies kill,” Davis said, coming full circle. “How many people simply give up on their bodies and grow old because they were taught there was nothing they could do about it?”

  “Healing rates and attrition levels, check,” Paul said, leaning forward and pointing to the ambrosia. “So how does this change all that?”

  5

  “And turn us into ass-kicking machines?” Jason added.

  “Two ways,” Wilson said, returning to the conversation. “The lesser is by reducing attrition. The synthetic molecules, once ingested, are used by your body to strengthen your tissues. In comparison, you are weak from nutrient deprivation when contrasted with Davis or Vermaire, but healthy when compared to one of his primitive Amazonians. It’s a matter of perspective, but the ambrosia allows your body access to nutrients it’s never had before. In turn you build stronger tissues that are more resistant to damage, thus lowering your attrition levels a moderate amount.”

  “Super vitamins,” Paul repeated.

  “In this function, yes,” Davis said, “which is where I get most of the benefit. At Wilson’s nagging insistence I’ve also begun training for an hour each morning, mostly running, to take advantage of the second and more powerful attribute.”

  “Back to the sugar metaphor,” Wilson continued. “As of right now, your bodies have never had sugar…and that is Dino sugar.”

  “An energy boost?” Morgan asked.

  “An everything boost,” Wilson said, not exaggerating. “The V’kit’no’sat specifically designed it for multiple functions. Not one thing in the liquid is ambrosia, the total mixture is and each piece is designed to aid your body in a specific way. Some parts act like super sugar molecules for additional energy, others aid in recovery, but most we don’t actually know the function of, but we have seen the results.”

  “The Black Knight,” Paul repeated, not yet comfortable with him having a name.

  “It took our molecular engineers more than a decade to discover the painstaking process to replicate the substance,” Davis said, “and even today we can’t produce very large quantities. It is extremely potent, so we don’t require much, plus we still have significant stores of the original in Antarctica, but large scale distribution is out of the question in the foreseeable future.”

  “It’s also extremely expensive,” Wilson added.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Davis said, visibly waving away the cost with a flick of his hand. “We have more than enough for experimental purposes, and have increased our production to cover what we expect you to require, though exactly what that will be has been a topic of discussion.”

  “You want us to use it then?” Morgan asked, not completely comfortable with the idea.

  “No, I’m only making it available to you,” Davis clarified. “If there is to be an advantage found in it, I know you’ll make the most of it. We know very little past what is in the database, save for Vermaire’s experiences.”

  “He’s been on the ambrosia for seven years now,” Wilson said, “and has yet to show any side effects, and he’s been more aggressive with its use than anyone else.”

  “Aggressive how?” Paul inquired.

  “The body will tolerate very little without overloading,” Wilson said uncomfortably. “Vermaire discovered that early on, painfully, but he’s succeeded in upping his dosage gradually in response to intensive training.”

  “Sugar rush?” Jason quipped.

  “Essentially yes,” Wilson confirmed. “Though much more extreme. Whereas Davis takes this amount every month, Vermaire would consume that in two or three days.”

  “Addiction?” Morgan asked.

  Wilson shook his head. “No more than the sugar you eat, though you do notice an uncomfortable difference when you deprive yourself of it as your body adjusts downward.”

  “So the more you can tolerate the stronger you get?” Paul asked.

  “No, not at all,” Wilson said, almost relieved. “It allows you to train harder and longer, with almost no recovery time. That training is what upgrades your body. Vermaire has gotten as strong and fast as he is because he spends virtually every hour of his time either training or kicking your asses in challenges. He’s earned those skills, the ambrosia just gives him an advantage in workouts.”

  “Wilson is not on the ambrosia,” Davis pointed out.

  “It’s an advantage, not a requirement,” he said defensively. “Much like sugar isn’t necessary in your diet, but provides a significant advantage. I should be able to boost my healing rate high enough with unaugmented training to achieve self-sufficiency, and we need to know what that will take rather than just sticking everyone on ambrosia and hoping it will be enough.”

  “Self-sufficiency?” Morgan asked.

  “The point at which your healing rate equals or exceeds your attrition rate,” Wilson defined. “It’s impossible to scientifically measure, but it exists none the less. I expect I’m borderline, but I don’t truly know. Davis is there now, thanks to his training, because his body has begun to ‘de-age’ slightly.”

  “And us?” Paul asked.

  “Probably the same as me, perhaps a bit better. Impossible to know unless things start to go wrong, though if you have a high differential between the two in the positive, you’ll be able to shrug off a lot of attrition damage whereas others can’t.”

  “That’s why you’re able to recover faster on the ambrosia?” Paul asked. “You can probably get by on less sleep too?”

  “No,” Wilson said, slightly shaking his head. “The ambrosia does that part on its own. What I’m talking about is separate. Let’s say your healing rate is running .1% higher than your attrition rate…again, pointless numbers since we can’t measure them, but useful for explanation none the less. If it’s running higher, by any amount, any attrition damage incurred during the day will be fully healed. That’s not counting injuries, just the microscopic and systematic damage that typically goes unnoticed.”

  “But the difference between a positive .1% and a negative .1% is that in one case time is your ally and the other it’s your enemy because with every day that goes by you lose a little ground. Self-sufficiency is being out of the negative numbers, so running even technically counts because you’re healing as fast as you’re being damaged.”

  “Now, the problem is that your rates change more than day to day, they change minute to minute, so if you’re running .1% to the good in the morning, you may be negative .3% by the afternoon. Everything you do or don’t do during the day effects your attrition levels, so you can see some really big swings.”

  “Stress levels?” Morgan asked.

  Wilson nodded. “That’s part of the attrition.”

  “Guess a bad day really is a bad day,” Paul commented.

  “Which is why to be truly self-sufficient you need a larger positive trend that can survive the rate swings,” Wilson continued. “If you can get your healing ability up high enough to have a positive 5.0% differential, then you’re not going to dip below the threshold during the course of a day, plus you’re going to heal a lot faster. In that way you can recover from workouts faster, because even though they are beneficial to the body, workouts dump a lot of attrition on you through microscopic muscle tears, joint damage, stress, etc.”

  “So having a big differential eats it up faster,” Jason surmised.

  Paul nodded. “Like extra RAM on a computer, it can process the backlog faster.”

  “And when you recover faster,” Wilson pointed out, “your workouts can be more frequent and more intense, which in the long run will upgrade you and your healing ability even more.” />
  “Snowball effect,” Davis commented.

  “Do all workouts increase your healing ability?” Morgan asked, trying to wrap her head around the concept.

  “More or less,” Wilson answered. “Think of the attrition dump on your systems that occurs from a workout as a learning experience for your body. With the downtime in between workouts to recover and recharge, your body adapts to be able to handle the attrition better. In doing so for the large dumps, it also makes it better at handling the lower level attrition that accumulates around the clock.”

  “Like how running makes walking easy,” Paul pointed out.

  “I see the connection,” Morgan said. “So what happens if you’re not able to rest and recover?”

  “Problems,” Wilson said pointedly. “When you’re fit enough to do workouts, you can take an attrition dump in stride because you have a lot of strength reserves. If you’re taking large amounts of attrition continuously and are unable to get your moment to moment trend back in the positive, you’re essentially grinding your gears and causing a lot of damage. Sometimes we do this on purpose to generate a greater training effect, but when that’s the case we have the option of stopping whenever we want. It’s when the attrition isn’t caused by training that a negative snowball effect can occur.”

  “Again, with the numbers, assume a hard workout puts your current trend at negative 5.0% for twenty minutes. Once you stop that goes back up to, say, positive 1.0% and your body starts to process through the accumulated attrition. If you can’t get into recovery mode because of environmental factors, like say from excessive heat that you have no control over, you’ll be riding a negative trend for an extended period of time and losing ground constantly.”