Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Iron Cloud

"So when were you planning on returning the architect's ship?"

"When he askes for it back."

The bridge of the Empyrean was more alive than it had ever been.: ten stories of bridge crew beginning on the ground floor, ad climbing the walls until it was almost like they were flying in a small amphitheater. Bright golden white light, spilled through channels in the floor, and into the bridge consoles, lending power to the men and women who heled run the ship. Little floating platforms made it possible for important systems managers: navigation and weapons, to be as close to Adam as possible.

Or, Adam and Ramirez who floated at the Seventh story out of ten.

They still had a lot to learn about the Empyrean. Her bridge was huge and each station did something specific, as it turned out there was a copilot configuration, which reduced the need for spooning to power the ship. Floating back to back, Adam took care of major flight decisions, while Ramirez executed small orders and monitored vital systems. The ship was technically designed to have only one pilot, but until Adam or Ramirez could access Anima power, that was unlikely to happen.

A soft sound reached Adam's ears, a sort of rolling clatter that began at the base of the room, and rolled itself upwards. It was the sort of sound you would expect to hear in some kind of horror flick but he barely bothered to glance upwards, "Glados."

Overhead the Adaptid rumbled deep in her chest. She hung suspended against the ceiling like a spider, using her ten powerful legs to brace against nearby platforms. Glados had experienced some kind of growth spurt in Adam's absence, and now about the size of the average Clydesdale. She had eight massive, segmented legs, like a spider, the back four tipped in soft gripping pads, while the front four were tipped in spiks. She had a smaller pair of legs or arms on her front thorax which had soemthing like fingers on their ends, allowing her to manipulate objects. Her head was even more wolflike than it had once been, the gentle fuzz of her baby hair now course blond fur. The only thing noticeably human about her, were here eyes, wide, expressive, and shimmering emerald green

"The engines are ready, father."

After so many years, hearing that last word come out of an Adaptid's mouth no longer shocked him. His relationship with his half hybrid children had always been rather strange , if not a bit strained. Their existence resulted from the theft of his DNA and on at least one occasion, being stuck with an alien egg sack, a time in his life that he did not dwell on with fondness. But now, after all those years, time, maturity, and lets be honest, a little bit of money, he had better been able to support the hybrids.

Many of the hybrids had been adopted out to couples on Noctopolis, and continued to live with those adopted families, while others of the hybrids had remained at the facility Eris had put together for them before she eft for earth. After Arcadia was founded, Adam had used a good chunk of his not insubstantial fortune to move the remaining hybrids and some of their families to Arcadia, which he considered to be a more welcoming enviornment.

Once on Arcadia more hybrids found homes, and Adam himself made it a routine to check on the welfare of each and every one of them.

Glados had a much improved temper since her childhood, though she still remained acerbic. Adam swore one of her favorite pastimes was scaring the shit out of people. Perhaps the only person she wasn't openly mean to weas kay.

Adam had worried that Kay might be frightened of Glados considering how big she was, but it seemed that the boy was surrounded by so many strange things on a regular basis that it didn't bother him much. In fact, he had loved glados from the beginning. Glados pretended to be annoyed, but Adam was almost certain she loved the positive attention, and would gladly let kay ride around on her back like some sort of demented horse.