One more little revenge.

Twenty-Eight's emotional distance extents to others, as well. Despite being a sensitive empath, psionically, Twenty-Eight has no real empathy for others. He can sense what they're feeling, perhaps, but it means nothing to him: sadness in others does not prompt him to comfort, anger does not prompt him to soothe, fear does not prompt him to protect, happiness does not prompt him to smile, and affection does not prompt him to reciprocate in any way. He is very nearly sociopathic in his detachment from the emotional reactions of others, disregard for their opinions and rights, tendency towards manipulations-- overt or covert-- and self-centeredness. Even those he professes to care about he doesn't treat much differently. However, because he feels nothing terribly deeply or with any conviction, he isn't as dangerous as he might otherwise be. 

If given his freedom to do what he wished, Twenty-Eight would remove himself from the presence of most people, live alone or with one or two select individuals, and spend most of his life in academic pursuit, doing nothing but reading, learning, and occasionally watching others. Since this is very likely impossible, he simply makes do with what he can get, currently living day by day and dealing with things as they come. 

After graduating out of training, Twenty-Eight was bounced around in various positions open to his type of construct. Feline constructs are not made for combat, like most constructs created on Kinau, but mostly for espionage and personal protection. He worked mostly against others of his own kind, even taking a muted pleasure in the frustration a "red" or emotionally amplifying feline construct might feel at being blocked by a "blue" type, like him. Every now and then, something different would come up, like escorting particularly dangerous sport-constructs to and from various arenas, manipulating enemies into submission, sneaking soldiers past sentries, or even once dispersing an angry mob. Most of these positions were brief, a few months at most, and his existence was largely miserable, or as miserable as it could be to someone with a limited emotional range. 

Then he met Thirty-Two, an equine construct-- non-combatant, messenger, built to be docile but generally just coming across as a frustrated coward-- who latched onto him during one rather disastrous mission and, for some reason, he found he preferred not to rid himself of. Thirty-Two, upon meeting the feline construct outside of frightening on-duty circumstances, only latched onto him further, confusing Twenty-Eight but not really displeasing him. Over the years of their acquaintance, they became close enough that Thirty-Two calls it love and Twenty-Eight calls it... something he has no name for and is not entirely sure how to begin to classify. All he knows is that Thirty-Two is the only thing that matters to him in the world besides his own hide. Their relationship is innocent, neither knowing much about sex as constructs are never allowed to mate, but definitely leans towards the cuddly side. 

For the past four years, however, Twenty-Eight has had the single occupation of acting as a shackle for the singular "Winged Construct" under the control of the construction mages, designated One but refusing to be satisfied with it and calling himself Riddik. They were tied together magically, making it painful to move too far physically from each other, and Twenty-Eight shadowed Riddik wherever he went to keep him in line. The first year and a half was true misery, limited emotional range or not, as Riddik did everything in his power to escape. When the two finally decided to work together rather than against each other, however-- facilitated mostly by Riddik discovering about Thirty-Two and coming up with the beginnings of a plan to escape-- things got much easier. Though Twenty-Eight does not trust Riddik, and doesn't really much like him, they get along well enough. That doesn't mean he won't jump on the opportunity to free himself of the creature, however. 

Twenty-Eight's Story

Back