Lore:Your Friend, Micah Abram

Your Friend, Micah Abram is a Lore book added with Beyond Light. It contains letters sent to the Traveler during the Golden Age by Micah Abram, who would later become the Exo Micah-10. Entries are unlocked by finding penguin plushies on Europa and returning them to the spare room of the communication's center in Charon's Crossing. When Beyond Light launched, only one penguin was findable, with subsequent penguins being discoverable every following week.

LETTER 1

Dear Traveler,

My name is Micah. I am ten years old and a human. You probably knew that second part, but my Papa says there were probably lots of different intelligent species where you come from, so I wanted to be specific.

Where are you from, by the way? I'm from Mars. But right now, me and my Dad are on our way to join my Papa at a brand-new colony on Europa! Papa is the lead quantum engineer at BrayTech, which basically means he builds super-cool computers. He's so good at it, he gets to work with the Clovis Bray on all the top-secret stuff. He even designed some of Rasputin's hardware!

I hope he shows me what he's working on. He used to do that, back on Mars. "It'll be a good learning opportunity for you," he'd say, "But only if you promise not to tell anyone." And I never have. Even though my friends back home bugged me about Papa's work all the time.

My old home, I mean. Soon Europa will be my home, and you'll be my new next-door neighbor over on Io! I wish we could pass by you on the way so I could see you up close, but Eventide (that's the colony) needs supplies and Dad is supposed to start working right away.

He's a psychologist. I don't really get what he'd even do for BrayTech. All he does is ask people how they're feeling over and over again. Maybe they need him to train a Warmind like Dr. Ana Bray did. Only instead of language, he'll teach it how to analyze its dreams.

Dad always teases Papa that a human brain is a lot harder to work with than a hard drive. Maybe Papa got him on one of his projects to finally prove him wrong.

What do you have: a hard drive or a brain? Are you an AI like Rasputin? Have you ever talked to him?

Sorry if these questions are nosy. Dad says I'm super curious and that's okay, I just need to learn when to stop asking questions. Which is pretty unfair since he gets to ask me stuff all the time. Like right now, he asked what I'm writing. So I better encrypt this real quick and go.

I'll write more later.

Your friend,

Micah

LETTER 2

Dear Traveler,

We finally landed on Europa. Before we got off the ship, they gave us official BrayTech snowsuits to put on whenever we go outside. The suits are super chunky and hard to walk in, but Papa says there's an extra-thick lining on the inside to protect against the bad ions bouncing down from space nearby. Plus it helps keep us warm. Did you know that at night, it can get as cold as 140 Kelvin?

I wonder why Clovis Bray chose to build Eventide here, when you're over there terraforming Io? Even if you're not finished, it's probably way nicer…

Still, I'm glad we're here. Seeing Papa again made me so happy I almost cried. (I didn't though.) Once, on the way here, I forgot what his face looked like. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see it in my mind. It was awful.

He's grown a beard, so he looks different now. I like it, but Dad said he feels like he's kissing a polar bear. Papa said Dad'll grow a beard too once he discovers how much warmer his face will be. "Soon you'll have two polar bears for parents, Micah!"

For now, I've got a penguin. A plushie, not a real one. I'm too old for plushies, but Papa told me it's from Clovis Bray. "A souvenir for your soon-to-be arctic adventures!" Plus it came with this mini version of an ion-shield snowsuit, like the one I have to wear.

It actually looks pretty cool, so I think I'm going to keep it.

Do you know about polar bears and penguins? Back before you came, they lived on Earth's two poles that had climates a lot like Europa's. But our technology was so inefficient, it was poisoning Earth's air and killing off whole species of animals and plants. Like the opposite of terraforming.

I'm gonna name this penguin Mihaylova after the scientist-aeronaut on Ares One. Do you remember meeting her and Hardy and Qiao? Can you see their faces in your mind?

That was a long time ago, way before I was born, but you've been around so long, human years must feel like a minute to you. If that's true, then expect to see me (except grown up with a beard) on Io one second after you get this.

I'm still not sure how I'm gonna send my letters to you yet. Maybe they'll let me use a Warsat. I know those are really for high-level threats and stuff, but how many of those can there be? This is a Golden Age.

Your friend,

Micah