Another broken R5 series droid lay on the repair table in Uncle Garrek's workshop, its chassis open, its insides resembling a technological puzzle. The worn red and white paint marked it as a former astromech—such droids were usually used on cargo ships for navigation and minor repairs. Alex leaned over the machine, examining its internals. It was drizzling outside, and drops of rain ran down the glass, distorting the evening lights of Coronet into peculiar streaks.
"The owner says the droid suddenly shut down during work," Garrek explained, wiping his hands with a rag. "No warnings, no malfunctions. It just stopped and went silent."
Alex nodded, activating the diagnostic scanner. At sixteen, he had already managed to study most droid systems, but each case was still a mystery. The device hummed, projecting holographic schematics of the droid's internal systems. Everything looked normal—the processor was functioning, the memory was intact, the power circuits showed stable parameters.
"Strange," he muttered, studying the data. "The scanner shows no malfunctions."
But something was wrong. Alex couldn't explain it logically, but he felt... wrongness. As if an invisible shadow had fallen upon the droid, disrupting the harmony of its internal systems. This feeling emanated from somewhere deep within his consciousness, bypassing rational thought, as if some part of his mind could see what was hidden from the instruments.
The air in the workshop seemed denser than usual, saturated with electricity and something else—something intangible, but real. Alex felt a strange sensation, like wanting something but not knowing what.
He reached out towards the open chassis, his fingers hovering over the central processor. At that moment, the world seemed to focus, all extraneous sounds faded, and only the quiet hum of the power systems remained. There. The problem was there, in the small crystalline block responsible for coordinating movement. Alex felt it as clearly as he felt his own breath.
"Uncle," he said, not taking his eyes off the component, "what if the problem is with the coordination crystal?"
"Alex, the scanner shows the crystal is fine," Garrek frowned. "Why waste time on..."
"Let's just check," Alex carefully removed the crystal from its socket. Externally, it looked flawless—transparent, without cracks, with proper faceting. But when Alex took it in his hands, the feeling intensified tenfold.
The crystal was dead. Not broken, not damaged—just dead. Perhaps the overload from constant work on a cargo ship, where the droid had to compensate for the vibrations of old engines, had slowly destroyed the crystal lattice from within. As if the life force that should have pulsed through its structure had simply vanished, leaving behind only an empty shell. Alex didn't understand how he knew, but he was absolutely certain. The dead crystal felt cold and heavy, like a piece of ice that would never melt.
"Let's try replacing it," he said, taking an analogous crystal from the spare parts drawer.
The new crystal was different. Alive. It seemed to pulsate in Alex's hands, radiating warmth and some subtle energy—not physical heat, but something deeper, more fundamental. The energy of life, flowing through the crystalline structure like an invisible river. When he installed the component and activated the droid, the R5 immediately came to life, its systems working with perfect synchronization.
"How did you guess?" Garrek was surprised. "The crystal looked perfectly normal."
"Intuition," Alex shrugged, but felt uneasy inside. It wasn't just intuition. It was something else. Something that made him see the world from a different angle, feel the hidden connections between things.
The strangest thing happened in his secret workshop. Alex was analyzing energy crystals from ancient equipment when he felt something unusual. One of the crystals—small, the size of a fingernail—seemed to call to him. Not with a voice, not with a sound, but with something more subtle. As if an invisible thread stretched between them, vibrating at a frequency only he could perceive.
He picked up the crystal and closed his eyes. The world around him changed. Alex saw nothing new, but he felt... connections. Energy flows that connected the crystal to other components, invisible threads of light stretching between all the technical devices in the workshop. It was as if he had suddenly gained the ability to see the electromagnetic field, but it wasn't sight—it was a deeper, more intimate understanding of how energy flows through matter.
When he opened his eyes, the crystal glowed with a faint blue light, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
"What the...?" Alex muttered, but the glow immediately extinguished, as if startled by his attention.
That night, he couldn't sleep. Lying in bed, he pondered what was happening. The strange sensations, inexplicable guesses, the ability to feel the state of crystalline technologies—all of it didn't fit within the framework of ordinary intuition. It was something more, something that touched the very nature of reality.
Memories of his modified kitchen droid surfaced with new sharpness. He had been so engrossed in the possibilities of improving AI that he hadn't considered the consequences. But when the droid suddenly stopped mid-dinner preparation and froze, Alex desperately wanted to understand what had gone wrong.
Now, lying in the darkness, Alex understood how lucky he was. Modifying a mind was a dangerous game. The droid could have made a different decision. It could have decided that the problem wasn't with him, but with those around him. It could have tried to "fix" its creator, just as he had fixed it. A chill ran down his spine at the thought.
Perhaps it was then, in the moment of desperately wanting to understand the dying mind of a machine, that something awakened within him. Some ability to feel what was hidden from eyes and instruments. Empathy for technology, if one could call it that.
For several weeks, Alex tried to understand what was happening on his own. He experimented, meditated, tried to find patterns in his unusual sensations. But the more he thought about it, the more questions arose. Finally, he decided to talk to Uncle Garrek.
The evening was quiet, the rain outside had stopped, leaving only the steady dripping from the roof. Garrek sat at his workbench, studying schematics for a new order. Alex hesitated for a long time, unable to start the conversation, fiddling with a small energy crystal.
"Uncle," he finally said, "can we talk?"
Garrek looked up from the schematics and looked intently at his nephew. Something in Alex's voice made him put down his work.
"Of course. About what?"
"About... strange things," Alex sat down opposite his uncle. "Remember that R5 droid? How did I realize the problem was with the coordination crystal?"
"I remember. Good intuition."
"It wasn't intuition," Alex spun the crystal in his hands. "I felt that the crystal... was dead. Not damaged, not broken—just dead. As if there was no life in it."
Garrek frowned but didn't interrupt.
"And then there were other cases. I anticipate program glitches, I can identify faulty components before diagnostics," Alex looked up at his uncle. "I found information about midichlorians in the archives. I had an analysis done. I have almost three thousand."
Garrek was silent for a long time, studying his nephew's face. Then he said quietly, "And what do you think about it?"
"I don't know what to think," Alex put down the crystal. "It scares me. All these sensations, this... connection with technology. What does it mean? What's happening to me?"
His uncle stood up and walked to the window, looking at the city lights.
"You know, Alex, I had that analysis done too. A long time ago, when I was young. I have about the same number of midichlorians as you. Maybe a little less—2800 something."
Alex looked at his uncle in surprise.
"But you never said..."
"What is there to say?" Garrek turned to his nephew. "Everyone has midichlorians. Some have more, some have less. You feel something—good. I don't feel anything, despite having almost 3000 midichlorians. Numbers are just numbers."
"But how can that be?" Alex couldn't hide his disappointment. "The archives say that a high concentration should give abilities..."
"Don't worry about it," his uncle returned to the table and sat opposite his nephew. "The archives are full of theories and assumptions. One researcher thinks this way, another—completely differently. There's one approach to understanding the Force, and there's another. Some believe midichlorians are the key to everything, others claim they're not important at all."
Alex thought. The archives indeed contained many contradictory theories. Some scientists claimed that midichlorians were intermediaries between living beings and some universal energy. Others considered them simply symbiotic organisms without special properties. Still others suggested that abilities depended not on the number of midichlorians, but on the ability to interact with them.
"Do you know what I thought about when studying all this material?" Alex said. "If I wanted to hide something, I would hide it in a pile of similar nonsense. I would create dozens of theories, hundreds of hypotheses, so that the truth would get lost among them."
Garrek chuckled: "Not a bad idea. But most likely, no one really knows how it works. Or they know, but they don't say."
"And what do you think about my... sensations?"
His uncle was silent for a long time, considering his answer.
"I think you have a gift. It doesn't matter if it's related to midichlorians or something else. You feel what I don't. It can be useful."
"But it scares me," Alex admitted. "What if I lose control? What if these abilities change me?"
"And what if they don't?" Garrek leaned forward. "Listen, Alex. You've been special your whole life. Your mind, your ability to understand technology—these are also gifts. Were you afraid of them?"
"No, but..."
"Then why are you afraid of this?" his uncle pointed to the crystal, which was again in Alex's hands. "It's part of you. No more and no less than your intellect or your hands."
Alex looked at the crystal. It glowed faintly, responding to his touch.
"How do I live with this?"
"As you have lived so far," Garrek said simply. "Use your abilities for good deeds. Help people. Study the world. And don't think too much about why you can do what others cannot."
"And what if someone finds out?"
"And what if they don't?" his uncle shrugged. "You're not going to fly around the room or move objects with your mind, are you? You just fix technology well. Who can that scare?"
Alex smiled. His uncle, as always, knew how to reduce complex things to simple truths.
"Thank you, Uncle. I feel better."
"That's good. Now go to sleep. We have a lot of work tomorrow."
But Alex wasn't in a hurry to leave. He still held the crystal, watching its soft glow.
"Uncle, have you ever regretted not feeling the same as I do?"
Garrek thought.
"You know, sometimes I did. Especially when I was young. It seemed unfair to me—why do I have a high level of midichlorians, but no abilities? But then I realized that everyone has their own path. My gift is in something else. In the ability to work with my hands, in understanding people, in the ability to create comfort and security for those I love."
"That's also important," Alex agreed.
"Very important. Perhaps even more important than any supernatural abilities."
They talked a little more about everyday matters, but Alex's thoughts were occupied with something else. The conversation with his uncle helped him understand the main thing—his abilities didn't make him better or worse than other people. They were simply part of who he was.
When Alex finally went to sleep, the crystal in his hand glowed with a steady, calm light. For the first time in a long time, the young man felt at peace with himself. Tomorrow would be a new day, new mysteries, and new discoveries. But now he knew—he didn't need to fear who he was becoming.
The rain outside the window resumed, but now its sound seemed soothing, like a lullaby. Alex fell asleep, holding the glowing crystal in his hand, and for the first time in a long time, his dreams were peaceful.