Aether is the alias of a magically adept youth named Jeremy, who was captured by Kemetic Solutions in Phase Three.
Personality
Aether is a kind, but troubled young man who, from an early age, possessed a vocation for manipulating technology. He is friendly towards The Mountaineers, who he trusted to save him from Kemetic Solutions. Aether has a strong connection with Constance and, though he was in danger, seemed more concerned about her safety than his own fate.
Biography
Aether learned about his magiqal powers at a young age, after being prescribed medication for his depression. The medication awoke his latent ability to manipulate machines, and made Aether realize that the non-magiqal world was a lie. Together with his best friend Constance, he found The Low and came into contact with other magiqally experienced individuals. Sometime after Aether came into contact with the Low, he began receiving phone calls from someone claiming to know of Aether’s powers and that he could help him.
In November 2016, Aether was kidnapped by an employee of Kemetic Solutions named Theodore Fallon, who intended to use him to study his abilities and open a door into a world where magiq was more prevalent. Aether was taken to Kemetic Solutions’ underground facility, along with two other individuals—Portencia and Climber—whom he could hear through the walls of his cell. Aether and the other subjects were put through multiple tests, including monthly sleep studies, to study their magiq powers. Kemetic Solutions utilized drugs in order to enhance their magiqal potential. They were also tortured and lied to in order to ensure their compliance.
Aether was first encountered in Fragment Ten, when Martin Rank visited the Kemetic Solutions headquarters. Using his ability to manipulate technology, Aether embedded hidden messages into Martin’s pictures, which he posted on the Basecamp 33 Forum. Recruits followed Aether’s clues to find Kemetic Solutions’ website.
In one of Martin’s photos was a file, patience.rtf, which was password-protected with the word “aether”. It contained the words “63 minutes,” which lead recruits to wait for 63 minutes on the Kemetic Solutions website. When they did this, Recruits were greeted by an internal promotional video for Kemetic Solutions. Later, Recruits found some of their posts edited by a new user: xxxxaetherxxxx. After analyzing the dates and times of the posts, they were able to pinpoint a specific day and time. After visiting the Kemetic Solutions website at that time, they found that the internal promo video had been altered, becoming interspersed with clips of Aether’s kidnapping.
Analyzing Aether’s video, they found words hidden in them that pointed to a Tumblr blog known as There Are No Constance. The blog belonged to Aether’s best friend Constance, who was able to inform recruits of Aether’s sudden disappearance. Constance allowed recruits access to Aether’s Tumblr blog by giving them the password TheCommonDrumCalls. The Tumblr account had a Youtube video posted from the Basecamp’s official account—a livestream hangout set for five days in the future. When the day of the livestream arrived, recruits were able to speak to Aether, who informed them of his dire situation. He had been kidnapped by Kemetic Solutions so that they could open the door to the magical world and control it. Aether ended the video by saying that he planned to escape Kemetic Solutions by invading their systems with his powers, and he warned Mountaineers that the churning storm was coming.
In Fragment Twelve, Martin Rank successfully broke into Kemetic Solutions, with the help of Whistler, a Kemetic Solutions employee. He aimed to rescue Aether, as well as Climber (Alison, also known as AlisonB on the forum) and Portencia, two other adepts being held by Kemetic Solutions. After Martin broke in, using Whistler’s security badge to enter the sublevel, Teddy Fallon revealed that Whistler had not, in fact, awoken from Kemetic Solutions’ brainwashing, but had instead been part of a plot to help them acquire Marty, who Fallon claimed was a kind of magical adept known as a well. However, Marty and Aether had anticipated a trap, and when Marty entered the sublevel, Aether had shut down Kemetic’s firewalls from Marty’s Bluetooth and begun to send their files to a secure server (which Martin later visited in Fragment Fifteen). Eventually, with the help of Portencia, who summoned a magiqal escape door, they were all able to escape alive.
After this, Martin managed to take all of the former Kemetic Solutions prisoners, including Aether, to his ex-wife Isabella’s beach house, where they would be safe from the Storm.
The Secret Society
According to Martin Rank’s “A Quick Check-in” post from February 2018, Aether, Alison, and Portencia were all still living together and adjusting back to normal life as a family unit. He reported that Aether was “scouring what’s left of the Low as we knew it . . . to find a way to reverse the memory effects of the Storm.” Martin went on to say that he didn’t have high hopes in Aether’s success, but that the project kept him busy, and allowed him to maintain hope that his mom and Constance, along with all of the others affected by the Storm, would someday be okay. Martin also mentioned that the trio was finding it more difficult to use their adept powers, most likely due to the diminishing capacity of magic in the world.
Search for Magiq
After coming into contact with Eaves during the Search for Magiq, the Mountaineers learned that Aether had since left the group including Portencia and Alison behind, but his current whereabouts are unknown.