by Jedi Reach
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Sometime later in her meditation, Xenia entered an ascended state and gathered the power to project her consciousness outside her body. She glanced at herself meditating through her astral body, then, remembering the footage she saw of the monster, zeroed in on the energy signature of the underground lab and teleported to it.
An abrupt energy emission erupted inside the lab and Xenia appeared. She looked around the room to see men in hazmat suits cleaning while soldiers patrolled the broken base, suspicious and worrisome. They couldn’t see her, though if they had the right technology, they might’ve been able to detect her. The thing that really caught Xenia’s attention was The Doorway. It was still active.
What are you? She wondered as she walked to the portal, slowly touching the tip of it with her hand. The energy didn’t seem to harm her. It moved like a superfluid. Although Xenia was using her astral body, she still had to exercise caution.
Who knew what kind of dangers awaited?
That didn’t stop her curiosity. Xenia wanted answers. She empowered her astral body with a protective barrier and walked into the portal.
**************
Time and space twisted around the ET as she ventured through the doorway. Inside the portal was like a bridge between the heavens. Stars that were far away appeared like tiny dots then molted into long lines connected at a single point straight ahead. Xenia followed the path, eventually exiting the portal into a cold, dark cavern.
Odd, the alien observed her new surroundings.
She heard drips of water nearby and noticed a thick fog covering the area. Sporadic flashes of dim, red light penetrated the darkness as if it were a means out of the cave. Xenia looked back at the portal she came from.
Do not close, she thought to herself before pursuing the flashes of light. Every step she took through the mist, a sense of dread crawled in her blood. The atmosphere was thick, the gravity, punishing. Whatever this place was, it felt like a pressurized container ready to burst. Once she got out of the cave and peered into the distance, Xenia had to blink twice to assure herself she hadn’t gone mad.
“What in stars?” she blurted in her native tongue while looking at a barren wasteland covered in a thick, hazy atmosphere with two dim suns overhead. Thunder cracked, and the ground rumbled followed by red lightning scorching the twilight sky. Xenia peered to her right.
A pyramid? She identified the large, rotting building before flying over to it. What’s this doing out here?
Xenia brushed her astral fingers across the surface.
This is ancient.
A crack of thunder roared again, bringing more lightning with it. Though Xenia was using a projection of her consciousness, she still felt everything as if she were there. That made her a little nervous, considering she hadn’t seen such a place, and yet, it was awfully familiar.
The alien pushed her hand into the pyramid to check if it was safe. There didn’t seem to be any danger, so she pushed again, this time with her whole body through the wall. She found herself in a long, narrow hallway leading to a dimly lit chamber on her left. Xenia cautiously approached the room, her eyes darting around to observe the architecture.
Why does it feel so familiar?
She moved inside the chamber and halted to observe. It appeared to be an ancient command room, worn by age and battle. There were patches of black fungi on the floors and walls, perhaps the spread of nature taking over an abandoned place.
What’s that?
She noticed a codex on one of the posts. The alien moved to it and touched it with her fingers. The codex itself was lifeless, the battery long expired, but Xenia could feel the residue energies on it. She braced herself and connected to the energy of the codex. Her hair stood on end as she drew deep into the energy. Death flooded her mind. The sight of plague and the screams of an entire people lost from war overwhelmed the ET.
A towering shadow moved behind her.
Xenia sensed it and turned around.
A powerful grip grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her feet, forcing her to stare into the culprit’s hellish eyes. Xenia panicked. Whatever this thing was, it couldn’t just see her, it could hurt her on the astral plane. The shadow’s grip tightened, petrifying Xenia, then threw her out of the pyramid. Xenia crashed outside on the cold, barren wastes, filled with ash that fell like airless snow. She coughed up blood and panted for air. The Shadow landed in front of her. She tried to get to her feet, only to feel herself being held down. Black vines grew around her arms and legs, entangling her from getting away.
“A Syraise Herald on Earth? How interesting.” the monster spoke, its voice causing the ground to tremble. A loud, bestial roar echoed overhead. Xenia looked to see where it came from. A four-legged shadow beast with a long tail, long head, and fiery red eyes, crawled over the peak above. It roared again. A horde rallied in the distance, stampeding their way towards the call.
Xenia felt the monster’s overwhelming presence while swarms of psychic visions from the codex flooded her mind. The alien wanted to scream; her mind bombarded with death. The Shadow stretched his hand at Xenia and crushed his fist into a ball. The vines grew tighter, choking and squeezing the alien. The pain grew overbearing, Xenia was certain this was it, she couldn’t fight back.
“The mistakes of your fathers are on you.” the monster hissed. A glimpse of Jace flashed in Xenia’s head and fire came to her chest.
Not like this! She thought.
A powerful current surged through her body and she rose to her feet, the vines snapping and breaking. Xenia’s eyes glowed bright as she held her ground, ready to take on The Shadow Monster. More beasts appeared, one on Xenia’s left, another to her right. Soon, other beasts joined, and Xenia found herself outnumbered from every direction.
“You challenge my freedom then you will die, Herald. Stay out of my way.” the Shadow snarled.
The beasts drew nearer, their fangs oozing with drool, hungry to pounce. The alien felt out of options. She had one card to play and it was a dangerous one. Xenia exploded her astral body, sending enormous gusts of light in all directions.
“Ahh!!!” she screamed as she woke out of her meditation in her real body, clutching her chest while she replayed everything that happened in her head. The alien coughed and looked at her hand. Blood.
**************
Agents 33 and 36 heard Xenia’s screams through the door by their post. Both men stared at each other.
“The hell was that?” 36 asked.
“You think she’s finally cracking?” 33 wondered.
“What do you mean?” 36 raised a brow.
“Think about it. You go to some backwater planet, you help those primitive creatures out, then you get arrested. You can’t go anywhere you want; you’re just stuck -”
The door slid open and Xenia walked passed the agents dressed in her night robe and blindfold. She stopped a few feet from them and tied her hair into a ponytail, her back turned to the agents as if they weren’t even there.
“You were saying?” 36 teased his friend.
Xenia glanced at them.
“Boys, I need you to take me to Stone.” she ordered.
The men in black stared at each other and shrugged.
“Yes ma’am.” they said to the ET.
CHAPTER 5
Outside Plancks National Laboratory, a federal complex connected to the US Department of Energy in the forests of Illinois, three black SUVs drove to and halted at the electric front gate of the compound. The post guard got out of his seat and walked to the first vehicle, curious who these new arrivals were. No one was expected, and nobody randomly waltzes in. The guard knocked on the passenger window in the front to get their attention. The glass rolled down.
“You on the list? We don’t do tour guides.” he stated.
Jace flashed his clearance card at the guard.
“How about now?” Jace smiled half-heartedly.
**************
Jace and his MiB bodyguards were escorted into Plancks complex; a huge, multi-layered building where experiments ranging from simply turning on lights to powering particle accelerators were being performed on different floors. Jace ordered his guards to stay back while he followed the escort to go meet someone. He didn’t want his target to get startled by a mob.
“What are you guys working on in here?” Jace asked as they walked passed a biohazard warning on a temporary glass door, leading to a sealed off part of the complex.
“You’re asking the wrong guy,” the escort replied. “The guy you should be asking is in there.”
Jace scratched his chin.
What did Scott do this time?
The Nova Leader followed the path to the sealed off area, the escort behind him. The pathway there was dimly lit, but in the distance, electrical currents and machines could be heard. Whatever they were doing in there, Jace jokingly thought it to be mad science.
The escort swiped his access card over a computerized terminal on a door. The door opened, and the two men walked in. Inside was a spacious laboratory packed with scientists scrambling all over the place like worker ants. Jace found himself and the escort on an open observatory floor while below, the scientists performed experiments on reactors, swirling with thick, blue, electrical currents.
“Mr. Bates?” the escort called for the head scientist, a spikey haired fair skinned man in his early 30s, sporting a pair of mechanical goggles. The lead scientist, who was actually the Engineer Jace came for, ignored the escort’s call.
“Come on, come on, come on!” he shouted at the other scientists. “This is unacceptable! Start the tests again, we’ll go back to round one!”
“Mr. Bates?” the escort tried again.
“WHAT?!” the Engineer spun around, annoyed.
He caught sight of the Scion next to the escort.
“Jace?” Scott couldn’t believe his eyes.
**************
The Engineer and the Nova Leader moved to one of the nearby observatory hallways to have a private chat. Scott was happy to see Jace, almost relieved.
“About time you showed up.” he commented sometime into their conversation, checking through the observatory glass to make sure his scientists weren’t screwing around.
“You were expecting me?” Jace wondered aloud.
“Come on,” Scott scoffed. “Who do you think created The Doorway? You act like I haven’t created any technology for psionic purposes before. I knew when The Doorway started acting up, you or Stone would eventually show up.”
“Wait a minute,” Jace halted him. “You know what happened?”
“I know something happened. I always code backdoors into my creations. It’s my way of making sure everything runs fine from my end. The Doorway started acting up, giving off these strange frequencies and then it just turned off. Three years ago, Stone passed me a contract to create The Doorway. They never told me what it was for, only for the sake of pushing science – the science of wormholes using psionic stimulation-based technology…”
Jace scratched his chin visualizing Scott’s words.
“…you know, the same stuff I worked on for Nova? Psionic stimulation technology? The stuff that enhances your guy’s abilities? Anyways, I figured it was gonna’ be used by Scions somehow, so I put 2 and 2 together, and voila, here you are.” Scott continued.
“I see.” Jace calmly replied.
“You mind telling me what’s going on Jace? What are you really doing here?” Scott pushed.
“You might wanna’ sit down for this.”
“Okay?” Scott took a seat on the built-in wall couch that ran parallel to the hallway. “Enlighten me.”
Jace took a deep breath.
“You’re getting reassigned.”
“Reassigned? I’m an independent contractor-”
“An independent contractor with high level clearance and military training.”
“Hold up,” Scott got back to his feet and looked Jace in the eye. “How do you have that kind of authority? Wait, wait…” the engineer’s mind went on overdrive, reflecting over Jace being allowed into his workspace and his clearance.
“…it’s Nova,” Scott dinged like a lightbulb. “It’s active again?”
“You were right that something happened. That’s why I’m here.”
Scott dropped back on the couch and raised his arms up like he was waving a white flag. The Engineer opened himself up to hear what the Scion had to say, dumbfounded by Nova’s rebirth. Jace reached into his coat and pulled out a small gadget that displayed a holographic replay of The Doorway’s opening.
“This is what happened to your portal.” Jace said.
“Wow, EBE?” Scott blurted when he saw The Shadow.
“We don’t know.” Jace sat next to him.
The two men looked through the observatory glass in silence for a few moments while flashes of blue lightning struck and lit their faces from the reactor’s ongoing experiments below.
“This is why you’re being reassigned. You and your team,” Jace broke the silence. “Whatever came through that portal took Lea and it’s on the loose.”
“Lea?” Scott looked at Jace. “Lea the Scion?”
Jace nodded.
“Oh man, the Frankenstein experiment they kept locked up. How was she allowed to operate?”
Jace shrugged.
“Right, don’t ask, don’t tell.” Scott said, defeated.
The two men looked on some more in silence. Jace felt the weight of the situation on his shoulders while Scott remained dumbfounded. He was certain Jace would give him more intel and answer what could be answered, but beyond that, he thought about The Doorway. Although Lea harnessed the portal, The Doorway was his creation. It made him feel a sense of guilt.
“Do you think the end justifies the means?” Scott asked.
“What do you mean?” Jace glanced at him.
“Science,” Scott turned to him. “How far would you go for science?”
“That’s a good question.” Jace reflected.
The two men sat in the comfort of each other’s silence for a bit, each of them feeling both duty and responsibility for everything that happened. It took some time before Scott came to his senses and accepted his reassignment to Nova.
CHAPTER 6
Stone lit a cigarette and took a long, hard drag while he waited outside the Arizona site peering at the setting sun. Several helicopters and vehicles exited the base, each of them carrying various cargo ranging from exotic lab equipment to sophisticated weaponry. It was a massive relocation effort. Stone sensed Bakker approaching behind.
“Any word from Jace?” the Doctor asked, his back turned to his underling.
“He’s recruited the necessary personnel, they’re on route to Site X.” Bakker replied.
“Good,” Stone took another drag. “And the portal?”
“Still inactive.” Bakker moved next to his superior, both men looking at the setting sun as aircraft soared overhead.
“She wants to see you. Says she wants to negotiate” Bakker added.
Stone looked at Bakker and blew smoke from his mouth.
**************
Somewhere over the Caribbean seas, an unmarked private jet prepared for descent into a small, remote volcano island. Alongside the cabin crew, Jace, Aiden and Scott awaited the landing. The Nova Leader peered outside the window, past the plane’s wings to get a good view of the island below and the seas around it.
“How interesting they station us in the middle of nowhere.” Jace thought aloud.
“Free from jurisdiction and unnecessary break ins?” Scott looked outside his window. “Seems like a good place for science.”
“A good point.” Jace said and thought about what Aiden and himself discussed when they met. Could this be their new haven? He looked at Aiden as he thought about it, but the Viking seemed uneasy.
“Aiden?” he called to his friend.
Aiden glanced his way.
<
br /> “You good?” Jace asked.
“I’m fine, just hate flying.” Aiden said.
Jace chuckled. “We’re almost there. Breathe.”
“Alright gentlemen, we’re about to land, fasten your seatbelts.” the pilot announced over the comms.
**************
The jet circled the island upon descent, giving the crew a better look at their new base of operations. Though it was a volcano, it was dormant. Lush, green fields grew on the mountainous lands while rivers and lakes flourished containing a diverse ecosystem. There was a cleared patch of land near the event horizon of the volcano with high-tech buildings and runways; clearly the work of military science allowed to operate without bounds.
The jet landed and taxied to the airport, allowing the crew to dock. Jace holstered his backpack, stepped outside the plane after his comrades and took a deep breath. The atmosphere was clean, the environment; mostly quiet. Only the hums of machines could be heard but nothing too troublesome or loud. It helped when Jace saw the volcano in the background of the base with blue skies overhead, a reminder nature’s always in charge.
Jace looked to his left. Two jets were also parked nearby. Probably the other personnel, he thought to himself. Yet he felt a tug in his gut. Something else, no, someone else, was here. Jace moved away from his aircraft and looked around, observing the various crews of scientists, armed guards and engineers, greeting and familiarizing themselves with each other.
Where are you?
Then he saw it. The cause of the tug.
She wore a long black coat like his own with thigh high boots, her back turned from him, looking at the volcano overhead. She held her hands on her hips and her long, blonde hair flowed down her back. Jace brisk walked over to her, and as if the clues weren’t obvious, the blindfold was the last dead giveaway.
“Xenia?” Jace called behind her.
Xenia turned around, revealing the open coat over her one-piece suit, a psionic body amplifier cut around the pelvis area.
