ConQuest (The Quest Saga)

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  Q felt his hands grip onto the badge tighter.

  “Why don’t we take Q to Chepauk?” Taylor asked Carlos.

  “Chepauk?”

  “Chepauk, our official training grounds. You want to go?” Carlos turned towards Q.

  Q nodded excitedly. Carlos led them to what Q assumed to be an elevator.

  “That’s a transporter,” Taylor said. “Teleports you to different places in the academy. Really fast!”

  Carlos pressed a button after they all got in. Immediately, Q could feel himself being stretched out like noodles. His stomach felt worse and worse. By the time they reached, Q was flat on the floor. Taylor smiled at him, giving him a hand up.

  “I’ll get used to it?” he asked, before she could even say anything. All he knew was that his stomach had made it clear that it didn’t like the ride.

  As Q stood up, he gasped at the sight before him. The whole of Chepauk was just a glass box! And a full scale battle was raging inside.

  Just then a tanker inside exploded and hurtled towards Q.

  He froze.

  Nothing happened.

  Q was astounded. The glass wall stood firm between him and the tanker. The tanker didn't even make a single scratch on it!

  “It’s a new material we have developed, transparent like glass but extremely strong. We call it ‘Cotton candy’,” Carlos said.

  Q looked inside the Chepauk. He saw what could be described as a video game battle. All sorts of high tech laser guns, tanks, armor and laser sabers were being pulled into battle. The whole scene looked like it had come out live from a Gameloft game.

  “It looks just like my video games,” Q observed.

  Carlos laughed heartily. “Who do you think makes those games?”

  “No way! You mean ... It can’t be...” Q stuttered.

  A woman turned to face Q. He hadn’t even noticed that she was standing there.

  Carlos introduced her to Q. “Q, meet Ravado. She’s the designer of every single sci-fi game on the face of the earth.”

  Q thought that Ravado was an odd name for a woman. She was a short lady. Her face looked exactly like a human’s, which disappointed Q. Her hair was white, but he could see a hint of a faint blue as well. She wore glasses and carried a pad in her arms. Her face looked as though she was thinking very seriously. She looked at Q, sizing him up.

  Q was breathless. His whole sci-fi gaming world made by a ‘creature’! He had to admit that it did kind of make sense. No ordinary human could have designed games like that.

  “I tend to have that effect on kidssssss,” Ravado hissed to Q.

  “Issss thisss the guy?” she asked Carlos

  The guy? What did that mean? Q thought.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Carlos told Ravado.

  “Alwaysssss a pleasssure,” she hissed as she left.

  For an extra terrestrial lady, she sure acted a lot like an earthly snake.

  A question that kept bothering Q was why this academy had to even exist and what these ‘creatures’ were doing here. He tried to bring it up with Carlos, but he kept getting distracted every single time.

  They say try, try and try again. Q did that and finally got Carlos to pay attention to his question.

  “I guess I should tell you that aliens don’t exist. Just us humans,” Carlos said.

  “So Earth is the only planet that sustains life?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Q blinked a few times. Remember the times when your teacher taught you something and you couldn’t make head or tail of it? That’s how he felt right now.

  “Remember early man? He didn’t just appear on earth. He arrived. The meteor that took out the dinosaurs? That was his spaceship. He was a member of a large intergalactic species. His counterparts started civilizations all over the universe.

  “So, all around the universe, just plain old humans?”

  “You’re half right. Yes, zyxians are the only race that exists in this universe but no, all of them are not the same. Different groups of zyxians adapted to their surroundings by mutating. The Earthlings hold the name Gaia. Each planet has its own name. As a species though, zyxians, wherever they are in the universe, are called Zyxians.”

  “So how about the animals and plants on Earth? How did they come into existence?”

  “Each planet has its own native wildlife but so far no intelligent forms of life other than zyxians have been discovered.”

  “I still don’t get why S.P.A.C.E had to be set up.”

  “I’m coming to that. A millennium ago, our universe had visitors. We called them Megethos. They were from a different dimension and were highly advanced. We were no match for them. Finally, a desperate sacrifice helped us win but everything didn’t turn back to normal,” Carlos’ voice dragged on.

  Q wondered what kind of sacrifice Carlos was talking about.

  Carlos continued, “The Inter-Dimensional Beings or IDBs as we call them, had to open up inter-dimensional portals to get to this dimension. These portals started destabilizing our universe. It took all our efforts to close them. But even that amount of power could only seal them weakly. Any disturbance could break the seal. So to counter it we had to assign keepers to each portal.”

  “What type of disturbance?” Taylor asked surprisingly. It looked like even she didn’t know this part.

  “It would have to be huge release of energy, like a supernova,” Carlos explained. “So the most efficient keepers could only be .....”

  “Black holes,” Q finished. Carlos looked at him for a moment.

  He continued, “The black holes absorbed any form of matter or energy that came close to the portals. Thus the portals could never be disturbed. So, to ensure the protection and existence of the universe, S.P.A.C.E was set up. There’s one more thing you should know. During the war, Earth was a common refueling site. Medieval men saw the extra terrestrial zyxians and thought they were gods. Some of them even shared information with the ancient civilizations. Earth’s sector number, 21.12.12 was shared with the Mayans who interpreted it as the death date of the world.”

  “Earth was a refueling site?” Q asked.

  “We were sitting on top of a ‘gold’ mine. It’s just that we didn’t know about it. Nitrogen, when applied to uranium in a specific way, could create a reaction, releasing energy close to the E = mc2 efficiency rate,” Carlos explained.

  This was all too much for Q to take in. His head was spinning. When a guy’s whole concept of normal is thrown for a toss, that kind of reaction is ‘normal’.

  “Taylor, why don’t you take Q to the storage room, they might have some clothes there,” Carlos said.

  “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

  “Do you want to wear a sweaty football jersey?”

  Q looked at himself. Everything that happened had been so sudden that he hadn't even had time to change. He hadn’t even realized that he was still in his football jersey.

  “You got your badge?” Taylor asked Q. He held it out for her to see.

  She took him back to the main building. They had just entered the door when suddenly alarms started blaring.

  “What’s wrong?” Q asked.

  He didn’t understand what was going on, but he knew that alarms going off weren’t a good sign in any part of the world.

  Unless of course, it’s the school fire alarm, after which you’re excused from classes and get to go home happily.

  “I don’t know,” Taylor said.

  Q walked to the window and looked out. He saw a huge ship coming right at him!

  There was a man sitting in the pilot’s seat shouting something that Q couldn’t hear. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. He felt a searing heat over his body and then saw the glass break in front of him. His hand instinctively went up and he heard a loud blast. He buckled to the ground with eyes closed.

  Taylor on the other hand didn’t realize what was happening until she saw Q fall down. That was when she saw the ship right in f
ront of Q’s limp form. It took a moment to process what had happened.

  All she could make out was that the ship had stopped just in front of the building and Q had fainted at the sight of the ship speeding towards him. It didn’t make sense though, since Q wasn’t really the ‘fainted because I was scared’ type.

  The people around her all looked at Q in astonishment like he’d done something amazing. Now Taylor knew that Q had done something. What had astounded all these people?

  She didn’t need to think any further as Carlos came along and told her the whole story.

  “Is he alright?” he asked her.

  “I think so. But we’d better get him to the infirmary just to be sure,” she suggested.

  They put Q in a wheelchair and took him to the infirmary.

  “It was amazing! The ship was about to ram into Q, but he just thrust his hand forward and created a barrier,” Carlos was as giddy as a school boy.

  “Where did you see it from?” Taylor asked, wondering where Carlos got such an accurate view from.

  “The main bridge is right across from here. The force field emitted a bright flash of light, so it was quite easy to spot”

  Taylor was not in any state of calm. She couldn’t believe that Q had just created a force field, something that was unthinkable! She knew that he had some sort of power, but not at this level! And he was still a novice!

  “Stay with him until morning. He might need help.”

  Carlos made Q lie down on a bed and rushed out. Taylor pulled up a chair and sat by Q’s bed.

  “Good night Q,” she whispered.

  Dreams

  Q opened his eyes and looked around.

  “That’s odd. Why am I in a hospital?” he wondered aloud.

  And then he saw Taylor sleeping in a chair next to him.

  He wondered what was going on. He had no memory of what had happened.

  Q spotted another guy sleeping in a chair in a corner of the room. The guy looked quite young and short, about 15 or 16 years old. His face seemed like he was an Asian, probably Japanese.

  The guy looked really familiar to Q but he couldn’t place where he had seen him before. Q tried to get up but instead just ended up tiring himself out. He was too weak.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he said, addressing no one in particular. His whole body ached from head to toe. He felt as though he’d just finished running a cross-country marathon.

  Taylor woke up just then. She noticed that Q was already awake.

  “Oh good, you’re up.” She propped up a pillow for him and helped him sit up.

  Q tried to ask her what had happened but his mouth wouldn’t open up.

  Taylor fed him something white. They were crunchy and sweet. He instantly felt better. He could feel a warmth coursing through his entire body. It felt like an elixir that healed anything.

  “What were those things?” Q managed to say this time.

  “Doctored sugar cubes. They taste good and are amazing at healing people,” she said. “You’d better get some more rest,” she suggested.

  “What exactly happened to me?” he asked Taylor.

  Taylor spent the next 10 minutes explaining to him how he had saved a few people by creating a force field.

  Of course, Q didn’t believe a single word she said. For one simple reason, it was CRAZY! How could he, a simple 15-year-old create something as complicated as a force field?

  And that too without any tech involved! It was theoretically impossible for a human to create a force field!

  After a talk like that, Q felt the impelling need to change the subject.

  “So this place is for inter-galactic warriors?”

  “No, no. Navigators, healers, pilots, warriors...”

  “And you?” Q asked her.

  Taylor stared at him for a second.

  “I’m a cleric.”

  After looking at Q’s quizzical expression she decided to make it simpler for him.

  “I’m a medic, a doctor, a healer.”

  Q smiled sheepishly.

  Guess she realized I didn’t know what a cleric was, he thought.

  “So can anyone enroll at S.P.A.C.E?”

  “Well, people of all ages enroll but you’d have to take a lot of trouble getting here in the first place. The portal won’t work for an ordinary Zyxian. Plus, S.P.A.C.E doesn’t accept any normal Zyxian. It’d be like accepting cats into an army.”

  Q didn’t really understand that comparison but right now, there were even bigger things bugging him.

  “What exactly is your definition of normal?”

  Taylor took a deep breath.

  “You know that all of matter can change into energy, right?”

  Q nodded.

  “Sometimes Zyxians will be born with a special reserve of energy in their bodies. They hold pure energy, not energy in the form of matter. These kinds of people are not normal.”

  So I’m not normal?, Q wondered.

  He thought about it for himself. No fifteen-year-old goes around creating force fields. From what Taylor said, he figured he had a reserve of energy inside him as well.

  “So how does a person get this reserve of energy?”

  “It’s determined only by birth. It’s a mutation. You either get it through your genes or you get your DNA mutated by accident.”

  Q wondered if his long-gone parents were warriors as well. It seemed so since Carlos was a special one too.

  Maybe I should just ask Carlos, Q thought.

  Taylor continued, “The portal works only if you have excess energy. The portal uses that excess energy to propel you faster and faster. Any normal person would get crushed like paper if he entered the portal. Someone who did get here, however that may be, wouldn’t be allowed to enter S.P.A.C.E because the Z.E.S would immediately snuff them out as normal Zyxians.”

  “The Z.E.S?”

  “Zyxian Energy Scanner. It’s basically a scanner that searches for the excess energy in Zyxians. Like I told you before, it’s dangerous for normal Zyxians to be here. Warfare isn’t exactly their strong point.”

  While he was having this conversation with Taylor, Q saw the guy in the corner twitching.

  “Who’s he?” He pointed to the guy.

  “He’s the pilot of the ship you stopped. He felt guilty and wanted to apologize personally. He couldn't believe that you survived. No one could have!”

  The guy woke up. He took one glance at Q and immediately rushed to his side.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I really am. I had no idea that would happen. I’m really sorry man,” he said.

  He would’ve said ‘I’m sorry’ a million times if Q didn’t tell him that it was okay.

  “It’s okay? You sure?” he asked Q

  “Sure dude. The name’s Q. What’s yours?”

  He shook Q’s hand. “Kai,” he said.

  The intercom flared up. “All aerial personnel are to report to the bridge immediately,” a voice said.

  “Aerial what?” Q asked.

  “Aerial personnel. It’s just fancy talk for pilot,” Kai smiled “Well, I guess I’d better be going. Again, I’m really sorry for everything.”

  And with that Kai dashed out of the room.

  “Well, I’m going to get something to eat. Do you want anything?” Taylor asked

  “Nah, I’m just going to take another nap. I’m really tired.”

  Taylor left the room. A few minutes later Q was fast asleep.

  He had hoped he wouldn’t have a weird dream again and surprisingly for once the universe obliged. It gave him a horrid nightmare instead!

  Q was back on the soccer field again. After some time, he realized this was the exact scene that had happened after he scored the penalty.

  Taylor came up to him. “C’mon, let’s take you home,” she said.

  Q walked with her until the entrance. He knew he was supposed to get onto her Harley Davidson but that didn’t happen.

  The whole Rock Crushers team blocke
d the entrance.

  “Going somewhere, lovebirds?” the largest one said.

  “What should we do, Nigel?” said another one

  Q was about to protest about the lovebirds part but he figured it’d be best to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t need those guys trying to beat him up.

  “What do you want?” Taylor asked the guy called Nigel. Q couldn’t believe that a girl like Taylor just talked back to a hunk like that. The guy was a giant for god’s sake!

  “Lookie here boys, I’m scared,” Nigel pretended to cry. Anger started to swell up inside Q. Bullying him was one thing. Bullying Taylor was another. And he didn't like it one bit.

  Q let out a battle cry and charged at him. Nigel had a smirk on his face as if he was expecting Q to do that. Q tried to whack him in his stomach but Nigel saw through it immediately. He stepped aside, grabbed Q’s arm and lifted him in the air like he was a rag doll.

  “Nooo!” Taylor shrieked.

  Nigel brought Q down, full force. Q felt like his whole body was turning into powder. He tried to get up, but a piercing pain shot through his leg. He instantly knew he’d broken it. He was surprised that was all he had broken. Nigel walked up to him.

  “I’m not giving up,” Q said, but his body said otherwise. Nigel curled his hand into a fist and grinned at Q.

  “Later, loser,” he said.

  “STOP IT!” Taylor yelled from behind him.

  It was so frightening that even Nigel got a bit scared. She raised her hands. Q wondered if all she did was to make sure they killed her as well.

  That reminded him, he didn’t even know why these guys were trying to kill him.

  Taylor drew a sign with her hands. It started glowing in mid-air. He was busy admiring the glowing sign when he heard something that sounded like paper being torn. He turned back and stared in disbelief.

  The Rock Crushers were growing in size right before his eyes. The sound he heard was their shirts ripping apart. Ever notice how when monsters turn to their true form they always lose the shirt but have their shorts on?

  Q was stunned. He wanted to run away but his legs weren’t obeying him. The ‘whatever they were’ giants walked towards Q when all of a sudden they got blasted by a huge blue flame. He looked back at Taylor, who was staring at him coolly.