Styzum examined the math and the diagrams on the sheet. When the uplanders arrived on their planet exactly as predicted by the Scripts of Elix, the whole underworld responded in a fear-filled rush to pursue all the undiscovered technologies of the energy-metal. They didn’t expect that the uplanders would bring two giant four-level structures with them nearly two generations ago, but in truth, the Scripts of Elix didn’t offer a whole lot of information on their initial arrival.
For the past generation, they secretly watched as the uplanders appeared to decline in their survival skills as well as their own knowledge regarding the new technologies they had brought with them. While the underworld was in a race to discover all the hidden secrets of both the microscopic and macroscopic world, the uplanders seemed to be living carefree lives of complete ignorance. They appeared to be moving backward.
As much as the formulas on the paper before him weren’t making any sense to Styzum, it did indeed look like Wiltrix was onto something huge. He tried to follow the scribbled diagrams, but alas just shook his head.
“Give me some theories,” Styzum said.
“It will sound like I’m crazy, but I’d swear these particles are moving to other places even before I prod them to do so. I’d swear they are travelling at impossible speeds. Not fast speeds… impossible speeds,” Wiltrix replied, “I believe this is the very secret we’ve been trying to find inside the energy-metal. Everything else for the past three generations has been child’s play.”
“Can you perform more tests? Different ones?” Styzum asked, “I don’t want to present anything to the elders unless we have something definite.”
“Yes, I’ve already got three students helping me on another one right now.”
My Awakening
My first experience after the scan in the Medical/Science tunnels was an odd and unexplainable sensation of fear. The fear was all encompassing like it had literally swallowed me whole. It was in this moment that I discovered the reason for this fear. I couldn’t see.
And it wasn’t a matter of just being blind. I actually couldn’t figure out how to open my eyes. I’d lost my ability to control my own eyes. I was blind and paralyzed at the same time.
“What happened?” Drexil’s voice came.
Drexil? At least I knew he was still in the lab with me.
“I can’t see?” I replied.
“Steine? Is that you?” Drexil asked.
“Yeah, it’s me. You can’t see either?” I replied.
“If you can’t see, neither can I. We’re the same,” Drexil added.
“We’re the… you mean we’re already in the IX7?” I asked, suddenly confused, “I was just scanned a few moments ago.”
“More like a hundred million moments ago,” Rewan’s voice suddenly interrupted.
Rewan was that uncommonly beautiful doctor that most males secretly wished would have to perform an operation on them – even if it meant having to suffer a significant injury to accomplish such a feat.
“Rewan, my love!” Drexil hollered, “Looks like the gang’s all here.”
“We might be living in the same body for the next few years, but that doesn’t mean I’m ‘your love,’ Drexil,” Rewan said.
“Nevertheless, I finally got into the head of the prettiest scientist of the underworld,” Drexil said.
She sighed audibly then added, “Anyway… how are you, Steine?”
“Alive apparently, and still living long after my time,” I said, “Where exactly are we anyway? I feel like I can’t even move.”
Before anyone could even answer, I felt a sudden shudder rattle through me. Then an unfamiliar voice called out.
“Emergency landing procedures. You must clear our landing site quickly before tpod is intercepted. Approximate intercept time: eleven minutes.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Drexil asked.
“Sounds like we are being dropped straight into a war zone,” I said.
“Your systems will fully come online now.”
Suddenly my eyes opened and I was faced with the dimly lit interior of our landing pod. The pod shuddered again and I reached out my hands to grasp the wall for balance. The reality of my new circumstances hit me when I saw the hands and arms of an uplander reaching to the walls for balance. My own skin no longer had the violet glow I was used to for the first thirty years of my life.
“There’s pertinent information to your new situation gathered through recent scans: Commit this all to memory. You are landing in an area called Roswell, New Mexico on a planet you will no longer refer to as Violation. It is Earth in the year of its citizens - 1947. You are human. You are a male of twenty-three years. The citizens only recently discovered the nuclear technology of Elix and scans report traces of weapons use or testing in recent months. This race is far more primitive than the people of our world. Seek out shelter as soon as possible and return a verdict within five years. The mission has begun.”
After that final direction, the pod shuddered again and the door before me opened. I was nearly blinded by a painfully intense light. I raised my hand to shadow my eyes as I moved quickly out into the new world.
“We need to get away from the pod as soon as possible. Who’s controlling our body?” Drexil asked.
“I am,” I replied, stumbling toward the shade of a few trees nearby, “And it’s not as easy as it looks, so if you two are fighting me in anyway, please stop.”
“I’m just a passenger, or at least that’s how it feels,” Rewan said.
“I’m not doing anything either, Steine,” Drexil added, “It seems like you’re fumbling about just fine without me. But would you mind turning down the lights the first chance you get?”
“Seriously,” I agreed.
I turned back and looked at the smoking remains of our pod resting in what appeared to be an enormous garden. The pod was now most likely destroying its internal systems at the moment while I stood there dumbly watching. My uplander hand was still at my brow, shading the light from my eyes.
“What da’ heck is that thing?” a voice startled me from behind.
So far, I hadn’t spoken a single word with my new mouth. All the conversations I’d been having were inside my own head and now I was faced with the moment of truth. The language he spoke was somewhat different from the language we learned, but I could make out the basic idea behind his question.
“Looks like some kind of aircraft,” I said, wondering if it was my own words for a moment.
The words sounded very different from what I had expected, but I was certain I was the one who had spoken them. I turned to find a disheveled uplander holding a large tool of some sort. The man was dirty and his clothing seemed quite a bit worn through in some areas.
“It’s a flying saucer,” the person said, “Aliens from space.”
“We just got here, Steine,” Drexil muttered in my head, “And we didn’t come from that pod. The three tines on his spear look fairly dangerous to me.”
I agreed and apparently so did Rewan. I nodded to the man, then looked back toward the pod.
“That’s what I was wondering. I think I’d better get out of here if there are aliens in that thing,” I said, backing away.
“I wish I had m’ camera,” the man said, “Maybe I ought get it.”
I nodded again, then turned toward the small building in the distance. I had no actual plan at the time and my two “passengers” offered no ideas of their own, so I simply lumbered toward the structure.
“Low-flying aircraft closing in.”
I paused suddenly and looked toward the horizon.
“Is the pod still communicating with us?” Rewan asked.
“That’s not the pod. It’s coming from one of our satellites,” Drexil replied, “We’ve got two of them.”
“A land vehicle bearing similar markings to the approaching aircraft is also en route to intercept. Recommending evasive maneuvers and prepare for potential interrogation.”
“Can we
shut this satellite up?” Rewan asked.
“Done,” I replied, “It shouldn’t be interrupting anymore unless it’s a true potential emergency.”
“Thank you,” she replied, “By the way, check out this program I just discovered.”
Suddenly the world around us darkened, making it much easier to see.
“How did you…”
“Our designers gave us a star shade program for our visual sensors,” Rewan interrupted, “They must have known that daylight would be a bit too much for us.”
“Nice find, my love,” Drexil said.
“Call me your love again and I’ll find a way to delete your profile from this unit,” she replied.
“Can we stop all this conversation, please?” I asked, “I’m having a hard enough time trying to figure out how to walk ‘normal’ without falling.”
“They never did get around to installing the gyroscopic sensors then, I take it,” Drexil said.
“Not as far as I can tell.”
LEGACY
193 AfEl (After Elix)
Drexil kept a hold of his father’s hand as he was led off the shuttle and onward toward the long tunnel thirty floors beneath the surface. He always loved the rides in the shuttles, which were rare in recent days, and unfortunately this time, they took the shuttle to Walick. Walick was one of the shortest shuttle trips they could have taken from Ghinjim.
“All this, Drexil…” his father said, gesturing toward the tunnel ahead of them, “All this was built in my own lifetime. Like I was saying yesterday, I’d swear we built fifty cities just since I was born. The invention of the shuttle changed everything.”
“But you said the invention of the digital systems changed everything, Dad,” Drexil said, intentionally challenging his father any way he could.
“Well, that definitely improved our world, but those digital systems wouldn’t even exist if we didn’t have shuttles that could connect us to all our cities,” he replied.
As they shifted through the crowd, Drexil became more and more aware of the accusing eyes turned his way. Most kids his age were in school right now, yet here was a young boy headed toward the Robotics Exhibit on level thirty. Here was a boy who was being groomed as a future space-farer. Here was a boy who was skipping school to learn about his own real future.
“Am I going to get in trouble for being here?” Drexil asked, suddenly feeling a bit guilty.
“Son, you’re going to be the boss of these people one day. Our future is in the heavens and I’ll let you in on a little secret,” his father said, pausing near the government building and kneeling next to him, “I think our future is going to be on the planet we’ve been calling Violation.”
“Really?” Drexil asked.
“The Scripts predicted the Great Violation and it came true. The uplanders invaded our homes and did some horrible things to our people, but the Scripts didn’t predict us kidnapping two of their own,” his father whispered, “And that is why I know we’re going to Violation one day.”
“Because of the kidnapping?”
“No, because we learned where they came from and we are currently learning their language. There’s a reason for all this and I think it all relates to all those new technologies we are constantly creating,” he said, then patted Drexil on the back, “And that’s why we’re coming here today.”
He waved his hand at the Main Lecture Hall. Drexil examined the building, watching dozens of people pouring into the lecture hall through the giant double-doors. A sign hung on the open door that faced him exclaiming, “The Future is Now! Robotics Exhibit today!”
“This is going to be great!” Drexil cheered in the way that children often did.
. . .
“I’m honored to see how many have joined us today. As I look out at the crowd, I’m getting a little nervous. Not because I don’t think you’ll like what you see today, but simply because I’m an introverted engineer who expected a crowd of twenty or thirty.”
The enormous crowd chuckled in response.
“Anyway, my name is Willix and I’d like to welcome you to the future of space exploration. While I’m definitely not the sole contributor to the invention I bring before you today, I’ve had the honor of being credited with that title. Alas though, a title is just a title and it doesn’t include all the fine print. I couldn’t have created the IX6 without the intellectual contributions of Bealon, Xerv, Eullex, and Dearla. And of course, I’d like to pay homage to the one who changed our world nearly 200 years ago when he descended from the heavens – Elix.”
The crowd clapped and repeated the familiar line “homage to Elix” that followed such statements.
“Without further ado, I bring you the IX6.”
The curtain, which had remained partially closed at the time, was drawn back with a flutter. The crowd was now faced with a shining silver skeleton wrapped almost entirely in webs of silver and black cables. The audience remained silent.
“We’ve all seen the robots of the past. Unfortunately, most of those have made their way into our children’s toy closets. This is not what you are looking at right now. What you are looking at right now is an eternal version of you,” Willix stated, bringing murmurs from the crowd, “What this robot sees, you see. What this robot feels, you feel.”
“How?” someone in the fourth row immediately shouted.
Willix smiled, then picked up a helmet from a nearby table. He placed it on his head, then proceeded to remove the instructor’s robe he had been wearing. The audience could now see that his clothing was completely covered in wires attached to small silver discs.
“I would also like to state that this is only the beginning. Our hope is to scan the mind of a person and insert it into the robot’s computer. This way, you will indeed live forever inside an indestructible body. Watch this,” Willix stated, raising his hands above his head.
The IX6 robot raised its hands above its head. Willix turned and walked to the other side of the stage. The robot imitated his movements exactly, but stumbled halfway through its trek and fell to the floor. The crowd laughed at this while Willix removed the helmet.
“Balance is one of the problems we are currently dealing with and surprisingly, it’s not an easy obstacle to overcome,” he stated with a smile, “But keep in mind, we’ve already overcome the obstacle of shared vision and realistic speech.”
“How is this robot going to be the ‘future of space exploration’?” someone else shouted, “How is it supposed to help us in the heavens?”
“The IX units have already explored the Night Orb,” he replied with a smirk.
The gasps in the room were instantly followed by whispered prayers to the gods. An angry hum rose from the audience.
“The Night Orb isn’t a god – it’s a miniature planet circling our own world,” Willix stated, receiving a few frustrated curses from the crowd, “This isn’t anything new, people. We’ve accepted long ago that there are other planets out there. Common sense as well as common ‘science’ tells us that these other orbs in our sky which follow predictable paths are also planets of some sort.”
The conversation in the room was now getting so loud that Willix was unsure if they could even hear him anymore. He could see a child at the back of the room being led away from the turmoil by a man who was most likely his father.
“We sent a wheeled version of this same robot to the Night Orb almost two seasons ago and it is still there as we speak,” Willix shouted, “We have visual footage from a unit we call the IX5.”
At these last words, the room silenced. Willix turned to the back wall of the stage and grabbed a hold of the bottom corner of a fabric sheet that had been draped over much of the wall. He yanked it down quickly, then turned to his audience while they stared in awe at the three giant images behind him.
“I give you the future of space exploration, my friends. What you see behind me is the cratered, airless desert we like to call the Night Orb. What you see is a miniature planet with a host
ile atmosphere, yet the IX5 has been surviving just fine,” Willix stated with a smile, “I’ll take your questions now if you have any.”
Cyan
Now that I didn’t have to shield my eyes constantly, I had a chance to pause a moment and appreciate my surroundings. I moved through the high grass, bypassing the structure that I had intended as my initial destination. Inhaling, I took in the wonderful scent of harvest, though my surroundings didn’t quite speak of harvest just yet.
“Olfactory overload – in a good way,” Drexil whispered.
“How did they do it?” I asked, “How did they perfect the sense of smell? I mean some of this is actually familiar to me.”
“It’s the smell of fertile dirt mixed with nature’s reaping,” Rewan added, “It’s the smell of life, food, and nature.”
We continued on toward the road before our newly discovered senses were overcome with the familiar and unpleasant smell of uplanders. A vehicle, burning something similar to those favored oily fuels of the world above came rushing past. I turned my head and covered my nose, wishing to block the smell of my enemies.
“That driver gave you a curious look as he passed. You might want to pretend to enjoy the smells of their vehicles,” Rewan said, “Actually, the people in all those green vehicles are looking at us weird.”
I removed the hand from my face, then waved casually as the three vehicles rushed by. As I started down the road from whence the vehicles came, I paid them a glance over my shoulder. They were steering into the high grass, headed in the general direction of the pod.
The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5) Page 28
