Path of Ranger: Volume 1

by RJ

  “So you’re saying that you have never heard about Atlantis?” the mayor wondered.

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “And you’re not refugees from the frontier?”

  ‘No! And I’m getting the impression that we have even got into the wrong era.”

  “Hm… So it is interesting,” Van Deen smiled again. “Nea, please, help our guests with their temporary living situation. You need to have some rest, lads. And then you come to me in the evening for a talk. My assistant, Nea will be your guide.”

  “But, sir,” Gibson addressed the mayor. “What’s it going to be with the others?”

  “We’ll take care of them. Don’t you worry, just rest.”

  Perhaps the mayor’s behavior seemed suspicious, especially for JB, but everything felt odd to them there. So JB and Doc decided not to rush into conclusions. Just follow the current for the time being. They indeed needed to rest and to think everything through. It was essential for them to find out about Atlantis as much as they could. Aghastos Van Deen made a first impression as a nice person. Only time could tell for sure if that was true.

  The mayor walked his guests out of his office to pass them under Nea’s care. Nea didn’t seem to like that much. It was one thing to play with them for a few minutes as a short amusement that broke a daily routine. But being a nanny to such savages wasn’t a very attractive opportunity. Dealing with unregistered persons, war refugees mostly, was not the favorite part of her job. Nea looked quite busy from the moment when JB and Mark met her, they could sense a dislike of hers regarding that task. Yet, she didn’t say a thing, just took the chief’s order with the proper respect.

  All three of them used a lift to get to the garage. By the time they got there, a gravimobile had been already waiting for Nea in the buffer zone. It was a bright yellow roofless sports car. Gibson loved it at the first sight, as his mech would fit perfectly in the back seat. JB fancied the vehicle too, his respect towards Nea grew a lot after he saw it.

  The big guy looked at her and he felt something new. Just as if he’d seen her for the first time. She looked about eighteen, not older. Beautiful shape, lovely face, light skin. There was a mystery in her eyes, always focused, as if she was constantly thinking about something. At the same time, her look had a spark of life in it. She was seeking something, something that was missing.

  Nea took a driver seat. JB get on the seat next to her and Doc went through a struggle to get the back one. Then the girl put on spectrum glasses for a city ride. The men noticed a few crystal projectors on the windshield’s perimeter, similar to the ones on her desktop. As soon as the engine started, the rays of light formed a blurry projection on the glass.

  “Why is the picture so bad?” JB wondered.

  “It’s a special car, the output data is encrypted,” she explained. “You need these glasses to see the image.”

  “Do you have extra ones for me?”

  Nea slightly turned her head, and JB noticed as her eyes rolled towards him, behind the yellow lenses. In a second she moved her hand to take another pair of glasses out of a glove compartment between the seats. When JB put those on, an entirely new view opened to him. The blurriness became a HUD with a crisp combination of figures, schematics, and markings. He didn’t get all of that at once, but there were lots of things which he could understand. In the lower part of the windshield, there was speed, clearance, distance, fuel and lots of other information. The driver’s vitals were shown to the left: the species, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, etc. Most of the windshield was marked with various other identifications: other cars, buildings, and so on. Each object had its own parameters and shape coding.

  “Fuck me, Google Glass got crazy…” JB commented on his impression.

  The gravimobile went on the road. Their lane was one hundred meters above the ground, it felt very unusual to JB and Gibson, somewhat terrifying even. Nea chose a destination point and the car moved under the autopilot mode.

  “Where are we heading?” JB asked.

  “The hotel, ‘Earth.' A city hall has its reserves for emergency cases,” she replied.

  “A case like ours?”

  “It’s quite an unusual situation, to be honest,” she confessed. “But mostly, yeah.”

  “What’s unusual about it?”

  Nea held her look at him and smiled very lightly.

  “Time travelers? Come on.”

  JB smiled in return.

  “Yeah, that sounds unusual,” he added. “An awesome place you have here. Are all of Earth’s cities like this one?”

  “Atlantis is the only Earth city. It was the first one since its foundation in twenty-six thirty-four, and still the only one. We have a one-hundred percent recycling rate, our transport doesn't cause pollution, and our spaceships don’t harm the ozone layer.”

  “Impressive,” the mutant commented in a bored manner, he wasn’t much interested in an environmental lecture. But then he backed up. “Wait, in what year?”

  “In twenty-six thirty-four… Oh, right, you haven’t gone through adaptation procedure, yet,” Nea stood corrected.

  “Adaptation procedure, what’s that? You have a particular procedure for time travelers?” JB asked skeptically.

  “Sort off. It was made for the ones who recover from hibernation. There’s a brief course of history made for them, economics, art, politics information and much more.”

  JB and Mark felt suspicious about such a procedure. Mostly because they didn’t know many details about it.

  “Okay, look, it’s kinda freaking me out enough already, just being here. And I don’t like the idea of being a part of another experiment any time soon. So, maybe, you would get us to speed on your own?” the big guy suggested.

  “Fine, but it won’t be nearly as full, as the professionals would do,” Nea said. The comrades sat quiet, waiting for a story. “Today is the eleventh of February twenty-nine sixty-five. Atlantis was founded on the twenty-second of September two thousand six hundred thirty-four point three three one years ago. The gravitational anomaly was spotted in the Pacific Ocean by Archibald Resebow, a treasure hunter. His ship ‘Corsican’ was lost for several weeks in the fog. The equipment was breaking and the crew was going insane. A part of the team tried to overthrow the captain. Then a stone fell from the sky, right between two divided groups on the ship, who were about to fight each other. The crew didn’t understand what that meant, but the captain did. He ran for the helicopter before the rebels. Resebow flew straight into the dark storm clouds. It was a miracle that the chopper didn’t crash and reached the sky. Then the captain found this plateau. After a while, he brought other people here, then Atlantis was founded. A city that gave hope to the lost ones,” Nea narrated passionately. She looked at JB and shrugged. “Everyone knows this legend here…”

  “Go history! You really know your stuff, right?” JB said excitedly. “So, are you one of those?”

  “One of what?”

  “Nerds? Like that one?” he back nodded at Gibson behind him.

  “Nerds?” the girl looked at JB arrogantly.

  “Well, ‘geeks,' ‘eggheads,' ‘walking Wikis’ if you like…” even though JB handled such talks with ease, he started losing that one. “How can you be that smart?”

  “I’m Lisemonian. It’s sort of my purpose – to collect knowledge,” Nea explained.

  “‘Lisemonian,’ huh? Is it one of those modern subcultures that you kids have these days? Or another religious fraud?”

  Of course, Nea tolerated the condition in which JB and Mark were. She wouldn’t want to be too hard on them, because of their unawareness. But JB’s arrogance was bringing to the surface a sense of contempt for them. And she didn’t do the best job hiding it.

  “Lisemon is my home planet. Rigel system,” she said.

  “Oh, Rigel, you say…” JB went lost in thought. “Wait a second. There is no such planet in Rigel,” the mutant turned to Gibson. “Doc, there is no Lisemon in Rigel, rig
ht?”

  Being aware of JB’s stubbornness and after taking a taste of Nea’s strong personality, Mark wouldn’t want to get in the crossfire. But his genuine interest and respect for science couldn’t let him stay away.

  “No, I don’t recall such planet in Rigel,” Mark confirmed the partner’s statement. And then he rushed to develop the thought further. “Or should I say, there was no knowledge of a planet with such a name in our time period.”

  With no wish to escalate that pointless argument, and, moreover, being less educated than probably both of opponents, JB admitted his mistake.

  “So, we’re in Rigel already, huh…” he mumbled. “And I was kinda worried about the Mars mission.”

  “Don't you believe me?” Nea asked.

  “It's not that. It’s just… Hard to believe that all this was built by men. I wished to see it with my own eyes, in my own time, you know?” suddenly JB realized how much he missed his ‘home Earth.’

  “We were helped a lot, but humankind also did a great contribution,” the girl said. Then she glanced at the silent scientist. “Your friend isn’t very chatty.”

  “He is a scientist. This future place is like a sandbox to him. While he has the toys to play with, we don’t concern him much.”

  The yellow sports car arrived at the hotel. That was a middle-sized building, about seventy stories high, shaped like a shark fin. The walls weren't yellow semi-transparent structure as the most of the city but made of a gray material, a more traditional style. The gravimobile disappeared in the shadow of the garage gate.

  The people went into the hotel. The inside transportation system was classic too – vertical elevators with long hallways. But the building itself wasn’t that big, so walking shouldn’t be a problem.

  After getting to the room, Gibson couldn’t be happier to get out of that mech. Just as he unlocked the first lock on the windshield it came to him: the island, the monsters, the endless journey over the ocean, it all was behind. They finally were safe.

  While Doc was in the other room changing, JB and Nea stayed in the lounge of that big suite. She briefed the mutant about their schedule for the day, the evening meeting with the mayor and the subjects to be discussed. Then the girl came closer to use some device on him.

  “Put your thumb here, on the pad,” Nea said handing the scanner over.

  The gray surface of the pad lit with white.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just a DNA survey,” her tone was steady and even bored, as it was a routine.

  JB followed the instructions. Just his thumb touched the pad, a green ray went over it, then four arc needles came out to penetrate his skin.

  “You didn’t say anything about the needles.”

  The mutant never even glanced at the scanner, since he touched it, her face entirely took over his attention.

  “It takes only twenty-six milliliters. You’re a big boy and not afraid of shots, right?” Nea finally tore her sight from the device to look in his blue eyes.

  The needles went back and the screen faded. Nea was still looking at him when putting down the scanner. Her expression changed, or rather, the facial muscles hadn't moved, but the look was telling a different thing.

  “Who are you? Your eyes are glowing… I’ve never heard about such stimulators.”

  All those unknown terms were unfolding her personality to the mutant. She was trying to look through him all the time, to explain the mysteries of his mutation. Not asking direct questions, but rather looking for answers.

  “Stimulators? Never heard about those,” JB said.

  “It’s amazing…” she whispered to herself. “You need to spend some time in the info directory. To find out more about our world…”

  “I'm kinda not used to all these machines of yours just yet. Would you mind telling me the key points yourself?”

  Actually, JB was greatly fond of the electronics and science achievements so he could be easily lost for days surfing in an exploration of the future world. But he knew that if he agreed to a computerized guidance, Nea would leave them. And yet, she had resonated with him more than anything else in that time.

  “Earth history isn’t my specialty. I’m afraid, I can’t fulfill such a task in the depth that historical records can,” Nea didn’t expect such treatment from the strangers. They didn’t behave like the locals. She felt a sort of warm when talking to JB, it had happened very rarely before. “Still, I can try to tell you about the essentials… What century do you want to start with?”

  “The twenty-first, I guess,” JB rubbed the back of the head modestly.

  They hadn’t that detailed talk about JB and Gibson’s home time yet, so thinking about that, Nea still felt a bit odd.

  “The beginning of the twenty-first century, right? I need to take a minute…” she walked towards the table to take a tablet. “Okay, let’s start.”

  “Why don’t you use the hand projector?” JB moved off the subject for a brief moment. He nodded at her wrist tech.

  “The tablet is more comfortable to me,” she explained.

  The girl threw a short look at her listener and slightly smiled. Then she gracefully made a gesture for him to go over the two armchairs that stayed close one to another. The two came to the soft corner of the living room. It seemed to be a long story.

  “Here’s some parts of the events of that time… There is not much information about what had happened before World War Four. It started in the late twenty-first century. When Earth’s population had grown over the twelve billion point, the resource deficit, an ecological catastrophe, a global economic depression, and many other factors fell on civilization. The territory disputes started with local conflicts and eventually grew into wars. The union of China-Russia attacked European Federation with a nuclear weapon. That attack was mostly shielded up by European defense system. But it was a call for the UCA, South America Republic, and India to get involved in the conflict. That war was one of the shortest in human history. The climate was ruined by the end of the sixth month of the war. The second wave of nuclear attacks initiated by Russia was enormously colossal, but something went wrong. The rockets detonated before even being launched. As a result, about eighty percent of Earth was burned out by plasma. Less than zero point one percent of the population survived. There wasn’t left any nations strong enough to continue the war. The survivors went deep underground to stay away from the radiation and surface overheat.”

  “So those crazy bastards did blow it up…” JB mumbled recalling latest events from his own memory. “Gotta see it coming… Keep going.”

  “Over decades, the heat from the sun melted the ice caps. Then a raised water level drowned most of the land. Eventually, the climate came into the nuclear winter stage. The planet went frozen. It was highly unlikely for humankind to survive."

  JB looked aside, thinking. Nea noticed that he needed a minute to grasp the given information.

  "Wow, this stuff is complicated. Man, I wish Neil DeGrasse Tyson was around to break it down for me..." the big guy spoke. Then he snapped back to give the lady his attention once again. "Excuse me, please, continue."

  The girl went on.

  "In twenty-three eighty-three, when the atmosphere was already stable, another kind visited Earth for the first time. The aliens came in search of valuable resources, but they found intelligent life instead. There weren’t many of humans left after three centuries below the surface. Yet, the visitors acknowledged us as equals and promised to help human civilization rise again. They shared the technologies that helped people to go back on the surface, fighting the cold. Those aliens called themselves ‘heliomoncers.'

  “So we encountered aliens for the first time in the twenty-fourth century, right? How did they communicate with us?”

  “Unfortunately, there is no detailed information on such matters. There are lots of holes in the history of our kind,” Nea didn’t look very concerned about such a question. Since she was born in the global interspecies c
ivilization, that kind of question seemed odd to her.

  “Interesting…” JB muttered thoughtfully.

  “The collaboration of two civilizations’ technologies started a new era of discoveries. One of the most essential discoveries was the approach of using the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen disintegration as an energy source. Water that had flooded the planet became the most valuable fuel resource. It all was possible with a use of an element that heliomoncers had brought along. They called it ‘mise.' The element had such a strong magnetic field that in large amounts it created a vacuum layer around itself. The mise was used in reactor creation pipelines, plasma could be isolated there, during the hydrogen atoms ionization process. Thus, our two kinds built a revolutionary method of handling energy. It gave an enormous push to other science fields. The ice coating was melted and the climate was changing back to normal. Although we got the planet back, it had changed over the centuries. The time period of wars and their consequences launched tectonic activity on the Earth. The planet’s shell had gone through drastic changes before it stabilized, only two continents were left: part of Africa and Australia. Australia increased in size about four times, but, on the contrary, Eurasia was mostly flooded. All that was left of it were spread-out isles,” Nea tried to narrate on her own, but she used her tablet from time to time to check the notes. “Basically, that was all that was left in records of that historical period. The next two point five centuries are a mystery for us. All we know is that heliomoncers had left Earth and no one saw them since. The reason for their departure remains unknown.”

  “What? Wait,” JB interfered. “So, about two hundred fifty years of history is lost from all of the archives and no one knows why?” his tone felt more like resentment than wonder.

  “I can’t tell you much more on that… Honestly, I’ve never seen someone being interested in these questions. Not many people think about that period at all,” Nea sounded so natural about those points that it was bringing a confusion to JB. It looked like the locals had lost their natural curiosity or something.