Path of Ranger: Volume 1

by RJ

  She continued with the narration.

  “It was the end of the division of countries and nationalities. The new state was called ‘New Earth.' With the progress in technologies and the fast-growing increase in population need for a new direction in development arose. It was called ‘scouting.'”

  “Exploring Earth?”

  “Space. The scouts were the bravest of the people. Their mission was to find new suitable planets for civilization expansion. We had already had appropriate spacecraft technologies even before World War Four, but now it was pushed even further. The next decades brought us settlements on Mars, Venus and Neptune. Artificial faunas suitable for humans were becoming more advanced with the time. Soon scouting broke the Sun System barrier. New types of resources were found, it made the settlement process even more flexible. All that was needed for a planet to be colonized was water on the surface and the right distance from the star. Everything else, from the atmosphere to the vegetation to the animal breeding was just technicalities.”

  “What about other intelligent species? Can you tell me about that?”

  “Sure,” Nea nodded and turned to the tablet. “The first encounter in modern history occurred in Betelgeuse System. Two planets were already populated by ‘clomtuimh’ race. We call them ‘clomtueens,'” Nea showed JB a screen with a picture of one of these creatures. It was a pale-blue humanoid that had long spurs coming down from the face as a mustache. Three pairs of frog eyes and a skinny body. Bridgers recognized such a creature, he had seen a some of them a few hours earlier that day, in the mayor’s office. “There are six intelligent species that we’re aware of in our galaxy. These are humans, clomtueens, rahtiongs, namiamificans, acleemans, and fitoxes. Five of them are civilized. All of these are friendly, and together we form the Galaxy Union. This Union was founded to maintain peace and prosperity. Since the human race was the one that had found and united all of the species, the human language became the common one in the union.”

  JB flinched in perplexity.

  “Human language?”

  “Hum…” Nea lingered stepping off the topic to delve into JB’s question. She did a quick search on the tablet. “Here… By the twenty-third century there was only one language left, I believe you may know it as ‘English.’ It was an official language among the allies; other kinds called it ‘tongue of humans,' so it became a custom.”

  “Who are ‘allies’?”

  “It’s another name for Galaxy Union civilizations and fitox kind,” Nea explained.

  “And these fitoxes aren’t civilized?” JB wondered.

  “No, they are plants.”

  “And yet, smart?”

  “Intelligent, rather.”

  “Oh, I see,” it still wasn’t fully clear for JB what that meant, but he didn’t want to look as silly as a child.

  The girl went back to her story.

  “We have lots of in common in our life forms: the carbon base, a need of star energy, water, oxygen and so on. The namiamificans are different, though, we can’t visit their planets, those are too highly energized for any other race. But for the rest of the species' homeworlds, there are certain ways that let humans visit them.”

  “So, I may freely fly over another planet and it’s safe?”

  JB started suspecting something, even though he didn’t know what exactly.

  “Not quite. Atmospheric conditions are suitable for humans just on the acleemans’ and clomtueens’ planets. In case of others, there are lots of biostimulators and technical equipment available for making it possible. I’ll leave descriptions of other kinds at your digital terminal so you can study them later. And don’t forget about the gravity, it’s different on each planet…”

  “Okay, fine…” JB shrugged.

  Doctor Gibson finished his personal business. He had found fresh clothes in the wardrobe. He also took a shower and shaved. All of the consequences of his latest adventures were left behind. A bright, handsome man in a blue outfit joined his comrade and the young woman in the living room. Mark’s eyes kept running around from one new thing to another, with even more interest than before. The mech wasn't an inconvenience anymore, so exploring those various details got much easier. With the first seconds after joining the others Doc understood what was going on there. He didn’t interrupt, just went on with his activity and tried to listen to the girl’s storytelling.

  JB and Nea noted Gibsons presence by a short look at him. Then the woman went on.

  “Now, let’s get to the late history…”

  “Excuse me,” JB interrupted. “Let’s talk about something practical. Would you tell me about space traveling?”

  “Why not,” Nea shrugged and tapped on the screen. “The most essential event among modern transportation achievements is customarily considered an exploration of the fuel element by Yuriy Rudnitskiy. You may recognize it by the look; it’s a black crystal substance that may also take a liquid form under the right conditions. It was named after its explorer, ‘Rudnitskiy’s matter.’” Hearing that JB recalled how Mark named gibsonium after himself, he looked at the scientist, who was lying under the table, examining something, and smiled. Nea noticed that too, but she didn’t stop. “The element has incredible power potential, which may be transformed into heat or electricity. It’s the most common fuel for the spaceships in the galaxy. We also refer to it as ‘solar dust.’ Because of the location where it was found, in a dark star system, not far from the Procyon star. That was an unknown dead star at that time, which had seven dark planets around it. All of those planets are full of solar dust, and all of that was hidden in the shadow of the cosmos. Besides its energy capacity, the solar dust is also rechargeable. When being under direct starlight, close to the star, the substance crystallizes and gets very fragile, just like dust. They charge it in such a way. You may see the charging stations on the stars’ orbits, just don’t try to visit them, those are for machines only.”

  Nea turned the tablet to JB so he could see an image of solar dust crystal.

  “There are two marks of solar dust fuel. The first one is ‘YR-24.’ This one is used for general power supply-purpose. Spaceships, buildings, vehicles, anything where electricity is needed can be powered by YR-24. The second one, ‘SN-10,' is more specific. It’s an isotope of solar dust, which purpose is to power up warp engines.”

  “Yeah, so, if I need to travel from one solar system to another, I have to use both kinds of fuel, right?” JB clarified.

  “Exactly,” Nea confirmed. “The human race has a monopoly on the fuel industry among the Allies. All seven planets of the Gamma-Theta system are held and guarded by the Blue Fleet. By the way, the core of Atlantis is powered by YR-24 too.”

  “And I thought that the future was gonna be like all ecological… With free solar energy and stuff… But, yet, here we go monopolizing the juice all over again…” the big guy expressed his thoughts out loud.

  From Nea’s look, she didn’t get that quite entirely.

  “But it is solar energy, and very affordable,” she commented.

  “Never mind.”

  JB stood up to stretch his legs. He walked across the room to look outside. The traffic was running right in front of their suite, at that height above the ground.

  “Are there any land roads left? All I’ve seen until now is those red-green lanes.”

  “Such a multi-layered transportations system is much more efficient. The traffic is controlled by the central mainframe. It guides each transport unit in the city so there is no collision hazard.”

  “One computer?”

  “As far as I know, yes,” Nea said. “I’m not that good with cybernetics, so there it is…”

  “And you can’t drive?” JB wondered.

  “I can, actually.”

  “That’s a relief,” the mutant said. “It would be a waste having that sweet ride of yours otherwise.” Nea smiled in return.

  The woman continued supplying lots of information for a long time. The men kept li
stening. She was not only beautiful but also very smart. Each statement of hers was constructed logically and simple to understand. JB admitted inside that he started falling for her.

  After another phase of the course was over, Nea took a short pause to check her correspondence. When she looked back at the audience, her expression changed. She tried to choose the next words carefully. JB and Doc read in her eyes that the lecture was over.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, I have to go now,” she said.

  Just as the woman got up, JB stood up himself. He wanted to hold her hand while she was still there but stopped at the last moment. He remembered what happened to others when he touched them. It was the first time Bridgers felt regret about his mutation abilities.

  “Yo, where are you heading?” he asked.

  “The ,mayor wants me to check on your group.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s just a precaution.”

  Nea gathered her things and left the suite. The mutant was following her with his look till the very last moment. Gibson, on the other hand, barely noticed that the girl was gone. He took the tablet to read more on his own.

  “That Van Deen is kinda an asshole,” JB started kvetching. “Damn guy can’t deal with his shit on his own.”

  Seeing that his comrade was unlikely to respond, JB punched him on the shoulder. Doc realized that if he didn’t hide somewhere, he would have to spend the rest of the day in the company of that irritated mutant.

  “We-e-e-ll…” Mark yawned as a sham. “I’m exhausted. It’s time to take a nap.”

  Still keeping on his sleepy grimace, Doc squeezed by the mutant to go to one of the bedrooms. JB stood there watching as his sly comrade struggled not to smirk when passing him.

  “Yeah, Doc! You do that! Go get some sleep! Enjoy ya’self, yo!” JB was shouting after the door had closed. “It just that I can’t sleep! For two months already! A small gift from you, by the way!”

  JB found himself there alone. He wandered around the suite for a while. Everything that surrounded him felt strange and alien. There wasn’t much to do except keep on studying. So he picked up the tablet and took a seat.

  In a while, after reading tons of materials about the universe and its millennium history, JB couldn’t believe what he had learned. The most noticeable thing for him was an impression that basically nothing had changed. The human greed was there as before; it just grew in scale. The resources chase and control over the power remained the key goals for people. Humans were the same inside just like a thousand years before.

  A two hundred fifty years’ piece of history appeared to be blank. The mutant was sure that it had been erased on purpose. The heliomoncer race disappeared in that time period, no one could explain why. In JB’s opinion, it could be the human’s doing. And if so, it wouldn’t surprise him. He sensed that humans remained just the same killers. What gave him the most certainty about that was the fact that he wouldn’t be so concerned about his people’s safety otherwise.

  NEW DIRECTION

  It was evening. JB spent all day studying. The history learning appeared to be much more fun that he had expected. After a while, he wrapped his mind around the idea of living along with aliens, and the future world didn’t frighten him that much anymore.

  When it was already dark, the mutant went out for a walk. There was not nearly as much life on the ground level, which was constant on the upper ones. JB noticed some of the service vehicles down there, but not too many of them. The lower level was meant to be comfortable for people, not for transport. The ground was made of a similar material as most of the buildings. Dark coating with yellow liquid inside.

  JB had found a bit more information about the purpose of that material. It was a product of humans’ collaboration with fitoxes. A bioengineering contribution to architecture. The hard solid material outside was the structural one, which did all of the weight lifting, and inside was a fluid full of microorganisms that produced oxygen. Those microscopic plants were a kind of fitoxes. Besides filtering the air and synthesizing oxygen, the substance was collecting sunlight to give it back during the night. That way the streets of Atlantis were never deepened into the darkness.

  The sun was hidden and thousands of stars took over the sky. The city looked like a pile of treasure from aside, glowing with that soft, warm light. JB was walking through the streets full of different people and creatures. There were so many other kinds around him, he couldn’t believe it at first. It was one thing was to read about them, and entirely different – seeing them with his own eyes. He tried to take a closer look once in a while to recall what he had learned about them before.

  There were a couple rahtiongs not far from him. Humanoids of red color, massive in weight, height, width, and they had those big double lumps on their backs. The heads were huge, as well as the necks. They had quite small eyes, though, pushed deep into the skull, due to the dry stormy climate of their home planet. The main natural weapon of that race were poisonous stingers inside of the forearms, which could immobilize any enemy in a few seconds. Judging by the description, that was the most aggressive of the friendly races.

  Somewhat later JB noticed a few octopus-like beings hovering by. The big guy took his old smartphone on which he had taken a few shots with useful information to read about those ones.

  Namiamificans – the eldest of the known intelligent creatures in the galaxy. Non-humanoid kind. They were not large, less than one point three meters high. No arms, no legs, but two pairs of tentacles on the top and on the bottom. Each upper limb ended with a set of long antennas, and the lower ones had suction cups under them. Those creatures didn’t have a brain in a classic sense, yet their central nervous system was so advanced that it occupied almost the whole body, even in the limbs. Each part of their bodies had its own cerebellum that used independent data processing. Each namiamifican contained enough electricity to power up a force field for manipulating matter in a short range. Thus, they were able to hover over any solid surface.

  The most exciting race, in JB’s opinion, were acleemans. He had a hard time wandering around to see a few. Finally, he found some. They were most alike to humans. Humanoids that had come from the planet named Tuson-Maknui, Vega system. Those were jungle creatures, which lived in grace with nature. Their planet had a stronger gravity than Earth, which was why they were much more physically advanced than humans. The height of an average acleeman was about two point five meters, and the weight – about two hundred kilos, very tough ones. Their skin had a gray coloration, and their eyes shined with silver. Their pinnas were barely protruding out of the skull but had long arcs around it. Among all allies, acleemans were the most loyal to humankind.

  There were no fitoxes represented as ‘classic’ intelligent beings. When Nea had referred to them as ‘plants’ JB thought of it as some kind of joke, but she meant it literally. The mutant didn’t understand much about their origin or anatomy, or, frankly, anything coherent about them at all. But he grasped that they were sort of plants, and in some way intelligent, and somehow they could absorb other creatures’ DNA to adjust their own. Also, it was very picky race, which dominated only on their home planet, Fitox, Tejat Posterior system.

  Watching all those creatures, JB, at some point, caught himself on a thought that he might be crazy. And there was no future world, but a ward, the place for his possibly delusional mind. One thing that didn’t match that theory was the overwhelming detail; it couldn’t be generated just by his imagination, there was too much depth. Hence, it wasn’t just in his head, and it was 2965 indeed, and the former gangster walked around the hovering city full of aliens. The mystery that remained was at what point of that journey had they skipped 948 years to the future?

  A yellow gravimobile closed in on Bridgers when he expected it the least. Nea and Mark looked relieved to find their comrade. The mutant had completely forgotten about the planned meeting with Mayor, which was just about to start in a matter
of minutes. Doc had had his fair share of sleep and he looked better than ever. The life in Atlantis was grand to his liking.

  When coming close to JB, Nea took a look at him through the spectrum glasses. It was much darker than during the day, so she noticed that blue glow in his eyes. The girl lowered the glasses to take another look with her own eyes. She was amazed by what she saw.

  “Everything is ready. The mayor is waiting for you,” she spoke to him.

  “So let’s not keep the man waiting,” the big guy said and instantly jumped in the back seat.

  Driving through the city, Nea was answering a bunch of Doc’s questions. He was interested about literally everything, starting with aliens and continuing with smallest cultural customs of Nea’s home planet.

  JB, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care for that talk at all. Suddenly, he realized that his previous life had gone and wasn’t coming back. He remembered his white Escalade, and the dungeon in the Lower Compton, and many other things that he would never see again. The big guy had lost the course of his existence. He just sat back, relaxed, and froze in an empty stare with not a single thought inside his head. Just waiting for what was coming to him. Then a familiar backpack drew his attentions, it lay on the floor next to him. Apparently Nea had brought it along after checking the rest of the group.

  The mutant opened it up to see what he had left there from the old world. Half of the stuff appeared to be Gibson’s; a brand new modern communicator, some clothes, and a few sealed white boxes. Not getting into deep thinking, Bridgers just trashed out the unfamiliar things on the floor to leave inside just his own belongings. A happy smirk widened on his face when he felt that satisfaction of at least some things being set right. After digging a bit deeper, the mutant found the headphones, which he had stolen from the plane. He took them out to connect to the music player, all JB wished to do that moment was to listen to some familiar tunes. That music was actually a thousand years old, thinking about it like that amused JB. His fingers went through the playlist of songs whose creators had been forgotten for a long time. A thought of a possibility that there might be no hip-hop in the future got him even more frustrated. There was some whisky left in the flask. JB dried it out and closed his eyes to let the beats take him away.