by Paul Ormond
“This my family. I miss them very much. Masters send me to mine. I work all day digging for special energy that Masters need for their technology” Drak said as he wiped tears from his eyes. “Some of my people fight back. We steal Masters’ technology. Make it our own.”
Images of Drak’s people using the technology began flashing in the orb. “I join with people that resist Masters. We fight back but Masters strong. They make life more difficult for our people, but we learn how technology works and we learn how world works - our world. This Technology uses special energy, negative energy or dark energy. Like gravity but opposite. All matter has energy. We energy and these rocks energy but we know that more matter here than we see. Dark matter and Dark energy exist all around us.”
“I read that too. They say that most of the universe is missing or something. I think it was like 85% percent if I remember right. I saw a video about it on MindHIve,” Mitch said.
“Not missing, just not what we think it is. It all around us just can’t see it. Masters technology uses this energy to power devices. But, actually it is user that powers device not other way around. Device channels positive energy and creates a push against dark energy allowing user to manipulate reality,” Drak finished speaking and looked at Mitch.
“I don’t know what to think. I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to a visitor from another dimension. I must be going schizo right now. You’re not real are you? You’re some figment of my imagination. I’ve obviously gone insane because of all the stress and now I’m in the middle of a psychotic breakdown. It’s only a matter of time before somebody figures it out and I wind up in a vegetative state in a mental hospital,” Mitch said out loud.
“Crazy is good place to start. Everything crazy. But story not finished. You now need know why I come here and how I come here,” Drak said.
He flicked his wrist again. “We know how Masters jump through world but we don’t have access. They use big technology and big technology needs big energy. Jump spot in our world is heavily guarded. We cannot destroy it or control it but we learn about many things. We have spies all over. We learn new information. We learn that other places like us exist, all slaves.” Drak continued to flick his wrist as new images of immense technology that Mitch could hardly fathom appeared. Human like figures were bound to glowing devices. They were crouching on their knees before the hooded masters. “Masters are constantly in search of new energy sources. Like everything else dark energy is strong in some places and weak in others. We learn Masters have plans for new place. This place here, your place. This planet has high concentration of dark matter. We learn they building new gateway. It not protected like our gateway. If one of us sneaks through gateway, maybe they can destroy gateway and bring down Masters’ network. Maybe their people can fight back if they have technology before Masters come. It long shot, but it worth it. I volunteer for mission. My people choose me. We make big plan and find out how to access gateway when Masters not know it. When time is right, I sneak through. Masters catch us and attack. My comrades fight back. Hold gateway open. I sneak through. It dangerous journey but I wear technology to protect me. Gateway not finished on this side. I spat out into random place, this place here. I don’t why I come here but here good enough, good place to hide. I use technology to manipulate system but not attract attention. I hide out and wait. Best place to hide is in plain sight so I become student and go to school. I learn many things. Learn words and study system. My people send me info and I learn who is working for Masters in this place. I start sending out information into your network. Try to warn people that Masters will come here and make your people slaves like mine.” Drak stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Mitch.
Mitch just stood there shaking his head. “I just don’t believe it. If this is all true then why me? Why did you need me? Why did you drag me into all of this?” Mitch asked unconvinced.
“Opportunity. You in right place at right time,” Drak said.
“More like wrong place at the wrong time. The story of my life,” Mitch scoffed.
“No, you so selfish. Only care about you. This not about you. This about everything. I choose you because you closest best thing to help what I do. I need let tech loose in system, so people here can find it, but I can’t let system think tech dangerous. Your video only joke but many people watch. Algorithm use video to spread information around network. Hopefully somebody find code. They can use code to fight back against Masters if I fail my mission. Tech will grow in system, it spread while Masters try to control system. This one way to fight back. Masters not in control of this place yet. Try to fight back here before they come. After releasing tech into system, Masters must have known I’m here now. They search for me. That why they come here, to Kingsford, to find me. This good. They think they can trap me but this part of plan. I need to get into MindHIve internal system. There I can destroy gateway before it finished. But this not stop masters for long. They need energy and this place has plenty. Even If I destroy gateway they come again. If your people don’t fight back Masters take this place too. Soon Masters control everything. We all slaves.” Drak stopped talking and looked Mitch in the eyes.
“They coming and I must stop them. You help me or not?” Drak said. His eyes were narrow and defiant.
“What, you want me to go and fight with you? I knew you were some kind of terrorist. I’ve got other problems to deal with than your imaginary war. You’re some kind of lunatic. These are some really nice toys you’ve got, but I’m not going to go off and fight the wormhole masters with you,” Mitch said.
“This not joke,” Drak said. “I show you now how serious this is,” He said while making two fists over his head. He lowered his arms and the orb disappeared. He picked up the cube and placed it back in his pocket. Once again, he crossed his arms and he was immersed in the same blue glow. He placed his hands at his side and immediately levitated into the air.
Mitch fell backwards and stumbled over a large rock. He got to his feet and stood before Drak, aghast. Drak swung his arms and he began to move around. Simple gestures allowed him to maneuver easily about the cavern. He made two fists and his hands were immersed in a blue glow. He flicked his wrist backhanded and a ball of light shot at a rock. The rock shot up in flames and disintegrated. All that remained was a pile of smoldering ashes.
“Ok, enough, I get it. You’re not joking. Just don’t shoot me with that thing,” Mitch shouted out. “How did I get involved in all this? This is some kind of nightmare.”
“No, nightmare is coming. Battle will begin soon. No looking back now,” Drak said while lowering himself to the ground.
“Oh no, what time is it? I’ve gotta get to class. If I’m late, Mr. O’Hare will extend my suspension,” Mitch said while making his way to the door. “Oh, this is insane.”
“We will be in touch, Mitch Mythic,” Drak said coolly. “I told you things different now.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Mitch called back as he made his way to the tunnel.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Moon SoHee did not want to go to America. She hated public events and there was nothing more public than MindHIve’s annual tech convention. She had received the invite via email earlier that day and she was shocked to see that her name had been mentioned by the CEO of MindHIve during his announcement speech. Her face was all over the news in Korea and her mother was currently making arrangements with local reporters who wanted exclusive interviews. She sat alone in her room in her family’s apartment in Seoul. The light spilled in through the large window above her bed, casting light on the many aquariums that SoHee had set up around her room.
She could hear her mother’s muted voice talking on the phone in the living room. Her mother was in her element. She knew she had something that the press wanted and she was willing to milk it as best as she could. SoHee’s mother had nothing but her daughter’s best interests in mind, but Sohee’s best interests were a matter of debate between SoHee and her mother. Sohee’s
mother’s life goal was to get SoHee into an Ivy League University in America. Anything less than Harvard would be considered a complete failure. SoHee, on the other hand, only wanted to work on her projects. Her mother and father had great expectations for their daughter and she had not disappointed them, although the path she chose was somewhat unexpected, but not unusual, considering her circumstances.
Since she was a young girl, SoHee had been attending academies and cram schools that all specialized in getting their students into top universities. SoHee wasn't alone in all of this. Education was incredibly competitive and mothers all over Korea were vying for top spots at any number of local institutions. The spirit of the tiger mom was alive and well in Korea and SoHee’s mother embodied it in every way.
Even among such a competitive field SoHee stood out immediately. She was talented in a lot of ways. Studying came easy to her and she picked up on ideas quickly. She could memorize almost anything instantly. Her mother had her tested at several places and the results were somewhat startling. SoHee certainly fell into the gifted category, and being categorized as such only encouraged her mother more. She set about finding the best academies in the city and enrolling her daughter in every single one of them.
All of the attention she received had made her immensely shy and she hated being thrust into the spotlight as such. A lot of people made a great deal of fuss about her from early on and she often felt isolated and alone. She didn’t want to be the center of attention and she didn’t want to be singled out for being different. She would often freeze up when people began to ask her a lot of questions. She hated losing control and she became angry with herself for showing her emotions. Soon she learned to bottle her feelings and she developed a thick shell of wit and sarcasm that she use to deflect any attempts to gauge her emotional state.
Although she resisted any attempts by specialists to analyze her, she couldn't ignore her immense curiosity for the world around her. At the elite kindergarten she attended, they had an extensive science program and their school was filled with all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures. She fell in love with the tadpoles and she was thrilled as they evolved and grew legs. As cute as they were, the tadpoles were cruel and vicious to each other. They cannibalized the dead tadpoles and they ate each other alive right before SoHee’s eyes. It was disgusting, yet fascinating. Her secret obsession became things that were small and strange much like herself.
The first time she looked through a microscope, she was awestruck. Her teacher had brought in water from a nearby swamp and all of the students had been given samples. She couldn’t believe what she saw as she peered through the microscope. An entirely different world lay right before her eyes. A microscopic universe existed all around her. She couldn’t help herself. It was all so fascinating. Microbiology was a dense field and new discoveries were being made daily. SoHee ate up any information on micro-organisms that she could get her hands on. If she heard about a new discovery, she would actively try to reproduce it. Her room at home became a miniature laboratory. Vials, jars, and tanks lined the walls. Each tank was filled with different specimens and samples from one of her many expeditions to a local swamp or estuary.
Her mother had no choice but to indulge her daughter. This was what she wanted: a genius daughter that could impress everyone around her. SoHee was given access to anything that she needed. Her father, absentee as he was, had no problem footing the bill. He was an executive at one of Korea’s immense corporations, called Dae Hwae or DH as everybody knew it. He was hardly ever around but no one expected him to be, such was the life of a Korean salary man. But he took care of his family just as he was expected to. If his little girl wanted it, he got it for her. SoHee also had access to DH’s research facility, having been enrolled in the company’s junior scientist program. Once she had access to those facilities, she didn’t look back. Her experiments grew in size and scope. Her fascination with microbes opened her up to new areas of research in the field of microbiology.
At the age of 12, she published her first paper on bacterial adaptation in a journal called Korean Science Today. The paper reported how certain bacteria had adapted to live in local water systems around Seoul. It was a good paper filled with factual information, but the fact that it had been written by a young girl grabbed media attention and SoHee was featured in all kinds of TV programs and newspapers. The paper she wrote was soon picked up by some international journals and her career as a young scientist began.
Upper management at DH had caught wind of SoHee’s developments and they quickly seized the opportunity to grab some media headlines and dump some of their profits into education-based tax credits. The junior science program at HD was expanded greatly and SoHee was allowed to spend long hours in the laboratory, building bacteria habitats and carrying out experiments. Her mother fretted that she was ignoring her other studies but her success in the laboratory trumped her mother’s education plans. It was hard for her mother to disagree. The cram schools she had attended could not fulfill her needs. She craved new information and the rote learning systems of the schools could not contain her appetite for knowledge. She devoured international science journals and research papers. After a while, she was teaching herself how to use new technology and the scientists at DH labs took notice.
All the while, she had been posting her achievements to her MindHIve science blog. She felt that it was easier to express herself and her ideas through these mediums than to say them out loud to other people. She consistently posted photos and announcements on her MindHIve account and over the years, she had built up a substantial following. Although most of the comments on her post were positive, she found a particular pleasure in confronting her detractors. She had a knack for taking on trolls and she used her immense knowledge of the scientific world to take apart anyone that challenged her or her theories.
As her abilities and understanding progressed, so did her social status. She was known in Korea as “Miss Science” and she turned the moniker into her online identity. Her growing popularity placed pressure on her to produce more scientific material. She needed to up her game and when she discovered the work of the renowned scientist, Herbert Boyer, and his work on recombinant DNA technology, she was absolutely floored. The very notion that microbial DNA could be genetically modified could change the world.
As her research into cellular modification techniques intensified, she came across CRISPR genome editing techniques and she immediately began to implement this practice into her work.
SoHee was distinctly aware of the immense damage that was being done to the environment due to the time she spent looking at sewage samples. Her career had begun based on changes she discovered to bacteria in the local water systems surrounding Seoul. She had gathered samples throughout the city and then travelled upstream to collect more samples. The results of the test she ran on the different samples shocked her, but she was most impressed with the way the bacteria had been able to adapt to their environment. They were intelligent after all.
As she studied more about recombinant DNA, she began to realize that it may be possible to develop a microbe that could alter the environment rather than merely adapt to it. Just imagine if a microbe could be developed that could eat the contaminants in the water supply, she had thought to herself. It was difficult and heady work but she managed to create a gene splicing system in the DH laboratory. She had started working on it on her own, but after a few posts to her MindHIve account went viral, the science department at DH caught wind of what she was doing. They somewhat reluctantly decided that it would be best for the company if they pitched in. No scientist wants to be on the wrong side of history and no adult wants to be on the wrong side of a kid with a huge internet following.
After a few months of testing, SoHee and the scientists at DH laboratories had successfully genetically modified several species of microbial bacteria. SoHee submitted her findings and work to the Journal of Scientific Discoveries. They published her work and she was hai
led as the “Whiz Kid from Korea.” The stigma of being a “whiz kid” really bothered her, but it got her more funding from DH, and the government even began to pitch in.
She found it difficult to keep her head above water as her scientific credibility and online status ballooned. Although it was tough to keep things straight, SoHee knew that the right thing to do was keep working. She was horrified about what was happening to the environment and she knew she had to do her best to change things. It was the actions of humans that were destroying the world she loved, so she set out to find a way to right what had been wronged.
After scientists discovered a bacteria that eats plastic at a Japanese garbage dump in 2016, SoHee realized what she needed to do. The enzyme present in the bacteria in Japan was the key to the future. SoHee set about reproducing the enzyme the scientists had discovered. After several months and a lot of setbacks, she successfully synthesized an enzyme with similar capacities as the ones discovered in Japan. She began to “play” with similar enzymes in her state of the art lab at DH headquarters. What she found was startling. She developed a bacteria that could devour any waste particle put in its path but a side effect was that the bacteria would take on the properties of the particle it consumed. It was an incredible phenomenon. She thought of different ways to apply her discovery. She tried different types of particles and she even went so far as to throw random objects into petri dishes filled with her modified bacteria. When the bacteria consumed a small computer chip in a week, she knew that she was on to something.
