“That’s odd.” Major General Reingle asked. ”Like some sort of pressure, maybe?”
“No, not pressure, but like the liquid is weighted.”
A moment passed, and Major General Solbrig pulled his hand up from the blue substance, and he saw no difference from before. “Huh...odd. Maybe the liquid only can change metals?” asked Major General Solbrig.
“Maybe. I suppose that would make sense.” Major General Reingle asked. “By any chance, does your hand hurt? Are you in any kind of pain?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t feel anything different than before. It feels the same to me.”
“Hmmm. That is interesting.” Major General Reingle noted. “Good to keep track of.”
“One thing I noticed is that the water felt dry. I know it is hard to understand, but it didn’t feel very water-like. The consistency I mean. It wasn’t sticky, nor was the texture wet. The droplets did not stay on my hand. It was almost as if my hand was resistant to this.” Major General Solbrig explained.
“Now, that is odd. Definitely worth putting that into the notes!”
“Yeah, you’re right. General Deschner told us to document everything.”
“Of course! Who knows what we could do with this sort of substance?”
“Hmm...” Major General Solbrig knew that Major General Reingle had a point. Something like this had to be in the files for future use.
“Should I scan your arms to record the information, too?”
“Go ahead, you can scan my arms.” Major General Solbrig nodded. “I’m curious to know if anything is there that we can’t see.”
Major General Reingle swiped his hand, and he held out his arms while they were being scanned.
◆◆◆
SCANNING…………………………ONE MOMENT PLEASE
SCAN COMPLETE
ORGANIC MATERIAL FOUND. TRANSHUMAN ARM DETECTED. BONES, MUSCLES, AND NERVOUS SYSTEM DETECTED.
ROBOTIC JOINT FOUND. MOTORS AND SENSORS. MATERIAL FOUND: TITANIUM, STEEL, AND ALUMINUM
UNKNOWN SUBSTANCE FOUND. UNKNOWN LIQUID.
◆◆◆
“I’m surprised how fast the scan completed. Maybe deeper we go the better reception?” Major General Reingle remarked and swiped his hand forward for both of them to see.
“Huh, so it looks like the scan found the liquid on my arm, but not the other one.”
“Hmm. I wonder why that is.”
He shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“You’re right, I suppose. Hey, do you think we should bring back some of this substance to the Drakdel?” Major General Reingle asked.
“Yeah, we probably should. We didn’t bring any container to transport it back, though.”
“Don’t worry, I have an idea.” Major General Solbrig moved his robotic arm towards the liquid and grabbed some with his hand, and tightened the grip. “Shall we go now?” Major General Solbrig smirked.
“A-are you serious?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Major General Solbrig asked, “Did you want to hold it?”
“Well, no, I suppose I would do the same thing. Let’s get out of here!”
The Major Generals turned towards the entrance of the cave and walked towards it.
“Hey, Solbrig, wait a second.”
“What?”
“Was this here before?”
Major General Reingle pointed on the ground and turned and pointed leading towards where they found the liquid buried in the rocks.
“What’s that?” Major General Solbrig asked.
“It looks like some sort of liquid… dried liquid?”
“Hmm... I don’t remember it being here before, but maybe it was.”
“I wonder what happened. First rocks were placed on top of the liquid, and now we find out that it is all over the ground of the cave floor?” Major General Reingle noted. “Do you think all of this just so happened now?”
“Scan it, Reingle.”
Major General Reingle swiped and opened his INH and pointed his hand, and scanned the ground.
◆◆◆
SCANNING…………………………ONE MOMENT PLEASE
SCAN COMPLETE
UNKNOWN DRIED LIQUID SUBSTANCE
PRESENCE OF LIQUID (???) DAYS
◆◆◆
“Already complete? Wow, it seems like the scans are getting faster.” Major General Reingle read off the scan from his INH to Major General Solbrig “Unknown days,” repeated Major General Reingle. “So... something happened here some time ago? Great.”
“Sure, it appears that way, it looks like this cave is more active than we think it is.”
“We should probably not stay here any longer.” Major General Reingle said nervously.
“It’s not that bad here, Reingle.” Major General Solbrig joked around. “I was thinking about sleeping here tonight.”
“You can, if you want to, I’m going back to the Drakdel.”
“I’m only joking. Let’s get going.”
The Major Generals continued walking towards the cave entrance, and as they walked out of the cave, their eye sensors reverted back to normal, and their eyes went back to their natural color.
“You’d think if something were here recently, we would have seen more tracks instead of just rocks thrown haphazardly on the ground with some liquid.” Major General Solbrig reported.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right, but the INH doesn’t lie.”
“True, but we are millions of miles away like you said, maybe the INH could be wrong.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Major General Reingle added.
As the Major Generals reached the cave entrance, they stood looking out into Snakardekus.
“There’s more to this planet than we realize, Reingle. Anywhere else you want to go?”
“I think we should head back to the Drakdel for now and upload all of the scans and send them to the USV Valkanaut.”
“Sounds like a good idea, plus my hand is getting tired from holding the liquid.”
The Major Generals walked side by side on the sand as they reached the Drakdel. Major General Reingle pressed the button to open the door for Major General Solbrig. After they walked through it, and the doors closed behind them.
Major General Solbrig moved his right hand behind his head and unhooked the arms of the OBA and took it off and placed it on the desk. “You know, after a while, I almost forgot I had the OBA on.”
Major General Reingle took his OBA off and placed it on the desk as well. “Yeah, you’re right about that. It isn’t as bad as I thought it was.” He walked towards the engine room and turned around. “Hey, did you want me to hang up your OBA up as well?”
“Sure.” Major General Solbrig handed him his OBA, and he walked to the desk and sat down, propping his feet on the computer desk. Major General Reingle walked inside of the engine room and placed the OBAs to their original position.
Major General Solbrig yelled. “Hey, is there a container back there that I can put this liquid into?”
Major General Reingle was shuffling around, putting away the OBA’s and the antimatter vials and could hardly hear him yell. He peeked around the corner and yelled back, “What did you say?”
“I asked you if we had a container, I could put this liquid into.”
“Oh, let me look.” Major General Reingle looked around in the room, opening up cabinets and saw an empty antimatter vial in one of the cabinets. Yes. This should work. He then closed the cabinet and walked towards Major General Solbrig.
“Here, it’s not much, but I found something.” Major General Reingle stood holding out his arm with the vial in his hand.
“Oh, thanks!”
“Wait. You’re just going to put it in the vial in here? What if it spills all over?”
“It’ll be fine.”
Major General Reingle shook his head. “Go for it, then.”
Major General Solbrig slowly opened up his hand and moved it over the vial. As he was opening his hand
, he noticed that the liquid had molded to his hand. It was no longer a liquid nor a solid. Instead, it was solidified.
“What happened to it?” asked Major General Reingle.
“I don’t know... I would scan it, but just from looking at it seems as if changed, somehow.”
“Yeah. I wonder why that is? You think because it reacted with metal?”
“I don’t know about that, Reingle. My hand is still dyed blue from it, but it didn’t break apart or anything. Let’s try and put it in the vial, at least. Move the vial closer.”
Major General Reingle listened to him as he held the vial for Major General Solbrig to move the hardened liquid into the vial.
“Well, that looks like a decent amount. I think I’m going to go wash this all off in the decontamination area.” Major General Solbrig acknowledged.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you. Here take this and put it in the cabinet with the others so we can keep track of it.”
Major General Reingle handed him the vial of the liquid, and he walked and turned into the storage room and placed the vial back with the others. He then walked into the decontamination area, which was down the hallway past the storage room. He pressed a button on the side of the wall and walked inside. The decontamination area had a see-through glass window that had many small shower heads on the ceiling that sprayed various decontamination chemicals. Major General Solbrig stood there as he heard the interior doors slide down as the pressure released. Next, the shower heads turned on, and the decontamination process was started.
Major General Solbrig stood there as the shower heads washed all of the blue dye from his arm and the goop in his hand away. When the room sensed that there were no longer contaminants, it would stop spraying, and on the sides in the room appeared what looked like showerheads, but these were small air dryers that would blow away any straggling contaminants and suck them up. This also allowed the transhuman to be dried off quickly. This process lasts roughly a minute. After the blowers were done, the doors opened, and Major General Solbrig was able to leave. He walked out of the bathroom and into the room and saw Major General Reingle sitting in the chair.
“I know we didn’t feel the heat of Snakardekus, but I feel like I was in it all day. My body is exhausted.”
Major General Solbrig agreed. “I know what you mean.”
Major General Reingle swiped his hand and emitted his INH to the computer screen with his hand. His INH appeared on the screen for both to see. He then pressed “Files” and then tapped on “Snakardekus” and tapped each individual new file and then tapped on “Upload” there was only one choice to upload to which was the USV Valkanaut. Then he pressed “Accept” and sat back as he watched the files transfer to the USV Valkanaut.
Major General Reingle turned to look at Major General Solbrig, “I was thinking, why do I always have to scan things?”
“Well, you are the general of SIR, so I imagine you know how to scan without any problem, right? You are trained to scan things, plus after this mission, I probably won’t use it, or General Deschner will take the scan away from us.”
“It’s not my fault that we don’t have access, or didn’t have access to each other’s divisions...”
“I know that, but I figured you could scan so it wouldn’t seem suspicious when I upload, Reingle. Are you okay?”
Major General Reingle shook his head. “It seems as if we found out a secret that the Syndicate kept from us.”
“What do you mean?” Major General Solbrig asked.
“Well, what I mean is that not only did we find out that each one of us had access to certain things that the other did not, but to what extent?” asked Major General Reingle.
“You think there’s more to it than just what we can and cannot access in our INH’s, you mean?”
“Absolutely.” He moved his hands behind his head and looked at the screen. “You don’t think there isn’t more?”
“Hmm.” Major General Solbrig rubbed his face as he spoke. “Guess I never thought about it like that. I’ve been a Major General for...” he looked up and counted in his head. “Forty-five years now give or take.”
“Hmm...well, you know that this is only my second year as a Major General, but I’ve learned a lot.”
“You’re young. Of course, there’s a lot to learn.” Major General Solbrig responded.
“When I turned eighteen, I knew from the start that I wanted to serve in SIR because I enjoyed the sciences. I guess I always had a knack for it because not even a year later, General Deschner called me on my INH asking if I wanted to become the general for Weredu and to be promoted to Major General in the Syndicate.”
“I remember that, actually. We were in a meeting after General Deschner called you, and he thought you were a good fit for SIR.”
“I know I’m young, but I just know that there is more to this.” He shook his head and sat up in the chair. “This…Nuwurth, the Tarkington system, everything! I mean, look at us, Solbrig. We are the first transhumans to step foot on Snakardekus! I am the youngest transhuman, and you are the oldest to ever be here.” He smirked as he spoke. “Honestly though, there is more to this life than we realize.”
Major General Solbrig smiled and spoke. “You are a dreamer, Reingle. Don’t let anything stop you from dreaming.”
Major General Reingle smiled and nodded.
“Dreams can shatter, though, and you can wake up from them. As you grow older, you stop dreaming, and your dreams change. Remember that.”
Major General Reingle looked at him and then heard a noise and jumped in his chair and turned towards the sound which came from the INH
◆◆◆
UPLOAD COMPLETE
◆◆◆
“Huh, guess the Drakdels make noises now, huh?” asked Major General Reingle.
“I suppose so.” Major General Solbrig asked. “Did you want to call General Deschner and report to him about what we found?”
“Sure, we can.”
Major General Reingle’s eyes looked at the corner of the INH and saw the time.
“Whoa, 13:00 Nuwurth time...has it really been that long?”
“Wow, I didn’t realize we were exploring for that long either. Still, we should call General Deschner, though.”
“Of course.”
Major General Reingle pressed “Call,” and he scrolled down to “General Deschner, Koba,” and his INH called him.
CALLING GENERAL DESCHNER
Major General Reingle was nervous. He wanted to see if Major General Solbrig was feeling the same way. He turned to his left and looked at Major General Solbrig and saw that on his INH, his heart rate was elevated a bit, which made him feel slightly better. In a moment, the screen flickered, and General Deschner’s image was produced on the screen in front of them.
“Hello, Major Generals.”
“Hello, General.” Major General Solbrig greeted.
“What brings you to call again?”
“Well, I just uploaded all of the scans to the USV Valkanaut. I wanted you to see them and to see if you had any insight about them.” Major General Reingle admitted.
“Well, I did get a notification that you had uploaded data. I hadn’t had a chance to check them all out yet, but what I did come across was impressive.”
“Yeah, it has been fascinating being here.” Major General Solbrig stated. “Definitely interesting.”
“Interesting doesn’t cut it.” Major General Reingle chimed in.
General Deschner’s face changed, and he seemed interested in what Major General Reingle had said. “Oh? Do tell, Major General Reingle.”
“Well... first off, Snakardekus is...what’s the word?” He looked at Major General Solbrig then snapped his fingers. “Desolate. It is very desolate here, and we have not seen any forms of life around here, so we are thinking about flying to another part of Snakardekus to see if we have more luck there…Isn’t that right, Solbrig?”
“Yeah, that’s right. We figured we might have be
tter luck elsewhere.”
“Well, whatever you plan on doing, continue doing it. You have one month to be there and to gather as much information as you possibly can.” General Deschner itched his neck as seeing how he had recently shaved.” You know, exploration throughout many different areas of Snakardekus might actually be beneficial to the research, Major Generals.”
The Syndicate's Journey Page 13
