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"Acer, come to dinner!" Eula, my mother called. My father, Deke, was still out with Ancros, my older brother. Having helped Eula fix dinner it would be useless to call me. Acer raced into the eating area and almost ran into Eula, who had tonight's meal in her arms. We sat down at the table and had supper. After we finished I helped clear the table and throw away the used dishes and flatware. Half a hour later Deke and Ancros arrived home. They tossed the bundles they were carrying on the floor by the door and ate their supper.
"What's in the bundles?" I asked after they had finished eating.
"Hu, oh just some more junk we found in the piles," Ancros replied.
"Did'ja find anything for me?" Acer peeped around the corner.
"Why yes we did in fact," Deke smiled at his son. We all moved from the eating area into the main chamber. Ancros picked up the sacks and handed one to Deke. Deke looked in the bag and dug around for a second and pulled out a odd looking plastic box. The box had a screen and buttons on one side and in the top had a slot.
"What is it?" Acer asked as he gleefully took it.
"That is a portable game system. I have some games for it too," Ancros dug into his bag pulling out five cartridges and handing them to Acer. Acer collected the games and charged out of the room.
"Eula, we found some books in pretty good condition for you," Deke turned from the retreating Acer. and pulled a couple of hardcover paper books from the sack.
"Aquarii, we have some stuff for you too," Ancros smiled at me.
I rolled my eyes at him as he started digging through the bag. After a few seconds of searching he pulled out a handful of electronic circuit boards and set them on the floor, he continued digging, pulling things out somewhat quickly. After a minute, he handed me the circuit boards, a power generator, a few old notebook type computers, and a handful of cds that my player can run. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of junk they had scavenged for me, but took it with a slight smile and headed off to my private space to put it down. After dropping it off, I returned to the main room and saw Asya enter the entry way. Asya had been my friend since learning started this year. I must have looked very surprised as Deke opened the door, because Asya tried to suppress a grin when she looked at me. Ancros had apparently gone to his area, because he wasn't in sight and wouldn't leave again till tomorrow. Deke and Eula headed off toward their area when he saw me coming down the hall.
"Hi, Arii," Asya grinned as she walked toward me. "You look surprised to see me."
"I am, I guess," I replied slowly, trying to figure out why she was here.
"humph! You invite someone over and forgot about it totally?" she joked.
"Oh yea, sorry, Dad and Ancros arrived home from The Piles today. Anyway, lets get busy," I apologized, and turned toward my area.
I put the new circuits and things in a box and slid it into the closet.
"System; on-line," I ordered the computer I had designed & built.
"It responds to voice now? That's a large step from my last visit," Asya comments happily.
"Just to me right now but it shouldn't be too long before anyone can talk to it."
"SYSTEM IS ON-LINE," the computer chirps in its semi-high pitched voice.
"System, start VR subsystem," I order turning to the virtual reality hardware.
Asya had already strapped herself in and was putting on the helmet when I looked over. I shook my head and moved over to the other VR chair and started strapping myself in.
"Asya, you can talk to the VR system while your helmet is on. remember the command is 'logout'," I remind her.
"VR SUB-SYSTEM ON-LINE," the computer drowns out her response.
"VR login, Asya and Aquarii," I put the helmet on.
The world blurs and twists for a while and I couldn't control my body. The link-ups stabilize and I see the VR subsystem command room.
"Arii? I can't see anything!" Asya cries, alarmed.
"Don't worry, the world hasn't loaded yet," I try to comfort her.
I setup the preferences for our world, asking Asya about some of them. I hit the run button and suddenly find myself in the character creation system. I load the character I almost always use and enter the world. Asya appears a little after me and has a character I had never seen before. She looked human, which was strange because she always was elfish. She had the long walking stick of a ranger, like normal, but no elfish features. I always being a Elfish Illusionist gave her a quick look over.
"No elf today?" I ask in a surprised voice.
"No, I wanted to be different today," she replied clandestinely.
I look around and notice a flaw in the landscape instantly. The castle was half red, half rock color.
"Why is the castle red?" Asya comments after a second of looking around.
"Beats me. VR scan code."
"NO ERROR IN CODE FOUND."
Suddenly an army of green goblins rounded a bend in the road and came into view.
"Apparently, we don't get any more planning time," Asya smiles wickedly.
I nod toward her and turn to the army. The army was now charging straight for us. I caused a large dragon to appear behind us and head toward the advancing army. Suddenly everything went black and when I regained consciousness I was strapped to the VR chair and Asya was slumped over in hers. I quickly unstrapped myself and moved over to her and laid her on my resting mat after getting her straps off. I then realized my area was completely silent except for the two of us. "My system must have crashed," I mumble to myself as I start looking around. I suddenly realize the main power to the house is off because only the emergency lights in my area were on. Having had no power outages in close to five years, I was worried and slipped silently out of my area in into the main, using abilities I had developed in the games, to remain quiet and stay in the shadows. I enter the main room and power suddenly comes back on. A second later Deke enters the house and heads toward my area. He runs into me as he turns the corner into the hallway.
"Aquarii, your gadget blew the main fuse. If you do that again, I'll have to tear it down." Deke warns in an extra ordinarily serious voice. He then turns back toward his area.
I turn and quickly return to my area. As I enter I hear Asya waking up.
"Oh, my head. Arii! What happened?" Asya groans as she sits up.
"Main power went out. We went into 'sensory deprivation shock'. You didn't take it as well as I did," I explain quickly.
"Can we restart System? You know, you should get a better name for it," Asya looks toward me.
"It takes System two hours to restart, if shutdown right, five hours otherwise," I explain.
Asya and I mess around with the other few trinkets in my area and then she heads home. I start System to rebooting and start examining the generator Ancros gave me. It could handle System's main bus and prossesing center and maybe one VR system. I examine the hookups for the generator and figure out where to tap it in. I connect it to the main system, but not the VR chairs. I then lie down on my resting mat.
I woke up to my alarm and showered quickly. I made my way to the eating area and found to my surprise that Deke and Eula were already up and eating. They look up as I enter the room.
"Aquarii, we have to talk with you..." Deke said as I sat down at the table.
"I'm sorry System overloaded the power grid. It won't happen again, that generator you found me can handle her main bus," I replied quickly.
"No, that isn't what I meant. Your lastday is today and you are now at the age of citizenship. You have been using us for seventeen years, now you must survive on your own. I have a list of people here who want you to work for them. Your electronics and computer design skills are unmatched by even our head designer."
I look over the list and reply, "Father, everyone in the colony is on this list, even Asya's parents and you!"
"You would be a great benefit to anyone in the colony. You can talk to different people today. Tomorrow your stuff will be moved to your new residence," Deke smiles with regret, "It'll be different not having you around to help repair the rovers."
I take the list and leave the building. I look at the first name on the list and head toward their shop. At noon I meet Asya at the Munch 'n Crunch for lunch.
"Asya, what do you think I should do?" I ask after ordering.
"I dunno, I was about to ask you the same thing," Asya shrugs.
"Who has requested you?" I ask after a moment of thought.
"All the store owners and a few junk collectors," Asya smiles weakly, "You probably have everyone and everything wanting your help."
"Well, yeah, but I was thinking of joining a junk collector group, anyway," I reply as the food arrives.
"I don't think any of the junkers want two new members," Asya bites into her sandwich.
"Let’s go check them out, any preferences?" I ask tossing my lunch into my backpack.
We head out toward the junker guild building. The watchman opens the gates when we show our request lists to him. We enter the main building and I ask where Valkyrie's junker group could be found. We walk up the stairs and knock on the door. A large man opens the door and eyes us carefully.
"Whadda' yea want?" He asks slowly.
"We have you on our lists as a possible employer and wanted to talk with you," I reply.
"Come in then. I'll tell the boss you’re here," he turns and walks through a door on the other side of the room. We entered and sat down on some chairs. About a minute later the guy comes back and asks us to follow him. When we entered the boss's office he motioned us to some chairs if front of his desk. As we sit down he asks us why we wanted to be junkers.
"I've always wanted to help collect the raw material to build up the colony," Asya replies quickly without any thought.
"Well, I've always wondered what stuff is left behind, and I figure I'm be great help is something broke while out in the piles," I reply after a moment of thought.
"You're Aquarii and Asya aren't you?" The man behind the desk looks at us closely.
"Well, yes we are, how did you know?" I asked curiously.
"You two are the most popular team in colony. have you received any team lists?
"No I haven't, Asya?" I reply after looking over my list.
"No," Asya reports.
"Here is our information, if you two are joining, meet me here tomorrow at five," The man hands us each a packet of information and stands to shake our hands.
We leave and head back toward her house.
"What do you think?" Asya asks me as we walk.
"Well we can try it and if it doesn't work out, we can try a different job or become scavengers," I joke.
We reached her home and she waved goodbye as I headed back toward my home.
That evening I powered down System and had it all packed up, ready to be moved tomorrow. The next morning I picked up Asya and we headed toward the Junker's guild HQ. The big man takes us into Valkyrie's office. We talk with him for a moment and were assigned together in a rover. We were to follow the truck and obey any instructions it issued to us.
We headed out into the desert toward the junk heaps. After a half hour everyone was warned to start watching out for falling junk from above. We dodged around junk on the ground. After an hour the truck stopped and told the rovers to start looking for steel. We were assigned an area and a minimum amount we had to return with. We headed off into our area and stopped close to a large blip on the scanner. We got out of the rover and started cutting up the large steel sheet into manageable pieces. I also picked up a strange control and slipped it into my pocket. After four hours of work, the rover's storage space and part of the cab were full of steel. We headed back toward the truck to drop off this load planning on heading out again to get more. Having cut up only a small part of the sheet. When we approached the truck It asked when we had found so much steel in so little time. We replied we found a large steel sheet and cut up part of it. We finished unloading and headed back toward the steel sheet. We did this twice more. While we were unloading the third load the truck told us we were free to scavenge for personal stuff for an hour after we were finished loading our steel into the truck.
We wandered around our area for half an hour before we saw anything worth collecting. We stopped and picked up a few books for my mother and a few spools of thread for Asya's mother. We also collected a few more circuit boards and I secretly picked up a very pretty necklace and ring, which I hid in my pocket, wondering why someone would through them out. The Truck signaled us a little later and we headed back toward the truck. When all the rovers arrived, I noticed most of them where just half full. I asked the truck how many trips the other rovers had taken. The truck told me that most of the rovers hadn't returned till the call was made, but everyone made at least minimum. After the rovers finished unloading. we headed back toward the storage yards. While we were cleaning the rover, we were called to Valkyrie's office.
As we entered his office, Valkyrie look up from the screen he was looking at.
"Aquarii, Asya, how in the world did you find enough steel to make three full loads?" Valkyrie looked more than astonished.
"Sir, we found a large wing like object and we just cut a small piece off," I explained calmly, "I had expected something like that. I didn't realize that is was hard to find materials like that."
"Well it’s a rare find indeed. You did record the location of the steel plate? You each are going to receive a bonus for finding this plate," Valkyrie turns back to the screen.
Asya and I had ended up in the same living section of the colony. I find it strange now that I never was told the name of the colony. But anyway;
One day on our way to HQ, a black object appeared in the sky, thinking it was a large piece of building material, we changed course to claim it before anyone else could. After ten minutes the object filled a large portion of the sky. We still hadn't figured out where it would land. The object kept on growing as it came closer to the ground. We watched it for another five minutes before starting to run from the expected impact site. I had judged it to be a few meters across, now it was well over two kilometers. We radioed the HQ about it and asked for directions. HQ requested that we watch from where we were and don't let it get above us. We stopped and watched the object approach. The disk stopped growing and started slipping over the landscape.
After a moment Asya yelled, "Its coming this way!"
I quickly looked at the radar system, which showed the blip moving steadily toward us. I turned the vehicle around and headed full power away from the colony and object, I didn't want the object to damage the colony. Within two minutes we could see details on the object and decided that it was probably a space vessel. After another minute or so, we were directly beneath a large circle in the hull of the ship. A beam on energy flashed from the circle and blinded us. When we could see again we were surrounded by a funny black metal. Asya, having a unique ability to know by sight the compositions of metals couldn't even figure out what it was.
We sat in the room for what seemed like hours. Suddenly a strange voice filled the room, "$(@&%(&&!HI*$*(&!(@!*%*&^*"
I glanced over at Asya as she listened to the voice.
"Hello? I can't understand you!" Asya responded after the voice stopped.
"Hello. I can't understand you." came the voice.
I turned to Asya and whispered, "I think it is trying to learn our language."
"Duh, of course it is, how else could we communicate?" Asya whispers back.
"I understand you can't, hello," the voice interrupts
"Hello, we are friends, what do you want?" I query.
"Hello, understand friends do want you you?" the voice questioned.
"Who are you?" Asya wonders out loud,
"Hello, are understand friends can't you want do you? Who?" the voice responds after a second of thought.
"I give up," I complain.
"Arii, don't give up so soon!" Asya scorns.
"Hello, Give up soon understand friends you," The voice drones.
I lie down and attempt the rest while Asya continues to talk with the room. I must have drifted off because The next thing I remember is waking up on a table with three strange creatures over me.
"$(#&#$(&!^#(%&(^&(!#&^(&!#($^#$(&!#($&($&%^," one of the creatures states.
"%(@#&$(^&@$%^(&@^#^$," another responds.
"Hello, $(& friends (@(%& understand $*@& us," one of the beings says to me after it sees I'm awake.
"What? That doesn't make any sense," I mumble sleepily.
"Hello, you friends doesn't understand what us," the being tries again.
"Where is Asya!" I attempt to sit up but was held down with straps.
"Hello, friends, ok, we save you," the third alien comforts.
With that I fall unconscious again.
When I woke up again I heard voices so didn't open my eyes. After listening a while, I recognized Asya's voice. She was talking to the aliens as if they had always been able to speak grinwall! I opened my eyes a little and peeked around. I couldn't see her so I fully looked around. I noticed Asya and an alien in the next room, a small dresser, two small beds (I was in one of them), and a door marked with a <()>. I got off the bed and headed toward Asya.
When I reached them Asya turned to me and smiled, "You've been asleep for five hours!" Seeing my horrified look she added, "Don't worry, They mean us no harm.
"uh..." I was still stunned. Then I noticed something on the back of Asya's neck, "Asya, what is that on your neck?"
"Hu? Oh, that's a cybernetic dataport, It allows us to learn thing by just copying them into our brains! Isn't that neat?" Asya giggles.
"Us?" I feel my neck where her dataport is, and find another, "Agh!"
"You don't like it," the alien asks.
"Well, uh, it was unexpected. How do I know you didn't just download my brain onto one of your computers and are planning on killing me now?" I reply suddenly panicked.
"If we were planning to kill you we would have done it as soon as we finished downloading your thoughts," The alien counters.
"Good point," I agree, "Well, what do you want?"
"We need you, " he motions to Asya also, "to collect an artifact that fell on a planet. We can't go down there because we can't breath its air, too much nitrogen. We will give you a transponder to contact us with after you find the object. When you successfully complete this mission we will offer you a viriaty of choices on what you want to do."
"Sounds like fun, lets do it Arii!" Asya turns to me, "It'll be like in your games!"
"Yea, except there isn't a reset button," I mumble, "But I guess we'll do it, what other choice do we have?"
"You could be terminated," the alien offers.
"Uh, it was a rhetorical question," I jumble at the unexpected comment.
"When do we start?" Asya asks.
"Whenever you're ready," The alien replies, "We have useful information for you and some equipment."
"Great," I reply, none too thrilled.
Seeing the planet from space was amazing, I still can't get over that first sight. A huge globe of greens and blues with white haze over a few regions. I also found out the ship that had picked us up was just a small atmosphere vessel. Writing this all down helps me believe its all actually happening.
As we rode the craft down into the planet's atmosphere, I watched the landscape become more and more detailed. The alien, who ended up being named Nyquist, gave us all the information they had about this planet, and wanted to know if they would be allowed to copy any new information about the planet we discovered. We agreed again figuring that if they wanted it they could easily take it in a much more painful way. Nyquist also gave us each a portable scanner that fit on our belts, a weeks worth of rations, a hand weapon with full power supply, a homing beacon, and the knowledge to use the items and some more advanced survival skills.
We landed on the planet a little after dawn. We quickly looked around to gain a general idea of the landscape. I pulled out my scanner and started scanning for the material the artifact was made out of.
"Wow, this scanner has a far greater range then the ones back home!" I adjust the dials, "shoot, this planet has lots of things made of the same material as our goal."
"What about other materials in it?" Asya asked.
"There isn't enough to be picked up on the scanner," I launch back, totally annoyed at this turn of luck.
"Well, you don't have to be snippy. Besides they can be picked up on the scanner, just not at this range. We'll just have to figure out what is the maximum range that we can pick up those other materials and then just follow a search pattern, like when we were junking," Asya keeps her cool.
We adjusted our scanners so that they were monitoring different materials that had about the same amount in the artifact and headed out on our search. I had figured it would take two weeks to search the whole planet in our rover, if we could search every moment. Of course taking in sleeping eating and the fact the rover is sun powered, It would take about two months. (Night is longer than day during this time of year on this planet.) I just hope we find it within a week.
The two materials we were looking for weren't nearly as plentiful on the planet but within the first three hours we examined fourteen non-artifacts containing both materials. At the end of the day Asya had lost her excitement in the adventure and started complaining. In my attempts to comfort her, I also ended up comforting myself. We build a small fire and ate our days rations. I adjusted my scanner for edible organic life, hoping to compliment our diet with fresh fruit or meat.
After a uneventful night we headed out searching for the missing item. We spent the next three days like that, lots of non-goal objects, uneventful nights. We caught a few critters and found some fresh fruit. on the sixth day we ran into a path that was perpendicular to our search pattern. We ignored this path and ran into another that was going parallel to the last one. This path on the other hand had people walking along it. A large group of them stared and pointed as we approached in our rover.
"I hope that language translator works," I whisper to Asya as we stop by the road.
We climb out of the vehicle causing some of the less brave to turn tail and run.
"Grain? Grain?" One of the natives steps forward.
"Grain?" Asya whispers to me, "That doesn't make any sense."
"Hello, I am Aquarii, this is Asya, do you understand?" I ask slowly.
The native points and me and says, "Aquiarrrrri," turns to Asya, "Asia, " and then points to himself and says, "Sobek-Re."
"Good, he understands us, I think," I whisper to Asya, and turning to Sobek-Re, "I am looking for a statue. Do you know where it is?"
"Statue? Looks like person only bigger or smaller?" Sobek-Re queries.
"Yea, that's it, do you know where we can find some?" Asya asks suddenly.
Sobek-Re jumps back when Asya speaks and almost runs, but seeing me act as if nothing strange happened steps forward again and says, "De, come."
Sobek-Re turns and starts heading down the road.
"Wait! We can get there faster in our rover!" I call thinking of how long it might take if we walked.
Sobek-Re turns toward us and asks, "What is 'rover'?"
I motion toward our vehicle and say, "This is a rover. Come-on it won't bite."
Sobek-Re comes over to the rover slowly and vigilantly places a hand on it, "De, I'll lead."
Asya climbs into the cargo space and at my funny look says, "I'll be fine here, you're the best pilot of a rover and Sobek-Re needs to be in front to guide you."
I shrug at the logic of that and show Sobek-Re how to get in. As we turn toward where Sobek-Re had started walking, I brought it up to half power and zoomed past the people at what probably seemed extremely fast to Sobek-Re. Sobek-Re motioned at a crossroad in the distance and said, "Follow the branch," and turned back to watching the people's faces as the rover flew past. Half a hour after we took the branch, we came upon a small village where Sobek-Re told me to stop. We got out and looked around.
"Asya, how did you fair the ride?" I asked with some concern.
"Fine, I've had bumpier rides in the comfort vehicles only the drek-plentiful can afford," Asya grins.
"This way," Sobek-Re interrupts and heads toward one of the buildings. We follow him into the building were we are surprised to see some of the most sophisticated computer equipment We'd ever seen. In a chamber is the statue we were after being tested against all types of chemicals and radiation. I secretly trigger the homing beacon, praying the equipment here wouldn't register the signal. A young woman walks up to us and whispers something to Sobek-Re.
"This is Theta Iota, our computer specialist and is the one who found your statue. You can ask her about it and what you must do to get it back. I'm going to be laughing for a engagement, please excuse me," Sobek-Re turns to us.
"Would you like one of us to take you?" I ask realizing we probably set him back a days journey, "I feel obliged to at least take you back to where we met you."
"If you insist you may take me to my destination, but if your vehicle is polluting our land we will extinguish your lifeforce," Sobek-Re nods, accepting.
"Don't worry, It's sun powered, and produces no exhaust," I explain.
"Arii, You should stay here, I know almost nothing about computers compared to you," Asya turns suddenly, "I could take him."
"Ok, hurry back," I grin.
I watch the two of them leave the building and turn to Theta Iota, "What do you want me to do to get the statue?"
"I need help repairing part of our computer. We would also like to know more about the statue and what is protecting it from our scanning devices," she replies after a moment of thought.
"Well I can't tell you much about the statue because I was only sent to retrieve it, but I can help with the computer, I enjoy designing and repairing computer systems," I respond a little too cheerfully.
"Good, we can start working on the computer now. Follow me," she heads off toward a door in the back of the room. As I followed her I glanced at the homing beacon, the light was slowly blinking red. When it turns green I would know the aliens were within 500 meters of the homing signal. The computer that needs repairing was in a lot better shape than the computer I was used to repairing so I thought it would be a breeze. The computer had a few faulty chips that had fried an entire system card. About an hour after I started working Asya returned and came to see how I was doing.
"Asya, the aliens are on their way, we have 5 hours till they can pick us up though. I should have this computer running in one and you need to stay by the artifact, turn on your homing beacon," I whisper to her, "I also have set these timers I brought with me. Watch the clock."
She turns and heads toward the artifact and sits by it watching the tests on it being run. After an hour and a half I called Theta in and show her the working computer. I then joined Asya watching the tests. After another hour, Theta walks toward us and tells us we can take the statue, and that my work on their computer is amazing. We load the artifact into the rover and head toward where the homing response signal is coming from. We drive for about an hour before we see the huge atmosphere ship as a little dot in the sky. It takes us another hour to reach the ship. As the ship prepares to pick us up, a large group of fast little vehicles with a native in each one headed toward us. Asya points at one of the closer ones and says, "They have weapons, I think that they changed their mind about the statue."
I sit in the rover watching them approach and realize that the ship won't be able to pick us up before the natives are in range. I hop out of the rover and staying close pull out the weapon and aim at the nearest vehicle's tires. I blast out its tires and Asya hops out to join me. We knock off the first ten vehicles but the natives get into range and start shooting back. We dive behind the rover and start shooting around the corners of it. Suddenly a bright white beam shoots from the ship into the mass of approaching vehicles. As it hits the ground, the vehicles immediately around it disintegrate and all the vehicles within 10 metes go flying into other vehicles causing more chaos. a split-second later, we feel the shockwave in the ground. Before I can fire again the bright transporter flash engulfed us and we were once again in the dull gray and black of the ship. After a brief decontamination we were moved back to our room. I offered Asya the shower unit first, and am now writing this in my journal. In about an hour Nyquist will return and tell us what options we have for the future.