章 2: Chapter 2: The Eyes
'Hello? Can we talk?'
It's now been a few days since the cave expedition that gave Rydel the glove. He had named it to be as close to old earth anime conventions as it gets. Ever since then, he had made it his side quest to experiment with the extent of his power in both the size of the objects he can teleport as well as distances. He picked up and threw rocks around the barren land near his temporary residence and even tried to use it pick up things up from across the room.
Henceforth, this shall be known as the Glove of Summoning.
Apart from the tiny bit of physical exhaustion he experienced, there were no other side effects of using the glove. The weight of the object he is actually moving through space typically is about a fraction of what he felt in his hand. The accuracy of the summoning, being where the object is released, is about as accurate as throwing a ball. The further it is, the worse it gets and Rydel nearly destroyed another happy camper's house when through a chunk of rock.
Being the experimental engineer he is, he also found that by simply aiming and releasing instead of throwing, the 'summoned' object carries no further velocity and simply appears at the point of interest. Also being the engineer that he is, he didn't really bother figuring out how the spatial manipulation actually occurs. That's a job for the physicists.
It turns out that finding out a strangeforeign artifact that binds to your skin gives you superpowers is a great excuse to procrastinate on his actual work. And after a few days of experimenting, Rydel felt like he has spent way too much time on this without any new discoveries regarding the ability of the glove. He is finally ready to get back to work nice and early, do a compilation of all the data he collected and start looking for the next destination to move on to.
The moment he opened his computer and sees all the data files projected in mid air, someone knocked on the door and a muffled voice came through.
'Surely I have already got the camping permission?' Rydel wondered what the call was for. He had finally mustered enough motivation to get back to the less exciting part of his life, and someone interrupts him in the first minute.
He swiped his hand to open a side projection for a view of the shuttle and there stands a well dressed middle-aged female. She possesses distinct facial features with sharp jawlines and deep green eyes to the point of being jaded. The creases on her forehead showed her maturity and age, but nothing else does. She stands tall with arms crossed in front of her and stares straight into the camera.
'What's the matter, ma'am?' Rydel cleared his throat slightly and spoke into the speaker.
'Have you seen or experienced anything that's out of the ordinary recently?' The women looked straight at Rydel and it's then that he noticed her eyes are extremely green that it almost felt unnatural, 'something that may be described as reality bending?'
'And who are you?' Rydel really wasn't sure what that's for. It doesn't feel like the galactic police busting in and shooting everyone on site but he may still be in trouble somehow. 'I am Cellica Uleric, former astronaut of the explorer's sector of the space fleet. I guess I would cut to the chase here,' the women replied with utmost seriousness and her mannerisms clearly indicates her military background now that Rydel is thinking about it, 'I have the same experience as you and I have one of those artifacts. That's what I came here to talk about.'
Right as she finishes, the door to the shuttle in front of her opened and Rydel poked his head through. 'Did someone ever tell you your eyes are super cool?'
The pair sat down at the small table to the side of the shuttle with a nice view of the barren land outside. 'So, did you say something about the artifacts? What do you know about it?' Rydel leaned back and asked.
'As far as we know, there are twenty of these artifacts spread throughout the current known galaxy that's within reasonable distances from settlements of the big three (humans, Rockies, Aquarians), and when I say reasonable distance , I meant...travel time in the range of weeks off charted intergalactic course...' The memories just kept flooding back to Rydel. Back in the explorer's sector of the space fleet, this was one of the first few things he had learnt.
In the current age of accelerated (literally as you will soon see) space travel, the use of a series of acceleration gates allows the space crafts to side step the limit of light speed by passing through temporary constructs of work holes between gates. Most major settlements are a couple gates away from each other and smaller distances are just done with smaller acceleration gates that simply put the spacecrafts at incredible speed sub light speed.
'Ah, first day of space travel lessons...' Cellica smiled and looked at Rydel, 'you have a space fleet background?'
'Yeah. Great place to spend a few years...but I am definitely not an astronaut material, or so I am told!' Rydel laughed off the brutal rejection letter he received after the enthusiatic applications he handed off.
'Right. Back on what we were talking about, all twenty of these artifacts have the ability to locally or global alter the very basis of reality. Despite what we have achieved through technology, what these things can do is still way beyond us. Or any of the other two species's technology.' Cellica pointed at the left hand Rydel is trying to hide under the table.
'That's what I thought too.' Rydel gave up trying to hide his left hand and habitually rubbed his chin. I need to shave soon, 'Um...yeah the technology was way beyond what we have, and that's coming from an engineer.'
'So far, the source of all the artifacts are from someone, or a race called the Ancients, but I am pretty sure they are called that relative to our time.' Cellica explained, 'the purpose of these things are not really explained at all, but there were hints of a greater threat and the whole set of the twenty artifacts is what can stop it. And there was a countdown.'
'Ahh one of those always helps with stories.' Rydel chuckled, 'and don't get me wrong, you seem nice and all but how do you even know all these?'
'I kid you not,' Cellica acted like she's been asked this question a million times and she had already perfected the delivery of the line, 'there is one of the artifacts called the Scroll of Exposition.'
'No shit.' Rydel bursted out laughing, 'how convenient!
''That's what I thought,' Cellica smiled gently, 'but like all of our artifacts, there are both costs and limitations to using their powers. The monk will tell you once we get to Athena 3. That's where we are based.'
'Ah don't get any ideas.' Rydel stopped before he could be possibly lured into any sort of weird galactic cult, 'all of these knowledge is cool and all, but why are you here?'
'So since the monk obtained the scroll and learned of these things, he had found another few Bearers. That's what we call ourselves. Together we work to make sure that all of us at least have some basic ideas of how to use this power for when the great threat arrives. That's what I can offer here.' Cellica became dead serious at this moment, 'we can train you and help you master the use of the artifact. After that you can leave us and continue on with your life, but you need to ensure that the power of the artifact is not used for anything "bad"and that someday we will have to call you in for help. You know, all the things you should expect if you have seen or read any fiction ever.'
'I see.' Rydel nodded in understanding, 'and how long would the training take? I am in the middle of a project here...'
'That depends on you really. We want you to at least be familiar with controlled the artifacts so your life can return to normal, relatively, as soon as possible. A few weeks can get you quite far especially with the help of the Scroll, but after that you are most likely on your own.' Cellica laid out the conditions as Rydel nodded on.
She then gets up and prepares to leave, 'we do have most facilities any major settlements have. So, for what it's worth, you should probably be able to do your project there. If you are interested, I will meet you at the space port in three days?'
'Three days' plenty.' Rydel agreed, 'and one last question...are there any caves on that planet?'
The packing process was quite quick as Rydel tends to travel light and compact. He only had one small box of cargo to go but the shuttle returning process takes a bit longer than he expected since he had cut the rental time short. But there really is no way that he can reject the opportunity Cellica offered. No matter what, that damn glove is now a part of him and he will have to deal with it sooner or later. Also he is quite curious about the other bearers and what other crazy artifacts there are.
The space port of Earth was once the crown jewel of its civilisation as a first step for their journey into the vastness of space. Once the issue of material needed for the space elevator is solved, all that's left is the construction process and boy did they do it. At its absolute peak, this acted as both a gateway and assembly place for the biggest space fleet in the galaxy st that time. All of earths finest technologies gathers here as different nations come together to marvel at the beauty of space. Being up here really ulcers perspective seeing earth as a blue gem where life as humans know it started, and that shift in the perspectives and values proves to be extremely crucial.
Nowadays, the traffic coming in and out of the space port is as expected far less than before, but due to the growth of the travel and transport industry, the space port is still running at about fifty percent capacity. Cellica was waiting at the check in area for Rydel nice and early and they quickly checked in for the next connection flight to the nearest acceleration gates. That's where Cellica parked her spacecraft. The two went through security and soon boarded. When there is no need to overcome gravity, the amount of cargo only really impacts the acceleration of the space craft, but since Rydel rented most things when he arrived on earth, all he had to carry are some personal belongings.
It didn't take too long for the spacecraft to reach the first acceleration gates located right outside of the asteroid belt. Since space is the last thing space is lacking in, the parking space for spacecrafts are almost infinite here.
When the pair arrived at the gates, they immediately transferred into smaller vessels that goes from the main station to the parking spaces. Rydel personally doesn't own a pilot license and his college budget doesn't really allow for that kind of luxury either, so it's actually the first time he had ever been in a private spacecraft going interstellar.
'That's a pretty ship...'
As the vessel slowly approaches the docking area of Cellica's ship, Rydel was quite surprised at it's design, yet super excited. The ship has a distinct Aquarian style of smooth and slick design with minimal exposed parts. There are Aquarian photosynthetic materials layered all over and the overall shape resembles that of an Earth flatfish but there are two tails symmetric on either side of the Centreline of the ship. The seemed to be the location of the engine boosters.
'This isn't mine. My current day job doesn't pay that much.' Cellica remarked, 'Aquarians sure knows how to make things pretty though.'
The inside of the ship is just as clean and slick as Rydel imagined. There are virtually no exposed compartments and all of the screens and buttons are on the white walls or equally smooth looking tables. For what seemed like a small aircraft, the thing sure is spacious. Cellica lead Rydel to his room, which in typical Aquarian fashion has nothing in it except a bed with some soft green biomaterial over it. It outright looked comfortable.
'I am not sure if you have used anything like these, but if you need a table or something,' Cellica watched as Rydel tried to awkwardly push the luggage cargo through the doors, 'you can just pull it out like this.' She reached for the wall and just grabbed onto it, then she pulled outwards and released once it's about the size of a work desk. The desk reformed itself into a more regular shape and stayed there.
'Kinda cool, kinda weird.' Rydel reached out and massaged the wall a bit, it doesn't look it, but it's actually soft and squishy, 'what now, do I push the cargo into the wall to store it?'
'Indeed.' Cellica pushes the luggage cargo straight at the wall and it just sinks in without much resistance and sits there.
'You have to be kidding me....' Rydel looked at it in awe and stuck his hands right into the wall, but he has no trouble pulling it back out, 'I suppose it's organic material friendly right? Just so we don't get stuck.'
'You have no idea how many people tried to stick their hands...or other things for that matter...in these flexible walls.' Cellica rolled her green eyes.
'Oh...well... I don't think I have asked what your artifact is? I call mine the Glove of Summoning since I can literally pull things out of nothing. Kind of.' Rydel showed His left hand and the silver glove to Cellica, 'what can you do?'
'I just called them the Eyes.' Cellica point at her deep green eyes, 'they don't usually looks like jaded jewelery, but once I got them that's what they look like now. And I can see things with it. Like...a lot of things. Most times too many and too freqeuntly before I even really learned to control and focus. That's how I know exactly where you are.'
'So nothing can hide from you huh?' Rydel joked, 'how many fingers do I have behind my back?'
'Nothing in this galaxy can hide from me if I am looking.' Cellica smiled before her expressions darkened, 'but I cannot see what's beyond. Or maybe I just don't understand it just yet. What's outside doesn't really make sense...'
'It's dark, ominous, random and stationary...I just don't know what it is.'
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