Capítulo 6: Beatrice
Dante moved downstairs and saw that his parents had already gone to the car, so he moved his stuff outside and with the help of his dad, lugged his suitcase into the back of the sedan.
Then came a short drive where his mother exhorted him on the way about hygiene, girls, and safety. Dante listened to it all seriously, because hey, while it may be slightly annoying, there was actually some good stuff hidden in there that people often reflected on later in life.
The apartment was in a small townhouse estate that had similarly built ultra-modern style houses. White walls, polished wood flooring, and a LOT of glass.
David and Aileen both nodded their heads with satisfaction praising their son's taste. They almost thought he would go for some ramshackle place to cut costs.
Dante rolled his eyes. With the kind of allowance they gave him and the savings he had built up, how could he have fallen into debt if he rented a normal place?
His father helped him carry his things up to the bedroom while his mother inspected the place carefully and was satisfied by the cleanliness.
The two hung around for a few more hours, calibrating the TV, the water, and checking the wifi, and so on. They used anything as an excuse to stick around till the very last moment.
Eventually, they could only leave with unwillingness on their faces - at least on his mom's visage - while his father wore his trademark poker face, which gave Dante the necessary space to breathe.
He sighed and slumped down on his sofa. Before he could even say anything, the AI chip responded.
[I have connected to all systems in the house and can control anything and everything as and when you need.]
Dante relaxed further with a satisfied smile. After lazing on the sofa for a while, he saw that it was still bright out, and the time said it was 2 pm.
Dante then sat up and pondered carefully.
'I still have some money. I should probably buy a gun or something then get some body armor before returning to that place.'
Dante felt like this was a good idea until the AI chip spoke.
[Unfortunately, your Quantum Entanglement ability is still undeveloped and is in its infancy, so you cannot take along foreign items except your clothes and anything directly attached to your body.]
"Alright… so just body armor?" Dante muttered.
[That will not work either. Thicker materials of such kind would disintegrate in the Quantum Wormhole. Currently, only simple clothing can go along with you.]
Dante was disheartened by this. "So I can only go there practically naked and vulnerable, open to the elements of that world?"
[Yes.]
Dante sighed deeply. Always had to be a catch, didn't there?
Whatever.
"We'll return to that place tomorrow. I want you to spend the night downloading as much useful information from the Internet as you can pertaining to survival, electronics, building, and whatnot." Dante instructed as he walked upstairs with an expression of resolve.
[It shall be done.]
Even if the methods of this universe were backward, it was best to have some foundation before heading over.
Dante let the night pass until the morning of the next day.
After a short breakfast at a nearby diner, he returned to his apartment and then locked himself up in his room. He first called his parents because he knew they would likely do so within the next few days to check up on him, so it was better to do it now rather than let them panic later.
Then, while seated on his desk chair, Dante asked. "So how do I activate it?"
[It is your power, so you only have to will it.]
"Okay then…" Dante shrugged and thought about how he wanted to go to the Eternal Universe.
He immediately disappeared from where he sat with a 'pop' sound, his existence within the home universe disappearing completely.
When Dante reappeared, he was right back on the pavement, near the alleyway beside the exact street he had last been on. He only had time to curse that his ability returned him to the same spot before a soft fist grabbed him by the throat a lifted him up.
Dante struggled and grabbed the arm that was lifting him up, but was surprised by its softness and elasticity. When he looked down, he paused for a split second and stopped struggling.
The one holding him was a woman with creamy white skin, pale golden eyes that sparkled strangely, and a swath of waist-length purple hair that was like the finest silk.
What left Dante stupefied was not only the fact that she was the first seemingly pure human he had seen in this world, but that her angular face - and cheeky smirk - were symmetrically perfect without any blemishes.
That was simply impossible. Even cosmetic surgery wouldn't make one this… flawless. Dante wanted to pull her face and see if a mask would come off, but he was not in a situation to do so anyway.
To his surprise, she dropped him the very next second, allowing him to land on his feet and take stock of his surroundings properly.
First off, the entire area had been cordoned off, and there were no pedestrians around. The shops were closed and the buildings were evacuated.
Secondly, apart from this woman, some cyborgs hung around holding rifles that glowed with a red light, looking like plasma guns from sci-fi games.
The moment he appeared, all of those muzzles were aimed at him with cold efficiency.
Seeing that the crowd was not so friendly, Dante shivered internally and turned to face the woman.
Surprisingly, she was almost the same height as himself, and he was over six feet. She wore a skin-tight purple uniform that looked like spandex of sorts, with a leather jacket with military badges and symbols.
In terms of womanly charm and sexual appeal, she was definitely top-notch with a relatively large bosom, a flat, muscular stomach, and wide hips that stretched the edge of her pants.
Her tight uniform did nothing to hide these features and rather highlighted them, making it such that regardless of whether you were a girl, boy or all those in between, your eyes would be drawn there.
"Had enough of a good look?" a light Contralto-ranged voice spoke, alerting Dante to his rudeness.
However, rather than be embarrassed, he was more confused.
"Are you real? Or are you just a fantasy?" he asked.
"Me? I am Admiral Beatrice Portinari of the 34th Prime Fleet. I am not a holograph or a form changer, but a real human. A pure human." The woman answered calmly while folding her arms beneath her bosom.
She then narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. "Just like you. I wonder how it is a pure-blooded human came to be on this backwater planet in the middle of this cheap galaxy?"
Dante shrugged. "I teleported here using my superpower."
Beatrice raised an eyebrow. " A superpower? You have no civilian Bionics or Psionics, an underperforming AI chip, an SDI below average in all fields, and claim to have a superpower?"
Dante nodded calmly. "I do claim so. I'd like to know if I have broken any laws by existing here?"
Beatrice looked Dante up and down. "Well, apart from your poor fashion, nothing I have jurisdiction over. Though without identification and a visa, you are illegally trespassing on Planet Etonia, so they'll likely chew you up."
Beatrice grinned widely, showing her shark-like teeth. "I can assure you, if you end up in their hands, you will never see the light of day again, not with your value."
Dante felt a chill at that. He thought quickly and understood what this woman was trying to do.
"Well, that's only if they have jurisdiction over me. Judging by the fact that you are a high-ranking military personnel and also a pure human, I take it I can avoid such troubles by following you?"
Beatrice's smile remained but her eyes flashed with a certain light. "Oh? For your low intelligence index, you do think quickly. Yes, you follow me back to my battleship and we can begin investigating the circumstances around your existence."
'So either be imprisoned and milked of my value without ever seeing a fair trial, or follow one of 'my people' and be interrogated at length as to why an anomaly like me exists.'
Great, what a lovely set of choices.
Of course, there was a third option…
"Oh right, I wouldn't advise you to use that teleporting superpower of yours. After all, it seems to be in its infancy and is not very flexible. If you leave and come back, you may not be lucky enough to find me here waiting for you." Beatrice advised as she turned around.
Without waiting for his reply, she began walking away. Dante folded his arms and contemplated his choices carefully before choosing to follow.
Of course, as a fellow bro and a man of fine taste, he had to vent his shock as his eyes fell on the large and swaying backside of the woman before him.
"God damn…"
Capítulo 7: The Inferno Battleship
Dante kept his eyes to himself most of the time. It couldn't be helped since she practically walked a few meters in front of him and walked like she was on the runway.
However, the cold cyborgs by her side with their white coating and glowing laser rifles certainly made him not really enjoy the experience. Getting shot by metal was one thing but getting hit by pure energy? Dante feared that even more.
Soon, they reached a teleporter nearby that was cleared for their use by even more cyborgs. There were no living organisms that seemed to be a part of this woman's squad, which was an interesting thing to note.
Beatrice turned to him with that smirk of hers still on her face. "Come on, you know how to use a teleporter right, mister 'my superpower is being able to teleport across planets'?"
Dante shrugged. "I never said that I could teleport across planets."
Beatrice laughed mockingly. "Right, so you, who does not exist in any public or private database, have no citizen registration documents throughout the entire Etranet, and don't even have any documents regarding Planet Etonia, got here from where? The planet's core?"
Dante frowned but remained silent. He simply observed the teleporter carefully and tried to understand what he was looking at. It was a simple circular platform that could house about 3 people side by side with strange energy waves emitting from the base into the air, up to about the height of four men.
"What? Scared? Get in boy, we don't have all day." Beatrice mocked as she unceremoniously pushed Dante into the teleporter, which startled the fellow. But before he could make any reaction towards this, the energy waves swept over him and he felt weightless for a second before landing on his feet.
He almost fell forward due to the sudden change, but threw his right leg forward and stopped himself. Meanwhile, Beatrice appeared behind him, walking out of the teleporter with a laugh.
"Ha! You're really strange and suspicious, you know that? A teleporter is the most basic public amenity in the universe, yet you actually inspected one and almost fell! Are you a child?"
Dante sourly turned to Beatrice and glared at her, but she just grinned back.
"Come on, let's go." Beatrice took the lead once more, but Dante paused as his eyes narrowed.
He was starting to get a dangerous feeling from this woman in terms of her disposition. Her constant smarmy grin, beauty, and sexiness made one feel at ease and interested.
She felt like a fun person to be with and one wouldn't need to feel uptight or worried in her presence. That she was 'chill'.
But so far, her every word and action since Dante met her was not 'chill'. She had constantly been probing past his origins and pointing out his flaws that made it clear he was not familiar with anything in this world.
She also constantly mocked him for thinking his flimsy verbal defenses would work. Not only that, but when he first appeared, she immediately grabbed him by the throat so fast and lifted him up that he couldn't even process it.
She said something about Civilian Bionics and Psionics? Then, were there special military or professional Bionics and Psionics?
As an Admiral, she would likely have top-tier Bionics and Psionics right? So putting aside his low indexes, she probably had stats that he couldn't even fathom as he stood here.
What was most interesting was that the moment she lifted him up, Dante sensed in a split second a tension on his neck as if she was about to squeeze the life out of him.
However, she paused when she identified him as not only a pure human, but a male and a young one. Ever since then, her charm has been turned up to the max, where it was flaunting her chest or her ass when she was walking then and now.
Was this a sort of thirst trap? To keep Dante from running away?
So did it mean she couldn't do anything to stop him from teleporting away? They didn't have technology that could lockdown space? Or even track him to his home dimension and invade?
That was the main reason he hadn't jumped back yet. If he rashly did so and gave them the coordinates to the home universe, rather than take over anything, he would be the one facing a takeover.
Following that same train of thought, could she be acting like this to lure him into using his power out of wariness, and then obtain the coordinates? Maybe the power behind her invaded worlds like his for fun and she would be rewarded?
She was human, and military too. The simple fact was, Dante didn't know shit about this world. The AI had the language, culture, and general history of this world, but it was only enough to make him equivalent to a first-worlder entering the third world for the first time: all you know was that it was bad, but not how bad and why it was bad.
"Hm? What, are you having second thoughts now?" Beatrice asked as she noticed Dante wasn't following her anymore.
Dante glanced at her and made a decision to follow her. She had presented a generally non-threatening front, was of a similar likeness to himself, and seemed to have some vested interest in his survival.
From him, she would gain an understanding of why he was here and whatever else the faction behind her wanted, and he would gain some knowledge of this world.
Dante silently straightened himself and followed along behind Beatrice, who exhaled lightly. He now had time to observe the spaceport he was in and saw that while there were many different spaceships of all sizes and makes parked, there was hardly anyone around.
Only the familiar cyborgs with rifles patrolling the place and cordoning it off.
Dante was awed by the technology here. He saw rows of duty-free shops by the side selling clothes, gadgets, and even weapons. What was interesting was that the items weren't actually put up on display, but rather a holograph of them.
There were many terminals in the ships where buyers could likely input what they wanted, pay for it with their AI chips, and then have it either delivered to them here or wherever they wanted it to go.
Dante wanted to browse through the various items desperately, but he did not even have a single cent of their currency. He did not even know what currency was used on Planet Etonia and it definitely wasn't in the basic information the high-dimensional lifeform gave.
What the AI chip was given was basically a confirmation of this universe's structure, concepts, laws, and most importantly, its science. Biology, chemistry, and physics were confirmed to be the same as the home universe with some slight differences.
It was given a universal language translator and some basic cultural knowledge like dressing, music, food, and basic philosophy across all races.
Dante continued to inspect all corners of the large and magnificent spaceport that was straight out of the best CGI sci-fi movie and then noticed that Beatrice had stopped.
She then turned dramatically to face him and gestured behind her.
"Say hello to your new prison- uh, I mean home, The Inferno!" Beatrice exclaimed grandly.
Dante looked up to take in the sight of the floating mega battleship that was about as large as Dante could fathom. It was painted blood red and seemed to glow with scorching flames.
In terms of design, it was most similar to the Falkenhayn Dreadnought from the earth. The sheer amount of mounted guns and engines on the goddamn thing gave Dante a surreal feeling, especially the giant thruster at the back which was big enough to swallow a whole city with ease.
While Dante admired the beastly machine, three cyborgs came over and greeted Beatrice.
"Admiral Portinari, the ship has refilled and is ready to move. What are your orders?" The cyborg asked in a standard masculine voice with a deep edge that was clearly AI-generated.
"Send down a shuttle to pick us up. Also, prepare for launch, we don't plan to stay here once we board." Beatrice answered, her usual smile thinning significantly and an element of seriousness entering her tone.
"Understood. What about the restriction?" The cyborg pressed calmly.
Beatrice glanced at it askance and smiled slightly. "Naturally, release it. You don't need me to teach you the obvious, now do I?"
Beatrice then ignored the cyborg that left with its other fellows and looked up to the left with her arms folded. Dante followed her eyesight and saw a small ship hurtling towards them, coming to a stop before Beatrice and opening its compartment door.
Beatrice clambered into the white shuttle and then turned to Dante with her smarmy grin right back where it used to be.
"Come on in, it's pretty comfortable, trust me."
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