Dispersion wars 8-10 (Book)

PRIMERS

Note this isn't for everyone, don't worry you don't have to read the books to play the game!

But if you like scifi, then give it a shot!

Readers Notes: I'm sharing chapters form the first book that led to this game being made.  It's not the game, but is set in the same series of universes.

For those new to Patreon: The books were completed long ago, i'm just sharing them as bonus content.

Cannon notes: My aim is to one day bring together all of my works, Drone Commander is in fact loosely set in the same group of universes. As such, it's possible the game name may change to something Dispersion Commander; which you will see why in Demo 2

-8- Dispersion Revelations

In the darkness I could hear Ella’s voice, I couldn’t see her though, am I dreaming? Ella’s words filled my consciousness again, “it worked, how are you feeling sir?”. White fog, followed by blurry outlines filled my vision, slowly Ella’s face came into focus then sharpened. The pain I felt moments ago was completely gone but I couldn’t work out why or how I was standing. I looked to my right and saw Boris, then my left, Joe; “let’s get him sitting down”, my arms was supported on their shoulders as they helped me over into a sitting position.

“Where am I?”

Ella spoke softly, “You’re back in the atrium sir, we put you in the pod to help you recover, how are you feeling?”

“Uh…the pods?”, it took my mind a second to register any input, “ah ok, good thanks, what happened?”

A heavy thump landed on my shoulder, “You made it to hell and back champ!” I looked up into Shashank’s big cheesy grin.

“Yes, I remember now, it was horrible; I, I blacked out, how did I make it back? Did someone come for me? Shit! is Navi ok?”

“Good to see you recovered captain” Navi flew into sight and perched onto my shoulder, something it hadn’t done since it’s liberation.

Navi continued, “back then as you were picking me up, I asked you to push yourself backwards. You managed to do this before fully succumbing to the vacuum, I am very impressed and grateful.”

“That doesn’t make sense, we were on a planet not in space, I’m sure of it, I remember seeing a volcano in front of us.”

“We were indeed on a planet Andrew, but my pressure sensors registered less than 0.412 psi, I believe the planet had lost most it’s atmosphere to space; that is why I couldn’t move, my drone propellers were not designed for that. “

“How is that possible? Why would the network send us to such an inhospitable world”?

“I think I know”

I turned my head to see Fargums, he was looking at me with his head cocked to one side, it reminded me of a German Shepherd,

“The planet was home to a race of primates not unlike yourselves, they resisted the Dominion and paid a price”.

A look of shock and concern filled the room,

“You are telling me the Magistri wiped them out and destroyed their planet just for fighting back?”

“Their planet wasn’t destroyed completely, it was seeded; those who refuse to serve the imperium are forced to comply in other ways. Their planet will host the next divine holy ground, just like ours that you occupy now.”

“Yours? wait, are you saying this place where we are now is your planet as in your home world?”

That fuffing noise was back again, “Yes captain Forbes, as you may recall our planet still harbors insurgents even to this day. We have records that are hidden and incomplete, but what we do know is the Magistri came to our world many eons ago seeking an alliance. We were strong back then, not what you see now; we requested a technology trade before signing on, instead we were punished and forced to watch as our world was consumed by the holy artefact.”.

“What like a nuke or something?” asked Price,

“I don’t know this word, but when the holy artefact arrived on our world, It burrowed deep into our planets core, and begun boring out countless tunnels eating our world from the inside. What remains formed into the holy ground that we are standing in now.”

Navi took this opportunity to interject, “

I believe he means the dispersion network, these tunnels sir; his usage of the term holy artefact is a reference to degenerate matter. I believe it was a strangelet shard as that would fit those characteristics”.

I was getting information overload again, dispersion network, strangelet shard, degenerate matter, scratching my head with a groan I tried to piece the puzzle together.

“Argh, ok so let me try to get this right. Fargums your people got bombed by some sort of artefact that Navi says is degenerate matter, it grew into these tunnels, burrowing into your planet like worms in an apple. But why is it so destructive? how can it destroy a planet?”

Fargums seemed hurt, he began flapping his arms like a gibbon but soon settled down,

“Andrew how can you not know this? The holy artefact burrowed into our planets core, as it grew our planet shrunk and got smaller, cities fell into oceans and oceans drained into gaping newly formed canyons.

Our people once divided by race and species were united and fought back as one, we were able to contain it’s spread and preserved some parts of the surface which remain intact and livable.

Large parts of our planet’s surface are uninhabitable, Ultimately, we had no choice but to serve or risk being destroyed; this was long ago.”

“Interesting, this makes sense now” interjected Navi, “when a planets core is corrupted the magnetic field becomes tainted and weakened; that explains the loss of atmosphere on the world you just visited Andrew”.

Han the new guy on my team pressed glasses against the bridge of his nose and interjected, “Sirs, I did a master’s in physics in Tsing Hua university, I think I can explain the basics.”

“Ok Han, but keep it basic please”

“I’ll try sir, degenerate matter is just like normal matter but highly compressed, sometimes we call it collapsed matter. Even a small grain of it would be so dense it’s gravity would suck you in if close enough”

“I get that, so it just sucks everything in, like a black hole, even the planet?”

“Normally it might, but Navi mentioned a strangelet shard, I think it means strange matter; this can also be compressed into degenerate matter. I remember reading a paper many years ago about how some lawyers in the US threatened legal action against certain energy colliders as they might produce strangelets which could ignite a chain reaction turning everything they touch into strange matter”.

“That sounds very dangerous, why didn’t we hear about it on the news?”

“I think it was just more scare mongering to get funding for a bigger accelerator, even at those energies we don’t have the pressures and volumes that we would see in quark stars, I mean strange stars, err sorry sir I just mean big stars can create strange matter”.

I had to chuckle at Han’s struggle to keep astrophysics basic, “thanks Han, I think I get the picture; strange matter can grow and turns anything it touches into itself, right? But why go to all this effort to create tunnels, why not just have it eat the whole planet”.

Fargums did a spinning like gesture with his hand, “I thought that would be obvious to you captain?”,

It occurred to me given his temper, he should go on a date with Sokolov, sighing I asked the question, “tell us anyway?”

“Each holy ground has many destinations, hundreds, thousands sometimes more. It is the means by which the Magistri can expand its influence and reach all”.

Han clarified a bit more then, “sirs, I think the strangelet shard is like a giant worm bomb, once it hits a planet it expands into the mantle forming a network of tunnels like hundreds of worms burrowing inside a giant apple.
“Dude!” exclaimed Miguel.

Han smiled, “ok, let’s say ant tunnels in an ant hill then. Imagine inside the Fortis home world is a giant anthill, there are lots of tunnels inside, but these tunnels all have portals inside which go places, like other worlds…I think. This process shrinks the planet and causes serious devastation to its ecosystem”

“So basically, this whole process of bombing a planet creates a network of tunnels that connects to other planets?” I summarized.

“Precisely,” concurred Han.

Ella looked at us with concern and interjected, “it sounds like they can shape and control it too.”

Price was becoming ever increasingly disturbed, “we need to quit jibber jabbering and get back to earth frigging pronto; Andrew you good? Let’s set off man, we can’t be sitting here with our fingers in our butts. They could use that strange bomb shit on us tomorrow”.

Sighing yet again at the reality of it all, “yea I guess you’re right, let’s continue and try another portal”.

I still had a million questions, why haven’t the tunnels eaten us up or changed us into strangelets for that matter? Also, the motives of this imperium seemed far too sinister, almost comically so, it didn’t make sense; I wondered if we would bump into them one day.

I shouldered my backpack, “Where to next Navi?”

“I think we should return to the tunnel junction we just visited but take the other route that we have not explored. Then we can revisit after the next reconfiguration”

Sokolov looked panicked for some reason and butted in, “I disagree, we should explore another exit in the atrium, like the one Nubbles retreated through.”

“Major Sokolov that would not be logical, it would only serve to increase the variables. I suggest we explore one part thoroughly, then wait for it to reconfigure so I can observe the change or at least where the new portals lead; this may allow me to calculate which tunnel leads to earth”

Price now chipped in, “we are going with that, like it or leave it Sokolov, we have been trying your way for ages before Andrew’s team came along”.

I didn’t want to second guess any of them, but I had to agree with Navi’s logic, it made sense not to run about randomly searching tunnels.

“We’re going with Navi’s suggestion, gear up, we are moving out in five”.

“But sir!” interjected Sokolov, sir now was it?  “I’m sorry Boris, we have to be methodical here.”

Sokolov looked stumped and dejected, I patted him on the shoulder “hopefully it will all work out Major” I said, and we got to setting off.

-9- A new World

Retracing our steps, I could tell the tunnels still hadn’t changed, I recognized one of the patterns on the wall which reminded me a little of the Orion constellation. When we got back to the small junction room, we took a different route; the one that didn’t lead to that desolate, dying husk of a planet.

I wasn’t relishing the idea of suffocating and passing out again, I needed to come up with a better way to explore the portals.

 When we got to the end of the tunnel we were again confronted with pure darkness at the termination, no walls, no doors, nothing. Sure, we all knew this was in fact a portal or transporter of sorts, it just didn’t sit right with me, it was almost like I was looking directly into empty space. 

“Ok everyone, same game plan as before; one of us will go through first and check it out. This time I’m going since Navi did the honors…”, Navi interjected cutting me off mid-sentence.

 “Sir, I wish to go again, I have made modifications to my action potentials. Even if there is no air, I believe I should have enough redundancy to return”.

Earlier Price had insisted to be the next guinea pig and I had planned to cut in at the last moment; but I didn’t expect Navi to grow a pair.

“Are you sure Navi?” I asked with concern, “you don’t need to do this again; you have proven you”.

Miguel grumbled about Navi not needing to in the first place.

“I am very happy to hear that captain” Navi replied, “however even the last time wasn’t a problem, I just don’t like being alone and since you came back for me, I am confident and happy to try again”.

Self-preservation as far as I knew was the main priority for all life, but Navi was different, true Navi did show some self-esteem issues, a desire to belong, maybe it is telling the truth and the first time it worried, thinking of itself as the nerd at school and that we were going to bail on it the first chance we got.

Before I could finish the thought, Navi zipped towards the portal, it then stopped abruptly, turned to scan our faces like last time and made a seamless U-turn into the void.

After what felt like an eternity Navi finally returned, “hello sirs, temperature, gravity and radiation are within tolerable parameters, however the air composition would likely be fatal for exposures more than three or four hours”.

Just great I thought, “well at least we know it’s not earth, let’s get a move on to the next set of tunnels”.

‘Whoa, hold on sir’ interjected Ella, “I think we should at least have a look at the images and video that Navi took, even if just for military intelligence purposes”.

With a shrug I agreed to the request, “uh sure, what can it hurt?”.

“Just a sec, there, I’ve got it,” the multi-screens on Ella’s tablet unfurled as video began to play, we crowded around the small screen and were immersed in the emerging detail of a new world.

First, we could make out a still lake, it was a deep sapphire-blue complimented by its faint aura of refracted sunlight on the surface, the camera then panned revealing long sleek interwoven metallic structures, arches, bridges and skyscrapers which were connected so seamlessly that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began.

Our jaws sagged as we observed this masterclass in alien architecture, the sprawling city looked as if it was formed from one giant piece of silver, spun into a vast vibrant megastructure of harmonious silvers and blues. Even witnessing this second hand, we were completely absorbed in its majesty; for that brief moment no one spoke as we appreciated its beauty. It was clear we were witnessing for the first time an advanced alien city.

“Whoaa! We’ve gotta check this out guys”, blurted Miguel, ruining the moment.  

Personally I agreed, but I needed to clarify something first, “Navi, how long do you estimate it would take us to get back to earth if we continued our current search pattern?”

Navi’s LED flashed a single time “I can’t make a sufficient estimation of time, there appears to be over ten thousand portals. Taking an average approximation, I would estimate around five years to explore all tunnels and that assumes we don’t duplicate our searches”.

Shit, five years! This was not the news our team wanted to hear, I doubt we have five years before things escalate on earth.

Ella composed herself from the shock of this bombshell, then concurred, “I agree with Miguel, especially given light of our situation. Just think of what we could learn here, a first contact with a benevolent race that could build cities like this; who knows, maybe they understand the network and could even help us get back to earth”.

“Now there’s an idea worth considering,” Price said, looking back to me.

I nodded my head, “I’m sold, though we would only have three hours until we kick the bucket, even given the pods special healing abilities; I don’t see how we could make this work?”

“Excuse me captain” Navi flew and perched onto the tablet, obstructing our view but gaining our attention, “the network was designed with these trivial biotic issues in mind; if you want to go, it would be no problem at all”.

“How?”, I asked.

“All members who wish to go need only place their hands anywhere on the walls within a five-meter range of the dispersion aperture.”

“what will that do? Also, dispersion aperture is a bit of a mouthful, let’s call them portals from now on.”

“Syntactic preferences updated. The walls are always on, always scanning so they know all the specific mortal disabilities of a given biotic species the moment they enter the network. The network has informed me that when you touch the walls, it will provide each of you with a single device needed to survive for any given portal.”

“What? Seriously?” Charlotte interjected, “that’s a little convenient, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Navi replied.

“Uh, so why?” Charlotte added.

“These tunnels connect various worlds,” Navi said, “it would stand to reason the creators would ensure diverse species can make use of them.”

“that’s incredible… wait why didn’t you mention this at the last one when I nearly died saving you?” I asked.

“I didn’t tell you before because I was not aware. The wall seems to unlock restrictions & admin privileges over time, I now suspect it is observing us.”

“Hmm so it’s waiting for us to build up trust?”

“Exactly sir, a trust algorithm if you will,” Navi replied.

That got me thinking, are there people it doesn’t trust and thus wouldn’t let through, worse, could it revoke trust in the future and screw us over?

After some more quibbling Navi assured us we would be fine, then guided us to the spot he was talking about, “yes, just put your hands there and think about the portal.”

I shuffled over, closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and stretched my palms out flat against the wall. It felt bizarre and totally different from what I expected,  it was like touching bubble wrap that moved under my fingers.  After a few seconds I felt a slight prick on my finger, instinctively I yanked it back and clasped it in my hand, there was no blood or pain.

“What the hell?” I exclaimed; a V shape indentation began forming on the wall directly in front of me where my hand was a second ago. It expanded in size, as it did this new features formed on its surface, it was about the size of my hand.

“Please put that on Andrew, don’t take it off at any time during your visit, it should last one hundred years; enough to cover your lifespan. Please return it to the wall once  you are finished.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a mask sir”,

“It doesn’t look like one,” I said perplexed as I turned it around in my hand.

"“you put it on your face, preferably against your cheek, it will actively filter and convert all particulates into breathable air. It also forms temporary thin Nano-films over your cell membranes to compensate for the pressure difference. Please wait 30 seconds for it to fully form in your body.”

Just how advanced was this place? I wondered, could we humans ever build anything approaching even close the grandiose of the dispersion network?

“Ok, here goes nothing,” I said as I pressed the thing up against my cheek. A cold slither rushed across me.

“Shit! What’s going on?”, I exclaimed, “it’s fusing to my face!” startled I tried to yank at it off, but before I could do so it melted inward and disappeared. All that remained was a tiny slither of material imbedded on my right jaw no bigger than a spot or a mole.

Ella looked at me in shock, “it’s gone! Your whole body flashed green for a second, before it just vanished sir. You look normal again now though.”

Navi darted in-between the two of us, “please don’t be alarmed, the mask is still there, it’s just designed to be minimally intrusive. Your mouth and face are now clear of obstructions, your whole body is insulated from extreme pressures and the nanites will process toxic atmospheres into oxygen, nitrogen, and argon.

if you need to remove it just tap the release on the side of your face” said Navi like an attentive flight assistant.

“Uh, so he just taps the metal mole thingy on his jaw and the mask will re-appear and pop off?” Miguel asked.

“Exactly,” Navi replied.

I ordered everyone else to follow suit even the Fortis who we would have to bring along. Soon we were all wearing these invisible masks, except Sokolov.

“I will hold down the fort until you guys return”, Sokolov’s decision was quite perplexing, why didn’t he want to come with us? What was he hiding? I decided since he was here before me and he was a big boy after all, that it was his choice to make.

I offered one last time, “sure you don’t want to come mate?”

Waving his hand in a dismissive gesture, “nah it’s fine, just bring me back some alien pizza or something.”

Chuckling I gave him a wave, “I will make sure to stop off at the duty free”.

 One by one we entered the void.

Once I was on the other side, I could see that I was inside another mound structure vaguely similar to the ones on earth. We then exited through the external transparent barrier which led to the outside world. As I passed through the gloop like membrane I felt a sudden rush of humidity engulf my face, I think I was briefly blasted by big foots hairdryer.

Then I felt what could only be described as a bubbling sensation on the surface of my skin, it made me quiver in discomfort, Navi assured us it was just the Nano-films responding to the change in pressure and would soon pass.

In Chinese there is a famous idiom, seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times, this described exactly what I was experiencing just then. The world I saw was simply breathtaking, the sky was a deep emerald green, the vista was filled with a masterful fusion of nature and sophisticated architecture; the vegetation was a mixture of soft purples and traditional greens which was dotted around the world in floating gardens punctuated by electric-blue sky bridges.

Our vantage point of the city was equally as stunning as we were on the outskirts about two miles away, we could see the full panoramic extent of the endless crisscrossing buildings, bridges and arches. The spiraling skyscrapers always seemed to fall back on themselves forming into Gaussian bell-shaped curves reminding me of the shape snakes form when they slither over a bump.

The city was a hot flux of activity, vehicles zipping about in the air, land and the adjacent lake, every now and then small insect like creatures would zip past; thanks to the pods, my heightened senses allowed me to spot small glints of metal, were they tiny drones?

We all just stood there awestruck, even Navi was uncharacteristically quiet, it’s LEDs flashing frantically as if it was a router downloading a million years of updates. 

Standing around, we took it all in, I don’t know how much time must have passed as we took readings, pictures and speculated about this place.

We were oblivious until the very last second when an enormous sleek metallic object, possibly a wall of some sorts appeared in front of us.

“Where the heck did that come from?” Price cursed.

“Look sharp!” I shouted, rousing our people into heightened alert.

We clutched our weapons in anticipation, in front of us the surface of the wall rippled and shimmered like liquid mercury, except we couldn’t see our reflection.

“Six o’clock!” exclaimed Jamieson who was leading in Sokolov’s absence, we turned to notice another wall, identical in every way to the previous had just appeared.

“And another,” shouted Price, who was now pointing his gun in the other direction.

Shit! “We are being boxed in!” I exclaimed, “fall back!” I pointed to the only remaining free gap and got moving.

Before we could make it three steps more liquid metal melted into the open space, closing us in.

With my palm raised in the air and my fingers open I tilted it then pushed it forward, “fan out!” I wanted to give us as much a chance as possible.

Thunks and thudding noises ensued, “shit, I think I just hit a forcefield or something,” Miguel exclaimed who had hit his head off something invisible.

“Nah, feels like glass,” Price exclaimed, “spread out! Let’s map the perimeter.”

We did so, and soon found we were trapped in a long but narrow slice within this big metallic cube.

I was thinking about ordering our units to start shooting our way out, I hoped we could break this invisible material, but then the lights dimmed and something truly bizarre happened.

Things, lots of weird things began descending on us from up above, before we could even raise our guns they had dropped down to our level.

My heart raced as panic and confusion set in, my team darted their heads this way and that, trying to get a grip on the situation; my mind was in the process of putting two and two together, what had happened so far, I feared I had little time to act and delay could cost us.

Ella had her gun pointed outwards towards one of those things, “sir!” she shouted, asking for orders.

“Better to go out with our boots on Forbes,” Priced stared at me with a pleading grimace.

I was in the process of nodding my head when I spotted something, “hold your fire!” I shouted. The invisible walls around the narrow corridor we were trapped in flickered causing the area around us to resolve into something new.

Surrounding us were aliens, hundreds of aliens.

-10- The Skrill

“Let’s go for it!” Miguel rubbed his shoulder against mines, we were all back-to-back, staring at them intensely, not blinking for a moment.

They stared back at us, I could see that they looked vaguely humanoid in form, a head, two arms three legs, or maybe two legs and a long tail. Their eyes looked like clumps of fossilized amber which were twice as wide as a human’s and angled slightly upward.

I put my hand on the barrel of Miguel’s gun and pushed it downwards, “we are outnumbered maybe ten to one on their turf, I don’t think this would end well mate.”

Others must have come to the same conclusion as Jamieson and Price were telling their guys to stand down also.

Two of the aliens had come in close to us, they lifted their grey hands to head height then pushed them downwards and repeated the gesture several times.

“What the?” Charlotte exclaimed; she jumped forward as what appeared to be a blob of metal rise up from under the ground behind her, at the same time it happened for everyone else including myself, causing many to scream in surprise.

“Hah, I get it,” Charlotte said, waving her hand for attention, “they are chairs, look, everyone else is sitting down, they want us to sit down.”

Damn, Charlottes right, I turned to notice most of them were sitting down, though not all, in fact they seemed calm, some looked at me, but many, dare I say, looked uninterested.

The two aliens also sat down at the far end of the room.

It appeared we weren’t in imminent danger so I took the time to observe them more, their heads weren’t fully oval, or round shaped like ours, but the face was extended outwards retaining a longer jawline. Near the back of their jaw I could spot what looked like gills, some had two each side and some had three.

The two aliens got up and walked in between us, making more gestures with their hands, which we didn’t understand before moving off to attend to the others, who appeared to be increasingly losing interest in us.

I heard a thud, and turned to see Shashank lying on his face, “uh, I guess that means the glass is gone and we can walk about now,” Shashank pushed himself up and brushed his hair straight.

I noticed a slight vibration sensation and a tugging at my feet.

“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me!” Price guffawed unexpectedly, we all turned to him in confusion, he pointed to some slits in the metallic walls, which had melted away to show the outside world which was now in motion, “we’re on a bus! We’re on a frigging bus!”

“A flying one,” Ella added smiling, I soon found myself smiling too, it was infectious, Ella put her arms out gesturing the vehicle we were in, “is it possible this is all just an accident, like we got picked up because we were at a bus stop or something.”

I sighed in relief, still smiling, “that would explain why half of them don’t seem to care, maybe there are lots of aliens on this planet?”

After some headcounts and shuffling about a bit, I decided to do a bit more observation before taking any further action.

I noticed their height almost bang on identical to us, probably a bit taller though like myself; around six feet. They did however look thinner almost delicate looking with elongated fingers 6 on each hand and had what looked like partial webbing between some of them. Most were of a color that lingered between a pearly grey and a light blue, there were others, smaller in number who were a pale green.

Fortunately, they didn’t seem aggressive just curious though as we noted they mostly got back to what they were doing after having a good gawk, some however were freaks and made subtle but gentle gestures at us.

All in all, I think we were safe.

As time progressed, we began to let our hair down, Miguel and Charlotte were taking selfies trying to capture the aliens in the backdrop, I wondered if the aliens even knew what a phone was, let alone a camera?

“This is some grade-A freaky shit captain” said Price who was partaking in a staring contest with a passenger sitting opposite us. The scene made me reminisce about a bus trip I took back in rural Vietnam; the stares and unintelligible conversations was certainly relatable.

Just then one of the rarer pale-green types aliens walked over to our group, she looked left and right, at Jamieson, then Price, Charlotte, and finally to me, she slowly approached and stood in front me.

The alien produced chirping sounds, “kweeeh, kaaaah, keeeek”, we all reflexively turned to Navi who was now perched on Ella’s shoulder “I’m afraid I can’t translate this far from the tunnels and there aren’t enough words spoken yet to build up a library”.

The alien patiently repeated its message again, “kweeeh, kaaaah, keeeek” I couldn’t tell but I thought the alien was looking at me.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you”, I said.

“kah, kah, shhhhh”, it then pointed to the device Ella was holding, Ella was startled “sir! Somethings happening to my tac!”.

The screen began flashing different colors, multiple prompt windows popped up then disappeared, Ella touched one just as the screen went blank.

The screen rebooted displaying plain text, “Installing new software, please wait”.

I was about to ask Ella if she thought it was a risk and could stop the process, when the alien spoke again.

“Can you understand me now?”, it said.

Wow! how could they learn our language so quickly? And how did they access our tac-phone for that matter?

Hesitating, I replied “Yes, my names Andrew Forbes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“My name is Zeshala, do you have a doctorate in an engineering or a science discipline?”

Of all the possible conversations in a first contact scenario, this certainly wasn’t on the list. Just as strange was the translation, it was perfect, almost too perfect, Zeshala spoke with a perfect English feminine accent, as if it was from the west country.

“Err… no, but I studied a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering?” I replied.

Zeshala cocked its head to one side, “what level and grades did you achieve?”

Normally I never told people out of embarrassment, I even lied during my UNCC interview hoping they wouldn’t check; but I felt an urge to be honest, possibly given all the hostile encounters so far, I wanted to get off on the right foot.

“I didn’t complete the course, I dropped out early.”

“Hmm ok, never mind”, as Zeshala was about to turn around Ella quickly jumped in,

“I have a PhD! two PhDs in fact! one in astrophysics and one in information systems”.

Zeshala turned to face Ella “really?”

“Yes, I even considered doing a third but ended up joining the UNCC.”

“So why aren’t you leading the team then? Never mind, anyway I am having problems trying to derive electric field equations beyond normal space as curl and the cross product are only defined in three dimensions.”

This was truly some weird shit, not only was I freaked out at meeting aliens like this, but we were being treated as if we were some kind of interstellar study buddies.

“Uh…” Ella stuttered, “we have a higher dimensional form of the Maxwell equation, but you need to understand covariance and exterior calculus if you want to use the traditional form”

“Really? We only have the traditional form.”

It was at this point, Price and Jamieson’s teams had left to try and talk to the locals, I on the other hand watched the interplay between Ella and Zeshala.

It was so bizarre to see the look on Ella’s face move from trepidation to curiosity then agitation.

“No, no, please stop guessing and take some time to work through the material on generalizing space time dimensions”, the rest of my team looked on with interest, but I had decided it was time to intervene.

I stepped between the two of them, “So has Ella been of help to you?”,

“Yes, she has, there are some more questions I would like to ask on integrals however”.

“Ok” I interjected, “but first since we have helped you, maybe you can give us some help now and answer some questions?”

“Like what?”

“Like, who are you? What is this world, how did you learn our language so fast?”

Zeshala then turned around and did something both unexpected and very human, it waved a friend over.

“Hi, my names Sash, I apologize for my friend’s lack of social skills”,

Finally! we are getting somewhere! I thought, “my names Andrew Forbes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too, by the way, I study xenology as a minor, would you like to work on a joint publication with me?” It replied, I felt like doing a thousand facepalms, were they all like this?

Soon more people came over to talk to us, including Hakarash who was an automation engineer and Sekh who was a power flow systems analyst, the conversations were… mostly academic.

After Miguel had answered a question from Sekh,  I decided to butt in again and try a different approach, “can I ask a question? Why are you all technical? Don’t you have artists, historians, shop keepers and just normal people?”

Sekh turned to acknowledge me, “Yes, we do, but you’re in the engineering district, the next stop is the humanities district, that’s full of weirdoes, they are going to love you”.

This turned out to be bang on the money, as the bus filled up with more passengers, we were swamped with proposals, critiques and questions about our relationships with our mothers. 

That was it though, I had proven they did answer questions, but only the ones they wanted to answer.  

Most of my team were preoccupied answering questions, I scoped Miguel out the corner of my eye still talking to Sash with his hands leaning against the wall, shit, was he trying to chat it up? Good luck with that, I thought.

I was getting pretty fed up by now, I spoke loudly and irritably drawing the attention of quite a few around me, “what is this world? can you tell me something about yourselves since we have been answering your questions for like the past 20 minutes?”

The humanity goons just looked around, searching for someone more qualified as if I just grilled them on quantum physics.

“Hey again Andrew”, turning around I saw Zeshala standing behind me with a completely different demeaner than before.

 “Hah, you must be really confused, I’m sorry; here let me try to answer some questions if I can”.

If it wasn’t for Zeshala’s pale green color, I would have assumed I was talking to someone completely different, her demeanor had shifted 180 degrees from earlier, were they Schizophrenic or something?

Zeshala continued, “We are the Skrill, you are on the continent Agea this planet is called Shal and this is the airbus 76 outer circle”, Zeshala then giggled, like an actual giggle; I couldn’t tell if that was the translator or just their natural noises.

Before I could respond, Miguel waltzed over butting in oblivious to our conversation, “so do you think Sash is a like a chick? It looks like a chick, she is kinda hot too – do they even have genders?” I couldn’t fault him for being so brash in front of Zeshala up until a moment ago they had all ignored most of what we said, as if they didn’t understand our words unless it involved their profession.

Sash however had followed Miguel back to us and was not a happy camper,

“Of course I am! Can’t you see I have boobs and six gills?”,

Miguel went redder than a tomato in summer as Sash proceeded to squeeze her alien blouse propping up her assets in front of him, she then dished out some pejoratives adding insult to injury.

Price roared with laughter, “shot down already eh Costa?”

I on the other hand, was scratching my head in bafflement, “I’m sorry, how is it you guys are so hot and cold? Minutes ago, you only responded to tech talk”.

“Exactly!” giggled Zeshala, “we are engineers, we had to put on a good show back then boss watching ‘n all.” 

They proceeded to explain how their race had a hardcore work ethic, when they were in the zone, as in the engineering zone, they were in the zone period; it didn’t matter if the planet was ending or aliens turned up on their doorstep, nothing would shake their focus as we had apparently just proven.

This became evident as we left the humanities district, and those Skrill that got on also proceeded to loosen up and stopped bombarding us with work related questions. Basically, if you were a Skrill and passing through your district, you had to work or at least pretend to work.

Miguel still sulking from his smackdown nudged me and spoke under his breath, “it’s not as if we can just look this shit up online and google it”.

“Why not?” interjected Sash.

Ella now curious leaned in, “what do you mean? Do you have the internet here?”

“Of course, check your devices”.

We proceeded to flip out our phones and to our amazement there was a Wi-Fi signal, how the hell?

“That’s literally impossible, not to mention hyper convenient,” Charlotte added, “this feels off.”

“All your devices should auto-connect, you should be able to browse the web anywhere on our planet,” Sash said, “it’s a low-tech integration for us.”

I opened the explorer app, ‘page not found’, then a flashing icon appeared in the top left, ‘new home page set’, the page reloaded producing a picture of some alien flowers and a search field under it.

“Sir,” Ella showed me a similar scene on her tac, “they must have some kind of super AI that scraped all the data off our phone, learned our language and cached a clone of the internet.”

I looked at her in awe, “so it is possible then?”

“Yes, it’s amazing,” Ella was engrossed in her tac, as she ploughed through diagnostics readouts.

Sash then waved her hands in front of us, redirecting our attention as the same page I was just looking at exploded into midair right in front of our faces. Sash then clicked her fingers invoking the search field to auto complete ‘SKRILL’, hundreds of search items and images of these aliens began appearing all around us.

She selected an image, it enlarged and centered as the rest dispersed; she proceeded to scroll through a series of complex descriptions about anatomy, culture and so on.

“You see here” Sash said pointing to an image of two aliens, “this one is a ‘dude’, that one is a ‘chick’”, the image was side by side with another image of two naked humans, this time I recognized the cached URL it was from Wikipedia.

Sash continued, “we are anatomically quite close since human and Skrill are both four key, I thought that would have been obvious”.

“I’m sorry,” he replied with his head hung low, I thought he was going to cry.

“It’s cool, I’m just grumpy after work, but now you know”. Sash replied.

They continued to explain things more openly now, I looked around again taking stock of what was going on, why didn’t this interaction feel more alien? Are their translators masking their real culture and translating behavioral aspects for us too, or was there something deeper going on?

 “I have to ask; are you mammals or amphibians? At first, I thought with your webbed fingers and gills you were amphibians but now I’m not so sure”.

Sash directed us to more information from the holograms, “none of our recent ancestors were aquatic, I can’t even swim! Our air used to be full of minerals and tiny floating plankton; our gills were designed to process those nutrients.

The reason we have webbing on our hands was to catch bigger chunks of food in the air as it floated past, but a natural disaster long ago occurred eradicating this food source. As such our mouths had to develop and our gills became mostly redundant. A bit like your appendix.

The loss of minerals in the atmosphere created an evolutionary forcing function for us driving our brains to rapidly develop in complexity, turning us into hunter gatherers”.

Zeshala giggled again “you humans might need to ditch taxonomy; it won’t work for you in the long run”.

This was truly the most bizarre experience of my life, nevertheless I had to press on with more questions, I didn’t know how long we had.

 “How is all this working? How come you seem to know so much about us? Have you met humans before?”

Sekh the power flow guy from earlier came up, and put his arm around Sash, we all reflexively looked at Miguel, it really wasn’t his day.

Sekh spoke up “nope, this is our first encounter, your device data including your Sagan cached internet files was uploaded automatically, and our abstraction implants have been reviewing the data, it gave us the basics”.

Sekh waved his hand as if willing images to appear in the air, they displayed images of their implants, including some technical descriptions and so on.

Then he waved again, and it changed to some news articles, “we know about aliens and the tunnels from the news, but never really met one yet.

Since you got on the bus we have all been debating with each other telepathically via our neural link”.

Sekh then gestured to the news articles, “everything only appears in English to you but for us we see it in our language. I have to say, your people seem quite close to our technology from about 300 years ago”.

Ella took that moment to clarify, “your 300 years or ours?”

“Yours” replied Sekh, “the translations are all abstractive and personalized to you”.

“Can I have a word sir?” I turned to notice Jamieson had left her unit who was at the other side of this place.

I nodded, “sure, what’s up lieutenant?”

“We need to be asking the big questions, it seems like your group are having more luck than us,” Jamieson gave me a stern stare, I knew what she meant, and glad she took to leading Sokolov’s unit so well, she was a natural leader and always mission focused.

I went back to my group, and spoke as soon as they finished another explanation, “Seksh, Zeshala, what do you know about the ambassador and the imperium?  My planet is in danger, we were hoping we could learn from you, maybe even cooperate.”

They stopped and went quiet, during this time they looked at each other, their lips quivered occasionally, I could swear I was hearing high pitched hissing, like that of a snake just outside my audible range.

Sekh turned to me after what I assume was some kind of unspoken communication, “I think you need to talk to our governing body either way, I’m sorry I can’t say anymore.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, “how can we do that?”

Sekh flicked a holographic map into the air between us, “I am lodging a project proposal to the council tomorrow morning, you can join me then; I will try to get you introduced”.

I noticed Jamieson giving me another stare, I think I got her meaning, turning back to Sekh I asked some more, “that would be great, I don’t mean to sound rude, but could we go earlier? As in now, we are kind of in a rush”.

Sekh’s shoulders bobbed, “afraid not, ministers and the Dean have left their duties for the day already and we are on the bus out of town.”

Sighing, I realized we didn’t have much choice, and this was still the best lead given the variety of tunnel combinations we would need to try to get back home.

Zeshala moved forward gesturing our palm upwards, “don’t worry, we have discussed and already made arrangements, will take you to a place you can rest and be safe whilst you wait, we are all going to the same place so you can get off with us”.

For some reason this whole scenario felt all too easy, too familiar and certainly not alien at all. Dark thoughts of controlled delusion or that maybe I was still stuck in the pod  had passed through my mind, whatever was going on I had to keep my wits about me, “where is that?” I asked?

“We are off duty” squealed Sash, “we are going to the lake district to check you guys in, then my colleagues and I are going to the entertainment district next door to vent off some steam, you are welcome to join us”.

Shashank and Price looked at me pleadingly, but I could see Jamieson nodding her head in the negative, as appealing as the idea of a night out with aliens sounded, we had objectives to meet, and we were already off course, literally.

We soon settled down and I started looking out the one-way window; it might have just been a real-time projection for all I knew. We were flying in the air at tremendous speeds, we passed humongous concentric metallic disk like structures floating in mid-air, they were bigger than football stadiums but with no apparent structural support.

These disks slowly rotated, tendrils of sapphire blue light snaked out from them, enveloping the next, we must have been at least 10km up in the air, yet these mammoth structures didn’t hover, they just hung there as if anchored by some invisible force.

“I suspect they are levitated using room temperature super conductors” said Navi, who had been quiet all this time was now perched on my shoulder. It continued “we have this technology on earth, but it only works at low temperatures”. I picked up on a word Navi used - ‘we’, I wasn’t sure how my superiors would react, but I really owed Navi a chance to be accepted and not dissected up by the eggheads the minute we got back.

I was eager to get back to earth with this new intel ASAP, but we couldn’t exactly just leave as we would be at square one again so it made sense to be patient. We need to ascertain if their leaders can help us get back to earth and offer intel on the tunnel network.

But we had to wait, I considered the benefits of this detour, for one this was first contact with a benevolent alien race, far more advanced than ours. Developing good relations via our interactions we are having now could yield unexpected long-term benefits.

Maybe Baines already knew the full picture, he didn’t seem surprised by the ambassador after all, I just hoped this would be worth it and that there would be an Earth to return to.

These thoughts and other worries entered my mind as I stared out the window onto this magnificent world.

“Andrew am I disturbing you?”,

Zeshala had approached and brought her face in close to mines, I think she was trying to figure out what I was staring at. “no, not at all; I was just daydreaming”.

“You are in charge of this team, right?” she said.

“Kind of, I lead one group of six, the other two groups of six are led by Price and Sokolov”

“From what I have read, I think captain is a pretty big achievement?”

“Thanks, it’s not bad, I would like to make Major before I consider leaving the UNCC, what about you? Do you have any aspirations to move up?”

Before she could answer, we were distracted by commotion in front of us,

“I’m very sorry sir, I do apologize.” said a distraught Price, this was very unlike him; he rarely backed down to anyone, even me.

“ha-ha, did you hear that” chuckled Shashank as he came up offering me some rations, I politely raised my hand to decline,

“that alien Price was having a staring contest with turned out to be an old age pensioner. He is giving Price what for”.

 I could hear the old Skrill pipe up, “you look like a strapping young beast, why don’t you help me with my garden, those lazy drones can’t seem to shift heavy things”,

Price responded as if talking to his drill instructor, “yes sir, it would be my honor”. More minor misunderstandings like this arose, such as Charlotte and Miguel being asked to delete certain pictures that they took which were ‘unbecoming’.  

Once Shashank moved off, Zeshala continued “I wanted to ask you, after your meeting with the Dean, could we talk some more?”, she placed her hand on top of mine.

I paused for a moment, this was the first time I’d touched a Skrill, I certainly could be misinterpreting her signals and shouldn’t over react, but I also couldn’t control my own thoughts.

It wasn’t as if they were unattractive, quite the opposite, the females had slim but curved physiques and the males sported broader shoulders and chiseled facial features. Both displayed relatable feminine and masculine qualities. Even their mouths weren’t that dissimilar, just smaller and possibly less protruding than ours. Their eyes which were definitely different, weren’t that much of a big deal. The only weird thing I found was their noses were just two small inlets with flaps over them that opened and closed with breathing.

Still, my baser primate instincts began surging and my heartbeat fluttered as my body started pumping out adrenaline and hormones, was Zeshala going through anything remotely similar? 

My mind continued to dart between thinking maybe this was just a standard wider invitation, my mind was working overtime.  

“uh… are we even compatible? Is it safe?”.

Zeshala looked at me and cocked her head, “compatible? I was hoping to learn more about you and your people.”

Ah, I had read the situation wrong, Zeshala then put her other hand on my shoulder and her amber eyes locked with mines, “but a little companionship can’t hurt can it?”

Or maybe not, I considered.

“Zeshala, I really want to, but I have to get back to help earth, maybe…”

That’s when I got cut off, “no problem!”, she let go of my hand.

“Here’s my number if your situation changes or you need to contact me.”

 She gestured for me to get my phone out, then waved her hand over it and the screen lit up like magic. Before I could check it out, she brought her face in close and pursed her lips upwards, was she trying to imitate a smile? Before I could respond, she ran off and nearly got knocked over by Shashank.

“Playing hard to get eh champ?” said Shashank with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

I was wound up tight, I looked him in the eye, but his comical demeanor broke me, and I gave way to a chuckle and a sigh.

Unlocking my phone, I could see Zeshala’s details pop up, an animated profile photo but no phone number. Under other details it had a long string of letters and numbers that reminded me of a bitcoin address. I stared at the picture a bit longer, then out the window until we got to the lake district.