It was not something to wait for, and everyone still had the choice to remain in their homes and keep on with their lives, but the downside of it was that they would probably die within five years or so. Yaerus was a thriving planet, and human species were Third-Ranked among the Five Great Species, but yeah, we kinda lived our lives fast.
The Institute was full of people from every major of the Chronicle Studies at all times. When we arrived, I almost turned and ran after seeing the sea of people running up and down the main floor. Black people, white people, red, people of every race and color, everyone and everything—most alien visitors of Mosa headed straight to the Institute—kinda spent their time here.
Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one flustered before this sight. Jay spent a whole minute watching the masses pass before his eyes.
“Are there so many humans left?” he said, gawping while trying to once again rationalize the last one hundred years he had missed.
“I told you, humanity is booming more than ever. We’re way ahead than the other older species like the Yttor and the Bluabb. But we still have way to go before we climb to the next rank.”
The Third-Ranked Status was a great feat that humanity had achieved three years ago, but for the Allied Governments, it was not nearly good enough. They currently rushed things and pushed the boundaries of diplomatic agreements, trying to get their hands into more planets and expand even more.
But that had nothing to do with me.
Papa is the one politically involved, I’m just another Chronicler.
“So? Where is that Professor of yours?” he said, adding that usual wry twist to his sayings.
“Follow me,” I urged him and headed for the other side of the human wall.
I was not quite sure how many people I pushed, or stepped onto to get through the crowd. There was one that swore in Spanish and another one in French, but we kinda survived the passing. After spending all my time with Jay and Zan, it was now quite difficult to understand what they said to us.
When I did, my cheeks reddened, and I kinda wanted to run and hide from embarrassment. People from the European System were always so temperamental.
After some more squeezing and waiting in a short line, we finally got in front of one of the platforms. Tens of tubes were located at the other end of the room. The Institute provided visitors and personnel hovering platforms that worked as elevators to the upper floors. Jay hadn’t seen anything like that before.
I spent a moment to explain him how these things worked, and he ended up looking at me more confused than before. He was way too cute, and I had to stop myself from laughing at him. The one time I did, he didn’t talk to me for a week. It was a nightmare.
“Wait, wait. So, we ride one of those things, and they get us straight to the Professor?”
“No, for the last time, no. We ride one of the platforms, and you follow me through the upper hallways to the place where the Professor is. Just get on and you’ll get the hang of it,” I said in an annoyed tone.
Frankly, I was indeed annoyed, and tired, and very, very uncomfortable. It had been more than a year since I had used a platform, so I was a bit afraid that I had forgotten how to ride them. I pulled my sleeves up, stretched my lower lip while trying to get up, and we finally set off for the upper floor. Jay, only perceptive when he wanted to be, he seemed like a technologically weak person. He ended up being dumber that Zan and Zan was just a kid from Primordial Earth.
Without further ado, he finally hopped on and followed me. Everywhere around us, many people flew upwards at great speed. The most experienced platform riders could get to their destination in merely minutes, but neither of us, neither Jay, nor I, we were experienced enough to reach great speeds.
We rose towards the upper hallways slowly and steadily. After five minutes of hovering above the main floor, we saw the first, and most popular department of the Institute, the Discovery of the New. Every piece of new tech, every experiment involving human enhancement, typically everything that helped humans get even better at bragging to the other species, all were developed here.
I explained that to Jay and he looked at me mesmerized. “So, this is your research facility. It’s huge. I think we had one just like that in our dreadnaught. Esuh were magnificent at developing new drugs and substances.”
“Really? I thought you were always at war with someone. Why that fixated with medicine?” I asked while we flew by a small lab that experimented with flies.
I think that some of those things I saw in there had the same size as a hamster.
“When soldiers got injured, usually we had to spend some time treating them. But, after we started developing medicine for everything, the treating time was reduced to a minimal. A particular pill could heal you from laser wounds, and another could enhance your sight. There was literary a pill about everything.”
He talked with such warmth about his people that kinda made me want to help him discover more about them. Also, that was the most time he had spoken to me since we met. Usually, he said one thing and then left to do something else.
Even so, after all this time, there was no progress with his amnesia. Bits of information surfaced every day, but important parts like if he had a family, or where his planet was, or what had happened to the rest of the Esuh, those parts he missed.
Quickly after we passed another lab that experimented in lucid dreaming and dream printers, I saw the dim lights of the noise-canceling technology of the next part of our journey up. The Department of the Known Galaxy Archives Research was a huge library located in the exact middle of the round building. It was the biggest department of them three, spreading for miles, with digital archives that stored the whole combined knowledge of the Known Galaxy Species.
In the past, this poorly lit place had strict regulations about noise and its visitors. The problem was that since it was located directly above the DND, short for Discovery of the New Department, it was always noisy and hard to focus. However, one day, the Chroniclers of the DND came up with a noise canceling grid that disintegrated every noise wave traveling in the air before it was even created.
As soon as we passed into the grid, holographic displays appeared in front of us, allowing us to communicate by typing whatever we wanted to say. I quickly typed the explanation to him.
He replied with a simple: “Amazing.”
I had to read that tiny word three times before actually realizing that Jay was indeed amazed by human tech. Esuh of the Two Faces most probably were a highly advanced species that ruled the galaxy in the past, according to Jay that is, but they had mysteriously vanished even before the Nusae appeared.
As a Chronicler of the Great Mystery, the last and less popular department of the Institute, my questions regarding his origins thickened by the day, but I never quite asked him anything. Jay could be a very offensive person, but now that I saw him so amazed by the Institute, I kinda liked him more than before. It meant he had a soft side inside him.
I froze.
Did I think I like him? No, I don’t like him. Eladia, stay focused. Jay is just another piece to the Great Mystery.
The green lights at the end of the noise-canceling grid suddenly appeared. It was enough of a distraction to make me forget about my embarrassing realization. Honestly, it was never too soon to get out of this ghastly place. I hoped I didn’t have to visit it again soon. But, if the Professor didn’t have a clue, this department was my next shot.
At the end of our tour, we arrived at the top floor of the Institute, the smallest and poorest department, the Great Mystery. I led him to a platform port and by pressing a button, the engines stopped and anchored at the edge of the floor.
We got off quickly. It was way too high for comfort, but fortunately, the crowds were nonexistent up here.
“Are you sure we are in the right place?” Jay suddenly asked.
Strange, he usually has a strong sense of orientation.
“Of course it is. This way. The Professor’s of
fice is on the right wing.”
He followed me with the same cocky expression, his usual know-it-all smug and of course, that overly confident amble. For Jay, the world owed him a favor for existing, and he would gladly remind everyone that with his attitude.
Nevertheless, our department was indeed poor and not so popular, but the greatest Chroniclers of all time had passed from here. And Professor Virgil was one of them.
The name tag was almost ready to fall off the door. I was not sure why they still used name tags up here, but it was relatively easy to find the right office, even if you didn’t know who you were looking for. You just had to hear the screams at the end of the hallway.
When Jay first heard the Professor shriek, he broke down the door with ease and charged inside. When he saw her behind her monitor, reading one of her books, he stood still and glared at Professor Virgil and me one after the other.
“I’m sorry Professor. I didn’t know he would smash his way in. I should have warned him.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sorry at all. It suited her well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jay
I thought that I couldn’t get more surprised by humans, but every time I said that, I ended up on the wrong side. Passing through all those amazing places to get up here, in this rundown place, it kinda pumped me down. We could have spent another minute investigating that lab in the first floor with those shining swords, or the place where you couldn’t even talk. Not this forgotten by gods place.
The blonde woman with the short hair was sitting behind a small desk, calm as if she was just ready to fall asleep. I looked around me, searching for the one that screamed before, but the only one in here was her.
“Who are you? Hello, Eladia my dear. I hope you’re doing okay.”
I considered not replying to her, but her authority was greater than Eladia’s. This woman actually demanded my answer.
“I’m Jasih. And you must be the so called Professor.”
If I knew better, I’d say that this woman flirted with me. But I didn’t know. Humans could be so complicated at times.
“Jasih. Interesting name. Are you sick Jasih? Your skin is sickly pale, almost silver I’d say.”
She didn’t even bother to stand, or stop reading. The only time I saw her eyes was earlier, when I broke down the door of this room.
“No, I’m perfectly fine. You wrongly assumed that I’m human. I’m an Esuh of the Two Faces, a Prime Officer of my people and a First Kind.”
Suddenly, the woman yelled again and hit her hands on the desk. She was on her feet now, watching me straight into the eyes. This one was crazier than Eladia, than everyone that I had ever met.
“You didn’t! Is this one a new species?”
Did she refer to me as this?
“Yes, Professor Virgil. Silver found no reference to his species in the Archives. I visited all seven Great Mystery Libraries on my way back to Yaerus, but not one of them even mentions anything about the Esuh. He’s another great mystery.”
She moved closer to me. I examined her face from up close, and I noticed that this woman was slightly older than Eladia, maybe a year or two. I was not an expert in human ages, but she had the same skin color and elasticity as Eladia, but her eyes were darker and deeper. It was like she had seen the wonders of the galaxy and got mad in the process.
“So, a new thread to the Great Mystery unravels. What about the relic you described in your message? What about it? Have you brought it here? Did you run every diagnostic test? What’s the pragmatic difference between the age you discovered it to the age it actually found itself on Primordial Earth? Quickly woman, answer me!”
There she goes again with the loud voices. I mean, is she deaf or something?
They spent some time talking gibberish to one another when the blonde woman, the Professor, suddenly turned serious looking at the black-haired one, Eladia.
“Okay, talk to me Eladia. What’s your guess here? What is this?”
She referred to the cube, and maybe a little bit to me.
Honestly, I give up!
Eladia seemed to regain some of her old spark, the one she had in Primordial Earth when hunted by every kind of predator.
“After careful consideration and thorough analysis, I don’t have the slightest idea what this cube is. I tried to compare the Morph Relic to this one, but besides sharing the same material, those two relics have nothing else in common.”
She continued.
“The cube was huge when we first found it. It was changing sizes, shapes, and color frantically before ending up in Jay’s hand for no apparent reason. I was in the same space as Jay here, but it didn’t seem to show any hesitation. It headed straight to him. Honestly, if I wanted to be ambitious and take a wild guess, I’d say it is a data cube of some sort?”
We had discussed many times about what could possibly be hidden inside this tiny cube. For me, since this was probably not a weapon I could use or something to help me find the truth, it had no use at all. But for these two women, it was a hot topic, a subject worth building a career from.
At least that was what I had heard Eladia say at Silver one night. The blonde woman, the crazy one, spread her hand towards me with her palm open wide.
“What?” I asked.
“I want to examine it. Give it to me.”
“Okay. It’s all yours,” I said and took it out of my pocket.
The small cube was as warm as the day I first found it on my chest back on the other planet, but nothing else had changed since then. Still, after I left it on her hand, even before I pulled it away, it started moving towards me.
Another shriek. This time, she said something in a strange language. “This is not a data cube Eladia, not by a long shot. It has absorbed his bio-imprint, and it now follows him everywhere around. This one is the key,” she said and pointed at me. “Your data might hide inside of this cube, but for now, the outside is the lock, and your man here is the key. Oh my, I have to go downstairs and study.”
And just like that, the woman ran off like she was the guest and we the ones holding this office. But Eladia didn’t seem all that surprised.
“Does she do that often?”
She shrugged .
“Yes and no. Last time I was here, she attacked me, trying to punch me in the face. If Silver wasn’t here back then, she would have injured me really bad.”
“And why you respect her so much?”
She shrugged again.
“Because she’s the only one that believed in me and paid my mission to find this relic.”
Just then, Zan and Silver appeared at the door. The part-hologram, part-mechanic Android seemed genuinely concerned.
“Eladia, are you okay? Did she try to punch you again?”
The black-haired woman shook her head. I walked next to Zan and lowered my head to talk to him. “Humans are crazy, kid. Be glad you didn’t evolve to be like that.”
The hairy kid, which now seemed less hairy than before after Silver had groomed him a month ago, looked at me and smiled. I bet he didn’t even understand a thing of what I had just said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eladia
Visiting Professor Virgil was, at the very least, a fruitless endeavor.
She actually ran out of her office straight to the Research of the Archives department to search for more clues about my case. She couldn’t even wait for me to finish talking before running away.
Even so, somehow, I didn’t feel all that disappointed after all. To make someone like her run behind her books, well, that was as important as agreeing that I was on the right track.
Being a tad bit more eccentric than the rest of our colleagues, for Virgil to actually focus on my project gave me a tint of satisfaction.
Okay, a lot of satisfaction.
But, if there was someone that could help me crack this code,
then Virgil was the one. But, while our visit was a small, personal victory for me, it was an utter failure for Jay. Seeing his troubled expression made me feel responsible for raising his hopes. Professor Virgil was kinda his last hope.
When Silver and Zan appeared at the door, we were still standing still, dumbstruck by Professor’s sudden disappearance. Silver, afraid that the events of our last meeting were repeated, she seemed quite a bit concerned when she barged in.
After reassuring her that everything was perfectly fine, she calmed down. Well, at least things were mostly fine.
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Cube: The Sci-FI Alien Invasion Romance (Books 1-5) Page 9