Aetheran Child

by Antonin Januska

  Lexan sent an order to have the dinner paid for with his Cardinal Regions's credits. He left, and headed toward the meeting place with Romul and Remu.

  III

  The transports, and commerce were busy. People walked through, laughing, enjoying themselves. The restaurants were full, shops busy with customers, and the parks did not offer any free seats to occupy. The entertainment spheres were so packed, a sign actually warned the incomers.

  Lexan walked aimlessly around. His mind slightly distorted, he looked for a place to sit down. The two broken ribs, as his analysis showed, caused him enormous pain whenever he moved. One hand clutching the chest, Lexan tried to find a place where he could sit, activate his shield and strip. Then, he could download some preliminary medical programs to his NCC, swallow the nano-bits, and recover at least partially. He thought about turning into an Aether, but the actual act would require him to either calm down enough to enter a meditative state or perform a physical act that he would not be able to do with the broken ribs. In the Aether form, he could heal.

  He walked on, and decided to take a transport to the meeting place. The entire trip, Lexan was hurting. The program necessary for medical operations was not available freely on DomeStem, neither was it available in the general stores. In case of injury, most people turned to public droids with such knowledge. Lexan groaned at the thought, he would have to go see a medical droid sooner or later. He'd prefer later. Romul and Remu should have some routines that would enable his NCC to start the healing.

  Two more hours until the meeting, he thought sadly. Joshua obeyed his thought command and called on Romul and Remu to ask for an earlier meeting.

  They complied and replied that they would be at the meeting place, another large garden, within fifteen minutes.

  The garden spread all around, it seemed more like a small forest perhaps a park. Lexan stumbled through, it was dark. He sat down on an empty bench under a lamp. The yellow light shone down on him harshly. Several drops of blood on the visor made it impossible to see well.

  “Joshua, turn on my shield,” Lexan said, hurting as he did so and switched back to thought commands. The shield shimmered into existence, and Lexan snapped off his helmet. Blood dripped down on the concrete. Liquid swarmed up to his mouth from his wrist. The NCC entered Lexan's body and seeped through into his bloodstream. It couldn't do anything useful at the moment.

  Romul and Remu appeared momentarily.

  “Whoa, what happened to you, man?” Romul stared at the blood on the sidewalk.

  “I got in a fight with Jacque. Broke two of my ribs. You got any medical subroutines for my NCC?” Lexan replied, clutching his chest.

  “Why did he fight you?” Remu asked questioningly but she did send him a few simple medical programs that would control the damage done to the tissue.

  The nano machines started their work, first by stopping the bleeding. Then, the machines repaired the bone tissue, putting the ribs back into their places with a crunch. Another part of the NCC liquid released opiate painkillers that numbed the area. They continued their work, unsupervised.

  “I kissed Nivua,” Lexan said uncomfortably, clutching at his chest. It hurt, extremely.

  “What?” Romul stared, “You, kissed Nivua? Nivua, the most beautiful girl in the sector-Nivua?”

  “Yeah, that's the one,” He laughed, but stopped once again, because of the pain.

  “Wow, that slut,” Remu laughed, “Poor Jacque.”

  “Poor Jacque? He beat the hell out of me!” Lexan replied.

  “Yeah, you deserved it. You kissed his girlfriend,” Remu laughed once more.

  “Actually, she kissed me.”

  “No way,” Romul grinned and seemed to jump up and down with excitement, “So are you two gonna go out?

  “No, I don't like her like that. I did, but no. Bloo's mad at me too,” The boy sitting down answered.

  “Yeah, you better do something really good otherwise she'll never forgive you,” said Remu.

  “I don't think I even want to. This is too much work.”

  “So, you're gonna let Bloo go? The second most beautiful girl in the sector?” Romul sat down next to Lexan put his elbows on his knees and shook his head, one hand holding his head.

  “Romul, is there some kind of a list?” She raised an eyebrow at him. He shook his head and grinned.

  “Yes, I'm letting Bloo go, this is not worth it,” Lexan spat out some extra blood that accumulated in his mouth. He had a cut on his lip.

  “Well, we're here for you if you need anything,” Remu smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. Lexan smiled back.

  “That reminds me, I have news, about the war. Something you'll never hear or find anywhere,” Lexan grinned as he saw the look on their faces.

  He spent the next half hour or so explaining his vision with Nangern. Then he went on to explain the situation with the war and the timing of the alarm. Romul and Remu stared in disbelief.

  Finally, Lexan mentioned Alary.

  “There is no way, you have to be mistaken,” Romul said, “The chance that someone else from the Cardinal Regions, from your planet, came to this school are minimal. But that you know them? That's impossible.”

  “Well, if that other boy, the girl's brother, became a general in the Nether's army then I don't see why it's so incredible to think that this Alary girl goes here.” Remu answered.

  “But this is impossible!” Romul retorted, “How could Lexan here, from the Cardinal Regions, go to school with two random people that he personally knows and then one of them grows up to be a Nether leader while the other goes here? That's just plain impossible. Not only is it illegal to take people that know each other from a single CR planet, but the chances both of them go here are just astronomically against you.

  “That Nether fellow, that's even worse. First of all, Nethers have no jurisdiction in the Cardinal Regions. Second, there is a military barrier all around so that a Nether would not even be able to cross. I know you know this because when you came here from the Cardinal Regions, you must have passed through immigration.” Romul stared at Lexan.

  Lexan motioned Romul and Remu to recheck the EM shield around them. They had already blocked any kind of frequency from getting through out of their immediate vicinity. Their shields shimmered as the block reinstated itself and ran diagnostics.

  “There is something I have to tell you,” Lexan started seriously, “There are no Cardinal Regions.”

  Romul and Remu stared quietly in disbelief.

  “'Cardinal Regions' is a code-word. It refers to either a classified or an unknown planet. I'm not sure about what all planets they include.” Lexan waited for them to absorb the information and continued, “Alary, Nangern, and I come from the same planet. We presumably left at the same time, about a year and a half ago. That's why they could get through this 'immigration' and that is why the Nethers could get Nangern.”

  “Wait, what planet are you from then?” Remu looked at him, ignoring all the other information.

  “We're from Earth.” Romul gave a short yelp when he heard that.

  “You can't be from Earth. It's off limits, completely off-limits.” He mumbled.

  “Apparently, it's not,” Lexan answered and continued talking, “There is a lot I need to know from Master Raki and from the council that they will not tell me. First of all, why did they not tell me about Alary?”

  “Security reasons, I suppose,” Romul answered, thinking to himself.

  “Then how come Nangern isn't here and is on the other side?” Lexan asked pleadingly. He knew they would not answer, and that it might take some time to find an answer. No one talked for a few minutes.

  “I think it's time to reveal the plan,” Remu nudged Romul, her face showed she had questions of her own, “Tonight, Lexan, we're going to hack into the school's node of the DomeStem. Hopefully, we'll find answer to a lot of those questions.”

  Romul brightened at the idea of
explaining his plan, “Let me explain how the system works,” Romul threw his NCC out into the air, the particles whirled and created a holographic projection, one that could be touched and felt. A grid of spheres connected by lines appeared, “This is the school’s Node DomeStem, we're right here,” A red dot appeared in middle of one of the green spheres, “As you can see, we are not on the grid but we are wirelessly connected to the hub that's in middle of every Sphere.” The image swirled and showed a rectangular box.

  “This is the photon router. It connects this Sphere to the Node, It's almost impossible to get to it without permission.”

  “That's why we could not think of a plan at first, we need to get to the photon router of at least one sphere so that we can move around in the 'Stem. Not all classified data is available wirelessly. At least not here or anywhere close to here.” Remu explained.

  “Furthermore,” Romul interjected, running his large hands over the simulation, “The data passed through the photon wiring is encrypted. That's no problem, if we get the data we can decrypt it.”

  “Eventually,” Remu added and smiled, “Encryption isn't much of an issue. All data passed through the photon wiring is relatively safe. No one can steal it because no one can get to the photon routers. Any person who wants access to the data, has to show a series of verifications and plug in directly.”

  Romul took over, “ That's no problem for the persons in question, the GrandMasters and Masters that are allowed to access the Photon Routers. But they don't even need to do that, most of the Spheres where the higher-ups move through, have photon-wiring all over the place with access terminals available on every step.”

  “Here is what we came up with,” Remu took out a small box from her pocket, it seemed to just magically appear but Lexan knew she probably summoned it from another dimension, her own closet dimension. It warped in from a micro-universe, using the fourth spacial dimension unseen to humans. Using a series of atomic 'pushes' the fourth spacial dimension replaced the third in the object. Therefore, a small flat piece of metal could suddenly become any three-dimensional object.

  Remu opened the box to reveal a black volatile liquid, “This is our little creation,” She looked over at Romul who took over the conversation, “It's a small spider-like bot that can crawl through all the small spaces, and laser through the rest to get to the photon router. It can then inject itself into the photon fibers and capture information. We can use it to extract all the info we need and send it using a wireless frequency used in the Degree III vision, very low-tech. Information in Degree III vision is not usually scanned, and to those viewing in that mode, the information stream will take on the shape of a nano-meter wide white line spreading over the floors. If we're lucky, no one will catch us or pay attention to the data transfer,” with that, he smiled, and the liquid transformed into a spider with long sharp legs and a small rounded body. One of the legs hoisted a small laser, while another held a needle, presumably for the photon injection.

  “Let's get this started.” Lexan smiled at finally having to do something productive. He automatically linked himself to Romul and Remu who sent out the little spider on its way.

  The spider soon crawled on the ground and scattered off, feeding on the directions Remu gave it. The needle-like legs skidded on the polished surface of the metals. It dragged and burned marks into the outer shell of the sphere. Lexan could barely catch up with it. The spider had already burned its way outside through the thin glass.

  It climbed down to the sphere's equator where its laser made another incision. A few minutes later, the spider climbed through another neat hole into the control room.

  “So much for security,” Romul laughed silently as the three of them followed the strange spider on their screen. Degree II vision, Lexan remarked to himself, it was where he saw the reality but saw the spider's optical input as well. Once again his mind slipped and when he checked upon the status of the spider, it was climbing across photon fibers.

  “I can't believe we made it so quickly,” Remu said, “This is strange.” She turned her head up and looked around. There was no one to be seen, “I know we're already shielded, but just as a precaution,” her NCC jumped out of its cradle and made its way across the park, “I've sent out sensors.”

  Finally, all of them dove into the Node. Lexan was sent through a whirling tornado of information. He flew in the winds of data. The information swirl slowed down, and he found himself in the eye. The spider had successfully intercepted the photon wires. Romul and Remu stood by his side. Remu waved her hands around and a menu pulled up, it contained the map of the current Mandala-Node, a self-repeating fractal data structure. She marked the route that she wanted to follow, to the Sphere where the Council resided. A red line glowed showing the planned route.

  Remu dove down into the tornado, Romul followed. Lexan kept looking around, the Node lacked the usual surreal graphics and the order that the Outer DomeStem possessed. All of it was about efficiency, speed, and perfection. He dove into the swirling data. He emerged outside. The tornado, it turned out, was a data thread, one of many, hoisted in the Mandala-Node, a subset of the school’s entire Node. The Mandala structure was a repeating fractal with a middle point of origin, extending outward with complicated threads of whirling data, and strings of constant connections. The Mandala, at its edge, lacked its regularity, its multi-dimensional fractalic beauty of data, connections, subsets, arrays, variables, processing algorithms. Instead, the Mandala’s edge created tunnels to other Mandala-Nodes, to other parts of the enormous system that created the school’s DomeStem Node, which, in itself, was another Mandala-Node subset of the larger DomeStem and so on.

  “How come this is so easy?” Lexan asked as Romul swam through the fractal obstacles onto neat pathways for visitors.

  “It's really not. This took weeks of preparation. Romul and I have been planning an operation like this for a while. And don't forget the years of experience on our side,” Remu said as they flew through the tunnel into the next Mandala fractal.

  “We're at the easy part one, pal. The Photon router was probably left alone tonight accidentally. Or the maintenance crew might not care about it as much anymore.

  “We'll get to the hard part when we reach the Council's Mandala Node.”

  The next few Mandalas actually contained a few more visitors like themselves. They were the maintenance crew that fixed the Node DomeStem from the inside. The three Aether students stumbled through the tornadoes, bypassing the crew with no problem. Lexan noticed something peculiar, the fractal parts changed color, each one of them was different and unique in every Mandala. Yet despite this, he felt as if he was going in circles. All of it looked too familiar and same.

  “I need to dive out, partially, to check on something,” Romul all of a sudden said with a serious face. His DomeStem icon turned semi-transparent. Remu and Lexan took the lifeless body and dragged it effortlessly with them into the tunnel joint point.

  Neither talked, both followed the route.

  “Stop,” Remu said all of a sudden as they entered yet another new territory, “the easy part is over.” She said motioning toward a set of guards at the exits. Remu took out what looked like a spear.

  “What are you doing?” Lexan stared at her.

  “What? You thought we would just pass in and out?” She laughed, “We'll have to fight our way through as well.”

  Remu shook Romul, and he returned back to his form, “I'm sorry, both of you, but I'm not cut out for fighting. I will guide you through from the outside.” And with that he disappeared completely.

  Remu nodded at Lexan and they continued.

  Romul's voice checked in, “Okay, there are two guards ahead. From what I see, we're only three Mandala-Node checkpoints away.”

  “Good. We're almost there then,” Remu took her large spear and handed Lexan a sword and smiled.

  They headed through the numerous tornadoes of data. The guards stood at attention. Re
mu started running and gaining momentum, Lexan followed.

  “Do you have authorization to enter?” The guards asked pointlessly without even preparing to defend themselves. Remu knocked both of them down with ease.

  “Some security,” Lexan said but Remu shook her head. The guards stood up and closed off all the ports. Lexan attacked one of them before he could sound the alarm but could not stop the other.

  The Mandala strings of information started blinking with a blue color. Remu attacked the other. The fights seemed rather easy.

  “Why are they so easy to fight?” Lexan asked.

  “Because they're only a piece of code. And these are the easy-to-destroy guards, meant to simply ward of or scare those without a firm conviction” She winked at Lexan as her spear pierced through the guard. Lexan slashed his sword, cutting the guard he was fighting into two.

  He smiled victoriously only to realize all of the tunnels out of the sub Node were still closed.

  “We don't have much time,” Remu said, “Romul,” she called out, “Get us through, will you?”

  “In a second,” Romul answered and the portals opened, “By the way, the Police Droids will be tracing you from now on, so hurry up.”

  Remu and Lexan jumped through the portal the slashed sentinels guarded. The next Mandala-Node differed from the others, there was a constant traffic of workers and guards. A small market even. The data tornadoes were present in larger numbers, creating much more confusion.

  The duo walked through to the next portal. When the guards saw them, they attacked.

  Lexan dodged their long swords and retorted with a few slashes. They blocked. Their golden shining armor protected them. The first guard lunged forward and took all of Lexan's attention. One slash after another, he pummeled against Lexan. The boy fought back as brilliantly as he could. The guard's sword came down from the left, Lexan did an uppercut to block the attack. He kicked the guard in the torso and knocked him back several feet.

  That's when the second guard attacked from the side. He managed to slash at Lexan's arm. Lexan counter attacked with his other hand. The guard was surprised momentarily and received a heavy blow to his neck. Shielded by armor, his neck was not directly wounded. Lexan kicked the guard and returned to the first assailant.