First Light: Book one of the Torus Saga

by Berg, Michael

  “You’ll find some nice clothes here,” she said as they reached the end of the walkway opening out onto a large indoor esplanade fronted by shops.

  They struggled between the masses of people crowding the area, as she led Raynie to a store she knew well on the far right side of the esplanade. Upon reaching the store, a service person greeted them, “What would you like today ladies? City wear, casual, or outdoor wear?”

  “We’ll take outdoor wear,” Jenna replied. “But first, we will get the men sorted out, then we can shop at our leisure. Please show us the male section.”

  “With our current technology, you know one size fits all, except for height.”

  “Four men all between six foot and six foot six inches.”

  “Well then, now we can get down to business.” The service attendant took four different styled outdoor suits off the rack. “Now. These Geiga suits can all accommodate the height range as you advised. Do you like the styles?”

  “They look fine to me. What do you think Raynie?”

  “Yes. Great suits.”

  “OK, we’ll take those.” The attendant bundled the suits into a bag as the two women watched.

  Clothing had taken on an entire new dimension in recent years for those living in the more advanced societies. Gone were the old style shirts and pants prone to wear and tear. Nano technology now played a big part in clothing design that had also changed the styles. Clothes for those fortunate to be able to afford them were now one-piece suits incorporating technology developed through discoveries in plant-based materials, which prevented them from becoming soiled or wet. They could still be prone to wear, mostly in adverse environments, but were much longer lasting, retaining their original look for almost their entire life cycle. Nano technology was woven into the fabric of each to provide a bacteria free, thermally regulated environment for the wearer.

  With the advances made in medicine with nano technology, nearly all consumers now had access to the sub atomic world. Programmed to optimize the human body, anyone who needed it was capable of taking them on board personally, to re-shape their body and retain near peak condition for most of their average one hundred and twenty year lives. On one level were the corporations responsible for the development of this technology - their thinking was that people with healthy long lives, could provide a longer and more productive life of consumption that in-turn added to the profit of the large corporations. Unbeknown to the population at large, was the fact most corporations were owned or being acquired by the authorities.

  Through constant upkeep and repairs of the Telomeres found at the ends of chromosomes, the cell based nano technology retained cell reproduction at high quality thus sustaining the integrity of DNA condition. Under the guise of the freedom to live happy and healthy lives, people took to this technology without hesitation. Some elected not to have the implants of nano technology - mostly those fortunate enough physically to only require specific treatments as they aged. Jenna and Raynie were of this later group, and so had both decided they did not require any of the nano medicines.

  “Now for us,” Jenna said when he had finished packing the men’s’ clothes. “Take us to the ladies section please.”

  “You will love our brand new stock,” the sales attendant told them as he led them away. “A new line of women’s Geiga Suits. The styles are just out of this world and the price is right too.” When they arrived, he took two body suits off the rack and instantly both women fell in love with the clothing. “Aren’t they just great?” Indeed the suits were very appealing to the eye in a style appearing quite futuristic. They had lavish lines to accentuate the female form. Flowing designs and decals offered sensuality with organic impressions that immersed the entire body with the suit. When they returned from the fitting rooms to examine themselves in the mirror, the women were taken aback. The clothes made them look sheer and effervescent as if illuminating something from deep within them.

  “It’s like my soul is showing on the outside,” Raynie said as she ran her hands down her sides.

  “Yes and how sexy we look,” Jenna added laughing at herself. “You have a sale. No need to pack these, we will wear them now.”

  “OK ladies. And see the label here. Vandervals enabled. You know what that is don’t you.”

  “Sure do,” Jenna said. “That means we can literally move up walls with these things.”

  “That’s right. There are pads built into the suit mostly for a bit of adult fun you know.”

  “Vanderva…?” Raynie began to ask.

  “Yes. Vandervals. It is a force of millions of tiny hair-lets enabling grip onto to any surface. They developed it from studies into how some wild life can walk up walls where it looks as if there is nothing to grip onto. The mass of hairs does all the work providing a large area contacting the surface. When we walk, beneath our feet is mostly air. Well, these are much different, but the hair-lets are synthetic though.”

  “That’s right,’ the attendant added. “And you voice command it to work. The discreet gripping pads are here on the forearms and on the knees.”

  “Are the men’s suits the same?”

  “Yes they are.”

  They left the clothing store and continued on for another hour browsing the shops before deciding it was time to leave. As they descended the elevator back to street level, they were again bombarded with adverts on the microchip scheme by the three-dimensional holographic projections.

  “Gee, they are really going hard on the sell,” Raynie commented.

  “Yeah. Pretty standard hard sell. It is not going to convince me though. But…I wonder how we are going to avoid having one?” They exited the lift and once again had people look their way as they traveled the streets filled with those whose incomes prevented them from owning clothes of such nature.

  “Let’s go through China Town and visit Fongs. I am hungry and I want to check out the demon statue again.”

  Jenna took Raynie to the venue and showed her the table where she and Lyle had met Chan Lee. Whilst they ate a light meal, they talked about the statue behind them. “See the writing underneath? It means Moon Demon or something. There, see those inscriptions, they are a bit like some of the stuff Chan gave to Lyle.”

  Raynie leaned in and saw what Jenna was referring to - small inscriptions ran along the left side of the statue in a vertical array.

  “I have seen this one on the stone Jake and I found,” she said putting her finger on one of the symbols. Immediately it glowed a little and felt warmer to the touch. “What was that?” she said drawing her hand away. “It felt like a tingle.”

  “Yes I saw that. We’ll tell the others about it when we get home.”

  “Here you go ladies. Your meals as ordered. Please allow me to serve you again should you wish for anything else.”

  They arrived at Jenna’s home and presented themselves to the others who were deep in discussion about the journey ahead and of the findings so far. On seeing the two women, the men were immediately drawn out of their conversation, giving them both praise and accolades for their appearances.

  “We bought suits for you guys too,” Raynie said as she removed them from the bag.

  “Well, it seems as though we have all we need,” Lyle said.

  “Flight time is later tonight,” Jenna added steering the conversation back to what the men had been discussing when they arrived. “We just had an experience…a little extraordinary.”

  “Now, you said the inscription was similar to this one,” Jake said showing the stone to Raynie after she had detailed the experience at Fongs.

  “Yes it was. I could say it was the same.”

  “Well, all I can come up with is it may have happened because you had contact with this stone. Otherwise, I have no idea except perhaps when we discussed being aware to be able to see some things.”

  “I have an idea as well,” Lyle interjected. “In my work I have read of similar relics that when touched by an individual, can ignite a sense to con
nect the individual with the essence of what the items contains. But that is more like a tale, or a myth if you will. It has never been documented scientifically. Also, there is no mention of anything mythical like a chosen one to engage this activity in these relics. Anyway, I think ideas like that are a bit farfetched. Perhaps there is some residual energy somewhere…”

  “I think I will go to Fongs’ now and see it for myself,’ Jake said. ‘It may have the same response for me.”

  “I’ll come too. I have seen this statue before, and…here, let me touch the inscription on your stone and we can both check it out.” Lyle reached across and took the stone from Jake and then ran his fingers over the lines of each of the inscriptions. “OK. Let’s go. We’ll take three dimensional images using a holographic phone so we have some more to work with.”

  Jake and Lyle left the house and proceeded to Fongs’ in China Town. They were able to get access to the statue immediately as it was generally the wrong hour for a mealtime crowd. Upon examination, they located the small inscription Raynie had touched and they both tried their own hand in turn. Upon contact with the statue, they both experienced the same sensation as Raynie, whilst noticing the faint glow coming from the within the inscription.

  “Interesting,” Jake said. “I’ll take some images now and then we might as well go back to Jenna’s place.” He took over a dozen three dimensional photos of the statue as Lyle removed it from its alcove so he could also photograph its’ rear side.

  A short while later, they arrived back at Jenna’s to find she had prepared some fresh coffee and food. Lyle noticed how luscious she looked in the suit, as did Jake upon seeing Raynie sitting back at an angle in a lounge chair with one arm draped along the chair’s headrest.

  “Anything interesting happen?” Raynie asked.

  “Yes,” replied Jake. “Same as you described for both of us. We took some photos as well which I would like to go over for a while.” He placed his holographic phone on the table bringing the three-dimensional images into life. “Magnify one hundred times,” he said. Instantly the image became one hundred times larger, immersing all who were gathered about to examine his find. Jake placed his hand onto the part of the image showing the inscription. “Magnify one hundred times. Again the image changed now focusing only on the selected area, with the remainder disappearing into a haze and then into thin air at the image edges. “What is this?” he exclaimed. They were now able to see the inscription in much more detail than could be seen with the naked eye. It revealed a network of patterns resembling DNA. Each strand was connected to another with exquisite detail as if yet more could be hidden within. “Magnify two hundred times.” Again the image flickered then changed into precisely what Jake was imagining. Each of the DNA strands were interlaced with yet more strands, slightly different in appearance. He captured an image at this resolution, and then returned to the previous resolution where he also captured an image.

  “I’m going to take a look at these over time. Raynie, do you have that book there?”

  “Sure,” she rose up from the chair and went to the room she had shared with Jake, bringing it back a moment later. “Here you go.”

  Jake opened the book to the section he and Raynie had been studying over the past few days. “Here, Atomic Fields - Quantum Phasing. I am thinking these seemingly endless strands have something to do with such phasing. Where it appears to be DNA or similar, you can fix on a point and establish a pattern, but…with magnification, you see further strands at a much lower level, yet with equal detail. So where you think you have a fixed point to determine a pattern, you then find that no such fixed point exists as the rest of this sequencing is still going through some form of osmosis or separation, yet become more condensed or intricate. Essentially, what appears to be happening is indeed something like matter in a constant state of flux. Perhaps we need to look deeper and find if there is any energy at play in the spaces that appear, well…at this level, as rifts between each strand in flux.”

  “Did I hear someone mention flux?” John appeared, followed by Tobias. They had been in Jenna’s small lab working on some technology idea John had for getting around the mandatory microchip implants. “We have just been working on that very thing. Flux I mean. Tobias has some experience from HAARP where they generate frequencies designed to flux and confuse anyone they don’t like.”

  “Yeah, and I…um, we think we might have come up with something,” Tobias added.

  “Do tell us,” Jenna chimed in. “I would hate to have one of those chips.”

  “Well. We have some time to work on it…about eighteen months so there is no great hurry, but I think we can come up with something. See this device I built?” John held out the stealth device he had taken from the Beaver. “Well, in effect, it is a stealth device or cloaking device. It mimics the transmitted patterns a radar receives in order to pin point a target. We used it to get away from Alaska. So…what I am thinking, sorry, what we are thinking, is if we modify and somehow shrink its’ component size down a little, then we can do the same for the scanners they will use to read those microchips. In effect, stick one of these behind your ear and for the authorities’ sake, you appear as though you are fully integrated into their database. We can program it as we need so their file appears legitimate and up to date.”

  “What about their coding and encryption?” Jenna asked.

  “We need to work on that, which is probably the hardest part. I imagine they will have random generators putting out coding for authentication security. You would be a little naïve to think they wouldn’t be thinking of that. We will need to hack into their systems without them knowing so this device can generate the same authentication signatures.

  “That will take us some time,” Tobias added. “Those systems will have the highest security specs of anything running civilian operations. But…I think with my experience in military coding from HAARP and my lead up work to get there, along with John’s expertise, we should be able to come up with something reasonably quickly.”

  “Then we will need to subtly test it out over a period before we actually begin to use it. And, knowing their paranoid state of minds and how they will be changing code in an on-going sense, we are going to have to maintain this in parallel and keep one step ahead in development ourselves.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” Jake added, looking up from the book where he had been only partly listening to the conversation.

  “Exactly. Which…is why I propose Tobias and I do not come to China with you, and that we stay here and continue work with this technology. If that is OK with you Jenna.”

  “Um…yes, that’s fine. Will it be a security concern though?”

  “We thought about that and both of us feel that if we can manage to lay low here and continue using these new identificationss we have, then we should be OK.”

  “There was a risk they might be looking for you at any HyperJet terminal,” Lyle added.

  “Yes we thought of that. Tobias and I think it best we stay behind and work on this baby. Like we said, it could be months yet before we bring it on-line and even though there is still time until the mandatory cutoff date, it is best we get started straight away.”

  “Well…it is settled then, you present a good case. I’ll change our flight booking now.”

  All six of them exchanged goodbyes and assurances to stay out of trouble whilst remaining in regular contact, before the two women and two men departed for the HyperJet terminal. As they rode in the JetCab, the city once again sparkled in the late evening sky, but this time, an additional haze was being ejected from an aircraft situated over the city center.

  “Do you have any idea on that Jenna? Have you seen it before?” Lyle asked.

  “I cannot say I have seen it but I might have an idea on what it could be. There was some work, though quite covert, on the development of a targeted nano spray where the technology was dispersed over cities and programmed to form some type of defense mechanism for the cent
ral systems as they are in physical situation. The nano bits are attracted to resonant frequencies emitted by their technology. Sort of like an antenna in reverse, they travel like a transmission to a source signal. The aura or haze in the sky reminds me of the simulations I have seen at Berkeley for that project. There was no word though on it being operational as yet, let alone reaching an implementation stage.”

  Chapter 10

  Traveling at hypersonic speed and flying at seventy thousand feet near the edge of space, they could see the line of sunset stretching along the curvature of the Earth in the distance. As they breached the line of the suns’ rays, light filled the passenger section of the jet in an aurora of ethereal beams. Jenna was gazing out the window next to her and the sunlight made her appearance so striking, Lyle filled with emotion as he was drawn towards her. Since their first meeting on the space station, he felt attracted to her in a way he had never experienced, as if there was some deeper connection in a sense beyond what words could relay. She was a beautiful woman, intelligent, willing to seek answers, intuitive, authentic in her presence, and not afraid to be forthwith. His admiration of these strengths grew with each time he cast eyes upon her, and as she sat there with her head turned a little to the side, bathed in the colored light, his passion to be with her grew even more.

  With the events of recent days and now this trip to China full of anticipation and discovery, he felt strength inside himself buoying his enthusiasm and general sense of well-being. His work had taken him across the globe, to space, and soon would take him further, on to the Moon, yet he began to think she was the most wonderful thing he had ever encountered. Seeing the sun shining off her Geiga suit was to him, a sight to behold as she was beauty in apparition. Similar to what Raynie had first said about the suit bringing her soul to the surface, he too was almost seeing the same in Jenna. She was caressed by light appearing in a dream like state.