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77. Back on Earth
🕑 Added 2023-08-24 10:21:34 +0000 UTCThe last day of September of the year 2162 in a location four light years away from the mysterious and wild moon known as Pandora.
It was the Sol System, orbiting around the third planet of its star was a more than kilometer and a half (~1ml) spaceship, its massive veil reflecting the current state of the world down below or more precisely its biosphere or lack thereof.
It was Earth and this ship was an ISV Venture Star of the biggest megacorp that had existed in human history the RDA and this spaceship had finished its deceleration a day prior.
A comparatively small Valkyrie that was until now attached to its long tube-shaped body detached as the metal claws let go, its engines turned on a bright blue as it veered toward the once blue planet.
The people inside were the ones who were evicted from Pandora seven years ago, all having been awakened from their cryosleep four days before the spaceship entered orbit and all experiencing numerous sets of contracting emotions, of which Parker Selfridge was the one the most affected.
'I'm fucked…', was one of his many thoughts as he was weaving excuses and explanations in his mind for the impossible blunter that led to him losing control of Pandora one of their biggest cash cow but mostly a vital social- economic-political tool.
But he wasn't fearful for his life, he didn't get where he was by not having important connections and background though it wouldn't change that the future was quite bleak.
'Or not.', he thought again, he wasn't at fault for what happened, the data englobing it must already be in the RDA database and the rest with others that were highly placed in Hell's Gate could add to his points if push came to shove.
It was Colonel Quaritch, Jake Sully with his squad of traitors, and the Na'vi at fault, not his. There was a wriggle room and it has been seven years, there was adequate preparation and time for the flame of potential anger to have quieted down.
As the Valkyrie entered the atmosphere smog immediately blocked the vision of the cockpit but it was of no problem as the duo of pilots controlled the space shuttle.
The more the Valkyrie progressed downward the more the heavy cloud of acid and radioactive rain and pollution diminished to reveal a sea covered by several meters of toxic waste, plastics in all sizes, used tissues, and hundreds more unspeakable things that hid a water of a deep murky grey below where only the hardest of life both untouched by mankind and genetically engineered could hope to survive.
This vast sea of detritus was violently and suddenly cut by walls of a grey synthetic material that formed a dome reaching high, rivaling some of the highest skyscrapers of the early 21st century.
This dome encompassed a massive area and at several points, massive automated turrets could be seen, They were of all shapes indicating many different functions, and, looking closer at the sea, carcasses of rusted ships and aircraft riddles with bullet holes or torn-up into pieces after having been exploded could be seen.
And it was where the pilots moved the space shuttle, more precisely an extension of it in the form of a large floating bay with high walls and as it landed on the platform in a designated area the wall split open red light beeped.
Then from the wall of the dome like a caterpillar an extension grew out until it plugged into the back of the Valkyrie, exactly where the exit was located then the polluted air was filtered out.
Then the metal ramp opened and Selfridge was the first to walk out, prompting the others to follow him like a bunch of lost sheep, the sight of tall dark grey armored figures of sex, age, and ethnicities unknown on each side of the tunnel like statues.
This was thanks to their heavy and highly advanced power armor that could let them lift cars with ease, punch through brick walls, and bend metal, their menacing aspect was only amplified by the heavy rifles just as advanced as the armor they were carrying in their gauntleted hands.
This little show of power only intimidated Selfridge mildly due to how much more advanced the elite guards of SecOps guarding this place were compared to the last time he was on Earth.
However it was quite a shock for the others who never were in this very special place for the chosen ones, and none of the people that came here had a military background, they all were civilians, some higher placed than others and competent but still regular civilians at the end of the day.
They won't stay here for long in any case, that Selfrfige knew, they were brought here to be interrogated, sign dozens of complex and very restrictive contractual terms and would have a remotely controlled chip full of potent poison put in them without them knowing such as by ingestion.
Of course, all of this was legal, it was in the fine print of the contract to work on Pandora. But rarely anybody ever read the hundreds and hundreds of pages of a contract worded in such a way that it would trap anyone not professionally trained, there was an untold amount of loophole and play of words.
And even if they knew they would be given a conversation worth enough money for their children's children's children. Morality was hardly worth a life of abundance in those days and ages. And going back to Pandora with the next ISV Venture Star for some was an option too, Why look to recruit new qualified people when they are at disposition?
'I hate this step…', Selfridge thought with revulsion as a door slid open in front of him while a feminine and soothing voice echoed giving warning on what was to come, and to his displeasure, it affirmed the process to enter did not change.
Walking down an individual room of wall, floor, and ceiling of blindingly pure white he lifted both of his arms before the soft robotic voice in the background. And he closed his eyes trying to think of something else.
What followed was half an hour of thorough cleaning and disinfection of his being both in and out leaving him feeling violated, he couldn't begin to fathom how some found this step remotely pleasant.
Then he was dressed in an expensive three suit and his body groomed to be presentable for the 'man' he was going to meet. The highest end of the pecking order, he was quite nervous.
'Utopéa as magnificent as ever…', but he marveled at the genius of the architecture and beauty of the Floating City as he stood on the edge of a rambard the azure sea.
In this bizarrely clean and clear sea a pod of uniquely colored dolphins swimming and flying above extinct species of birds in the wild could be seen but what attracted his focus was behind in the distance.
There were hundreds of buildings of all designs and colors but all covered in rich flora growing out of the sea like a giant forest and within those buildings, one tower stood out as it almost scraped the artificial sky. The Tower of Tomorrow which belonged to the RDA, is named in connotation with their motto, 'Building Tomorrow', it almost touches the holographic Sun in the sky,
Gasps of shock with voices of wonder entered his ears as more and more people from the Valkyrie walked out, all wearing plain white clothes with pins on their left breast telling the more important information about them.
And soon when they were all out they began to be herded away by guards toward several manta ray-shaped submarines floating on the water and once the aquatic vehicles were fully boarded they dived under the crystalline water leaving him alone and in peace.
This place, this city, was located at the furthest from any landmass; it was close to Point Nemo as with the rising of the sea and ocean the furthest point from any landmass had changed several times.
It made it a city extremely difficult to go to, only being accessible by an extremely small percentage of the human population and by exclusively aerial means and only with an access or invitation otherwise it would be shot on sight before having been warned.
It's a neutral city-state free from the world's misery such as pollution, disease, natural disaster, famine, war, and poverty… And tax, it was a tax haven. It was a city of science where technologies were developed for the present and future days to come.
It was its own miniaturized artificial biosphere sealed off in its perfect cocoon that was the half-spherical shape that formed the ouster structure visible on the outside and even from space when noxious clouds weren't above to block the sight.
Every last cubic millimeter was constantly monitored by experts, and AIs to keep everything running as it was intended thereby leading to a place with pure air, clear water, and an absence of germs, viruses, parasites, and any unwanted organisms that might harm the careful balance.
It was thanks to this that the entire city was self-sufficient in energy, water, and food. It was a paradise but not everyone had the key to open its gate and enter it, even less live in it.
"Master Selfridge, your conveyance is ready to depart at your will. My name is Leonard and I will be your driver.", a noble male voice with a distinct yet subtle French accent called from behind him, snapping him out of his reverie.
Turning around he saw an old-style car hovering above the ground and a middle-aged man dressed in a butler suit similar in design to the one of two centuries in the last yet distinctively modern.
Nodding to the man, Selfridge walked into the car, the door kept open for him, and took a comfortable position on the real shell cordovan leather-covered seats.
A few minutes later he was standing in a spacious elevator with an aquarium where coral and tropical fish could be seen next to multiple wardian cages full of plants both from Earth and Pandora as it climbed the hundreds of meters that made the tower.
'Calm down Parker.', he berated himself as the elevator doors slid open and he walked out into a large room where the walls composed of glasses gave a sight to the entirety of Utopéa but this wasn't what was taking his focus and making him want to run.
But he didn't run, he advanced with an assured pace toward a large desk made of pure black mahogany shaped in half a moon, seated on a carefully carved chair of the same wood and deep dark grey leather on the other side was an old almost decrepit man wearing a suit of pure white.
This was Marcus LeRoy, the Chief Executive Officer of the Resource Development Administration, his right cybernetic orange pupils locked onto the face of Selfridge as it zoomed in and out while the left one of pure black with a grey iris looked at seemingly nothing.
"On time, Parker Selfridge. You can take a seat, we have to talk.", Marcus said, his voice sounding young yet old as it was clear and concise with no pause to breathe as the thin line of skin and synthetic material cut across his aged face full of scars.
Not wanting for the man more of metal than flesh in front of him to wait he sat on the chair, his eyes trailing half a second on an old picture dated to the ten April of the year 2027 that showed a sister and her brother in their mid-twenties smiling, the founders of the company, one of the two sharing several key features to the cyborg facing him.
"I will be concise. You have failed in your mission and this is a fault that will not be excused. You have temporarily shaken our hold upon Pandora.", Marcus said, his voice sending chills down Selfridge's spines, "But this is a failure, it has happened due to a variable out of your understanding. You have been careless and arrogant, and you have underestimated our employees. You have lost your edge."
"But it is not in its origin a failure born purely out of your oversight as a Head Administrator. It is one born out of alien interference. By predictions upon sets of data this individual is one of the major variables, one that is of such importance only a handful of individuals of which you will soon be part are aware of.", he let out causing confusion, worry, and relief in Selfridge.
Lifting his left artificial palm a holographic screen materialized in existence, it was of a zoomed-in picture that showed a man in bronze armor standing in a plain of vibrant grass, his unnatural silver grey eyes through the helmet eye slit for all to see.
"This bitch!", Selfridge snapped, banging his fists on the desk, he didn't care about the pain or his body language as realization dawned upon him. The date of the picture, the location, and to whom this was given first.
It was from the great plain of Pandora, the date correlated to when Grace had begun to pester him about wanting drones to explore those said plains, the various moments when she asked for free time, and the like. It all made sense, and it made him feel as if he was the laughingstock.
He was played like a fiddle by the xenobiologist and he wouldn't have been able to stop it. The worst was that there had been a report of a SecOps having seen a man in armor in that location but it was ignored, laughed off even.
"Dr Grace Augustine is a brilliant and cunning woman but she is not all-knowing, with all of her writing and speculation about this individual up to the point of a message written in English on a tree. Here all is but corrupted and encrypted data, anterior to this point however all is but to us.", Marcus ignored his employee's outburst of righteous anger, only acknowledging it as another tool to be used.
"But she is not on the level of this silver-eyed alien of unknown origin and purpose.", the cyborg said with something nearly akin to respect but it was almost illusory.
"It is aware of the threat we represent, it is afraid of us, it is paranoid, it is careful, yet it is dangerous, it wants to survive, it is the main reason Hell's Gate has been hacked from within, the main reason as to how the Homo pandorus won. Yours and Miles Quartich arrogance only aided it in its endeavor. It was lucky.", Marcus said with a minute amount of frustration and excitement about this variable that created chaos within his plans.
"Is it tied to this planet disappearing phenomena?", having calmed down, Selfridge asked as he massaged the pain away from his hands.
His question was a wild guess upon wilder supposition but he knew that what his superior spoke about was very much true and the signification of an alien unknown to humanity suddenly appearing in a controlled space opened all possibilities.
What was talked about referred to an unexplainable phenomenon known to be true to only a few that described the apparition of powerful gravitational compression and dilation and its relation to the sudden destruction of astral bodies, almost exclusively on telluric planets and moons close to.
The most bizarre fact about this phenomenon was that it suddenly stopped existing around a hundred years away in a spherical shape from its epicenter located in the binary star system Alpha Centauri A.
One of the theories if not with much credibility as to why this was happening was that it was an alien civilization or several. The most followed theory was that it was gravitational phenomena that led to celestial bodies suddenly collapsing on themselves and becoming short-lived black holes but there were several problems with this as well.
"Probabilities are extremely low and data insufficient. But it is a possible hypothesis. And one that is to you to work around as you will be sent back to Pandora but you are familiar with and knowledgeable about the terrain and the people living here, particularly the one to capture or eliminate. As such…", Marcus paused as if to take his breath, something he did not need with the artificial lungs in his chest.
"You will be sent as a counselor and third in command of Charles Stringer for the Rehabilitation of the RDA on this moon. You can go, details of what is to come will be sent to you. Do not disappoint me this time.", the cyborg finished with a faint smile, a Soul Drive flashing in his mechanical fingers from his sleeve as a warning that didn't go unnoticed.
At the same time on the personal island, the silver-eyed individual spoke about light years away a lone tree of white bark and scintillating purple leaves growing atop a water cavern emitted an omnidirectional powerful Psionic blast as a side effect of what was happening within its roots.
This blast would travel in a two-hundred-kilometer radius and result in the most sensitive to its essence living in it falling into a short but deep coma in which they will all wake up and for the most will begin the journey toward its source. But the most affected of all was none of them.
Comments
TITOO
Yes Pandora is in Alpha Centauri and it's a plot point for later.
Horan
I did not understand the latter half of the chapter. What happened to the disappearing planets ? Is Pandora in alpha century? Might be because I m tired.
TITOO
I have a thing similar in mind at least in it's essence
THE SAVAGE KITTY
I just thought of something that you should totally do have liams blood slowly turn black as his blood condensea and becomes more effcient. It would be really cool to see it coild also distract an enemy mabye depends on the fight but black blood due to his blood being highly effiecnt would be super cool and fit the story
