A short story written by me.
-RETROTECH
(TOLD LIKE FROM THE FUTURE OF THIS FUTURE, AS IF THIS WAS AN ANCIENT STORY, ON A HUMAN INHABITED PLANET)
By 2038 the Earth had evolved into a providence of riches,
having solved environmental problems that they panicked over so much
during the turn of century 2000,
and finally had taken to the sky.
Airships, hover pods, and sky boards were the way of getting around.
Hadn’t even inhabited any planets yet, just part of the Orvitus, their moon.
It was into this world the most important person was born.
Novan Emberson was a child genius.
He was born in 2021.
By 10 he had invented the sky board for children his age,
his first worldwide sensation.
By 16, he invented the hyrostic engine,
making planetary travel possible.
To congratulate his success and their gratitude,
the government gave him free passage to Orvitus,
where he stayed in a moon city named Davnus
with his family, and was happy.
Three months after he turned 17, he noticed a strange things were happening
people were disappearing off the streets, in the blink of an eye.
So he was naturally suspicious when he saw a strange moving shape
and he followed. And fell into a giant crack stretching across a crater
When he woke up he was in a cold river underneath the earth.
He looked for a way out and found a door. He slipped through it,
and saw he was in a hallway full of machinery.
Though he was very smart, he could not understand its design.
He walked a few paces, and the corridor widened out
into a room with red lighting, large enough to be a hangar,
and he turned and stifled a shout as he came to a
rounded cylinder taller than he was, filled with a misty green substance.
And there was the remains of a human body floating in it.
He cautiously walked forward and saw
its raw, red flesh was stretched into barnacle shapes, some more mutated than others.
Its face had been swallowed up a long time ago.
As he continued walking, he was horrified to see more bodies.
Some of them were recognizable. People he had seen before.
In the news, those who had gone missing.
They were floating in front of him now.
He walked to the end of the room and turned around to see
a girl, around his age, floating in front of him.
Unlike the others, the green substance swirled around her,
and she did not need a tank. She was held above ground by a blue light above her,
and she was not mutated. Just sleeping.
He looked at her control panel, and fumbling with the controls,
was able to free her, and caught her as she fell.
Her black skinsuit was hot from the light, as if it had kept her warm.
For a moment, he thought she was dead,
but her eyes snapped open and they focused on him.
In a blur, he suddenly felt the back of his head slam
against metal, and looked up to see her standing over him,
a hand at his throat.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She looked at him and her fierce eyes changed to confusion.
“I don’t know.”
Then the wall next to them exploded into sparks and smoke.
The girl jerked him to his feet and they ran, weaving
through the maze of body tanks. This time, he heard the hum
of the red beam that knifed through the air, hitting the floor
and throwing him forward. The smoking crater must have hid him from view,
because the girl managed to drag him through the smoke towards them,
thought it couldn’t be called running.
It made a hissing and clicking sound as it came, with a steady rhythm of clanging on the metal. It drew close and Novan was sickened by the smell of rotten meat. It walked pass,
and the girl clubbed it with a pipe.
He stared at her.
“Who are you?”
His voice echoed through the halls for a minute before she answered.
“I don’t know.”
For the first time, he noticed a dog tag around her neck.
She looked dangerously at him when he reached for it, then
seemed to understand. He read it out loud.
“LUCIA, soldier of the Sykoralx.”
Then it hit him. She had not been experimented with like the others,
she didn’t know who she was, and the way she was looking around, she had never seen this place.
The Sykoralx had made the perfect human. The perfect soldier.
He turned to the limp figure on the floor, flipped it over.
He had to look away.
It had bulging white eyes, without eyelids, barely visible pupils.
Its head was misshapen, made of jutting bone and exoskeleton and red flesh in between.
It looked like a torso mounted on a spider’s abdomen. Skinny arms, and many insect-like legs.
Its underbelly was splattered with black, and its top was armored and red.
It had no face, just a mangled mess of mandibles.
In its grip, it held a weapon he had never seen before.
LUCIA shuddered.
What are these things doing on Orvitus? Novan thought to himself.
LUCIA took the gun. She knew how to use it,
a memory the Sykoralx must have planted in her head.
Novan found a complicated looking band on the creature’s wrist,
and slipped it on his own. The moment he activated it, it disappeared.
He realized he couldn’t see himself, a cloudy nothingness.
He realized the Sykoralx must have used it to snatch test subjects
off the streets.
He switched it back off.
He turned to LUCIA
“Let’s go.”
He knew that these creatures were not here for a friendly purpose,
but if he found what it was, he might be able to give it to them.
He disliked the fact that he needed to negotiate with these monsters,
but their technology was obviously more advanced than Earth.
And their weapons.
He was able to access the maps of this base
by wirelessly downloading them onto his handheld computer.
Novan walked in front, guiding them with his finger on the cloaking device,
and LUCIA covered their back, finger on the trigger.
They only encountered one guard on the way to the command bridge.
LUCIA blasted it in the back, throwing it down.
The shot did not penetrate the hard armor, but the creature was unconscious.
Novan was glad. Things would go better if they did not inflict casualties.
Taking the gun, they slipped onto the command bridge.
LUCIA spun into the nearest hiding spot.
Cloaked in invisibility, Novan walked up a ramp
to where several robed creatures were standing around a small table full of plans.
“But we must move now! We know what we want, and Earth is in no position to refuse us!”
They were speaking English!
The skin on his wrist itched, and he looked down.
The glowing light on the device had changed to green color. Apparently cloaking the user was not all the band could do.
And he realized he could see the device.
He was visible.
The nearest guards caught Novan by the arms and twisted them,
shoving his face into the table.
The largest robed Sykoralx, that wore a skull of some kind as a mask, addressed the others. “We have a spy.”
Then a black robed Sykoralx that spoke earlier moved eagerly forward.
“Then we must strike!”
Its mandibles were moving wildly, though Novan heard only English. It was bizzare.
The leader turned to the black Sykoralx.
“Do you decide what the Sykoralx does?”
The black shrank back, though its tone was unsupressed.
“No, Ranja.”
“What is it that you want from us?” Novan shouted.
The guards jerked him, but the Ranja waved a hand, and they stepped back. Novan noticed that a band on its wrist was glowing green.
It looked at him with beady eyes, distinctly amused.
“You? The people of Earth do not need be involved with us. We have what we need.”
“What?” he asked, confused.
“The Dunaris. The pulsing orb that forms the core of this moon. in the olden years, there were many. Plenty of power for a universe to thrive. Or fall. They were an excellent tool in war. But now they are rare.”
“And so you came to Earth, to claim the power we didn’t know we had,” Norvus said. Things began making sense. “But why did you experiment with humans, and how can you harvest such a power if it’s inside Orvitus?”
“Quite easily,” the Ranja hissed. “We only need the Dunaris. This moon, this planet- they are expendable. The moon can crash to Earth the moment it is excavated. As for the humans, they were subjects of Cratchlus.”
The Ranja gestured to the black Sykoralx.
“This one insists that we should also capture Earth. Its inhabitants could be used as workforce, as soldiers, or to even grow some rare goods.”
He thought about the fungus/barnacle bodies and was filled with disgust.
Cratchlus glowered at the Ranja.
“Your amusement has compromised the plan, Ranja.”
“Our plan is not compromised. Execute him.”
Novan felt his captors shift and reach for their weapons.
Then he felt them thrown away from him.
He turned to see LUCIA holding the smoking gun.
He backed up until he stood next to her.
“Thanks.”
She cast a sideways glance.
“They reached the Dunaris 3 hours ago. They’ve set up an explosive on the dark side of this moon, so that the moon will plummet to Earth. They would harvest the rich minerals from the rubble of the planet, rare minerals they could sell as extra profit. Can you disable the charge?”
He stared at her.
“How do you know all that?”
“I wired your computer into the ships console during your talk and looked at their plans. I learn fast, but you understand more than I do. Can you disable the charge?”
“I can try.”
LUCIA fired a pulse that threw the Sykoralx back a few yards.
“Then do it now!”
Novan ran to the computer and started infiltrating the system,
and inputting codes.
The device was somehow helping him understand the foreign equipment,
something he would have to look into if survived this.
The stunned Sykoralx were slowly recovering, and LUCIA kept a close eye on them.
Suddenly, the floor split open and a glowing orb was raised out of it.
It was a few feet across, and gave off a pure white light.
LUCIA stumbled back, and a Sykoralx
ripped the gun out of her hands,
and held her wrists as it dangled her over the chasm in the floor.
Novan dove for the weapon, and blasted its head off.
If fell backwards, pulling LUCIA back to safety in its death grip.
He looked around for the other Sykoralx,
but they had escaped. He looked out the skylight to see
a fleet of warships tear out of the ground.
They had decided to harvest the humans.
Novan sat down. He had managed to stop the charge from going off,
but now the human race was facing fates worse than death.
Wait- he was sitting next to the Dunaris,
the incredible power source the Sykoralx
He touched it.
Every cell in his body felt alive.
He stepped into it.
Every cell in his body was exploding with energy.
He could feel another living mind in the Dulnaris, that washed over his own.
His mind stretched out to the Ranja.
Ranja. You have committed unforgivable crimes, but I give you this one last chance. Leave now, or you and your fleet will burn.
By what power? the Ranja said mockingly.
BY MINE. Novan was not speaking anymore. ALWAYS SOMEONE WILL USE DULNARI FOR DESTRUCTION. NO MORE.
And in a single moment, every Sykoralx ship exploded in on itself, every Sykoralx ship stopped existing.
Novan and Lucia were the saviors of the human race that day.
Sightings of the fleet had terrified countries,
and governments were grateful for their feats.
They were hailed as heroes, and their legend continues even today.
Not only that, but they were credited for discovered the Dulnaris,
a power only they were trusted with.
Since the incident, Novan taught Lucia everything he knew and was
delighted to find a mind equal to his own. To this day, they are close friends.
Eternally friends.
The Dulnaris preserves them, keeps them young. Somewhere in the solar system, they are bringing life to dead planets, keeping the peace. In the beginning, they harnessed its power to heal a planet, planet Earth.
And to make the future.
The one we’re living, right now.
By 2038 the Earth had evolved into a providence of riches,
having solved environmental problems that they panicked over so much
during the turn of century 2000,
and finally had taken to the sky.
Airships, hover pods, and sky boards were the way of getting around.
Hadn’t even inhabited any planets yet, just part of the Orvitus, their moon.
It was into this world the most important person was born.
Novan Emberson was a child genius.
He was born in 2021.
By 10 he had invented the sky board for children his age,
his first worldwide sensation.
By 16, he invented the hyrostic engine,
making planetary travel possible.
To congratulate his success and their gratitude,
the government gave him free passage to Orvitus,
where he stayed in a moon city named Davnus
with his family, and was happy.
Three months after he turned 17, he noticed a strange things were happening
people were disappearing off the streets, in the blink of an eye.
So he was naturally suspicious when he saw a strange moving shape
and he followed. And fell into a giant crack stretching across a crater
When he woke up he was in a cold river underneath the earth.
He looked for a way out and found a door. He slipped through it,
and saw he was in a hallway full of machinery.
Though he was very smart, he could not understand its design.
He walked a few paces, and the corridor widened out
into a room with red lighting, large enough to be a hangar,
and he turned and stifled a shout as he came to a
rounded cylinder taller than he was, filled with a misty green substance.
And there was the remains of a human body floating in it.
He cautiously walked forward and saw
its raw, red flesh was stretched into barnacle shapes, some more mutated than others.
Its face had been swallowed up a long time ago.
As he continued walking, he was horrified to see more bodies.
Some of them were recognizable. People he had seen before.
In the news, those who had gone missing.
They were floating in front of him now.
He walked to the end of the room and turned around to see
a girl, around his age, floating in front of him.
Unlike the others, the green substance swirled around her,
and she did not need a tank. She was held above ground by a blue light above her,
and she was not mutated. Just sleeping.
He looked at her control panel, and fumbling with the controls,
was able to free her, and caught her as she fell.
Her black skinsuit was hot from the light, as if it had kept her warm.
For a moment, he thought she was dead,
but her eyes snapped open and they focused on him.
In a blur, he suddenly felt the back of his head slam
against metal, and looked up to see her standing over him,
a hand at his throat.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She looked at him and her fierce eyes changed to confusion.
“I don’t know.”
Then the wall next to them exploded into sparks and smoke.
The girl jerked him to his feet and they ran, weaving
through the maze of body tanks. This time, he heard the hum
of the red beam that knifed through the air, hitting the floor
and throwing him forward. The smoking crater must have hid him from view,
because the girl managed to drag him through the smoke towards them,
thought it couldn’t be called running.
It made a hissing and clicking sound as it came, with a steady rhythm of clanging on the metal. It drew close and Novan was sickened by the smell of rotten meat. It walked pass,
and the girl clubbed it with a pipe.
He stared at her.
“Who are you?”
His voice echoed through the halls for a minute before she answered.
“I don’t know.”
For the first time, he noticed a dog tag around her neck.
She looked dangerously at him when he reached for it, then
seemed to understand. He read it out loud.
“LUCIA, soldier of the Sykoralx.”
Then it hit him. She had not been experimented with like the others,
she didn’t know who she was, and the way she was looking around, she had never seen this place.
The Sykoralx had made the perfect human. The perfect soldier.
He turned to the limp figure on the floor, flipped it over.
He had to look away.
It had bulging white eyes, without eyelids, barely visible pupils.
Its head was misshapen, made of jutting bone and exoskeleton and red flesh in between.
It looked like a torso mounted on a spider’s abdomen. Skinny arms, and many insect-like legs.
Its underbelly was splattered with black, and its top was armored and red.
It had no face, just a mangled mess of mandibles.
In its grip, it held a weapon he had never seen before.
LUCIA shuddered.
What are these things doing on Orvitus? Novan thought to himself.
LUCIA took the gun. She knew how to use it,
a memory the Sykoralx must have planted in her head.
Novan found a complicated looking band on the creature’s wrist,
and slipped it on his own. The moment he activated it, it disappeared.
He realized he couldn’t see himself, a cloudy nothingness.
He realized the Sykoralx must have used it to snatch test subjects
off the streets.
He switched it back off.
He turned to LUCIA
“Let’s go.”
He knew that these creatures were not here for a friendly purpose,
but if he found what it was, he might be able to give it to them.
He disliked the fact that he needed to negotiate with these monsters,
but their technology was obviously more advanced than Earth.
And their weapons.
He was able to access the maps of this base
by wirelessly downloading them onto his handheld computer.
Novan walked in front, guiding them with his finger on the cloaking device,
and LUCIA covered their back, finger on the trigger.
They only encountered one guard on the way to the command bridge.
LUCIA blasted it in the back, throwing it down.
The shot did not penetrate the hard armor, but the creature was unconscious.
Novan was glad. Things would go better if they did not inflict casualties.
Taking the gun, they slipped onto the command bridge.
LUCIA spun into the nearest hiding spot.
Cloaked in invisibility, Novan walked up a ramp
to where several robed creatures were standing around a small table full of plans.
“But we must move now! We know what we want, and Earth is in no position to refuse us!”
They were speaking English!
The skin on his wrist itched, and he looked down.
The glowing light on the device had changed to green color. Apparently cloaking the user was not all the band could do.
And he realized he could see the device.
He was visible.
The nearest guards caught Novan by the arms and twisted them,
shoving his face into the table.
The largest robed Sykoralx, that wore a skull of some kind as a mask, addressed the others. “We have a spy.”
Then a black robed Sykoralx that spoke earlier moved eagerly forward.
“Then we must strike!”
Its mandibles were moving wildly, though Novan heard only English. It was bizzare.
The leader turned to the black Sykoralx.
“Do you decide what the Sykoralx does?”
The black shrank back, though its tone was unsupressed.
“No, Ranja.”
“What is it that you want from us?” Novan shouted.
The guards jerked him, but the Ranja waved a hand, and they stepped back. Novan noticed that a band on its wrist was glowing green.
It looked at him with beady eyes, distinctly amused.
“You? The people of Earth do not need be involved with us. We have what we need.”
“What?” he asked, confused.
“The Dunaris. The pulsing orb that forms the core of this moon. in the olden years, there were many. Plenty of power for a universe to thrive. Or fall. They were an excellent tool in war. But now they are rare.”
“And so you came to Earth, to claim the power we didn’t know we had,” Norvus said. Things began making sense. “But why did you experiment with humans, and how can you harvest such a power if it’s inside Orvitus?”
“Quite easily,” the Ranja hissed. “We only need the Dunaris. This moon, this planet- they are expendable. The moon can crash to Earth the moment it is excavated. As for the humans, they were subjects of Cratchlus.”
The Ranja gestured to the black Sykoralx.
“This one insists that we should also capture Earth. Its inhabitants could be used as workforce, as soldiers, or to even grow some rare goods.”
He thought about the fungus/barnacle bodies and was filled with disgust.
Cratchlus glowered at the Ranja.
“Your amusement has compromised the plan, Ranja.”
“Our plan is not compromised. Execute him.”
Novan felt his captors shift and reach for their weapons.
Then he felt them thrown away from him.
He turned to see LUCIA holding the smoking gun.
He backed up until he stood next to her.
“Thanks.”
She cast a sideways glance.
“They reached the Dunaris 3 hours ago. They’ve set up an explosive on the dark side of this moon, so that the moon will plummet to Earth. They would harvest the rich minerals from the rubble of the planet, rare minerals they could sell as extra profit. Can you disable the charge?”
He stared at her.
“How do you know all that?”
“I wired your computer into the ships console during your talk and looked at their plans. I learn fast, but you understand more than I do. Can you disable the charge?”
“I can try.”
LUCIA fired a pulse that threw the Sykoralx back a few yards.
“Then do it now!”
Novan ran to the computer and started infiltrating the system,
and inputting codes.
The device was somehow helping him understand the foreign equipment,
something he would have to look into if survived this.
The stunned Sykoralx were slowly recovering, and LUCIA kept a close eye on them.
Suddenly, the floor split open and a glowing orb was raised out of it.
It was a few feet across, and gave off a pure white light.
LUCIA stumbled back, and a Sykoralx
ripped the gun out of her hands,
and held her wrists as it dangled her over the chasm in the floor.
Novan dove for the weapon, and blasted its head off.
If fell backwards, pulling LUCIA back to safety in its death grip.
He looked around for the other Sykoralx,
but they had escaped. He looked out the skylight to see
a fleet of warships tear out of the ground.
They had decided to harvest the humans.
Novan sat down. He had managed to stop the charge from going off,
but now the human race was facing fates worse than death.
Wait- he was sitting next to the Dunaris,
the incredible power source the Sykoralx
He touched it.
Every cell in his body felt alive.
He stepped into it.
Every cell in his body was exploding with energy.
He could feel another living mind in the Dulnaris, that washed over his own.
His mind stretched out to the Ranja.
Ranja. You have committed unforgivable crimes, but I give you this one last chance. Leave now, or you and your fleet will burn.
By what power? the Ranja said mockingly.
BY MINE. Novan was not speaking anymore. ALWAYS SOMEONE WILL USE DULNARI FOR DESTRUCTION. NO MORE.
And in a single moment, every Sykoralx ship exploded in on itself, every Sykoralx ship stopped existing.
Novan and Lucia were the saviors of the human race that day.
Sightings of the fleet had terrified countries,
and governments were grateful for their feats.
They were hailed as heroes, and their legend continues even today.
Not only that, but they were credited for discovered the Dulnaris,
a power only they were trusted with.
Since the incident, Novan taught Lucia everything he knew and was
delighted to find a mind equal to his own. To this day, they are close friends.
Eternally friends.
The Dulnaris preserves them, keeps them young. Somewhere in the solar system, they are bringing life to dead planets, keeping the peace. In the beginning, they harnessed its power to heal a planet, planet Earth.
And to make the future.
The one we’re living, right now.
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