Everything is strange, and foggy, and warm. Then it gets sweaty.
The very first thing Rydel felt among the sea of emptiness is how dry his mouth is. He want a drink of water desperately, but are too tired and incapacitated to take action and actually move for it. He felt like he had been stuck in one of those perpetual naps on a Sunday afternoon forever, and even the slightest movement requires more energy than he can muster.
He opened his eyes, and found himself suspended in a light warm fluid with a strange green opaqueness to it. It's yet another Aquarian bed for recovery, and he already felt much better subjectively as a result. There is a mild headache tingling and lingering in his head, but nothing off-putting enough to keep him in bed. As he slowly regathers his bearings, he also slowly sat up. The lighting of the room brightens as he sits more up right and returned a bright yellow when he shuffled himself to the edge of the bed.
The symptoms he is experiencing is typical of an artifact overuse and overexertion, but thankfully he should be fine in a few hours or so. Though this should have never happened, the situations that everybody was in was risky enough. As the electromagnetic pulse should have knocked out all electronics nearby, as shown by his dysfunctional personal interface towards the end.
A hologram of the medical care officer popped up on the bedside projector, and the female Aquarian looked back and forth at both a tablet full of what Rydel is guessing is his vitals readings and Rydel himself before asking how he is feeling and clearing him. Rydel nodded in gratitude and left the room.
Personally, he has mostly kept himself out of harms way so that he wouldn't have to visit this area in the first few months of training, but the streak has finally been broken at last. As he leaves the room, his person interface also came back online, and he had two hologram message left.
One of them is from the squad, especially Kay and Pun wondering Rydel is doing okay after the 'heroics', and the second message is from the chief officer Xon and Officer Jon about the individual feedback and review of the training exercise after thanking him for what he did. They asked Rydel to come to the office as soon as he has woken up and feeling alright. Seeing there is nothing on the calendar for a little while, Rydel just went ahead and start going towards the officers' office.
He knocked on the door, and the doors slid laterally to let him in. Officer Jon is sitting in a chair behind the second on the opposite side of the room while a hologram of chief officer Xon occupies the other chair.
'Rold!' Officer Jon gestured for Rydel to sit down and asked, 'how are you feeling?'
'A mild headache but nothing more.' Rydel took a seat by the table. It is now that he realised how big the table is. There are lots of data discs and drawings done by officer Jon, but he could barely read his messy handwriting. Maybe Absolute Being don't value the neatness of that as much as the other qualities.
'Thanks to your work, we have prevented a disaster.' Chief officer Xon said with a slight smile of approval on his face, 'the initial wave of EMP knocked out all the sensors and monitors around the area, so we didn't see what you did. But whatever it was, it prevented the reactor from going critical and cooking everyone alive.'
'Well, the body suits will prevent that, for sure.' Officer Jon disagreed, 'they are of the best qualities around here, which is why you don't have burn scars all over your body now. Plus it just further showcases your talent.'
'That may be the case, Jon.' Xon glared at him, 'but you got lucky this time with a genius engineer being at the right place at the right time. But regardless, let's begin the discussion of your performance.'
'Yes, Sir.' Rydel waited for his chance to talk and nodded.
'Overall, you worked alone throughout this exercise, thinking that you will benefit through the flexibility of solo movements and the reduced total load?' Xon cleared his throat before diving deep into what he believes Rydel's reasoning os.
'That's is partially true.' Rydel replied without much pause as this is the kind of reasoning that he ran through a few times in his head already and knew exactly what kind of a case to make, 'But the added factor of unbreathable air only adds on yet another dimension to this puzzle. I judged that it's highly unlikely anyone can find a stash of gas tanks and masks that suits multiple people, so a free for all approach is the best.'
'You have performed a take down using the most basic of tools at the beginning of the exercise, well done for that. Then you have avoided conflict until you took down Selena also utilizing environmental factors and the materials provided. It seems like this is something you excel at. After that, you ran into Kay and also managed to leave the situation unharmed. Finally, you used your expertise to prevent the critical failure of the gravity field generator, for that, we are thankful. We did not expect for the EMP wave to happen.'
'Good to see things being prepared so carefully.'
'Snarkiness is appreciated, as you know. Overall, you make quick decisions and execute them without much thought, and you tend to perform all the analysis beforehand.' Officer Jon budded in with the quick recap along with some accurate analysis of Rydel's every move.
'Yeah...that pretty much nailed it.' Rydel shrugged at Officer Jon.
'Now, onto something that can be improved. Within the special forces, we promote team work, and communication. It has always been like this, and the gas problem is simply how we plan to challenge that team work feeling.' Cheif officer Xon commented with a darkened voice as he gets to the negatives, 'and you have failed to meet that criteria.'
'But the objective is to survive?' Rydel was going to put up a faced of a talented cocky soldier, but this question and annoyance is genuine here.
'And during the training you have been performing over the past few months we have always stressed the importance of teamwork.'
'So it is implied here?' Rydel looked at Xon curiously and challenged him, 'maybe the objective should have been laid out more clearly then.'
'If so, what do you really think the point of the combat practice is?' Xon asked.
'The point, is exactly what you said in the briefing. Survive to the end. If you plan to run a open exercise, then be prepared when people adapt to the optimal strategy.' Rydel continued on as he really can't believe that this kind of things are expected of him. It is absolutely certain that teamwork is required and most of the time essential for success in any organizations and institutions, but the lack of clarity in this case is really pissing him off, and this only adds to his act rather naturally.
'Whatever you say, that's the quality we are also hoping to see, and you should demonstrate that in the later exercises.' Chief Officer Xon said.
'Well, maybe more teamwork would have been demonstrated if there isn't an exploding reactor.' Rydel took a deep breath in and muttered under his breath. It isn't nearly loud enough to be registered by Xon's speaker, but the comment certain raised Jon's eyebrow.
'My feedback is done here. You take over from here, Officer.' Xon turned to his side and ordered.
'Yes, chief.' Jon nodded and ended the transmission.
'So, my job is more to gather information from your side of the equation, and we will formulate a plan of action from now on.' Jon turned to look at Rydel, 'from my point of view, you did really well, but the upper echelon's do have their emphasis.'
Here comes the sales pitch, Rydel smiled slightly and asked, 'what do you think is important?'
'From my personal experience and preferences, I do value individual ability quite a bit, as a team is only as strong as how strong the individuals can work together. There are undoubtedly scenarios that demands team work, but in this exercise, from a game theory point of view it does make more sense given the constraints.'
'So we agree.' Rydel leaned back and smiled.
'Yes, but I am afraid not everyone shares the same view, as these things are just exercises, with a twist usually.' Officer Jon noted as he wrote something down. Rydel can't quite see what he wrote but he doubt it's anything extraordinary, 'anyways, before we form our next few plans of action, why are you here?'
Why are you here?
Rydel was almost caught by surprise, 'what do you mean? Why am I training here for the special forces?'
'Yes. What drives you to do this? Why here?'
'Well, I have said these in my entrance interview, and I will say it again.' Rydel crossed his arms consciously to convey a more alerted and closed stance just like he practiced before, 'I am here to better myself, to push for limits, to become the best being I can be...to find a challenge.'
Officer Jon's eyebrows were raised once again, and he had a slight smile of amusement on his face, 'Wow, that's rather different from what I usually hear. You are just looking for thrills?'
'The free food and accommodation is also not bad.' Rydel pretended to think hard for a reason, but threw this one out anyway. Out of anything he will say to get the job done, this might have been the most truthful thing.
'Can't debate with that.' Officer Jon noted down, 'And do you think you are close to reaching those objectives whilst being here?'
'Somewhat, but not really.' Rydel answered honestly once again, though he left out a bit of bait towards the end, 'this kind of things aren't exactly what I envision me doing, and I don't think I am making as much progress in terms of personal developments as I wish.'
'Go on.' Officer Jon leaned back as he mentally ticks off boxes and waits for Rydel to finish.
'The special forces, all in all, are just to service the galactic government, and getting 'better' is just a means to an end. At least that's what I think.' Rydel burped out yet another honest comment with his classical cynicism, 'It's not exactly what I wanted, and I don't think I am improving as much as I wanted.'
'Well, sadly the chiefs also believed the same about you.' Officer Jon leaned forward with both of his hands on the table and said, 'they think you won't progress much further into the program.'
'Ah, so there are more than one clear thinkers around.' Rydel signed and looked downwards. Officer Jon should throw out the invitation just about any time now. The real action comes soon, really really soon.
'More than you realize.' Officer Jon turned to the side and pressed a button on the side of the table, 'however, there might be another option for you, should you choose to accept.'
'Is that a anti-monitoring button? The interference generator?' Rydel pointed at Jon's right hand that performed the action, 'what kind of shady business are you talking about?'
'This shady business, is a relentless pursuit of absolute power, individually and collectively.' Jon kept a straight face and looked right at Rydel with an intense passion, 'it's an independent organization, and it's sole aim is to create the ultimate living beings in the galaxy. The perfect humans, if you may, though not exclusive to our species.'
'A cult?' Rydel didn't move, and looked inwards to the library of 'hard-to-get' responses before selecting the perfect one.
'An ideal, or a belief, really.' Jon said as he brought up a hologram of a typical human male with arrows pointed towards multiple areas, 'all we want are to create the strongest individuals in the galaxy, and lead it to a new age. Our leader believes that the current paradigm in education, military and society really limits one's potential as to keep us all under control, rather letting the individual brilliance shine through and bring the civilization to new heights. Our program is designed as such to push everyone past their known limits through uses of intense training, therapy, biohacking, nanotechnology enhancements and then something extremely powerful, and unknown. I think you have the potential to do something special. We are in the post-modern age, so let's use all the technology around us.'
'That's a lot of things you just threw out here. How am I to believe something like this?'
'Good, critical thinking skills are a crucial part of development.' Officer Jon is quite happy with Rydel's response and how he thinks he thinks. Trippy.
'The thing is, we can't really prove it until the later stages. The Absolute Academy will put you through intense training and learning process. The levels before enhancement therapies will be extremely easy for you, however, as it's quite similar to what they do here, and you have already fulfilled most of the requirements to move on. What comes after are the really challenging aspects.'
'And what do I get after all the so-called challenges?' Even though Rydel's feet is shaking rapidly due to the shear amount of excitement he is experiencing, he still need to keep everything together.
'Power, that to the planet scale at the very least when you reach the end. The very last step is also the least known as we currently only have about a few beings going that have passed it.'
Dolon! Rydel also knew of potentially another artifact user by the looks of the Planet B1's aftermath, but to think Absolute Being already have at least four of the artifacts under their control is ridiculous. And also the fact that they have systematically built a whole damn academy for the sake of selecting the best candidates to bear the artifacts....
Rydel and co. might have been grossly underestimating Absolute Being as a whole. But if that's the case, and everyone just wants to get stronger and better, why are there people that's satisfied just working as an underling like a normal mercenary or soldier?
'What happens if I want out?'
'We would wipe your short-term memory and return you back here, or you can choose to work for the organization for a handsome pay and benefits, The same options are there if you have plateaued for a long time and are not able to progress. We only want people that believed in our pursuit and our journey, and we want to train and develop a whole group of absolute elites.'
'And what do plan to do with those elites, or once you have obtained power? Are you going to start a crazy revolution of sorts? ' Rydel asked, this might be the single best way to find out what 'evil' plans Absolute Being have with them.
'No, that will not be necessary. We will do these things through proper means, using the current frameworks offered by the galactic government. In the galactic election in two years, we will enter as a new political party, and win the election that way. We will improve the galaxy legally and properly, and only the best are capable of doing this with us. With our extraordinary talents and intellect, we simply would have put in more work than anyone else.' Officer Jon said, 'through merit alone, without violence.'
Seriously? The organization that have been doing all these shady things actually plan to run as a political party in the election? Rydel certainly didn't expect this kind of information, but he would happily take it.
'I don't know what to say, really.' Rydel said yet another truthful thing, 'it even sounds noble, but I still feel like you are doing some shady things around.'
'Yes. I will tell you as much as you want until you are satisfied.' Officer Jon made some tea and offered a cup to Rydel, 'but essentially, the leader have evidence that a great threat looms, and it's bigger than the three known species and the stars that we inhabit. What we observed at the edge of known space are nothing more than a prison that traps us all, and threat lies beyond the thin sheet of illusions around. Our leader is preparing us for this threat, so we have been working to develop the science and technologies ever since.'
'Here we go.' Rydel took the cup and gently blew on the hot surface and cleared the steam so he can clearly see the darkness of the fluid underneath, 'don't think that's legal.'
'It is actually. Registered enterprise.' Officer Jon chuckled, 'government and privately funded high energy physics and engineering research.'
'And I am sure you are completely operating within loose regulations and do not attempt anything ridiculous.' Rydel sipped a tea and covered his mouth as he said that. Risky move, but have to be done. No one steals stuff from his department without consequences, plus this kind of matched up with the cocky persona that he has created.
'As far as I know, yes.' Officer Jon replied, 'but that part of the operation is what supports the part you are doing now. Overall, we are just registered as an educational institution, so it's all legal business. I can send you the documentation soon. But you won't be recorded beyond our internal servers.'
'Nice, so no consequence on my end if things go wrong.' Rydel too another sip, 'and I am sure that will not be used as an leverage against me leaving.'
'Only if you decided to keep the item at the very end. Everything else, we can replace. To make the fundings work out, however, you would be performing work for us in exchange, like any normal employment opportunities.'
'Keeping talking.' Rydel said, and Officer Jon obliged.
'Absolute academy is based in a star system in the area of the Grey Wolf, the biggest force in the wild regions. So legality-wise, that should answer all of your questions.'
'Yeah, can't break laws if you don't have any.' Rydel threw his head back and cracked his neck using the momentum, 'cheeky.'
'Don't be silly. You can't run a region of multiple galaxies without having laws and regulations in place.' Officer Jon retorted, 'We offer him some of our best recruits for service in his region, and he provide us with the rest. You will provide a short term work as part of the training, and a choice to work long term if you wish. That's how we maintain an agreement.'
'Employer of the month potential?' Rydel asked sarcastically.
'Employer of the year, from what I have heard.' Officer Jon followed suit with the jokes.
'Now...tell me about the final stage, if you are as good as you claim, then that's where I am heading.' Rydel said as he leaned forward. The most important bit comes now.
'How good the process is depends solely on how much work you are willing to put in to master yourself. The final stage will involve multiple tests before giving you a chance to have a crack at mastering a mystical level of technology and use it for yourself. Those technologies are not something new, but the public always treated them as legends. The kind of things you can do with it is crazy...'
'I am sure.' Rydel replied, 'and how do you make sure those that have it won't go all crazy too?'
'Well, the crazy ones would have never made it this far.' Officer Jon replied, 'so, you in?'
'Anything to get back to my journey. How do I begin?' Rydel asked with a victorious smile on his face, to Officer Jon, that's a sign of excitement as someone excited to go on an adventure.
It would be a hell of an adventure alright.
'I will take over with the documentation of you wish to apply for the transfer, take a few days, and transport details would be sent to your PI.' Officer Jon pressed the anti-monitoring button again to turn it off, 'it would only be up from here, Rolf. We look forward to seeing your improvements.'
'You bet.' Rydel got up and left.
After Rydel leaves the room, Officer Jon presses the anti-monitoring button once again and entered a series of letters, symbols and numbers into the communication counsel. A silence ensues before a blurred hologram image appears.
'A new recruit will be on the way.'
'Good job, Jon.' The leader on the other side of the call replied, 'we will take it from here. Any special thing to note?'
'He is a strange one, but nothing more notable for now.'
'And you have a DNA sample as requested?'
'Yes. Uploading.' Officer Jon took the tea cup and put it gently into the analyzer.
'Very well.' The leader nodded and cut off the transmission. In front of him, a string of DNA data is uploaded to his server, and it slowly fills up the screen. Then, a matching algorithm is ran through the computer before a positive match is shown.
There are traces of artifact induced change in the genetic code.
As expected, one of the bearers have showed up to save their friends. The leader sat back in his chair and pondered, depending on who he is, it might as well change the tide of this conflict.
Things are about to get very, very interesting.