- Location: Omega-X system, planet Eden 07
- February 7th, 2553
- 9:35 AM
As they approached Eden 07, Jack flashed a wry smile.
Such a paradisiacal land, with easily manageable ramifications.
Only one spot shone with artificial light, a huge city, yet tiny in comparison to its surroundings.
It's as if it was a city with a planet around it and not a city on a planet」.
At this, he shook his head in dissatisfaction.
Eventually they reached the city, the only entity on Eden 07.
Jack took the ship to immigration, where he certified the arrival.
Upon checking the data, the guard warns ".... The head of security said, take them to him as soon as they arrive."
"Right" Jack replied before motioning to the ship.
The group quickly got off the ship and as soon as they were all assembled he said "Lead the way".
The guard pressed a button on his station and began to walk away.
They followed close behind him; time seemed in distortion. The white, illuminated corridors with no apparent edges twisted the notion of time.
With no visible end or beginning, no difference, let alone points of reference, it took the form of a false infinity.
At a certain point a door opened in front of them. What happens to it? The same situation. Jack could not even try to approximate the size of the room.
It simply lacks visual cues, making it even spooky to imagine living in such a uniform place.
In what resembled the centre of the room, floated the back of an oval-shaped chair.
Its greyish colour was the only thing that allowed them to identify it, it slowly began to turn until they had the front of it facing their direction.
Sitting in that chair was an old man, his decrepit eyes showed disappointment and his hoarse voice exclaimed "What a disgrace! I thought I made it clear that we don't need any help".
Zeke took a step forward "...Haven't you attacked before, don't you understand the gravity of the situation?".
The old man smiled filling his expression with contempt and disdain "Don't think you're indispensable."
In front of them a holographic projection materialised, on it the walls around the city were marked "There is no way those vermin will make it into the city".
Zeke wore a complicated expression "Vermin? Have you actually fought them?"
"Is that necessary?" The old man smiled wryly and cocked his head "If a group like yours survived them, then it should be obvious."
Zeke sighed and shook his head resignedly.
"If that's what you believe, it's not my job to convince you otherwise and you can't stop us from our duties either. So we will proceed to leave" Immediately after saying that, Jack turned around.
The old man snorted angrily "An unnecessary and unwanted intervention? I guess there won't be any problems as long as they don't turn out to be obstacles."
He sighed deeply as the chair slowly returned to its original position.
"I want to see how they'll react to the stark truth" He smiled as the door closed.
As the door closed Jack gritted his teeth "You son of a bitch!" he whispered angrily.
"You shouldn't talk about your superiors like that," replied the guard.
Jack laughed wryly "He's not even close to being my senior".
After saying that, he shook his hand and walked in the direction of the exit.
An exit... Irregular.
"We should have gone back the way before..." Brendan said as he looked down the long narrow passage.
In the distance he could see a street... Maybe?
Kelly wanted to grab the door handle, before she could even touch it, it disappeared.
The door vanished, leaving a smooth wall identical to the others.
Jack felt his stomach twist, everything so uniformly white as to be too perfect.
As they progressed through the passage, they noticed that there was no rubbish lying around, no windows or openings.
A succession of buildings so perfectly connected that they appear to be one and the same.
On the way out, the same landscape.
White streets, white houses and buildings, white frames, whitish windows...
Even the sky seems to reflect the false perfection.
The transports fly well overhead, identical in design and size.
The passers-by, though few in number, are not particularly varied either.
Perfect monotony describes this city.
As it was, the group proved disruptive, earning disapproving glances from those who passed them.
Repressing his fury, he led his group to a shopping centre.
The journey was less than boring, despite the fact that there were people around, it was no different than if there were none.
Before entering, he said "As soon as the invasion occurs, activate the signal".
Everyone nodded silently.
"Well, make the most of this break. It's not all the time you'll be able to buy whatever you want."
Jack headed for a specific department, keeping in mind that he simply couldn't expect everything to run smoothly.
It is astonishing to me that an insider would believe that anti-human weapons can stop an outbreak of unknown characteristics」.
He sighed at the inevitability of destruction, the insubstantial actions of a diligent mediocrity would hold him responsible.
The most important thing in his mind was to improve himself.
「Where should I start?」.
An unavoidable thought.
Reality quickly crashed down on him, a computer shop was exposed in front of him.
He entered in profound silence, not a single soul was visible.
Slowly he made his way to the boxes of cards being sold by the stack.
"Karate 4" "Mixed martial arts 2" "Heavy weapons 7" "Handling bladed weapons 1." These were some of the inscriptions displayed.
Jack took some acrobatics and parkour cards, added all the bladed weapons cards there were, finally one more butchery card.
After placing them in his basket, he turned to the non-disposable flash drives.
He picked up the memory stick with the inscription 800 yottabytes.
He sighed for a second at the sight of the temporary memory.
Even though it would mean a bottleneck, he took the 200 zettabytes of memory.
Finally he reached the aisle of processors.
Of everything in sight, only one caught his eye.
Zerotech Mk6 Ultra: Theoretical speed up to 90 ythz.
He looked at it for a few seconds before placing it in the basket.
Finally he made his way to the charging area.
「... This feels too suspicious」.
No one else was in the place, not a single soul was browsing for items of interest.
The line for payment is non-existent.
With a sigh Jack placed the basket on the table, right on the green square.
A thin holographic line ran across the basket, as soon as it reached the edge of the basket it disappeared.
A new line appeared on Jack's forehead and ran all the way across his face.
After that a holographic box appeared in front of him.
Please type in your personal number.
Jack ran his fingers through the numbers.
When he finished, he picked up his things and left the shop.
"..." Such silence was frightening. It wasn't until he walked away from the group that he noticed.
The eerie lack of people roaming the streets.
In such a large city, with refugees pouring in....
He sat down on one of the many benches.... Silently he looked at one tree among the others.
Perfect from roots to leaves. Each branch had an opposite side to which it was symmetrical, the spacings were exact.
The trunk was no different. It followed a symmetrical pattern and there were no imperfections in its formation.
No animal creates or stains holes in the wood, rather no animal roams the surrounding area.
Jack shook his head in despair.
Right after that he decided to implant the parts he bought.
First he proceeded to turn off the neural implant, and once the connection to the brain was completed, he pressed it against the back of his neck.
From his forehead emerged a small tray 5 millimetres high, 1 centimetre long and 50 millimetres wide.
Three slots were found in it. All occupied with their corresponding pieces.
The world seemed to close in, his senses lost their amplification and he was no longer able to sense anything outside his natural radius.
Jack blew on the tray and the pieces flew out.
A droid came out from under the floor and cleaned up the wasted pieces.
He simply laughed wryly and proceeded to place the processor in the last slot.
The memory would go in the first slot and the temporary memory in the middle slot.
The size is so small that the pieces hardly have different layouts.
He patiently returned the tray to his front, where he gently pressed it in.
Once it was in, he sighed in relief, "Searching for parts this small would be a problem.
He activated the implants, the ignition was instantaneous.
The sensitivity of his senses increased, now he could even hear footsteps blocks away.
He picked up the butcher's card and held it up to his forehead. All the information was quickly poured into his mind.
He smiled faintly before discarding the card "I never thought I'd have to resort to instant skills".
With a quick wave of his hand he slashed the air in front of him. The resulting sound was deafening, a short, disruptive blip to the silence that immediately resumed.
「I'm even afraid of how accurate I am now」.
✠ - ✠
Zeke found himself wandering around the various flats, nothing really catching his attention.
"There is no worse resource than the one you don't take advantage of" He sighed for a moment before turning around to retrace his steps.
What was I thinking, wandering around such a dull place? Nothing here is of any use to me」.
He lifted his shoulders and let out a wry smile.
Almost immediately afterwards he covered his ears and spat in an attempt to hold back his stomach reflex.
During his gasp he noticed something he had originally ignored.
An antique shop, his curiosity led him to take a look.
After looking through some of the items he found a book to which he felt... Especially drawn to.
✠ - ✠
Kelly on her side went all over the centre looking for shops specialising in weapons.
At first she was surprised by the variety, however, she quickly came to a conclusion.
"They only appreciate ranged weapons here," she said with a sigh.
Her main search was for swords like the ones Jack made use of. Unfortunately he found none.
He didn't waste the opportunity and bought three weapons that he particularly liked.
One of them is a disruptor, the next is a pocket laser and finally a collection of kvaar crystals.
✠ - ✠
Ledia placed small earphones in her ears, these quickly camouflaged, taking on the appearance of her ear.
She set the music to a fairly loud volume and began to prowl through the shops.
She collected various necessities, from clothing to food, and once she had finished gathering, she headed off to stock the ship.
The world behind her went into chaos but she was moving fast enough not to know it.
As the explosions were left in her wake she moved along with the melody, oblivious to the destruction in her wake.
A head landed next to her, but she had no way of hearing it.
✠ - ✠
Brendan perhaps wasted his time the most.
To any eye it might appear that he was lost, he had no direction or purpose, he was simply searching.
Along the way he helped a few people, when asked "Are you looking for something specific?".
His only answer was "There is no object or person I am looking for, I am just looking".
✠ - ✠
At some point the quiet came to an end.
Motion readings on the planet's exterior began to rise to a chaotic sea of waves, alarms were immediately activated.
Defence forces quietly deployed outside the wall.
In just one minute the entire legion was deployed, 2,500,000 androids, 400,000 attack drones, 100,000 infantry platoons, 50,000 electromagnetic acceleration cannons, 3000 gunships that rose above the legion and 2000 turrets around the wall.
The silence was stunned. Enemy legions approached from outside the planet.
Huge masses covered the sky, countless menaces spread over the vast celestial vault.
Everything in sight was filled with enemy numbers.
Even the absurd numbers of the city were a speck of dust in comparison.
Amidst the tense atmosphere the first shot was fired, one of the many cannons fired its rounds.
A huge metal box whistled through the air, slamming into a handful of the beasts.
From the metal box an explosion was unleashed that blew a hole in the swarm of enemies.
Remnants of those beasts splattered on the ground, yet as quickly as it erupted, the hole filled up again.
The serial firing began, the earth rumbled to the thunderous roar of the guns.
The deafening hiss of the shells was only dulled by the subsequent explosions.
Bullets soon followed in their wake, wreckage or beast. Anything that fell from the bloody sky would be riddled with bullets.
The ships supported the ground troops with aerial fire and the advantage seemed absolute.
At this point only the aerial beasts were left in the sky. The huge swarm moved to the ground.
Despite the enormous efforts of Eden's legion, the enemy numbers seemed unabated.
Even with the countless bodies on the ground, the numbers of attackers did not relent.
Eventually a ground breach formed and the beasts were able to break through the formation.
Attacking from within they quickly dismantled the ground forces.
On superior orders, the guns were aimed at their own people. No distinction was made between enemy and friend.
The explosions reached a point where the earth began to shake to a great magnitude, the structure of the wall began to crack.
The previously orderly battlefield became a carnage, a blinding cloud of dust rose into the air.
To the dismay of any defender, two eyes opened on the ground.
The ground began to shake brutally, causing anything standing to collapse.
A colossal tortoise rose from the ground in which it was buried.
Above it, a divine, almost ethereal halo manifested.
Its height is over 300 metres, anything standing on top of it clearly fell.
A fall that high would leave no survivors, no matter what beast it was.
The turtle let out a thunderous roar, all living things within 100 metres exploded.
The wall was finally breached and the interior of the city was uncovered.
Jack activated the signal as the earth began to rumble.
He was shocked to see the colossal tortoise in front of the huge breach in the wall.
The turtle charged the dome over the wall.
Jack's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He immediately activated his modifications to full power.
He sped off towards the city centre. It was the first time he had ever forced himself to go so fast.
The end-to-end size of the city is over 50 kilometres, from his point he would have to travel 10 kilometres to the centre.
He took a gulp of air before forcing himself to go even further, he surpassed the sound barrier when he heard the first thump.
It left behind an immense explosion, but this was no time to dwell on it.
His heart was at its limit, he could feel every beat as if it were his last.
His acceleration only increased, to a point where his own body would not be able to take it.
For the second stroke he covered 5 kilometres.
And for the third one he travelled 9 kilometres.
Cracks in the dome began to spread throughout the structure.
Jack slowed down and activated the particle shield around him.
At his speed it was impossible to slow down before he reached the government centre, so as soon as he made contact with one of the walls he put his left arm in front of him.
The wall collapsed next to the shield and slammed into a second wall.
His left arm exploded on impact, his ribs severely fractured.
He accelerated again, this time it was for control of the shield.
Fragments of the dome began to fall. When he pulled the lever three fragments fell on top of the buildings in the city.
But the rest were stopped by the city shield.
Panting he leaned on his one arm to read with his foggy mind "Thanks for activating the shield, ogch rats".
He let out a wry chuckle "I knew it" and as his consciousness faded he cursed "Son of a.... Son of a bitch!