STAGE: Construction Warehouse
TIME: 12:02 AM
DATE: Tuesday, October 4th, 2016
The Professor’s Memory Bank: Accessing Memory…
“Professor...” a voice hesitantly called out.
Somewhat annoyed, “What did I tell you about interrupting my meditation,” I lashed out, “Ara!”
“It’s something important,” Ara was always a serious type of girl. Even though I was angry at her, I knew she meant well. As much as I wanted to be upset at her, I knew that was just misplaced anger. She would not disturb me if she did not genuinely think that it was important. Sure enough, “You need to see this,” the girl never disappoints.
Respectfully relenting, I let out a sigh and opened my eyes. Bright, I quickly had to shield them with my arm. Illuminated glowing holograms hovered around me. Various documents and newspaper articles moved in a circular motion as I sat, legs crossed, in the middle of the room. Some would call it a bad job at decorating a room, but I assure you, there was a reason for my madness. Most of the floating newspaper articles featured screenshots from low-quality security and phone camera footage of specific men appearing in various locations around the globe. Much to my approval, they were all wearing white lab coats.
Quite fashionable indeed. However, the nature of this information was not as tame as fashion enthusiasm. No, many of these documents contained sensitive data and the latest whereabouts of a particular bald man with goggles. Dressed in all black, there was a substantial bounty on this man’s head. He, too, had appeared in various locations. Yet not a single soul had ever captured a good look at him. How would I know this? Because you see, that man is me. The lab-coated men were the grunts of my organization. Some would call it arrogance or vanity that drove me to collect such information. In truth, it was neither and a little bit of both. Seeing so many tabs on me and my men, how badly wanted we were, delighted me. I could not help but smirk. The lengths people would go to catch us were laughable. But we could not afford to get noticed, especially with how close we were.
Nevertheless, it also served as a crucial reminder to keep my guard up when venturing into outside missions. There was a fine line between amusement and recklessness. Although I admit that line was too fine to distinguish the difference, even for me.
Incense burned around me. The smoke and aroma traveled out of the room and towards Ara, who stood at the doorway. A blonde-haired woman with one of those fashionable white lab coats, Ara had a naturally stern look and composure about her. It even rivaled that of my own rigid appearance. She looked at me, her face reflecting a far more severe expression than what her voice initially suggested. Something was up. I could tell. So, I got up and followed Ara down the hall and into the commons of the warehouse. If there was something that would upset her this much… Well, it had to be interesting indeed. A handful of my grunts gathered around a line of computers. The computers were set in front of a test tube no taller than a pre-teen and held up by a podium-like stand. Within the tube, the longtime subject of our research floated in the middle by simple unnatural means. It confounded us for the past few months. My team and I have been collecting energy data from this… green crystal… And yet, all it has been doing is floating. No energy dip nor increase to note. Nothing was discernible with this crystal. Its weird properties remained constant throughout our months of research. That was… Until now…
Glowing, bolts of green lightning shot from the crystal. “What the hell is happening?” I asked. I looked amongst the monitors to understand what had changed within our inert weird subject. Painfully, I was forced to disregard one monitor displaying a computer game that one of the grunts forgot to log off. Maybe they could have told me a straight answer if they had just done their jobs! Glancing amongst the other monitors, I noticed all the data insinuated a continuing increase in energy levels. It was unreal. The energy was off the charts.
Donald, the head computer grunt, “The energy just spiked out of nowhere,” stammered as he observed the monitors too. The poor guy. He was a simple man. These sorts of things would have gone over his head. But not mine.
“This must be it....” I marveled. “This is the awakening of the crystal! Its true power will finally be unleashed!” Theorizing for so long, the anticipation of this event left me watching, focusing my attention on the crystal. At the same time, my hubris drowned out all the ongoing hysteria from the grunts surrounding me. Power tended to have that effect on weaker minds. From the corner of my eye, Ara – a little hysterical herself – mirrored me for support, trying to mimic my composure. Allured, we both stared at the crystal as the object’s glow became brighter and brighter. The lightning was more violent now, progressively shooting through the glass tube. At this point, it was indeed a little bit concerning.
However, I was just simply captivated. The crystal broke free yet continued to hover in the air. Then, to my surprise, a crack shattered midair just above it. Everyone, including Ara and I, took a few steps back as the gap in the crack became wider and wider until it burst open. Glass shards fell onto us, potentially skewering us. As the grunts winced, they missed the majesty of the event. But not I. I stared down the erupting shards, knowing full well that it would be my end. However, the crystal would not let me go so easily. Just before the shards hit us, they disappeared, leaving a hole filled with nothing but a dark abyss. Magnificent… It was a void, a ravenous hole in time in space. And it was all mine. I would use such a discovery for my own ends. I would…
Suddenly, a girl popped out from the other side and landed right into the row of computers, knocking the monitors around as she hit the floor hard! The hole shrunk until it was no longer visible. With one last act, the void satiated its hunger by pulling the green crystal into it. Puzzled, I gazed upon the strange girl. She also witnessed the same thing and felt just as perplexed. Now we were stuck with her, this weird-looking creature. More on the humanoid side, the more I observed her, the better acquainted I had become with her details. Lavender-colored skin, a tail, and fangs, this was no girl. It was more like a beast.
This weird child was just starting to get up. She stood, a little wobbly on her feet at first. My grunts immediately surrounded her, out of curiosity and hostility. She took an exciting defensive pose. I could tell she did it out of fear for her well-being. She must have been claustrophobic. Anyone would be. After setting his blaster to ‘scan mode,’ one grunt unholstered his weapon and brandished it up to her. Scanning the girl up and down, her data was sent to one of the monitors. Unfortunately, it was one of the few that was lying sideways on the floor. The upper left-hand corner of the screen showed nothing due to internal damage. Albeit her elevated heartbeat, the girl’s vitals were fine, and no abnormalities showed from the scan.
“Do you know what this means?” Donald asked while staring at her in awe. “With the crystal gone, she’s the only form of evidence we have in our succeeding experiment....” What a simpleton…
Approaching the girl as the grunts made a path for me, “We wouldn’t have spent so long counting our chickens on merely a theory,” I got a better look at her. Ara followed behind, ever cautious as she usually was. “Now, we’ve finally worked hard and long enough to find our key. The key to destroying everything. To destroy the universe as we know it.” She stared blankly at me. I glanced around and noticed everyone else was equally lost. Surrounded by idiots and simpletons, I clarified, “That’s right, I’m referring to you.” Whatever world she came from, she must have had some sort of language similar to our own. For when I spoke, she understood. Aware of the girl’s horrified expression as she looked upon me, I reassessed. I motioned for Ara to stay behind as I slowly approached her, adopting a more welcoming demeanor. It worked. She became less hostile. “What’s your name?” The tone of my voice was smoothed out as if I was singing a lullaby.
“Astrid...” Surprisingly, she huffed rather softly. I expected a rasp or a growl. Perhaps this beast was more child than monster.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Astrid. The woman behind me is Ara, and my colleagues standing before you call me The Professor, so you may address me as that. Together, we form the Coats, aka The Collective Organization of Artificial and Terrestrial Sciences. Going by those words, it would be fair of you to assume that we’re an organization devoted to special people. People who don’t originate from here. Kind of like you.” I was talking too fast. Clearly, this was a child, one who had not been regimented with discipline yet. Astrid, as she referred to herself, nodded her head slightly but became obviously distracted. There was something behind me that had garnered her attention. Curious myself, I followed her line of sight and directed my attention to one of the many monitors knocked down on the floor. The monitor, in particular? Well, she really was a child, after all. The monitor was stuck displaying the inactive gameplay from the computer game I had noticed earlier. However, upon further inspection, there was a detail I had missed. Astrid was a weird girl, but I had seen a creature like her before. Where? Well, she was the same girl that was in the game.
“Professor,” one grunt said. “I was playing the game during my break earlier.” Yes, I had figured it out. But continue… “That girl, Astrid, I had seen her before.” Sound it out stupid… “She is a videogame character. But is that possible?” How would I know? “Look! She’s looking at where she originates from....”
Astrid fell to the floor. It was too much. “What do you mean?” Even this abomination could not figure out what had happened. She could not process the events before her. And so, she cried. “What do you mean I’m a videogame character? That’s impossible! I know who I am! I’m real, and that is not it! Whatever is on that computer doesn’t mean what you think it is! It can’t! It can’t be!” Astrid cried out, her voice echoing.
I kneeled in front of her. Even I could be compassionate when it came to these sorts of things. “From the looks of it, I’m afraid it’s true. You are a videogame character. But that doesn’t make you not real. You’re real in whatever world you come from and the world you are in now. Even if everyone sees you as this fake embodiment of one’s imagination, you’ve proven them wrong just by being here. There is no doubt in my mind that you are real, and that’s a fact.” The little hostility Astrid had left over melted. It was all over her face. She really was a child. Being comforted by my words was enough to soften this feral creature. “We don’t know how you were sent here, but in the meantime, you may take shelter here as long as you help us.”
“Help you with what...?”
I stood up, “tell me, Astrid. Are you a fighter?” My eyes had been measuring her for some time, and I even observed her little tail.
“Yes,” she wiped her eyes, “I’ve been trained to be one my whole life.”
“Good,” I smiled, “that will come in handy.”
“For what?”
Holding back all of my grinning delight, my head bobbed while doing a pleasant little bow as my voice reverberated in my throat, “For destroying the universe, of course. As I was saying earlier, you’re the key. You’ll be useful.”
To Be Continued...
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