Aetheran Child Read online

  Nangern hissed. The man fell unconscious before the doctor even got to him.

  Nangern smiled, “Problem solved.”

  Lexan felt in power. Somehow, he knew he could control the man's body, now that it has endured so much pain and it had no more energy. He also realized that the scene he had seen before, had happened in the past while this particular instance where he seized the man’s body happened in the present. Lexan spoke, “Nangern.” He said.

  Nangern froze, terror seemed to coarse through him, “What did you say?”

  “Nangern, what are you doing?” Lexan said.

  “What the hell did you just say? How do you know that name?” Nangern screamed, anger soared through him. He grabbed Lexan and look down into his eyes.

  “Nangern. You want to wage a war against the Milky Way? Why?” Lexan said, not perfectly knowing what else to say. Still surprised to see an old acquaintance, one lost to him forever, make his way into a different galaxy, and become a general, Lexan stared at the boy, the man, scrutinizing him. He saw that Nangern endured similar training as he did, creating a more muscular build upon his body. Nangern had scars running down his body, but they seemed to be intentional, marks of his battles and success. Battles? Lexan thought, what battles? Him and the boy parted a bit more than a year ago. How could the boy become a general while Lexan was still in his first year at Athiris?

  Instead of answering, Nangern killed the doctor standing by the door. The doctor fell to apart into smoldering, fiery pieces.

  “I am merely following orders and enjoying my personal vendetta against the Aetheri.” He said, and finally recognized Lexan as the boy possessing the man, “You're dead.” His eyes stared at him in surprise, widening, “This can't be.”

  Lexan tried to answer but could not anymore.

  A sharp, piercing sound screeched through his head. The sound tore him from the vision, back through the river where he let go off the irregularity until finally he flew out of the darkness back into consciousness. His head pounded with pain. The sound kept on going.

  With a single thought, Lexan’s front screen on his helmet opened, his whole computer booted up.

  “Joshua, what is going on?!” He asked, turning off the mute button. People all around woke up just as abruptly as he did.

  “Lexan, a war has been declared against the nations of the Milky Way galaxy.”

  III

  “I'm sure all of you have heard the rumors as to why I have called this emergency broadcast,” Grandmaster Kosig's enormous body stood in middle of the Grand Hall, “I have a few of the other Grandmasters from the Council with me that will provide specific details about the situation.” Next to the projection of the Gm. Kosig stood an Octid whose golden stripes glowed vibrantly and a horned man with red skin.

  “We are currently at war.” Gm. Kosig waited for a few seconds to see the impact he had made. His projection, made of nano-machine particles, not only showed the man in thousands of Grand halls but also gave the Grandmaster a chance to view any single Grand Hall he wished to see. At the moment, Lexan saw from his limited position between two large Shuns that everyone started chattering.

  The horned grandmaster started speaking, “The Nether Republic has simultaneously attacked the Independent Outlying Nations that circle the outer rim of the galaxy, and parts of the Outlaw Alliance” said the red-skinned man in a growling voice. A name tag under his figure let everyone know that he was to be called Grandmaster Kena. He lifted his arm and a map of the Galaxy showed, “From the current information we have, the Nether forces advanced through here.” He waved his hand once more. Three-quarters of the galaxy glowed brightly blue, as if to signify the presence of Aetheri. The lone Solar system did not glow at all. A wave of red advanced from the right or the galactic east if the Solar system lay at the North side. The red glow grew more intense and swallowed parts of the blue around the edges, like rust creeping up on old metal. A sign below the map showed projected Nether movement in the future months.

  Grandmaster Kosig came forward once again, “At the moment, we have nothing to worry about. It will take the Nethers whole three years to reach the Aether system if they advance steadily. We will, of course, not allow this to become realized.”

  The third Grandmaster, Gm. Korah stood forward. His two little horns vibrated. Lexan turned on his Degree II vision to understand the Octid, “At the time, the school is under the state of emergency. Most of the Masters will be sent to the Empire Capital to attend the hearings of the Home of Land, House of Representatives, and the Senate. We have volunteered to supply the Masters to the URN for military and peace-keeping purposes.

  “It is quite possible the URN will cycle into its Imperialistic phase for the duration of the war. We encourage Trainers to take a more militaristic approach in their teaching so that any lower-class Aetheri can defend themselves in the case of the war escalates beyond current predictions. All the Apprentices and spare Trainers will immediately stop their function. You are being transferred to the Apprentice planet for war-related training in support of the war effort and to be, in future, drafted.” Gm. Korah moved backward to let Gm. Kosig speak once more.

  “This does not change anything for the lower-ranking students. Everyone Advanced and below will resume their usual studies. If you wish to help out the coming war effort, keep on track with the school bulletins, we will soon have a Volunteer sign-up sheet posted. But before you do anything, I urge you to think about your actions.

  “We will have another emergency meeting later on this week with updated information.”

  The three Grandmasters bowed and disappeared.

  Lexan still felt disoriented from the visions he saw while meditating. His head still throbbed from the music. He quickly ordered Joshua to flood-reset his brain chemicals.

  He looked out to see if he could spot anyone he knew. The hall was enormous but still packed with too many people, beyond its limit capacity. Lexan scanned the nearest people but did not recognize anyone.

  He turned on his heel and tried to leave but all the exits were just as packed as the Grand Hall. People tried to leave as fast as they could. A bulletin posted on the school's board announced the cancellations of classes for the rest of the day and tomorrow. Great, an extended break, Lexan thought grimly. He thought he saw Bloo a couple of times, but unfortunately, it was not her.

  “Joshua, put me through to Bloo.” He said, still looking through the crowd. He soon began to make his way through the masses to the exit.

  “Hey Lexan.” Bloo announced herself, “This is crazy, isn't it? A war?!”

  “Yeah, it is,” Lexan mumbled, “Let's meet somewhere, classes are canceled.” Two people pinned him and he could not move. Way too many people trying to get out, he thought. He struggled to get out from the pincer grip of the crowd but could not. After a few seconds, he gave up and decided to wait it out.

  “Yeah, I'll be waiting in your Dorm with Nivua, she's here with me.” She said and clicked off. Jacque sent Lexan a message that he was with two girls and that he would meet him there too. Distracted, Lexan, turned down a few other calls from Solan, Krall, Romul and Remu, and a couple others. He also received a message from the Cardinal Regions office division approving all the funds he needed for Sun-surfing and the restaurants. He picked up a call from Charles though, “Is everything alright?”

  Charles answered, “Yes, yes it is. This is quite disturbing news.” Then he added a few seconds later when Lexan did not answer, “Since our break begins today instead of on Primitusday, I thought I would tell you that I am leaving to the underground caves for Solitude Training, something inherent to my culture, from the Cardinal Regions.”

  “I see.” Lexan answered mindlessly as he pushed against a few more people, “So you'll be off the grid until you come back then?”

  “Yes, that is correct,” Charles answered, “Meaning, we will have to cancel the meeting we set up for next Seday.”

  Lexan almost
completely forgot about that, “We'll reschedule it for later, don't worry about it.”

  “Good, I will talk to you when I get back then.” Charles said and clicked off. His icon immediately turned to offline status. Still wading through the hordes, Lexan managed to drop the NCC dock on his right wrist.

  He reached down to pick it up, but just as he looked up once more he saw - “ALARY?!”

  A girl three meters away from him turned around, her dark brown hair reached her back. Her beautiful face with two vivid dark blue eyes stared at him in horror and surprise. Her wide eyes complemented her open mouth and a trembling lower lip, “Lexa-?” She managed to say before the flood of people finally broke through.

  Lexan still watched as the push of people carried her away down the exit hallways. He could not believe his eyes. That can't be her, he thought, it just can't be. This is the Aether system, so far away from Earth. She was back on Earth, adopted by that strange bald man.

  The memory of the bald man getting out of the elevator at the dock where Mt. Raki landed his ship the first time Lexan came to the planet flashed through.

  How? Why? He asked himself. The beautiful girl he's loved for so long, the girl he missed more than anyone was here.

  What is going on? He asked himself, knowing he would not find the answer any time soon. First he saw Nangern in that strange vision less than an hour ago. Then he saw Alary. His mind raced, but he could not think of any way this was possible.

  He took everything for granted in this strange world. The complicated technology that could replicated any type of gravity, the super-fast computers with artificial intelligences, the Aether transformations which could enable a person to have such strange powers. All of it seemed impossible, well, impossible to Lexan. After so long it dawned on him, how different this world is. And now, just to mix him up even more, he saw Nangern commencing an attack on Milky Way with the Nethers, and saw Alary in the hallways of the Athiris School.

  Lexan felt so confused, ready to have a mental breakdown.

  “Joshua, I want you to search every directory, everything available to you for Alary, a girl from the Cardinal Regions.” He asked the computer.

  “I'm on it, this might take a while...done.” Joshua said, “I have found nothing.”

  “That's not possible I just saw her!” Lexan screamed in his helmet, feeling lucky a few seconds later that Joshua had automatically muted his voice.

  “It is quite possible that the names of people from the Cardinal Regions have been removed from the general directory. Also, we are under the state of emergency, thus more names could have been removed.” Joshua answered.

  “Cancel my meeting with Bloo. I need to get out of here, be alone for a while to figure things out.” Lexan said, and turned off Joshua's access to his mind. If he was to give any command, he'd have to do it manually over his NCC.

  The first thing, Lexan did was to plot a course for the Gardens he went to with Nivua.

  IV

  Minutes later, he stepped out on the luscious green grass carpet. The air felt nice and breezy. Lexan decided to take off his helmet and feel the wind brush through his air.

  “Just a few more months, and I won't need this stupid shield.” He said to himself, eating a few nutrition cubes as he did so. A bitterness overtook his mind. All of a sudden, the world of wonder became the world of lies. He pondered upon the invention he consumed. Having eaten little to no real food since he came to the planet, Lexan consumed thousands of those little cubes.

  “What an invention,” said Lexan to himself once again. The cubes held all the nutrition he would need, all the vitamins, and even some extra speed-up hormones that adjusted his body to the environment.

  He walked down further toward the lake. Sun rays shimmered on its surface. Strange and beautiful world, he thought to himself. All the thoughts and emotions that rushed through his mind suddenly quieted. As if his mind could not handle everything at once, it had shut down. All he could see now was the setting sun, the strange orange-green hue of the sky. Not even the sky's true colors, even if he was disconnected from the computer, his own eyes adjusted the colors of this world to match the ones he was used to seeing.

  Lexan dipped his hand into the lake, feeling it as if his hand was no longer gloved. How can this happen? How do these sensors work in such a way as to make it seem his clothes do not exist?

  The spherical empire all around stared him down. Who came up with this architecture and design? Lexan kept on asking himself, asking the empty gardens. Where is my Earth? What am I doing here? He felt homesick. Aethers or no Aethers, the normal world, the uncomplicated world, was what Lexan longed for. Instead of all this mess.

  “Okay, Lexan, think what's happening here.” He told himself and started making a mental list. The overwhelming feeling of the world went away as he calmed. He made a note on his nano computer to learn more about the culture here, he had missed too much about these people who they were, and what was happening. The initial euphoria of arriving to a new, hidden world disappeared and was replaced by confusion and loneliness.

  The war had started, Nethers were attacking Aetheri. What a strange timing, he thought. After hundreds of years of peace, where the Galactic super-states had to deal with simple conflicts, a full-out galactic war was taking place. How cliché, he thought, remembering all the science fiction books he read and movies he saw. Yet, there was something special about this. The war had a meaning, and it was no coincidence, it was tied to him.

  Nangern, the boy from the orphanage, his roommate in CI4. The last time he had seen him was back on Earth, the day of his leave when Nangern hit him in the face. Lexan unconsciously rubbed his cheek. The strange thing about the day was that he could not sense the fist approaching. Now, it seemed, Nangern worked for the Nethers. But how? How could the boy he knew from the orphanage be so important that in fact, he became the catalyst to an inter-galactic war.

  Lexan remembered the symbol on Nangern's back. It meant something, and he had never noticed it at the orphanage. It might not have been there before. The symbol tied back to one of the Toria that populated and educated the galaxy. Yet another aspect of the Galaxy's history that did not make sense. Billions of stars, and only six beings, six Elders that made it all happen.

  The rush of the waterfall nearby distracted Lexan for a few seconds. There is no way I can figure this out, he thought. How could anyone figure this out? He was just a simple boy from Earth. A boy whose parents died, a boy who went to an orphanage where he shared a room with a future General of the Nether military. Maybe he was not that important, Lexan thought, may he commanders a single ship. Maybe he was taken away the same way Lexan was except by Nethers.

  It still did not make sense, Lexan would probably never make the situation make sense. Exasperated and frustrated, he put his helmet back on, turned on Degree III vision, which he has never tried before. Degree III vision enabled him to feel like he actually swam in the ocean, feel and interpret the way the fish swam, hear their language. Certain strange hallucinations would occur as well. The waterfall slowed down in its fall. The spectrum of colors he saw increased to include ultraviolet and infrared, even beyond those in the electromagnetic spectrum. He swam through the tunnel down underground inside the lake.

  He felt a bit overwhelmed once more by the colors and limited his range of sight back to the natural but kept all the other effects of Degree III vision.

  The suit increased the gravity sense to keep Lexan floating in middle of the ocean. He did not wish to surface for a while.

  “Think, Lexan, think.” he said to himself again, knowing all too well none of the sounds would escape his helmet. The helmet, which he incidentally did not even see nor feel.

  Once more, he thought about his goals. He needed to face Nangern. Nangern, that measly boy he met in the orphanage. How could he assent so quickly? Jealous quickly washed over Lexan. The boy, that one boy, which Lexan saved from the bullies, whose sister he sa
ved as well. He, that strange weakling, bypassed Lexan, within the year and a half they've been apart, somehow, Nangern rose above the ranks of others and grasped immense power. Nangern became a general, or even if not a general, at least a high standing military official with his own ship. A teenage boy! Age did not seem to matter in this world, Lexan thought. Something that he was not used to. Age was a hindrance on Earth, it was a check on the underage to keep the adults in power.

  Nangern, Lexan's friend, a strange rival, finally took the lead, and who knows how long he's been there. Yet, he did not know that Lexan was still alive, that he was an Aether studying in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy.

  Lexan's first new objective, figure out a way to stop Nangern. Learn more about him, see what's happening to him and why he was chosen as a Nether from Earth.

  The water all around did not match his thoughts at all, it was quiet and unmoving.

  Then there was Alary. Alary, his love that he has not seen, yet again in a year and a half. He needed to figure out how she got to Athiris, and why. Why were both Nangern and Alary transported off Earth? And how many more Earthlings along with them?

  Lexan remembered the cryo-coffin in the spaceship in which he traveled with Master Raki. She might have been there, trained while he slept. When he trained, she slept. That is why he saw her when he transformed into a Aether. He will have to find her and see what she knows about the whole situation.

  Lexan surfaced from the half-sphere ocean onto the lake. He turned off the Degree III vision and with it, the instant thought descriptions of all objects disappeared, the colors faded back to their original visible spectrum, the time restored itself and some vision details became fuzzy again.

  Joshua, finally activated, relayed Lexan a few messages. He did not want to hear them, and thus turned off Joshua's voice interface, instead Joshua transferred the knowledge directly into Lexan's memory chip inside of his brain.