Hezekiah and Peter finally made it to London. The vehicle touched down in what looked like a residential zone. Hezekiah got out of the vehicle as it turned into a car and parked itself beside the road. Hezekiah looked around in slight confusion. It looked like they were outside someone’s house and not a research facility.
Oddly, he felt like he recognised some of the buildings. Not because he had been there before, but because it looked like a scene straight out of Harry Potter. Hezekiah took it all in. He’d never been to London before. It was incredible, the streets were made of cobblestones.
The buildings all around him were tiny stone and brick apartments. All the archways were made of painted wood. There were red doors and green doors and many of the buildings had a hanging wooden sign. The lights look like little gas lanterns that you would find in the 1800s. The light felt dim and the air tasted like mothballs.
The buildings were so close together and the roads so narrow that when we saw two cars passing eachother, one had to pull over to the side of the road to let the other pass. It wasn't what he was used to, in America the cars were huge and the roads were enormous, but here everything felt small and intimate.
They walked along the side of the road until they reached the shop with a sign saying observatory at the front. Hezekiah opened the door and walked in—Peter was close behind him. They walked along, through winding hallways. All the way to the back of the building, which opened up into a small courtyard littered with a few tables and plants. Hezekiah court a glimps of the sky and noticed it had turned to night. He focused his eyes up at the stars. And saw how beautifully vivid everything was. It was almost as if he was out in the countryside with zero light pollution.
Sitting at one of the red tables was Unity.
With confusion in his voice, Peter asked, “Aren't you on the moon?”
“My matrix isn't there. I travelled there like you. Ariana sent me here to join you both because she wanted me to relay this meeting to her.”
“And why is that?” Hezekiah asked.
She pointed to a doorway behind her, “I guess we're about to find out.”
Unity stood up just as Hezekiah was about to sit and began walking towards the door which led into an observatory. This wasn’t what Hezekiah was expecting. There was a huge telescope in the middle of the room. The whole room was dim red. There was a hole in the ceiling where Hezekiah could see the beautiful starscape once more.
The room was empty except for a small droid standing at attention in the corner. It looked like a rectangular box, or rather three boxes stuck on top of each other. It was roughly humanoid shaped. The best description Hezekiah could find was of a robot designed in Minecraft.
“Activate,” Unity said acknowledging the droid.
The Droid came alive. It's different block body parts separated from each other. A head floated on an invisible neck. “How can I help?” The robot said in a British accent.
Unity looked at Peter who nodded for her to continue. “Have you seen anything unusual out in deep space?” Unity asked.
“If by unusual you mean battle… Then yes,” The droid said.
“What do you mean a battle?” Hezekiah asked excitedly. “Like aliens fighting eachother?”
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The droid shook its head, “It's definitely Earth. I tracked back the origin of some of the objects and they've come from Sol.”
That Droid pointed At a large TV mounted on the wall. On it and map of the star system appeared. Several names of various stars appeared above each. Then, one of the stars turned blue and started to flash.
Peter queried the robot, “are you an artificial intelligence?”
“No,” It said matter of factly. “Think of me more of a very smart search engine.”
Hezekiah noticed Peters confusion. “
it's only sentient AI that are banned. Robots like this one here don't quite make the cut.”
“It sounds awfully smart.”
“It would definitely pass the Turing test. But it's lacking the ability to self-improve.”
Unity pulled them both back to their task at hand, “I think there’s something important here for us.”
She gestured at the android to continue.
“Approximately sixteen light years away, there's a star called Groombridge sixteen-eighteen. We don’t know much about it except to say it should have at least one planet orbiting it and a lot of debris in the system.”
“Arianna thanks this is our team.” Unit said.
“One of the beta explorers? Could it be Atlas or Angelique?” Peter asked.
“Maybe,” Unity said. “Actually probably one of them.”
Hezekiah looked concerned. “Do we know what the outcome was? Were they hurt in the fight?”
The Droid shrugged, “all I can say is that two large convoys collided near that star. The only reason I can tell you this was because I have access to all the large telescopes Atreus Enterprise owns and there were so many rocket ships. Your average citizen astronomers wouldn't be able to see any of this.”
Unity asked the obvious question. “Is there any other natural phenomenon that might make this signal?”
The droid moved from side to side. “Maybe in isolation. But as I said before, half the ships definitely came from our solar system.”
“What about the other half? How do you know those ships were fighting against Atlas or the others?”
“I see no other reason why humanity would go against every single isolation policy that it pushes. Earth made the decision a long time ago to leave aliens alone. And the only people sending out rockets now days is the Spaceforce. Unless...”
“Unless they encountered a hostile alien.” Hezekiah interrupted.
“Unlikely,” the droid said. “The Space Force had to be going after the initial beta explorers that you sent out, Peter.”
All three of them exchanged concerned glances. The idea that Earth's Spaceforce might have engaged in a conflict with the beta explorers was unsettling. They had all been sent out to find new worlds, not to ignite a battle among the stars.
"Can you tell us more about the conflict?" Hezekiah asked the droid. "Were there any survivors or communications from either side?"
The droid paused for a moment, its various floating segments seemingly considering the question. "I'm afraid I have limited information about the actual conflict, there were no communications intercepted from either side. However, I did detect a few faint distress signals shortly after the event. Their origin is uncertain, but they could have come from one of the involved parties."
Unity looked thoughtful. "We need to investigate this. If one of the beta explorers is in trouble, we have to help them."
Peter nodded in agreement, his expression resolute. "Absolutely. But we should also consider the possibility of encountering hostile forces, whether they're aliens or the Spaceforce. We need to be prepared for any scenario."
“I don’t think we have the resources to be engaged in a fight. We’ll have to go in stealthily and investigate.” Unity said.
“Especially when we’re about to lose all our resources.” Hezekiah added.
“What do you mean we're going to lose our resources?” Peter asked.
Hezekiah looked at Unity, then at Peter. Then back at Unity. “I heard the CEO was shutting this all down.”
“Oh,” Peter said. “That was just a misunderstanding. We’re fine to continue doing what we’re doing.”
“I heard,” Unity said, “You ripped him a new one. Ariana said he was scared senseless after you two had a conversation.”
“He just didn’t understand what we were doing.” Peter said, “after I explained what was happening he was fine for us to continue.”
Before anyone could reply, Peters pocket started to vibrate. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the device designed for locating his brain matrix. He opened it up and clicked a few things on the small interface. He grinned when he realised he had found the location of his matrix. Then reading further the smile disappeared.
“Where is it?” Hezekiah asked.
“It’s still in prison.”