Khap-Ar shifts into a humanoid form you don't recognize as you walk through a door. He's got a burly build with a clean face. His eyes are bright and his smile wide. “We're going to need to outfit you all with enough to keep us all alive, this isn't just any old delivery mission."
"I'm ready," you say.
You're then led throughout the innards of the bunker, small interconnected hallways that trail through for what seem like eons. Doors line the walls that you assume have something equally interesting behind them, however you pass on until Khap-Ar stops and turns towards a larger door on your left. Sen and Jesse catch up from behind. Before you can ask where Pamen is, he rises out from the ground beside you, shorter than you saw him before.
"You seem surprised."
“That's his natural state of being,” Jesse says.
You turn to give him a dirty look, “I just didn't know that you could change your height?"
"This form is the absence of light concentrated into a shape. We can project it however tall or short we desire.”
"Was wondering how you got around some of these hallways."
"Khap-Ar, I was wondering if you could explain a bit of what's in this room. If we're going to be a team we need to all be on the same page," Jesse says.
"Well of course, is that all right with the rest of you?" Sen nods and Pamen doesn't move to answer. "Okay, this is our outfitters. We need to be organized, uniformed, protected. We can't go out there in civilian wear. So, we're here to get you in line with some of the latest gear. I know you all aren't army, but you won't have to be to wear what's in here," Khap-Ar explains. He presses down on the bar that is used as a knob and pushes in, revealing a pretty small room on the inside, a far cry from all of the rooms you had seen prior. It has some bathroom-styled stalls in the back the room and some seats dotting the sides. "What you'll do is step into the stall and you'll see a keypad, follow the instructions on it and you'll be all set.”
"I'll go first," Sen says. "I've admittedly always wanted to see how I'd look in Power Armor."
Khap-Ar lifts his arms like a bouncer letting a V.I.P. guest into a fancy club. Sen walks in like she has been dreaming of it her entire life, and who knows, maybe this stuff is so spectacular that she has? It makes you think back to the gear you saw Jesse and Roland wearing in that memory. That must be the Power Armor that you're going to be stepping inside of, although it was more like a power skin-suit than armor.
You hear some faint clicking as you step closer to get a better look. There is a bright light that spills out of the bottom of the stall, it glows a bright blue before dimming, and then the door opens. Sen stands right in front of you in an Illith sized version of the suit. It's got the lined recesses that mark the suit in a now dormant golden tint. You remember those as the lines that glow with the different color based on what attribute the suit was enhancing, at least that seemed to be how it worked. You were correct in it being the same thing, though.
"See? It's not that hard. You next Pamen?"
"No need," he says.
"Ah, right. The uh, no clothes thing. Well, I'll say I'm kind of sorry that you don't get to enjoy good fashion," she says, stepping out of the room beside you.
"Well, I guess you get to try next, Alex, unless Mr. Anderson wants to get his feet wet once more?" Khap-Ar asks.
"I'm quite all right with putting it off until the very last possible moment if that is okay with you," Jesse says.
"Nervous about going out again this way?" You ask.
"Something like that," he says, and before you can ask for more you can feel the brusk push of Khap-Ar's lumberjack arm on your back. He shifts into the shape of a Psarcian, green and spotty all over. You stumble into the room and nearly slam your face into the wall, your arm latching out and bracing against it before you do.
The door shuts behind you and you balance yourself upright. The only other thing in the stall is a keypad just as Khap-Ar had said, except it seems to be near your knees. You'd have to bend down to get a good look at the screen.
Must be how Sen was able to reach it, you think, but surely this isn't an Illith only stall? You nudge the bottom of the device with your foot and notice it moves upward with a little resistance. So, it adjusts with height, that actually makes more sense than your previous idea.
You bend down and pull it up towards you and can see a complicated design that almost looks like a blueprint of Sen. She must not have fully backed out of the program because she was so excited. You admit that you're kind of excited as well. Something like this was far from reality back in your own time. The closest thing that you could call anything like it would have been the suits from Tron, although they didn't do anything near like what these could do, and you only knew of so little you think. Of course you remember Tron and not anything else important. If only you could trade your movie knowledge for something more useful.
You press down on different parts of the gadget to get any kind of response. There doesn't seem to be any buttons beside one on the underside, and that only makes the screen go black. When pressed again it returns it to the same display it was on before. In short it did shit. Surely there weren't things like this in Star Wars. Maybe Luke could have just used his force powers to will this thing to work. Somehow, you manage to make the image move by pressing your finger on the screen. What will they think of next?
You manage to move the diagram of the Illith out of the way and see some boxes on the right hand side of the screen with different labels on them. They seem to have one for each race, so you press your finger down on the "Human" tab. Next pops up two more inputs which show a sort of silhouette of what looks to be a boy and a girl. God this is such a pain in the-what do I put here? I mean, I guess boy since that is the body, but does it really even matter when the body's not even technically human?
You press on the boy tab and some more options pop up. You feel like you're back in school with all of those tests. You remember those more than well, and each one seemed to only exist to stress and belittle. The options this time show different sizes, you see some words in the top left corner of the screen saying "Body type." You select the one that most fits Roland's figure, tall and not too thick. If anything you remind yourself of your father, passed too soon and gone from this world.
The room begins to glow around you through tiny little buds that are embossed on the walls, too small for you to notice when they were blank, but now they look like a million tiny eyes all showering you in their light. You look yourself up and down as you see your body begin to change, as the blue light envelops you it covers you all the way from your neck to your toes in a black sheen. It hugs close to your body, and then the light works its way like tiny concentrated lasers now, etching into the suit the recesses that shine a bright gold.
Finally, a white ring around your torso is emblazoned on and the light dissipates, leaving you in awe. The door opens and the rest of the others look you up and down and you can see Jesse perk up as he sees how far your jaw must be to the floor.
"Wow."
"All right, I don't need to hop inside since I can change into it whenever I need to," Khap-Ar says, and as he does the casual clothes that hugged admittedly big biceps transform into the Power Armor.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Looks like you're next up, Anderson."
"Alright Alright Alright," he says with some weird inflection you don't understand. Maybe he was trying to make a reference to you, but you nod your head as if you got it. "I'm goin', I'm goin'."
Jesse walks into the room past you and the stall door shuts behind him. A few seconds later and the blue lights begin pouring out from underneath the door again. It opens no more than five seconds later and out steps soldier Anderson, just as you saw him in the memory albeit older and less crushed.
"We all good?" Jesse asks.
"Last time I saw you in that uniform, Mr. Anderson I recall you spewin' up half of your guts. Are you sure that you're good?" Khap-Ar asks, in a holding-back-a-joke kind of way.
"Right as rain," he replies.
"We are all set. Have been, will be," Pamen says.
"Yes yes, we know you're all set. That's one thing we can count on in this life besides eventual death, Pamen being organized," Jesse says.
Sen laughs at this and nods her head, "I'm ready too. Are we off to secure our visors next?"
"It's almost like you've been waiting for this day," Jesse says, walking beside you."
"Is that the helmet thing?" You ask, feeling a little dumb.
"Yes, it connects to the suit using light energy, the lights that course through those grooves in your suit are constantly emanating throughout your body." Khap-Ar explains.
"It connects to the helmet to give you a heads up on what's around you, radar of other life, tracking, all kinds of useful stuff."
"It's only the latest in Palmeter technology!" Sen glows.
"Palmeter?"
"The organization who created the helmets and suits, they're a function of Cæ that work and develop high tech gadgets of all kinds." Jesse says. "Civilian stuff mainly except for these two."
"Excuse me, but there's more than just Cæ there now," Sen pouts.
"Right, well Palmeter was kind of exclusive since it's origin, only more recently allowing more kinds of people to partner up for them. But the suit and helmet are before that time, so when I say they are Cæ inventions..."
"I just wanted to let 'em know..." Sen trails off with her tiny arms crossed.
"That reminds me, about this suit. I uh...heard that you can do some pretty amazing stuff with it?" You phrase your question specifically.
Khap-Ar smiles and then shifts into the shape of Jesse, looking more like him when he was back in the army all those years ago. You wonder how many years it actually was, it seemed to be enough to shorten him a few pegs. "There is a button on the palm of your right hand and sensors on the tips of each of your fingertips. If you press a finger to your palm it activates your Power Armor."
"I'm going to assume those sensors are exclusive for people with hands like ours, right?"
"You'd assume correct, show 'em, Sen."
Sen holds up her tiny mitt and you can see four little stubs off of her hand. There's also a circular pad divvied up into fifths in the palm of her hand.
"You see, it isn't just size that the machine accommodates for, accessibility is everything."
"So there's five different sensors, what do they all do?"
The sensor on your pinky finger controls your physical strength. Tap it to your palm and the gold trims on your suit will glow a fierce red. You can lift things up to five times your own body weight. It won't be painless, but there is no easy out," Khap-Ar says.
"Okay, ring finger?"
"Your trim will glow white, matching the glow around your torso. That controls your inner body gravity. Tapping that will allow you to alter your gravity in reference to the planet's core. You can exert less gravity and float, or exert more, but not too much. If this power were unlimited you'd completely destroy Sayar's core if your center of gravity ever exceeded it."
"So it'll make me a little heavier?"
"It's quite helpful if you travel through the Westerwinds, Fal' ZäArian homeland. It's name is no lie, having a solid foot on the ground will save your behind someday."
You nod.
"Your third finger controls your speed. Tapping that one will turn your glow-"
"Blue..." You interrupt. Noticing his surprise, "uh, lucky guess?"
"Right...well, tap that finger and the waves in your body vibrate faster than normal, you are literally faster at everything. Energy consumption as well, don't go all willy-nilly with this one, it's the perfect tale of the fool who abuses the speed function and suffers the consequences." Your eyes unconsciously shift to Jesse, and he seems to know it. He ducks his head down to avoid the stare. "The fourth, your index finger, controls your waves. Your suit will glow with a purple color. Your waves are the reason you're standing. It includes constant and consistent access to your vitals, recommended medical action in the case of emergency, tracking of any of your squadron, and is your primary source of ammunition for our WaveBlasters."
"The guns that shoot out the waves?" you ask.
"Right on point. You'll be using this one frequently if you wish to fire your gun, but I don't think you'll be using one of them right away, but in due time," he explains.
"Okay, fair enough. What about the last one?"
"The last one controls your suit's defenses. Your suit will glow green and shut down any other currently activated sensor. It needs the full attention of your waves to conserve any bodily harm. Of course, this wouldn't prevent damage to your facial area, but that's what your helmet is for. Now, if you'll walk with me, we can all go and get our own."
"Yes, finally. It's so boooooring waiting for you to finish your explanations," Sen says.
"I'm sorry for making this take so long," you say.
"No no, you're fine. I'm only teasing," she says.
"Or is she?" Jesse adds with a cock-eyed grin. You shoot your tongue out at him, and realize it stopped being cute when you left your teenage body. To avoid the awkward response you begin walking and as if choreographed, everyone else joins in, sparing you the embarrassment. Sen chuckles and Pamen walks past all three of you, even past Khap-Ar.
"What's his deal?" You ask.
"He's just like that. Can't blame Pamen since they've known about this stuff since it first came out ages ago. I'd be a bit bored too if I had to sit through each and every single time someone learns about some of these."
"Ah, that makes sense I guess, how long ago were the armor and helmet made?"
"The armor came first," Khap-Ar says, walking past another big door on the left like the one you all just came out of, but he doesn't stop, instead he effortlessly shifts back into his gooey form. "They were made around sometime in the late 6800s I believe? The original idea for 'em, at least. I don't know how many versions have come out before this, but there's a solid near six hundred years worth of them. The helmet came out a ways into the 6950s. The idea was there for almost as long as the suit, but nobody, not even the Cæ could figure out how to comfortably power and use such a helmet."
"I see, it's so weird hearing something like that said so casually, six hundred years worth of improvements."
"To be fair you could say that it is weird for a human to be saying it's weird. You've had improvements for going on five thousand years since you've arrived on Sayar, seven thousand if you want to count your intergalactic history."
“All right now everybody. We're wasting precious time that Piscar could be using to gamble, chop chop,” Khap-Ar says.
You follow and find another door like the first you'd seen.
“Shenanigans aside, here we have the helmet storage. It's kept in this room here because the heads up display tend to get synced out of whack being so close to the changing rooms back there. The constant scanning releases a slight amount of radiation, nonabsorbent in your bodies, I must add, but it does some wonky things with technology. That's what the big metal door is there to help keep track of,” he explains.
“Still think the walk is a little unnecessary,” you say.
“Just like a human,” Pamen says.