Brand stared at the face in there. A human body hung suspended in a lightly glowing blue-green liquid. The man was alive though clearly asleep but even in his slumber, what should have been a gentle, peaceful expression was marred by a great anger. The brows were furrowed, the teeth were set in a grimace and his nostrils were flared.
Aside from all that, he was quite young. Light brown hair that was shaved down on the sides but unruly on the top. He was probably a few years older than Brand - possibly Ravena was the same age?
BumBum rubbed a fuzzy leg against the tube. There was another terminal beside the tube and Ravena placed her hand on it once more. It read Guest Administrator once more and a number of options appeared, all of them greyed out except for one. Drain, it read.
She pressed it.
Immediately the fluid began to drain out of the vat that the main was held in and his eyes opened. If Brand had thought the man ferocious before, it was nothing now that Brand saw the intensity of his gaze. The young man wasn’t exactly angry but there was a powerful energy behind him.
BumBum buzzed excitedly.
He stayed there coolly for the ten seconds it took to drain the liquid, then a hiss rang out as the tube door opened a crack. The young man pushed it open, strolled out into the Stasis Laboratory in just his boxer shorts and spoke.
“I thank you for releasing me, though you are not whom I expected.” The young man spoke with a very strange accent. He was pronouncing all the vowels slightly wrong, and adding ups and downs where Brand would not have expected them. BumBum placed a fuzzy leg on his and the man smiled, bending down and rubbing his hands over the fuzz of the Databeast. “You however, I did expect. Looking in top shape. All ready to go.” He then turned to the stunned party that had freed him who were watching with expressions that ranged from shock to caution to bemusement. “I say, you’d do me another favour if you wouldn’t mind telling me what year it is.”
“What year do you think it should be?” Ravena countered with a question of her own.
The young man eyed her steely. Brand thought it must be rough to be under such an intense gaze.
“If all has gone according to plan, 450,” said the young man. “But I suspect it has not.”
“It’s 674.” Ravena answered bluntly, eyeing the man carefully to see how the bad news had affected him.
Brand detected a flicker of something in the young man’s face, but not what he expected. He’d thought to see sadness, anger or dismay. Instead he found happiness, and something else he wasn’t quite sure. Smugness? Pride?
“And humanity still thrives on? That is very welcome news.” Brand shared confused looks with Rosie and Tommen. Ravena was still looking at the young man, analysing. “But something has gone very wrong with my people. Which organisation are you all part of?”
Brand shrugged as the man looked at them. “Shingle City College, I suppose. Ravena?”
“That’s the only organisation I’m part of,” she said.
“I see.” The young man pondered before continuing. “Why exactly did you free me?”
“BumBum led us here under a somewhat vaguely negotiated promise of Databeast eggs,” Brand said. “It was fairly incidental. I have no idea what organisation you think we’d be part of.”
“I see,” said the young man again. This time Brand definitely detected pain passing over his face. “Well I thank you for doing it nonetheless. You’ve helped me more than you can possibly know. My name is Henry Malice.” He walked over to a closet in the room and pulled a black bodysuit with a yellow trim. He put it over and zipped it up on the front. It almost seemed like a flight suit, or something you’d wear on a fast moving Databeast for transportation.
The suit fit him perfectly, which made Brand suspect it was designed for him. He put on some boots and zipped those up too, and grabbed a helmet and some gloves. Now the closet was empty.
“Well you deserve a reward for your actions nonetheless,” said Henry as he walked over to the terminal that had been beside his stasis vat. He put his hand on it and as with Ravena a number of options appeared. Unlike Ravena, they weren’t greyed out.
He pressed one and a panel mid-way up the wall slid up to reveal three Databeast eggs.
“There’s only three eggs, but there are ten Keys. That ought to more than make up for not having four eggs. Up to you how you split it. Me and Bummy here-” BumBum buzzed angrily at him “-need to make a move. See what went wrong. See how the other outposts are doing. I thank you all again for freeing me. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to know the names of my saviours.”
Henry began to shake hands and take names. BumBum followed behind him, also shaking hands with his fuzzy leg.
“Sorry, keys?” Ravena interrupted him.
“Evolution Keys. You know them, I presume? They can unlock evolutionary variants and all that…” he trailed off when he saw their blank faces. “Oh dear, oh dear. I really need to find out what happened. Attune the key into your element stone. You’ll see what happens whilst evolving your Databeasts to Vanquisher. It’ll unlock variant Vanquisher stages. It’ll only work once per Databeast. You should get a certain feeling for which key does what just by picking it up. Got it?”
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“I think so,” said Ravena.
“Perfect. Your name was Ravena, right? Pleasure to meet you. Thanks for getting me out of there. If I ever see any of you again, I’ll give you something better for freeing me from my stasis, but for now this is all I have to give,” said Henry as he walked out of the door with BumBum walking behind him, buzzing happily.
“What is going on?” asked Rosie, amazed.
“We have to go after him. He knows so much that would be useful to us,” said Ravena.
“I’m not leaving without those Databeast eggs,” said Tommen. “How about you take four Keys, Ravena, and we all take an egg and two Keys each?”
“Fine by me,” she said, walking off after Henry.
Brand was torn. On one hand a Databeast egg was there, right in front of him. On the other, Ravena was right that the young man Henry was two interesting to let go on his own. How many secrets did he have? What did he know about QBEA? Why was he surprised that humanity had survived for so long? “You two grab the eggs and Keys. I’ll see you out there.” He trusted Tommen and Rosie not to steal from him, but he felt an obligation to make sure Ravena was okay, and he wanted answers for the first time in his life. He felt like he had just been jumping from one mystery to the next.
Brand hurriedly followed Ravena up the stairs, who was following Henry and BumBum. The clacking of the Databeast’s metal leg against the stairs left no doubt to where they were. Brand rushed up just as they were crossing into the lobby. Ravena was trying to get Henry’s attention, but he was in no mood to be bogged down. Brand saw once again the intensity that he had initially seen on the young man’s face. It was clear what it was now. It was purpose. The man walked with purpose, he looked with purpose, and he spoke with purpose.
Compared to Brand, who felt as if he had just been floating around aimlessly from one thing to the next, Henry was almost his diametric opposite. He felt jealous. He didn’t know what he wanted from this young man from another time, but he knew he wanted something, so he followed.
He caught up with Ravena and Henry outside. Ravena was standing still now, watching an unbelievable transformation occur. It was BumBum, shining with a miraculous and powerful light. BumBum was evolving under Henry’s command. Her form shone brightly as she grew to gigantic proportions, around the size of the mound they had just crawled out of. The light receded as the form solidified. BumBum was now a gigantic queen bee, more metal than biological. Her back half was that of a gigantic jet engine. Some parts were still biological, half of the face, one of the legs, one of her feelers. The rest was machine. Instead of buzzing she thrummed to life with a sort of power Brand couldn’t even imagine wielding. Henry used the fuzz on BumBum’s biological leg to climb up onto her back, locking himself in and placing his helmet and gloves over his head.
“Wait!” called Ravena, “can’t you tell us anything?”
Henry flicked up the visor on his helmet. “If it’s quick.”
“I can’t think… there’s so much I want to ask…” she looked at Brand, frustrated.
“Anything about QBEA?” he prompted her.
“What does QBEA stand for?” she asked Henry, off the top of her head.
“QBEA?” he asked, nonplussed.
“Q-B-E-A” said Ravena. “It’s written on some of the walls of the old town.”
“Oh, that!” laughed Henry. “It stands for the Quantum Biological Engineering Association.”
“Really?” asked Ravena. It was clear the answer had taken her off guard. “Who were they?”
“Who were they!?” asked Henry, amazed. “Just how much of our history has been lost? They’re the whole reason we’re in this mess! They’re us! Our ancestors! This whole world is a testament to their sins! And their failures!” Henry shook his head after his rant and patted BumBum. “Stand clear now!” he called.
Brand and Ravena stepped back, stunned. They didn’t know what to say. Ravena was repeating “Quantum Biological Engineering Association” over and over again so that it was burned into her memory. BumBum’s gigantic jet thrusters were powering up and the noise was beginning to drown everything else out.
“See you BumBum!” called Brand. He had grown fond of the - not so little anymore - Databeast over the short time he had spent with it. BumBum turned its face to him, gigantic metallic honeycomb eyes taking him in. BumBum waved its feelers at him before turning away and taking off at speed.
It wasn’t long before a great sonic boom rumbled in from the distance. Just like that the two were gone.
Brand felt a strange sense of disappointment as BumBum and Henry flew off into the distance. Although he had got some - confusing - answers about QBEA, there was so much more about the young man and what he’d said that Brand didn’t understand. Another mystery slipped through his fingers. He would have to answer the ones closest to home first.
Chasing down Ember and Kelvin was his top priority right now. Then, the three of them could find Henry and BumBum, figure out what on Excoria was going on. Besides, those two had found something in QBEA. He was sure they’d be interested in the man held in stasis. Those two had always been as insatiably curious as him, if not more.
His musing was broken as Tommen and Rosie came up the stairs, Rosie holding the Keys in both hands, Tommen with the three Databeast eggs in his shirt.
“What was that!?” demanded Tommen. “Did those two explode or something?”
Ravena answered first. “Henry evolved BumBum into… it was definitely one of the stages above Vanquisher. Conqueror… or possibly even Apex? He must have been its Tamer. They flew off.”
“So BumBum was alone for hundreds of years whilst Henry was in stasis? That’s so sad,” said Rosie.
“Apex? Are you kidding me? Not a chance, he barely looked older than us,” proclaimed Tommen, almost offended.
“It could have been,” Ravena insisted.
“Woah,” said Tommen.
“Well only one way to catch up to him,” said Rosie as she nodded at the Databeast eggs Tommen was holding.
“Yes!” agreed Ravena, fire ignited in her after meeting the mysterious young man and making progress in her research. “Get to it and we’ll debrief after and see what we’re doing with these Keys.”
Brand nodded. Rosie gave the Evolution Keys to Ravena to hold. He took one of the eggs from Tommen. Rosie took the other. They looked different to the previous one they’d found. These ones had a purple tinge to them.
“Ready?” asked Brand.
“Never been more,” said Tommen with eagerness in his eyes.
“Ready!” confirmed Rosie.
Ravena watched on with excitement and interest as the trio connected with the eggs in their hands and a bright light began shining out of each of them. The eggs were transforming into Instar-stage Databeasts.