Episode 30

“Sharp, what’s going on?” Isabelle’s voice rang out across the lab.

“There seems to be something hiding under the grass. It sounds metal. I’m hoping it’s big enough to serve as a door.”

“Our priority should be getting the wormbox up and running again. Now that we’ve got power, we’ve got most of the work stations up and running again in here. We’d just need your help to connect us to the lab machinery. Then we can analyze what’s happening in there with you. Are you sure it’s worth the risk?”

Isabelle made a lot of sense, but then again, she was safe a floor above him and behind the thick, protective glass of the observation window. Some of he debris during the storm hit that window and only left a smear. She didn’t have to deal with being eaten.

“Well, it is true that I’ve recently developed an aversion to being eaten.” Sharp looked out at the field. His bioscan showed no signs of life aside from vegetation, but his recent encounter with death had him thinking that the bioscan suffered from a fatal bias. It only recognized and analyzed forms of life as he understood them on Earth. Xenobiology was far outside his sphere of knowledge.

“Why do you hesitate? Should this not be a simple matter of running to the object and bringing it back?” said Cattleya as she stood to his left while casually leaning on the cricket bat.

“A simple matter? Hey, that’s right! You wanted to battle the next beastie. How about you wade through the alien grass, stomp about on the alien earth, and bring back a mysterious metallic object back with you? I’m sure you’ll be right as rain.”

“Ungh…”

“Yeah, not so simple,” Sharp said more to himself than to her, then looked over his virtua display again. He swept the home screen with its widgets and notifications out of the way, leaving just the bioscan data overlaid on the scene before him. The metal something-or-other was only ten feet away. He wasn’t in the best shape at the moment, but he knew he could bolt that short of a distance.

“Give me the time it would take to run ten feet at fifteen miles per hour,” Sharp spoke out loud.

“I…I don’t know that answer,” Cattleya replied.

“Not talking to you. Shh.” In his earpiece he could hear the bot read the results that popped up on the screen.

“Half a second to the mystery object and half a second back? But I don’t know how heavy the object is, or how much work it’ll be to free it. Or if I have to fight anything off…Hey, give me an estimate of how fast I can run ten feet while carrying a ten pound weight.”

“Who are you having a conversation with now? Is it Darity?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Sharp ignored Cattleya as the answer appeared on his display. “Ten seconds? Are you kidding me? I’m not that out of shape!”

“Sharp, we really need you to focus on the network issues while the portal is relatively safe. Please don’t stir anything up.”

“Sorry, Isabelle. We’ve got an opportunity to scavenge something from another world. Maybe it’ll be junk. Maybe it’ll be something I can use to barricade the door. Maybe it’ll be something else entirely, but I’m going to risk it. And I’m sure Cattleya won’t mind picking me for ticks when I get back.” Sharp gave Cattleya a wink.

“Disgusting!”

Seeing her mad made him happy for some reason. His smile turned into a determined grimace, then he ran across the threshold into the grass field. Fortunately, the grass only came up to his knees, so running through it was easier than he feared. Within a moment he reached the spot his AR display had mapped out. He just followed the very short dotted line.

Taking a quick look around him for predators, and listening for a second for other sounds in the grass, Sharp deemed it was safe to stoop down and remove the branch that he had thrown on the item.

Well, it’s not a door.

At Sharp’s feet was a silvery box covered in muck and plant matter. His virtua display showed that it was 13.6” x 5.52” x 3.81”, which meant it was not much smaller than a shoebox. However, it was small enough that he could have missed it when he tossed branches out into the field.

He tentatively touched it.

Nothing happened. His finger was fine. No monsters with excessive teeth came to eat him for lunch. Sharp snatched the box up, then looked around the field. He experienced a momentary yearning to run up the hill to see the guided view that the monoliths presented, but no view was worth being trapped here. He turned and dashed back to the lab.

A chorus of curious onlookers greeted him as he passed back through the portal. He could see that Isabelle wasn’t happy with him, but she was crowded by the rest of the lab workers. He turned to Cattleya and wiggled the box in his hands.

“I don’t think we can blockade much with this.”

Cattleya gave him a dubious look and shrugged her shoulders.

“Open it up already!”

Syd.

Sharp walked over to the wormbox and set the box on the top. He then began describing the box, it’s dimensions, and his guesses at is composition for the listening audience all pressed up against the observation window. He hadn’t been the center of positive attention for ages, so he relished their enthusiasm as he gave his impromptu keynote. Then he turned the box towards his audience, motioned for Cattleya to come up beside him, then opened the box.

Inside were an assortment of tools unlike anything he was familiar with except for one item. It was long and slender, black, had buttons on one side of it, a screen, and looked like a remote control for a TV. Except for the screen, which wasn’t working, it looked rather retro.

“Bring it closer!”

“Syd, please. Stop shouting.” Isabelle chided her co-worker with a touch of irritation in her voice.

I really pissed her off.

Instead of coming closer, Sharp looked up toward the observation window and sent a bot to commandeer the former IT guy’s work station. Then he opened a browser with an ad hoc video stream and showed them what he was looking at. After almost dying, he found that he just didn’t have the energy to keep his tech secret anymore. He was going to need to use it openly to survive.

“Hey! How are you doing that?” shouted out Apple.

“Where’s his camera?”

“Is this VRNC?”

The crowd started to leave the window to gather around the work station. Isabelle remained and gave Sharp a very pointed look.

“I’m the IT guy,” Sharp said with a cavalier shrug.

She turned her mouth into a frown, then left the window to join the others around the work station.

“What are you doing?” Cattleya asked him quietly.

“I can explain later. There’s a lot I need to explain later. Can you wait?”

She nodded in silence, then Sharp loudly continued his keynote.