Episode 38
The portal was solid black as if it had opened in deep space far from any stars. It was a black so rich, so thick, that Sharp would have to be crazy to walk into it. In the back of his mind, he wondered what treasures might be hiding in such an absence of light, but there could be rude surprises hiding out there as well.
He swapped to his analysis virtua screen and began pouring over the bioscans and resultant data.
“Cattleya. See that panel of light switches to the right of the portal on the other side of he rollup door?”
“Are you referring to the rectangle with the smaller rectangles within?”
“Exactly! While I analyze the data, please press each rectangle just once. The lights will go out, and a dim red light will appear under each one.”
“Red…” Sharp was too busy to watch her face, but her tone of voice was filled with an awkward confusion. It reminded him that she couldn’t see the color red.
“You can’t see red or green, can you?”
“Sadly, no. Painting travelers would effuse joyfully regarding the vibrant reds and greens in their works, but to my eyes, the paintings always seemed rather gray.”
“So—” The sensors showed something was moving on the other side of the portal. Lots of little somethings. Before he ran over and shut the lights off himself, he tried one more approach with Cattleya.
“You can see variations in brightness, ne? Just press the buttons and then the green lights will dim into red lights. I think. Can you just do it for me? I need to analyze this data. Walk around and come in from the other side. Don’t cross in front of the portal.”
Sharp began using his hands to interact with his menus, while also using his eyes to trigger commands. At the same time, he gave voice commands to the AI bots waiting for verbal cues. Every aspect of his OS danced to his needs. Kex was a powerful OS for power users. Sharp doubted it could be salable to consumers in its current state, but he liked it just fine the way he programmed it.
The results were showing breathable air, but with a higher percentage of methane than the air in the WMD lab. The temperature was a cool 53°F. There was no wind, and there didn’t seem to be any vegetation. Thermal scans showed what seemed to be floating jellyfish in the air beyond. Just as he reached up to pinch and zoom on the results, Cattleya flicked off all the lights. Now the observation room bathed the WMD lab with light.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Isabelle!” he called out. “Can you bring down the lights in your lab, too?”
“Got it. Be careful.”
As the lights in the observation room went out, Sharp’s eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond the gate. Bobbing in the air was a smack of floating jellyfish. They glowed faintly with some form of bioluminescence. Sharp surmised that they gave off methane and caught it in their dome-like top to buoy them in the air.
“Such beauty.”
Cattleya had joined him again and stared at the portal with wide eyes and an even wider smile.
“Yes, very beautiful.”
Cattleya turned her head towards him with that knowing smile she had earlier. “Oh, really?”
“I’m talking about the jellyfish! Jeez.”
“Is that what they’re called?”
“Well, they look like jellyfish on our planet, but ours float in the oceans. These obviously float in the air. I guess we should call them jellybirds or jellyfloats?”
“Are they made of jelly?”
Sharp laughed. “I have no idea, but they seem delicate like jellyfish. I think we’d kill them if we brought them across the threshold in order to find out. And if they bred on this side, they might kill us because they give off methane.”
“I do adore the name ‘jellyfloats’. They actually appear as if they’ve been crafted from a chef’s jelly. How curious! Such delicate creatures don’t exist in my realm, whether in air or in sea.”
The jellyfloats began to bob towards the portal. As they drew closer, their glow increased in intensity, but they bounced off the threshold back into the dark. Sharp’s AI bots catalogued photos of them, but he wanted a closer view with his own eyes.
Standing up close to the portal, he could see that the jellyfloats were colorless. Not even a subtle hue. Just bone whites and gray stripes along the main body, with long, white tentacles trailing below. As they bounced off the portal, they careened into each other, scattering the smack like marbles moving in slow motion.
“Were you not communicating in Japanese during your presentation, Sharp?”
“Oh, yeah! I did do that. We never finished looking in the box.” Sharp walked over to the wormbox and looked inside the silver box he had retrieved. He picked up the one remaining item inside along with Cattleya’s AR goggles and walked back over to her.
“Here. Put these on again.” Sharp made some adjustments on his virtua display and shared the analysis screen with her as the jellyfloats continued to bob and bounce in the black.
“Do these numbers hold meaning for you?”
Sharp’s analysis screen exploded with bots and readout panels, graphs and composition analysis. There was an abundance of data that interested him, but he was distracted by Cattleya’s proximity. Despite having a pair of the same AR goggles, she was standing next to him as if they were looking over the same computer tablet. She shook her hair then flipped it off her shoulder, sending a burst of scent in the air around him.
What is she up to? Is she flirting with me?
Sharp stepped to the side and put distance between them, ignoring Cattleya’s narrow-eyed scowl. All that mattered to him at that moment was learning more about the device he held in his hand.