Episode 32
Shark knew very well that what he was trying to pull off could be undone by anyone in a senior management position. Once the quarantine ended, they could fire him, frog march him out the door, and confiscate anything that he brought over from the other side. He’d have to sue them to get it back, assuming he could convince a court that items found in a paradimensional land entered through Bloop, Inc.’s property wasn’t, in point of fact, Bloop, Inc.’s property.
Right. Sue them with what money?
Money was something he didn’t have a lot of at the moment. His original crypto coin, which was once worth $30,000 per coin, was now worth $0.0₁₆103 and had flatlined there. He could buy the dip at that price with his next paycheck and own ninety-seven quadrillion coins or more, but since no one else was buying them, he’d have thrown his money away. They would never rise in value. His coin’s volatility was so flat, it might as well be a stable coin. Nobody was mining his coin either. When everything went south, he thought he was lucky that he was able to swap his skllazon portfolio into Arboreum, but when word got out that he had singlehandedly sent skllazon into a steep death dive when he bailed, the shadowy Arboreum anons locked his wallet for justice.
This was why discovering alien tech and dragging it back to this warehouse was so important. He needed to disassemble these things, understand what he could, then file the data on his server before they took everything away from him. It could be his best chance to turn his fortunes around. If Wudgepuck had his way, Sharp would be fired from this job and he’d be as useless as one of his old mining rigs.
Hey, I forgot about that stupid rig under the floorboards. I wonder how many skllazon it’s earned. Maybe I could sell them for a joke. Wait. That gives me an idea…
“Remind me to sweep the floor in three hours.”
“Alright, but you’ll have to lend me a time piece. Mine was left behind.” Cattleya was as puzzled as usual by his verbal commands. He hoped the two of them would have a breather soon so that he could explain things to her, especially AR tech. Perhaps there were some spare AR decks with gear in the storage closet. That would probably blow her mind, but also get her up to speed the quickest. He had a spare set of contacts in his car’s trunk, but he had no way at the moment of fetching them.
My car is a sitting duck out there in the parking lot. I need to protect it or hide it before Wudgepuck has it towed. I haven’t tested the distance on this quantum link, though. I wonder how far away I could remotely drive it and still maintain control? No, I can’t afford to accidentally drive it out of range. Then I’m sunk.
“Let’s blow their minds and secure my position here,” Sharp said with a smirk. Cattleya laughed.
“What?”
“I didn’t know you understood politics.”
”This isn’t politics. This is business.“
”Everything is politics.“
Sharp turned away from Cattleya and looked up at his audience.
“Minnasan, konnichiwa. Mazu, isekai ni tsuite hanashishimasu.” Sharp half bowed to his audience, then turned to Cattleya and winked. “I just used ‘isekai’ in a business presentation. This day is so wild!” he whispered so only she could hear.
“Hey! English please!”
“What’s with the Japanese?”
“Are you trying to pull a fast one?”
“What the heck is wrong with you?”
The chorus of complaints filled the intercom and Isabelle was all of a sudden more irritated with her coworkers than Sharp. “Everybody, calm down. Remember we’re professionals.” Then turning back to Sharp, “Mr. Hikoboshi. In English, if you would, please. I’m sure you’re putting on a show, but some of us can’t speak Japanese fluently as you can.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I’m not so fluent. I mostly muddle my way through it. You guys have no sense for drama!” He shook his head in mock disdain, then cleared his throat.
“Fine, fine. Let’s begin the new Portal Acquisition Department’s presentation.” Kyle shook his head with a laugh, but Isabelle tilted her chin to her chest and narrowed her eyes.
I’ll need to toss her a bone here soon, or our friendly work relationship is toast.
“Inside this box is an assortment of items which could only be described as tools, though it isn’t clear what some of them are for. As you can see, they come in various shapes and colors. Let’s start with this bright one first.”
Sharp dug through the metal box and presented each item to his co-workers, streaming his observations from the cameras in his AR contacts. The first item had a loud, purple grip with three gray rods of different sizes at one end and a pearly dome at the other. His thumb could wiggle its black button around like a joystick. He dubbed it an attenuator of some sort, but it was non-functional, so he set it aside. The next item was dubbed the Tail Key by Phoebe’s friend. It had a blue barrel with a thin, golden rectangle of grooved metal that jutted out one end. It reminded Sharp of electronic keys. For some baffling reason, the other side of the blue barrel featured a giant, golden tail made of some sort of resin. It was also non-functional, so Sharp set it aside.
The third device held Sharp’s greatest interest. It was a short, tapered rod that ended in a ball, so it gave the impression of an exclamation point. It had what seemed to be a circular speaker grill on the side just above a red button. The black colored device could fit in one hand, so people nicknamed it “The Mic”, but, unfortunately, it was also non-functional.
“This is some presentation,” quipped Syd. There were grumbles of agreement coming over the intercom.
“Your grand stratagem for control is coming to a fizzle. Whatever will you do?” Cattleya said with a sardonic smirk, then walked over to her pile of clothes and began folding them.
Great, I can’t even keep the attention of an extra dimensional minotaur princess.
“We don’t how old these items are,” Sharp announced. “The box is covered in caked mud along the bottom edge. I was in a hurry when I grabbed it, but it was settled into the ground about two inches deep. Mind you, it wasn’t hard to pry up, but you can tell that that area received a lot of heavy rain since the top of the box was shiny and clean, unlike the bottom.”
“You assume,” somebody countered.
“I think it’s a fair assumption. My point is that there is enough accumulated crusted mud around the box to assume its been there for a long while. So whatever powers these devices is either removed or depleted.”
Sharp waited for the technicians to process what he said.
“But,” he continued. “Do they look like anything you’ve seen before? Maybe they’re just junk, but it’s alien junk. And for now, I have access to it and anything else I come across, and you don’t.” Sharp shrugged his shoulders with a dramatic flair, then set the “mic” aside.
“This next one is interesting. It’s looks like a stack of cards, but it’s one solid block. Odd. You can see the illustration of some ancient monument on the top with alien glyphs underneath.” The interest level in the room suddenly spiked as Sharp held the “cards” closer to his AR camera. The image was a photograph printed on the top. It showed a circular arch made of blue stone that came up out of the ground with curved stone slabs to either side. Below the photograph was a block of text. Sharp breathed a sigh of relief.
“There are two blackened corners on the bottom that…whoa!”
Brushing the one of the corners with his finger caused the photo and text to change. A new photo and block of text appeared. Sharp pressed the other corner, and the photo changed back to the circular monument.
“This is amazing! The corners are touch sensitive, and the entire, uh, card face looks like the photo and text have been printed on the surface. There is no substrate or screen that I can see. We don’t have any tech of this speed, vibrancy, or resolution. These look like four color sep prints.” Sharp cycled through more scenes, interrupted by various calls to “Go back!” and “Hold it closer to the camera!” A horn bumped into his head, letting him know that Cattleya had rejoined him as she leaned in to get a closer look.
Sharp dubbed it the “Deck of Places” and showed off more photographs of alien architecture, as well as beaches, fields, and mountain vistas. He stole a glance at the timer on the portal. It read 23:54.
I need to wrap this up. We’re overdue for a portal change.
“What was that?”
“Hold on a second. What were all those readings?”
The observation room exploded in a cacophony of voices all demanding explanations.
Crap.
“What is happening? Why are they so upset?” Cattleya’s eyebrows were furrowed as she tried to piece together the sudden outcries.
Isabelle stood at the window with a smirk on her face, her arms folded like a mom who caught her kids up to no good. Her eyes danced with interest, however, so Sharp knew he was in for a barrage of questions he didn’t want to answer.
“Well, as we say here, the cat’s outta the bag. I screwed up.”