Fitz's groaned as he emerged from the deep sea of sleep that comes along with staying up late. Rubbing his eyes he roled over looking at the pad he had fashioned into an alarm clock. thankfully it was a weekend, so aside from some physical training and range time tomorrow he had nothing he needed to do, well aside from reviewing what happened during the previous match.
“What the fuck!!!”
In the middle of his room a cube sat floating above the floor of his room, internally several shapes rotated around something that looked suspiciously like a sun there were even some pure black specks that rotated in the exact shapes he would expect electrons to orbit an element, also very suspicious. As he observed the thing in fascination it slowly spun, pointing a corner at him. He was too shocked to even move a muscle so he just kept on staring. For a good minute, he just watched, and as he did dots appeared on its surface. He twitched, and seemingly in response, more dots appeared arranged into patterns instantly he saw that each one contained one more dot than the last. This must be an attempt at communication, with this realization his curiosity took over and he was unfrozen, slowly he reached out to the tablet mounted on the wall, pulled up the drawing program he made a doodle with dots in the same pattern as the thing but labeled with numbers, turning it over to display it. Instantly numbers appeared on labeling its dots, about to turn the tablet around to pull up a numbered alphabet a spike shot out of one of the sides, it was pointed directly at the tablet.
“You want to see this? here “
He passed it towards the spike, which bent in several directions acting almost like a finger with many joints, it stretched out further grabbing hold of the tablet and drawing it closer. Another spike, arm? Tentacle? Grasper? Well he might as well think of it as an arm. Reached out and started poking at the tablet, looking to all the world like it was examining it. Well that settled it, the thing must be alive or have some kind of sentience, or it was being controlled by something with it. Seeming getting frustrated the Cube. An amazing name if he thought so himself. Rotated the tablet and began picking at it, he watched as it found the port that had been left open when he had moved it. suddenly the arm reshaped itself into the exact shape of the port, jamming it into the tablet. The cube seemed to get distracted as it stopped pointing directly at him and started slowly shifting in both directions, almost like it had moved its focus entirely to the tablet it was now trying to interface with.
He waited just staring at the cube for almost 15min before the screen of the tablet started flashing through screen after screen. He caught glimpses of an alphabet, the sol system, pictures of random locations and things, along with pages and pages of text. As he watched and the minutes ticked by he noticed something that shocked him. At first, the text seemed extremely simple but as time passed it got increasingly more complex and dense the letters getting smaller while the words got bigger. It eventually appeared to stop when it reached what looked like research papers.
“HelLo” It said in a very modulated voice
“Hello to you” It shifted again pointing directly at him again
“aLPhEbEt” Now what in the hell did that mean, its voice was very off, the delivery of the words wrong maybe I wanted to hear how the letters where pronounced, he might as well try it.
And so he did repeating the alphabet and the combinations that produced distinct sounds. He stopped, realizing he had just overlooked a massive detail, the cube had just learned English in less than fifteen minutes which was insane.
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“Hello” it said in a perfect, slightly masculine voice. Jumping straight to the point he asked “what are you”
“A being” “no where are you from, Outerspace?” “no higher dimension” “what how, um, how, um… just exactly how does that work, like how do you travel? How can I see you?” “I folded myself to get here, of course” “why are you here, why did you choose me” “we are not allowed to interact with beings below our dimension, when I came here to observe this galaxy I detected another of my kind, however, once I found him, it was not the reunion I had hoped for, I caught him meddling with a 3d dimensional being”
“me?!?!” “indeed he had found the human with the most potential and for his own amusement altered it. And as you grew up he continued to medal removing the chances you were meant to have” he was absolutely shocked, him, the human with the most potential? That was laughable, the only potential he had was his stubbornness. He sat there, not thinking about anything, just sitting. He didn't know how long he sat there but the cube didn't move or make a noise.
“W w w w wh wh why would anybody do something so horrible” “boredom, he was a un gifted one, had no ambition or dive… most of my kind have something they do above all else, for some of my siblings it is, beauty, they will scour the many planes looking for something truly beautiful and unique, They then add it to their personal plane. For others, it is adventure, combat, sound, and objects of all kinds,” “what are you then”
“I strive for knowledge and information, and along the way, I have found a fascination with technology. Especially with that of other beings or races, you all solve problems in so many ways even if the results are the same. It is truly fascinating, that is why i am able to talk i came upon devices that act similarly to your tablet” “so there are other races besides the silicates” “yes although they are separated by distances your kind can not yet traverse” well that was something this thing, it, he should ask its name, seemed, well he couldn't describe what it was but he liked it “what is your name” “name, I do not have a name, oh Merlin, yes I like that name, why don't you call me Merlin”
“ok Merlin why did you come down here. By the way, you have been talking about it the other of your kind is dead, or however your kind meats its end” “yes he was banished to the first dimension” “ok so why are you here, I assume i will be less unlucky. but there is nothing you can do to fix me, can you” “no, while it is within my ability changing your brain much would change who you are” “that doesn't answer my question” “right, I read his… data banks would be the best word for it. I tallied all of the opportunities that were taken from you, every single one, I will give you a single opportunity that is worth all of them combined” that… well, that is the literal definition of an opportunity of a lifetime. Even if he thought there would be risks involved he knew he would have taken it anyway, a gift from a higher dimensional being that had been striving for knowledge for who knows how long. On top of that, he seemed like he was an scientist or engineer of some kind. Fitz didn't know how much was taken from him and he honestly didn't want to. But he did know that it must be worth a lot.
“Ok give it to me” “egger, I like that, apply it to your studies and you will learn much. have two things for you. Be lucky I was skimming stars and playing with particles or I wouldn't have enough for these. The first is a personal plane, not like the ones in your fascinating stories. This can only hold base particles and elements. Extremely useful but only with my next gift. An implant that can assist you in almost everything, I saw that you play a lot of games, so I modeled it after those to make it more intuitive.” well that was certainly something it could do what he thought it could he absolutely must have it. “ok i accept” as the words left his mouth the top of the cube opened and two objects floated out the first was a fairly large cylinder. While the other looked suspiciously like a spinal column. They were both matt black and had small openings all over them, well they were implants so that made some sense. Suddenly his vision began to blacken around the edges and he felt like he did when was put under for a CT scan. “One last thing i left you a gift, chose wisely, oh and i will be back to check your progress”. Fitz finally faded away the last thread in his mind was that he maybe just maybe should not have trusted the big floating cube.