CHAPTER 11: SHOES
Hiro lay in the empty room while the lights slowly strobed. The alarm suddenly cut out. She watched the vacated door while her internal clock ticked away for four seconds before making a decision. She had to struggle against the curves the medical table had made around her. Eventually, she wiggled out. She paused for a moment when she noticed the empty cup in an indent. The table had formed a cup holder around the forgotten cup. She shook her head at the strangeness and padded to the door.
She peered around the threshold. Ghram hadn't bothered to close the door in his rush. Down the hallway, one of the doors was opened. It let out the voices of Ghram and Duffy talking in the same language quickly back and forth. Moments later, Moria and Bellator came in the double doors from the courtyard and hurried to the open hexagonal doorway. Listening to the activity. Moria broke in her voice light and quick. Duffy responded in a tense and commanding tone.
Hiro went back in and grabbed the translator off the counter. She walked back distractedly trying to figure out how the thing worked. She found the right button and the blue gemstone flashed on as she approached the others. "Hello, I am your personal translator device. I can"
Hiro broke across it, "Yeah, I know. What are they saying?"
"Common languages and have been installed with the subdialect known as English as my primary language."
Hiro grunted in frustration shoving the thing back around her neck. She took up an unobtrusive position behind Moria and Bellator. Moria spared her a glance but Bellator's eyes tracked something inside the room. He was tightening his chest plate straps as he watched. Her translator picked up the conversation in the room and started speaking in a chipper but artificial tone.
"It's the biggest signal the matrix has picked up on the planet, it's still coalescing, but it looks like it will be nearby." Ghram was telling the others.
"Not just nearby," Duffy added, "It's nearly on top of us. A whole planet and it appears next door."
"At least we will have a good response time," Moria said from the doorway. She must've taken down her braid. Her hair hung loose and wavey around her shoulders. It still reminded Hiro of the ocean, and the waves only enhanced the effect. Moria lifted her hands to it and began rebraiding it while she listened.
"Tell Natia to be ready to take off in five minutes," Duffy ordered before the translator added something unexpected. "This translator wants to note the time units are measured differently and minutes is the closest equivalent." Hiro's brows knit together. She'd have to ask how they told time soon. Nobody spoke after Duffy's order, so she supposed the gemstone behind their ear sent the message. "We will go into the anomalies' range in the sixth formation until we can establish what form it takes and adapt from there."
"Sixth formation?" Bellator said quietly squinting as if to remember. His deep voice carried to the translator and made his question cheerfully chirp out. He glared at Hiro, but Moria put a hand on his shoulder and ran him through it. Thankfully this pulled attention from Hiro.
"Remember, it's the one where the striker, me, is in the point position and you watch our backs? We haven't practiced it with our team yet, but you should remember it from training. It's the reverse of the third formation." Moria used her hands to illustrate the positions while she talked and recognition dawned on Bellator's face.
"Right, I remember that one. Thanks." He said his earnest tone drowned out as the translator chirped away. He turned to Hiro annoyed, "Can you go away? We're about to do a mission and you haven't even been evaluated yet. I need to focus not listen to the garbled noise you call a language."
Moria gave him a stern look, "It's alright to be tense before a mission, it's not alright to lash out at our newest spark Bellator. She might as well watch what a response looks like." He looked back into the room, not apologizing but not pressing the issue.
"It's his first unstable anomaly," Moria whispered, the effect promptly ruined by the device around Hiro's neck. She just winked as Bellator gave her a look.
"Unstable? Versus what stable anomalies?" Hiro was thoroughly confused and the question slipped out. She had been intending to just watch the action.
Moria explained in quick sentences, "Yeah, the unstable ones that appear, and a response team is sent to close them. However, in the past, some of the platinum sparks from the first generations teamed up to stabilize some of the spacial anomalies so that new sparks could practice with known threats. The art of making them has been lost to time, but Headquarters is situated right at the mouth of the biggest one with at least three others on the planet with it. You'll get to check them out when you get there. I don't know how this will translate to your language but we call them Dungeons."
Moria had turned her attention back to the room with Duffy and Ghram while Hiro's translator caught up with her rapid explanation, so she missed the amused face Hiro made when it translated the stable anomaly name. She just needed to meet some dragons and she'd truly be in a fantasy world. She stepped behind Moria and Bellator to look into the room. 'Make that a high-tech fantasy world.' she thought to herself.
The inside was an intense array of screens and equipment. Both Ghram and Duffy had helmets on their heads again. These had clear panels in the front, unlike the faceless ones in the medical bay. These flickered with lights as their fingers twitched. Information flashed across the screens faster than Hiro could follow. One screen held a glowing green and blue map that didn't flit between different interfaces. It had a large yellow blob slowly condensing near a pictogram that had three hexagons with the middle one being twice as large as the ones flanking it. It strongly reminded her of the out base. There was a spiraling round of text next to it. She would have to ask the name of the place later. She was more concerned with how close the anomaly was.
The closest marker on the map was quite a distance away. This one was a pedestal with a circle over it. She knew what that one stood for. There was even a dashed line around where the cavern was and a blue overlay representing the force fields she had encountered when she had tried to fly. She did some quick measuring in her head. She wished she knew how fast the dragonfly ship flew. She could get more accurate with her estimate, but she guessed the center of the blob would be no more than five minutes away if it flew about the same speed. The edges of the blob almost touched the symbol on the map. It might have even started over the top of it before she could get a look at it.
"How much tea did she drink?" Ghram asked Moria snapping Hiro back to paying attention to her new companions.
"One," said Bellator.
"Two," Moria said at the same time then sighed when he looked confused, "She said she was on her first, but there was a second cup in the recycler, I could feel the moisture, and it wasn't pure water."
"She can fly on one and a half, but I wouldn't recommend complex maneuvers," Ghram told Duffy a note of concern in his voice.
Duffy sighed, "We'll have to adjust the dispensers again. Maybe limit the tea to only dispense in the medical bay so we can keep an eye on it better."
"If you want that fight you can have it," Ghram replied in annoyance.
"For another day, it's not against the regulations so there's only so much I can do. As soon as the anomaly condenses enough for us to tell if it's a creature, structure, or pocket dimension forming we'll get moving. It's a gold rank, so we will have to be prepared to stabilize the edges and then call for backup if our gold ranker can't handle it alone." He looked at Moria to confirm.
"We'll have to see, but as long as it's in the lower half or it's a good match I might be able to stabilize and close it without help. If it's in the upper ranks, or a bad match-up for our team that will determine that." Moria told him in her fast-flowing cadence.
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Duffy just nodded before shooting a glance toward Hiro. She wasn't sure how they determined ranks yet, but she only had one ability below gold. Plus a secret diamond ranked one. As far as she could determine only the mysterious voice knew about that. She was only picking up on the overall ideas of the conversation. But observing was better than laying quietly in the medical bay. She was dying to ask about how stabilization worked and how the power ranks were determined, but they were all focused on the emergency. She didn't want to disrupt the flow more than she already had. She did have one question though.
"What happens if it doesn't get stabilized or closed?" Hiro asked.
Bellator blanched at the question but it was Ghram who answered, "The world around the area will slowly fall apart. Anything inside of the anomalies will slowly be twisted beyond recognition as the rules that govern reality fall apart. Anything with a mind is killed or worse, driven mad in a body that's twisted beyond recognition. Eventually, all the matter will be torn into pieces and destroyed. Then it spreads to collapse more reality. Once it starts spreading past its original borders it becomes exceptionally hard to stop it. In the first generations of sparks, we lost whole planets because we could not detect anomalies until they became too big. Now, it is exceptionally rare for that to happen.
Ghram turned to Duffy, "Our new spark? Safer here or on the ship?"
Duffy contemplated, "Regulations say we shouldn't leave a new Spark unsupervised during an anomaly response. At headquarters it's not a big deal there's always an instructor to keep an eye on things. Even when a group is on an excursion to our bases like ours there's a supervisor. Without another licensed Spark around she should technically stay with the team in case some monsters get away from us. But flying directly at an anomaly with a new Spark also seems equally bad."
"I don't think leaving her alone without a way to contact us is a good idea," Moria said shrugging.
"We can't bring a new Spark who doesn't even know anything about anything! Besides, did you say she was sick!" Bellator said angrily pointing at Ghram.
"Sick might have been a little wrong. There's nothing physically wrong with her that I can tell, but we haven't done a scan yet." Ghram shrugged, "She should refrain from using her powers until we can get the full picture but I'm not going to shove her in the medical bay for however long this takes us unless Duffy says so or she opts to be there."
Duffy sighed before coming to a decision, "Without a PGA to call if there are problems Hiro should come with us and stay on the ship. We will keep the automated defences on and maybe she can get a look at what we do for a living. We can respond better if she needs help that way. It's also what regulations require. Unless you don't want to come?" The last question was directed to Hiro.
"No, I want to come!" Hiro wanted to find out as much about this new world as she could. This seemed like the perfect way to do it. She could electrocute anything if it gave her trouble even if it hurt to do. Even staying on the ship would be better than sitting around in a deserted base.
Bellator scowled, "This will be a mistake." His low voice made it ominous before yet again the translator caught up and completely missed the tone.
Hiro smoothed out her face to keep from laughing. She guessed he was in his late teens or very early twenties. She was twenty-seven, not much older, but still close enough to being a teenager that she remembered how everything felt so important at that age. She always felt right about everything, and sometimes she still did. Some of the older guys in the machine shop just let her make her mistakes when she didn't listen, and she learned. They always stepped in if something was going to hurt her or someone else, but she had to remake quite a few pieces, some of the cost coming out of her pay if she really screwed up a custom piece. After a couple of years, she had learned enough that she began to actually be right about her ideas and saved time and money.
"It's forming its edges, some signals of monsters, but mostly inert. Could be a dungeon, could be a pocket dimension, Let's go and scout it out." Duffy's orders brought Hiro back from thinking about the guys at the machine shop. She was going to miss them.
Bellator and Moria peeled off immediately to go to the Dragonfly ship. Ghram took his helmet off and started out of the room before Duffy stopped him, "Get Hiro some shoes while I send an update to headquarters." Ghram nodded and gestured to Hiro to follow him to yet another room.
When the door opened to this room she immediately recognized it for what it was. A workshop! Excitement rose inside her as she recognized some of the forms of tools. Most of them had hexagon domes over them with what seemed like control panels. While all the designs were a little strange, one definitely held some sort of 3D printer with an advanced extra arm above the cross beams. That was a water jet cutter if the basin and nozzle were any indication. Some tools just couldn't deviate too far and still serve a specific purpose. Though some stations looked bizarre and alien in their design. She couldn't fathom what they could be for.
Ghram took her to the station she guessed was a 3D printer. He pulled a flat disk with a handle and trigger sticking from the bottom of a hanger on the side. He pointed it at her feet and pulled the trigger. An array of lights and a humming noise came out of it while it ran up and down her feet. He then tapped a few things into the screen before pulling up a 3D image of a shoe. He adjusted it to the parameters he entered from his disk scanner and pressed a glowing button. The whole machine kicked to life. It began printing out a pair of shoes faster than any 3D printer she had ever seen. The extra arm would dart in and support something for a second or two while whatever the material was hardened up. Occasionally it extruded a separate substance from the main printer in various places.
She was captivated by the machine, "These will not nearly be as durable as the boots we will get you once we have time. The printer is great for fast things like this but it will degrade quickly and eventually be recycled. It'll keep your feet safe while we're out in the field though. Especially since you're staying with the ship."
Hiro wasn't paying much attention to what he was saying. Trying to figure out what the material was and how they could print it so fast. Were those air nozzles cooling things down faster? It was all under a hexagonal paneled dome, maybe they had a special gas that did a weird chemical reaction with the extruded substance? "How does it work? How does it print so fast?" She asked hoping Ghram knew the answers.
He shrugged, "I pick what I need, adjust any parameters, or add the scan as I did, then I press the button the machine does the rest." She was disappointed in the explanation she'd ask someone else or figure out if they had something like Google to ask later. Something like Button.
That thought stopped her internal train of questions about the machine. Button was supposed to be her Google. Guilt wormed its way up her back and neck making her skin prickle. She might have been in pain and justified in her anger at her body's anatomy being violated, but he only tried to help her. She wished she hadn't lashed out even though she hadn't expected to fry him. She had so many questions he would've been helpful with. She should've listened to his warnings.
With a sigh, she watched the shoes descend and then vend out of the bottom of the machine. Ghram popped them from the printing plate. She couldn't go back now and tell herself to listen, she just had to suffer the consequences and figure out how to fix her mistakes. Ghram handed her the shoes. They were mostly uniform in color, a strange grey with a few spots of darker black where the spare arm had added to the design. They were surprisingly soft and squishy. Almost foam-like. They had a base like tennis shoes, but the tops were slip-ons. She slid her feet inside of them.
"Oh, they're comfortable!" She said looking up, Ghram was already moving to the door.
"Yes, come on, we need to go." He said distractedly not waiting for her. She hustled to catch up. Her new shoes were surprisingly springy. Thanks to the scan they hugged her like a glove just as the weird medical table had. She had to find out how all of these things worked.
Ghram led her back out the front door and back to the airship landing pad. The Dragonfly wings were beginning to hum to life and Hiro was able to see that they paddled in the air like real dragonfly wings. How did that even work? The physics behind that couldn't work back home. She just blinked a few times at it confused before remembering something. The physics of her being able to fly and shoot lightning bolts also didn't work. Besides wasn't there a superhero movie that said that sufficiently advanced technology and magic were practically the same thing? She still wanted to learn how it worked though.
Dust was kicked up by the wings and Hiro held her hand in front of her face. Instinctively she reached out and tried to tell the sky around her to keep the wind out. She felt her power try to follow her commands the wind directly around her slowed. She would've thought nothing happened except a layer of dust slowed about a handbreadth from the hand she had thrown in front of her. The air dropped some of the dust down in small eddies like softly falling snow.
She beamed and instantly got sand and dirt in her mouth and eyes. She sputtered. Her concentration shattered the dust shield she had made stopped working. She tried to summon it again, but it refused to reform. She pushed more of her power through the channels she had found during meditation but the water drowned it before it could surface. What was going on? She just used her power over the sky! Why did it stop?
She was subdued as she walked up the ramp and sat in the seat she vacated only thirty-six minutes ago. Moria watched ready to help as she methodically strapped herself into the webbing. She nodded at her work and strapped herself in after. Duffy sprang up the steps and barked out an order.
"Legs up!" Duffy shouted up to the cockpit.
"Strapped?" Natia shouted to everyone.
"And Ready" three of the four voices shouted back. Hiro was sad that what they had shouted the last time they took off was so mundane sounding in English compared to what it sounded like in their foreign language.
"I didn't hear it from you Duffy! Regulations say I can't take off until everyone is strapped in," Natia called to the back. Ghram and Moria shared a private smile at the comment.
Duffy grumbled a bit having already sat and begun to strap themselves in. Once they were finished, "And Ready!" They shouted and the whole machine lurched as they lifted off.
Hiro was about to see her first anomaly, whatever that was, and see what sparks were made for.