After this session for today, Cael was on a mission. He was going to try and find these lost files.

If they weren’t here, then Cael would have to look elsewhere but first, he needed to at least get some form of information to narrow his options down.

Laying in the cosy bed of his studio’s bedroom, he swiped through the various panels floating ahead of him in search of at least something on this creator. He didn’t exactly give him a name, and this was what the system referred to him as so it kind of just clicked for him.

Just as he expected, he found very little. A lot of the information that he managed to acquire were just rumours and sounded like several different people being described.

There had been many ‘mad scientists’ in the past that were shut down and contained for their dangerously high intelligence. The notion of this smartness being put in the wrong hands was a fairly common theme in history.

He continued for hours and tried his best to remain focused, but it was incredibly disheartening as he found nothing along the way. However, Cael knew that he wanted these files. After seeing the marvellous creations within the first bulk of files, another drop of wisdom was something that could seriously help him soon.

“Come on Cael. You know that you want this. Have rule over yourself, and you shall be free.” Cael told himself, reciting a line from the Ancient Greek philosopher, Plato.

Cael powered through for about 20 more minutes but found that the steam powering the engine was steadily depleting. Every single lead that he thought he had turned out to be a dead end.

With such an intelligent and sought after being, he thought that he’d at least hear of him somewhere, but the authorities were clearly doing a good job of hiding his identity.

Just as he was about to close down his projector for the final time, that’s when he saw it. Glued to a specific article glowing ahead of him, Cael’s chin fell into his right hand as he thought. This seemed rather interesting, and had certain information that he couldn’t overlook.

[The greatest scientist of the modern age was silenced by the government for his threatening mind.]

Now, that was a near perfect description of the creator. Clicking on it, he found that it was an internet article that looked decades old. The format in which it was displayed was quite frankly ancient and even hard for Cael to surf through.

“Who decided to make the layout of this website 200 years old?!” Cael wondered, struggling to find the information that he was looking for.

Everything seemed overly blocky and the interface was like a minimalist coding environment; not the best on the eyes.

Nevertheless, he soon located what he was looking for and it consisted of a few text messages from various individuals in the form of a long chain of comments.

[Anonymous336: Wait, so you know who this guy is? It looks like he’s been written out of history for some reason.]

[Veritas__Veritas: I know. Just because I know who he is, don’t think that I know much. They’ve done a very good job of hiding his achievements.]

The first two text messages got Cael hooked, and he readjusted the position in his bed with excitement. Now, this was where he wanted to be.

[Anonymous336: Who was he then? Why is he even being hidden away?]

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

[Veritas__Veritas: We don’t even know if he’s alive or dead, but he was born not too long ago. Probably over 50 but less than a hundred years ago. From what I’ve found out, he created several pieces of technology that threatened to alter the dynamics of warfare and combat for centuries to come. He wanted to showcase these creations to his home nation, but they didn’t trust his willingness to stay by their side.]

[Veritas__Veritas: Any side with him would win. How could they ensure his loyalty? As a result, they stopped his creations from coming into fruition and labelled him as a madman when all he wanted was to help his country grow to glory over the other growing, fearsome nations.]

Now, that was a description. With these comments, he could tell that this Veritas guy and him were thinking of the same person. This was definitely about the creator.

[Veritas__Veritas: To answer your other question of where he is right now, we don’t know. To be honest, I believe that he’d mainly be found in colonies, since that’s where securities is the lowest compared to other areas. People without paperwork and true identification can thrive in those areas. My list has boiled down to the Asteria Colony and Ether Colony in the Shu Empire, the Arcadis and Chronos Colonies of the Imperial Terran State, and finally somewhere in the Lapra Colony, in the Soburg Empire.]

Jackpot.

Cael lifted to his feet upon reading the last bit of that final list. This was the narrowing of options that he needed. It honestly felt like divine intervention.

Well, he couldn’t just trust this guy’s estimations, and nobody was certifying that he wouldn’t just find these files elsewhere.

However, these would be the best places to check up on first.

After checking these areas, he could then move on to other areas that he could find.

“Now my search space has been knocked down to a few... planets... Nice.” Cael realised, while sluggishly knocking away the floating panels.

Even with the narrowing of this list, he had several whole planets to rummage through, and he was annoyed to find out that the Asteria Colony spanned over two planets!

Nevertheless, Cael started his search and would devote his weekend to finding these files.

With that search, Cael decided to call it a day. He had stayed awake for much longer than he expected, and it didn’t take long for him to fall into a deep slumber.

*****

KRRRRKKK!!

“Who’s there?” Cael wondered, staring into the infinite abyss of blackness that surrounded him.

Looking down, he soon found that he had no real body. Along with that, he couldn’t even hear his own voice. It felt akin to a projection, not even a true sound.

Suddenly, he was in a bedroom that looked to be in a villa. There was a large pane of glass directly ahead of him that opened up to a scintillating seafront and a smooth, long beach that seemingly stretched on forever in both directions.

In the bed to his right, though was a man with grey hair, that had his eyes glued to the door directly behind Cael.

“What is this?” Cael wondered, struggling to make out where he was and what was even happening.

He approached the man that looked toward the dark oak door with eyes of trepidation, and soon recognised him. Even through the long white hair that he’d seen on him before, he knew who this was. This was the creator.

Bang! Bang!

With every vehement slamming on the door, the man in the bed rattled until he lifted onto his feet.

As the incessant banging intensified, the door looked less and less able to resist it.

Cael continued to assess the intense situation and still had no proper clue what was going on or why he was here. After a powerful bang, a battering ram launched straight through the door, while simultaneously knocking it off its hinges.

The creator turned to the human-sized glass pane behind him that opened up to the tropical view. Simply leaping right through the glass, it shattered, and he leapt straight down what looked like four stories.

As Cael approached the window to see where he was headed, several individuals clad in dark exosuits seemed to just phase right through his body, leaping down there as well.

Cael, seeing this, decided to take a step down there to see what was going on.

The creator had taken off down the street, and he followed him in that direction, running at top speed. He wasn’t able to keep up with these running warriors for long, since he wasn’t powered by any sort of exosuit.

However, he put everything into his strides and was able to keep up with them for at least a few seconds. The creator took the first right that he could, sharply turning into the next residential street.

As he turned, Cael could feel his vision lightening up, while energy blasts were firing past and even through his body toward the creator.

Turning the street, his vision was becoming so bright that he could barely see anything of substance. However, the last thing that he witnessed was a street sign located just at the junction of this road.

Canedo Avenue.

******