The trip so far had been uneventful for Fren’s newfound standards; there was no talking, further new sights, or even sounds. The ship filled with Groundbreakers was silent. Taking the time to observe each individual on the ship, he skipped over Edith, Troy, and Lenard. He had already gotten some idea as to the kind of people they were, so that left only three others. Although their suits looked very similar, there were some differences in some, Fren noted that Edith’s suit had her chest plate account for her breast, while Troy and Lenard had flat chest plates. This was used to deduce that there were two other males he did not know and one female.
He wanted to ask them questions about themselves and the situation, but with his little social skills, he was able to decipher that the mood was somewhat weary. In this silence, he began to wonder into his thoughts and develop his mentality as he was finding himself doing more and more often. What were they doing in there? Did they come to rescue me? No. They did not know I was there, so their goal must have been something else. He thought to himself. The armor suits they wore were clearly damaged and even chipped in some sides, scratches, he concluded based on the marks.
Thinking back to the jagged fingers that those things called Skars had, it was easy to put two and two together. They had a massive fight with those Thorns; they had remained victorious, so why be so upset? The thought plagued his mind.
Perhaps it was not customary to express joy in victory, he himself had not experienced the sentiment so he could not comment on it with insight, but something in his mind told him that it was normal to be happy when you triumph. Maybe they won the physical battle but failed to complete their objective? It’s useless to speculate. I need context.
Unfortunately, the mood had settled into a still of brooding, and Fren was not confident in breaking it. For the first time in his life, Fren was bored. Hoping that the trip would be over soon so that new sights could be admired was the only thing on his mind. He internalized that growing bored after only a few minutes must not be a good trait for a person, but he could not help it. His boredom grew from the knowledge that there was a whole Solar System full of information out there in the world, and he knew basically none of it. The thought was strangely frustrating.
Feeling a slight pressure in his stomach from a sudden cease of motion, he turned his head to see the ship’s crew suddenly begin to unbuckle their seat belts. They had arrived.
Edith stood up before anyone else could, “Alright leave the bags, a crew will take them to Dr. Sherman and Dr. Yasuo later.” At her words, Lenard stopped on his tracks and turned back to face Edith; she continued. “Alright, you know what Lancaster said, helmets off and smiles, so get that gloom out of your faces.” Taking off her helmet as she spoke, she sported a broad toothy smile that was comparatively fake when Fren thought about the smile she first showed him.
Helmets off and smiles?
The purpose was lost on him.
“Oh, and that reminds me, Fren,” She turned to face him, “Keep yourself covered with that cloak, I don’t want you to flash some poor kids, got it?”
Kids? The more Edith spoke, the more confused Fren became. Looking around, he focused on the Groundbreakers taking off their helmets, much like Edith had done.
Lenard’s face was very different than what he imagined, thin curly brown hair and passive brown eyes that were distinct of a pushover. Not sure from where he had drawn that conclusion, he ignored it. There was nothing from his appearance that stood out.
On the other hand, Troy looked exactly like what he imagined, judging from Troy’s deep voice he had pictured a strong man. The dark-skinned man was bald and held a strong jawline, he, unlike Lenard, already had his smile on.
Next, he looked at an unnamed Groundbreaker. He held no expression, but Fren was able to tell his lack of expression was different from his own. The Groundbreaker was keeping his face that way on purpose, unlike Fren’s inherent inscrutable face. Aside from that, nothing else stood out to Fren.
Next was the other female Groundbreaker, the thing that Fren immediately noticed of her was her smile. Unlike everyone else, she was the only one that allowed her face to capture a genuine smile. But he was not entirely sure about that either, was she really smiling or was she an impeccable actor? His inability to take things at face value made doubts grow at any uncertainty. Aside from that, she had blonde hair that was neatly kept in a small bun.
The last Groundbreaker looked much younger than the others. His childish face stood out even with Lenard; he just looked young. As Fren made notes of his facial features such as his shoulder-length black hair and pronounced nose, he caught the Groundbreaker staring back at him. His eyes were unkind without being hostile; the feeling that Fren was being an annoyance was unmistakable. What exactly Fren had done to warrant such treatment, he was not sure. Then the ship’s back opened up.
The booming cheers and colors quickly flooded Fren’s senses, and he was taken aback by the explosion of stimulus. Edith squad marched out in two lines with Edith in the middle of both, she quietly beckoned him to follow them with a look, and he obliged.
Stepping out of the ship he was bombarded with colorful flower petals of all kinds, Edith marched with confidence and waved at the people. It seemed as though the street had been cleared, and the people could not actually swarm the squad due to barricades at each side. Fren noticed the smiles and overflowing joy that each person in the crowd displayed. Although many people had lined up to shower Edith squad with praise and adoration, many others were drinking with carefree smiles in bars and in the street. The city of metal and glass was thriving with happiness.
Fren was at a loss. Never before had he seen such splendor and resplendence in the world, he had started to grow so accustomed to the dark wet cave that was the Thorn lab that he never envisioned a sight like this. Sure he knew what a city was, but seeing it was a whole other matter. The massive skyscrapers made from a chrome metal with large sprawling windows served as a base for the bridges that snaked across the sky in all sorts of directions and sizes. People stood within these sky bridges in rows as they cheered in muffled excitement. Edith squad simply marched on with Fren in tow.
After several more minutes of walking among the cheers and drunken laughter, Fren noticed where they were headed. Directly in front of Edith stood massive metallic doors, each door was easily four times the height of Fren and three times the length. Fren understood the need for such large passageways for letting in tanks and other large vehicles, but in front of a residential area? It seemed as though it was there only to intimidate onlookers.
As they grew closer, the doors began to open by themselves, and the group walked in almost in a hurry with quickening steps. Fren was barely able to walk through the door frame before the heavy doors slammed behind him. The change in mood was the first thing that he noticed.
Gone was the colorful and exotic, and in its place, somber and lament took grip. What Fren assumed to be soldiers and other workers rushed to aid people with grave injuries. Men with missing limbs, Fren’s perceptive eyes were sharp enough to catch the bone sticking out of a weeping man’s arm, his hand was severed, and a nurse applied pressure while a doctor was jotted down something or another on his notepad. Fren had previously thought that Edith squad was worn in based on the damage to their armor, but they seemed to be the lucky ones in hindsight.
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Then another observation was reached. None of the other soldiers were wearing the armor that Edith squad possessed; instead, they dressed in what he assumed to be military gear. The thin cloth-like material looked tough enough to stop a knife. But clearly the Skars were able to penetrate their light protection. After all, based on the Groundbreakers, Skars were able to scratch the rigid looking metal that they covered themselves in, so it made sense in Fren’s mind.
If the Edith squad’s armor was strong enough to stop Skars, then why not have it be a standard issue? Deciding to bring it up to Lenard later, he pushed the thought in the back of his mind.
Now that the Groundbreakers were inside the massive walls of the military base, they had dropped their fake smiles, and as they walked, they were acknowledged by fellow soldiers, but the excitement that the city had was gone. Walking past the makeshift hospital, they approached a large fortified building. The enormous building had men stationed at every corner, and each passerby was looked with extreme scrutiny, the mood was tense, as though an attack could occur at any time.
“Ma’am!” A guard protecting the main entrance greeted as the group of Groundbreakers waited to enter. He turned back to face another soldier who seemed to be checking a sort of biometric ID before letting people inside, “Let this group through!” He barked with mild annoyance, turning back to face Edith he continued, “Sorry about that Captain, please head to see General Lancaster, he is being briefed by the other Groundbreakers right now, I think they might be waiting for your report.”
Edith grunted in response and led the group inside, but Edith suddenly turned to face him before Fren could follow them too far. “Oh yeah, Fren, follow Lenard, he will take you to see a doctor about your condition.” She turned to look at Lenard as she said this, to which he nodded in agreement. “Lenard explain to Dr. Sherman the situation before you head back, got it?”
“Got it.” He then proceeded to signal Fren to follow him with a nod of his head. Doing as Edith said, Fren followed after Lenard.
The hallways were filled with people running up and down with urgency; they walked with such a hurry in their steps as though they were running from death itself. Sticking to Lenard was more challenging than what he thought the task would be, luckily Lenard seemed to understand this and would periodically check on him to see if he was keeping up.
Deciding that now would be a good time to ask about the armor, Fren pushed ahead to walk directly next to Lenard. “I was wondering, the armor you wear… Why don’t all soldiers wear them? I mean, it looks way more effective.”
Lenard looked over to Fren as he voiced his curiosity, he smiled with a small amount of pride as he explained. “Well, you see, these suits were not originally meant for fighting, but they have been streamlined for combat over the last decade. I won’t go into detail, but these suits use a tremendous amount of energy to operate, even when they aren’t fully on like now. These suits originally were used for Mercury miners to withstand the sun’s heat and the pressure of the inside of Mercury, but they had to be connected to a massive energy source with lengthy cables.”
Not seeing where exactly he was going with this Fren tuned out the background conversations, he was futilely trying to listen to and focused solely on Lenard.
“Many things were changed in the suits, but the energy source was not something that they could do away with, batteries were not able to power the suits for more than 30 minutes at most, so they could only be used with harsh restrictions. That’s when God’s Blessing was discovered.”
Perking up the words, Lenard had mentioned that before but did not explain, Fren pressed for an answer. “God’s Blessing?”
Puffing up his chest slightly, he answered, “That’s correct, well that’s what the people call it, but our local expert refers to it as Omnipresent Energy Generation or OEG. Though we still don’t know much about it, we know how to apply it. Again I won’t go into much detail, but it allows some people to create energy out of nothing. The output is different from each person, but its enough to power these suits for hours on end. Those that can use this Blessing are usually recruited to join the Groundbreakers, or if you want, you may join the military and serve as a regular soldier.”
Fren was not confident in his knowledge, amnesia and all, but he was sure that creating that amount of energy would be difficult, especially for a human, “You create energy? That’s not possible. Energy cannot be created.” He refuted without giving ground.
Lenard chuckled at this response, “Well, that’s true, but I’m not lying. I can create energy and imbued it into anything granted that its close enough to me. Because it’s impossible to explain people began to say that it was a gift from God to fight the Thorn, I’m not the religious type but… I can’t explain how this works or why I was chosen to have this power.”
Not being able to pick up any sign of deceit from Lenard, Fren lowered his disbelief and decided to ask about another aspect of this Blessing. “Then how rare is this Blessing?”
Lenard hummed at this, “Frankly I don’t know the exact number, but last I heard there was something close to a thousand Groundbreakers in the military, in comparison the human population of 2 billion, I’d say pretty rare.”
A thousand in two billion? That’s a chance of 0.000049% for receiving a Blessing… Way too low. Fren thought, the possibility of having an inexplicable power was strangely fascinating to him, but before he could fire his next question, Lenard spoke.
“We are here.” The short declaration unveiled an opaque set of glass doors, the nameplate on the right side of the door read: ‘Dr. Ben Sherman,’. A light knock later and hurried footsteps were heard heading to the door from the other side. An old wrinkled face reared itself while barely being able to reign in its anger. A single glance at Lenard and the old man’s fury faded.
“Oh, it’s just you, Lenard, thought it was another one of those pesky bootlickers.” Came the dry, tired voice, “They just won’t leave me alone, always trying to suck up to me for an assistant position.” The annoyance dripped off his voice as he opened his door, inviting the visitors inside his lab, “Come on get in.”
Obliging both men did as instructed. Fren did not waste any time in letting his dark eyes inspect each inch and cranny of the messy room. Notes were scattered all over the place, and on walls, vials filled the many tables in the center of the room, and a putrid stench came from the few open containers. He was not able to recognize several devices, and others were entirely familiar: a glass orb filled with liquid was suspended on air over a semi-sphere that seemed to produce heat; the ever-present large computer that he knew and understood took up most of the left wall of the room. If Fren had ever imagined a mad scientist’s evil lab, this would be it.
“Now I don’t mean to be rude, Lenard,” He continued as he glazed over said man and then settled on Fren, “especially when you have company, but I am in front of a significant breakthrough in my research and would like to make this short. So shoot.”
Lenard gave an apologetic smile at this, “I understand doctor, but this is actually important.” His voice grew a tad bit deeper Fren noted, “It’s about this man here.” He pointed at Fren’s cloaked form. “It’s about the Thorn base-”
“Did you find the method of reproduction!?” The old doctor interrupted with a sudden burst of life.
“Uhhh, actually, that was a bust…”
Sherman seemed to freeze at this statement. Seeing the old man’s face drain of color was slightly interesting to Fren, he wondered if this was the face of disappointment.
“Oh… I see…” His dejected voice was a massive contrast to the previous expression Sherman held, “I was really hoping that this would be it, but its another dud. I never get used to failure.” He sighed and seemed to return to normal.
Lenard quickly interjected, “Well, it’s not all bad, doctor! We found a lab!” He spoke like a father trying to console his sad son, considering Fren’s age difference thought someone might find the sight amusing.
“A LAB!?” Jumping with joy, the old doctor once again had a swift emotional change, “What did you find?”
“A crew will bring you what we recovered soon, but that’s not why I came here,” Lenard said much to the giddy wrinkled man’s confusion.
“It’s not? Then why?”
“I wanted to see if you could help our friend here.” He directed Doctor Sherman to face Fren, “We actually found him in that lab, he was being held in a tank. We rescued him, and although he does not look hurt, he has some kind of amnesia, and we wanted to know what the Thorn was doing to him.”
Having the slightly hunched Sherman inspect him as though he was a strange creature was a little unnerving for Fren, but he held back voicing his displeasure at the odd fascination. He could already feel like this old man would be troublesome to deal with.