Chapter 28: Utility
Location: Solar System; Earth; Former City of Brisbane; Magicon Facility
We decide to leave the remaining parts of the ruined spacewalker suit behind. The useful parts are glued to my shipsuit. Maja takes my backpack once I put the tablet back inside. Her body is strong. Now we just have to open the door and if we are lucky just walk out till we arrive back at the ship.
Wishful thinking, I know. But we are prepared. As Maja is still not 100 percent secure in her movements, I don’t trust her with the energy blade. One jerky movement and she might cut off her arm. I can’t allow this, so I’m going to play the frontliner and use the blade. Maja gets the gun and can shoot everything trying to flank me. At least that’s the plan… We have no way to test it. Luckily I had another power cell or else the gun would have been useless.
I position myself next to the vault door and turn to Maja. “Ready?”
“Yeah, I’ll open the door on your signal,” she replies and moves her hand to the laser gun on her right hip. Her face is full of concentration. That’s all I need. We’ve got this!
“Okay, open the door, let’s get out of here.” Maja beeps confirmation in my ear – a clever use of her former chip, I have to say – and the vault door starts to retract its locking bolts. A few seconds later, the door starts to swing open.
Of course, we’re not lucky and are immediately welcomed by the remaining tracked robots. At least I destroyed all of the flying ones! The first one starts to lift its gun, but before the arm has moved halfway up, a green bolt zips by from behind me and hits the thing right in the ball head. Sparks fly and the robot collapses.
Maja’s quick action has me start moving too and I draw and activate my blade. A few swings later, the second robot falls in pieces, and I turn back to the last two that are trying to rush me. “I’ll take the left one. The other one is for you!”
Maja again confirms with a beep and quickly follows by blowing the thing to pieces with well-placed laser bolts. Meanwhile, I dodge the regular blade of the robot and bisect it with a swing of my blade.
Having finished off the robots, I let out a long breath. We did it, and it was actually quite easy? I guess the stronger ones ran out of power decades or even centuries ago and we were greeted by the last ones still operational. Luckily, they were on the weaker side. I don’t want to think of what would have happened if there had been a stronger robot. As for why I think there have to be stronger ones? I simply can’t believe that those things represent the full security capabilities of the greatest company on Earth.
Speaking of the robots, I still have to find out who made them as Magicon is clearly not the producer with their no weapons policy. Wasn’t there a logo on the side of the floating ball things? Maybe the other robots have one too. I walk over to the first one that Maja killed right in the beginning, as it’s the one most intact.
When I try to lift it to turn it around, I notice, that it’s heavier than I thought. Using all my strength, I manage to flip it over. It falls back down and now has its backside facing up. Yes, I was right! There is the symbol again. An axe and a shield. Pretty generic symbols for what probably means attack and defense. A&D… I chuckle. It seems all comes back to magic.
I turn back to Maja who has already walked a few steps down the hallway. “Can you come back real quick?”
She turns around and nods. When she arrives, I show her the symbol and ask. “Any chance, you found something about that logo in one of the computers we searched?”
Maja bends down to take a closer look, then her body goes still. I recognize it as her processing data mode. She has to work on her ability to process data and use the body at the same time. But that’s a later problem.
Her movement returns and she gets back up to look at me with a grin on her face. “I’ve got something. The company is called Armortec, you probably remember them from the Project Exodus note back on the Moon. They are another one of the Big Five companies.”
Her grin turns even wider, it borders on being manic. “But there’s more! While I was browsing the data to search for that, I stumbled over something very interesting. I now have the coordinates of the planetary headquarters of the Big Five. Well, actually I have the remaining four, as we’re already in the Magicon one.”
My eyes go wider and wider while she’s talking. “That’s amazing! I can’t wait to check them out, but first, let’s get outta here before more robots appear.”
We start walking again and before long, we see the destroyed floating security robots. Maja stops and grabs one of them, for research and to study them, she says and I just shrug. They are destroyed anyway. We cross the last intersection and now only have to walk down the seemingly endless hallway. Five minutes later, we arrive at the first vault door.
It feels like we opened it centuries ago, but it actually was only about a day ago. Insane! We learned so much in just a day and Maja even got a body on her own. Well, I got hurt too, but the medkit was enough to patch me back up. All in all, I can call it a successful first expedition.
Now we just have to walk up all those stairs. Ugh, my legs are going to kill me tomorrow. I could let Maja carry me… No, that’s too embarrassing. Not taking a break, we start our ascent. When we arrive back in the lobby, I’m sweaty all over and all I wish for is a shower. We can’t arrive at the ship soon enough!
Finally, we’re back! While Maja enters the General’s room to look for some intact clothes that fit her, I too get rid of my ruined shipsuit and am about to take my well-deserved shower. Before that, I take another look at my leg. I still can’t believe that it is healed. I can’t even see a single scar and that without using the itching plaster. Those nanites are insane!
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Now the shower. I sigh in relief when the hot water washes away all the dirt and sweat that my body accumulated during my wild trip through the Magicon headquarters.
Having finished, I dress in a new shipsuit, that I make see-through on my arms and legs again, before putting on some lazy clothes consisting of sweatpants and an oversized hoodie. Then I walk back to the main room. It’s time to unlock a new class of magic!
When I enter the living room, I’m surprised. First, there is Maja. She now wears one of the General’s uniforms without any insignia. She ripped them off. I can totally understand her sentiment there as the higher-ups of the republic’s military are the reason why we are stranded here. Plus, they killed her creators or parents.
Second, the table in the middle of the room has transformed into a makeshift operation table. Maja decked it out with a clean sheet and set up lots of instruments she might need. Everything is clean and practically screams disinfection agent.
“Wow, how did you set everything up so fast?” I ask in disbelief.
Maja smirks. “Fast is relative… You were in the shower for a whole hour. I was about to come and rescue you, but luckily, you’re finally here. Now lie down so we can begin. I want to see what you’re capable of with two magic classes.”
Oh, oops, I might have forgotten the time while showering. Not that I care, I totally deserved it! I walk over to the table and lie down. “You know what you’re about to do, right? Oh, and what are we going to do with the second core?”
“Well, we only need one, so we can keep the second one and give it to a friend of yours?”
One name immediately comes to my mind. Shay! She always wanted to be a Mage.
Meanwhile, Maja bends down with a syringe in her hand. Her grin gets wider when she inserts the needle into my arm. Then everything goes black.
I wake up feeling completely out of it. My mind is foggy, and my limbs feel like noodles and heavy stones at the same time. What happened? Why am I so hungry? When I open my eyes, I notice that I’m lying in my bed.
Wait, that’s wrong. I was in the living room… Maja did the surgery. The Utility core! “Maja?” I call out, my voice is weak, but it looks like it was enough. I can hear footsteps. Seconds later the door opens, slams against the back wall, and Maja comes rushing in.
“You are awake! Finally. It was so scary, I thought I messed up.” I think if she could, she would be crying in relief. It’s written on her face. But why? The sedation only lasts an hour why would she be so worried? Then something dawns in my mind. Was I out longer than one hour? That would explain my growling stomach and my weak limbs.
I gulp down some saliva, my throat too is very dry. “How long was I out? Did something go wrong?”
Maja sits down next to me and takes a deep breath. “It’s been a week…”
A week? Oh my god, how am I still alive? After a short pause to let the shock settle in, she continues. “Everything went fine till I inserted the Utility core next to your Space core. They reacted to each other… badly. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was as if the Space core wanted to devour the Utility one, but got somehow held back… I don’t know. It was completely weird.”
She pauses again, her gaze piercing my eyes. “Then things got scary. Your body convulsed and I didn’t know what to do… So I just held you down and sealed up the cut on your abdomen. It almost took another thirty minutes till you stilled. But that was it… you’ve been completely still ever since. If it wasn’t for your heartbeat, you might just have been dead. I didn’t know what else to do, so I carried you over to your bed and force-fed you some soup and water over the days till you finally woke up.”
We stare into each other’s eyes, not saying anything for a whole minute, then I break the silence. “Wow… let’s not do that again…”
Maja nods furiously. “I totally agree.”
“Thanks for keeping me alive, Maja.” With a lot of effort, I manage to sit up and swing my legs down the side of the bed. “Wait, if it’s been a week, how is your body still running?”
Maja blushes a bit. I didn’t know her body could do that. “Yeah, I’m running on my last fumes right now… I spent a lot of time in power-saving mode the past few days with only my hearing active in case you woke up. But I didn’t want to bring it up, as the whole Utility magic stuff led to this mess…”
“Ah come on, stop being so silly. It’s not your fault. You did everything right, something’s wrong with my magic… I have abilities I shouldn’t have and now I almost die when implanting a magic core… Now come closer, let me test out my new magic class.”
Relief floods her face again and she comes closer to me. Did she really blame herself for that? I make a mental note to tell her the same thing again later.
Now, Utility magic. How do I do that? I don’t know any spells… But I shouldn’t need them. Charging the body only requires me to emit the power. So how do I distinguish between the two classes? Hmm, the Utility core is just a piece of technology, and it didn’t do anything before my Space magic entered it. So what if I emit my Space magic but instead of funneling it to my hands or the environment, I funnel it to the Utility core? It’s worth a shot.
But first I should check the magic I’m familiar with… I did almost die when implanting the other core. Anxiety starts to fill me up, but I shove it away. I have to keep going forward if I want to find a way home. Nothing can stop me! So first Space magic. Stupid gravity! I can’t teleport. That leaves me with emitting power to the environment. At least that’s close to what I want to test after that.
I crush the last bit of anxiety, take a deep breath, and focus on my Space core. I can feel the power, luckily, it feels just the same as before. Then I start to push and magic leaves through my skin and saturates the space around me. It still works! Yes!
I stop and the power dissipates slowly. Everything feels normal. A good sign. “I’ll now try to use the Utility core. Stop me if you see something wrong happening, okay?” Maja nods and I again focus inward. Okay, how hard can it be? Just funnel it to the core instead of out of your body. You can do that Sara.
It is actually pretty easy. The distance between the two cores is way smaller and I immediately create a funnel between them and have my magic flowing. A second later I can feel the Utility core powering up. I hold my breath in anticipation. Five seconds, thirty seconds, two minutes. Yes, it’s stable. I stop the funnel between the cores and try to create another funnel, leading from the Utility core to my left hand.
It doesn’t work. The core powers down again and the magic slowly dissipates. Huh, do I have to keep the funnel active? That’s going to be annoying. First I need something to eat.
“It’s more complicated than I thought. I think it’s going to take me a while. Can you help me up? I need something to eat, I’m starving.”
Maja quickly gets up and offers me a hand. “Sure, I’ll even cook you something fancy. It’s the least I can do.”
I grab her hand and she keeps me steady while we walk back to the living room. My steps are still a bit wobbly, but it gets better by the minute. I sit down at the table and while Maja cooks some pasta, I keep trying to hold the funnel between my two cores while creating a second one to my hand at the same time.
It takes four hours and three plates of pasta till I finally succeed. I can now hold both funnels and when I hold my hand on Maja’s stomach next to her battery and push out power, she confirms that it is charging. I almost jump up and down but stop myself before I lose concentration. It’s exhausting and I’m mentally done for the day. Physically it’s not better and I reek of sweat. I need a shower!
I hope there is an easier way to use my second class of magic. I can’t imagine casting a spell besides all that mental effort I need to keep the core powered. I need to reach a Mage-friendly nation and find myself a teacher!