Ignoring the fact that I was a little bitch, the others were surprisingly understanding of the situation as they came to me with a bag of my BOSS approved whiskey and chocolate tortilla we usually eat for dessert. My heart was slowly settling down as my ears and cheeks warmed up from the alcohol.
“I hate this trip already.” I said and took another sip of whiskey.
“I assume a psychologists would be more in tune with his feeling and able to stay calm?” I could recognize Cath’s attempt to lighten the mood a little, but I couldn’t give a space rats ass at the moment. My head was pounding with stress and fear, I was so close to having a panic attack
“Cath. Can we just shut up for a bit and let me enjoy this little freedom in a bag.” I had the straw in my lips again sipping my calming drink before I took a bite of my chocodilla and savoured the sweet taste. We sat in silence for a bit and ignored the monstrous situation we were in. I wasn't going out again, I would rather be a hypocrate and die terrified. While trying to calm down I was thinking back to our brief discussion on the topic of magic and found myself curious again on how Martin did it. If his idea of Arrays were different. maybe we wouldn't have to worry about radiation.
“So, Martin. How different are arrays to usual magic?” I would at least risk radiation sickness right now rather than whatever was stuck to the outside of the shuttle.
Martin as curious as ever was floating off to the side inspecting the cupboards we keep our tools in, and I was sure he tried to figure out what every one of them did. at the sound of his name and the following question had his face light up in excitement.
“Excellent question! Many people have ideas on how arrays work and how to apply them. It's deeply personal journey and unique to every person. it all starts the same, but they are always different when the wizard applies them. As arrays have the capacity to be extremely versatile if you know what you are doing. There are moral and physical restrictions to be mindful of when creating and activating an array.”
His exitement didnt falter as he shoved his hands in his robe pocket again and rummaged around a second before pulling out a snow globe. Pitch black with little lights in it had all push ourselves a little closer to see what was in it.
“This beauty was created by my second wife. She was a clinger, but she had a knack for creating scry orbs. We broke up for obvious reasons.”
Once I was closer I could recognise the consolations of the stars around us. With a little squinting I could see the space station floating in the dead centre of it all. it was quite a large bubble arround us if the station was the size of an apple seed.
“This one shows you where you are in relation to the object of your desires. There is a distance limit, but she was close by all the time when she made this.” Micheal was the first to try and grab it. Cath on the other hand looked a little creeped out at the idea of something like this invading her privacy so she slapped his hand away when he came close to taking it.
“Right, that’s a bit more esoteric than any physical process I can think of.” Radiation magic didn't really have a desire aspect to it. There was plenty of ways I could use captain jack sparrows’ compass on earth, but nothing when you were out and about in space.
“Arrays are extremely useful, to everyone.” The gravitas in Martin’s voice made it clear that it was not an exaggeration. If anyone could mess with reality, then nothing was as safe as we might imagine it to be.
“My book contains many arrays that are quite useless to most wizards. It’s a learning tool meant to teach basic concepts that have proven to work and is safe to use. As you learn the basics more pages become available to view with more complex ideas and applications.” I could see both Micheal and Cath was eager as I was to see what was in this book.
“And you think something in this book will sort out our problems?” I was sceptical to use magic. With the evidence we had when he transmuted the juice bag, I didn’t want the station to shut down for a moment when we had that creature outside.
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“Most definitely. With you current understanding of the world and the fundamentals of this universe we could make an array to change any outcome in our favour. Or we deconstruct the golem outside and find the creator stamp to see what they wanted with that thing.”
“I’m not going outside again. My heart can’t take. And let’s first set up a safe space for these tests first before anything else. Then we can safely remove or destroy that thing with magic hopefully.” otherwise I'll just kill myself before then.
I emptied my bag of whiskey and swallowed the last of my chocolate treat before pushing to the door leading to the main pod. “Get any lead blankets we can. We are doing it in the research wing. If worse comes to worst, we detach the pod and send it flying with that thing away from us.”
“I’ll get the blankets.” Cath was behind me on her way to the storage pods. Micheal turned to the cupboards that martin was inspecting earlier and got some tools. “I’m going to have a look at this thing one more time if you guys don’t mind. Martin… go get your book.” We split up to do our tasks. I was at the monitors again to see what this thing was doing on our solar panels. Thermals showed it was ice cold where it sat before, and the new spot getting colder as well.
The barnacle of terror was stuck to the base of the array. Right over where the cables were routed. I took a nearby tablet and checked the diagnostics system. It was as just as I thought, we were not getting any power from that array. The little shit was sucking it dry.
“You are dead meat and my promotion.” I was starting to hype myself with the idea of revenge. It was going to be sweet and served cold.
“And magic, magic is gonna be cool.” I made sure to the camera was still recording and checked if BOSS had any updates. The ship was already on it trajectory back home and there was nothing else from BOSS other than to bring Martin in. I pushed away from the console to my little storage cabinet that held my notes for the trip. I was going to need a new book for our magic trials. I was not going to be some novice when we returned to earth.
As I left for the research pod, I barely paid attention as the sound of dripping started again.
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I joined Micheal and Cath in the research pod with Martin floating on far side with his unwrapped book. There was two lead blankets secured to the pod walls so that the area was separated into two sections. One where we can hide and point sensors at Martin through a gap in the barrier, and a section Martin can make the magic happen. It wasn’t perfect, but it was preferable to nothing at all.
“Righto. I’ll give a little pretext on how this form of magic was discovered and the general idea that I think best describes what happens. But in the end, this is yet to be proven right. And anything I say can be taken with a grain of salt.”
Martin opened his book and paged through it slowly. “Some time ago through happenstance and certainty the originator found the first array.” He lifted the book up to show the cover a 4th dimensional shape that was without a mistake a tesseract. A cube with every vertex connected. A shape what we imagine might be the in the 4th dimension.
“An array is a pattern constructed in the three dimension and transformed through time to talk to the 4th dimension. Like how we can read the 2nd dimension words, I believe that there is an even higher dimension than 4. in this imaginary 5th dimension there is something that sees the 4th dimension and reads what we write. And as a curious person that sees ants spelling words with grains requesting sugar we think it’s fascinating to go with it and give the ants sugar.”
Martin placed his hand on the book closed his eyes and lifted his hands. From the page a mind-bending shape emerged. My eyes strained and my head pounded as I tried to figure out what was happening in front of me. the space I floated in felt like it strained as a heavy presence pressed in on my existence. It felt like a life of experience was stamped into my soul before popping like a bubble. Then the world settled as the shape that was in Martins hands changed from an impossible hyper-cube into a computer terminal.
“This 5th dimension is pure information. It takes a record of you, stamps a being of your ideas and who you are into the 5th dimension, this entity reads your array as a beacon and instructions of what you want and changes the 4th dimension to affect us in the 3rd dimension.”
He traced his finger in the air on the terminal. A command for a function wrote itself in the window, before I could read what it said he pushed his hand foreword, and the window changed to an arrow icon that hung in the air pointing down.
“In this enclosed space those with will shall be grounded.” We drifted in the direction the arrow pointed. Martin landed on his feet gracefully and the rest of us landed on our asses. Our equipment stayed floating in the air where we left them. the camara captured the smile on Martins face as he fluffed out his robe in satisfaction.