Aetheran Child (17 page)

“Now close your eyes. Relax and let go. Listen to the music closely and meditate as you would usually do,” The music started. A compilation of instruments started playing. The whole of the music sounded like the ocean waves rising and falling, licking the beaches and washing over the sands. Every few seconds a wave or two crashed over a rock formation. Lexan let his body and his mind become one with the rhythm of the music, no matter how useless he thought the activity was. His mind crashed and reformed, flowed left and right. It rose and fell, expanding and contracting, stretching out of proportion.

Thin wisps of air passed by. The room vibrated with unknown energies, everyone felt it. Lexan probed his surroundings with his mind. The others around were transforming into Aetheri, silently, effortlessly, and most importantly, painlessly.

The boy felt energy flow through him and from inside him. He felt his mind overcoming the bodily limitations and slowly, he started to transform, too. His body vibrated and started shifting into different dimensions. It prodded through space and time to other places. Lexan breathed in and with an exhale, the enveloping distortion in existence reached his eyes and the darkness he saw turned to light. The clothes he wore, the electronics inside his skull turned to life. His living tissues turned to a higher state. A thin layer of energy accumulated around his body and dispersed once the transformation was final.

Strangely, his new state of being did not drain him as before. It felt relaxing, much more relaxing than the excruciating first time. Minutes passed by as seconds normally did, the new state, this higher level of being gave him an uplifting feeling.

The feeling was akin to flying; he felt the ground below disappear. Lexan left his eyes closed, his legs crossed and his head held high but he no longer felt constricted by this position. His body, his physical state, was no longer a part of him. The world around him took on a form more real than it had before. He felt his life to be the only one existing, he felt himself be the only true being, a messiah of life and existence. At the same time, he felt one with everything. He let his mind wander through his surroundings, becoming one with the mind of the wall, of the Spheres, and the planet. His mind expanded and he moved into the mind of the galaxy.

Yet he was not alone, no, he was not the messiah. Everyone was the messiah, the savior, everyone gave life to the universe. Once connected, everyone felt the same way: happy and blissful. They have their individuality but that individuality becomes a part of a higher collective. This system had once been set by the elders, Lexan realized.
 

So many thoughts, strange, and peculiar thoughts and feelings rushed through his mind but he started to focus only on one. The thought of content. His content with his school, Bloo, the lovely blue-skinned Shun, and his content with his life.

When the bell rang, Lexan fell into a temporary depression. He achieved such a blissful and wonderful state of mind that having it ripped away so suddenly, made him go as far as to consider suicide.

VI

The universe can be warped and twisted, that is known. Sometimes, it can even be ripped, though most likely, it will heal itself soon. The Aetheri have found a way to travel through universes, places where the laws of nature applied differently. The world that is known, has a limit of the speed of light. Swift-space, in contrast, has no limit to speed whatsoever. As long as one has enough energy, they can travel for lifetimes, visiting different creations by bending through different dimensions.

The laws are usually different, no universe is the same. Some universes warped through several dimensions visibly while others only show one or two. The laws are set, never-changing, it is thought, and no one can break them. Or can they?

Who is it that set these laws? Who enforces them and who controls the reality? The power of the mind can surely shift the view of reality but never can it defy it.

VII

“..You will learn how to warp assigned dimensional subspaces to your liking. You will be able to access this little Universe through the closet door in your dormitory.

“Yes, that is the secret that has been kept from you the whole summer or a whole year if you took the pre-student course.” The whole class listened to what the teacher talked about. They all vividly stared, but no one said a thing. The woman pursed her lips in a manner that suggested she wanted to laugh.

“My name is Precursa,” She started warmly, “Every single class has listened to what I had to say after that welcome.” She smiled and laughed heartily, the class followed in suit. Lexan noted how easily she made everyone pay attention to her and make the whole class laugh.

“I will teach you many things this year.” Tr. Precursa continued,”including how to —sjidne skdioucne—..” Lexan hit his helmet the same way he would to make an old television work. The screen in his helmet shifted and his degree vision turned off. He mentally screamed at Bran but she did not answer. He looked around wildly, the people he just saw were gone. People sat all around, yes, but all wore silver or gold suits with helmets. The same way he did, and he could not recognize a single person. Tr. Precursa could still be seen but not for too long.

“Is something the matter?” Tr. Precursa stopped her speech and turned to Lexan as soon as she noticed how oddly he behaved. Everyone also did. Lexan reddened but knew no one else could see him, hopefully.

“My – static- is -static- working,” Lexan tried to explain his troubles but only three words left the helmet.

“Go outside then and go to the nearest protocol droid and tell him your -static- he wiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllll heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllpppppppppppp youuuuuuuuuuuuuu.” Most of the speech unscrambled and finally at the end the whole translation slowed down to a halt. Lexan nodded and left.

He walked out of the classroom and sighed with relief as the door hissed closed.

“What's going on Bran?” He said, pushing the mute button on his NCC to make sure he could not be heard outside of his suit.

“I...do not know.” The computer answered unconvincingly. The tone did not change, but the computer answered with hesitation.

“Is your software failing? Or hardware?” Lexan asked, concerned.

“Nothing that I can detect.”

Lexanchecked the NCC and the log of the last few operations. A list of commands scrolled through, most of it meaningless junk. The fifth command from the bottom announced the end of connection with Las, Raki's computer. That perplexed Lexan. Why connect to Las?

“How is Las?” Lexan asked catiously.

“I have not been in contact with Las since we were on the ship” Bran answered indifferently, as always. Her steel-cold voice did not bear any emotions, Lexan noticed, anymore. She finally resembled what she was, a computer. Lexan checked the log again to make sure he did not misread it and left to find a Protocol Droid.

As he walked down the hall, Lexan realized how free he will be when no one will monitor his thoughts. His head will finally be clear, how so? If he gets a new computer, he will reprogram it so that it can't access his real-time thought processor/logger. What if Raki had noticed? He thought. But then, he was justified to rid himself of Bran. She lied and recorded his dreams, invaded his privacy. Her personality, AI, or anything of hers won't be destroyed, she will simply not have access to his suit.

At the thought, Lexan readjusted his belt and ran into a Protocol Droid, he fell back in rebound.

“Are you okay?” The robot asked politely as it helped him up.

“I have ... a ..problem...” Lexan said.

“Oh.....lemme halep youuuuuu... Come....me” the droid said, motioning toward another hall away from the classrom. Lexan nodded and followed. At the end of the hall, they entered the main level of the sphere which connected all the areas around. Some hallways reached out beyond the Sphere’s limits, attached to the bridges for transports of various other Orbs and Sphere stations.

As they stopped at a booth, already familiar to Lexan from other Spheres, the robot motioned for Lexan to take off his helmet. A blue-white shield immediately enveloped him as he did so. The helmet easily slid off, the cables connecting to his brain slid into his head seamlessly. Without saying a word, the PD gave Lexan a face mask that enveloped his lower jaw, a re-breather.

Lexan put the headphone part in, no cables attached the re-breather to his cranium.

“Now, tell me, what is the problem?” The Droid asked as politely as before.

“My computer, the main personality interface, crashed. The translator stopped working and it does not detect any problems when self-checked.” Lexan explained quickly, and with surprising knowledge.

“I will boot a new personality on your system, a temporary one, it does not have many of the original functions. But do not despair, you can get your old MPI fixed at the Tronics District, a Sphere cluster that hosts shops and service-provider that concern electronics, computers, and such.” The Droid said simply, “Or you can buy a new one there if you wish to.”

The robot pulled a cable out of its wrist and manually connected to Lexan's NCC and helmet.

“Running Diagnostics....done.” The Protocol Droid said, “It is a software error, a slight miscalculation looks like it. Hold on....done. You have a new temporary MPI uploaded. I marked the Tronics District for you. Now you can go.” The Droid turned and started roaming through the Sphere once again until he exited to the adjacent halls.

Lexan stood there for a second. He checked his NCC and booted the computer. He put his helmet on just to catch the new MPI talking.

“Hello Lexan. My language vocabulary isn't as extensive as the previous computer's. I will not be able to translate some words for you. Regardless, here is my report, “ the computer sounded male in Lexan's ears. “The vocabulary translation is down to sixty-five percent. Your computer currently supports up to 3rd degree vision. Everything else seems to be working well. I must warn you, I cannot be re-programmed as I am public property. My name is Tiber and I am a male-oriented, Shun-based,
 
Main Personality Interface.”

Lexan tapped the NCC's screen and viewed the current information in detail. He concluded that he will have to up his studies of Universal. A language known to people across the galaxy, the “Universal” standard.

A galaxy-wide spread of language seemed to be a logical next step in the rise of a civilization and culture such as this one. However wide-spread the population, separated by billions of kilometers, the people were unified by DomeStem and other communication devices. As a medley of nations banded together, their languages started to merge until a simplified evolved version arose and became familiar to everyone. As the language acquired more prestige in the inter-travel and trade world, it grew to be spoken freely by people in tourist destinations, by tourists themselves, traders and travelers, and then businessmen. The language then grew in popularity among ordinary people then the professionals until it became second nature to the original mix of nations. Thousands of years later, the whole galaxy uses one unified, simplified tongue of their ancestors.

Lexan turned off the display and laid back on his bed. Thoughts rambled loudly through his mind. He got up again, unsure of what to do, and read a bit of another book. Lexan skimmed through the books he acquired that day and crossed his legs. So much to read, so much to learn, he thought.

“Please turn off all unneeded external output.” Lexan started as he put his hands on his knees.

“All turned off.” Tiber sounded loudly and clearly in his helmet. Lexan turned and used one of his hands to manually adjust the volume of his voice.

“Turn on music and visual in accordance to energy-saving meditation profile,” He found a sample meditation profile in one of his textbooks, and at the extensive DomeStem discussion groups. Soothing music turned on and a dim blue light covered the screen. The blues swirled and waved with the music pattern. Every time a bell rang, a droplet of liquid fell into the light-blue pond and waved. Lexan brought himself into an utter state of trance.

He relaxed and launched his mind into darkness where only the true under-lying thoughts resided.

I

The school work did not turn to be as over-whelming as Lexan initially thought. It mainly consisted of constant reading and excessive physical activity. The knowledge about this world satisfied Lexan, therefore he did not have any trouble reading, endlessly through his relaxation times. He also did not have any social events to attend to so that brought about endless boredom, despite the occasional party on the 9th day of the week and what has become dates with Bloo. She was literally his whole social life. But Lexan could not complain, Bloo made him look forward to class and such.

The new world that Lexan has fallen into did not seem so strange and alien anymore. The boy enjoyed some of the new cultural aspects but mainly he distracted himself by absorbing as much information as possible. The surrealness of the situation, and the memory of his parents were pushed back in wake of the new opportunity to learn and become more than he ever dreamed. On some days, while sitting in contemplation, he would realize the expectations he had places on himself, but then he would shun them again and again, just like many other thoughts. The constant interruption of thoughts led him to learn a new self-control that he did not know he had.On some days, he would be an efficient machine, on others he would be spiritually insightful, but always, he was in control of his thoughts, it seemed.

The lessons in classes now included lectures along with practical uses. Already, a few weeks into the school year. In combat class, Tr. Agre decided to allow short sword use. They trained in both Galant and Brutal styles, hacking and slashing at the nano-bots. Lexan excelled at both styles equally, so did everyone else. Some students have already decided what they wished to do, mostly because of their physical build. A couple of muscular boys have started to ignore the Galant style lessons, and ended up spending hours upon hours practicing the Brutal style at their dormitory's practice simulation rinks. The same went for the Galant-style users.