Void's Psionics (3 page)

“
Won’t her bracelet and
chemicals…”

Sparky could read the intent
and cut in.
“No. The it is the side effect
is of the body’s assimilation to correct itself. A fussy child is
far better than seizures.”

“
True. Well I’m going to
finish that shower.”

“
I will meet you at
Stephanie’s afterwards. I find myself curious if you can unravel
some mysteries.”

“
Can you give me a heads up
on what she wants?”
Oliver thought to the
Drake he could not see as the bedroom door almost silently slid
open from the side. Inside it was much cleaner now that Renee no
longer needed extra clothes which she’d scatter everywhere. She had
donated the clothes now that her armor could make any desire an
instant reality. The bed sheets were wrinkled as always and off to
the side was a full length mirror and beside it was an empty barrel
that reminded him absently
I need to give
that back to the captain. The mead was pretty good.
But Oliver walked around the oversized bed towards
the bathroom, but not before unsheathing his blade and laying it on
the nightstand, careful to let it fall or risk the edge slicing
through it. At the foot of the bed showed off the splendor of
another part of the Sapphire Nebula through a clear sapphire window
the length of the room’s wall. The window was part of the ship’s
hull, but few wanted such a window view when in FTL it gets bright
if they don’t have a shading dimmer or thick drapes.

Sparky thought
“Stephanie would be cross if I did. She wants to
speak on it all now that you are lucid again. I will not deny her
such privilege she has earned.”

With that Sparky left his mind. Oliver turned
on hot water to absorb every scrap of clothing into the
vambrace.

Pulsing hot drops of water felt wonderful,
nearly as much as voiding the overinflated bladder. Grabbing a
coarse scrubber and pumping unscented liquid body and hair wash
onto it quickly lathered and removed odor as well as dead skin
cells. The coarseness scratched his slightly itchy body in all the
right places. Cleaning under a vambrace that doesn’t leave the body
no matter what is attempt wasn’t difficult. Just thinking about
needing to clean that area made it creep higher up the arm and
return to its neutral position once the area was washed of all
suds. Oliver rather liked the feel of scrubbing a full head of hair
and letting the showerhead blast his face meanwhile.

Invigorating.

But it was short lived and he turned the
water off. To dry in seconds the shower door closed and a blast of
hot air from all angles removed nearly all dampness. Only hair was
mildly wet, but not so much as to drip.

Exiting the shower, Oliver willed on a pair
of normal pants and went to the sink. On it he filled the basin
with soapy water to begin washing the puzzle cube as needed. It
took ten minutes to make sure every piece was untainted before
grinning as he levitated them into the shower, hit the dryer and
reassembled it all before the door opened. He liked how he could do
it and not need to look. He rather liked knowing telekinesis was
just an extension of his physical form and could feel out without
touching or seeing with his own eyes. He sat the now completely
clean and dry steel cube down to look at himself in the bathroom
mirror.

Dark rings still surrounded tired eyes, but
not as badly as he could last remember. A deep bearded shadow
showed about five days without a shave so he pulled a laser pen
shaver out of the cup that held their toothbrushes and went to work
burning off facial hair. It took two passes to get the jaw baby
smooth. Then he put it down to lift a mechanical toothbrush and
applied minty paste to remove foul breath. Cavities were no longer
an issue with regeneration, but bad breath and clean teeth remained
part of normal hygiene.

Another quick onceover showed he was ready to
meet another day head on. This time though he was much more lucid.
A long sleeved blue shirt covered the torso, but he decided to go
barefoot. He knew he needed to start growing some calluses on his
feet to be healthy. Soft feet could be a hindrance even though he
could change shoe function on a whim. Sometimes challenging the
body was a good idea. Never know when it will be needed.

Oliver put the cube in the
nightstand drawer, sheathed his sword and didn’t forget the empty
barrel before leaving. He took the nearest elevator up to level
one. The bridge. There he found Abdul Krabble, the ship’s first
mate. Abdul had his DNA spliced with that of a jaguar so his body
was covered in brown spotted yellow fur, has higher round ears,
yellow eyes, filed teeth, a cat’s nose accompanied by opaque
whiskers and retractable claws within his fingers. He didn’t have a
tail nor a rearranged skeletal structure, but he was rather
striking to witness. Right now he sat in a chair, feet kicked up on
the helm reading leisurely on a holographic screen. The moment he
heard the elevator open he smiled. “What an unexpected surprise.
Haven’t seen you in a couple weeks, Oliver. I take it Renee’s leash
on you is cut and you
finally
Fractured?”

“
Hello Abdul.” He was
greeted. “And you are correct. I finally got a somewhat decent
sleep, but I’ve got so much more to catch up on.”

“
I bet.” The man took a hand
off of an oval crystal and the holo-screen disappeared to stand up.
“What have you there?”

“
Oh, when the captain
invited us to dinner that first time he gave us a barrel of mead. I
think it was a week ago we polished it off, but hadn’t thought
about giving it back. Need to do it before I forget again or get
busy.”

“
Jake sure makes some sweet
tasting mead that will get you drunk in no time. I know I’ve had my
fare share of blackouts.” Abdul laughed, showing off his teeth.
“But Jake’s busy and asked me not to let anyone disturb him. You
can leave it behind the first door, in the private lounge, but
don’t pass into his private treasury. I’ll be sure to tell him you
stopped by.”

The captain’s cabin opened in recognizing
Oliver and he did as asked to come right back out saying “Thank
you. Oh, when will we be heading out to Havannah?”

“
When Jake gives the order,
but not much longer I’ll wager. From what I know, Renee asked him
to wait till you Fracture and now that you have, it will be soon so
long as he hasn’t discovered something more interesting from your
last mission. I’ll let you know as soon as he tells me.”

“
Then know I’ll be over with
Stephanie.” Abdul confirmed he heard with a drop of the
chin.

The doors opened again on level eight where
most of the research and labs were held. About a kilometer’s walk
away Oliver found Stephanie’s secondary researching area, knocked
three times and called out. “It’s me, Oliver.”

“
Come right on in!” Said a
soft feminine voice as the door slid open on its own. Inside the
room sat Stephanie Menann, a voluptuous woman of average height.
She had long blonde hair braided down to the small of her back and
large blue eyes. She sat at a desk finishing the last few bites of
a meal Steven and Visor had brought.

The Hunter and eagle sat off to the side near
the Drake, Sparky. From snout to tip of the tail Sparky was ten
meter’s long, had an arrow shaped head, mossy green scales, brown
and orange flecked eyes with a catlike slit for a pupil, thick arms
tipped in curved talons and two pair of wings. The wings were
situated above the shoulders and just behind the hips. A long neck
was exceptionally supple and a thin tail could act as a whip so
long as he didn’t decide to use a maw filled with sharply curved
teeth.

The room was where the expert archeologist
Stephanie did her work on items too large than her normal room
could hold. Off to the side was a clear door that led to a
contained clean room where the fifty three barrels they salvaged
sat. The containers originated from the wrecked Solarian battleship
before the group needed to make a hasty exit after a Keptl Goliath
arrived. On the other were many shelves holding other ancient
artifacts, but the nearest standing shelves were mostly empty aside
from more Solarian Star-sabers, a generic term to describe the
ancient weapons, many of which weren’t swords at all. There were of
course swords, but also lances, flails, shields, bows, maces, axes
and so on. On another shelf were strange black cubes that hardly
reflected any light from a smooth surface. Each length Oliver knew
them all to be nearly exactly five centimeters long. And each one
was identical to the next, even in weight.

“
Hello everyone.” He hadn’t
forgotten how to greet a room from lesson’s Sparky taught about
proper and polite socializing.

“
Welcome back to the land of
the living.” Stephanie responded warmly before taking a drink and
pushing the remnants of a meal on the desk aside. “Let’s get right
to it, Oliver.” She patted the vacant chair beside her and his bulk
consumed it. Sitting on the table were three black cubes and a
salmon colored Star-saber dagger in a stand upside down so it
didn’t cut through the table under its own weight. She lifted her
pen scanner and an oval crystal similar to the one she had given
him which also rested in his pocket. She gave the voice command and
it made a holo-screen. “Show analysis on the Solarian cubes we
found.” And the screen cut to another visual rotating the image of
a cube. “Oliver, as you can see I’ve determined each cube’s very
atoms are packed so tightly they cannot vibrate and is why I need
to wear gloves. They suck the heat right out of my fingers. I near
got frostbite, but oddly they don’t steal heat from the air around
us” She showed the white rubbery gloves off. “I found out the hard
way since you and Steven kept yours on after cleaning them and
putting on the shelf. The thing is, my scans cannot detect where
the heat it stole from me went. They are so dense they can’t be
cut, but all weigh no more than two hundred and twenty six point
eight grams when they should weigh an excess of ten million kilos
at such density. They are as dense as your own cutlass and the rest
of the weapons and made of the exact same metal I’m coining as
Voidium. Has a nice ring don’t you think?”

“
Why not.” He chuckled. Void
being his new last name.

“
Well as I was saying, my
scan’s cannot find where the heat of my touch went and you see I
killed one of Renee’s lab rats by making them touch and still
cannot see a temperature difference anywhere, not even in the core.
I’ve hypothesized that since the cubes are made of the same metal
as the sabers… it is possible that these are the building blocks to
forge new weapons. Sabers draw from you in constant minute
quantities to store energy for the gravity manipulation it does
automatically. The problem is that it draws too much heat too fast
and I cannot figure out why. The other weapons though block any
form of psionic channeling and are cold, but not too cold. I’ve
done all I can, but you have something I do not.”

“
And that would
be?”

“
A functional multi-tool.”
She pointed to his right arm which covered the vambrace. “You’ve
already proven through it you can figure out how things function.
You and it have a link. I think the reason the Voidium cubes were
stored behind the locked gate is they were dangerous too. Your
multi-tool can tell you what to do, like it did for my wedding
crystal and other broken devices. You told me then how they worked
before it spat the items out completely fixed.”

“
I understand.” Oliver
merely looked to the nearby cube and really wanted to know what it
was and what it could do. In response, from beneath the sleeve a
tendril of black struck out like a webbed tentacle and consumed the
object. Then it surrounded the entirety and sucked it up under the
sleeve. Inside Oliver’s mind images from the multi-tool showed his
desire and feelings from it also knew exactly what it was and
wanted to assimilate it into itself. He approved and used his left
hand to pull the sleeve back and watch it writhe.

When shown to the naked eye was like a black
beating heart pulsing and the hard cube shape began to shrink as
its bonds began pulling apart.

“
What are you making it do?
What is it?” Stephanie was fascinated rather than mad as the
Multi-tool was breaking down the hardest and most dense material on
record. Shrinking it with each beat.

He didn’t answer till the final pulse
stilled, but then watched as a new color created a large ochre oval
on the brighter color side. The lines formed a long oval in the
inner part of the forearm. “I hate to say your theory was wrong,
but it was.”

“
It was just a theory on the
data I had. I want unbiased facts. Tell me exactly what just
happened as best you can.” She turned her screen to record him on
video.

“
Alright, well I just found
out my multi-tool was actually incomplete. It was merely half done.
The Voidium cubes are the missing component given when a teen
becomes an adult in Solarian society. My vambrace is given to
teenagers so they can play around safely till adulthood to begin
unlocking the higher functions built inside it. There are too many
programs to count… locked functions I can now sense and touch in a
way. When I imagined wanting to know what the cube could do, my
multi-tool recognized it for what it was. It is a storage vessel
for psionic energy
and
a biological technology program master key my mind must figure
out. We all know fatigue is a result of the expenditure of the
electrical impulses, but to be able to circumvent that personal
limitation I can access the reserves it has already begun to
collects to keep going when I run out.”