Star Odyssey

Chapter 4: Looking for a quick fix - Part II

“So,” I abandoned yelling, since even if the wind was screaming really loudly in my ears, Absoli would hear me through the helmet anyway. “How much of the station you know?”

“All of it and almost nothing.”

“…Elaborate?”

A sigh.

“I have several millennia old map of the whole megastructure. But the areas which my bots actually been to suggest that the map is not particularly accurate.”

“Ah,” I swished past another intersection, a glimpse of the reaver’s husk beneath the hoverboard. “So, am I still in the ‘known’ area?”

“On the very edge of it, actually,” they said. “In a minute you will be in the unknown territory.” Absoli paused. “So I recommend caution.”

“Understood,” the hoverboard took a smooth turn around a corner, and slowed down, as to avoid crashing the glass box behind me, the water in it splashing against the lid.

Actually, that reminds me.

“Absoli, when I went to sleep you said we were ready for a take off in a few hours, remember?”

“Y-yes,” they awkwardly stuttered. “I haven’t checked the hyperdrive, though – the systems said that the protective screen was intact, so I didn’t bother to see it with my own eyes!” they sighed. “Well, until you went to sleep, and I did all the pre-flight checks…” a strange silence. “I am still confused as to why the screen was there in the first place… or where the engine has gone…” a muttering in my ear.

I hummed, while balancing with my arms – completely unnecessary, I am glued to the ‘board by the force field; I just think it looks cool.

“Aaand you’re officially out of the explored area, master,” Absoli declared, with no small amount of fear and excitement. “From here on out, you cannot rely on the map…” they said. “…Do not hesitate to fire at anything that moves, Alex,” the sudden coldness in their voice almost threw me for the loop. “Your survival – is paramount.”

“Right, okay,” I slowed down the hoverboard to a more manageable speed, that would not force the box behind me to terribly sway. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Problem or no problem? – I thought, before dismissing such foolish notion. Of course there are going to be problems!

I barely remember a time when it was any other way.

+++

“Hm.”

I stood on my vehicle before a closed metal hatch, that wouldn’t budge. It refused commands from the Absoli, and my proximity did nothing to force it to open.

But I had an idea.

I raised my hand, and pointed it at the door. Then thought: ‘Open’.

The door immediately slid open.

“Convenient,” I nodded, picking up speed again.

“Indeed! The level of advancement of human civilization is remarkable in its primitiveness!”

…

“Absoli,” I sighed.

“Yes, Alex?” they innocently asked.

“I know you mean nothing by it… and I know you have a legitimate reason to call human civilization such… But please don’t.”

“Very well, master!” they no less innocently replied. “I will remember it, when I intend to insult your planet next time!”

“Good, and---”

I stopped short. I blinked. I suspiciously narrowed my eyes.

“Are you making a joke?” I calmly asked.

“Did I succeed?” they curiously answered.

I stood silent for a moment, and then I burst into childish cackling.

My Artificial Intelligence friend just made a joke. Not an exceptionally good one, but still!

“Not bad, not bad,” I kept cackling as I made my way forward. “But you can do better.”

“I will keep improving! Humor is so much fun!”

Precious.

+++

I willed the next door to open and flew through it.

The last four hours have been some of the dullest times in my life – and I am on a hoverboard, flying through the megastructure of race of god-like beings in space!

Truly, Life is a b***h sometimes!

The conversation with Absoli was going strong the first hour or so, but eventually even they ran out of jokes to say, and things to clarify about Earth. Well, at least Absoli is now familiar with puns, and knows what a yandere is…

Not sure those two were the most important bits, but they certainly were the most colorful. Especially the explanation of what yandere is… ‘Can humans be sick with love?’ – How do you answer something like that?

Well, after that mine of questions ran out, I was left alone with my own thoughts; as of late – my least favorite companions.

And the darkness in my mind began encroaching on my sanity again, trying to suffocate it with a thick and tight blackness.

Your parent would have surely noticed you absence by now. Mom will be worried sick… Very sick.

I sucked in an unexpectedly goopy air.

Don’t listen to it, you have a good brain, but sometimes it just likes to beat itself, it is fine, it is okay, you have much more pressing matters to think about than home---

Oh? So you don’t care about them now?

You have to think about your objective, you have to make sure you survive, that Absoli survives, and that both of you get back to Earth – hell, can you imagine how famous you will be? The first person to leave Solar system? There will be a wikipedia page about you! They will make a movie about you!

Oh, yes~! The action scenes – especially the first one – will be amazing!

“SHUT UP!!!”

My shout hit the ceiling, then bounced to the floor and spread out to the rest of the corridor.

I stood with my fists balled as tight as I could, knuckles audibly cracking, and my breathing coming out in short gasps. My head felt as if it was squeezed with an industrial press, the brain compacting, bones crushing into powder, meat turning into mince. The suit became a narrow prison in an instant.

And demons… my own demons have risen from the graves with hungry shout of war, clawing, biting, and tearing into my soul, bringing back the poisonous fragments of the past with them.

My whole body hurt. Not any physical pain, but that hateful kind that has no rhyme or reason to it, that kind that you cannot get rid of.

My whole body…

…except, for my right leg, just a little beneath my ankle.

“Please…” I hate to beg. Even my own brain.

But the darkness took a look at my crushed will to fight, contently burped, and recessed into the corners of my mind, eagerly waiting for its next opening.

I felt the clump in my throat clearing up, the coherency returning to my thoughts. I heartily breathed in with my nose.

“Absoli,” poor robot was frantically calling out my name, and asking if I was alright.

“Master, are you---“

“Am I far away from the engine?” I leaned on a nearby wall, letting my body relax. s**t, I need to get it together – I can’t let my mind betray me like this in my situation.

“I---“ Absoli clearly wasn’t happy with me dodging the subject, but they reluctantly answered my question anyway. “Just ten more minutes… The map has been surprisingly accurate thus far,” they remarked.

“Really?” I raised my head, and looked around a corner.

Ah. A problem. I have not been missing those.

“Yes, it is a refreshing expe---…” they stopped. And then sighed. “Alex, do you enjoy mining? That blocky game you spent a lot of time in suggests that you do?”

“Not when I have to do it with my own hands,” I grumbled, stepping down from the hoverboard, my boots clicking on the floor.

The path ahead has been blocked with debris – chunks of black metal saturated the hallway, jagged shards lay on the floor.

And when I mean saturated – I mean I couldn’t see a rent in the blockage. Just a wall of broken black iron.

Well, if Hollywood films taught me anything…

“Say, Absoli,” I began, while planting my feet firmly on the skids of the hoverboard. “How strong is the gun on this thing?”

They hummed.

“Well, if I understand you train of thought correctly, Alex,” the vehicle beneath my feet began to whine, the sound increasing in volume with every second. “we will soon find out.”

I smiled.

“You learn too well.”

The ‘board beneath me violently lurched, and a ball of light bigger than my head flew forwards.

Crush, sizzling of metal, a flash of light.

I blinked the after-image from my eyes, and took a second look at the blockage.

The large hole in it was wider than I tall, its edges red and orange from the heat of the round, smoke lazily snaking to the ceiling.

Unfortunately, the hole was quickly filled with the debris from the rest of the wreckage, but the wall looked severely less daunting now.

The whining of a charging gun started again.

“How would I even recognize the engine?” a shot, sizzling of metal, rumbling of falling debris. “I mean is it, like, super obvious?” a lurch of the hoverboard. “Is it glowing or something?”

“Glowing, master,” Absoli replied. The vehicle spit out a ball of hardlight. “It should also be submerged in the water. I doubt you will miss it,” another lightball crashed into the obstacle before me.

“Oookay,” I cast a look at smoldering wreck of wreckage. The metal wall was absent, only promptly cooling melted iron remained. The path ahead was more-or-less clear. “Warn me when we will get close to it, please.”

“I shall.”

I passed by the grey smoke on the ceiling.

It is somewhat sad, that I’m growing jaded to the astounding clark-tech Titans possessed. Oh, well – you can’t marvel at sunrise every time, right?

Even though I wish I could…

+++

“This is the place!” Absoli happily reported.

“Huh,” I was a tiny bit disappointed. After all the grandeur - the skyscraper-high starship, the throne, reaching all the way to the ceiling, the moon-sized megastructure that I find myself in – this room was… a little dull.

Eight identical square aquariums, each one wider than I am tall and also reach up to the ceiling. The aquariums had glass walls, and were lit from the inside – that is, seven were glowing red, and only one, on the far side of the room was shining green.

Weird. Aquariums?

“Absoli? This is the place, you say?” I stepped down from the hoverboard and walked up to one of the containers, and doubtfully stared in it. It was empty, except for water.

“Yes!” they answered, excitedly. “Quickly, go to the green one! Oh, also take the box with you!”

I gestured my arm towards the glass box trailing behind the ‘board, and willed it to follow me, feeling a mounting suspicion, as to what form will the ‘hyperdrive’ take. The glass container gently floated towards me, detaching itself from the hoverboard.

And sure enough – just as I walked up to the green cube, a saw it – a giant, at least two meters tall, jellyfish. A goddamn jellyfish, gently floating in the green-lit water of the tank.

“Absoli? Explain?” my voice had no tone to it.

“What do you mean?” they were sincerely confused.

“That…” I pointed towards the animal, which swam towards the glass wall of the tank in my direction, and leaned into it. “is a jellyfish. It does not look like a hyperdrive.”

“Maybe in the mind of earthlings it doesn’t…” they grumbled, then spoke up. “While I understand your… technology-oriented mindset, Alex, I can assure you – this is what we were looking for.”

I stood silent for a moment, and then simply shrugged. Who am I to argue with an ancient hyper-advanced AI?

“Okay… how is it going to work, though?

“Oh, a very good question!” Absoli said, enthused. “You see – this species is very peculiar! It does not consume nutrition in the same way that most of the animals on your planet do! Instead – it feeds on ether!”

“Ether?”

“Essentially a realm of infinite energy, that is superimposed on our reality – but anyway; this jellyfish feeds on ether, but as the rest of the life forms – it excretes the excess of energy!”

“Uh-huh…” I paused. “So Hyperion is powered by space-jellyfish poop?”

…

“Alex, I beg you – please do not phrase it that way ever again!”

“I make no promises,” I viciously smiled.

“But anyway – how do I put it in the box?” I compared the two. “Is it even going to fit in there?”

“It is very flexible, worry not,” they reassured me. “And you just have to will it to open, like doors. Just pick it up and plop it in the box then, it will be fine.”

“Understood,” I carefully undid the lid on the glass box, which I brought with myself, put the lid gently to the floor; turned to the aquarium – I had an insistent feeling, that jellyfish was watching me – took a deep breath, and willed the aquarium to open.

The water crashed on the floor in a massive wave, forcing me to take a few steps back, and the box to float just a little higher. However, I still managed to catch the slippery tendril of the jelly fish, before it flex with the rest of the water, and put it in the box, sternly closing the top with a lid.

If an animal had any problems with the treatment of it, it didn’t show it; just compressed to almost two times smaller its original size, and stilled. Now that it was out of the glowing aquarium, I noticed that it shone a gentle white.

“Okay… I suppose that’s it?” I timidly asked, looking around.

“Yes, just get back to the Hyperion, master!” Absoli was beyond euphoric. “And we can finally get away from this chunk of metal!”

“…”

“Alex?”

“Huh,” I shook my head. “I just… you know – expected something to go wrong…”

“Please come back to the starship before you could be proven right.”

“Y-yes!” I stomped onwards toward the hoverboard, linked the box to it, and turned towards the way I came.

“…”

“Alex, please!”

“Okay, yes, you’re right!”

I flew through the door towards Hyperion.

The trip back was much more light-hearted and entertaining than the road to here.

However, despite being sincerely invested into explaining the intricacies of the Earth’s pop-culture, and a very long lecture on memes, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something wasn’t right.

Where were the other seven jellyfish if not in their containers?