The Coordinate

Chapter 6: Finding Her

            ‘I want to see the stars’

            Her phrase always echoed in his head. They were simple words with simple meanings that states a simple goal, but with a completely stupid way to accomplish it, and even more stupid reason for it. He couldn’t deny he was more worried about her than he is about everyone else. In fact, he rightfully should be worried about her more than anyone else.

Everyone around him was either screaming or staying still and helpless as the walls rumbled. Even with protocol, the importance of calmness and the orderly fashion of their superiors, every single student in this room was a pain in the a*s. Everything was fine earlier, they were all calm and collected, so why were they suddenly panicking?

            With all his peers herded together behind him, they arrived back at the underground saferoom, and…

            It was empty.

            Completely empty.

            No one was there. A dozen or more domes were crushed under debris, and a bright light shone from the ceiling of the room.

            His jaws dropped, his mind scrambled. He didn’t know what to make of it. A huge wall in the ceiling, domes buried under the rubble, and blood pooled on a certain floor.

            “W-what the hell…!?” one shouted.

            “Where is everyone?! What happened here?!”

            Jordan immediately flicked his wrist, activating a call request for Winter. The long tone of the attempt to connect was an eternity, and though he didn’t believe in a god, he prayed to someone. Fate, destiny, God, anyone… just please, keep Winter safe.

            ‘Recipient unavailable.’ The hologram said.

            His iris shrunk.

            “No, no, no, no!” Jordan said, bolting to the far left corner. He tried lifting the debris blocking the entrance, channeling what little energy he had left.

            “Winter! Are you there?!” he kept calling out.

            “Jordan!” Rori caught up, “Winter can’t be here. She must have escaped with everyone else.”

            “We would have seen her if she did, and she would have noticed us!”

            “No, we couldn’t! We just passed through a sea of people, and Winter’s a relatively short girl, so there’s no way she should have been able to…”

            “Shut up and f*****g help take these off!” Jordan snapped, his eyes wild and sunken.

            “Jordan…” another man called out, the man Jordan was next to on the train, “There’s a security camera here. We can try hacking it to see what happened,”

            A small relief crept up Jordan’s burning heart, “You can do that?”

            “Yes. I know this brand. I can get into it with my drive connection.”

            “Please do it,” Jordan asked. The man nodded and hurried off to fetch the camera on the wall. Jordan then turned to Rori, “Rori, tell everyone to just stay here and wait for Mrs. Finch. We’re to stay here until whatever is happening passes.”

            Rori nodded and ran back to the group.

            Jordan headed to the guy taking care of the camera. He seems  to have pulled it from the wall, cut its wires, and now using his drive connection to connect to it, similar to how a Bluetooth would work. Eventually, the hologram projected on his palm now is a playback.

            “It worked?” Jordan asked.

            “Mhm. This camera seems to have activated right after the shaking begun, but there’s no audio. I don’t’t know why. Anyway, when did you leave to fetch the rest of us?”

            “A-about 6:10 or something.”

            With a slow slide, the video panel rapidly moved forward, until the hologram revealed the start of the cracking ceiling. “There!” Jordan gasped.

            The man enlarged on the image of the red-hair in the Protostar uniform, finding her running with the crowd as the ceiling collapsed on itself. What burrowed into the room was a figure much more intriguing.

            “It looks like Winter did actually run out with the everyone else, but is that a f*****g spacer ship?”

            Jordan rubbed his eyes, “Continue.”

            The guy’s finger slowly slid into the thing along the playback, fast-forwarding the footage, until eventually, Winter’s silhouette came back into the cam.

            “Wait!” Jordan gasped, “Play the video now.”

            Someone fell from the black spacer ship, bearing a suit and hair as black as the ship’s hull, and with horns no novasapien ever had.

            “What’s she doing?” Jordan blurted, finding her seemingly conversing with the guy. It was strange. Winter never talks to anyone. What the hell was she doing?

            Winter got closer to the novasapien into the feed, all while Jordan is silently begging for the worst to not happen.

            The feed finally showed Winter shoving the novasapien back into the ship, but she joined him. A moment later, the ship rose from the floor, flying back to the hole it just came from.

            “What the hell did I just see?” Jordan breathed, his heart was  racing. No way was any of this real. “Why would she…?”

            “You think they knew each other?” the guy asked.

            “They don’t! Winter for sure never knew that person! He was a spacer, so maybe he was able to…” Jordan petered out. The dots connected together. “I need to get out of here.”

            “What?”

            “Thanks for the help, Raian.” He said as he jogged to the rest of the group.

            Arriving where the Alaskan group was standing and sitting, he took a deep breath, “I’ll be going back up, guys. Right now, for some reason our drive connections aren’t working, but I know Finch will come here soon. At that point, tell her I’m off to find Winter,”

            “Wait,” Rori joined, “Where was Winter?”

            “A spacer convinced or coerced her to come with him. A spacer with unorthrodox horns and a ventablack spacer ship. I need to find it and report it to Finch or the authorities immediately.”

            “Winter was taken!? Wait, wait. I want to come!” Rori said.

            “Okay. Anyone else wants to?” Jordan looked to the group. They all exchanged glances and muttered with each other. It seems like none of them were eager to move, “Okay, ya’ll stay here. Horus, Walter, you two are in charge.”

            The two nodded, and immediately the pair set off, climbing back to the stairs, re-entering the heart of the calamity.

            “Thanks for following me,” Jordan breathed as they navigated through the halls of the building. Suddenly, the rooms were folding and shifting around them. The ceiling became the floor, and the walls compressed on each other. Jordan and Rori flew around in accordance to gravity, landing on their shoulders, crashing on their backs. The halls was spinning and turning, and it wasn’t Jordan’s eyes playing a trick on him or dizziness taking effect. The actual f*****g building was transforming, and the appliances, lockers, drawers and lights seemed to be glued to wherever they were placed, unaffected by the folding of walls.

            Jordan hung unto a locker with Rori on other hand. She would fall into the hallway if their hands were to slip, and he didn’t allow that.

            “What the f**k is this!? What’s happening?!

“I don’t know, just climb up until the halls fold again!”

            Rori did as he said, forcing herself up to the same locker corner to hang. As the walls folded, Jordan and Rori immediately got on their feet, bolting to the halls.

            As he and Rori went deeper inside the facility, people were around the rooms, cowering inside protective hexabarriers, watching the two students in shock. “Hey kids, grab our hand so the shield will reach out to you!” they said. Rori reached out to them, but Jordan pulled her away, forcing her to run with him.

            “Why would you do that?!” Rori blurted,

            “We are finding Winter, Rori.”

            “But this is getting dangerous, Jordan. Don’t you think-“

            “You’re a goddamn weapon carrier, aren’t you? Aren’t soldiers supposed to prioritize the safety and welfare of the people!? You’ve already said you were going to help, so you are going to help!” Jordan raged as he ran.

            Rori gulped, falling silent.

            The building rumbled, and the floor seemed to push against their foot like a strong, large elevator, then it stopped suddenly. They continued onwards, fast-walking through the stairs until, finally, they reached a strange room with many panels, configurators and buttons. There was nobody inside.

            “This looks like a weapon control room, or something...” Rori commented.

            They stepped into the room and door closed behind them.  In one of the panels, the sunlight was shining against razed soil and burning grasses, but what caught his eye was a strange ship, dashing across the Washington as if searching for something.

            “That’s it! That’s the ship, Winter went in.”            

            Suddenly, the room they were in rumbled, tipping their balance and casting them to the floor. Then, a weapon fire. Jordan immediately stood up and clung tightly to the controls. He looked intensely into the panels as he recognized more lasers flying from the cannons of other buildings.

            “f**k, how do I stop it from firing!?”

            “Wait, let me.” Said Rori, standing beside him.

            “You know how to man this thing?”

            “They’re similar to the simulation I was just put into, and I’m a weapon carrier, Jordan. Damn right I know how to man these things. Problem is, what should I do?”

            “s**t… we can’t shoot Winter if she’s in there!”

            “Why don’t we check then?” Rori said. Jordan steppd aside from the hologram and dragged a panel from the far center. They were in jargons and symbols Jordan couldn’t understand,  but Rori was swiftly moving through them.

            “There,” Rori said, bringing up a panel that detailed a humanoid in a chair, colored in red, orange, yellow and green.“There’s only one heat signature in the ship, and it’s producing novasapien horn radiation.”

            “What? How did you do that?”

            “I’ve studied how to use all kinds of weapons, Jordan. And railguns are one of the weapons that scan heat signatures. Additionally, they can also see if something is producing energies that novasapiens emit from their horns.”

            “One heat signature, horn radiation… that means there’s only one person there, right?”

            “Right.”

            “So where’s Winter?!” Jordan’s eyes furled.

            “There’s no time for that, Jordan! It’s either we try to shoot this ship down or not!”

            “f*****g shoot it!”

            Rori nodded. With a few more tapping and scrolling, two holographic hand slots appeared before her. She lodged her hands into the slots, and the hologram cleared, now only showing a live feed of what was happening outside with a reticle on the screen.

            “Lock.” Rori said, and the reticle focused on the black ship wreaking havoc in the city

            Jordan’s jaw dropped. Rori was as if wearing a virtual suit of armor with all the holographic gears and buttons surrounding her.

            The sights were locked on the speeding ship. With a punch of both Rori’s fists, a laser screech echoed outside and shook their walls.

            The ship twirled, dodging the shot.

            “What?!” Rori blurted, “That was a perfect!”

            “Can you try to use the weapon’s A.I.? Maybe it can help you land a shot more accurately.” said Jordan.

            Rori flexed both her pinkies. An interface appeared on the side. On the panel now revealed afterimages of the ship that Rori assumed to be possibilities of where it might go. Some afterimages extended upwards, others downwards, and most were a few distances to its right. Rori waited placing every variable on the screen in front of her. She took a deep breath, aimed at one of the afterimages and punched.

            A laser screech echoed.

            As the beam was a handbreadth away from reaching the ship, it suddenly propelled itself upwards, as if bouncing from the air. Rori paused, somewhat frustrated. Other beams from the other ships were missing and flailing wildly. So far, only her shots were the ones closest to even hitting it. Jordan examined it closely. No ship he had ever seen moved unnaturally like that. It was as if a living, flying thing.

            “Slippery son of a bitch.” Rori blurted,

            “Look, that ship has already dodged multiple fires because our shots were predictable. I have an idea. How about firing a blank?”

            Rori nodded, taking a deep breath. She locked into the ship again, turning on the guidance interface. She punched one hand, and their room rumbled. The ship jumped again, but nothing came out.

            “Now!”

            Rori punched both hands and a weapon screech echoed, and immediately, the ship lowered down.

            Rori turned to Jordan with a face asking him ‘what now?’

            Jordan put his fingers on his chin, thinking. “Fire two blanks and make the third shot a real one.”

            Rori did as he said. On the first blank, the ship slowed down but did not evade, as if anticipating their bluff. On the second blank, the ship bounced up. On the real shot, the ship moved yet again, going on a u-turn back to the ruins.

            A red light grasped Rori’s attention. Her eyes widened.

            “Jordan, we have one shot left. What do we do?”

            Jordan took a deep breath.

            “Rori. Fire the last shot behind it. No blanks.”

            “What?! You’ll be wasting our last shot!”

            “We won’t. By now, the bastard inside it must have caught wind of our plans to use blanks, so it’s perhaps its thinking our first and second shot will be blanks too.”

            “But Jordan, its directly below Washington now. If we miss this time, it’ll bore a hole and possibly hit Ytrial City too.”

            “It won’t miss! I swear to you, it won’t.” Jordan insisted, staring with fiery eyes at her.

            Those orbs again, Rori thought. The pride of man that abandons reasons and challenges logic. They were scary. Those were eyes that, in their worst, could bring the whole world down. However, in their best, those eyes could lead the world into a better future. It was a gamble. Every choice was. She didn’t know the factors and their weight to calculate their chances of succeeding, and abandoning that instinct for a hopeful promise with no base whatsoever was… dangerous.

            Still, it felt… good. It felt good to trust. It was dangerous, but it was… comforting.

            “Alright then,” she sighed, “Take full responsibility if we miss, okay?”

            “I will.”

            Rori took a deep breath, punched both hands, and the laser fired.

            An explosion and a cloud of smoke happened to where it struck, but there was no sign of the ship.

            “Can you see anything?” Rori asked.

            The ship descended from the smoke with sparks flying over the place. It hit the ground with a loud, satisfying crash, landing on a large open field.

            Rori’s eyes and mouth were open.

            She dislodged her arms from the tubes and the projection systems faded and dimmed around her.

            “We got it?” she asked in disbelief.

            “We got it…” said Jordan. “Hell yeah, we got it!”

            They cheered and embraced each other tight. Their hearts were pumping fast, Adrenaline and dopamine even more so.

            A loud clang echoed from the screen. They turned to it simultaneously.

            A hatch opened on the ship, and from it, fell a novasapien in a black tight suit.

            Jordan’s squinted his eyes, “Rori, can you zoom on that?”

            Rori neared her fingers to the interface and enlarged the visual. “Recognize him?”

            “I do.”

            They observed further as the injured, b****y creature struggled to reach up to the hatch. He pulled something from the ship’s cockpit. A girl. A red-haired…

            “Son of a…”

            The novasapien carried the bloodied girl on his back as it limped as fast as it could to the tall grasses, but vehicles and smaller ships already flocked towards it. The wounded man stopped upon seeing them and raised its hands.

            “No… no way…” breathed Rori. “The interface said there was only one heat signature! Jordan, you saw that!”

            “I thought she was dropped off… or something. How did…?

            “Jordan, let’s get down there now!”