12 Chapter 12: Galactic Institute of Science and Technology

It's now been a few weeks since Rydel returned from his round trip back from Athena 3.

On his last day, he had finally went on a data collection trip in one of the untouched caves near the mining town. Ol pulled a few strings and Rydel got a robot tour guide to accompany him on his mini-trip.

The data he collected worked brilliantly with his formulas and numbers and things just worked out very nicely. After saying goodbye to Torelamri, who is somehow still busy working on something, and Ol, he joined Cellica as she gives Rydel a ride to the nearest major space port.

He had already booked a ticket back to the Galactic IST and was already quite excited about the prospect of life getting back to some sort of normality.

'It's a bit of a shame I don't see you around a lot, but I would be doing teaching jobs in a nearby system so come visit once in a while!' Before Rydel heads into the safety check in of the space port, Cellica handed him a little package as a parting gift and gave him a hug, 'I would show you around!'

'I actually would, ha!' Rydel embraced her, 'I bet I would see things people don't normally see.'

Silence.

'...Not really what I meant.'

'It's okay.' Cellica chuckled slightly and brought her pony tail to the side , 'I don't disagree with what you said.'

The two parted shortly after exchanging some contact details.The first time he has returned into the lab was quite an odd experience. He had almost forgotten where quite a few of the machinery were and how to use them and the reorganization of the parts certainly didn't help either.

He dusted off his desk and connected his computer with it's mainframe. He had quite a bit of data, both processed and raw, that he needs to get in and organize into something usable.

A quick note on the computing system of this future: with the miniaturization of computers and the conversion of most day to day appliances and devices into 'smart' devices, carrying a processing system contained within a small case has become a thing of the past.

Instead, carrying around an even smaller version of the personal data and information and running it on whatever computing system one finds is much more convinient. Hence Rydel only carries around his data disc, a projector and sometimes a drive for extra computing power. This system is referred to as the personal interface.

For more demanding tasks like running the War Game, individual systems are usually used to ensure the best user experience.

Rydel typically prefer to put on a quick summary of the latest news everyday when he first gets to work. On his leasurely commute along the riverside, a small hologram of a news reporter was projected above the handlebar of his bike and the first news caught his attention immediately,

'Yet another broke in has happened near Galactic Capital systems, specifically in the science park located on the Jade's belt. A plethora of high energy, particle detection and medical devices went missing in one night and no traces of anything were left behind. This is the third technology theft in recent weeks. The first one was a device for a set up of rapid manufacturing plant. That belong to the same technology giant Infinity who owns the War Game as one of its daughter projects. The second was a blue print for an experimental adaptable biosuit from the joint venture company Land and Seas. Now this. When is this blatant attack on the technology industry going to stop?'

Interesting. Rydel tilted his head slightly and turned down the volume a little bit. In this day and age of fast urban developments and intergalactic economy, the meaning of currency is far different from what it used to be. When gravity is no longer a prison to humanity, but rather an invitation to the greater universe, resource scarcity has mostly become a tale of the past when an infinite numbers of planets are up for taking. The infinite pursuit of knowledge and influence takes center stage as the center piece to the post-modern landscape.

The Galactic Institute of Science and Technology is one of the few places where the pursuit takes place. Located on a planet that's once a planet similar to Mars named Vulcan 5, the very first project the institute took on was the terraforming of the planet into one that allows the coexistence of all three of the races within the galaxy.

Humans were obviously leading the charge with their dominance over the environments and the Rockies executed the plan beautifully to construct the different facilities and altering landscapes. This is the symbol of peace and coexistence and the shared curiosity is what brings different beings together.

The whole institute is divided into a few major parts. The major research branches include Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Chemistry, Biology and many smaller research branches filled up the rest.

The major branches are located in a circular fashion, extending outwards from the central accommodation area and are all connected with each other through bullet trains. The whole set up resembles that of a wheel, putting the people in the center and their work revolves around it.

Despite the long physical distances between departments, the bullet train allows one to get from one branch to another in a matter of minutes.

There is a meeting today within Rydel's research group in order to update each other on what has been done and for the supervisor to keep everything on track. The engineers have their own little island with all of the research and leisure facilities.

It only takes about twenty minutes to cycling from the more central accommodations onto the island, ten minutes on the horizontal escalator that's laid all over the entire area as a gift of good will from the Rockies. The meeting takes place at Building 1, where it's more suitable as a meeting and communication center than a research building.

Rydel hopped off his commuter and paced towards the meeting room. It's same usual room for the geotechnical research group and he was the first one there. Some might say the keenness is directly proportional to guilt over lack of progress made, and Rydel was not shameless enough to claim the last three weeks of his trip was the most productive of them all, fortunately, he has done enough catch up and different numbers of 'project chores' to make it seem like he is working extra hard.

'Excuse me, are you with the geotechnical group?' When Rydel was waiting quietly for the supervisor to come, someone approached him from the side and asked with a gentle voice.

'Ah, yes.' Rydel looked up, and someone unfamiliar dressed in a high class formal outfit with light blue jacket, dark trousers and a shiny pair of shoes that looked like it's coming straight out of the shop. The person is a human male close to Rydel's own age.

His left eye is slightly augmented with a combination of Aquarian surgical techniques and human artificial eye. Rydel only noticed it due to a short bioengineering module he took during his undergraduate days. He tried not to be rude and dwell on that for too long, 'Are you new here?'

'Yes. I am Zel. A new researcher here.' He nodded towards Rydel and reached his left hand forward. It is only then that Rydel noticed his right sleeve was simply dangling there and the forearm seemed to be missing. Despite the advancement of prosthetics and augmentations, some may choose not to have them for one reason or another, and Rydel is not one to judge.

Though it is quite odd how Zel has one augmentation in his eye but none in his right arm.

'Lovely.' Rydel reaches his left hand forward and shook his hand, 'apologies for wearing gloves, I have a bit of a minor infection...' At the moment of impact, the glove vibrates slightly and tightens up around Rydel's hand, causing him to make a face. It quickly calmed down, however. Zel also raises his eye brows slightly as if he felt that as well.

'All good. Is it still a bit painful?' Zel let go of Rydel's hand and asked.

'Yeah, well.....more like itchy. It's been bugging me for a while now and the meds just doesn't seem to like my body.' Rydel massages his left hand slightly and wondered what happened.

The small talk went on for quite a while and soon the other researchers in the group join up with them. The supervisor came a minute before the proposed meeting time and unlocked the door for all of them. The whole group swarmed in and took their seats.

There are two Aquarians and four Rockies in Rydel's research group, with the rest being humans. It's one of the more balanced and well represented research group on campus.

'Alright. Welcome back! Before we get started, we have a new researcher with us for a little while! As Rydel is about to finish his thesis, or as I hope he would be, Zel Frin here would carry on and take his place soon after. Right now he is just going to learn about the set up and what has been done previously. Please be nice to him and show him around.'

The supervisor gestured towards Zel, who's sitting right next to Rydel and announced. Rydel turned and look at him with a mild surprise and Zel responded with a wink.

The whole meeting went on for quite a while as each person goes through what they did. Rydel's list of objectives and graphs of data collected from many different planets indicated a close match with his hypothesis and he is basically a few parameters away from verifying it's legitimacy.

The supervisor seemed really happy about the result and a couple other Rockies researchers also chimed in and agreed with his findings. With this discovery, there will be a much better understanding of Rockies architecture and how they managed to build a civilization completely underground. The applications extends from conservation, scientific understanding and some engineering projects underground.

Things kind of deviated off course from his initial research objective, but he has arrived at a really interesting place. After the meeting, Rydel was the one to show Zel his office area and the labs back in the engineering research building. Since Zel would be doing some research on asteroid geoengineering, Rydel will also show him the whereabouts of the simulation room.

Unsurprisingly, the office he was assigned to was directly opposite to Rydel's and looks towards the center of the engineering Island.

'Hey, what's that?' Zel dropped his bag down onto the floor and pointed at something outside the window.

'That is what we call the big lunchbox. It is also the storage center. Everything equipment we have in the building is world class, but if you want something that's best of the best, you can request it from there.' Rydel looked at the boring rectangular building that looks like nothing but a block and explained. He haven't had the need to request any experimental instruments from it but some of his colleagues has and the bureaucracy of the process was a massive turnoff.

'So that's about it. Get yourself used to it and I will send you the manuals for everything we use.' Rydel backpedaled towards the door and turned on the light, brightening up the room, 'I will be right across so come get me if you have any problems or need anything, okay?'

'Thank you.' Zel nodded in gratitude and started unpacking. Rydel gently shuts the door to Zel's office and returned to his own. He turned on the noise reduction screen for his room and opened his playlist. He had a collection of thousands of orchestral music and he is one that like to have it played out loud when working.

As the familiar tunes echoed through the room, he is finally in the mood to get back into work. This time some actual writing, rather than organization and processing of data for the presentation's sake.

Ain't no one is going to write his thesis but him so he might as well get started.

Hi! Just want to check in on how you are settling in? Everything good with the artifact?

The moment he opened the formatting document and started writing the introduction, a message from Celia popped up on the corner of the screen. Rydel hovered his finger over the message bubble for quite some time, and gave in eventually.

And also is everything good with you?

As someone who is always on top of replying to messages and believed it to be a proof of reliability in this age, Rydel knew that he would not be able to concentrate at all of the message is simply left unchecked.

As the music in the back ground builds up to a crescendo, his finger finally made contact with the screen.Now the ball is in his playing field. The fact that he has seen the message is acknowledged on both sides and the whistle is blown. With each second of him not typing, pressure builds. It felt like the room is getting hotter, maybe the heating has leaked.

Has Jimmy forgotten to seal the lava chamber yet again? His head is blank. His fingers shaking. The simplest motion demands the hardest thought. He doesn't know what to say. It's now been a few hundred years since the invention of text messages, and Rydel is still caught by the oldest trick in the book.

He wiped away the sweats rolling down his forehead, only for his finger to get sweaty.

Helli

'Shit.' Rydel quickly rubbed his finger on his shirt and regained his composure.

Hello! Everything is great, ha ha

'This is horrendous.' Rydel screamed internally and sent it off as he really doesn't have anything better to say. Not at this exact moment anyway. He pondered for a moment, then kept on typing.

It's been a while. Do you want to come visit here?

Rydel's fingers were blazing on the holographic keyboard, but he hesitated at this very last bit. It's a bit of a risky move, for sure. But it's not like he has anything to lose at all. Plus it would be quite nice to see Cellica again.

'Screw it.' Rydel clicked the send button and his heart rate has finally started to slow down. What's done is done. And now he just have to wait for a few weeks for the reply.

Great.