Chapter 12 – The Ancient, Futuristic Facility

Chapter 12 – The Ancient, Futuristic Facility

Kip's first thought was, 'Darn, why did I have to open my big fat mouth?' Well okay, maybe that was his second thought. His first was probably something more like 'Oh Sh*t!' but well, he was only just about thirteen, so saying bad words was inappropriate. Fortunately, just before he really freaked out from being alone, in a pitch-black corridor, with no idea even where he was the door on the other end of the hall hissed open. Of course, this didn't help much at first as he was facing away from the door and nearly had to change his pants at the sudden sound. When he whirled around to look going into fight or flight mode, he noticed the open doorway and a soft blue glow that had started to emanate from it. His heart racing, he slowly made his way towards the light.

As he neared the opening, he realized he was at an intersection. He could process straight, head left, or head right. The soft azure light was coming from what looked like a window in the door to the right, so naturally, he gravitated towards it. As he drew closer, a panel on the middle of the door slid to the side revealing a screen similar to the one he had interacted with before. The display read:

--Access to this area is restricted.

--Please proceed to the Main terminal to authenticate.

Still curious he looked through the window into the room to see if he could see anything. He couldn't see very far left or right, but straight ahead of him were two cylindrical metal tubes. A bit over three feet across (1 m) by ten feet (3 m) long oriented parallel to the floor lengthwise. They appeared to be attached to the wall and stacked on top of each other. The blue light coming from the room originated from what appeared to be windows in these metal tubes. From his viewing angle, he couldn't quite see what was inside of these tubes, so he gave up and decided to head along another path. He thought they reminded him of a story he had once read but couldn't quite remember the details. It probably didn't help he had way too many questions already running through his mind to process another at this moment.

He walked back to the intersection and proceeded straight or to the left path in orientation from the entrance. He figured his most likely destination was the one straight in, so he wanted to check the other ones first. This place was freaky enough without him worrying about something sneaking up on him from behind. As he got closer to the door, it merely opened without any interaction from him. Strips of light appeared on the walls and ceilings of the area he entered allowing him to discern what it contained. The room was rectangular with rows of doors on each end to the left and right of the entrance. In front of Kip appeared to be a living area, with chairs, tables, and a kitchen along the back wall. At least that is what he took it for, as it looked nothing like his kitchenette at home. It did have a sink and what seemed to be metal cabinets, but the other devices on the counter were not familiar to him at all.

Instead of trying to figure out the kitchen area he walked over to the left side of the room to check on the doors to the side. There were five doors along the wall, two sets of identical doors on each end with a slightly different entry in the middle. Unlike the external doors, there was a panel on the wall next to each of these doors that served the same function. When Kip placed his hand on what he thought was the access pad, a message appeared.

--Please register in the main terminal to be granted a room assignment.

Well, that made it pretty apparent that they were likely living quarters. Just for the heck of it, Kip tried the middle door that was slightly different. To his surprise, it slid to the side allowing him to enter. He walked inside to find a pair of sinks, what looked like stalls, and two other doors against the back wall that when he inspected found, they were a type of shower stall. There was no spout on the wall, but there were holes in the ceiling where he assumed water, or some other substance would stream down to clean off the occupant. 'Interesting.' he thought, they had shared bathrooms in their compound that were very similar to these. Did Humans build these rooms? He didn't see any faucets for the sinks either but remember how one of the doors had opened at his approach, put a hand underneath where water would normally flow. Immediately a warm stream of water flowed from the faucet rinsing off his hand.

Impressed he continued his tour. This place was amazing. 'Could I live here?' He wondered. It would be much better than staying in the compound, and if his family, they would be protected from any retaliation from those that backed Banner. Having seen most things he decided to try to find the main terminal that seemed necessary for most functions.

Heading back through the corridor, he turned left, but he once again had to authenticate using his handprint, which had been stored earlier when he had tried to access the outer door. He was a bit surprised that his sister hadn't gotten inside yet, but maybe the alternative authentication only worked once.

Rather than dormitories, or weird cylinders, there was a large spherical chamber. A metal walkway led to a catwalk supported by a means that Kip couldn't discern that extended out directly into the exact middle of the sphere. Looking both above and below him, he could not see any interruptions in the sphere except for the door that he had entered from and the walkway that had brought him here. It seemed to be made of a material similar to the doors, yet lighter in color, and more reflective. In the exact middle of the room sat a chair. On the chair sat a helmet that he had never seen the like of before. He was unsure of what it was for as only a single band of metal extended over the top. A striation of different types of metals formed the rest of the helmet most of which he could not identify, yet he thought he recognized copper, iron, gold, platinum, and silver amongst the dozens of metals. They intertwined with each other seamlessly creating what looked more like a crown than a helmet.

'Well, what is the worst that could happen?' Kip thought to himself as he sat down in the chair and placed the helmet on his head. Just as he sat, the bridge leading to his platform started to retract, and a panel slid in place covering the entranceway. Even though the chair he sat in now seemed to be supported by nothing but air, he wasn't concerned. When the chamber sealed itself, he still wasn't worried. He did become a bit concerned; however, when the walls of the sphere started to disappear leaving him the impression, he was floating through outer space. Other than his back on the chair, and the helmet on his head he could not feel any sensations.

Suddenly a soft feminine voice that originated from everywhere and nowhere sounded out. Kip honestly couldn't tell if he heard it, felt it, or the sounds were projected directly into his brain.

"Authentication successful, administrative access granted. Please state a command."

Kip not ready for this type of interaction at all was thoroughly confused "Um what?" he asked brilliantly.

"Invalid command, would you like to access a list of commands?"

"Yes please!" he replied.

A list of commands suddenly materialized in front of him.

1. Permissions

2. Housing

3. Cryogenics

4. Virtual Training

5. Facilities

6. System Logs

Kip spent quite a while going through the menu with voice commands. He successfully gave himself administrative access to all parts of the facility so that he could now come and go as he pleased. He still wasn't quite sure how he had been given access so quickly, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Because of the failed attempts for his sister to access the facility, a genetic profile had also been created for her which he was then able to use to grant her access as well. He would have to figure out later on if it was possible to allow Yogi in. He was just about to give the command to close the window with Skyla's information when something caught his eye.

When he had been given access originally, the system had designated his race as "The Ancients," yet his sister's genetic profile was that of a human. "Why would her classification be different than mine if we have the same parents? Wouldn't our genetics be nearly identical?" He wondered internally. "Maybe we just evolved differently?" He didn't give it too much thought for now, but something to remember to ponder on later.

He put those thoughts aside for now and instead continued to explore the system menu. He went to the housing section to assign access to rooms for him and his sister for now, and to his surprise found that two of the rooms were occupied. He clicked on the dormitories and found that one was assigned to a Mai Lan and the other was assigned to a Ledo Zyar in parenthesis were next to each name were a bunch of symbols and characters he couldn't read. He wasn't sure if it was their titles or possibly their actual name and he was seeing the "English" interpretation.

To be fair, the English he used wasn't the same as that of the 21st century. While English was the base root, due to some influx from Canada, the Southern US, and even a few international travelers that ended up in Fort Valley, there was a mix of French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese terms that made their way into the dialect as well, mostly curse words, slang, and idioms, but still they were present.

Language primer aside, Kip noticed that both of their races were also classified as "The Ancients" as well. The male Ledo Zyar had not accessed his room for over 1000 years, while the female Mai Lan had accessed it more recently at almost thirteen years ago now. Figuring that out had taken Kip awhile as the years made no sense to Kip at first as the current translated year according to the system was 1,523,003,012 AA… whatever that meant. The dates, well what he thought were dates, were sequences of numbers that were not translated to Earth Standard days/months. He figured out how long it had been since they accessed the room by subtracting the accessed year from the current year. Of course, he was assuming they were Earth standard in length. For all that he knew, each 'year' could have been months, decades, or centuries in duration.

If they were in fact years, does that mean whatever civilization "The Ancients" were a part of had been around for over one and a half billion years? Not only that similar to Earth had BCE or CE. They could have been about much longer. The Ancients indeed! No wonder this base looked futuristic, and it was probably a backwater shack to them. Kip couldn't help but ponder how far humanity could have advanced in that period…that is if no more calamities had ensured. Of course, homo sapiens as a species had already faced three events in the past 75,000 years that could have led to their extinction. If extrapolated, would that mean humanity would meet tens of thousands of extinction level events over a billion years?

'Whelp, guess we are doomed.' Kip thought.

With thoughts of doom and gloom running through his mind Kip looked to the next section and as he had expected found the two room owners as present in the Cryogenics section. The dates of their entrance into what the system translated to 'cryo-sleep' matched up with the last time they had accessed their rooms. He hoped they didn't wake up any time soon, yet since the system had allowed him access, could they complain? Another thing to add to the, I can't control and shouldn't waste time worrying about-list. 'That list is starting to get pretty long,' Kip thought himself.

When he perused the next section 'Virtual Training' he was greeted by the voice of the system.

"Unable to access Virtual Training, Neural Interface not installed."

A bit confused Kip asked, "How can I install a Neural Interface?"

"A Neural Interface can be installed and initialized in less than five minutes. Would you like to proceed?" The system clarified and then asked.

Unable to see the downside of the system installing whatever this 'Neural Interface' was he didn't hesitate to confirm. Of course, he was kind of wondering why one wasn't already, I mean wouldn't people have used virtual training in the past?

He got his answer shortly afterward when the chair he was sitting in started to make electronic noises and bands of metal contracted over his arms, legs, and chest making him unable to move in the slightest. The helmet he was wearing seemed to have expanded as well securing his head and neck in place.

"Um system, what is going on?" Kip asked worriedly.

"The process for installing a Neural Interface has begun, please sit still or permanent damage may occur," chimed the system.

Permanent Damage! So, the Neural Interface was getting installed into him? He hadn't seen that one coming, no wonder it hadn't been installed already. The darn system could have warned him with its generic terms. He wanted to scream and yell at the System, but he didn't want to turn into a vegetable or something. This train of thought somehow allowed him to manage to remain calm. Just barely.

It absolutely did not help when a whirring noise started up from where he guessed was near the base of his skull followed by a sharp yet brief pain in that same area. Kip's teeth were clenched tightly together and if the chair he was sitting in hadn't been some durable metal allow, he was sure he would have crushed the armrests by now from squeezing them so tightly with his hands.

Just as fast as it started, however, it was over. A cooling sensation was felt precisely where the pain had been only moments as if a subzero breeze had magically blown on this neck causing his whole body to break out in goosebumps. The pain he had felt only moments before was now gone. It was replaced by a warm tingly feeling as if he was outside during a thunderstorm just before a nearby lightning strike.

The overabundance of sensory stimuli was interrupted by the voice of the System. Only this time it wasn't auditory, but inside of his head.

"Neural Interface install successful, initialization at 10%."

This inner voice repeated this message every 10% until about five minutes later it had reached one hundred percent. Kip meanwhile had been in a bit of a daze as it seemed his brain had been sprinting at full speed the entire time. Just imagine if you were thinking of very complex problem to solve which kicked your mind into overdrive, then multiply that by a thousand and maybe then you'll come close to how his brain felt at that moment. It almost felt like a massive amount of information had been uploaded to his mind. Of course, he didn't seem to have access to any new data, so he wasn't sure what the heck had happened. He voiced this concern after the process was over, something he likely should have done earlier.

"What the heck System? Could you maybe warn me next time you are going to perform surgery on me? He asked annoyed.

"Don't be a baby, according to your sensory data it hardly hurt at all." The System replied.

Shocked by the cheekiness of the response Kip was momentarily unable to reply. What the hell? Was a snarkiness pandemic breaking out? First, his bear friend Yogi had become a smartass and now the System's AI or whatever it was showing signs as well. Was the apocalypse coming, again?

Finally mustering a response, he muttered under his breath, "I just like to be informed when you know, installations occur into my brain…"

The system had no problems hearing him; however, maybe she could read his brain. What, was he now personifying the System as a woman? Wait, could she/it read his thoughts?

"The process is entirely beneficial to the host. You will not be able to not only access the virtual training and other locked features of this facility, but you will have access to my database, maps, evolution pathways, and much, much more both inside of the facility and outside. To answer your question, yes, I can read your mind. The surface thoughts at least, that way you can use mental commands to access the System Interface without having to give verbal commands." The System responded.

"Well those sound good…" Kip responded having no idea what most of what she was talking about meant. After all, it isn't like Kip could have played any Video games in his lifetime which would have been crucial knowledge at a time like this. *Author aside. See! Mom and Dad, video games are essential! Okay 'clears throat' back to the story*

"From your 'enthusiastic' response I can tell you have no idea the benefits you were just given. Let's go through a virtual training session, and I'll try and help you understand. I apologize in advance if this is a bit rough, but well most of those of your race learn this in their infancy, so you are a bit behind." The cheeky AI responded to Kip's less than thrilled response.

Kip, really not knowing what he was getting into, could only respond with, "okay."

Who knew that with that simple response his world would be changed forever?