47 The Gate Mystery

Braxton had a new edge now. He had invisibility on his side. The gate in the Hanger was older than his own. He didn't know where it might go. He imagined he might be able to enter it and check out the place undetected. It might even be able to solve some questions.

Braxton jumped into the portal from his base camp. He went home. He had yet to test out his light armor for invisibility. He had been wearing the new heavy armor suit. He was unable to turn the light armor invisible either. The light weight basic suit for new players was just an environmental suit. Braxton had researched those when they opened the blood furnace to the public.

He decided to order an environmental suit. It was only 20k. Last he knew, he had hundreds of millions. It would only be a few hours before it arrived. He spent the day with his son. It was nice having him close. That was something he had not given any thought to really. Vixen just told him it was going to happen like she did most things. Vixen was not showing yet but, she was enjoying being around the baby too.

The environmental suit showed up in the evening. It sunk into his flesh like all the others. By now his was used to it. The cheap suit had no skills linked to it. It was able to activate his combat dodge, stealth and vision armor skills. It was super lightweight too. This suit was thin enough to make invisible.

Vixen walked in after he turned visible again. She saw him wearing the lightweight suit and immediately asked "What the fuck are you wearing that piece of shit for?"

"I'm testing my magical invisibility skill. This junk armor is thin enough I can use it with my skill. It has uses. I've got a couple armor skills too so maybe heavy armor isn't as important to me. It isn't like I spend much time in melee battles." Braxton replied.

"I'm pretty happy letting to run around alone in the heavy armor. I can promise the same thing if you're going to use that shit." Vixen replied angrily.

"I'm just testing things. Magical abilities aren't something Alpha seems able to sort out. You may have acquired some without even knowing it." Braxton inform her.

"What makes you think that?" Vixen asked.

"Don't worry about it. If I figure it out maybe I can explain it better. Play around with it. Maybe you will find something fun to play with. If you unlock a poison death fart, keep that shit to yourself." Braxton jested.

Braxton jumped into the gate to avoid a hit from Vixen after that comment. He went to the hanger. If something went wrong into the ancient gate, at least she would remember something funny as his last words. He activated the invisibility and completely vanished as he walked across to the old gate.

Braxton had imagined it would lead to some old underground bunker on Earth. Probably long abandoned. That was the only real thought he had on the topic. When he stepped on the pad a message flashed across his UI. Reestablishing connection with host. Please wait.

After five minutes the pad seemed to glow brighter. There were two locations he could pick between. That was unexpected. "Alpha did you acquire any data on these locations when we absorbed information a few months ago?" Braxton inquired

"Negative." Alpha replied quickly.

Braxton backed out of the gate. He went back into the office. He had opened all he folders but, he hadn't removed drawers or really looked for any hidden spaces. There could be something hidden in a safe or really any number of other places. He looked behind a lot of cabinets. And pulled out drawers. He did find a few more documents. He also found a combination for a safe. He didn't find the safe.

The documents were scanned. It took another day for Alpha to sort it all out. None of the data had anything to do with armor or weapons. It was coded too. It was not breakable without a keyword. He guessed that his grandfather would have had access to the safe and it would be in another portal. He memorized the combination and forbid Alpha to download that data.

"Well I guess I've got a fifty-fifty chance of finding what I need to." Braxton mused.

He returned to the gate. There was one choice on he left and another on the right. He picked the one on the right. He felt himself become weightless. He was floating for about half a second. Magnets activated on his feet.

The area looked like a destroyed spaceship. There were three more teleportation pads that looked functional. They were older looking ones too. He quickly acquired them all. There was a countdown on his UI for his air supply. It wasn't short. He had thirty two hours of oxygen. He was not in a large ship section. It was a hallway about twenty feet long the ends opened into space. One body floated inside of it and there was a weapon drifting around also.

Braxton gathered the weapon first. Then he walked over and acquired the body. Alpha spoke up "Classified Species corpse located. Report collating. Identifying location. Location locked. Acquiring Satellite for transmitting data."

"Hold last action. Delay sending data." Braxton hurried to stop that relay.

"Admin code required to delay." Alpha responded, the data was still trying to send but, it looked like it was having issues connecting to a satellite.

"Braxton B. Blackhawk code name Ghoul. Data corrupted, requires quarantine in this battle suit. Data must be evaluated prior to release." Braxton ordered as he made his way back to the gate.

The computer systems seemed to war with each other inside his suit. X system was trying to overpower Alpha system. Braxton had full control over X system but he didn't have admin powers over Alpha. Braxton didn't know how this was going to end. He rushed to the gate and made it before the two systems worked through their battle.

X system had the home field advantage once they got inside the hanger. "Data quarantined to battle suit. Alpha system suspended and enslaved. Rogue nanites detected and converted. For ease of user comfort continue to refer to system as Alpha. X system is a more aggressive wartime system. Rogue nanites have been turned into cannibals and will eat data from attackers. Then convert them into more cannibals."

"That's sick X. Can you sort out the classified information on the species?" Braxton inquired.

"Negative, Alpha system destroyed the classified information during the battle. We might be able to recover some from rogue nanites in the future but it is unlikely." X system responded.

"More questions without answers." Braxton said to himself.

He walked into the lab. "X dump the data into this system on this species. Is there a space I can quarantine this body?"

"There is a medical suite. You can put the body inside." X system replied.

"Green arrow me there." Braxton commanded.

The green arrow appeared and guided him the the medical suite. It was old but worked well enough. It was automated and removed the suit the creature was wearing. Then it was purified. The suit had nanite like processing chips. X system interfaced with them and started communicating. "Armor upgrades available. Materials insufficient to complete upgrades." X system stated.

"What are we missing? What will this upgrade do?" Braxton inquired.

"Large scale energy weapons upgrades. Materials unknown. Data is in the system but the elements are unknown and do not line up with human knowledge." X system illuminated.

"Can the suit it's wearing be broken down?" Braxton asked.

"The suits nanite like entities would perceive that as an attack. They are far superior to my own nanites. I'm working on upgrading my own using them as a template. I cannot say how long it will take before it would be safe to attempt that action. You could use he armor but it is useless against physical attacks." X system replied.

"Okay, I'm going to check the other portal." Braxton said.

The gate popped up with the two choices. He chose the left. He appeared in a cavern. It wasn't what he expected it to be at all. He walked around inside the cavern. There was nothing he could see. The floor was stone. He couldn't sink into stone underground. He could walk through it. He could sense opening nearby if he touched the stone. He placed his hand on the wall and walked around. He found a room or opening ninety feet away.

It took him three hours to travel through the stone. It was another small space but it had a safe. Braxton worked the dial and the safe clicked open. He pulled out the documents inside. On the top was a family tree. His great grandfather was the next to last person on the tree. His grandfather was the first to move to Earth. Prior to that his people were from another world. The symbols were unreadable and it was impossible to know the name of the planet from the tree.

He move through the stack of papers and found a translation guide. With the information on that page he was able to decipher the planet's name. It was called Flozar.

There were many other other documents in the stack. He forbid X system from reading this information. This was personal and somewhat troubling. He was not sure what a lot of the data meant yet. He put it all back for now. He had learned enough. It would take time for him to translate these documents. To protect the information he had to do it himself. The data would need to be hidden so it couldn't be stolen by rogue nanites.

Braxton was sure there would most likely be another portal somewhere nearby. Someplace that would lead to a underground bunker. Some place that would be fitting with the timeline of his great grandfather's world. On this end it would likely be a small room with no exit. If someone gated into it they would find a dead end. On this trip he didn't care.

He returned to the hanger and then home. He rested for a few days. He wanted to ponder all the different things he had discovered on this trip.