Chapter 16

Teachings of the future

Adam awoke with a small pounding in the back of his head, as if someone took a club to it. His vision flickered with a bleary film then disappeared as he sat up. A white, unflickering light of constant intensity emitted from the corner of the rectangular room he and Gavin occupied. The ghastly form of Gavin walked up to him and gave him a glass cup of water.

"Here, drink you'll need it." Gavin sat down on a stool next to the bed Adam sat in. The room was small and had three small windows set in the wall with a metal door. A petite table was centered in the middle of the floor, littered with some sort of weapons and other mechanical equipment.

"Where, uh… where am I?" Adam asked, setting the half empty glass down on the grainy floor which was quickly retrieved by Gavin, who stood and stacked it among other glasses. Then he returned and seated himself at the edge of the bed.

He folded his hands together and spoke, "You mean what building you're in or what city, country?"

"Um, all of the above." Said Adam, sitting up and pulling the blanket off his body.

He laughed then said, "Well, as for the building, you're at my place. The city, Orasiuex." Adam digested the information, storing it in the metaphorical safes within the confound spaces of his mind, it might prove useful later on. Then Gavin spoke back up again. "Or what's left of it."

Adam hesitated to respond. Then with cambered eyebrows he asked, in a hushed tone, "What do you mean 'or what's left of it'?"

Gavin sighed a long sorrowful sigh that Adam began to feel pity for the man. A long silence followed soon afterward whereupon Gavin stood and, facing a wall with a picture of a grand city, shimmering with all the brilliance a cluster of buildings could have, and stared at the photo with a longing expression. Adam noticed that the buildings were taller than the mountains that surrounded them, and they seemed to be made out of gold, for they shined with a golden glare not made by the sun.

"Well, it's kind of a long story."

Adam looked around the room then replied, "Looks like we have the time."

Gavin laughed then turned to look at Adam. "Then get comfortable." Adam stretched then nodded. "Okay. About twelve years ago the city of Orasiuex was grand, maybe the grandest city in the world and extremely advanced whether technological, economical, or cultural. The best city to have lived in at the time. The world was at peace, no war, famine, or disasters. And then they discovered it."

Adam shrugged then asked, "Discovered what?"

Gavin's eyes betrayed fear and sadness. "The people that worked at Ryloth Industries, they were working on some sort of radio transmitting system, but… I'm getting ahead of myself. First during the times of peace they created a powerful telescope that they used to explore distant planets from where they resided at Ryloth Industries. They ended up finding an extra solar planet, called Beta Centron, with conditions similar to our own. And… it surprisingly had another life form way more advanced than we are now or before and probably ever will be.

"But after this amazing discovery, Ryloth immediately began creating a radio transmitter called IGRT-1 which stands for 'Inter-Galactic Radio Transmitter'. So the scientists transmitted a powerful signal from the communications array at Ryloth Industries. And when they sent the signal through the Ryloth Transmitting Station and into IGRT-1 through which emitted in a large blast towards Beta Centron, well everything went downhill from then on."

Gavin remained silent for several minutes, looking towards the floor as if he feared something would jump out and grab him. And when he finally spoke up his voice was chocked and hollow. "We received a transmission from the aliens and it was in their native tongue, so we didn't understand them, and apparently they were upset with our discovering them." Then he switched back to his normal tone, "And so they conspicuously studied our planet and liked what they saw…so they came here."

Gavin shuddered as he remembered the time the foreigners arrived at Orasiuex. "They were supposedly in need of our resources, water, iron, and plants. The plants especially got their attention for their planet grew no such thing as on ours. Their gigantic starships crashed to earth, and to this day we believe that the atmosphere malfunctioned their ships on entry, but they landed in the sea and they directly started colonizing our race along the coast of the ocean. And once we realized that they were a threat, we started fighting back.

"We eventually defeated them, but they sent in reinforcements, almost their whole race, and wiped out all our cities in the world, settled in their large floating palaces, and ever since then they have been harvesting our resources. And we've been at war with them for years, fighting with all our might, using our technology and whatever survivors around the world to fight them off."

Adam thought for a while, and then said, "Is that why you crashed to the ground and why those… aliens came after you?"

Gavin nodded. "Now while you were unconscious I got a call from my lead commander. He wants me to report down to our secret bunker to help rally our forces." He paused for half a minute then continued. "I told him how you took down an alien warship and three aliens themselves. He wants you to join me, are you up to it?"

Adam thought long and hard about the decision. But did he even have a choice, he was stuck somewhere away from home, trapped in the middle of an alien and human war, and with no reasonable way home. "I'll go."

"Good. Oh and how did you do it?"

Adam arched an eyebrow, "Do what?"

"The thing with the warship and the aliens." Gavin asked, twirling his fingers in the air above his head.

Adam nearly smiled, but contained his expression. "Some might say… Magic."

Gavin nearly tipped over from laughter, his booming voice echoing off the confined walls of the room. "Magic!"

Adam rolled his eyes. People normally laughed about his statement so instead of trying to convince him he held out his hand and said, "Resdet." The water in his glass stacked on the counter along the wall in front of him swirled and bubbled, boiling with steam less vapor. Then rose out of the glass in swirling tendrils, up to Adam's palm where it spun into a ball of liquid. The water was illuminated by the lights in the room, giving it a mysterious feel as the floating orb swirled above Adam's palm.

Gavin's expression was nearly priceless. His initial smile was now replaced by unbelievable shock. In all his life he had never seen anything quite like this. Sure monstrous aliens, advance technology, and floating cities was strange, but something as small as a ball of levitating water was even stranger than those Gavin had seen before. So he was not ready for the sight he beheld.

Gavin fell to his knees in complete and utter stupor, paralyzed in fear at what Adam could do. "So…so it's true…y-you can use magic."

Adam nodded slightly as he ended the flow of magic, the orb of water shattered as if it were made of glass, the insignificant droplets splattering the bed and the floor below with dark shaded dots. Then Gavin squared his shoulders and stood straight, his primary shock disappeared and now a straight forward expression occupied his face. "Well, we should get going. The commander will be very pleased to have a magician with us."

Adam accompanied Gavin to the desk set in the room's center and strapped several of the weapons to a brown belt around his waist. Then with a quick demonstration on the basics of the machines he gave Adam a belt and had him strap the guns, as Gavin had called them, to the belt. Then they with brief nods confirming that they were ready, they exited the room and into the world that lay beyond.

Hope ya'll enjoyed these last few chapters. Futuristic armies oohh…

-7RON