Volume V – The Rise of SPD
Chapter 31—Intro to Cybernetics 201, Part I: Schooled
Matt
I touched the holographic end button displaying from my cell phone and shoved it in my pocket. Then I smiled at the guard at the desk of my dorm building, slid my ID card, and entered the living hallways. I was praying my frat boy roommate wasn't home, because if I heard his classic jock jams one more time, I was pretty sure I'd Ranger up and chop his balls off with my Kappa Staff.
Seriously.
I pressed my ID against the scanner and the faux-wood door slid to the side to reveal my cold gray room. The roomie was definitely present, but he seemed entranced in some online shooter game while he chugged Dr. Pepper like he was taking shots of Vodka at a house party.
I nodded to him, tossed my backpack to the foot of my bed and slid my hand across the air, commanding my my holo-computer to pop up, and then began to bring up my classic after-class routine: email, school email, school grades (what the hell? Forty-out-of-fifty on the vocab? I even studied for that shit!), Facebook (hey look, "Patrick Adams 'hates the CTA. Honestly, how hard is it to coordinate a hoverbus to be on time?'" Hah, like), and then I refreshed.
"Message from," bleeped my computer in my personal ear buds with an accompanying picture of Grace on my screen, "Grace Eden."
"Hey," I said, clearing my throat and activating my vocal muter to keep my roommate from hearing my conversation. "What's up?"
"Dude, can you talk?"
"Like, 'talk,' or like, talk 'talk'?" I asked, eyeing my roommate cautiously.
"Like 'I just fought off Sanders and a horde of henchmen' talk," Grace responded, looking around her dorm room as well.
"Why didn't anyone contact me?"
"Aaron said you had class."
"Yeah, I did, but I can dip out 20 minutes early from econ to teleport a couple hundred miles away to kick some evil ranger ass," I argued, opening a bag of chips.
"I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, the reason I was calling is because the Mecha Squad is seriously losing steam; our new Digital Orymeka form owns every time. Mesomorph can't come up with a way to defend against it, and he wouldn't dare try to break through our Cyber Network—it's way too strong now."
"When's the last time Doc checked on that, by the way?" I asked between potato chips.
"Dunno, every time he calls, I'm doing homework, hanging out, or sleeping," my blond best friend replied with a shrug.
"Don't you think we should have him check that? I feel like we haven't digitized in forever. Mesomorph's bound to notice, don't you think?"
"Mesomorph's backed into a corner," she said cockily, "I wouldn't be surprised if we finished this off by spring break."
I frowned, but she pressed on with news of school.
As much as I cared, I was somewhat worried. I wasn't the smartest guy on our team when it came to languages, culture, and all that stuff; but technology was my strong suit, and we'd been neglecting ours. Call me old fashioned, but I was never a fan of "magic" and "mysticism." Don't get me wrong; controlling wind was awesome and all…but we were being impractical. We were fighting a lunatic hell-bent on using technology to destroy technology, while we tried to use nature to dominate machinery.
I loved my technology; it was concrete, and if something went wrong, I knew how to fix it. With nature, I'd learned there were so many variables—like our battle with the Mecha Squad. Every time we'd fought them before, we were nearly defeated or able to tie. Then, suddenly, this magical digital mode comes along. I know Doc Ol was always preaching about combining magic or nature and technology, but I just didn't see it as possible. Something was bound to happen.
—31—
"This is Kappa Blue requesting backup," I yelled into my commlink as I batted several laser beams away with my Kappa Staff.
"No can do, Kappa Blue," Doc Ol responded through my earpiece. "Psi Black and Alpha Red are the only ones within range, or even in the same time zone. Once I've got the system back up, I can engage the Digital Orymeka process, but the elemental reactor can't process all this spastic energy at once."
"Well where the hell is Prince Charming Delta?" I roared.
"Eltarian Council met today to pass a law to restore a portion of the timeline and Delta needed to be present."
I grunted as I backhanded a Gigadroid and took cover behind an overturned car. "Just get me something!"
"I don't understand why Mesomorph is attacking randomly," Doc Ol was saying from his Basement laboratory.
I could practically envision him using his tactile holo computer he'd recently installed to upgrade for the scattering of the ranger team across the nation. I had to admit, it had its benefits, like using government technology to utilize their satellites and the like. Only trouble was that we needed to use code names, because broadcasting our actual identities would give us away on government lines.
"Zeta said he got jumped by a group of Gigadroids last week on his way home from a party," I said over the barrage of laser fire. "You think old Mes' is trying to wear us down?"
"It's a possibility."
I thought quietly to myself before I sprang up from behind the car and slammed into the first wave of Gigadroids with a wall of pressurized air. Their metallic bodies whined as they imploded and I turned the force into blades of wind that slashed the second wave.
"Need some assistance?"
I spun around to see the Black and Red Rangers, Grace and Beth, bounding off the low rooftops of surrounding buildings and pelting beams from their Gauntlet Guards at the remaining attackers.
"I had it under control, actually," I said sarcastically as they landed near me.
"Yeah, that's what it looked like," Grace replied with a hint of a smile present in her voice.
"Get on your toes!" Doc Ol suddenly ordered. "I'm picking up 7 ranger signatures headed your way, originating from Reefside. Looks like the Mecha Squad's on the way."
"Can you reach Zeta, Sigma, or Upsilon?" Beth asked.
"Already contacted them. Zeta's taking a final, but Sigma Pink and Upsilon Yellow are teleporting now."
Two flashes, pink and yellow, appeared just after Doc Ol's last transmission, leaving Amy and Jay standing on the deserted street. Morphed, of course.
"Long time no see," Amy joked, nodding her helmeted head toward us.
"Likewise; how's school?"
"Focus!" Beth snapped. "The network is still restarting and our Orymeka links are temporarily down. Plus, we're missing Delta. We need to be focused."
"Agreed," Grace chimed in.
With that, Jay, Amy, and I moved into battle positions.
Then the Mecha Squad was there. No flash of teleportation. No over-the-top entrances. They were just there.
"Mecha Squad, Mobilize!" Gabriel barked as he shot off toward us.
He lunged for me, but a spark of green energy threw him off balance as Patrick appeared right in front of me in his full ranger suit.
"Hey! What's up, dude?" Patrick greeted me as he took off toward Gabriel and the Green Zayin Ranger.
I flipped into the air and landed a kick to Kevin Gerringer, the Red Lunarus Ranger, and knocked him away from Amy. "Oh, you know," I said back to Patrick, "just school, and more school, and then some ranger stuff on the side; the usual."
He laughed as he flipped Solaris into Technos, then thrust a blast into their recovering bodies.
"Digital Orymeka online!" Doc Ol reported quickly.
"Ready, guys?" Patrick said, spinning around and regrouping with us flawlessly.
"Ready!"
"DIGITAL ORYMEKA—ENGAGE!"
As the surplus of energy flowed into us, I noticed something weird about the Mecha Squad. They weren't flinching. Like, at all. If anything, it looked like they were expectant. And then I saw why.
Gabriel was holding a Transdimensional Rerouter that had a converter of sorts wired into it. At least, that's what Doc Ol said.
"What's he done with the runoff energy?" Grace demanded.
"He's using it to open a rift…" Doc said quietly. I could tell he was trying to find out more, and knew it wasn't good news when he gasped. "He's teleporting something from the planet Zordia…"
"You mean…?" Jay barely whispered.
"RISE, DIGIMECH ZORDIANS!" Gabriel bellowed over the thunderous sound of the rift.
As if it wasn't weird at first, the tears in the very fabric of space that unleashed these ancient beasts were ridiculously powerful. I could feel the static of raw energy whipping through the air like gusts of wind. But this energy was dark. Foreign. And powerful. It gave me the chills.
"DigiMech—Mem Aquos Liger!" called Sanders, his vicious mechanized beast rippling from the rift, water dripping off its metallic body. As Sanders had said, the zord was modeled after a liger—or lion-tiger-hybrid—with large haunches and sharp claws and big teeth. But that wasn't what scared me. What scared me was that although it was much smaller than any zord I'd seen, it seemed to have some sort of intimidation factor about it. Like it was smarter, stronger, faster, and better than any zord I'd seen. Like it was alive.
"DigiMech—Dalet Naturos Harpy!" About twenty feet above the Liger exploded a female creature with giant leaf-like wings attached to gnarly talons. It flapped them several times before letting out an ethereal screech and letting a rain of thorns explode behind it. The Pink Mecha Squad Ranger jumped on to her beast and prepared to board it.
"DigiMech—Vav Tundrus Centaur!" Next, another mythological creature galloped through the void to heed the Blue Ranger's call. It slid to a stop and bucked, ice cracking under its hooves and frosty vapor surrounding it as if was absorbing heat to create a field of icebergs.
The female Yellow Ranger posed and shouted into the air, "DigiMech—Heyh Spiritos Hippogriff!" And, like magic, another great galloping beast strode onto the scene. On its back were huge, iridescent wings that resembled an eagle's, and a large, intimidating aura surrounded it as it looked around.
Kevin was the next to summon his zord from the rift—a mighty red dragon-like creature that he called the "DigiMech—Yod Lunarus Hydra!" The beast circled around itself like a snake with an enormous wingspan, and then thrust forward in a majestic burst of reflected light. I didn't notice it at first, but his zord had 5 heads. Five heads.
"DigiMech—Aleph Solaris Cerebrus!" cried Gabriel, raising his hand to the celestial rift in a commanding fashion. The three-headed being burst forth on all fours, growling savagely as photonic blazes of light ignited from its body.
Shortly after him, the "DigiMech—Zayin Technos Rex!" as called by the Green Ranger, stormed out of the void looking as if it had been replaced by a walking gun. If there was any structure on it not intended to kill, it was hidden under the ones meant to blow you away.
"We're fucked…aren't we?" Jay muttered.
"Where the hell did they learn to do that?" Grace gaped.
"We'll ask them later; let's show them where we learned to call our zords," Beth said. "Cyber Zords, Online!"
From their hidden hangar, the Cyber Zords paraded into battle in their brilliantly polished armor.
"Let's see if they got any better with using their zords," Amy bantered. "Cyber Dove going into attack formation."
"Try your disruptor cannons on it, Ames," Patrick said as the Cyber Dragonzord moved into flight mode alongside me.
I watched from the cockpit of my Cyber Osprey as Amy's cannons rippled harmlessly against the shield surrounding her target—the DigiMech Harpy.
"Not good," I commented.
"Form the Cyber Squad Megazord," Beth commanded, initiating the sequence. In a matter of moments, we were all connected in one giant cockpit.
"Shall we show them how we do Megazords, now?" Gabriel asked his comrades.
"Let's," responded the Pink Ranger bitterly.
"DIGIMECH, TRANSFORM!"
The beasts all began to shine with the luster of transformation as arms and legs of beasts retracted, folded, bent, extended, and reformatted as they became humanoid robots. Weapons began to whir from the new, robot bodies that stood bold, technological, and completely and totally advanced.
"That technology is way beyond Mesomorph," Doc Ol said, confusion obvious in his voice.
"Bring weapons systems to full. Take out the smallest ones first."
I looked at Beth like she was insane. "You can't honestly expect to fight them."
"Yes," she said, "I can. If we don't, people will die."
"We'll die if we do!" I argued.
"We'll be fine!"
"Look at their power readings!" I shouted. "Gabriel's Zord alone has a power output almost equal to the maximum power output of the entire Cyber Squad Megazord; without Aaron here to activate the Tetra-Cyber Megazord, we can't even hope to compete with them."
I could tell she was thinking over my point. But the Mecha Squad never gave her a chance to decide.
It seemed like our entire control panel lit up at once. I could hardly see the view screen from the smoke that filled the cockpit, but the bits I could see were covered in various flashes of zord metal scraping against our outer armor. They were on an all-out blitzkrieg, hell-bent on destroying our Megazord and us.
"External sensors failing!"
"Our Micropressure's in the red!"
"Polymorphic Core at 33% and dropping; we'll lose all primary systems in less than 30 seconds!" Grace shouted over the voices coming from Jay and Amy.
"Rangers, you've got to abandon the Cyber Squad Megazord!" Doc Ol said through our commlink.
"We can't leave the zords!" Grace shot back.
"We've got to, Grace, we'll never survive otherwise."
She looked at me, her eyes seeming to burn right through the white glass visor between my eyes and hers. In that moment, I could feel her sadness. Our zords had become a part of us. And now we were losing them.
It seemed that, in that moment, we all realized the same thing.
"I'VE GOT AUXILIARY POWER!" Beth screamed over the commotion of our Megazord's destruction. "Shields!"
The unmistakable hum of our primary shielding—a Radiated Dissolution Field—filled my eardrums as I quickly retook my station.
Hope. We had hope.
"Elesfite Ablative Plating re-energizing," I said rapidly.
"I've got Energic Wing Blades online," Amy called out less than seconds after me.
"Fire Polymorphic Phasers!" continued Jay as he struck down the approaching fighter mode DigiMech Centaur.
"Just got the scan back, you guys," Doc Ol said, "they're powering their zords with the runoff energy of the Super Stones; their readout, combined, is more than the Tetra-Cyber Megazord and the Cyber Chimera Megazord combined."
We were all dead silent.
"Teleport back. Now."
—31—
I coughed as I pushed past a dozen loose wirings and fried circuitry. I didn't want to look too closely; I'd probably find the eye of my Osprey Zord or something.
"Matt!" Grace called to me, jogging over in her singed clothing.
"What happened?"
"They hit us with some sort of combined energy beam that reacted with the Polymorphic Core of the Cyber Squad Megazord; it completely self-destructed and destroyed itself."
"Any word from your dad?"
"None so far," Beth said as she pushed out of the wreckage.
"Maybe Patrick escaped?" I hoped.
"The Dragonzord made it, but its core is dead. All that's left is the zord itself."
I looked up to see Patrick squatting on a 20-foot block of steel; it appeared to be a claw of sorts.
"Well can't you just get another power cell?" I asked, squinting up at him.
"The Cyber Dragonzord runs off a Cycloionic Compound Reactor," he said, then jumped down precariously, wincing slightly at the landing. "The amount of energy generated is caused by trapping antimatter particles with anions to create a self-containing sphere that channels the reaction of matter versus antimatter into energy. Then, it gyrates the energy, tripling its force, and sends it as an electric current that could destroy worlds. There's no way in hell I could find another one."
"Well you seem to know how to make one just fine," I said, half-glaring at his over-informed answer.
"Do you know if Wal-Mart's got a good sale on Antimatter?" he shot back, irritated. "Maybe we could pop into Home Depot and buy some Elesfite, too!"
"Patrick's got a point," Grace said. "We're not going to be able to repair the zords; not from here. We should get to Reefside."
"How? The Cyber Network must be down after channeling so much energy into the Zords; I haven't been able to get a single blip on this thing," Beth complained.
"If the Cyber Network's down, we've got a problem," I said. "That thing controls every aspect of our Rangerhood. Without it—"
"You can't morph," Gabriel taunted, coming around the corner.
We were all immediately on guard.
"I could vaporize you all in an instant," he pressed on.
"Too late!"
Out of nowhere, Aaron's foot connected with the side of Gabriel's helmet and knocked him into loose debris.
"Aaron!" was the unanimous call of all my teammates as we trotted toward him.
"Where the hell did you come from? Doc said you were on Eltarian business," I told him.
"Dyn and I heard about the explosive spike in the Morphin Grid, and when you use a transdimensional rift to summon zords…" Aaron paused and glared at Gabriel, who had recovered by now, "Well…you kinda attract some attention."
"One moreRranger to destroy—one less nuisance!"
"I wouldn't lift a finger, if I were you."
Gabriel's head snapped to the left, and we could all feel him instantly freeze as Hunter stepped from behind more debris.
"You!" the White Ranger, Gabriel spat.
"That's right, you remember me," Hunter said gloatingly. "Don't you?"
"You destroyed us!" Gabriel nearly screeched, his voice psychotic. "You raped us of our glorious reign!"
"Save it," Hunter barked. "I'm bringing you down just like I did to Cronus."
"We should get out of here," Aaron instructed. "It's not safe around him when he goes Dyr Orion; it kind of destroys everything around it."
"Point taken," Patrick said as we turned and fled.
"Dyn's ship is flying back around to pick us up; it'll get us to Doc Ol's to reconvene, then we're leaving."
"Leaving?" I asked Aaron. "Dude, I know this sounds lame, but I've got night class in like, 3 hours, and I haven't studied."
As much as I knew the others felt it was ridiculous, they all shared looks of understanding. We had all said this at one point or another. College had literally taken us to our limits. We were hardly sleeping anymore—staying up until 3 or 4 am to finish papers, doing homework at every waking second, and hardly staying awake during lectures. While all of our friends were out partying and having the time of their lives, we were trying to save their lives. It was rare that we enjoyed the same luxuries of other students.
The war and reality had taken their toll.
"Dyn has jumped through a shit ton of hoops to do this for us, man…it's for the safety of the Earth…and your professors will thank you when we can reveal our identities."
"Yeah…like that's ever gonna happen," Jay said in passing.
Moments later, a triangular ship hovered above us and pulled us up in a teleportation beam.
I blinked and took in the surroundings. The ship was large and spacious, definitely the stuff of royalty. Still, it seemed to have the most advanced weapons systems I'd ever seen, and some pretty comfy piloting chairs from what I could see.
"Hey, you guys made it!"
We turned around, our eyes falling on an older male with dark brown hair and slightly lighter eyes. His suit was all black, silver trims visible on his legs and arms, and in a few places on his chest. In the center of his chest was a sort of seal. I'm pretty sure I recognized it as the Crest of the Royal Family of Eltar.
"Everyone, this is my dad, Dustin," Aaron said, somewhat nervously. "Dad, this is everyone."
"Hey everyone," Dustin grinned as he took his seat at the helm. "You might wanna strap in—I've gotta take us up into the upper atmosphere to keep us out of range of the other Mecha Squad Rangers."
We silently complied. I watched with somewhat jealous eyes as Aaron practically clung to Patrick, Amy flocked to Jay, and Beth and Grace talked quietly between each other. I felt like a seventh wheel.
—31—
From The Basement, we watched as Hunter, king of the Eltarians, owned every single Mecha Ranger. Singlehandedly. Like it wasn't even a workout.
"Why didn't we just do this from the beginning?" Jay exclaimed, wrapping Amy's knee in gauze.
"Because the Orion forms aren't meant to be used this frequently," Aaron said evenly. "My Dyn has used it at least a dozen times in his life—it's only meant to be used about 5."
"And the average Eltarian lifespan is about 20,000 years," Patrick added.
"Whoa," Jay mumbled.
"We've got to get him out of there soon," Dustin said as he chewed his fingernails. "The Dyr Orion speeds up his heart rates."
"Rates? With an 's'?" I asked.
"Eltarians have 5 hearts with six chambers each," Aaron said quickly. "A heart dies when its chambers are emptied, and using the Dyr Orion empties the chambers at an accelerated rate. Every 4000 years, one heart dies." He paused, glancing at his dad. "The problem is that he's probably going to cut a chunk out of his lifespan."
"I'm trying to get the teleporter back online," Doc Ol said, "but the Cyber Network is completely and totally gutted. I have no idea how to even begin getting it back online."
"We'll need Nike and Andrea," Dustin said assuredly. "They can do a bunch of," Dustin swatted his hand toward the computer screens, "stuff. Right now, I'm heading back out to get Hunter before the Mecha Squad destroys him."
"I'm coming with you," said Aaron.
"Me too," Patrick chimed in. "Hunter's as much family to me as anyone in here."
"Let me come," I said finally. "In case you guys need a pilot."
Patrick smiled at me, patted my shoulder, and turned toward the staircase.
"Keep me updated on your progress, Tommy!" Dustin shouted as he headed up the stairs.
—31—
"You did what?" Dustin repeated.
"I got them a meeting with the Divine Data—agh!—Divine Data Beasts," Hunter said as he grimaced in pain from the bruises and gashes.
"Dyn, why? You coulda been killed," Aaron protested.
"What the hell is everyone talking about?" Jay whispered to me.
"No clue. Eltarian stuff confuses the hell out of me. Too mystical."
The athletic Yellow Ranger chuckled as he leaned back in his seat. "Dude, agreed."
We were well on our way to some foreign planet now, with the Mecha Squad no doubt rampaging about on Earth. What I couldn't understand was where the hell the Mecha Squad got such firepower and knowledge. There was no way in hell they could develop technology capable of withstanding the power contained within the Super Stones—even the residual runoff energy! And the converter? That technology was definitely not their own.
"Hunter, the Divine Data Beasts will destroy them on sight," Dustin was saying when I tuned back into the conversation. "The Rangers aren't going to be able to recognize them as actual living beings."
"They've got no choice," Hunter said as he grunted in response to his wounds being cleaned.
"What are the Divine Data Beasts?" Grace asked.
"And why would they destroy us?" followed Amy.
"You'll know soon enough; we're approaching Planet Zordia now," Hunter said solemnly.
I observed the view screen to catch a glimpse of the stormy atmosphere of the planet below. Despite the ominous clouds and fog that surrounded the planet, I was hoping we'd find something strong enough to keep us in the game and end the war, because I didn't know how much longer we'd last at this rate.