The Foundation Zone: Extensions - Amber Millard (miss read books .txt) 📗

it is assigned to monitor. Once the subject is identified, two nine foot by four foot cylindrical objects break apart to attach themselves to the plates on the walls. They work together to produce imagery, active or still. When an orb is chosen for retrieval the cord is placed on the sphere, next the button marked single is pressed, and then the sphere uses some energy to call and retrieve the orb. The process is pretty automatic; no one has to lift a finger to perform any task. The cord could simply point out the subject, float to the sphere and let the sphere call the orb but if someone doesn’t specify how many orbs to retrieve, the sphere will continue working until every last one is back. Aaksaun viewed the last active image of Marie being struck by the lightning bolt; he decided to remove the cord with the orb attached to it from the sphere. As he returned to the control board he spotted a new cord floating to the sphere, he grabbed the cord to put it back in the galactic model. He returned to the board to shut down all the systems, unfortunately as Aaksaun was leaving he just brushed the multiple retrieval button which started all the systems back up. The cord floated to the sphere along with a few extra cords that were ready to be received. They settled onto the sphere and began calling in there respected orbs.

Saatswei’ell was observing Marie’s eyes. They were pretty and had gentleness to them. He called Marie with a little more force this time and she finally snapped out of the trance.

“What man, what is it?” She said a little disgruntled.

“You must stand in the center in order for the test to begin.” Saatswei’ell was in a hurry because he didn’t want the people to see the alien. Marie walked over to the center in a rather casual fashion, from what Saatswei’ell observed and it irritated him to see her not take this seriously.

“Marie, what is taking so long?” He asked flatly.

“I just noticed that I’m not as tired here as I was back on Earth. I mean I just got finished jogging, I thought I would be feeling sore.” She explained. Saatswei’ell reassured her

“No your body in this world does not obey the rules of the previous world, so you would not feel exhaustion.”

“Yeah I see or I feel it in this case.”

“Right so hurry up please to the center!”

Marie sucked her teeth “Don’t rush me, I’ll get there.”

Then Saatswei’ell threatened “Don’t make me carry you again!”

Marie rolled her eyes and picked up the pace somewhat, which made Saatswei’ell restless. Finally she made it to the center and not a moment too soon, a couple of familiar bodies approached the doorway but paused. Saatswei’ell had to assume whoever they were had noticed the sign which stated: This room is being occupied by Saatswei’ell and will be available in 2 ciov.

Yandan, who had been looking forward to this day to test himself again, was disappointed to see his slot was overridden by none other than Saatswei’ell, who is renowned for invading other people’s time to secure his own. Over the millennia he has learned, among other lessons, to be considerate of others. Even Bialai was fed up with Saatswei’ell stepping in on everyone else’s time. She decided it was time to for him to step in line, Bialai placed her hand below the sign to open communication to the control room;

“Saatswei’ell if you don’t step out of this room so help me I’ll carry you out myself!”

Saatswei’ell wasn’t about to test Bialai, but Marie had already started her first test and he didn’t want to stop now.

“If you’ll give me just half a ciov, I’ll be out in no time!”

Marie’s body began levitating; lying horizontally, then she began to spin,

“So it appears she is taking the mental test.”

Yandan was tired of waiting but hearing Saatswei’ells last comment caught his attention.

“Wait Bi, keep your hand on the spot, I want to hear this. Tell him to go ahead.”

Bialai exasperated gave Saatswei’ell the go ahead,

“Very well you have your half ciov but not a moment more!”

Saatswei’ell glanced at the door then back to Marie who began moving as if she were in a gyroscope.

“You’re doing fine Marie; just don’t think too hard about it.”

“Marie. That sounds like a strange name.” Yandan whispered.

Bialai was about to add a comment but paused when Saatswei’ell spoke up again.

“Do you suppose this is a new experiment of his?” She asked instead.

“Who knows what he is up to this time.” Yandan replied.

Chapter 6: Extension Recall/The First Ten, Then The Rest!

Meanwhile in the Chamber of Observation, the sphere is hard at work collecting the first set of orbs from the Milky Way galaxy. There were just ten to start with, soon as the shocked travelers transferred to another room, the cords moved to a container reserved for expired cords. The next set moved promptly towards the sphere. The Chamber of Light and Darkness is a good size room with a maximum capacity of about 120, if one had to fill it to the brim that is and it would be the case this time for the chamber. First three, then two, next one, then one again and then the last three finally emerged from the black pad. Each was stunned from the whole relocation process.

A soldier stepped out from amongst the group, inspecting the place. Aside from his training in the Army, he is usually a pretty cool guy to begin with but then there are times when his patience is really tested, this is one of those times. First he just stood there scrutinizing the walls, the black pad, the domes on the floor and a huge cylindrical object hanging from the ceiling.

“What the hell!”

It was a strange looking object; there were oversized inscriptions on the sides. Staff Sargent Jordan Capers was already stunned with disbelief from the trip but rematerializing in the chamber confirmed it all. He was abducted! Back in the group a teenager, Aaron Cohen, began exploring his new surrounding; it’s what he did best, wondering around looking at things, getting his hand on new electronic articles. Aaron wondered into the adjacent room, head cocked a little to the left. He was confused,

“Ottomans?”

They were seats varying in size and height, but with the same cylindrical shape. Other than that the control room was vacant. There was a small commotion near the black pad that caught his attention; suddenly he noticed the Staff Sargent eyeballing the group and then himself. Aaron shrugged his shoulders and walks towards the wall. The soldier, who is now annoyed by the nonchalant attitude of the young man, walks over to calm the crowd and see what is causing a lady, in her late teens, to scream bloody murder.

“Ma’am what’s wrong?!”

The young lady looked up hysterical and complaining about being on the phone with a guy she could care less about. While Jordan attempts calming her down, Aaron leans against the wall of the control room and suddenly the force field activates. There was a soft hue of orange separating Aaron from the rest of the group. He jumped in shock but his hand lightly brushed the symbol that represented the huge cylindrical object. The group didn’t really pay attention to what was going on around them until the young lady looked up panicking,

“Oh God, what is that?!”

Everyone stood either stunned or ready to cause a commotion when the huge cylindrical object detached from the ceiling and slowly lowered itself to hover down to where the plates on the walls were located. Next it split itself in two halves, looking like a couple of gigantic hockey pucks, maneuvered to align themselves to the plates then attached without making so much as a sound. The interior of the each of the “Pucks” differed in color; the puck closest to the group had a colorful bowl-like interior while the puck opposite had a pitted silver dome-like interior. The lights in the room dimmed until it was black and the young lady gave a very vocal sound of panic. Jordan worked on getting her undivided attention when he noticed the force field and Aaron on the other side. Aaron tried to defend himself,

“Sorry but all I did was lean against the…” he looked toward the general direction and discovered a big orange oval with foreign hieroglyphs occupying mainly the center.

“Can you shut this down?” Jordan inquired.

“I didn’t do anything?”

A couple of people walked over to lend a hand any way they could. While they were busy looking at the control panel through the field, Jordan and the others helped Sarah, the young lady who seemed to be easily terrified to her feet, bringing her to where the others stood. The room was still dark, even though the force field casts some level of illumination, the people had to feel their way in the dark and making sure they didn’t trip. On the other side Aaron was staring at the control panel confused by all the new symbols; it seemed like he hit the jack pot for puzzles, only this had the power to alert the Takzens of their location, heal and kill. Some advised to just

“Press the top white button,” others protested suggesting not touching “A thing!”

The top white button looked awfully tempting but there was a symbol below that which flashed slowly; there two vertical bars with an oval in the middle. Out of impulse he pressed it, almost instantly a beam appeared. A face faded into view; where Aaron stood, a full body image appeared beside the control panel. The very life-like image of a man that looked down upon the frightened group and the stunned young man who summoned him, he seem a little agitated.

“I am Laand’ell, who are you?” The human-like alien demanded.

Aaron weakly gave his response, “Um, my name is Aaron.”

Jordan was a little shocked to see an alien, but he had to keep in mind that they were all abducted. He had to get the aliens attention in order to control the situation,

“Sir, excuse me.”

The shield had already dropped when Aaron touched the communication symbol and now there were two images: one well developed hologram nearby Aaron while the other was a face created by the beam from the two cylindrical bejeweled pucks. While the hologram remained facing Aaron, the group turned, startled by the big face.

“Ah, I see there are more uninvited guests. Pardon, I didn’t notice anyone was there. Allow me to introduce myself; I am Laand’ell.” Laand’ell had a straight face, not a crease from what Jordan could see and that made it hard to read emotions.

“Before you ask anything I have one question for the one by the control board; how did you know to activate the control panel because typically it’s locked out from unauthorized personnel?”

Jordan had to think fast

“Excuse me Mr. Landing but I think the better question is ‘Why did you bring us here?’”

Laand’ell looked at him then back to Aaron, this was starting to really graze his nerves. This time he tried with a little more authority

“Mr. Landing, why did you bring us here?”

“I didn’t bring you here, you appeared here.”