Chapter 18 – Synchronicity

            The next thing Alos knew, a boiling sensation of fluidity rushed throughout the entirety of his body. His eyes shot open, and as he jerked upright, Bert’s giant Simanian hand pressed down on his chest holding him down. Bert’s display was folded out, graphical displays fluttering across, the first acting as a lens refocusing on several different points of Alos, while the other displayed Alos’ vitals, the amount of oxygen in his blood showing as a graphic at the bottom.

            “You have just been administered epinephrine; you may feel an increase in your metabolism.” Bert said, relaxing his hand.

            Alos slanted his brow in skepticism. Then, waiting for his answer from the doctor, his heart jolted forward,

            “Increased metabolism!? Do you feel my heart beating? It feels like thrusters are about to fire out my chest for lift off.” Alos glanced down at his hands only to find them shaking near convulsively, and then glanced down at his chest, seeing his sweater fidget with every blood squirting contraction of his heart.

            Wait…hands?

            Alos shot his attention back up to his hands, finding two fully formed hands before him. His right hand and wrist appeared completely unharmed, not only unharmed, they looked identical to how they did before his little mishap. He brought his new right hand up to his face for a closer inspection. Its pale white skin stretched up into his forearm seamlessly, small freckles and hairs occupying space just as they had before. Alos sat in disbelief.

            “Yacapo applied your own skin cells to the hand. It is your own real skin.” Bert was smiling, something Alos had only barely caught a glimpse of once before.

            “This is the robot hand?” Alos asked, bending his fingers with skepticism.

            “Indeed, that is the hand you were given. It will take some practice before you learn to control the more prominent features.”

            Alos sat glaring at his hand unconvinced. If it was truly the hand like Bert said, why couldn’t he see where it attached? Why didn’t it look like Dardaños’ giant metallic robot arm? Then, catching Alos by surprise, his right hand disconnected, falling into his lap, a dull metallic cord extending from his hollow wrist down to the inwardly mechanical hand. He jumped back faster than a school girl with a spider on her foot, catching the side rail of the gurney with his ribs, and fumbling over the edge and onto the ground.

            Bert erupted with laughter, letting out deep, diaphragm projected grunts. Alos sat up, shaking his head at Bert, and then instinctively went to clutch his bruised ribs with his right hand. As he reached for it, the mechanical hand which still laid on the gurney, retracted, zipping back into its original, seamlessly attached state.

            This piqued his curiosity. The control over his hand that he had just demonstrated was completely accidental, but regardless it was still functional. In fact, Alos was beginning to see that it was similar to controlling his BOT in the Omninet. If he imagined 0rnj’s arm extending out, it extended out since it was programmed with that functionality. With a newfound interest, he went to test this hypothesis.

            Alos sat on the floor, focusing on his right hand. He narrowed his attention more and more, until Bert’s laughter was drowned out and the peripheral light in the room blurred. Suddenly, his hand disconnected and slowly began repelling down in front of him. Midair, Alos paused the repelling of the hand, making it retract slightly, then satisfied with his level of control, allowed it once again to repel to the floor. Alos could feel the floor under his spread out fingers. He could feel the cold bite of the tile below the skin on each finger and he could feel the weight of his fingers pressing into it. Smiling, Alos curled his hand up, propping it up onto the tips of his fingers, and began to make it walk around like a five legged spider.

            Then, instinctively, Bert jumped back and away from the hand, his eyes widening and his face pulling down into a frightened frown. Alos laughed out at Bert’s reaction, a sense of revenge striking within him. When he realized what it was, Bert relaxed, smiling and shaking his head back at Alos.

            “By the way, Alos why did you not mention that you had nerve implants?” Bert asked.

            “It just never came up I guess.” Alos shrugged. “I kind of forget about it unless something reminds me. Was it a problem?”

            “Quite the contrary, it made things much easier. I just do not understand why you would have them.”

            “I got them as a gift one year for my birthday. It helps me program the functionality of my BOT, and because they’re so cutting edge, it’s seen as high class or status or some BS to have them.” Alos sat, looking at his new hand. “Does this hook up to them?”

            “Yes it should function identical to how it did beforehand.”

            The door to the room flew open, and Xri popped his head inside, his overbearing bamboo hat nearly taking the entire doorway.

            “Come Alos, it is time to go.”

            “Where are we going?” Alos asked, retracting his hand, pushing himself up onto his feet.

            Xri began to reply when Alos’ retracting hand caught his eye. “Wow, has he already figured out how to function it?”

            “Indeed Xri, his manifestation of mental reality is quite strong.” Bert’s brow was raised, his eyes wide, and his lips pressed together.

            Nodding his head and turning back to Alos, Xri continued, “We are about to dock the Hawk’s ship, we are in need of your assistance lad.”

            “Yeah sure.” Alos said smiling. He followed behind Xri, staring down at his hand, making it spin around as Dardaños showed him.

            Xri stopped, turning back to Bert inside the room.

            “Are you coming Bert?”

            “I will be down to watch after I sanitize the surgery vicinity.”

            Xri nodded then led Alos down the hall and through the main room, where the television display was still powered on showing a reporter on a news channel. Behind the reporter was the massive building they had recently been at when all the slaves were freed. Alos couldn’t catch what the reporter was saying but he did manage to see the camera pan over to a mob of workers from the building, running towards her.

            They continued over to the elevator taking it down into the slime room. Inside, the rest of the crew was waiting. Dardaños, Merick, and Levitas all standing around an open section in the ground, inside of which was a large projection lens. On the ceiling directly above the lens, was another, identical in form. After he led them into the room, Xri walked straight over to the projectors.

             Xri was holding an out of date scroll display, measuring about 6 inches by 6 inches. It had two retractor columns, both vertical. Extending from one to the other was a thin, sturdy screen. He walked up to the projectors holding the scroll up in the air between them. The scroll began to levitate in place, magnetically suspended and then projectors came on, shining through the scroll, refracting off into a holographic display. The ship being displayed had four wings in two sets, both sets’ wings extending together into sideways A’s. Two turbines extended from one wing to the next within both sets of wings. The shape of the ship looked like a giant metallic boat in the sky, the underside being curved up into the rectangular cabin. Just below and to the side the graphic of the ship, was a tiny display, maybe a hundredth in size, which also looked like a ship.

            “This is the Hawk’s ship,” Xri pointed at the colossus of a ship. He lowered his hand, bringing his pointer finger just beside the tiny ship, “This is our ship, the Remora.”

            Alos jaw dropped, his mouth unconsciously hanging open. The mere size comparison was insane, but imagining just how big it was going to be looking out, that was just mind blowing. Alos figured Xri’s ship had to have a wing span of over one hundred feet, and that ship had at least ten times that.

            “Our camouflage will keep us from being spotted and our radar deflectors will keep us undetected, which will allow us to fly in thusly.” Xri dragged the tiny ship up behind the Hawk’s ship and then placed it so that it was touching the backside. “We will mount onto the back and once a seal is made, the section of the wall will be blasted inward.”

            “Won’t there be security?” Alos asked, his eyes squinting into uncertainty.

            “Of course there will,” Xri smiled. “But just how much depends on your abilities to shut it down.”

            Alos rolled his eyes. “That figures.”

            “Shut yar trap boy.” Merick scolded.

            Xri continued, “We will split into two groups of two, Levitas and I heading down this hall, and Dardaños and Alos heading down this hall.”

            Xri stuck his hands out and up to the hologram and then pulled them apart, causing the image of the ship to zoom in, expanding it towards. The perspective entered inside the ship, displaying the inside layout in a fully three dimensional, high resolution image. Xri was pointing to a room with racks lining the walls with gear, the room having two doorways that lead out into halls going down into two separate corridors. Both hallways lead away from each other, both leading into huge multi floored rooms, containing rows upon rows of prisoner cells. They fully lined the perimeter of the walls each room being three floors high.

            “Go down the row and look for Zeith. If he is in there and if he is conscious he will make his presence known, on that you can trust me.” Xri turned to the crew, facing Alos specifically. “If there are any guards, dispatch them and if we do not find Zeith, hack into the ship’s database and find out where Zeith is located.”

            Alos’ brow furrowed, “How do you expect me to dispatch guards?”

            Xri’ reached into his coat and pulled out a foot long cylinder, he tossed it over to Alos who caught it.

            “It is a venomstick, hit someone with it and it will administer a poison through their skin that will render them unconscious.” Alos pressed the button towards the top causing an expandable metal baton to shoot out. The baton had three interlacing metal segments including the handle, and its surface was textured with small pricks.

            “C’mon, you know they will have guns.” Alos looked up at Xri flat faced.

            “You have a short range directed energy sonic cannon in your middle finger, and a short range particle beam in your pointer finger. In all honestly though you have nothing to worry about, Dardaños will take care of it.”

            Dardaños smiled. “Ayeee lad yar en guhd ‘ands.” Dardaños clenched his robotic hand into a fist, cupping it with his left paw-hand.

            “I’ll monitor tuh schematics from ‘ere.” Merick announced. “I’ll give yah ‘eads up if any guards are comin.”

            Over on the side of the room, the door of the elevator opened up and Bert stepped into the room. Everyone watched him walk up to the display.

            “Alright gentlemen, let us prepare, we will be docking soon.” Xri said walking over to a door on the side of the room. The door spiraled open, and inside was a room contained within the nose of the ship. They all entered inside, with Merick running over to the pilot’s computer and taking manual control over the ship. They could feel the ship rising up at an angle, with the sound of clustered tornadoes becoming louder as they rose. Finally the ship stopped, releasing a loud click from the nose and they all stood, letting their eyes wander, trying to listen. With a nod of his head, Xri motioned towards Dardaños, who then nodded back. His large cybernetic arm shifted as his hand folded inwards. Then with the sound of whining gears and hydraulics, a wide mouthed cannon folded out from within.

            “Stan’ back lad.” Dardaños said, pushing Alos back with his left forearm. He placed the barrel up to the top of the door and then stood, waiting, watching.

            “Alos disable the security.” Xri said without budging from his position. “And try not to be too spastic.”

            Alos, ignoring the last bit of Xri’s statement, pulled his goggles down over his eyes and pulled his Orb out from within his sweatshirt with his right hand. It felt good to be able to use his dominant hand again, and it felt even better to hold his Orb between its fingers.

            With a quick power up, the Orb pulled up its main display which Alos accessed, going through several windows until he reached his empty menu with the blinking cursor. He input the command “Search local Omninet host points” which yielded results displaying a cluster of circles from all the local Orbs, and one giant circle with the name “HawkHSpt.” Alos selected the large circle, and then tabbed over to a different window where he input, “Inject 0rnj HawkHSpt”. A brief confirmation notice popped up and then Alos selected “Boot Omninet”. The animation of the boy stacking papers played, each paper being caught out of the air and placed beneath him until he reached the ceiling which he the climbed through. The frame of view zoomed in until it shifted to the boy’s perspective which was then 0rnj’s perception.

            Inside the room, was a near identical copy of the room Alos had seen on the holographic display. One difference that immediately stood out to Alos was the presence of two large pyramids of spheres each in a corner of the room. They were very similar to the one he had seen at his house when he hacked into the security monitors. He wasn’t looking to take the data this time; instead he was looking to block the flow.

            Alos moved 0rnj over to the first pyramid, where he stood looking up at it. The pyramids being stacks of spheres, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to stack them. He was going to have to figure out a way to block off the entry point of the incoming data, that much he knew, how though, remained puzzling. Scratching his head, 0rnj doing the same, Alos paused thinking of how to do it. He remembered that he had recently added the functionality to 0rnj to reshape small amounts data, and then with a clench of his fist, Alos began to stretch out 0rnj’s arms.

            0rnj’s arms stretched to the top of the pyramid, where he grabbed onto the top sphere of data. Suddenly the BOT's hands became like a goo, sliding over the sphere, wrapping around it on all sides. When the sphere was completely encased, 0rnj’s hands restructured the ball into the shape of a square, which he then released, dropping a cube onto the top of the pyramid of spheres. It sat on top, and after 0rnj repeated this process several times, a stack of cubes extended up towards the ceiling where they wedged in place under the data sphere dispensing point. Satisfied, Alos walked 0rnj over to the other pyramid and repeated the process.

            After he had completed his task, he disconnected from the Omninet, sliding up his goggles onto his head, leaving sweaty red imprints over his eyes. He placed his Orb back into sweater, and then joined the others in holding position, waiting.

            “Done.” Alos announced to the raiding group, the others bracing in place.

            From within the ship, Merick shouted, “YAR CLEAR!” and instantaneously, the door Dardaños was waiting for spiraled open. Behind the door was a solid wall, the grayish black material blocking them from entrance. A white hot jet of plasma began streaming out of Dardaños arm cannon, contorting the air around into a blurred steam.  He dragged it around the cutout of the door, slowly separating the section of wall from the rest of it. A thick smell of burning rubber and plastic filled the room, emanating from the black smoke drifting off from the cutting plasma. Xri pulled up his bandana over his mouth, Dardaños covering his mouth with his left arm, while Levitas just stood there, uncaring whether or not he breathed in the poisonous fumes. Cringing, Alos pulled up the collar of his sweater over his face trying to shield his lungs from the toxic air.

            Dardaños plasma cutter had circled around and reached the opposite side, where it finally met its starting point. With one last shove with the tip of the cutter, Dardaños knocked the cutout wall inwards, it falling in one solid piece onto the ground. The three entered the ship, with Alos cautiously following behind, trying to remain quiet, despite just breaking down a wall.

            Suddenly Levitas’ head snapped to the right doorway. He lifted his hand up displaying his five fingers, and then pointed at the door. Xri placed his right hand up to his temple momentarily humming, and then nodded in agreement. Levitas then took position behind the wall directly to the left of the doorway, with Xri standing directly to the right. Dardaños grabbed Alos, picking him up from the front of his collar, and placed Alos behind the wall with him.

            The door beside Xri and Levitas opened, sliding into the wall beside it. A man followed by four others came running in, wearing full body armor, and carrying standard issue .44 caliber automatic rifles. Before they had a moment to realize, they were all struck in the back of the neck with Xri’s venomstick. The speed at which Xri moved from target to target was unparalleled, practically disappearing and then reappearing, seemingly teleporting from person to person. All five collapsed to the ground, their eyes rolling back until Alos could see only the whites of their eyes.

            “Let us be quick, when those five do not return, more will be sent.” Xri said in a low voice. “Their cameras will not be down forever.”

            Levitas nodded and then darted down the hall behind Xri.

            “Alright lad, let’ss goh find Zeith.” Dardaños said pulling Alos’ shoulder until he turned and faced him. Alos felt anxious, his heart pounded in his throat with each gulping swallow, and the effects of the adrenaline still held strong over him. Dardaños rotated his arm to a different barrel and then led Alos into the next room.

            Lining both sides of the room from top to bottom were rows upon rows of empty holding cells. Not one of the cells appeared to have any occupants, and there had to be hundreds of them. Dardaños moved to the left wall of cells, his gunner barrel arm outstretched in front of him, and Alos followed while hiding behind him.

            They slowly worked their way down the corridor finding empty cell after empty cell after empty cell. The whole room was completely empty, no guards, no workers, no management, it was just a big abandoned flying prison. Then they heard voices coming out from one of the cells.

            “Hey! Heeeeey! In here, on your left!”

            Dardaños and Alos jogged to the last cell in the room which sat next to another door and then turned left. Inside the cell were the two characters they had just seen on the television show earlier that day. Both were wearing the bright yellow jumpsuits, one sporting his long red hair, with the other having his long brunette hair. They stood grasping onto the crossbars of the cell each holding excitement in their eyes.

            Alos and Dardaños snapped their attention towards each other, puzzled expressions hanging from both their faces. They looked at the two inside the cell and then back at each other. They both immediately recognized the two from the show, but why where they here?

            “Aye ain’t yeh on dat TV show?” Dardaños asked, his puzzlement resonating in his voice.

            "Dunno pup, how's your common sense?” The red haired boy said sarcastically.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about; just get us out of here.” The brown haired boy pleaded.

            “Hold the phone, are you telling me that you didn’t know you were being recorded?” Alos inquired with a smile.

            “The phone is held, we had no idea.” The red haired boy was wearing a snarky smile as he knocked his knuckles into his head.

            “Seeing as how we're in a cell, do we seem like celebrities?"

            The brown haired guy elbowed the other in the ribs at the comment, causing the red haired one to flinch.

            “Look I really don’t know what you are talking about, but can you PLEASE help us out. The release to our cell is right behind you.”

            “There's a hand scanner there, if you can figure it out. I'm more for wolfy tearing the bars apart with his mecha-arm.” The red haired boy said gesturing to the device across the room.

            Alos waved his hands out in front of him, and then asked. “Let me get this straight, the two of you were just in a combat arena, correct?”

            The face of the red haired boy drew back into a relinquishing furrow. "This isn't exactly the best time for an interview, but yes. How did you know?”

            Alos looked at Dardaños who was looking back and nodding. It seems they both agreed that these two were the real deal.

            “I’ll explain later, for now let’s just get you out of here.”

            Dardaños’ ears began twitching back and forth. He suddenly turned his attention to the door beside the cell.

            “Aye Alos, dey are comin’ through tuh door, an’ dey know were ‘ere.”

            The epinephrine administered by Bert had been beginning to wear off of Alos, his body calming, and returning to its natural state. He could feel an even blood flow in his hands and he was glad for it to be over. He felt normal, at least until the sound of stamping feet began heading their way. A large wedge formed in Alos throat, and with a challenging gulp, he muscled it down, his heart pounding in his chest once more.

            Without hesitation, Alos pivoted over beside the doorway, replicating what Xri had done just earlier. Dardaños sprinted about forty feet back, then stopping he faced the door and lay prone on the ground. From under his arm, two metal gun stand legs folded out. His arm extended outwards slightly, creating an empty air compression chamber between his arm and the gun that would compress the recoil. The look on his eyes said that he was ready, and the high powered assault rifle on his arm confirmed it.

            Alos wasn’t so sure. He extended out the venomstick, eyeing the prickly cactus like needles, moving his attention from prick to prick trying to gain some semblance of courage. Then, with a deep breath, the clarity of thought came to him. With his newfound robotic hand, and his mental dexterity from years of gaming and hacking, he felt confident that he could do this.

            The door slid open and in rolled a small unknown explosive. Alos curled into a ball, dropping to the ground, turning his back to the blast and cupping his vision within his sweater. An ear piercing bang rang through the room, echoing and reverberating off of the walls. When the flash cleared, a gasmasked man with a fully body riot shield began jogging into the room, his shield out in front of him.

            A rip of gunpowder thunder tore through through the room, Dardaños’ bullets disintegrating the showing section man’s feet, throwing him to the ground. A second chainsaw of exploding gunpowder blasted through the room, chunking giant flesh holes into the man’s now open chest. Blood splattered against the frame of the door, barely missing Alos.

             The room fell silent.

            Alos looked over at the two in the cell who were several feet back now and starred back with wide eyes. He then glanced over to Dardaños who was pointing at the two in the cell making gestures of talking. The two in the cell nodded and then approached the bars.

            “Don’t worry boss we took care of ‘im.” The red haired one shouted, cupping his hand over his mouth and tucking his head into his shoulder. The three others stood smirking, not one of them believing they would buy it for a second.

            The small of a shoulder could be seen about to come around from behind the doorway, and as it slowly slid into view, Alos could see the shoulder becoming a chest, and then finally a torso. The instant the man’s full head came into view; a third rip of bullets filled the air, blasting the man’s gasmasked head into chunks of bone, brain, and rubber. The body collapsed to the floor.

            From around the corner, Alos could hear one of the men’s breathing become short and erratic. Short scared spurts of breath were being dispensed out of his mask with low compressed muffles. There was some shuffling about and then a second unknown explosive rolled into the room.

            Before Alos had the opportunity to drop to the ground once again, the explosive detonated. There was no flash, and no bang, but instead a gaseous smoke began to fill the room. Alos dropped to the floor, covering his mouth, trying to keep his face low.

            Alos couldn’t see Dardaños through the thick smoke, but he could hear his arm transform into something else. He heard him move slightly closer, followed by the sound of his hand rotating. Suddenly beside Alos, was Dardaños hand, walking through the smoke towards the door like a spider. As it passed through, the heavily breathing guard screamed a muffled yell of fear.

            “AHHHHHHHHH GET IT OFF MAH LEG!”

            The man’s yelling grew louder and higher pitched, until finally it broke in a muffled shriek. There was a loud popping noise, which was followed by the sound of the man collapsing to the floor, his agonizing screams being only broken up by the stamping of other feet.

            That was his opportunity. Alos swung around the corner, through the door, ready to swat both remaining members in the throat. To his dismay he found the two running away, with the last member rocking from side to side on the floor clutching his crushed knee. Walking in through the door, Dardaños retracted his hand and looked down at the man’s blood soaked knee.  His leg was extended up past his knee and almost to his hip.

            “Sorryee mate, but I ‘ave no sympathy for slavers.” Dardaños reached down, picking up the man by his back collar, and carrying him back into the other room. “I’m goin’ to need to borrow yar ‘and.”

            Alos walked in, Dardaños holding the now unconsciousness man’s hand up to the scanner. The scanner approved the hand, displaying the man’s image, and then changed to a menu screen. Dardaños selected the release button, glancing over at the cell of the two, and then input the cell number. A second confirmation screen displayed, and the bars on the cage retracted inwards, freeing the two within.

            “The air out here is... sweeter.” The red haired boy said stretching his arms up, taking in a deep exaggerated breath, and walking out of the cell.

            “Thanks, we were beginning to think we were going to end up like the others.” The brunette said, extending out his hand to Alos. “I’m Zephay, and this is Wander.”

            “There were others? Where did they go?” Alos asked the two eagerly.

            “They made a stop a few hours ago, I don’t know where. They dropped a bunch of Lycanians off.” Wander, the red haired boy said, as he flipped his hair out of his face.

            “Were they all Lycanians?”

            Zephay nodded, pulling his lips together. “Yeah, the whole group. Why, are you looking for someone?

            Alos slapped his palm over his face, shaking his head back and forth.

            “Zeith was never on this ship.”

            “Boyees I’d love tuh stay an’ chat, but wee should reallyee get goin’.” Dardaños said glancing down the corridor. “Alos get tuh data, so wee can leave.”

            “There is no way I will be able to track down that small amount of specific data in time, especially since he was never even on this ship. Let’s just bail.”

            “Xri will ‘ave to be understandin’.” Dardaños motioned back towards the entrance. “Boyees lets go.”

            The three followed closely behind Dardaños back down the corridor through the entrance door, and into the original room. They were then met by Xri and Levitas who had been back waiting for them. Dardaños and the three approached them but before they had a chance to talk, bullets rained down the halls through the open doors and into the room.

            Alos, Zephay, and Wander, dove head first through the hole in the wall one at a time, rolling up to their feet in the ship’s docking room. Xri, waved Dardaños in, then Levitas, and then after everyone else was secure, he tucked in through the hole himself, barely escaping the ricocheting bullets. The door spiraled closed in front of them, and then with a second loud click, the ship broke off its vacuum seal, and began drifting down and away.

            The ship flew off through the sky, jetting away from the massive carrier ship and zipping over tree line below. Xri stepped into the slime room, pushing his hat back and pulling his bandana down from over his faces, and he turned around to face the remaining crew, he ran his hand over the top of the sweat soaked black bandana covering his head. His brow slanted.

            “Who are they?”