Chruser
2002-05-25, 07:54 AM
:: Chapter 1: The Transfer
The sound of an alarm clock echoed inside Andrew Zaron's head. What sounded almost as horrifying as a machinegun firing was destined to wake him up every single morning, seven days per week. Andrew attempted to get out of his bed, and he rolled a little bit too far to the side of it, so he found himself lying on his back on the floor. "Glorious monday", he whispered silently for himself.
With a small effort, the man managed to get up on his feet, but before he even managed to catch his breath after his effort, the computer terminal mounted on the wall began to flicker in blue and white. Andrew knew that it could mean one thing - he was late for work.
It was already 8:52 AM, and he was supposed to have been at work 22 minutes ago. Given no time to shave or do any other neccesary rituals, he slipped into the best clothes he could find, a blue shirt and a pair of matching blue jeans. He knew his boss would go off if he showed up in that outfit, but it would be even worse if he wouldn't show up at all.
Being late four days in a row, since his alarm clock had malfunctioned, was not what his boss was expecting.
Everybody knew that Andrew was a hard-working person who could manage to complete some difficult tasks easily, but ever since the Ranard crisis two years ago, everything would have to proceed efficiently.
Andrew ran outside quickly, and with no time to look at the beautiful orange atmosphere that surrounded him, he got into his personal vehicle, a Daret Crossfire that he came by only a year ago at a very low cost. He put his hands on the keyboard, and entered the co-ordinates for his destination, the ManaldTech research centre.
Seconds after, a humming sound filled his ears, and the vehicle lifted off gently, and stayed a few feet above the metallic ground for a while. Andrew pressed the confirm button on his keyboard, and the humming sound started to sound like a submarine pressure chamber, almost like a rattle snake. Fortuenaly, this was exactly what the Daret vehicles were supposed to sound like, even though Andrew could never really get used to it. The sound reminded him of a damaged spacecraft engine, and the thought of being inside a spacecraft that crashed into an asteroid was one of his most common nightmares.
The darkblue Daret Crossfire accelerated extremely fast, pushing Andrew back into his seat. The vehicle propelled itself towards the edge of the solid steel platform, which was his home sector. The Daret went over the edge, and Andrew's home disappeared into the dense fog which surrounded the entire planet. He really couldn't tell how far above the ground he was, but according to one of his friends at work mentioned that all of the city platforms were hovering 5200 meters above the methane fluid centre of the planet. The local news usually mentioned around 10 people weekly that had for some reason managed to fall into the mist and drowned in the dangerous fluids. Luckily, Andrew, like most other people, had gotten himself a photon jetpack belt to avoid that. Drowning was really the worst thing he could imagine, but since the planet was still relatively safe compared to their neighbor planet Phonos, plus that the business oppertunities on his home planet, Phariach, were excellent, he had decided to stay there for at least a few more years. After all, an average amount of 10 out of 14 billion people dying in an accident like that was a very small amount of casualties. The unlucky ones probably couldn't even afford a jetpack belt for their own safety!
Andrew looked at his wristwatch, and it was already 9:16 AM. He thought he might have a chance to make it to his job within around 10 minutes, but he quickly realized that there was a large traffic jam ahead of him. Lots of industrial vehicles seemed to float around everywhere in mid-air, and actually getting somewhere would be really tricky, so he decided to attempt to take a shortcut.
Andrew entered "05-002" on his keyboard, which was the command to take dangerous shortcuts. Luckily, the artificial intelligence on the Daret model was one of the best ones to come by in the solar system, so it should most likely be able to find some shortcuts nobody could have thought of.
The vehicle started falling like a rock, and the frightened pilot didn't know if that was meant to happen, or of the engine had simply died due to the somewhat unusual commands. He relied on his craft, but as it begun to dive faster and faster, he also started to doubt that it would manage to pull up again.
The dense fog mixture, which was a combination of oxygen, methane and nitrogen dioxide, started to get even thicker than before, while the number of industrial vehicles started to drop rapidly. Andrew's Daret pulled up again in the matter of three seconds, and his frightening thoughts about crashing into the deadly liquids below him started to let go of him.
Even though he hated to fly, he knew that his vehicle would never let him down, even though he would most likely start to doubt that again the next time it attempts to do some crazy stunt, such as this one.
As time went by, Andrew was almost convinced that his boss would make him pay for his atrocities. Being this late wasn't the best thing that could happen, for him, or for anyone else's who knew him. Being able to trust, and co-operate with each other was the second most important factor at his job, after the most important one, which was getting something done.
Being a scientist was one of Andrew's favourite hobbies, and he simply couldn't lose a job such as the one he currently had. Getting paid for having fun with his hobbies was just a dream that had come true.
The darkblue Daret approached the independent platform, which only had one large pyramid shaped building on it, with a huge neon sign on it, screaming "ManaldTech" in a bright green. It almost seemed like the facility was a night club sometimes, and even a few people from the Manald council had always brought up that it should be replaced with a BSNP display, it never happened. However, that was the only real issue that the corporation had. The rest of it was based on perfectionism, which Andrew thought that he might never be able to obtain, even though he was making a great progress at his job.
His vehicle slowed down, and entered one of the fourty circular enterances to one of the hovercraft garages. It was already 9:29 AM, and the shortcut had taken him three minutes extra, which wasn't exactly a major disaster by now, considering he was already 59 minutes late for work. He wondered if his worst nightmare about drowning would actually be subdued by his fear of losing his job.
Andrew went inside, hoping that nobody would discover that he just went inside. However, immediately after he went inside, he realized that the entire facility was empty. All of the 250 machines in recreation lab C were unmanned, and he was really surprised, since it was hardly time for a vacation, and there was usually at least someone to be there to direct anyone who was late to the penthouse, if someone would have arranged something up there.
He thought that he could as well try to take the elevator to the penthouse and see if there was anyone there, so he entered the lift covered in glass, and pressed the button with an eight printed in gold text on it.
It took off very silently, and the monopole electromagnets beneath it sent it into the air. It worked the same way as the hovercrafts did, but instead of using the planetary magnetism, it would use separate magnets to get a more steady stream flow.
The elevator played a silent bell sound, which had been a classic for several hundreds of years. The doors opened, and Andrew ran out of it instantly. He noticed that there was one guard standing in front of the council enterance, so he asked him politely where everybody had gone. The guard shook his head.
"What a perfect day to be late on, Dr. Zaron", the guard said with a displeased expression on his face.
"What is going on?", Andrew asked.
"The director is holding a speech", the guard said.
"THE director?"
"That's right, the director of the organization is holding a speech about all of the Manald facilities. Don't you ever read the news?"
Andrew looked shocked. He had missed the most important thing ever. How could he possible explain this to his boss? He would get fired for sure.
The guard interrupted him while he was thinking deeply about his future.
"Don't worry Dr. Zaron. They have been preparing this whole morning, and the director has only been holding a short part of his speech so far. Once the first part is done, you should be able to sneak inside quickly during the applause."
Andrew waited impatiently, wondering about what was really going on in there. A few minutes passed, and the guard was just standing there, just like a statue. When would he get the chance to get inside? Would he even want to risk interrupting the entire speech, by running inside at the wrong time? He was relying on the guard.
Eventually, the guard looked at him quickly, and shouted "Quick! Get inside and find a seat!"
Andrew ran inside as fast as he could, and the guard was right, the spectators were applauding, and the organization director was really standing at a red carpet in the centre of the council room, which had a colosseum architecture over it. He realized that there was only one seat free, which means that he could have been the only person who was late, but he would have to get there quickly. Andrew sneaked across the room, and got there in time for the next part of the speech was about to start, but then it hit him. His boss was sitting next to that seat!
His boss hadn't noticed him yet, but Andrew knew that he would either have to be seen by everyone, since the director would most likely look at him before he would resume his speech, or, he could just sit down and be spotted by his boss, which would probably mean that he would get fired on a day like this. He realized that his boss would spot him in a few seconds when the speech was resumed anyway, and getting caught like that would be worse, so he decided to sit down.
His boss looked at him for a moment.
"Andrew, what kept you?" his boss asked with his regular, cranky voice.
"I'm sorry... I... well..."
His boss interrupted him quickly. "It's all right, my alarm clock is causing me some problems really often too. Whoever made those things should get sued."
Andrew looked surprised for a moment, but before he could say anything, his boss started talking again.
"You haven't missed anything really important so far, but according to the information I got from a... friend, the second part of the speech will be really important for the Manald corporation".
The small talk in the room stopped shortly after, and at 9:40 AM, the director stepped forward again. He was an old man with a long, white beard, which reminded Andrew a little bit about a local Yoga master who lived in his city block. However, the director seemed to have some better clothes, and he was fairly more educated than the spiritual master as well.
The director took a deep breath, and waited for a few seconds. Millions of corporation network employees were watching different channels were showing the speech, up to several lightyears away. ManaldTech was a widespread corporation, and one of the leading ones when it came to research and development.
"Human beings have always been trying to acheive the impossible, and some of the technologies developed by Manald could not even have been dreamed of ten years ago. The wheel, developed thousands of years ago, was one of the greatest technologies of its time. But this, my fellow supporers, is truthfully a bigger scientific breakthrough than anything has ever been before. You have heard of it in the past two weeks on the global news networks, but now it is time to show you how the Particle Acceleration Physics really work."
The director pushed a button on the altar-shaped desk he was sitting behind. Two hatches on each side of the director opened, and two huge glass domes were slowly emerging from below the scene. A man dressed in nothing but a common military outfit and a few medals was standing inside the left dome. Being trapped like that in front of millions of spectators would have been a terrifying experience, but the man looked extremely safe and secure. The director turned around a little to look at the trapped man.
"We have all heard of it, but it has been too much of a Science Fiction story to be beleivable, until now. What I'm talking about, is, in some very simple words, a way to send one type of matter through other types of materials without affecting the original molecular setup of the object to be transported. If we wanted to explain how this works to the kids, we could say that this is a teleportation device, even though it is more complicated than that."
The spectators around the director were shocked when they heard his words, since the word "teleportation" had been mutually banned from the scientist associations for a very long time. Teleporting an object was simpy too unbeleivable to be true, but everyone was eager to listen to his explanation.
"Now, if I told you this had something to do with travelling faster than the speed of light, I would understand how you would feel. And that is exactly what I will have to say. This device can "teleport" any kind of matter faster than the speed of light.
As most of us know, the Quantum theory explains why it would take an infinite amount of energy to travel faster than the speed of light. The reason why it works like this, is simply because of the photons in any kinds of illumination, and photons have a mass. Anything with a larger mass than them can not move as fast as them, since no energy source can give an infinite amount of energy. Since we can not build spacecrafts out of pieces smaller than atoms, we could not possible overcome this well-lit barrier. Even if we could, humans would never be able to keep up with the ship."
Andrew's boss laughed quietly.
"Now, Zaron, that's why our work really pays off in the end."
Andrew shook his head and thought for himself that he had no idea that this was the purpose of the device he had been working on. All he knew was that they needed to find a way to compress any kind of matter.
The director looked around at all of the spectators sitting in the council room. He looked pleased.
"Now, I am sure you are eager to know how we managed to find out how this was really done.
To start with, a few of our fellow scientists, who will be introduced later on today, have found a way to create a certain kind of magnetic field out of the monopole magnets that makes our hovercrafts float in the middle of the air.
The magnetic field, which can be created by a very rare material called Extrodum, causes the matter it touches to temporarily bend around the inside of the field, where everything is completely normal. Even photons will bend around the field, which creates a complete vacuum in the field energies themselves.
Before I talk any further, I will show you an example of how this can work on a human being. As you can see, this brave man, Lt. Darlic, has agreed to being contained in the "Particle Accelerated Resonance Field", or "PARF" as we have decided to call it.
By pressing this button, he will be transported through the glass of his dome, through the air, and into the other dome on my left side."
The audience looked anxious, and the fear of something this different, which would most likely cause history to change, assuming that it actually worked, was overwhelming. Who could know how a breakthrough like this could possibly be abused?
The director pressed a button on his altar, and the glass dome with the man inside it started to sound like it was charging up some electricity, and slowly, a bright, blue fog started to cover the tank. A short while after that happened, the same thing started happening to the other glass dome as well. Before anyone would know it, the sound of lightning was heard, and the man instantly ended up in the other glass tank. A few seconds later, the fog started disappearing.
People didn't understand what had happened for a moment.
Andrew's boss looked at him. "Did that really happen for real?" he asked.
Andrew looked shocked. "Yes, we saw the man all the time, and then he was just in the other tank. That can't possibly have been a trick."
Yet another applause was heard, and people were screaming from excitement. It was one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs ever that had come true, and the dreams about "teleportation" and "faster than light" drive systems was no longer just a dream. How this amazing technology could possibly used was still beyond most people's imagination.
The director raised his right hand.
"My friends and colleagues, this was not the best part of it. Thanks to one man, this whole destination of the matter transmission can be controlled perfectly. This allows us to travel through space at speeds like never before. I would like to introduce the man who found the secret to this destination process. Please, come on down, Dr. Andrew Zaron."
The room begun to fade, and Andrew felt dizzy. All of the people around him turned blurry, and all of a sudden, it was all black. He felt like he was falling into the depths of a horrible agony he had. He never stopped falling through the clouds that couldn't catch his heavy body.
Suddenly, he woke up. His head hurt, and he noticed that he was in a white room, with ten beautiful paintings, some carpets, and the orange light that hit his eyes felt like it was coming from the outside. Two tall men were standing next to him, but he couldn't see who they were.
"Is he doing any better?" one of them asked with a deep voice. Andrew couldn't tell who it was.
Suddenly, it became clear to him. He was lying down in a bed, and two people were standing next to it.
Those two people were his boss, and the director of the Manald corporation himself.
"I think he is awake", his boss said.
Andrew got some help to get out of his bed, and his boss told him that he had fainted.
The director turned around for a moment, looking out of the panorama windows.
"Thank you Danaron, you have been of so much help", the director said.
Andrew's boss left the room and shut the only door behind him. The director shook his head.
"What did you think of my speech?"
Andrew waited for a few seconds before he answered, since he didn't really realize that the director was actually speaking to him.
"Well, it was very inspirational Sir."
The director shook his head again.
"The speech might have been inspirational to everyone who has watched it, and I'm sure it will be the biggest news of this century, since there aren't many years left of it. However, there are a few things you should know."
The director walked around in the room for a bit, and picked up a book for a moment, and then put it back into its original place in an impatient manner.
"Even if it looks like this was an entirely random and independent research, there have been other federations keeping track of us. There are currently four secretive federations that we know of that already developed a Nanomolecular Amplifier, which can be used to turn our discovery into a weapon of mass destruction. Using this technology in order to summon projectiles inside the targets would be fatal. We could lose entire planets without even knowing someone would try to attack us."
Andrew shook his head.
"Sir, like you have said many times. Anything good can always bring evil. Is there really anything we can do now that we went public?"
The director contemplated for a moment.
"There is still one thing that can be done. I have some blueprints obtained from the Tsu'Zaar faction, which could be modified to work as a fool-proof destination system. What I am saying is that it would be possible to only make this breakthrough work for certain gates, or "jumpgates" as you might have read about in a few Science Fiction stories. Just like the way we teleported the man from one glass sphere to the other, it could be possible to only allow spaceships to "teleport" from one jumpgate to another. What I'm saying is that no projectiles or ships should be able to use this technology alone, or they might be used to litterary crash into our valuable spacecrafts."
Andrew sat down on his bed carefully.
"Sir, how could we possibly develop such a thing after we have gone public?"
"Andrew, my friend. Our blueprints haven't gone public yet, and only a few ManaldTech people could possibly build this device, and you would happen to be one of them. There are only 6 other people who knows how to construct this Matter Transmission system, and now we are the only two people who knows about both the locked destination and matter transmission systems.
However, the other few people will never know about this, so I need you to help me."
Andrew jumped out of the bed instantly.
"Sir, what do you mean?"
The director walked over to the door slowly, and locked it.
"Well, this might not be easy for you to hear, but..."
He walked over to the bookcase and picked up the same book as he had already held earlier.
"...well, I need you to take this book with you, wherever you go. It will be the answer to all of your questions"
Andrew picked up the book, and looked at it. "The Technology Bible".
He looked back at the director again, who was standing in front of the window, looking at the white mist with his saddened eyes. "I wish you luck, my friend."
A few seconds after, a gunshot was heard. Someone had fired a bullet at the director, which went straight through his head, causing him to fall backwards. There was blood everywhere, including on Andrew's shirt. He ran over to the director's body and touched his forehead.
"He is dead! The director of Manald is dead!"
An echoing voice was heard from beind the door. "What was that? I heard a gunshot!"
Andrew got up quickly, and realized that they were going to come into the room. The director's corpse lying on the ground with a bullet hole through his head, and blood on Andrew's shirt was not exactly a good thing to be found with. He panicked, and started to think about what to say.
Before he got the chance to think of something, two people, probably guards, were knocking on the door.
"Hello? What is going on in there?"
Andrew stopped trying to think of an excuse, since an atrocity like this would obviously lead to a death penality. Even if he could prove that he didn't do it, the procecutors would hammer him, since someone would have to be held responsible. The only thing he could do would be to get out of the room quickly.
The guards tried to open the door, but it was locked thanks to the director.
"Hey! What is going on in there?"
Andrew couldn't find any more doors, so he ran over to the bookcase, hoping that it would hold a secret exit. He started moving all the books around.
The guards were trying to smash the door in by hitting it with some heavy object, probably a fire extinguisher.
Moving all of the books was of no use, so it seemed that there would only be one way out. The bullet hole in the window was large enough to get out of, but it would be a fall to the floor below, which was at least 7 meters. Falling from a height like that could cause some serious injury, not to mention that it would look even more suspicious if he tried to escape?
The prosecutors would have his head on a pole either way, so he walked over to the window, and contemplated for a moment, before he threw himself out of it with the book in his left hand.
The sound of an alarm clock echoed inside Andrew Zaron's head. What sounded almost as horrifying as a machinegun firing was destined to wake him up every single morning, seven days per week. Andrew attempted to get out of his bed, and he rolled a little bit too far to the side of it, so he found himself lying on his back on the floor. "Glorious monday", he whispered silently for himself.
With a small effort, the man managed to get up on his feet, but before he even managed to catch his breath after his effort, the computer terminal mounted on the wall began to flicker in blue and white. Andrew knew that it could mean one thing - he was late for work.
It was already 8:52 AM, and he was supposed to have been at work 22 minutes ago. Given no time to shave or do any other neccesary rituals, he slipped into the best clothes he could find, a blue shirt and a pair of matching blue jeans. He knew his boss would go off if he showed up in that outfit, but it would be even worse if he wouldn't show up at all.
Being late four days in a row, since his alarm clock had malfunctioned, was not what his boss was expecting.
Everybody knew that Andrew was a hard-working person who could manage to complete some difficult tasks easily, but ever since the Ranard crisis two years ago, everything would have to proceed efficiently.
Andrew ran outside quickly, and with no time to look at the beautiful orange atmosphere that surrounded him, he got into his personal vehicle, a Daret Crossfire that he came by only a year ago at a very low cost. He put his hands on the keyboard, and entered the co-ordinates for his destination, the ManaldTech research centre.
Seconds after, a humming sound filled his ears, and the vehicle lifted off gently, and stayed a few feet above the metallic ground for a while. Andrew pressed the confirm button on his keyboard, and the humming sound started to sound like a submarine pressure chamber, almost like a rattle snake. Fortuenaly, this was exactly what the Daret vehicles were supposed to sound like, even though Andrew could never really get used to it. The sound reminded him of a damaged spacecraft engine, and the thought of being inside a spacecraft that crashed into an asteroid was one of his most common nightmares.
The darkblue Daret Crossfire accelerated extremely fast, pushing Andrew back into his seat. The vehicle propelled itself towards the edge of the solid steel platform, which was his home sector. The Daret went over the edge, and Andrew's home disappeared into the dense fog which surrounded the entire planet. He really couldn't tell how far above the ground he was, but according to one of his friends at work mentioned that all of the city platforms were hovering 5200 meters above the methane fluid centre of the planet. The local news usually mentioned around 10 people weekly that had for some reason managed to fall into the mist and drowned in the dangerous fluids. Luckily, Andrew, like most other people, had gotten himself a photon jetpack belt to avoid that. Drowning was really the worst thing he could imagine, but since the planet was still relatively safe compared to their neighbor planet Phonos, plus that the business oppertunities on his home planet, Phariach, were excellent, he had decided to stay there for at least a few more years. After all, an average amount of 10 out of 14 billion people dying in an accident like that was a very small amount of casualties. The unlucky ones probably couldn't even afford a jetpack belt for their own safety!
Andrew looked at his wristwatch, and it was already 9:16 AM. He thought he might have a chance to make it to his job within around 10 minutes, but he quickly realized that there was a large traffic jam ahead of him. Lots of industrial vehicles seemed to float around everywhere in mid-air, and actually getting somewhere would be really tricky, so he decided to attempt to take a shortcut.
Andrew entered "05-002" on his keyboard, which was the command to take dangerous shortcuts. Luckily, the artificial intelligence on the Daret model was one of the best ones to come by in the solar system, so it should most likely be able to find some shortcuts nobody could have thought of.
The vehicle started falling like a rock, and the frightened pilot didn't know if that was meant to happen, or of the engine had simply died due to the somewhat unusual commands. He relied on his craft, but as it begun to dive faster and faster, he also started to doubt that it would manage to pull up again.
The dense fog mixture, which was a combination of oxygen, methane and nitrogen dioxide, started to get even thicker than before, while the number of industrial vehicles started to drop rapidly. Andrew's Daret pulled up again in the matter of three seconds, and his frightening thoughts about crashing into the deadly liquids below him started to let go of him.
Even though he hated to fly, he knew that his vehicle would never let him down, even though he would most likely start to doubt that again the next time it attempts to do some crazy stunt, such as this one.
As time went by, Andrew was almost convinced that his boss would make him pay for his atrocities. Being this late wasn't the best thing that could happen, for him, or for anyone else's who knew him. Being able to trust, and co-operate with each other was the second most important factor at his job, after the most important one, which was getting something done.
Being a scientist was one of Andrew's favourite hobbies, and he simply couldn't lose a job such as the one he currently had. Getting paid for having fun with his hobbies was just a dream that had come true.
The darkblue Daret approached the independent platform, which only had one large pyramid shaped building on it, with a huge neon sign on it, screaming "ManaldTech" in a bright green. It almost seemed like the facility was a night club sometimes, and even a few people from the Manald council had always brought up that it should be replaced with a BSNP display, it never happened. However, that was the only real issue that the corporation had. The rest of it was based on perfectionism, which Andrew thought that he might never be able to obtain, even though he was making a great progress at his job.
His vehicle slowed down, and entered one of the fourty circular enterances to one of the hovercraft garages. It was already 9:29 AM, and the shortcut had taken him three minutes extra, which wasn't exactly a major disaster by now, considering he was already 59 minutes late for work. He wondered if his worst nightmare about drowning would actually be subdued by his fear of losing his job.
Andrew went inside, hoping that nobody would discover that he just went inside. However, immediately after he went inside, he realized that the entire facility was empty. All of the 250 machines in recreation lab C were unmanned, and he was really surprised, since it was hardly time for a vacation, and there was usually at least someone to be there to direct anyone who was late to the penthouse, if someone would have arranged something up there.
He thought that he could as well try to take the elevator to the penthouse and see if there was anyone there, so he entered the lift covered in glass, and pressed the button with an eight printed in gold text on it.
It took off very silently, and the monopole electromagnets beneath it sent it into the air. It worked the same way as the hovercrafts did, but instead of using the planetary magnetism, it would use separate magnets to get a more steady stream flow.
The elevator played a silent bell sound, which had been a classic for several hundreds of years. The doors opened, and Andrew ran out of it instantly. He noticed that there was one guard standing in front of the council enterance, so he asked him politely where everybody had gone. The guard shook his head.
"What a perfect day to be late on, Dr. Zaron", the guard said with a displeased expression on his face.
"What is going on?", Andrew asked.
"The director is holding a speech", the guard said.
"THE director?"
"That's right, the director of the organization is holding a speech about all of the Manald facilities. Don't you ever read the news?"
Andrew looked shocked. He had missed the most important thing ever. How could he possible explain this to his boss? He would get fired for sure.
The guard interrupted him while he was thinking deeply about his future.
"Don't worry Dr. Zaron. They have been preparing this whole morning, and the director has only been holding a short part of his speech so far. Once the first part is done, you should be able to sneak inside quickly during the applause."
Andrew waited impatiently, wondering about what was really going on in there. A few minutes passed, and the guard was just standing there, just like a statue. When would he get the chance to get inside? Would he even want to risk interrupting the entire speech, by running inside at the wrong time? He was relying on the guard.
Eventually, the guard looked at him quickly, and shouted "Quick! Get inside and find a seat!"
Andrew ran inside as fast as he could, and the guard was right, the spectators were applauding, and the organization director was really standing at a red carpet in the centre of the council room, which had a colosseum architecture over it. He realized that there was only one seat free, which means that he could have been the only person who was late, but he would have to get there quickly. Andrew sneaked across the room, and got there in time for the next part of the speech was about to start, but then it hit him. His boss was sitting next to that seat!
His boss hadn't noticed him yet, but Andrew knew that he would either have to be seen by everyone, since the director would most likely look at him before he would resume his speech, or, he could just sit down and be spotted by his boss, which would probably mean that he would get fired on a day like this. He realized that his boss would spot him in a few seconds when the speech was resumed anyway, and getting caught like that would be worse, so he decided to sit down.
His boss looked at him for a moment.
"Andrew, what kept you?" his boss asked with his regular, cranky voice.
"I'm sorry... I... well..."
His boss interrupted him quickly. "It's all right, my alarm clock is causing me some problems really often too. Whoever made those things should get sued."
Andrew looked surprised for a moment, but before he could say anything, his boss started talking again.
"You haven't missed anything really important so far, but according to the information I got from a... friend, the second part of the speech will be really important for the Manald corporation".
The small talk in the room stopped shortly after, and at 9:40 AM, the director stepped forward again. He was an old man with a long, white beard, which reminded Andrew a little bit about a local Yoga master who lived in his city block. However, the director seemed to have some better clothes, and he was fairly more educated than the spiritual master as well.
The director took a deep breath, and waited for a few seconds. Millions of corporation network employees were watching different channels were showing the speech, up to several lightyears away. ManaldTech was a widespread corporation, and one of the leading ones when it came to research and development.
"Human beings have always been trying to acheive the impossible, and some of the technologies developed by Manald could not even have been dreamed of ten years ago. The wheel, developed thousands of years ago, was one of the greatest technologies of its time. But this, my fellow supporers, is truthfully a bigger scientific breakthrough than anything has ever been before. You have heard of it in the past two weeks on the global news networks, but now it is time to show you how the Particle Acceleration Physics really work."
The director pushed a button on the altar-shaped desk he was sitting behind. Two hatches on each side of the director opened, and two huge glass domes were slowly emerging from below the scene. A man dressed in nothing but a common military outfit and a few medals was standing inside the left dome. Being trapped like that in front of millions of spectators would have been a terrifying experience, but the man looked extremely safe and secure. The director turned around a little to look at the trapped man.
"We have all heard of it, but it has been too much of a Science Fiction story to be beleivable, until now. What I'm talking about, is, in some very simple words, a way to send one type of matter through other types of materials without affecting the original molecular setup of the object to be transported. If we wanted to explain how this works to the kids, we could say that this is a teleportation device, even though it is more complicated than that."
The spectators around the director were shocked when they heard his words, since the word "teleportation" had been mutually banned from the scientist associations for a very long time. Teleporting an object was simpy too unbeleivable to be true, but everyone was eager to listen to his explanation.
"Now, if I told you this had something to do with travelling faster than the speed of light, I would understand how you would feel. And that is exactly what I will have to say. This device can "teleport" any kind of matter faster than the speed of light.
As most of us know, the Quantum theory explains why it would take an infinite amount of energy to travel faster than the speed of light. The reason why it works like this, is simply because of the photons in any kinds of illumination, and photons have a mass. Anything with a larger mass than them can not move as fast as them, since no energy source can give an infinite amount of energy. Since we can not build spacecrafts out of pieces smaller than atoms, we could not possible overcome this well-lit barrier. Even if we could, humans would never be able to keep up with the ship."
Andrew's boss laughed quietly.
"Now, Zaron, that's why our work really pays off in the end."
Andrew shook his head and thought for himself that he had no idea that this was the purpose of the device he had been working on. All he knew was that they needed to find a way to compress any kind of matter.
The director looked around at all of the spectators sitting in the council room. He looked pleased.
"Now, I am sure you are eager to know how we managed to find out how this was really done.
To start with, a few of our fellow scientists, who will be introduced later on today, have found a way to create a certain kind of magnetic field out of the monopole magnets that makes our hovercrafts float in the middle of the air.
The magnetic field, which can be created by a very rare material called Extrodum, causes the matter it touches to temporarily bend around the inside of the field, where everything is completely normal. Even photons will bend around the field, which creates a complete vacuum in the field energies themselves.
Before I talk any further, I will show you an example of how this can work on a human being. As you can see, this brave man, Lt. Darlic, has agreed to being contained in the "Particle Accelerated Resonance Field", or "PARF" as we have decided to call it.
By pressing this button, he will be transported through the glass of his dome, through the air, and into the other dome on my left side."
The audience looked anxious, and the fear of something this different, which would most likely cause history to change, assuming that it actually worked, was overwhelming. Who could know how a breakthrough like this could possibly be abused?
The director pressed a button on his altar, and the glass dome with the man inside it started to sound like it was charging up some electricity, and slowly, a bright, blue fog started to cover the tank. A short while after that happened, the same thing started happening to the other glass dome as well. Before anyone would know it, the sound of lightning was heard, and the man instantly ended up in the other glass tank. A few seconds later, the fog started disappearing.
People didn't understand what had happened for a moment.
Andrew's boss looked at him. "Did that really happen for real?" he asked.
Andrew looked shocked. "Yes, we saw the man all the time, and then he was just in the other tank. That can't possibly have been a trick."
Yet another applause was heard, and people were screaming from excitement. It was one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs ever that had come true, and the dreams about "teleportation" and "faster than light" drive systems was no longer just a dream. How this amazing technology could possibly used was still beyond most people's imagination.
The director raised his right hand.
"My friends and colleagues, this was not the best part of it. Thanks to one man, this whole destination of the matter transmission can be controlled perfectly. This allows us to travel through space at speeds like never before. I would like to introduce the man who found the secret to this destination process. Please, come on down, Dr. Andrew Zaron."
The room begun to fade, and Andrew felt dizzy. All of the people around him turned blurry, and all of a sudden, it was all black. He felt like he was falling into the depths of a horrible agony he had. He never stopped falling through the clouds that couldn't catch his heavy body.
Suddenly, he woke up. His head hurt, and he noticed that he was in a white room, with ten beautiful paintings, some carpets, and the orange light that hit his eyes felt like it was coming from the outside. Two tall men were standing next to him, but he couldn't see who they were.
"Is he doing any better?" one of them asked with a deep voice. Andrew couldn't tell who it was.
Suddenly, it became clear to him. He was lying down in a bed, and two people were standing next to it.
Those two people were his boss, and the director of the Manald corporation himself.
"I think he is awake", his boss said.
Andrew got some help to get out of his bed, and his boss told him that he had fainted.
The director turned around for a moment, looking out of the panorama windows.
"Thank you Danaron, you have been of so much help", the director said.
Andrew's boss left the room and shut the only door behind him. The director shook his head.
"What did you think of my speech?"
Andrew waited for a few seconds before he answered, since he didn't really realize that the director was actually speaking to him.
"Well, it was very inspirational Sir."
The director shook his head again.
"The speech might have been inspirational to everyone who has watched it, and I'm sure it will be the biggest news of this century, since there aren't many years left of it. However, there are a few things you should know."
The director walked around in the room for a bit, and picked up a book for a moment, and then put it back into its original place in an impatient manner.
"Even if it looks like this was an entirely random and independent research, there have been other federations keeping track of us. There are currently four secretive federations that we know of that already developed a Nanomolecular Amplifier, which can be used to turn our discovery into a weapon of mass destruction. Using this technology in order to summon projectiles inside the targets would be fatal. We could lose entire planets without even knowing someone would try to attack us."
Andrew shook his head.
"Sir, like you have said many times. Anything good can always bring evil. Is there really anything we can do now that we went public?"
The director contemplated for a moment.
"There is still one thing that can be done. I have some blueprints obtained from the Tsu'Zaar faction, which could be modified to work as a fool-proof destination system. What I am saying is that it would be possible to only make this breakthrough work for certain gates, or "jumpgates" as you might have read about in a few Science Fiction stories. Just like the way we teleported the man from one glass sphere to the other, it could be possible to only allow spaceships to "teleport" from one jumpgate to another. What I'm saying is that no projectiles or ships should be able to use this technology alone, or they might be used to litterary crash into our valuable spacecrafts."
Andrew sat down on his bed carefully.
"Sir, how could we possibly develop such a thing after we have gone public?"
"Andrew, my friend. Our blueprints haven't gone public yet, and only a few ManaldTech people could possibly build this device, and you would happen to be one of them. There are only 6 other people who knows how to construct this Matter Transmission system, and now we are the only two people who knows about both the locked destination and matter transmission systems.
However, the other few people will never know about this, so I need you to help me."
Andrew jumped out of the bed instantly.
"Sir, what do you mean?"
The director walked over to the door slowly, and locked it.
"Well, this might not be easy for you to hear, but..."
He walked over to the bookcase and picked up the same book as he had already held earlier.
"...well, I need you to take this book with you, wherever you go. It will be the answer to all of your questions"
Andrew picked up the book, and looked at it. "The Technology Bible".
He looked back at the director again, who was standing in front of the window, looking at the white mist with his saddened eyes. "I wish you luck, my friend."
A few seconds after, a gunshot was heard. Someone had fired a bullet at the director, which went straight through his head, causing him to fall backwards. There was blood everywhere, including on Andrew's shirt. He ran over to the director's body and touched his forehead.
"He is dead! The director of Manald is dead!"
An echoing voice was heard from beind the door. "What was that? I heard a gunshot!"
Andrew got up quickly, and realized that they were going to come into the room. The director's corpse lying on the ground with a bullet hole through his head, and blood on Andrew's shirt was not exactly a good thing to be found with. He panicked, and started to think about what to say.
Before he got the chance to think of something, two people, probably guards, were knocking on the door.
"Hello? What is going on in there?"
Andrew stopped trying to think of an excuse, since an atrocity like this would obviously lead to a death penality. Even if he could prove that he didn't do it, the procecutors would hammer him, since someone would have to be held responsible. The only thing he could do would be to get out of the room quickly.
The guards tried to open the door, but it was locked thanks to the director.
"Hey! What is going on in there?"
Andrew couldn't find any more doors, so he ran over to the bookcase, hoping that it would hold a secret exit. He started moving all the books around.
The guards were trying to smash the door in by hitting it with some heavy object, probably a fire extinguisher.
Moving all of the books was of no use, so it seemed that there would only be one way out. The bullet hole in the window was large enough to get out of, but it would be a fall to the floor below, which was at least 7 meters. Falling from a height like that could cause some serious injury, not to mention that it would look even more suspicious if he tried to escape?
The prosecutors would have his head on a pole either way, so he walked over to the window, and contemplated for a moment, before he threw himself out of it with the book in his left hand.