88. The Plain

“I guess the green light is the way,” Marius said, before activating his nodocycle and speeding away. Not to be outdone, Nox and Jaden quickly did the same and were soon on his heels. Fureva-Yung tried once more to force the nodocycle to her will, straddling it instead of holding it between her hands. She floated sideways for a while as the bike awkwardly realigned itself to her body, before hitting the ground and racing up behind the other three.
 
They drove on unheedful of speed or distance. The land was flat and featureless for a long time, giving the impression that the planets above and not the four nodocycles were moving. Slowly, the four companions started seeing isolated rock outcroppings, first at a distance, then more and closer to their path. They were getting to the beginning of the end of the plains, but what lay at the finish was still over the horizon.
 
A screech rumbled through the sky and earth, shivering the whole plain from behind the cyclist. Turning to glance behind, they saw a large flying creature, with a wingspan more than ten metres across, blotted out the stars and planets in the sky. Its beak, the leading edge of its wings and the talons glowed a bright red neon. The rest of the creature was the black silhouette of a great bird.
 
Thinking to confuse the enemy and offer it more targets, Fureva-Yung peeled off to the left. Nox, thinking to outwit the bird-brained predator, turned her bike around and started heading for it.
“Ah, back off, Nox!” Marius called down the telepathic network as he realised what the girl was doing and started back. The ground shook a second time under the bird’s screech.
“If I time it right, it won’t be able to pull up before crashing into the plain,” Nox replied, watching as the bird started its dive towards her. She’s been tired before they started this drive across the plain. There was no way she’d be of use if the monster bird caught up with them. Nox slammed on the brakes of the bike too late! The bird swooped in and snatched her up, bike and all. The nodobike dissolved away, Nox had disappeared, the prey had somehow escaped!
 
Marius grumbled about reckless behaviour and flung out a force cube in front of the bird. Being only nine cubic metres, it wasn’t even as large as the bird's torso and started crumbling apart as the bird hit it. A large chunk of ‘force’ fell for Marius, crashing into him and his bike. The bike disappeared, and Marius was left pinned under the heavy chunk of his own making.
 
Now with one prey gone and another trapped, the bird turned its attention to Fureva-Yung off to the left. The giant bird veered off in pursuit, talons raking the air in front of it in anticipation. Fureva-Yung was fully aware she was now had the bird’s attention. When she’d been a cadet, she had learnt what flying meant, taming and riding creatures such as this. It may be a millennium ago, but she could feel the old skills kick in. Pushing off the canopy of the noncycle, she started swinging it lasso-style above her head.
 
Nox didn’t feel good. What was worse, she didn’t know where she was. She seemed to be in a passageway beside a ladder going up to what she could only imagine was the surface. Before her, a set of stairs led down into gloom. In her hand was her baton, she shakily put it in her pouch before checking to see where it hurt. It was hard to tell, being a collection of stars on a black made it hard to see where the bird talon had pierced her, but her left side burned. All she wanted to do was sleep, but above her, she knew the others would be fighting that bird. Using the ladder as support, Nox climbed back onto her feet and started up the ladder.
 
Thankfully, now that the bird had flown out of sight, Marius tried pushing the piece of force cube off. Though not huge, it was made of pure force, an energy stronger than metal in the datasphere. As he strained, he could feel the ground below him buckle and groan, but the force cube piece stayed put.
 
Above, the hatch to what Nox believed had to be the surface, groaned and cracked. Tiny dust-like particles of sand drifted down into her face, making her stop.
What’s happening up there? She thought and scanned the door in an attempt to understand.
 
The giant bird swooped down and made a raking attack on Fureva-Yung on her speeding nodocycle. Ready, Fureva-Yung dodged the attack and, in response, climbed up onto the seat of her bike. Leaping up, she swung her single chain up and around the bird’s lowered head, and caught it on the other side. She’d caught the bird!
 
Marius caught his breath for a second attempt at pushing the force chunk away, just as Nox stopped and noticed a great deal of force being exerted on the door. The trap door gave way under Marius' strength, collapsing in, with Marius tumbling after. Nox had no chance to get out of the way and was hit first by the door and then by Marius. She bamfed away again, as Marius fell through the space she’d once been, crashing into the passageway.
 
The bird screamed its ground-trembling cry as it shook its great body and barrel-rolled to try dislodging its attacker.
Hold on and hold out! That’s what the flight trainers had told them at the academy. If need be, Fureva-Yung could hold on until the bird collapsed of exhaustion, but she didn’t think it would come to that. She wrapped the single chain around one hand and hung like a dead weight, watching the landscape below roll by. She noticed, far ahead, a range of mountains, seemingly their destination.
You tell it whose Admiral! She felt the tiny cry of Nox through the telepathic link. She was pleased to know the girl had survived her attempt at catching the bird, but such things were always best left to the professionals.
 
Nox found herself floating a few metres above a chunk of force cube left lying around on the plain. Looking around, she could see a hole into the passageway she’d only just been, now revealed. Above and to her left, the bird cried, and she looked up to see Fureva-Yung hanging like some blue furry ornament from around the bird’s neck.
You tell it whose Admiral! She called through the telepathic network, recalling a time before the settlement of Tiltspire when Fureva-Yung had killed a bird of similar size that had attacked the hover-car. It seemed so long ago, but was only a few month in the past. Fureva-Yung had triumphed then, and Nox had no doubt that Fureva-Yung would triumph this time.
 
Jaden, by this time, having noticed the group dissolved around her, had made a leisurely u- turn and stopped at the force cube chunk just as Nox landed. Putting away her nodocycle baton, she assessed the situation. Fureva-Yung playing with a new pet, check! Marius missing, exploring newly discovered tech, check! Nox looking like death warmed up, disturbing and check! She focused her attention on the piece of force cube. A chunk of force cube wasn’t something Jaden got to investigate every day. Besides, she figured, with the right tweaking, she could use the force that made up the force cube to move the force cube off the even more interesting trap door. A moment’s tinkering and she soon had the answer to that and many other queries.
 
The force in the chunk of cube, so tightly contained, was released, abruptly and with vigour. The shockwave of it threw Jaden high in the air and would have done in the worn-out and battered Nox if she hadn’t reacted quickly and absorbed the energy instead. Nox appeared, three metres away, feeling a little better. The force cube chunk had disappeared, and so had Jaden.
 
Marius, in the meantime, had found himself inside the passageway. Unaware of the adventures happening outside, and for the moment uncaring, Marius stepped down the stairs into the gloom below. Throwing up a glow globe, he found two odd columns, as if made of four columns stuck together to form a joint, somewhat like a knee. Fascinated, his old scavenger senses tingling, he searched the facility.
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Fureva-Yung was impressed with the bird. It was a strong warrior. It had tried to barrel roll her off again, of course, now the chain was in place, Fureva-Yung would not be budged. The bird now tried flying higher, but this small period of calm only gave Fureva-Yung the chance to climb up the bird and lay across its back.
Remember, it's more scared of you than you are of it! She remembered her trainer telling the class, and she started up her deep, relaxing subsonic rumble.
“Calm down, birdy…” She cooed as the deep purr vibrated soothingly throughout the bird's body. Turning its head to look at her, the bird seemed to finally shrug its huge shoulders and level out its flight.
 
Had Jaden been there? The force cube chunk was gone, but that could have gone by itself, right? Right? The only thing Nox was really aware of was how tired and sore she was. Her datasphere body was just as susceptible to being worn out and painful as her meat sack body was, and she needed to sleep just as much in here as she did at home. Bamfing down the ladder, she found the broken and twisted trapdoor and saw a dim light bobbing away in the blackness of the passageway.
Marius is enjoying himself, and Fureva-Yung is with her bird. Jaden wouldn’t mind if I took a nap…just for a little while…
Clearing a corner behind the ladder, Nox curled up with her satchel under her head and was soon unconscious.
 
Jaden, on the other hand, was not in the mood for a nap at that moment. The shockwave of the force cube explosion had sent her flying high into the air. Her acceleration upwards was slowing, but for the moment, she had a few seconds to appreciate her situation. The force cube had contained more energy than she expected. She’d have to remember to have some sort of capacitor ready if she ever found herself in a similar situation. Right now, a little energy could have been a good thing…but so could a pair of wings. She looked up and was amazed a pair of giant claws suddenly appeared above her. The bird had inexplicably levelled out its flight and banked back around. Jaden snatched out for the claws, but the momentum of the explosion was still pushing her up, and the claws slipped out of her grasp to smack her in the face. Stunned and spinning, she was conscious enough to know that this was it, she would soon hit the ground, leaving a very bright and permanent stain. When her dizziness subsided and she still had not been made a paste, Jaden opened one eye. She was flying.
 
As soon as you can, find the creature’s centre of gravity. You’ll know it when you find it.
All Fureva-Yung’s old lessons were coming back to her now. She settled back along the bird’s body until she felt the bird relax under her, its centre of gravity found. Now balanced, the bird could fly with less effort and would be easier to control. Suddenly, the bird rocked as if hit by something large, and it fluttered a moment in panic as it found its equilibrium once more. Being a good pilot, Fureva-Yung quickly checked for enemies. Maybe it was one of her friends still thinking the bird was trouble. She looked back along the underside of the bird and did see a friend, Jaden, swinging by the seat of her pants to the bird’s red neon claw. Literally, by the heavy-duty cloth of her trousers.
Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ip!
 
Down is what you make of it! Her instructor had once said. She was never sure what he’d meant by it, until that moment. Grabbing her chain and pulling it tight, she leapt up onto the bird’s back and ran around it. Her feet always down, she ran upside down under the bird, grabbed Jaden just as the fabric gave way and ran up the other side, landing back in her seat, a still woozy Jaden staring at her, dumbfounded. With a lean into the bird’s hip on the right side, she guided the bird towards the ground.
 
Marius was happily exploring the facility under the plain. Though there was nothing loose to salvage, the technology on display also seemed in very good condition. He’d tried the now-famous Fureva-Yung trick of placing a hand on each column and seeing what happens. Nothing, fortunately, except he did find a button on the top of each column’s knobbly protrusions. In a fit of wanton curiosity, he depressed one button and something deep within the facility churned to life. He found a similar button on the second floor and pressed it. Both columns started rising and falling.
 
From deeper in the darkness, a rhythmic thumping began. Now that too much was going on at the same time, Marius scrambled to try to turn it all off again. Unfortunately, the buttons were flying up and down on the columns. His hands, quicker than sight, snatch out and press a button. The column in front of him began to slow, but deep within this forgotten complex, the machines were waking up. The rhythmic thumping continues.
 
THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP
 
Out on the plain, the giant bird skimed low over the plain and Jaden, still speechless, slided from its back. She watched as, without a wingbeat, the creature soared back up a few metres and banked to the left where Fureva-Yung’s nonocycle baton lay. In a swirl of dust, the bird landed, and Fureva-Yung disembarked, petting the bird. The bird’s head bowed to the dusty earth, its breath stirring up tiny clouds of dust before it leapt back into the sky and flew away.
 
“That was probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, “ Jaden said to no one in particular as Bellyache bumped into her leg for attention, “Besides you, of course, but I made you.” She fussed with Bellyache, hunting down thread and needle for emergency repairs.
 
THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP
 
 
Marius did it… Floated the dreamy thought from Nox as Jaden Fureva-Yung started their climb down the ladder into the underground facility.
“Yes, I found these machines and got them working, so what?” Marius replied, his voice echoing out of the darkness.
“It is a soothing sound, we should rest here,” Fureva-Yung said, noting the girl and thinking she had the right idea.
“Yes, but what does it do?” Jaden said and marched down the passageway to where Marius stood.
“I really want to know what’s happening,” Marius confessed as Jaden examined the two columns before him, “Like, is it going to blow up in our faces?”
Jaden gave him a stern look, as if to say he should stop speaking or risk her wrath. Knowledgeable in both Jaden’s looks and her wrath, he turned off both columns, and the thumping deep in the darkness also ceased.
 
As far as Jaden could gather, the machine was working as expected. There were no signs or sounds of metal distress, no excess heat or flashing warnings of doom. Everything seemed to be working within parameters. Doing what? Well, that was the question.
 
Taking his glow globe, Marius went exploring, discovering a pit of darkness as well as another set of columns with diamond shapes instead of knobbly ends, this time with a control panel.
Hey Nox, there’s a control panel for you, he called and received no response. She was alive, the telepathic network was up, he wasn’t that concerned. He moved on. He found stairs going down into the pit, which he followed. Here was another column, much larger than anything he’d found so far. Another set of stairs led up to two large alcoves, each containing black synth columns. The passage past that point was strewn with rockfall and unpassable without help. Giving up on mapping the facility for the present, he returned to the diamond pillar room and tried to work out the control panel.
 
“Ahead, still a long way off, is a mountain range. It seems to be our destination, “ Fureva-Yung, who had decided to have a short break, told Jaden when she returned to the ladder for a break of her own.
“Good to know we have one,” Jaden replied, “I was starting to get the feeling we were getting nowhere.”
 
Three-quarters of the party rested for an hour as Marius explored. Nox, feeling a little more refreshed and now curious about the control panels, sent her little hedge light ahead and into the facility. She found Marius still sounding out read-outs to try and glean some information from what they said.
The control panel ended up being more of a monitoring station, with no real control over the facility but lots of information about temperature, inputs and outputs. Mostly it seemed to inform the user, through a series of sensors, what was in the facility's vicinity out to a radius of a kilometre or two. A countdown on the monitor was nearly complete.
“Hmm, that’s a countdown. I guess we’re all going to be exploded,” She said to Marius. There was nothing on the readout that suggested they were about to be blown to pieces, she just like to see the panic wash over Marius’ face. Racing to the first set of pillars, he set them running again. On the monitoring station, the countdown stopped, and Nox nodded her head. She thought it was something like that. If Marius hadn’t played with the columns, they would have gone into their own automated restart, after a cooldown period.
 
“Did that do anything?” He called through the room.
“The countdown has been cancelled,” She replied.
Leaping and dodging, Marius turned off the columns a third time. The countdown started again, this time with more than an hour on the clock.
“How about now?”
 
Nox was about to assure him that they were all perfectly safe when the sensors picked up something heading at speed in their direction. With the limited control available, Nox dialled in the sensors. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it was on the ground and it was big.
“Heads up, everyone, something’s on its way from the south-east.”
 
Fureva-Yung scrambled up the ladder and watched the horizon to the south-east. At first, she could see nothing, maybe a cloud hanging low over the ground. Then she saw movement against the horizon and realised whatever it was, was moving just under the surface, kicking up dust and clods of earth in its wake.
 
Below, Marius scrambled around the explored facility, turning off pillars. The countdown disappeared to be replaced by a new one, only this time, half as long.
 
“Ah, the incoming is going deeper,” Nox said, watching the sensor with growing concern. Above ground, Fureva-Yung confirmed that the large item moving through the surface of the ground seemed to disappear as if diving down.
 
Watching the monitors as Marius did his dance of turning on and off the columns, Nox finally worked out what the facility was. The columns were like giant ore pumps, pulling chunks of ore and precious materials through the ground towards the facility. The countdown was just that, a countdown until restarting the pumps and the giant thing moving towards them was a lump of ore picked up by the pumps and dragged to the facility. She overrode the timer, and the countdown stopped appearing.
 
With the latest disaster averted, Fureva-Yung decided that the rest of the facility deserved a search and went to find the collapsed passage.