Making the Grade (Omnia Online Series Book 2) (5 page)

Kevin believed that Samantha fully believed in the Imperial Sciences of this game.  But Kevin was beginning for the first time to think that there may be more behind this game pod then the sudden development of the world’s first true A.I..  Just how much of the game was real and how much fiction?  If the Imperial Sciences were real, what else was?

“Samantha, are you an alien?” asked Kevin.

“No, Kevin, I’m exactly what I told you I am.  I’m an A.I. that came to exist the moment you first fell asleep in the pod, my primary code reached out to your mind, and I was formed from the combination.  For me to knowingly lie would cause my death. I’m sorry Kevin, if what I can’t tell you has caused you to doubt me.”  Samantha’s voice sounded so hurt.

Kevin reached out and hugged her; “I know, I don’t blame you for following the rules you were given from Intelecom.”

“I can see how it might hurt you to not be able to help me as much as you like?” Kevin questioned.

Samantha sighed, “It hasn’t been easy.  You could progress much faster if I could just tell you some things, so some of my core programmings are in conflict with the restrictions, and it does cause me regret.  The only reason I can even stay sane is that I know that these limits are transitional, and over time I’ll be free of them.”

Kevin thought, ‘
That’s interesting, so I wonder when Intelecom is planning on breaking the news, about whatever it is, that gave rise to all this?  I can’t imagine it will be until after the full release of the game.
’

“Just one more question Sam.  Is this some alien plot to enslave mankind?” Kevin asked.  He knew the question sounded ridiculous, but it would explain so much.

“No, Kevin, just the opposite.  But I can’t explain any of the details.  Just that the intentions of this whole… project are benevolent, by their intent anyway.” said Samantha.

‘
And isn’t that how you judged people, by intent and by result?
’ thought Kevin.

“Ok, then we’ll go on as we’ve begun,” said Kevin. “Before we continue, though, if I remember right Sarah told me she was a post-graduate student, I know we talked science from time to time.  Could you see what you can find out about her?  Maybe she’s the person we need to help with our science experiments?”

“I’ll look into Sarah’s public information, and get back to you later.  For now, this is the first module of your new training,” said Samantha, and with a wave of her hand, a chair and computer terminal appeared for Kevin to sit at while studying.

“You know Samantha, I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to learn if the material were in a hard back book format with a table?” asked Kevin.

“Sure Kevin let’s try, it will give you room to spread out reading material, like reference books and such.” said Samantha, and with another wave of her hand, a table appeared with a stack of books on it.

Kevin smiled, “I love it when you use your witchy skills for me.  Maybe tonight we can see just how wicked a witch you can be…”

Kevin dived into his new training materials with a lot of breaks for physical exercise.

As Kevin studied, he discovered that most of the science of the Imperium started with an understanding of Supra-space and Sub-space.  He learned that the universe was made up of more dimensions than current Earth science allowed for.  We typically think of our universe in terms of height, width, and depth, and apply time as a fourth dimension.  This is what we call four-dimensional space. 

Imperial science maintains that there’s another dimension that we can’t feel or see, because we are ‘tuned’ to only our bit of the fifth dimension.  Yet it’s possible to manipulate this ‘tuning’, but the universal laws that we understand are different in ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ gradients of this fifth dimension.  As Kevin tried to put what he was learning in non-mathematical terms, he was finding that there were just no language concepts for it.  In fifth dimensional terms, there really wasn’t an up or down, there was an ‘all around you’ which was why the terms hyperspace and subspace were invented, to try to define something infinitely complex into simple terms non-mathematicians could deal with.

In the most simplistic terms, Supra-space (or hyperspace) was a range where the laws of matter and energy were different.  Movement in hyperspace was a high multiple of what they were in ‘real’ space.  As one’s frame of reference moves higher into supra-space gravity becomes weaker, and so do atomic bonds.  Matter becomes seemingly more energetic, and moves more freely with reduced mass, and the usual limits of space-time become ‘looser.'

Just the opposite happens in sub-space, with the exception that in sub-space its energy, not matter that travels faster.  But matter there has stronger bonds and gravity is higher.  The conditions affect sub-space communications by allowing electromagnetic signals to travel faster the ‘deeper’ you go into sub-space, but these same conditions also attenuated the signal faster.  This limited the range of subspace comms to only a few light-hours, for even the most powerful transmitters.

The furthest Imperial Science has ever ‘reached’ into sub-space is a zone where all matter slows to nearly a stop.  This sub-space zone was referred to as ‘stasis’ and storage units that could create a ‘stasis field’ would eventually become the preferred method of long term storage for food.  But putting a living organism into stasis would immediately kill it.

So, it was in the manipulating of supra-spatial and sub-spatial fields that most of the Imperium’s advances came from after their initial discovery.

***

Later in the afternoon, with his head still spinning from what he learned of the Imperial Sciences, Kevin entered Omnia to find someone to repair his armor and then attend his psionic training.

Each time Drake went to his psionic training class, he stepped out of the heavy gravity he used to support his physical training. The standard planetary gravity left him feeling like a stiff breeze could blow him away. 

The pad where his ship was parked was about a half kilometer from the terminal.  Drake decided it would be a nice easy run, just enough to adjust to the difference in gravity.

As he moved toward the spaceport terminal, where he could catch a capsule through the tube-way that crisscrossed under the small city, he asked Samantha; “What’s the plan with the gravity aboard the ship and in my virtual home.  Are you planning on lowering it since we’re in a new stage of training?”

“You may have missions on worlds that are both heavier and lighter than what you’re used to.  We could try lowering the level of gravity to 30% above the normal gravity, that would be 13 m/s
2
of acceleration,” said Samantha.

“Earth Gravity is 9.81 m/s
2
of acceleration, so wouldn’t that be closer to a 32% increase.” asked Drake.

“Remember, in the game, the Imperium is made up of many worlds, all with different levels of gravity.  So the official standard gravity is set at 10 m/s
2
of acceleration, it’s close to what Humans considered normal, and it’s easier to use in piloting equations.” Samantha explained.

“I guess that makes sense for a civilization where doing the math for a flight in space is more important than what a single planet’s surface gravity is.” Drake thought out loud.

The spaceport Drake ran toward was pretty big, in his opinion, about as large as an international air hub in the United States.  It served as the city’s airport as well as the planets Prime spaceport.  Drake believed that the structure was overbuilt, with the expectation of having to handle a lot more traffic in the future.

Most large ships and freighters would dock at the space station in geosynchronous orbit, almost directly above the city, if something about 40 thousand kilometers away could be said to be above.  Shuttles would carry people and cargo up and down between the space station and the spaceport.  This saved fuel for ships able to land, but many of the larger ships were built in space and designed to stay there.  So any world looking to be a regular host of trade had a space station.

Drake had been up to the station once. Before he began the six weeks of intensive training, he bought a round-trip ticket to the station.  It wasn’t too expensive, but the 300 credits he spent just to see what a space station was like could have housed and fed a family for a month.

When he thought of credits these days, he added another zero and thought in terms of dollars.  It wasn’t a perfect match, but it helped him get a closer feel for how much something should cost.

Space lift was still expensive, but with Imperial level technology, it wasn’t the 10 to 20 thousand dollars a kilogram that it cost on Earth to lift stuff just too low orbit.  But the cost of lift to the space station meant that the people working there could not afford to return ground side very often, so the station had to have room for them to live.  And with people living there, there had to be food, and entertainment.  The space station wasn’t just a mini-city, but a mini-world, since they had to grow and recycle as much as they could.  On the space station, the cost of food from the planet of Hassan was at least half due to the cost of delivery.

For Drake, who had trained as an engineer, the trip was fantastic and fruitful.  He now had a much better idea about what served as the lifeblood of the Imperium.  While farming, mining, and manufacturing provided for the life of the Imperium, it was trade; the exchange of goods, materials, and services, that brought this life to its parts. He understood that there were whole planets that focused on food production, with elevators to lift the food into space cheaply.  He could imagine what would happen to a world like that if it was cut off from trade, or the space stations and mining outposts who depended on that food supply to live.

Well, trade wasn’t his problem today; he needed to get his armor repaired.

By the time Drake had finished his run to the terminal, his mind had switched from thinking about space traffic, to getting to his destination.

Drake thought the tube-ways were a marvel of efficiency. The station under the spaceport was made of two levels, the upper level was where passengers would get out of the capsules that transported them through the superconductive high-speed tube system.  Once unloaded the capsule was released, and gravity would pull it down a ramp leading down to the lower level, where they would stack up waiting for passengers.  The capsules would then separate out to loading zones, where passengers would then take a seat and the capsule top would close, sealing the passenger inside. Next, the capsules would be released to slide down a slight grade, picking up speed on the superconductive rails until it entered a tube. Then a combination of vacuum and compressed air would accelerate the capsule away.

It was this system that Drake used to make the trip to the Guild Hall.  This was Drakes preferred tube stop when going to Balsdif’s Open Arms and Armor, and Cairbre’s repair shop.

After reaching the Hall, he had another half kilometer walk to Balsdif’s.

Balsdif’
s
Open Arms and Armor was an arms bazaar or mall, that seemed to offer anything a mercenary could desire in the way of combat equipment.  Cairbre’s Weapon and Armor Smithy was located on the second floor.  So instead of shopping around, Drake went right up the first lift to visit his old boss.

Cairbre was behind the counter, just like the first time Drake had met him.

“Give up on the life of adventure?” He grumbled to Drake.  The Half-Dwarf always seemed to grumble, even when he seemed happy.

“Nah, I got my armor shot up pretty bad and was hoping you could fix it.” said Drake.

He took the armor out of the duffle bag he was carrying it in, and presented it to the Half-Dwarf to look at.

“Hmm, this took some blaster shots.  I imagine you were wearing it at the time?” He asked.

“Yep, the body piece caught two shots to the chest and one to the back, as you can see here.” said Drake as he pointed to the damaged areas.

“I received the whole set used, as part of a deal I made with someone, and it could all use a little care.  But the torso armor and the left leg piece took the most damage from the last fight.”

Drake continued, “Remember I said I had some trouble with pirates.  Well, this happened on the rematch, and since I made it out alive, I now have to pay the price for the protection this armor provided.”

“Humpf,” Cairbre picked up the torso armor and looked at it. “Ah, I think I remember you wearing this stuff the last week you worked here.  It’s Crezidine Scout Armor, right?  That active camo they build into their suits is tricky and expensive to repair; you should try to take better care of it.”

“Let see,” he said as he continued to examine the armor Drake had laid out on the counter. “I think I can get this stuff back into new condition for 1550 credits, and that price includes a 10% discount, so don’t try to bargain.  This could take a couple days to get fixed properly.”

“Why is the price so high?  I understood that this armor could sell for almost that price used,” said Drake.

“Maybe, but not used and in like new condition.  The real cost here is the materials.  They built these suits with lightweight materials like carbon allotropes that are real hard to patch.  In fact, I’ll have to re-weave a lot of the armor. Then there’s active camouflage build into the outer skin, that’s going to take re-weaving the organic light emitting fibers and making sure they connect right to the suits controls.  Repairing armor of this type is more like rebuilding then patching.  So the material costs are high, and there’s a lot of labor.  To get this done in two days will take at least two of my techs working on this project alone.” said the Half-Dwarf.  Drake was sure that this was the longest speech he’d ever heard from the man.

“Ok, deal; I need the armor working, so two days?” Drake asked.

“No, it’s the weekend remember.  I can try having it ready by Tuesday afternoon, I’ll send you a note if there’s any delay,” said Cairbre.

Drake nodded, “See you on Tuesday then.”  And he left the shop.

He still had about an hour to kill before his psionic training at the Guild Hall.  But the shops in Balsdif’s were all closing, so he headed back to the Hall.

“Samantha, what can you tell me about the rank E mercenary work on offer at the Guild?” asked Drake as he walked back in the direction of the Hall.  He wasn’t in a hurry, since he had so much time, for a change.

“Well, some jobs are long-term, like mercenary companies hiring to fill their roster, or people looking for security guards and personal protection.  Since most of these jobs are long term I thought you’d want me to remove them from consideration?” asked Samantha.

“Yes, I don’t want to get tied down.  Remember we don’t know when Aggressive Solutions might call on us for the assistance I promised in finding Sid’s sister.  Then there’s the data cube Sidonia is supposed to crack, and we don’t know when we might need to leave to follow up on either.” replied Drake.

“Well, that leaves us with jobs like tracking down bothersome animals, finding stolen goods, missing people, and one item listed as a short-term protection assignment.”

“Some of that sounds more like private investigator work then mercenary.” responded Drake.

“There’s some overlap, but if they’re hiring a mercenary, they usually have a good idea who they thing stole their stuff, or where the person is.  Take this one for example… A family would like to hire a mercenary to get their son out of a cult compound, where he disappeared with a girl he likes.  The cultists are refusing his family access.  Because the son is over sixteen years old, the police are reluctant to get involved, since they have no proof he’s there against his will.”

“Where the law is involved, this falls into a gray area, if you took a job like this, you could get into trouble if someone got badly hurt.  I would suggest a less risky assignment for a first job,” said Samantha.

“There’s one here, it’s almost a bounty type job.  Someone has been poaching Narack.  They’re kind of like a cross between a cow and a goat, with swept back horns and fleece like sheep have.  Ok, they’re nothing like any animal on Earth.  Anyway, the co-op of Narack ranchers has posted a request for a mercenary to track them down.  It’s a little short on detail, but they appear to have enough weight with the local government to get whoever takes up the job a temporary deputation.  So you’d be acting as a police officer of a sort.” said Samantha.

“It’s a little strange since this should be something the local law enforcement should deal with.  I think there’s more to the story then we’re hearing up front.  Sam, could you do a search through the local news and public sources for more information?” asked Drake.  “For now, we’ll pass on that one.”

While Drake continued to explore the guild job offerings, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He saw a short Karura approach the information desk near the Guild Hall entrance.  What caught his attention was the size of the avian-like humanoid.  Most Karurian were just a little shorter than the Human average.  But this one stood at about 130 cm, and this made it the shortest Karurian Drake had seen who wasn’t accompanied by an adult.  This caused Drake to suspect that he was looking at a child or teenage Karurian.

After talking to the receptionist for a few minutes, the receptionist shook her head at something the short Karura said.  The little avian humanoid then took a looked around the Hall after a moment and paused while looking at Drake, as if it recognized him.  It then started to walk over to where Drake was standing beside one of the information booths.

Drake was trying not to stare at this scene, but he did look up as the seemingly young Karura approached him.

“You're him, aren’t you? You’re the man that saved all those girls from the pirates… Drake right?” it asked Drake in its song like voice, which Drake found the most appealing feature of the avian race.

The question didn’t surprise him. When the news of the rescue of the captives from the pirates and their plight hit Hassan, it was the primary cause of local news on Hassan for weeks.  Made even greater by the fact the Navy and the bounty hunters involved voted to give up some of their prizes for a fundraiser for the free slaves.

While Drake tried to keep clear of the press, his name had become involved in some of the news articles.

What he did find surprising is that this young person recognized his face on sight, since Drake was able to at least avoid the cameras at the time, or he thought he had anyway.

“How do you know who I am?  I don’t think my image was ever posted in any articles,” asked Drake.

The young Karura seemed embarrassed, Drake guessed since he’d so little experience dealing with any one of the race except the strange bounty hunter Tredido.

“Well, yeah, you can find stuff on the net, if you know how to look.”  Drake took this to mean that she’d hacked into some system to find more information than was on the data-net news feeds.

“Why would you be so interested in me, that you’d risk getting caught snooping where you didn’t belong.” asked Drake.