"To step beyond the walls that made you is to discover whether you are heir to a throne… or to a destiny."
Exiting the vertical drop shaft machine, Neesha entered the top-floor secluded chamber which was totally quiet, Neesha saw a man seated on a leather seat, not quite far from the reinforced glass veil of the room. The man was continuously tapping on the chair's armrest, his gaze fixed on the distant Vortex Frontier through the glass veil. Neesha's sudden and unannounced entry didn't even flinch him. That told off a little about his personality that not so many things could steer him off his focus.
He was the deputy leader of this magnificent fort, an assistant to Neesha. He had Ben the deputy leader of this vast territory far before the death of Neesha's father.
He and Neesha were the only humans who were supposed to be in this whole vast territory. The 'Wardens' being referred to by the inhumane voice earlier were actually not human wardens. They were advanced AI robots whose thoughts and movement processes were no different from that of a real human. One could actually not tell which one was real or not. And there were thousands of them spread across the different hundreds of sections of Aorx.
Aort fort was a very vast structure which spread horizontally, covering a huge area of land on Plato. However, one may wonder how the whole structure was controlled by just two humans and the 'Wardens'. The fort was built with so many self-functioning devices that it was almost impossible to break through their security systems. And because of its vast size, it was sectored into hundreds of various divisions, each division specified in its own scientific research analysis.
Between each division, there were high-defense platforms embedded on walls in between these divisions or structures which perform security accessment of their own automated volition. Inside each of these divisions were security interfaces like neural lattice gates, resonance corridors, retina-pulse scanner interfaces, quantum seal doors, sentinel grids, and pressure shift floors and carriage mechanisms like elevators, mag-lev glide platforms, vertical drop shafts, wall-run transit rails, pneumatic transit pods, phase shift bridges, Sentinel Escort Units and subterranean rail spines.
Aorx fort was like an entire utopia of surreal technology, none like it in New Facility.
"I'm leaving Plato,"Neesha spoke tentatively.
Though she was the leader appointed by her father and the man before her was the deputy even before she became the fort's leader, he had always treated her or referred to her like his own daughter. Though he's a distant person and preferred spending most of his time alone, he still attended to his duties and maintained his loyalty to Neesha, even if she's old enough to be his granddaughter. This was a price he was going to pay until his death. Neesha's father had saved his life and family bloodline from extinction in the past and so, he was going to return the favour by protecting the only child and daughter he had left.
The man however, turned his old wrinkled neck from oldage. He was actually older than he looked and had a longer life span than a normal human.
The old man gave her a response she didn't expect. She was quite surprised.
"Okay." He said, returning his gaze back to the view through the glass veil. After some silent moments, he added, "I will take care of things while you're gone."
Neesha wasn't really surprised at his réactions. His response to answers were usually unpredictable.
With that, she turned to leave. But then, the old man called her.
"Neesha."
"Hm?"
"Promise me you'd be safe."
Neesha felt a hint of sentiment flood her senses at that moment.
"I promise."
She said, and left the room, prompting the old man to resume his moments of solitude.
---
She climbed the vertical drop shaft platform, which then floated down unto the second floor, basically the ground floor, where she passed through the security of a quantum seal door that led to a wide plaza.
The plaza was a large space with floating mag-lev glide platforms hovering at mere centimeters above the lustrous white floor. Climbing onto one, she activated the machine and drove straight to another chamber. There an advanced AI robot welcomed her and led her onto a new huge chamber, this one twice as big as the place she just left. At the far end of this big hall, there was a teleporting machine.
Without wasting much time, she instructed some Wardens to setup the teleport location on the interface as she stepped into the teleport device. And the next second...
---
Neesha found herself on the crest of a mountain where the wind was blowing furiously. The atmosphere of this planet felt... different. The wind was much cooler here. With her super sturdy skin, the furious wind was instead caressing her skin gently. She wished she wouldn't go back, but she couldn't make that decision. Not because some people would restrict her from doing so, but because herself was against it. She was not going to leave her father's territory, only to be enslaved by some strange laws in a foreign planet, one she had never visited before. All her sixteen years of age, this was her first time leaving her planet.
Looking around, she tried to find some clues of where she was. Even though she hadn't been here before, she had been in a 3 dimensional simulation of most of the maps of New Facility, back at the fort. There was a high probability that this place might seem rather familiar.
Her first minutes of teleporting here had been very difficult for her because the atmospheric pressure was vastly different. By now however, she was getting used to it. At her sixteen years of age, her body had been honed to replicate the perfect prototype her mentors wanted for her, both in strength, mental capacity and other powerful aspects. Therefore, her body was made into what could adapt to countless changes and so she was resilient enough.
After about thirty minutes of trying to maintain her breathing, Neesha jumped high off the mountain crest and landed over one hundred metres away from the foot of the mountain which, of course, instantly unturned the earth and created a deep trench, creating cracks and thundering sonic boom across the ground, which brushed the nearby bushes with a forceful sweep. Even the closest huge trees were being partially uprooted from the ground. Leaping out of the trench, she landed into a bush. There, she saw a young girl who, from Neesha's calculations, was around the age of four. The girl... seemed to have just watched the disastrous scene! It seemed that the girl was not caught in the disaster because she was protected by the tree she was currently standing beside. Feeling embarrassed that the little girl might have seen her descend like a messenger of destruction, she immediately tried to correct the girl's thought.
"N-no, it's not what you think. I simply jumped and.." she was then suddenly perplexed for no reason. 'Think of something, Neesha!'
Changing her facial expression to one more friendly, she smiled her eyes and managed to say, "Hi, I'm Neesha. You are?"
However though, the young girl's response was not what Neesha expected.
The girl, was still marvelled at how Neesha appeared before her—a divine being that fell directly from heaven, or perhaps a messenger from hell. The girl could not tell.
Or more put, Neesha couldn't guess what was going on in the girl's mind. She just really wanted the young girl to have a good impression of her.
Then the girl freaked out, calling on her mom.
"Ma... mama."
Now totally freaking out, she dropped the light-emitting device she was playing with as she finally took to her heels the opposite direction and shouted at the top of her voice.
"Mamaa! Sister... is here!"
'Huh, what's she saying?'
Neesha couldn't understand her because the girl was speaking in a foreign language she hadn't heard of before. Well, it shouldn't be strange. She was actually on a different planet now. What had she expected?
Looking ahead, she saw the young girl returning with a woman old enough to be her mother. The woman... looked way younger than Neesha had expected her to be. Based on her universal knowledge of most parts of the universe, most especially about New Facility, she had learnt so far that every human was born by the fusion of a male and female gender and so she believed that the woman was either a sibling, her mother or her... mentor? Mama? Whatever the girl called it. She might have learnt a lot about New Facility, but she didn't have any chance to learn the foreign languages.
"Where did you see your sister? I told you she's gone!"
"Mama! Sister! There!" the young girl said as she pointed, which made the woman look in that direction. Finally able to notice that someone was indeed there, the woman suddenly gasped in surprise. "Can she..?"
Without hesitation, the woman ran toward Neesha. It really could be true that hee long lost daughter came back home again. But upon getting there, she was immediately disappointed by what she saw. Neesha appeared too young to have any appearance close to her late daughter's.
"Anya, this is not your sister. I warned you severally not to go near the bushes. Get inside. I will attend to this girl. She must have also been lost."
Neesha could not understand what the woman was saying. But she could notice that the woman seemed disappointed by something. Her appearance? Was she too old? Maybe... oh! She's too beautiful! Father always told her she was the prettiest in the world!
"Urm... I know I might look too attractive, but can you please tell me where exactly I am?"
Unfortunately, the woman didn't seem to understand her.
After feeling disappointed again, Neesha resolutely tried communicating with gestures. Her deputy had once taught Gesture arts to her when he felt less distant and chose to spend some time with her, incase she found herself exploring the world someday. It was a type of ancient art solely for communication across any part of the universe.
Only to find herself on an important mission on behalf of her fath–
on behalf of someone so dear she couldn't refuse, putting those mindless plays of gesture practices into the actual use.
After many attempts of making gestures, Neesha was finally able to communicate some words, like "jump", "far place" and "don't know this place".
Deciphering these, the woman was somewhat stunned after confirming from Neesha that she wasn't lying. Behind Neesha, there was a huge hole that wasn't there before? Had she...?
Did she have a pod crash? No...
The woman then looked around for any possible pods around or any machinery. But yet, she couldn't help but ask equally with gestures,
"Sorry, but... how did you get here?" The woman turned out to be better at gestures than Neesha.
Neesha could decipher what she meant, and however, was straightforward in her reply. "Oh? I teleported here from my planet. I haven't been here before so it's such a pleasure that I get to meet the third and fourth humans in my life. I jumped off that mountain behind me and so I landed here. Sorry I created a hole in your fie–"
The woman felt disgusted by what Neesha was saying.
'What... are you saying?"
The woman could not understand her, but looking at Neesha's shins, she saw dirt smudged on them.
"Goodness gracious... did... you... what are you?"
'It can't be!'
"Where're your parents? Did you come alone? Do you need help?" Though Neesha was sixteen, she didn't look like it. She actually looked like a ten year old! Turns out growth rate on her planet was different.
Neesha, now tired of the whole thing, walked towards the woman's residence, ignoring her questions. The woman tried to stop her by wiggling of her hands because it was obvious she was afraid of touching Neesha, but Neesha didn't listen to her. She merely walked past her. She wanted to look around more. She had merely walked three hundred meters of this planet in almost an hour of arriving here.
Looking around the house and its surroundings, it seemed that the woman and her child stayed alone in this wild place.
Well to her, this was the most peaceful place to be, honestly.
She had to finish her mission, before the voice starts getting worried.
Then she muttered to herself,
"Let's go fetch the Cadet. Hmph."