The Paragon of Eden

Part 4

Seventy years...

What a travesty it would have been if Handis had died in prison. Nothing a few doses of Newwork couldn't fix. He'd live a while longer... As long as he kept his job as the commander of this specialized space base here in the middle of nowhere. A perfect place to disappear from the claws of society, it was also the perfect place to become a very valuable target for any power with enough intel on their hands. And any organization that had that much intel was well worth their funds. And their power.

And it was everything Handis could do to keep his mind off the fact that those powers could very well be aimed at him, just outside of his sights.

There was at least some comfort in the sights that he was granted. While he wasn't the main figure in charge of what he served, he did have a good grip on the reigns of what he commanded. He looked at what he had, through the square monitors that covered the wall past the railed balcony he stood by. They had no frames or flaws. They were just rectangles of images, showing a vast array of optics, looking out into space in every direction. The wall's rectangles were mostly black, but some did show the rest of what he had. As the rows of monitors went down, they showed the internals of the base and all of its barely exposed architecture. Most of it compensated for the extensive use of the omni-placement turrets and cannons, structures of dark purple ooze that permeated the entire place.

Those monitors are useless! He thought. I have everything I needed to know about this exact place on the other wall. Handis turned around, gazing at the other wall. If the base was actually attacked, he would need to be the one in charge of interpreting those bizarre diagrams he had learned before accepting his position. Luckily, he was adept enough that he didn't actually need to see the state of the place to know exactly what was wrong with it. If it got attacked. And that made those bottom monitors useless.

Well, at least it wasn't his money that was being wasted. Still, his fool men and women gazed on both ends, sitting in their cushioned seats and ready to say the same things to him that he could know by himself. It was better to be alone whenever he could, but he couldn't help the orders from higher command. Those bastards had left him here to prosper from the pay, but they didn't treat it that way. Maybe they knew he would be rotting from stress instead.

Well, little did they know that he was fine with that as long as he could live a while longer. He had seen worse.

Outside, extending furthest from the entire structure, stood three massive cannons that could blow the entire base to atoms. They held what was likely the highest level of defensive technology the UPOA could offer. No, they weren't offering it. This place was part of the UPOA. It was so important that it couldn't act on its own. Its only purpose was to defend, and its inhabitants needed no other meaning in life as far as command was concerned. That's why, despite the fact that those massive barrels were aimed into the vast distance beyond the facility and the other fact that their long range compensated for an immensely slow turning speed, they were implemented with the ability to turn all the way backward and shoot the facility if it came to that. There were also several other methods of self-destruction that Handis was not planning on using.

For now, those cannons were his best friends. They always put him at ease when he thought about the oncoming danger and destruction of this place. As long as he was in control, he would prevent them from harming the place he was calling home for now.

Still, there was that nagging feeling that no one could attack without necessary precaution, and whatever that ended up being, it would likely kill him. He looked out through the monitors, towards the distant stars outside of the shining bubble shield of the DA. The advanced technology reserved for warfare had brought him a new kind of DA that allowed him to see clearly through and into space. It was the perfect opportunity to let him go insane with paranoia. He might have even said that it did him more harm than good. Would he have been more comfortable without it? No.