The Core: The Dark Enemy

27. The Battle over Time

Hi everyone!

My family and I live in Hanoi Vietnam now! The last few months have been a fun ride to get here and I am already enjoying the adventure that is this country. In the last many months I managed to finish my Bachelor's Degree in Game Art and Design through SNHU. You all can check out my portfolio of game assets here: https://www.artstation.com/veritaskingdom and even get to see some models of what a Tela and Leva look like.

Hope you are are doing awesome and that I hopefully have more time to write here.

Cheers!

Ken

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The moment my consciousness returned to the small drone body, I could tell that something was different. I felt... more whole and powerful than when I was in VR or away as an avatar. It almost reminded me of the last time I had recovered from a serious virus or illness, only to wake up one day completely renewed.

"How strange," I muttered as I swept my gaze through the swarm around me and found that instead of being inside a representation of a human body, my void seedling was encapsulated inside an array of interlocking swarm. Everything around me was geometric shapes and precise angles, in stark contrast to the organic layout the swarm had always used before.

"What am I looking at?" I asked, rotating my vision in place and zooming out to get a broader perspective of the gigantic structure that was rapidly being created to facilitate my journey. "Two Hoberman spheres and a soccer ball." I mused as I noticed the gradual loss of size in each. For some reason, the sizing seemed off to me.

"Nurse, why is everything weighted this way? There doesn't seem to be enough swarm to counterbalance the amount used to launch me."

"That's right Kevin."

"So what? Why do it this way? Won't this setup put too much strain on stopping my crazy speed?"

"Yes. But it has to be done this way if you are going to get there as fast as I predict it will take you to save those children."

"You did it so that the majority of the swarm would survive and only need to heal, while the second group would most likely be blown to bits?" I asked, imagining what was coming.

"Yes."

"And there is no other way?"

"There are always other ways. What matters is the outcome. Every moment we continue to accelerate, and soon we will have to begin to decelerate so as not to simply fly past the entire battlefield. Doing it this way will essentially get us there much faster. It will just require a sacrifice of swarm."

The answer didn't bother me too much. The swarm had all become a part of me, an extension of myself. If saving the Blidda children meant losing an easily replaceable part of myself, then so be it.

I watched the structure nearing completion and prepared myself for the next stage of my journey. Soon I would be in the thick of it and able to make a difference.

"Kevin?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I didn't store more Gold cr. It was a lack of oversight on my part. I outfitted most of your swarm with Obsidian cr, thinking that it would keep the Earth safe from anything that would be attracted to the emissions that Gold produced. In retrospect, I should have kept a larger supply on hand and placed it in Obsidian shells. In essence, I should have made batteries out of Gold cr. My thinking that I could always go to a star to replenish our reserves was wrong, and I am sorry."

"It's okay, Nurse. You're right, we're not emitting whatever #!&^^ energy is contained in Gold cr. I can only imagine the consequences of using so much of it to save Earth or even to get here. It would probably have created a superhighway for every creature to be drawn to near and far. By the way, does #!&^^ mean growth energy or something like that?"