Darklight: The New World

Part 54: Clandestine Answers

“Do you know why we call them ‘Clandestine Generators’?” Ana asked Draz as they quickly walked down the long, narrow metallic corridor that lead through the Continental Plate and towards the Utopian R & D Department, hidden away from the rest of the world between a three-meter thick steel blast door. 

“Do we really have time for this?” Draz asked her impatiently as they waited for the various sections of the blast door to unfurl - splitting sideways, vertically and horizontally as the various layers peeled back.

“You’ll thank me, I promise” Ana replied with a little smirk.

“Ok” Draz replied as they walked through the blast door and into a small rectangular room with a single semi-circular wooden desk and two elevator doors to each side of it in the wall behind it. A man who was at least in his fifties sat behind the desk, his smart navy blue sweater stated ‘Security’.

“Morning, Smith” Ana said with a large smile.

“Ah Ana - its been a long time! How goes the promotion?” the old man replied with a familiar smile. Draz was restless. He shot a look at Ana. He didn’t have long. They were into minutes... about twenty at that.

“Have you not heard?” Ana smiled.

“Oh you know what it’s like down here, boss - we don’t get much news from the outside world! Just to let you know... that witch they put in here? No way as good as you, boss” He winked at Ana. She let out a genuine laugh.

“You flatter me, Smith! Now we’ve got some urgent work to do. Any chance you could slip me a favor and let us into the Clandestine lab?”

“Oh I don’t know about that” Smith smirked at her. “But if I press this little button here and that elevator door slides open I can just look the other way!”

“You’re a bad man, Smith” Ana said to him with a wink as the elevator door to Draz’s right slid open.

“Learned from the best, boss” He winked back. “Good to meet you too Lord Draz”.

“And you” Draz nodded impatiently as he walked into the elevator. The door slid closed and began to descend.

“Flattery gets you everywhere Alex, you should really learn that” she said to Draz. He must admit, even through all his arrogance she was right.

“You may have a point there” He replied. “So why are they called Clandestine Generators?”

“Well because how they work is a closely guarded secret” Ana said as the elevator slowed and the doors opened to a large mostly empty lab. The room was lined with concrete and there were work benches all around the room with various metal-work tools left untidily all over them. It looked like it was abandoned, the only thing of interest was a small obelisk, a little taller than Soran, made out of a dull grey metal with a large dark purple orb attached to the top. It reminded Draz of an old Van Der Graaf generator from his physics classes at school.

“So are you going to tell me the secret?” Draz asked impatiently. “Do I need to remind you that all life on this planet is currently at risk?”

“The secret is that the generator displaces a minute area of spacetime, opening up to the void - the empty space between universes within the multiverse. Or at least this is what we speculate. We then draw power from this in the form of potential energy - the energy of universes that could be”.

“Can we open a door big enough for me to pass through within our own universe? To Nestro?” This is what he needed.

“No” Ana replied. “The control system isn’t quick enough. The calculations required for something that big and complex are within the hundreds of millions per second, constantly recalculating mass, speed, planar shift and temporal distortions of the entire universe at once. It’s impossible”.

Could it work?

Draz took out the pen-like device from his pocket.

“Could this boost it far enough? Its Forefather personal Displacement technology. Its damaged but I think its a power problem, the control system seems intact”. Ana’s eyes widened in amazement and wonder. She snatched it out of his hand and walked over to the Clandestine generator removing the upper hemisphere of the sphere on top, placing it on the floor and then twisting the bottom of the pen-like device and removing the casing - revealing a single crystal.

“Crystalline technology...” She muttered to herself. “Universal 4 dimensional co-ordination control...” She continued to mutter. She seemed familiar with the concepts that the device employed. She removed a binary circuit board from the sphere and grabbed a couple of two-ended metallic fibre-optic crocodile clipped cables from one of the ables. The translucent cables shimmered a faint blue. Draz continued to watch her, surprisingly impressed by her mental prowess.

“Are they...?” He began.

“Cables capable of carrying arcane, electric, heat and data signals - yes” She said quickly.

“I’m placing this device between the starter power generator and the and the displacement engine. If this device is what you say it is it may actually work. Where do you need to go?”

“Nestro” He said. “The old salt lake”. Ana closed her eyes and used her cerebral implant to access the CCN.

“I’ve got the co-ordinates” She said as she connected the two crocodile clips to two separate parts of the devices’s crystal, then the other ends onto one bare metal cable within the Utopian device and then clipping the last cable onto the metal slot which the removed circuit board clipped in to. The crystal of the device suddenly glowed a pale pink, and Draz’s heart leapt in his chest.

Ana pressed a few buttons on the top of the pen-like device, after which it chirped out a two-toned beep.

“Draz, come here” She said. He walked over to her, feeling the cold radiating from her trench coat as he stood next to her. He shivered slightly - was that the nervous excitement or the temperature drop?

“Take this” she said, passing him the pen device. “When I say, you need to to press that button on top. It should displace you to the location that you need”. Draz smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek.

“You are really fantastic” He said. She blushed at him then coughed a little, taking a step back and said:

“I know, right?” 

“Will it hurt?” Draz asked.

“Hell if I know” She replied. “I hooked it up to the starter power generator which is needed to get normal displacement functions going within the main generator itself. Its electrically powered. The crystal technology can draw power from any source, but the starter generator is pretty strong itself... so who knows”.

“I’m ready” Draz said, holding the device in one hand and taking his Darklight Axe in the other.

“Draz?” Ana said quickly. “Be careful. Don’t let her kill you”. Her eyes were wide with worry and wet with the start of tears.

“Me?” He said with a smirk. “That bitch is the one who needs to be careful”. Draz winked and pressed the button. 

There was a sound of powering up and the lights in the room dimmed to almost nothing. The crystal changed from a pale pin to glowing an intense purple and with a great crackle of electricity the room flashed bright white - purple, and Draz was gone. 

All that was left was the pen device, hanging at the side of the Clandestine Generator, charred and useless.

And Ana’s thoughts turned to Nestro as she ran for her Lordship.