Lunch Outside the Solar System

Seventeen 1/2

Ariel left her third cup of coffee on the table and went searching for something she remembered reading when looking for the symbol. She activated the portable holo-screen looking for an ancient writing on a cave around the time of the Babylonian civilization. She remembered some human archeologists found a manuscript referring to an artifact imbued with a holy symbol from the Heavens, she matched the symbol on the artifact with the marks she had found trough history.

- Look Layla, this artifact,- Ariel displayed a wooden carved object on the holo-screen, - according to this findings, the legend says that if someone holds it firmly and recite the pray from the Gods, the by the grace of touch the wearer could absorb the life energy of a person and use it as fuel to ascend into higher places.

Layla looked at the artifact and the prayer saying it out loud.

- "Quart er trailam som, an, cieter, puar, com, com". –Layla was shocked, she couldn't believe what she was saying.

- What happened? You look shocked. –Ariel asked her holding her arm.

- This...this "pray" is no pray at all, it's an authorization code for voice command, it's written in Lingalium, the mother tongue of the Alulim.

- What? Are you sure?

- Positive, it translates something like proceeding assimilation encoding, then something I don't quite understand and apparently one authorization number. This looks military to me.

- This is huge Layla, this means that your race didn't encounter the human race by mere chance, there's more to this. – Ariel smiled a little bit, she loved finding some crazy conspiracy theories, and this one dated back couples of thousands of years and real space travel, but she hide her little burst of emotions because Layla looked really shocked.

- I know, but we don't have time to figure out what or how this happened, but this might be our only way to absorb Barry.

- I agree, but where are we going to find this artifact, the Universe is quite big you know.

- Let me see this artifact of yours.- Layla made a zoom to the artifact

Layla kept looking at the piece and she asked the holoprojector to make a 3D version of it so she could rotate it, Layla noticed something very familiar. The system didn't take that long making the holographic rendering and Layla started moving and manipulating the object until her eyes got bigger and wider.

- For the love of the Preatic Gods of Old, I know what this wooden thing is.

Ariel stayed silent seeing Layla's reaction.

- This is a wooden replica of a C-K300 Portable Storage Device for Transmutable Fuel,- Layla smiled, -this was used in the old days to take materials from a harsh environment and transform it into clean reusable energy. It was used especially for travelers and explorers.

- The Alulim who got to Earth should have one of these devices – Ariel said out loud.

- Yes, and guess what? Its voice command activated, so that prayer would be the activation code, and by the description, it would transmute another's body energy to the wearer, this might be for extreme situations to survive.

- Well, harsh or not it's worth a try don't you think?

- I agree- and I have an idea.

Layla took out her Senti-Cube starting an auto-construct feature from the Guild of Nano Contructors; she input the information of the C-K300 adding the specification of including a carving of the symbol as it was described in Ariel's ancient texts. Immediately after adding all the data, the Nano Constructors started their assignment to build the artifact. The whole lights and special effects the Guild used in order to build the assembly appeared in front of Ariel and Layla looking very professional, and most of all, Uber Cosmic. If it wasn't for all those lights and sounds effects, it would just looked as a regular nano-construction, so simple and tasteless that it wouldn't give you the feeling that you are in a Sci-Fi adventure.

After the nano-constructors did their job, Ariel and Layla looked at the finished artifact lying on the coffee table with the symbol engraved right in the handle. Ariel grabbed it and instinctively felt something happening inside her, she felt like opening a channel with someplace outside this reality through a vacuum tunnel so powerful that she saw straight at Layla's eyes feeling the need to take her fully, to make her own, to absorb all of her existence like a famished predator; she left the device on the table putting herself together. She didn't like the feeling of merging with Layla, at least not in that way.

Now that they had the device and the voice command, the only thing left was to leave some breadcrumbs leading Barry to a place only Layla knew and set up a trap, she suggested her own Point of Connection.