Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Chapter 30: Armortec and Axtendus

Location: Solar System; Earth; Former Nation of Germany; Small Yacht

Having escaped the thunderstorm, we both begin to relax. “How long is our trip going to take?” I ask Maja while unbuckling myself. It’s time for another meal.

“Five to six hours, depending on the conditions at our destination. You can go sleep if you want, I'm keeping watch.” Maja responds and moves to take over my seat.

I wave her off. “Nah, I'm good. Just going to grab something to eat.” I get up and let her sit down, then I walk back to the kitchen. What do I eat today? Ah yeah, that looks good. I grab the can of noodle soup and put it in the heater. Seconds later, it’s steaming hot, and I grab a spoon and sit down on the couch. Mmmmhh, it’s good!

After eating and relaxing a bit, I get up and do some exercises. The week I was out, surely left its mark. I wheeze for breath after a few repetitions and have to take a break. Why is it so hard to stay in shape? Half an hour later, I finally give up. I take a quick shower and throw myself on the couch afterward.

Still three hours left… Maybe a quick nap isn’t so wrong. I lay down and doze off, just to be shaken awake after what feels like seconds. “Come on, get up. We’re there.”

I groan, not quite awake yet. “Give me a minute. We’ve got time.” Suddenly my blanket disappears and my eyes snap open. Maja is standing there grinning. “Oh come on, why are you so cruel?”

She just laughs and throws the blanket at my face. Annoying, but I’m awake now… I get up, wash my face, then it’s time to suit up again. As I’m already wearing my shipsuit, it’s only me putting on a jacket. It’s way colder over here, or that’s what Maja said at least. I haven’t checked yet, but why should she lie?

The backpack is still packed from the day before and Maja is already wearing it while waiting for me. I slip past her. “Let’s go.” The hatch opens and the cold hits me in the face. “Aaaaah, cold!” Everything is white out there. Snow, as far as I can see.

I can hear Maja chuckling behind me. “You might want to put on something warmer.”

“You could have warned me,” I scowl at her.

“Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Your face is too funny.” I turn around while shooting her an angry glance and change my clothes again.

Now properly wrapped, I return to the outside and one word comes to mind. Different. Nature is the winner here. Everything is grown over. Conifers are predominant, but there are also some deciduous trees. They’ve shed their leaves for winter, but that’s what makes them even more recognizable.

“Uh Maja, are we at the right place? There is nothing here” The main difference compared to Shanghai is that I can’t see any buildings. Snow and trees and some bushes, but that’s it.

“Yeah, we’re spot on. I’m just searching for the entrance at the moment. It’s another underground complex. The Germans didn’t want to destroy even more nature back then, so Armortec built everything below ground. We are also a good distance outside of the city, that’s why nothing is here.”

I nod my understanding. Underground means below the snow. I frown, that means shoveling the snow away. I wish I could just magic it away. That’s the thing about Utility magic… I need instructions! As I’ve got nothing else to do, I return to the ship and search for a shovel. It takes a while, but I finally find one inside the engine room.

When I step back outside, Maja is smiling at me. “I found it, but it’s below… Oh nice, you got a shovel. Come here!” She waves me over and indicates an unremarkable spot of snow. “Right here, one meter down. Wanna start? I can take over when you need to rest.”

“Sure.” With that, I start shoveling snow. It takes a while and a few switches, but finally, there is an audible clang of metal on metal. “Yes, finally!” I exclaim and jump into the hole. We both use our hands for the last bits of snow but are soon disappointed. It’s only the top! The door is at the side and a bit further down. “Ah, come on. That’s not fair.”

Maja grumbles too, but she soon grabs the shovel and begins to dig deeper. Actually… Yeah, that should work. “Maja, can you stop and get out for a moment? I wanna try something.”

“Sure, what is it?” She replies and I grab my energy blade and activate it.

“We cut a hole with it before, remember? Let’s do it again.” Maja’s face brightens and she beckons me forward. I jump back down into the hole and hold the blade against the metal roof of the entrance. Slowly, but surely it melts and lets the blade through. Success! I continue cutting in a circle and right before it’s completed, Maja grabs my shoulders and holds me.

With another audible clang, the round piece of metal drops down and opens up an entrance for us. Air rushes inside and makes my hair flutter around wildly. Huh, was the facility sealed airtight? Still holding my blade, I tell Maja to let me drop. I land with my knees bent, around three meters down, and then I call up to Maja that it’s safe.

“Sweet, stay there for a moment,” she replies. “I’ll be right back.” I turn in a circle and look at the room I’m in. Well room is a bit much, it’s more of a hallway with stairs leading down before me and the exit door behind me. At least there are no robots as of yet. Surprisingly, everything still looks pretty good. It’s the most intact facility we’re entering as of now. Is it because everything was sealed up?

Five minutes later, Maja returns. “Sara, watch out.” She throws down a rope and I give it a few test tugs. It holds. Then Maja jumps down and lands beside me. “Would have been annoying to get outta here.” She winks and starts walking toward the stairs.

“Smartass,” I reply and start following her. We reach our first obstacle when we arrive at the first floor below ground. The hallway opens up to something like an open atrium going ten floors down. A walkway leads around in a big circle. In the four cardinal directions, some stairs and elevators lead downwards. That repeats on every floor and in the middle stands a model of a rocket. I know these things from a movie session with Thomas, this is how space travel started! The obstacle I’m talking about is the doors on the outside of the walkway.

They are closed and the panels beside them don’t work. There is no power left in here. Not even my energy blade finds purchase. I guess that is the strength of the material when everything is intact and not half degraded like the door leading outside.

We try our luck further down, but the next eight floors lead to the same results. Everything is closed down. I groan and Maja has a big frown on her face. Are we that unlucky? Two busts in a row… We arrive at the tenth floor below ground. It’s the one at the bottom of the open atrium, so we can finally walk across the whole plaza with the rocket in the middle.

Unfortunately, the doors around the floor are locked as well. But at least something is down here. All around the rocket are display cases made out of glass. I decide to check them out while Maja wants to experiment a bit more with the door panels. She thinks that she might be able to power them up with our battery.

Anyway, I walk over to the rocket and look at the first glass cube. A metal plate describes what’s inside. I ignore it for the time being. I want to take a guess first. The thing in the case is a polished plate, around five centimeters in diameter, and a band of Velcro that closes in a loop at the backside. Actually, it looks a bit like an oversized watch. Hmm, what could it be? I don’t think it’s a weapon… Maybe something defensive? Can the mirroring surface reflect laser bolts?

Okay, I mentally lock in my guess and then view the badge. Dang it, I completely forgot that it could be Magitech. Armortec produces offensive and defensive products and I already saw those magical robots. Oh right, the thing in the case. It’s their first portable personal shield, that can be used by any Mage or a normal person as long as a Mage charges the battery beforehand. It’s practically half of an A&D Mage you can wear on your wrist.

Just like all Magitech products I have seen or heard about so far, the shield too only has a single function. I guess that’s the limiting factor that sets a real Mage and Magitech apart? Now I have a hard decision to make. Do I break the glass and take it, or do I leave it, because it’s something sentimental for the people of Armortec?

Argh, it’s hard. I feel like some kind of grave robber, but I really want it. Ah, what am I thinking? If they wanted it, they wouldn’t have left it behind. I take the hilt of my energy blade and smash the glass. Then I take the PSW – Personal Shield Watch – and put it around my right wrist. Of course, I immediately test it. I push my power inside and immediately a slightly blue circular shield emerges around the device. Nice!

“Hey Maja check this out!” I shout over my shoulder. Maja curses, I guess I distracted her? Oops, but this is way more interesting. She walks over to me, and her eyes go wide when she sees my shield.

“Hey, that’s cool! Oh, and it does have a wireless connection too. Here, I can put it on your tablet.” She takes it out of the backpack and throws it over. I roll it out and look at the opened app. Everything is there, shield strength and integrity, battery charge, and so on.

“Man, I wish I had a holographic interface. That information would be so nice to have in my vision while using the shield.”

Maja nods. “For now, I can give you some updates over the speaker in the chip… It’s better than nothing.”

“Yeah, right. Thank you.” I grumble about my lack of equipment and walk over to the next case. Maja joins me and we both make our guesses. Of course, we are wrong again. Displayed is a gun and we both think of something fancy, but no, it’s just a gun… Okay, it’s their first produced laser gun, but still.

The next case shows another gun. This time it’s magical and can shoot lightning, but yeah, I don’t need it and Maja can’t use it, so we leave it behind too. The next two cases show something we already know. The tracked robots and the way more dangerous flying ones. The name tags describe them as basic-level defense robots, which means I was right, there are stronger ones. I guess we were lucky over at the Magicon facility.

Before long, we complete our circle around the rocket. The remaining cases all contain various weapons that aren’t of much use to us. Maja took another energy blade for herself, but that’s it. I guess the more dangerous stuff is either locked away or they took it with them when they left.

Well, that completes our trip down the Armortec facility. Maja isn’t able to open a door and we checked everything that is accessible. At least it wasn’t another bust like Song Medical. I hope the pattern doesn’t repeat itself. Next on our list is Axtendus Agriculture. We have another ocean to cross.

Location: Solar System; Earth; Former United States of America; Small yacht

When we arrive at our destination, I can’t stop myself from frowning. Dang it, that doesn’t look good. While there are what must have been fields once, I can’t see any structure that resembles a big company. What I can see is a giant crater at the horizon and we’re heading right in that direction.

I turn to Maja. “Don’t tell me that’s our destination.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.” She too wears a big frown and mutters some unidentifiable curses under her breath. That’s enough to conclude that the crater is indeed our destination.

“Is it even worth to land? I mean the company wasn’t that interesting to begin with and now it’s more or less gone from the looks of it.”

Maja paces back and forth on the bridge. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s not worth it. Let’s head straight to the last location. Should be just 30 minutes away, hold on.”

We make a sharp turn and are now heading northeast. Next stop Valterion Heavy Industries. Let’s hope the pattern holds true.