Elemental Source

The shuttle bounced and jostled as it forced its way through the exterior of the Jordonian Protective Sphere. Completely transparent, the JPS could set its own atmospheric buoyancy thus allowing it to seemingly float in the air at any given altitude. Not only would a JPS keep anyone without the properly encrypted transmitters out it also prevented radio, microwave, and sound waves from passing through to either the inside or the outside. Radiation was also effectively stopped, making a JPS an ideal solution for sensitive lab work.

            The transport shuttle came to a gentle, yet efficient landing in the hanger of Mirien Labs. The side panel extended outwards a few inches before rolling back to expose the interior of the shuttle. Caldon Livingstone stepped out of the transport, into the fading light of the approaching night. There was no one there to greet him.

            Caldon glanced around the hanger. The stark light of the overhead lights cast his shadow in multiple directions. On the nearest wall was a small control room, it was empty, the lights out, he could see his reflection in the glass. He was short man, with a deceptively slight build; he made no attempt to cover his receding hairline, though he did keep his remaining hair cropped short.

Caldon wondered why he was here, he had a reputation as one of the premiere researches in Kag’on, a researcher who didn’t only sit back and wait for results, but dug in voraciously with both hands and made things happen. Caldon had been specifically requested for this research station after the last assistant, Darfur, had been returned to Earth, a sudden illness. The man had alternated between being perfectly fine and instants later raving about unbearable heat and cold, yet his temperature remained steady. Not exactly an inspiring condition.

An assistants position wasn’t normally a position a man like Caldon would take on, but he had received some rather effective pressure, or help as it had been explained to him, in making sure he made the right decision. But this was a special case, and despite being strong armed, the facts of the case were as fascinating as they were scarce. The details of the case were so classified that even someone with Caldon’s level of clearance wasn’t able to get any but the most superficial of detail on the project, which itself was an enigma. Why would you have a more than top secret project, and yet display it in a JPS just a few miles above Mal’Doran, the second largest city in Kag’on?

“Well, so much for the welcoming party,” Caldon muttered. “Computer, display project UCS Summary.”

A wall of text displayed, in his minds eye a few feet in front of him and scrolled rapidly, faster than the conscious mind could comprehend. He once again regretted that technology hadn’t advanced to a point yet where information could be loaded directly into ones mind, but this unconscious overview would give him a base to build his knowledge of the project on.

The project summary finished and his vision was no longer obstructed. It had finally been revealed to him who the Project Lead was on this project, Kieran Seanaw. He didn’t know her personally, but her reputation preceeded her as a driven, brilliant woman. It fit right into what he knew about her that she would be too involved in her research to meet him as he arrived.

Caldon left the hanger, walking toward the laboratory. As he walked the short distance he began visoptically reading more on project Elemental Source, as it was being called. What he read was at once chilling and amazing.

Walking into the lab, he finally discovered his hostess. She was seated before a large, stainless-steel table. The table held 4 large containers; the first contained a few rocks of various sizes, the second contained pure water, the third held nothing at all, and in the fourth sat a small burner, its flame turned on. Her concentration was so intent on the empty container she didn’t notice the door as it nearly silently shushed into place.

“Dr. Seanaw, hello. Am I interrupting?” asked Caldon.

Her concentration broke along with a slight hissing noise as her hair billowed briefly behind her, she turned,  “Ahh, Dr. Caldon Livingstone. I’m glad you made it.”

“Me too, tell me about what you’ve got going on here.”

“A new world, Doctor.”

“What do you mean,” Caldon asked?

“Tell me how we, we as a society, have become what we have? How did we make the world we know live in?” she asked in a clipped voice.

“I’m not sure how exactly to answer that.”

“Power! Electricity!” she cut it, “our greatest achievements have come since we’ve learned to most efficiently access power when working at the atomic level. Combining and to a lesser extent splitting atoms gave us access to the kinds of power we needed to create and operate the tools to achieve greatness, but where do we go when that power is no longer enough? What if we no longer need power?” She stood up and walked over to a potted plant, some kind of broad leaf fern that seemed oddly out of place in the otherwise stainless steel room.

“No longer need power? What are your proposing? Going back to living in cave huts?”

“No!” she shouted, “But what if instead of spending weeks building a new dwelling, using massive amounts of deuterium-tritium fuel for the reactors we force the rock in the ground to shape itself to the structure we desire? Water will run to the building because we command it. Heating and cooling will be done by our control over the very air!”

“That’s impossible! No one can control the earth, the air, and the water like that,” Caldon shook his head, looking away.

“Oh, but I can,” she smiled, “we can.” Her eyes searching his face as if looking for something deeper. Finally, convinced she said, “come, take a look at this.” She walked back to the table in front of the containers.

Caldon joined her at the table, eyes doubtful.

“See this container,” she said, pointing to the third container.

“Yes, it’s empty,” he responded.

“No, it isn’t,” she said her eyes focusing on a spot just above the container.

At first her breath came in quick forced breaths and nothing happened. Kieran closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, when she reopened her eyes they were still firmly focused on the same spot, but her entire demeanor had changed.

Caldon shook his head and opened his mouth to put a stop to this nonsense when his eye caught a faint reflection on a slightly shimmering ball that had not been there moments before. He reached out his hand, mesmerized by the barest hint of a ball floating in the air above the container. His finger touched it, it felt like an invisible wall, there was no texture, no give, it was smooth as ice, and hard as steel.

He opened his mouth about to speak but Kieran raised a hand, forestalling him. With intense concentration she kept one eye on the ball and turned her focus to the fire. After a moment the thinnest tendril of flame emerged from the flame and slithered like a snake towards the ball. As it neared the ball, it circled around the ball, leaving tiny lines of light around the ball, when it reached the very top of the sphere it plunged itself in through the top and instantly the line of fire disappeared and the sphere began to glow with an inner light. Kieran released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and wiped her forehead.

“Air is easy; fire,” she began, “is the most difficult for me to work with.”

The sphere of air and fire sat hovering above the table glowing pleasantly.

“How… What…” Caldon paused, not sure what to say. His eyes darted back and forth between Kieran and the object floating just beyond reach.

“This, my friend,” she said with a triumphant smile, “is our work. This is why I needed you here and not that weak minded fool, well never mind.”

“How do you do it?” he asked.

“In this case, I imagine that I am a vessel that the very air must travel through, as I gain a sense of the air it is like I am flowing with it, we flow past several possibilities of how the air can form itself and when I reach the one I want, I focus on that and the air bends to my will. All of this happens very rapidly you understand? As long as I am focusing on it, I can hold the filaments of the air and fire as I want them, but when I stop they dissipate on their own,” she turned from her globe of light and faced Caldon, the globe slowly lost its shape and the light dimmed.

***

The research truly was incredible. It took several months for Caldon to come up to speed, first reading and viewing everything Kieran had logged and then following up on Darfur’s research. Darfur spoke of attempting to guide along the flows of earth, air, fire and water like Kieran could do but reported uncomfortable stabbing pains where the conduits of elements lashed out and struck him repeatedly. It wasn’t until he reached out in his minds eye and gripped the conduits that he could manage them. That was the method Caldon would take from the beginning.

It took months for the elements to open up before Caldon, but in time and with a great deal of effort they did. He found, in time that he could reach out even to the tiniest particles of water in the air and bring them together, he could force them to cool to freezing in an instant or burst into a steam with a touch of fire at exactly the right time and place. His abilities quickly surpassed even those of Dr. Kieran.

“There’s still something missing,” Dr. Kieran banged her fists on the table.

“I feel it too, Kieran.” they had discussed this topic endlessly.

“The four elements are like pieces of one great whole, like threads bound together to make a rope. But it is clear that there is at least another set of elements, another rope if you will, that binds around our four elements, but how do we access it?” Caldon paced up and down the lab room.

“I have an idea!” he shouted, “Kieran, gather the conduits in your mind eye, hold them out in a straight line before you.”

“Okay, what are you going to do?” she asked, gathering her thoughts. Light began to shimmer and ripple in the air above her.

“I will wrap my elements around yours, and where there is a blank spot, it must be what we’re missing.” Hands resting on the table, he leaned in, concentrating directly he forced conduits of elemental energy to wrap itself tightly around Kieran’s rod of dancing light.

Yes, he could see now with his mind atomically small areas of space between the two conduits of elemental power, almost invisible in the dancing light that made up the physical elements, this was smooth and almost unassuming. He forced his elements tighter.

“It hurts, Caldon!” Kieran cried, “Stop it!”

“Almost got it,” he muttered, examining the thin area of power. He forced his mind into it.

Suddenly it was so clear, softly glowing light emerged, pulsing from every living thing to pool into this element, bright light from a potted plant, lesser light from a paper sitting on the table before them. He turned to look at Kieran, she was hunched over in pain, barely in white light emanated from her. Instead the conduit was pulsated erratically with blacks and red. He immediately released his hold on his physical elements unraveling them from around hers. Her light brightened considerably the pulsating more regularly.

He realized looking around him, that everything was giving off alternating pulses of white and red color, the red must be another weave in this rope. He reached out to the potted plant sitting on the counter, he could only put the slightest touch on it, something resisted him, but he could feel it was full of power and ability. He reached out again touching the red pulses of the plant, willing them to combine with the red pulses of the book on the shelf below. The two conduits stretched out, thinly and weakly to one another. When the two touched however, it was like a great bell going off in his head. Power surged through his body, his hair singed.

“There is more, I know there is, I just need to get to it,” he turned looking for Kieran but she lay face down on her desk.

“If I could just break through and get a gold handle on the red spirit element, I could do anything!”

He took a deep breath, opening his mind to the flows as he opened his lungs to the air. He reached out, in a way he could never describe, and gathered all the pulsating red sources into himself, drawing them into himself, filling every fiber of his being with the power. Conduits of pure red opened themselves up to Caldon.

Power filled Caldon and he new that this was what he had been born to do. This was his power by right. He looked at the potted plant, it was withered and dead, no longer a source of power. He had used up all the power in the lab. Shocked he turned to Kieran, but she was gone. Left in her place was a withered mummy like creature, mouth open in a silent scream.

“What is happening to me,” Caldon yelled, the fury of power inside of him building in waves. He had to get rid of it; it was burning him alive.

He pushed, he heaved, but nothing happened. The power was killing him. He couldn’t get rid of it. He made one last desperate push, with every ounce of willpower he had. Power ripped from his cells bursting them. The very air around him shred itself a part. Time stopped and had no meaning and with one last push every shred of power left his body, exploding before him.

With his dying breath he heard a great roar of laughter saying, “It’s good to be back.”

***

Citizens below looked up in shock as the JPS filled with fire, the containment shields rolling and bulging until even they could no longer contain the massive forces. Great chunks of fiery debris rained down, leaving massive destruction. Yet that was nothing compared to the destruction that was to come.