In the vast darkness of The Space lies a single white speck that contrasts a complete lack of light. A single small craft dashes through the void at speeds much faster than anything ever should, seemingly still with no point of reference, the sheer speed of the movement leaves a white contrail where there should be no color.
A long almost cigar shaped hunk of metal, white as a sheet of paper, with two small wings on the back. Despite it's momentum, there is no apparent thruster, instead, from behind it's almost as if it warps the space behind it propelling itself forward. Two singular small windows lie at the front like that of an ancient plane, through the entire craft this is seemingly the one part that's not combined into the others into a seamless piece.
Inside sits a man wearing a full white jumpsuit with black fingerless gloves. On one hand a tablet from which he reviews some "documents," in the other, a tuna salad sandwich which he eats messily. With one big bite he chews off almost half of it, his face is shaven clean aside from his mustache which he gets some of the filling on. He puts the sandwich down and with the back of that hand he wipes his face clean with his glove. At his palm, a hole shows a symbol that resembles a child's crude drawing of a star, his fingertips glow a soft green hue.
The man glances up towards the viewport, nothing, a deep darkness darker than any black anyone could conceive. The room's walls and floors are completely white, not as harsh as the outside but still uncomfortable to most people. His retinas adjusted a little, from his point of view a small number appeared in the window, 160,000 and very quickly falling.
He puts the tablet down on the console in front of him and stands up, standing at around 5'11, his head almost touches the roof of the cockpit. He takes a small instrument from his waistband and presses a button.
"Touching down in an hour." he speaks before letting go of the button. The room is completely silent aside from his own breathing and a very subtle rumbling. He turns around and leaves, the wall behind him splits in half and slides open smoothly. He steps into a hallway and climbs down a set of ladders into a locker where he finds one of his crewmates.
A slightly shorter black man with his curly hair in a large bun. He has earbuds in and is banging his head while reading something on a tablet of his own. He turns around and stands up, extending his hand out.
"Morning Marco" he says in a deep voice taking one earbud out. Marco looked down at his wrist, from his eyes around 7AM. He furrows his brow, "Ahead of schedule." He extends his hand out and shakes the other guy's bare hand.
"Be ready in 20, Cooper. I assume you've read the report?" He points at the tablet in Cooper's hands, clearly opened up to something completely different. Cooper nods, "Yeah I read it yesterday, I'm just getting in some of my other daily reading you know?" Marco chuckles and nods. "Parallel activity shouldn't be fairly light today hopefully." he says as he puts in his earbud again and turns to his locker. Marco opens up his own, reaching inside and taking out some credentials and a small portfolio, he flips through it making sure all the right paperwork is there and heads back up the ladder. To his right, the cockpit, to his left another wall.
He walked to the wall and it again split open cleanly, inside is a much larger room, three people sit around a table with six chairs, eating and getting their final mental preparation in. He stepped inside and clasped his hands together loudly, standing straight up he yells "alright everybody!!"
The guy closest to him looks up at him, much taller and lankier than him, hunched over playing with his fingers. With eyes blue the color of an ocean and short greasy blonde hair, he was fairly unassuming. "You know you don't have to be that loud dude." His poker face not showing any enthusiasm at Marco's high energy. He is the only one properly displaying his credentials on his suit, in small orange letters his name reads out Darren.
Marco looked behind Darren where a much shorter man sat eating artificial ham. He ate hungrily not paying attention to what anyone was saying. Despite his shorter stature, his suit stuck closer to his skin than anyone else's. Despite his big belly, you could see most of his weight was comprised of mostly muscle. Marco raised an eyebrow as the guy licked his fingers shaking his head with a pleased expression. with a higher pitched raspy voice like that of a chain smoker's he loudly asked "What? A man cant enjoy his food now?" His eyes were a dark green almost brown, his vision was unsteady.
Marco looked at his left where a woman about his stature exchanged glances with him. Brown slick hair like him, and her eyes a rich amber. Her shoulders were broad from working out, almost like she could snap the guy sitting on the other end of the table in half. Neither of them said a word, she shrugged as she took a bite from an apple she had in her lower hand.
He unclasped his hands and placed them behind his back. "Well, you all heard what I had to say right?" He looked at his wrist, "50 minutes, be ready in 20, capiche?" He raised both of his hands at the same time, making okay signs with them while his eyes darted to each of them. "Yes sir..." they all said mildly unenthusiastically as they all walked past him and headed to the downstair area. He was now alone in the room, he stands there for a second pensative before walking through to the back of the room. The final hallway of the upper area had six doors somewhat evenly spaced. All of them were open aside from the very last one at the back. Marco walked to it, stood for a second and knocked.
"One second!" A much younger voice replied. Not even 10 seconds later the door slid open. A man with the face of a teenager opened the door, he stepped out quickly with his tablet in hand. He finished closing up his suit and stood in front of Marco, he hit his hand against his chest once and straightened out, "Ready sir!" By his fist was his ID which read Tyson. Marco tried his best to hold his laugh but his moustache betrayed him.
"No point in formalities kid, you're going to your first dive today so you're a part of the team now." Said Marco with his hands behind his back, Tyson kept a straight face, yet the glint of the hazel eyes revealed both his enthusiasm and small fear. He turned around and waved his hand to follow him. He hurried his step to catch up as they both walked through the dinner and down to the locker area. There they all stood, not saying much other than exchanging whatever information was necessary.
As Tyson opened his locker Marco pulled out a tablet from the portfolio and said "Alright Everybody! Here we go with the formalities, when I say your name you raise your arbiter to the camera-" He motioned in the general direction of the corner where a small circular camera sat watching.
"Marco!" He turned and raised his hand like a student, a loud shutter could be heard. He turned around, calling one by one as they lifted their hands. "Cooper, Darren, Kailey, Bodhi, and our newest arrival, Tyson!" They all lifted their hands when they were called up, the confirmational shutter making a sound each time. Marco watched as they did, the hue on their fingertips corresponding the color of their eyes. A moment of silence, a shutter and he nodded, continuing.
"Welcome to operation number 1440. Tyson since this is your first one, I'm gonna run it down very quickly even though you should already be familiar with the process." Everyone in the room nods silently, He looks at the countdown on the wall "In 20 minutes, that door will unlock, we will all take our seats like the good workers we are and land in the Parallel."
He continues, addressing mainly Tyson as everyone finishes suiting up. "When we get there, we will have about 3 days to locate the fissure center and close it down with the V.G.R." He scrolls through the tablet. "We stay together but today we are working in threes, this operation you, Bodhi and I are gonna be sticking together for the most part." Bodhi lets out a loud grunt, the entire room stares daggers through him. "What? I got to babysit the kid, I can complain." Everyone lets out a small chuckle, Tyson tenses up a bit more but Marco places his hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
"You were sent here for your VGR proficiency, it is your and Cooper's task to make sure they make it to the fissure." He scrolls through his tablet, "You two are the brains, Kailey and Bodhi are the Brawn." He points at both of them, Kailey nods and Bodhi nods after she punches him in the back for taking too long to acknowledge.
Tyson and Cooper shake hands, Cooper is all ready with both earbuds in. Marco looks him dead in the eyes and signals at his own ear, it takes him a second but Cooper smiles and takes them out. Not looking away from him, he speaks to Tyson, "Even if it's a low risk operation we need both ears and eyes open, yeah?" He faces Tyson who agrees.
The clock reads ten minutes, everyone is already almost fully suited up. They're all dressed in almost fully white non reflective jumpsuits. Made of a special composite, they are able to resist the harshest of extreme weathers and are durable enough to survive cuts from anything but the strongest of the altered. Black fingerless gloves wrap around their hands, on their dominant one, a hole the shape of their arbiter sits on their palm. Each one slightly different, thus this is oddly enough the one piece of clothing they can't interchange, not like they had many choices considering their difference in stature. To go along with that, Black laceless combat boots made of a similar composite to their suits, large at first they shrink down and solidify comfortably around their feet.
One minute left, two files, Tyson and Cooper both stood at the front. Tyson fidgeted with his fingers and tapped his foot, Cooped looked down noticing his nerves. "Be cool man, be cool and everything will be alright." He extended his fist out, Tyson bumped his own into it, With one deep exhale straightening out. Bodhi and Kailey looked at each other, not exchanging a word. Darren and Marco both looked straight ahead, in the same uninterested tone Darren asked "You think the new kid is gonna do well?" Marco looked to his right and up to meet his gaze, Darren being much taller, he pouted his lips and nodded while looking forward again. "He'll fit right in don't worry."
As the clock strikes zero, the wall slid open, they hustled inside, six seats facing across one another, they sat on the other end of their respective person. A harness automatically wrapped around them pinning them to the chairs. Over a loudspeaker came a voice, "Touch down in 20 minutes, initiating acclamation." In front of them came down a white wall. Their chairs spun to the right as they sat in a straight line now. Tubes came down from the ceiling that attached to their noses, a whirring sound reverberated trough their heads as the tube slide down their throats, a musky smell brewing within them. During the testing they had done something similar, Tyson gagged from the smell alone and almost threw up on himself before stopping. Bodhi and Marco both sat silently as to not illicit the same reaction.
It was a grueling few minutes before the tubes came out of their noses, Tyson took a deep breath like he never had before before retching from the smell of the air. Bodhi laughed loudly, he couldn't move his arms as they were strapped down but he was almost crying from listening to Tyson's reaction. "I've never seen someone have such a bad reaction to the smell of the parallel." Marco kept his sight straight ahead, focused on the screen that read 10 minutes." They felt the capsule shift and something clank. The quiet rumbling stopped completely, the silence deafening. They felt almost as if they were falling very very slowly, making Bodhi's stomach grumble. The sensation stopped as the clock hit 5, Marco gripped his fists and Bodhi rested his head back in the chair.
In an instant, a sudden acceleration slammed Tyson's head back into the seat, he knew it was coming yet he wasn't prepared for how hard it would hit. The capsule around them roared as they sped down whichever direction they were heading. The loud sound being broken apart by very loud clings and clangs as whatever debris hit the outside of the capsule. The occasional pitter patter instantly turned into a deafening screen as they entered the atmosphere of the Parallel. Like chalk on nail it rang against their ears as it bounced all over the small pod. And as quickly as it had started, silence, at least compared to the auditive hellscape they just went through.
One minute until touchdown, Bodhi grunted in more of an uncomfortable than displeased manner. Marco yelled to the back "You all good back there?" Tyson replied in a loud almost gargled yes. The pod landed roughly on the ground, giving them one last good shakeup before turning them to their left. A few seconds passed and the wall in front of them opened up, the white of the ship was nothing compared to how bright just the floor of the parallel was. Were it not for their retinal implants, Surely they would be totally blind when stepping outside. Their restraints became undone, Marco being the first one to stand up and look around.
Tyson stepped out, in front was the other capsule, Kailey was the first to step out stretching her arms into the air, she sniffed and furrowed her face. The smell is like that of strong rotten eggs, a little less potent but all encompassing. Marco walked to the back of the pod, pressing a few buttons on his tablet and the rear of the craft opened up into three large compartments, he pulled out the first and called Tyson over.
"Turn around." He turned his back towards Marco, pressing the case into his back, it sprouted out mechanical arms like tentacles. They wrapped around his suit fitting his form, going under and over his armpits, between his legs and around his waist before tightening a bit and loosening to fit more comfortably. This made him a bit less agile, but its not like he needed it. Darren and Marco gave each other a thumbs up as both Cooper and Tyson were ready.
As Marco rummaged around the back, Tyson looked around. He had read about and even seen videos of the Parallel but he had never actually been this close before. The ground was white and dusty like chalk, whiter than white somehow. He looked up into the sky, the void before now covered by dust from the atmosphere, making it look almost like a foamy black coffee. In the distance large spiky protrusions from the ground lined the horizon, Almost like really tall trees with no leaves. Only by adjusting his retinas could he tell how far stuff was from him, otherwise it all kind of blended together.
Tyson approached Marco and asked "What's taking so long." "We got to wait for Bodhi to lift this case." He replied, knocking it with the back of his knuckle. "Can't you just carry it?" Marco looked back almost in disbelief, he stepped to the side giving him space. "Go ahead, try it" he replied almost mockingly. Tyson took a hold of the handle and pulled, despite all his strength, the case only budged an inch, with one hard tug he almost fell over backwards, Bodhi grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back up before he hit the ground. With a rough expression, he told Tyson "Have some patience next time kid." With one big breath out and a deep breath in, his suit contorted as his muscles tensed, in one smooth motion he lifted the case and brought it over his shoulders. It split into sections that landed on his body, latching on to his extremities. Marco knocked on the piece that wrapped around his bicep, with a large smirk "The strongest armor you've ever seen. Heavy as shit though." Bodhi huffed, pressing into the piece that wrapped in front of his chest which caused the plating around his neck to twist around his head like a helmet. Looking like a robot he walked over to Kailey who had about a foot of height on him. In one sudden motion they both dapped each other up, the dull armor lighting up suddenly into a warm glow of amber and green.
Tyson and Marco walked to Cooper and Darren, Marco having the last thin case on hand. "Me and him carry the VGR, Those two carry the supplies, then you two-" Marco stops him before he can finish, he looks at Darren and moves his head to signal him over. Darren lets out a frustrated huff and walks over to the left, everyone's attention is now on them, Tyson stands confused.
They hold their case in their non dominant hand, Marco raises his right and Darren raises his left. Their fingers glow brighter and brighter before in a flash materializing large cannon pistols. Nearly the size of their heads they point them at the sky. The sheer power of them appearing blows the dust off the ground below them. Marco grins widely while Darren keeps his uninterested expression. With a squeeze of their hands, an opening the cases between each other opens up, they stick the pistols into the , holding their hand inside. Puffs of steam come out and loud clinging and clanging occur quickly before the cases fall apart. From a cloud of smoke they both pull out their pistols which have now both been transformed into large caliber rifles. The design is sleek and modern, They both put one foot forward and show them off. "To answer your question." says Marco, they both mimic pistols with their hands and point them at Tyson, they both say in unison "We fuck shit up." Marco says it enthusiastically while Darren says it like it's the most tedious thing in the world.
An awkward moment of silence passes as Tyson stares blankly at them, not really knowing what to say. Cooper claps loudly right behind him, "Wooo! sick!" Tyson jumped slightly from the surprise. Everyone gathered around in a circle. "I don't get to do that very often!" Kaylie facepalmed. Marco speaks again. "We need to find this fissure and take it out as soon as possible, YES TEAM?!" "YES SIR!!" They all yelled out a bit more hyped up this time. Darren's team walked about 20 steps in front of Marco's as they all headed in the same direction. A weird feeling calling to Marco as they walked to the fissure.