Monday, 6 May 2024, 9:53am
He scrutinizes the corporate-military motif that seems to shroud the sprawling facility in a sense of banality. Probably intentional, he thinks, though an exception lies in the tower ahead of him, it reaches up like a blade trying to cut its way into heaven. The glistening windows swallow sunlight, firing it into unsuspecting eyes, as if trying to prevent the unworthy from sullying its noble opulence with their gaze. A triumphant display of human engineering and hubris, he considers, as he futilely shields his face from buildings' luminance burrowing into his cornea. But in his attempt to safeguard his eyes, they suddenly meet his own in the mirror-like glass of the megalithic structure. He winces at the sight, quickly shifting his sight away from the reflection.
Despite his psychological preparations, his inner-mind begins its sovereign quest, seeking out new and fantastic ways to feed into his fears of failure. He slaps his forehead, hoping to reset his crumbling resolve and rally his convictions. "S9 or Death!" he mumbles, yet the words echo like a scream through his mind. He hardens his resolve with a swift swallowing or spit and faces the man in the reflection.
"Reyn Mitchells, top 5 graduate of Brannon-Brook and future recruit of GAARD!" he silently says with an assertive smirk aimed at his reflection. A chuckle follows. His anxieties find pause as his focus is found again, but Reyn's self-psychology is quickly cut short by an auditory slap to his chest.
"Welcome, graduates of Brannon-Brook!" A mighty voice booms across the courtyard, rattling windows and toppling weak constitutions. Reyn's ears pop, his chest tightens and a malaise swiftly spreads across his abdomen, his bodily cells all assaulted by the shockwave of sound. He searches for the source of his latest misery, but instead he would find before him stood all, but a god.
"For those of you who don't know me, I am Glenn Foster, Senior Officer for Aetheric Integration and Training here at the Global Agency for Aetheric Research and Defence. I'll be overseeing your stay with us during your recruitment period. I think I speak for all of us here at GAARD, and perhaps all of humanity, when I say we are very excited to see the results of the Brannon-Brook initiative. We all have high hopes for your performance at today's assessments…" Glenn Foster's words ooze from his mouth. His deep, sultry voice triggers sensual nerve endings as it moves through the ears of some graduates. He was well known for his striking good looks, accomplished singer career and valiant efforts in the defense of 4 gate invasions.
The group of graduates surrounding Reyn start to break into excited murmurings at the sight of the famous archaner, openly admiring the magnificent man that was prostrating himself before them.
"Ok, settle down, graduates!" Glenn's voice booms again, louder and more forceful. It quickly drowns out the childish chatter, whipping hair and clothing into disarray. The graduates are summarily silenced. "I know you're all excited to see the results of your hard work and training, but first, why don't we start with a little tour of the place, eh?" Glenn says with a beard-breaking smile. Reyn has to convince himself he did not see an unnatural glint slide across the man's perfectly-pruned teeth as he theatrically swings his arm toward the GAARD HQ's main administration building's entrance.
He leads the gaggling group towards the building while praising their achievements at Brannon-Brook and recruitment into GAARD. He leads them through a large beautifully balanced garden that leads to the main administration entrance from an adjacent street. Its tranquil ponds abound with floating plants and lazy fish skulking along the water's bottom. Tiny bonsai-like trees line its perimeter and an army of colorful flowers invade the ground surrounding them, all split intwine with a perfectly placed stone path. Though almost none of the graduates would care for the pristine views as they move through the landscape feature, all are firmly focused on Glenn's words and certain features of his physical form. His tremendous stature and short silver hair basking effortlessly in the sunlight as warm smile hid behind a thick beard that seemed to shrink and expand as he spoke. Billowing in the breeze of his own voice. A presence exuding confidence and authority and demanded respect through his sheer size and aura of overwhelming strength.
As the group nears the entrance, Reyn turns his head up to the tower a last time. The HQ lies nestled deeply, thought not very secretively, in the green, rocky foothills of the Tahtali Mountains of central Turkey. The dance of the Mediterranean sea could be seen as glimmerings of light reflecting off the highest windows, while the peaks of the Tahtali soar over the Agency complex from behind. A 10 kilometer-square, maximum-security, multi-purpose compound built with the collaboration of most governments to spearhead the defense against the gate invasion. Reyn soaks in the sun-drenched views, absorbing its natural beauties and starting to feel at harmony, his bodily vibrations in sync with all around him. His mind feels more at ease and his heart lightens as anxieties seem to be gently blown away by the soft, mellow breezes rolling down the mountains around him. He finishes his mini-meditation with a deep breath and long sigh, ready to start his new life as an archaner and to carry on the proud legacy of his mother.
"Move your stickin' arse, plug! You're getting left behind. Again! I swear, mate. That bloody brain of yours!"
Reyn's mental tranquility is swiftly shattered. He twists his head as he glances at the gronning figure approaching. All calm and clarity forsake him in the face of the forthcoming calamity of crudeness that is his friend, Ghazal Merkaan. A 20 year old Arab-Englishman who had elected, of his own volition, to become Reyn's closest friend since his earliest days at the academy. Ghazal was the only thing that kept him from spending most of his academy days buried in books or plugged into training simulations and VR headsets. Socially unfiltered and morally unrestricted, Ghazal is the complete opposite of Reyn's more introverted nature, yet the two men had grown to share a strong fraternal bond over their 3 years at the academy. Though Reyn could never acclimate to Ghazal's crudeness, nor understand his inexorable successes with women.
"Wait, you finally figured out how to snag Jose?" Ghazal questions teasingly as he approaches Reyn, greeting his best friend with a warmly sincere slap to the chest. "Don't worry, princess, the Great Ghazal's got your back, right?" Reyn tries to recoil from his friend's crude moral support but Ghazal hooks his arm firmly around Reyn's neck and reels him in close. "Seriously though, mate. Are you alright?" he asks, a slight worry creasing his brow. "Don't flake on me! We are in this together. I know you're stressed, but just breathe. Four seconds in. Four seconds out. Done!"
"Funny, I heard that's the name of your sex tape." Reyn snickers. "Four seconds in. Four seconds out. Done."
"Ha! You fucking wanker!" Ghazal chuckles, slapping Reyn again on his chest for good measure.
"You can relax Gaz, I'm good."
"That's my boy! And I'm sure there's nothing to be worried about. ARCH-types, they're linked to the psyche. Mental fortitude and whatnot. So it'd make way more sense for someone like you to get a support type, yeah?"
"Ugh. Don't remind me."
"I'm sorry, mate, but your arse won't make it a minute on the frontline. The aetherian gods have got to be cruel to give you an offence type. Support makes much more sense!"
"Right… why does that kinda feel like an insult though?"
"Just the truth, plug. You have a strong mind, for sure. You'll definitely have a high resonance… but you're just not built for battle. Probably trip over your own thoughts if they weren't stuck in your head. You need to get out of your own damned head, Reyn. I keep telling you, mate."
Reyn sighs, it's an unbearable fact, but still the truth. He didn't know if it was his nature or nurture. Perhaps triggered by puberty or something else entirely. But ever since he could remember having complicated thoughts, he's always had too many of them filling up his head endlessly with possibilities and probabilities, complicating his actions and feelings as he tries to make sense of the vortex of mental interactions overwhelming his mind. Indecision and anxiety have grown to become his default response to these uncontrollable stimulations.
"But, you being mommy's little princess and all. Perhaps you'll get a cool hybrid-type, like her? Or something freaky, like that dude that can fold shite. Did you see that? He was bonkers in the Berlin battle! Ripping up etties left and right, absolutely brutal that…"
Reyn tries to focus on Ghazal's diatribe but the mental barriers he had prepared for the day begin to buckle under the crushing weight of his single, most pressing fear. He turns to Ghazal and whispers. "What if I have no resonance?" The thought spoken aloud sends a shrill of uncertainty down his spine, draining ever more of what little hope he tried desperately to lean on.
"Oh, then you're shite out of luck, mate. 3 years of hardwork and millions of credits in government investment down the shitter. Oh, and you'd be pissing on your mum's legacy, too." Ghazal explains eloquently with a pout and shrug. "So snap out of it, plug. You have to stay focused here. Four in. Four out!"
"I - ah, fuck. Yeah, ok. You're right." Reyn struggles, his friends' words choking him with their vulgar truths. "I'm ready for this. but I..."
"Argh! No buts! Piss on that pessimism, mate! The blood of Lunara Mitchells burns in your veins!" Ghazal yells out as he lifts up his chin proudly and throws up a triumphant fist. "Reject the Impossible!"
"Ugh, stop that!"
"Then get your shite together, man. You're here cause you've already proven yourself, right? You're funking worthy! And we didn't get conscripted and forced to suffer 3 years of Brannon-Brook fucking mind-raping us just to give up now! Nut up, soldier!"
"Yeah, right, ok, Gaz, I get it. You're right!" Reyn says with a defeated sigh.
"Of course I am, princess…", Ghazal laughs, increasing his pace as he pushes Reyn through the crowd of fellow graduates. "But forgot all that, Looks like this thing's getting started!"
"Welcome, graduates." A gentle voice greets them as soon as the group enters the large automated doors of the administration building. Its busy lobby featured all manner of exhibitions, displays and decorations along its entrance path. Just beyond the doors, a middle-aged woman stands patiently awaiting the group's arrival corporately-clad in the typical sleek, black, chinese-collared, 2-piece suit that acts as the standard uniform for GAARD's agents. The etchings of her ARCH-unit could be clearly seen beneath her short, dark-blonde hair.
"Agent Linda McCain is a stalwart of the organization and my right hand. She will be your primary point of contact during your first few weeks here at GAARD. If you have any questions, please direct them to the ever-accommodating Agent McCain here."
"Thanks Glenn, charming introduction as always." Agent McCain responds as she leers at her superior soaked in sarcasm.
"Always a…"
Glenn is suddenly interrupted by the blaring clamor of crashing glass and metal and screeching rubber. In the road outside the lobby entrance, dust and debris billow past the building and the group all stand motionless dismay as a large, armoured military vehicle skids across the asphalt. It comes to a slow, grinding halt, throwing up generous amounts of rubble and sparks. The mangled machinery lay in front of them unmoving, its wheels spinning helplessly as the point to the sky, like a struggling upturned tortoise.
"I'm sorry! It slipped!" A voice rings out faintly from outside the building, seeming to emanate from the air. Eyes across the lobby all move in unison as their owners observe the scene in stunned silence. The air and ground around the crash-site seems to warp and tremble, as if reality was being crudely moulded by invisible hands. The armoured transport begins to rattle and flicks itself off the ground in a peculiar looking pirouette. It slowly raises into the air, taking with it most of the rubble that was deposited onto the pristine pavements around it. Then, twirling in a aetherically-charged bubble of gravity, it hovered still for a moment before the entire agglomeration started to shape itself into a strange, sphere-like shape. An instant later, it was instantly crushed into a basketball-sized orb of melded metal and stone. The process also seemed to assimilate all the soundwaves nearby, rending the area momentarily mute.
The rumpled ball then sailed through the air over the courtyard water-garden, followed by a short woman with flowing blonde curls in a remarkably elaborate dress, covered in colorful flowers and fruit. She wistfully waves at her audience as she passes, until her eyes find Glenn's. Despite the distance and tinted-windows between them, Reyn clearly notices a very guilty looking wince sour her face. Her body sinks into itself and she quickly increases her pace as she disappears out of view and all occupants of the lobby strain their necks trying to see where she flew off to.
"VERA FUCKING VERTASKI!" The outburst erupts from Glenn as a thundering crack of his voice. It knocks over a number of graduates and lobby occupants and shatters a few windows while cracking many more. The faint siren-sounds of car alarms and panicking birds could be heard singing their songs in the distance.
"Ah, shi- My apologies, graduates. It seems there's been an… incident during training with one of our Strike Teams. I need to go handle it. I will leave you with Linda here who will lead you to the aetheric resonance assessment. Good luck!" Once outside, Glenn steps one foot firmly into the air and swirling molecules support him as he rises to weightlessness. He suddenly blasts off in a burst of molecular vibrations that seem to tingle every musccle in the graduate's bodies.
"And that's our Gatling Gun Glenn for you." Agent McCain groans as she waves down her blown-back hair and settles her suit while an annoyed pout pinches her face, "That man's gonna be the bane of your existence soon enough. I'd try staying on his good side."
"That was Vera!" Reyn excitedly whispers to Ghazal as the group moves through the lobby. "Split/Nova! If she's here, Ayame's here!" His eyes are nearly incandescent with fluster and excitement at the chance to meet his idol. All notions of Brannon-Brook graduates' soldiery eliteness crushed under the might of Ayame's vice-grip hold on his heart.
"Oh, god." Ghazal groans as he grips the side of his head. "You're gonna be fangirling, aren't you?"
"Fuck! Yes!" Reyn snorts. "I need her autograph, Gaz!"
McCain gestures for the group to follow and she leads them through the lobby. The air tastes crisp but the surroundings feel stark and sterilized, a typical modern corporate look-and-feel with a cold and uncaring aura pervading the place. Some graduates shudder as they enter, less because of the temperature than the ambience.
As McCain guides them, a captivating sight forces an involuntary reaction from one of the graduates. "The Shimmer Cube!" they shout nerdly. Paolo Santos pokes out his head, entranced by an otherworldly radiance. Soon, everybody's eyes are quickly captured by the brilliant kaleidoscope of coloured light dancing from a display along their path.
"Pretty convincing, right?" McCain says with a boastful grin. "Took us a while to get the light fragmentation right, but still, it's nothing compared to the real thing."
The group huddles around the lobby's main attraction where a semi-translucent cube spins inside, its interior a blur of shimmering colors all suspended in an oscillating display of dazzling light.
"It's a fascinating piece of our human history." Agent McCain starts,"A nearly complete visual replica of THE Lunar Artifact. The original Aetherite specimen. Discovered during the Apollo 15 lunar mission of 1971, the Lunar Artifact, commonly known as the Shimmer Cube, was humanity's first introduction to aether. It would take 20 more years of intense study and research of the cube before we would even begin to discover its aetheric origins and harness its potential to bend and transcend the limitations of our physical reality. Through the inspired contributions of Dr. Yar…"
"Merde! Quelle perte de temps!" a voice breaks from the group, interrupting the agent's speech. "Enough with time wasting, just take us to the damn resonance-assessment, lady."
"Shut the hell up, Fontaine!" Ghazal snaps, reprimanding 22 year old Frenchman, Lucien Fontaine, a fellow graduate, known for his short temper and penchant for disregarding authority. "Let the lovely lady do her job, you uncivilised frenchie!"
"Garce insolente!" Lucien rasped.
"Please excuse our uncouth classmate.", Ghazal grins sheepishly at the agent. "The resonance plays with his mind, you know. Please continue, Miss McCain."
"Thank you Mr. Merkaal." McCain nods, taking a long smirk-filled look at Ghazal. "And it's Agent McCain." she finishes.
"As for you, Mr. Fontaine." She turns her attention to Lucein, her smirk dissolving into seriousness. Lucien twitches as the agent's intimidation seemed to crawl up between his legs and disarm him of his masculinity. She lifts her right hand as her ARCH-unit starts glowing and with the flick and twirl of her finger, Lucein is lifted firmly into the air and dragged, through the group, his dragging feet scraping the floor awkwardly underneath him. The aether in the air around him vibrates with energy as the agent's telekinesis maneuvers him effortlessly until he is suspended helpless and whimpering before her.
"Your behaviour today will be noted." Agent McCain snarls. "Insubordination will not be tolerated here at GAARD. We have rules and you will respect them! Failure to comply will result in appropriate discipline. Understood?"
"Y-y-yes, Agent McCain. A-apologies." Lucien splutters in response as he averts his timid gaze and tries desperately to slip away from his brief, aetheric imprisonment until the agent drops him to his feet with a thud.
She finishes her lecture on the cube and leads the graduates along, noting the occasional display or exhibitions, until she suddenly stops in the center of the lobby. McCain turns her head toward the lobby ceiling and motions for the graduates to do the same. The group tilts their heads up in unison, some eyes widening in awe while others letting out their bewilderments audibly.
"Above us, we see the world's largest mural of the famous painting by J.P. Shulzer. 'Victory or Death'. Already considered one of the greatest artistic works of the 21st century." McCain says proudly as she lectures on the origins of the artwork. "A powerful dedication. A testament to one of the most important moments in recent human history. The moment Strike Team Captain Joseph Brannon and the members of Warden-Unit brought down the gate guardian and secured the liberation of Bangkok during the Fourth Invasion Gate defense."
The mural displayed a sight familiar to most people on Earth, but one that academy graduates would see everyday in the main assembly hall of Brannon-Brook. A masterful recreation of a pivotal moment.
"Reject the Impossible! Victory or Death!"
The words stood immutable, etched boldly into a striking banner beneath the mural. It was the famous battle-cry uttered by the Vice-Captain before their final confrontation with the collosal construct, and now the official motto of GAARD's Strike Teams.
The agent continues her lecture regarding the event, going on to describe the 2 week battle that would finally end in the construct's defeat and the collapse of the Fourth Invasion Gate, humanity's first true victory in their 15-year long war with their invaders.
"You ever get tired of seeing that?" Ghazal whispers as he leans over Reyn's shoulder.
Reyn shrugs. He couldn't deny the fact it was an impressive, if ostentatious installation.
It hung more than 15 meters above them, and yet, one could clearly make out every detail of the auspicious artwork. The rubble of fallen buildings and infrastructure filled its beautiful backgrounds, the charred, frozen and mutilated remains of fallen E.T.A.E.s were scattered across the scene and in its center, Joseph Brannon standing triumphantly over the fractured core of the defeated gate guardian with his famous hammer, Veiltear, at his side. And behind him, the remaining members of Strike Team Warden-Unit, including vice-captain Lunara Mitchells, the Queen of the Elements.
His mother.