Gateways by Aer-ki Jyr (world of reading txt) 📕

“No showers though?”

“Sorry. Just gotta live with the stink unless you want to ice bathe.”

Darren shuttered at the thought. “No thanks. Anybody tried to start a fire?”

“We have extra batteries for the tent heaters.”

“Is that a no?”

“What are we going to burn?”

“Trees have sticks. Find some under the snow.”

“Why? Just go inside your tent.”

“Because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when camping?”

“Says who?”

“All those movies.”

“Hey, if you want to try, knock yourself out. But I’m not going around looking for sticks buried in the snow.”

“Later,” he said, ignoring her and following Neiva’s tracks toward where the extra food was.

“What’s the point?” Leni asked his back.

“Because we can and I feel like burning something,” he yelled. “And there’s nobody here to tell me I can’t.”

Leni blinked. “Oh. Well now…when you put it that way…yeah, I kinda want to make a fire too,” she relented. “Where’s the best place to look for sticks?”

6

The next day most of the others arrived, with the last showing up two days after that already having run out of food and barely dragging themselves in, but everyone made it. Darren and the others spent a few hours warming up around the three bonfires they had going and eating their fill as darkness fell, but rather than wait for morning they all decided to see what the obelisk had to say now.

Each of them placed a hand on it, registering their identity, and when all were simultaneously touching, it began to glow and a hologram twice their height appeared standing to the west of it and looking away. All of the Furyans walked around to the far side so they could face it, seeing it was Greg-073, their father.

“If you are seeing this, then all of you have reached the obelisk and are wondering what comes next. Well keep wondering, because I’m not going to tell you,” he said with a smirk. “But I am going to explain something about being Furyan. As you know, a lot of your bodies and minds come from us, and we’re not simple. Quite complex, actually, and there’s one aspect of us that cannot be trained for. You see, we built the Star Force military from scratch, built the Clans from scratch, and helped build a lot of other parts of Star Force. The Monarchs didn’t do it all. Davis didn’t do it all. We…meaning me and the other 99 members of the original Archon class…had no one to teach us, so we had to figure things out as we went.”

“And you have been patterned off of us, so there’s a part of you that operates the same way. If you never face a situation where you have to figure it out, if we tell you everything you need to know, that piece of you will never manifest. It’s a skillset that has to be given air to breath on its own, so that’s why you’re here. To develop this piece of you, as well as continue to develop the rest in new ways. I don’t know what each of your futures will hold, but if you’re even remotely like us, you need to know what freedom tastes like, and without the danger that goes with it, you’ll never really feel it.”

“So you’re getting no help. You’ve got supplies to last about a year, and that long to figure out how to stay alive. You’ve all got the basic equipment to build a colony. How you do it, is up to you. What you do, you have to figure out. But don’t waste the small foothold we’ve given you, because you won’t get another. If you fail and near death, there is a panic button in this obelisk. Help will come, but only when that panic button is pressed and for no other reason. There is no recording function in the obelisk, and there are no recording machines in the forest or in orbit. You are off the grid, and what you do or don’t do is entirely up to you.”

“That said, don’t turn into bad guys or we’ll have to deal with you. Hold to the lightside, always. For those of you who wish to continue your training, the obelisk holds data files on more than you could hope to learn. Use it, or just kick back and starve to death. It’s up you. That’s what freedom is, and if you misuse it, it bites…hard. We’ve insulated you from it, protected you, as we have most of Star Force. That’s a luxury we gladly provide, for not everyone is a warrior. But for those of us who are, you’ll understand when you have no backup and your success or failure rides on you and you alone.”

“We can’t give you that in training, and while I can’t tell you what the future entails, I can say there is a plan. The mystery of it you must discover, but expect to be here for a very long time and plan accordingly. Yes, you get to make the plans now. There’s no instruction manual in the obelisk for this mission…because it’s not a mission. It’s a test. And it’s a test no one else in Star Force takes except Furyans, and except those of us who went through a similar test set by the universe itself.”

“I will say, the other Furyan classes that have come before you, have all muddled through. Not well, and there were some serious injuries and other issues, but none have actually failed. So there is a way, and you are tough enough. But potential does not equal results. Results must be fought for and earned. Now we’ll see if you can chart your own course, or if you’re just a bunch of follow-monkeys who can’t hack it on their own.”