Chapter 21: Truth of Nox 5

'You have found what?' Charles couldn't believe his ears when Elmyra has finished talking, 'so you broke in to the headquarters AFTER the company is sold?'

'But there is evidence that the equipment that Infinity has supplied to us is insufficient, if not straight up faulty, surely that would have been something, right?' Elmyra pointed towards the blueprints in front of both of them, as well as the schematics of the mining system back on Nox 5.

'Yeah, the thing is...' Charles said with gritted teeth, 'this also comes back to why I sold the company to Infinity. They were the only one that were making an offer, and it wasn't really a kind ask.

'They knew about the legal troubles we will be getting in extremely soon, and they has also offered to pay off all of the families affected. The only condition is that they would want the take over of everything we have immediately. I tried to get in touch with you as the deal is going through, but you weren't really up at that time.'

'Yeah, I was on Nox 5.'

Charles gave her a look before continuing.

'For a corporate take over, they sure seemed to want to get things done as quickly as possible, and I have my suspicions.' Charles said, pointing towards Elmyra's discovery, 'though I do not think they will be happy to hear about what you have found.'

'So that's what we can use against them, right?' Elmyra said.

'Yeah, about that.' Charles said with a shaking head, 'you know, in a way I wish you have never came back.....'

Before Elmyra has an idea of what his words really meant, groups of fully armed security details entered into the office that the two are standing in. One of them reached out and grabbed Elmyra by the hands and pinned her down onto the floor. She screamed and cursed in pain while Charles looked onwards from behind the desk.

'I am sorry, Elmie...I am just doing what's best for the company and this family, and you breaking into the records room has broken the trust we have.'

'Indeed.' The voice came from the side as the hologram of a middle aged man appeared in the room. He is casually dressed in an ancient oriental robe and his tone sounded...royal, 'Elmyra Zin, you have gotten yourself into some serious trouble.'

'What the hell, Charles?'

'I am sorry, Elmie, you broke the law and many rules of the transfer...There are no choices left for me except to hand you over.' Charles said with a mourning tone, though his head is probably already at the retirement resort that he has been dreaming about for decades now. Now with billions of funds all at his disposal, it sure seems like life is going to be sunshines and rainbows for him.

'Take her away. No, actually, bring her to Nox 5.' The man in the hologram ordered, 'it was pleasure doing business with you, Charles.'

Charles nodded with a blank look on her face, and as Elmyra gave up the struggle with the injection of a anesthetic, the last thing she saw were the obscured face of the one who took care of her for all these years. The last of her family. Now she wondered if he has ever been part of it to begin with.

When Elmyra woke up once more, she found herself cuffed and seated on a shuttle that's flying in the sky. She is actually returning to Nox 5 like what the men is saying, and she has been on the move for the past few few days. She looked around at the room around her, and a few of the armed personnel that were stationed in her room are now seated beside her. They are all dressed in a full body protective armor that are painted snow white, some of them are carrying some sort of a heavy equipment while the rest are simply carrying rifles and guns.

They are definitely not a part of the space force, but probably some sort of a private military organization, or even a mercenary group. From the level of technology that they are using, it appeared that Infinity as the most prestigious tech company has been doing some dirty work behind the scenes. For a company as big as Infinity, nobody really knows how it operates. Some say the company started in the wild regions and moved into the settled regions, while the other thought it was a spin off from the Galactic Institute of Science and Technology. Strangely so, in the post modern age when information are obtained at a whim, little is known about the company's origin.

What cannot be denied is their technology prowess, however.

The only way Elmyra can remain calm is to think about everything but her current situation. She knew it which is why she keeps consciously drawing her attention away from the tight cuffs around her wrist and towards how the heavy machine they are carrying could be functioning, and what it could do. From a military setting, there is absolute no point in weighing someone down without that equipment bringing some extra combat value, being a giant laser or something.

She looked out of the window and saw the almost unrecognization outline of Nox 5 as the fleets of shuttles descends from the sky. All of the soldiers rose up from their seats the moment the shuttle kisses down on the surface, and they marched Elmyra out of it onto the planet's surface. They slapped a gas mask onto her as the atmospheric composition of the planet now is not exactly the most friendly after some more seismic activity.

A new building has been built, or could have been brought along with the fleets of shuttles, and it appeared that's where the soldiers are taking Elmyra Zin. The building looked nothing like a container from the outside, though it appeared too big to be a container for dead bodies, so perhaps she will live for some more.

The fear of death is what keeps us alive, Elmyra thought, but her rational thoughts are what kept her sane in this current scenarios. Perhaps the effects of the anesthetic is still in play, so she hasn't lost her mind about the betrayal of Charles. Perhaps she will really soon, but what would that do?

What would impulsive emotional outbursts do? She was always a little cold since she was small, and the one thing that really affected her deeply were the death of her parents on this very planet. In comparison, Charles betraying her merely left a hole in her heart that she is currently way too busy to fill in.

Perhaps if she somehow survives this ordeal, then she will deal with it. Or even deal with him.

A good human manage, a great human compartmentalize.

'Just you wait, Charles.' Elmyra thought as the doors of the container is opened, and instead of seeing mountains of rotting body inside, it was an office. The office is constructed to mimic what it would have been like to work in the ancient human times way back in the age of greek philosophers, with stones being the main material of construction. Piles of files and hologram projectors and stacked nearly across the stone shelves, and the men that she saw in the hologram sat on a bench and is working through multiple hologram projectors at once.

She couldn't remember what he was wearing days ago when he conversed with Charles, but now he is wearing loosing fitting white robes, and she could see the outlines of a rather well built body with lines of silvery tattoos running throughout his upper body.

'Ah, Elmyra Zin, welcome.' The men said with outreached hands, he appeared a lot younger in person, 'I suppose I need to introduce myself. You may call me Zero, and I am the head of Infinity.'

'To be honest, that's a nice name.' Elmyra shrugged her shoulders, and Zero lets out a chuckle as he gestured towards the guards. The cuffs are deactivated as it fell onto the floor.

'I am sorry about the cuffing and everything, it was mainly to send a mesage.'

'To Charles or to me?' Elmyra rubbed her wrists and asked sharply, 'or both.'

'Well, I am not really concerned with Charles, as a matter of fact.' Zero gestured towards Elmyra as he stood up and started walking out of the room, 'he is merely an insignificant being in the galaxy too big for little minds. I am interested in you.'4

Elmyra shifted her shoulders uncomfortably upon hearing that.

'Ah...I didn't mean it that way.' Zero spin around and actually seemed a little...embarassed, he ran his eyes up and down Elmyra's body, and said quietly, 'well maybe a little bit in that way.'

'What?' The gas mask obscured the last of his words, and Elmyra couldn't hear it clearly.

'Nothing!' Zero said with a cheerful voice, 'You are a really talented one, from your resume, and right now you are simply channeling all of your energy towards finding out the cause of your parent's death on this planet, right?'

'And I have my suspicions.' Elmyra said coldly.

'AND you have your suspicions, yes.' Zero said, bobbing his head to his words every stride, 'and today I am actually going to convince you otherwise. Be prepared to have your mind blown.'

'And what would you get at the end of this? I am nothing in legal terms, and I have nothing.'

'I would get you.' Zero spun around again and looked at her, 'Not in that way, but maybe a little bit. I want you to be working with me personally.'

'With Infinity?'

'Well....no, not with Infinity. You will know when the time comes.' Zero said, then he leaned his head to the side and talked into the communication channels of his personal interface, 'are we ready?'

'Master, the paths down to the point of interest have not been found yet, but we are trying our bests.'

'Ah, do not worry about that just yet. I will take care of it.'

'Yes Master, do you want us to vacate the mines for it?'

'There is no need.' Zero said, and he looked back and winked at Elmyra. She heard every single word of that conversation, and Zero is treating her as if she has already joined him despite her being in handcuffs and has been worrying about being shot in the head and ditched in a hole somewhere. Everything felt a bit too surreal at this point, and it must have been the anesthetics.

'Elmyra, could you step back a little bit?' Zero asked politely, and Elmyra did as he asked. Then, he knelt down onto the ground and places both of his hands on it. As he breaths in and out and looks like he is concentrating, the tattoos in his body also changes color and pulses in a brighter and brighter color of orange, then red!

The frequency of the pulsing increases alongside its intensity, and soon Zero is actually shining like a giant lamp to the point that Elmyra has to cover her eyes. Is he going to explode? This wacky thought came into her mind, is Zero part of a cult and is this some sort of a cult ritual?

Then the shining dimmed, and she saw Zero remaining in his position on the ground. He rolled back onto his butt and clicked open the hologram for his personal interface. Then he opened up the 3D scans of the entire mining system. It is now subtly different from the mining blueprint that she has been looking at ever since the news of the first accident.

'What has happened?' She asked, but Zero ignored that question. He is quickly moving his arms and plotting down a precise course along the hologram. He is extremely concentrated, and his fingers moved with pinpoint precision of a programmed robotic arm. Every wiggle and squiggle is pre-planned and executed exactly as he intended to.

Elmyra may not be an expert of biomechanics, but she could tell that Zero has a mastery of his body when he desires to concentrate.

In less than a minute, a complex pathway is plotted, and Zero waved his hand to retract the hologram before speaking into the communications again, 'The path has been charted. Please collect all of your gear and meet me at the entrance.'

'Yes Sir.' The voice on the other end replied firmly.

'Now we are ready.' Zero said, 'Now, I will show you what really caused the tragedy of Nox 5.'

'And the crazy thing you just did is for that? To go down deeper into the mines and paths of the planet's upper core?' Elmyra questioned, 'I may not be able to do your squiggly finger thing, but I have looked at enough maps and scans to know that going down there right now is a death trap!'

'It won't be for us.' Zero said as he walked faster towards the entrance into the mines, 'now come on.'

'Also, why were you shining like a light?' Elmyra ran after him.

'I will explain everything when we are down there.' Zero said, not looking back at Elmyra anymore, 'the first accident, the tragedy, and why I am shining like a light ey...like a light ey...Bright like a light ey...'

'What?!'

'Nothing.'

The elevator structures of the previous mining systems were all obviously completely destroyed by the time Elmyra has stepped foot onto the planet, but the soldiers have at least stabilized whatever cracks and openings that remained in the planet's surface. Simple injectable materials developed specifically for this purpose are used to fill the cracks and coat all of the surfaces before air is pumped through and the pressure props the cracks open before the injectable hardens and keeps its shape. In this semi-stable state, those at Infinity could actually go deeper and deeper into the crust, though Elmyra would not trust this very novel technology.

She has heard about mentions of such a technology in modules where she learned about rescue and crust manuvres, but to see it use to open a path way in place of drills is something else. Her curiosity trumps her wariness and fear, and she began conversing with the engineers that Zero brought alone for the journey into the center of the planet, despite them not going anywhere near the actual center of Nox 5.

'Sure, you can pump it up, and those 'open molds' can harden and maintain its shape, but that will still not be enough force to at least keep us safe.' Elmyra's questions certainly made the engineer very uncomfortable as he shifted his shoulders in the heavy gear that most of the soldiers that are with Zero and Elmyra are carrying around. She has a feeling that it is not that because he has no answer to her question, but rather he does not know whether the answer should be given to her.

He looked over to Zero in hopes of being saved from this awkward scenario, but Zero is actually plugged in and humming to a song?

What is actually happening?

The openings created by the open molds became smaller and smaller the deeper they go down, and soon they have reached the end. That is about as far as the open molds has reached from the surface. They have been walking for just under an hour, and the soldiers surrounding the two has stopped near the edge and began assembling a drill. Elmyra felt something poking against her arm, and she turned to see Zero handing something off to her. It's a small box, and within it contained two high tech ear muffs. Elmyra put it on, and Zero's voice came through clearly.

'You might want to keep this on while we are drilling.' He said.

'And if you are taking me down to the source of all the disasters, what makes you think drilling into it is a good idea?' Elmyra said, 'I don't think the owner of a trillion dollar company wants to die on such a planet. Are you a bloody clone or something?'

Before Zero can reply, the assembly of the drill has already been completed, and the soldiers waved their hands towards the two to gesture them to move out of the way before the spinning drill clashes into the rocks and started spitting rocks and sands back out. Unsurprisingly to Elmyra, the rocky layer are not exactly hard pressed by the surrounding pressure like diamonds, the recent activities have moved the rocks around so much that they are really like recently plowed soil. The drill ejected materials to the side and makes steady progress as the rest followed suit.

They didn't walk for long before the layers above shifts and cracks due to the impacts of the drill, and before Elmyra knows it, the ceiling above collapsed down and swallowed everyone in an instant before they had a chance to react. There were no screams, just silence.

At least that's what Elmyra thought would happen.

She looked straight up, and the chunks of materials are mere inches away from her helmet. She raised her hands overhead instinctively, but the rocks remained in place.

'No, I am not a clone. I am just prepared.' Zero shrugged his shoulders and simply walked past her. Behind him, a few of the soldiers have already gotten in formation around them two, the heavy equipment they are carrying on their backs pointing in all directions around him as blinking lights indicated their status.

Somehow, those devices are preventing the rocks above from moving at all, but those rocks weren't fixed like those coated by the open molds. As they move further and further in, the rocks that they have passed dropped down and swallowed the path they were just walking in, but the rocks above her head always remained that way.

In a sense, she is in a submarine that moves through rocks.

Finally, the drilling has stopped. But Zero indicated towards Elmyra to keep the ear muffs on.

'This is it.'

Surprisingly, they have drilled into an opening. Looking from beyond, there is a spherical shaped air pocket that exists deep in the planet's crust. Within the five meter diameter sphere stood a pillar, and placed on top of the pillar is a single pin.

'This is what? And what is this?' Elmyra asked, as Zero pointed a hand forward before reaching the edge of the opening. His soldiers behind him and not moving an inch.

'This is what I foresee for you, Elmyra Zin.' Zero said, his voice calm and cold but the words burning, 'there is an artifact within this planet, and that thing in front of us is the cause of your parents demise.'

'Now go forth, and claim it.'