Marks and Chips

Someone placed a metal plate thing-y on her shoulder. The person's fingers were like talons. Isobel realized that the person was not a human. The plate buzzed a little, sending vibrations through her. Once it stopped buzzing they removed it from the shoulder.

There was a three-legged spiral knot tattooed on her shoulder. It felt as if it was stamped upon because of the absence of pain but when she touched it, she could feel her skin. It really was a tattoo! A fully healed tattoo. She turned to look at Jayden and saw he too had the same tattoo.

Jayden looked at her and they both grinned at each other.

"It's a triskele or also known as triskelion," Alasdair said, attracting their attention towards him. "It's a Celtic symbol, also known as Celtic knot but is known to date back to the Neolithic era. It gained popularity in 500 BC."

Jayden and Isobel were blown away. An ancient symbol was now residing on their shoulder and they could hardly believe it.

Alasdair continued, "The triskele can be thought to represent motion as all three arms are positioned to make it appear as if it is moving outwards from its centre. Movement, or motion, is believed to signify energies, in particular within this Celtic Symbol the motion of action, cycles, progress, revolution and competition. Though it means different things to different people."

"What does it mean for you guys?" Jayden asked as he was filled with curiosity.

Alasdair grinned. "We use the connotation, creation-preservation-destruction."

Isobel and Jayden nodded. It was perfect. It describes this whole thing perfectly. They were to travel through space and turn the world from its destruction phase to the preservation or in other cases to creation.

"That's actually pretty smart you know." Isobel says smiling towards Alasdair. Alasdair puffed up in pride. He thought so as well when he presented this idea to the board of directors. They were against it at first as it was from the earth, a planet which when even not in immediate danger of apocalypse is still on the path to destruction but even they couldn't deny that the triskele had a nice ring to it.

"Hey, how old is the Neolithic era?" Jayden asked.

"I know it is also called the New Stone Age, it was the period after the stone age but I have no idea how old it is or when it started." Isobel said. The period of that era was not something she had ever thought about, not many history lessons included the Neolithic era and she had just heard its name.

"The Neolithic Revolution started around the year 10,000 BC." Alasdair said.

Both Isobel and Jayden turned to him with wide eyes.

"10,000 BC?!" They both all but yelled.

Alasdair chuckled at their shocked expression. It was funny seeing them react to new things and information in different ways. Their expressions were the same a child has in a candy store. The eyes were just as bright and wide.

"The first triskele recorded was dated back to somewhere around 4,400 BC."

"Woah, that's so cool!" Isobel exclaimed and Jayden nodded. The pamphlet guy smiled at them seeing their reactions.

"So other than the triskele being a cool symbol to recognize each other, does it have any other use?" She asked.

Alasdair nodded. "It helps us to locate you. Whenever you are needed, we can get your coordinates. Also, you won't have to endure that long journey. You'll be here in a matter of a couple of seconds."

"Oh, that would be great. Don't know about you Isobel but I really didn't like being sucked in by a vacuum cleaner." Jayden said slumping back in his chair.

Isobel laughed at his words and antics. "I didn't like it either, I know what you mean by vacuum cleaner though. At first, I thought I was dying you know? But it was so long that I had done my freaking out and decided on my epitaph before landing here, so I mentally sang 'Baby Shark'."

'Vacuum cleaner?' Alasdair thought. 'No one has ever compared the journey to a vacuum cleaner before. What kind of childhood did these kids have to compare something to being sucked in by a vacuum cleaner? How does one even get this experience.' then Alasdair remembered that Jayden had mentioned the vacuum cleaner before as well

Alasdair was drawn out of his mental questions by Jayden's voice. "How do I look, Isobel-boo?" Jayden asked, striking a pose with the robe pushed off his shoulder.

Isobel burst into peals of laughter. The guy looked so ridiculous in a black robe looking like the warlock they had in the old low-grade movies, striking a model pose showing off his tattoo, and batting his eyelashes at her that she couldn't help herself.

"As stupid as humanly possible." She said honestly and the guy had the audacity to pout still being in the stupid pose.

Though they were interrupted, "Now we'll place the chip." A voice behind her said. It was a type of voice you couldn't place. The gender or age nothing was given away by the voice. One thing that she could realize was that it had sort of a hissing quality to it. She should probably be bothered by an alien putting a chip in her head but she really wasn't. She was too excited.

Alasdair nodded, motioning for them to carry on.

Her head was gently pushed forward making it bend downwards. The talon-like fingers gripped her ear and pushed it forward as well. Whoever was behind her had trained hands as they applied pressure was not too much or little. It was just perfect.

The person pressed the glue gun looking type pen and moved it around on the skull behind it. The part is called mastoid as she remembered. She wasn't sure though.

After moving the gun around a bit it stopped at a point. The person behind her pulled the trigger. It felt as if something was inserted there but she felt no pain. It was like it had teleported inside the skin.

"Blink twice." The person behind her spoke.

She blinked, then blinked again.

It felt as if out of nowhere a cloud was in front of her eyes. Just as quick as it came it went away. Her vision was cleared once again, making her surroundings clear up for her eyes.

Suddenly a voice inside her head spoke. It had a machine-like accent to it but was better than the one Siri or Alexa has. It felt more natural.

[Welcome to C.O.S.M.O.S. host. I'll be your assistant. My tag will be E-C.O.S.M.O.S. 61466464.]

Isobel's eyes widened as she heard the voice.

'A system!'

'Fuck YES!'