A Forgotten Power

Chapter 03: Home City

The flight pod surged into the air as Alexis applied full thrust. She was slammed back into her seat and the plasma pistols she'd rested on the control console clattered to the floor. On the shipboard sensor screen, a hologram of the barren city below showed the bio-raiders closing in on those who'd been killed. She knew they were going to salvage the dead for usable organics, fighting like mindless savages over scraps.

She switched off the holographic screen so as to not think too much about what was about to happen down there. Focusing her attention on the flight home, she wondered if her venture into the ruins would prove to be a fool's errand or not. She shook her head when she thought about how she'd risked her life over a pile of bones just because some old book had made the claim they had some kind of hidden power no science had ever discovered before.

Alexis decided not to tell her partner about the bones and dispose of them quietly when no one was looking. Once the book was logged in as an artifact, he would be too busy to notice her clearing out the storage compartment in the pod.

Jaz had been working with her over the past year, cataloging various artifacts found in the ruins of civilization. During the time when the atmospheric fields were first being established, mass panic had led to much information being lost or forgotten in the scramble to find shelter from the toxins spreading out across the globe. Sifting through the remnants of a fallen society to find pieces and put them back into use had been the job of Alexis and Jaz, but relevant finds had been diminishing as either time or environment took their toll on what remained.

Her thought process returned to the bone covered book she'd retrieved. She knew it was possible the book had survived for so long because of its isolation in the cave. The rock walls could've kept out the toxins and prevented the book's decay, but she wondered about the power mentioned in the book, the power within bones. Many ancient societies had covered themselves with bones or skulls for one reason or another. They'd always been seen as primitive or superstitious. She'd never considered the possibly they'd known something more than modern science.

Alexis shook her head as the train of thought had once more led her to consider the ridiculous idea as credible. Two parts of her mind were at opposing ends of the concept. One side considered the suggestion of bone as a power source to be utterly absurd, and anyone who thought otherwise was probably insane in some manner. The other side of her mind viewed the book from a purely scientific perspective, and until it was proven false with actual research, she must allow for the possibility of the book being correct. She decided the only way she was going to have peace of mind was to do the research and find out.

A hatch, mounted below where the wall and atmospheric field connected, held overlapping metal panels, and they changed position to iris open at her approach, allowing her to fly into the airlock beyond. The panels moved back again to close the hatch behind her. A pair of curved plates raised out of the floor on twin support arms to perfectly capture the flight pod in a cylindrical embrace. Orange light illuminated on the exterior of the plates and support arms as the electronic connections were made between the airlock chamber and flight pod.  

Once the atmosphere within the airlock was cleansed, Alexis waved the index and middle finger of her right hand over the control switch to detach the airlock module from the wall of the city. With her flight pod sending its piloting signals to the engines mounted underneath the module, Alexis was able to fly the square building section away from the city's edge and toward the research center where she worked.

Everything in modern construction was of similar, modular design. Rooms and floors were detachable and flight capable in order to restructure and reshape buildings and the entire city on an as needed basis. Renovating or replacing buildings within the limited space of the dome could be accomplished swiftly with nothing more than a removal of obsolete modules and the flying in of new ones. As a result, many of the buildings had only a central core with docking latches and elevators while all relevant spaces were contained in the modules latching onto the structure and to each other.

Alexis flew past several towers belonging to the more influential and wealthy citizens. Each tower was capped by a saucer shaped platform. Under the glass dome of each saucer were remnants of the old world, gardens with trees and flowers existing nowhere else in the world. She wondered idly what it must be like to rest under the shade of a tree while watching the tranquil ripples of the artificial pond. Alexis smiled humorlessly as she knew such things wouldn't be available to her or anyone else at her income level.

The research building was in the eastern half of the downtown district. It was near the industrial zone, but anything noxious produced by the factories was pumped outside through a series of reinforced pipes so as to not pollute the environment within the atmospheric field.

A number of square modules were already locked in placed around the central spire, but she found a space and initiated an auto-docking program to secure the airlock she piloted into the building. A slight thump registered as the airlock linked with the building. Leaving the flight pod, Alexis glanced at the cargo compartment, considering again if she was being rational in bringing the bones back with her.

Ignoring the nagging doubts, Alexis departed for the examination lab two floors down. It was time to put the claims of the book to the test and end the debate in her head.