Stella Vir: First Flight

Anker runs into the tent stumbling with a bandage wrapped around his hand and shouts: “The scouts are back and they’ve got some news that you will all want to hear!”

“Is it urgent or can we take a few moments to wrap up this meeting?” - asks Kaner raising an eyebrow.

Anker says: “Sure we just have to make it quick because this is important information”.

Quickly before the meeting is dismissed Em looks over at Dre.

Em asks Dre: “I have one last question before you and Razzo go, since Razzo is an energy source could he be used to power a weapon potentially?”

Dre hesitates but answers: “In theory yes he could, but I don’t know how it would work in practice. Remember like any power source if you make it unstable it could explode, now when the initial factory exploded it took out half the city from what I understand and that was a fraction of the power of the star. If he were to explode it might annihilate the entire continent if not the planet…”

Kaner states to the group: “Okay that’s enough questioning for now, we’ve overloaded them as it is, lets get them to their tent and we can discuss the information that the scouts have gathered”.

Everyone turns to each other and nods their heads, after which Anker steps out of the tent and discusses things with the guards as to where to send them.

Izabela touches Razzo on the shoulder and says: “We’ll come by and bring you an energy wristband that you can put on and explain what it can do”.

Razzo nods his head and stands up and exits the tent with Dre. The two guards that were waiting outside go and begin to walk them over to the section of the pop up houses.

On the way there Razzo whispers to Dre: “Why did you tell them that I could be an energy source, what if they blow me up and kill me?”

Dre says quietly: “Well that’s why I warned them about messing with you in that way and the results that it can lead to. Don’t worry you’ll be fine, just make sure you don’t let out too much energy, because at the end of the day it's your decision for how much energy you wish to exert”.

Razzo rolls his eyes but doesn’t answer back to Dre as he’s frustrated himself with how the situation had played out. He couldn’t believe that he was being compared to a numbless robot or a dead man, if anything he believed that he’d been given a second chance. Another way to make the most of his life, it’s like he hadn’t truly lived before finding this out and being put in this crazy situation that he wasn’t entirely convinced wasn’t a dream. As they walked together with the guards they noticed that the living conditions around them were getting worse and worse and the people were in a terrible state here. The pop up houses were in shambles, some only half up right, some that looked like any bit of wind could blow them over, others had holes in them that varied in sizes of fists to the size of a window you could crawl through. People that were in this area looked miserable like they had been doing hard labor their whole lives and looked beyond the point of exhaustion. It was a depressing area all together, from seeing all this Dre looked around and walked up to the guard to be walking side by side with the guard.

Dre asks the guard: “How is the rations situation going on in this camp, how are the people being fed?”

The guard says in a frustrated tone: “The rations aren’t enough to feed everyone as of right now, as it currently stands the high class are getting priorities over the rations and the leftovers are being fought over by the trash people. This is the garbage town and you will be staying here while you’re with us”.

Razzo walks up to the other side of the guard and asks a question: “Is there any way to get more food to the camp? There’s got to be old storage pockets of supplies and food that can be delivered to the people”.

The guard slows down and looks over at him he says: “There are but they are either guarded by the Minerau or Automatons or simply unattainable because they are buried under the rubble…”

Razzo then grabs the guards shoulder and tells him: “We have to go get them then this is no way to leave people living, these people are hardly alive, they need to eat properly at the very least”.

The guard sighs and replies: “I wish there was something we could do but our scouts and warriors are stretched thin as it is trying to take back territory from the Minerau and ambushing their convoys, disrupting their system. We simply can’t afford to take on an excursion to get more resources''.

Razzo exclaims: “It’s fine me and Dre will go to recover the resources just tell us where to go!”

Dre turns and exclaims as well: “We will?!?!”

The guard gets a little smile on his face and says: “It’s a nice thought but it would be too dangerous and won’t end well. Plus I’m not exactly sure you two aren’t prisoners just yet…”

Dre tells the guard: “For one I’m not risking it for anyone else's sake and two if we were prisoners we wouldn’t be getting our own place to stay!”

The guard pauses to think and says: “You know what you have a point there my friend, but still it’s too dangerous!”

Razzo tells him: “It’s fine I’m basically dead as it is we can do this”.

Dre rolls its eyes and says: “Who is this we you’re referring too?!”

The guard says: “You guys aren’t even sure amongst yourselves, I don’t want to jeopardize new members of the camp”.

“It’s fine we’re on the same page Dre just doesn’t know it yet, just tell us where to go I insist”.

The guard hesitates looking around then whispers: “Fine, once the leaders come back with the tool, I’ll try to find some time within a week and come by on my time off and take you to a spot, you just have to be silent about it. Also we’re here, you guys will be spending time in this pop up.”

Razzo sighs: “These people won’t last that long…”

The guard smiles: “You’re right they’ve lasted a lot longer, they’re tougher than they look. Get familiarized with the community around you two”.

They looked around and the pop up house had massive holes and cuts in it, the electric fire was half working and most of the roof in the middle became non existent from wear and tear. At this point Razzo and Dre look at each other and exchanging glances of disgust. Razzo thinks that it will be awfully cold in the tent, while Dre thinks that it could catch fire at any moment.

Dre chimes in: “Do you think we could get something a little cozier than this?”

“This is all that we could afford to give you folks on such short notice, plus I thought one of you is almost dead and the other is a robot. Shouldn’t this be right by your comfort level?” - says the guard chuckling.

Dre begins: “Well actually…”

Razzo interrupts Dre again and finishes: “... it’s fine we’ll make do of it, thank you for providing us somewhere to stay!”

Dre looks visibly frustrated but smiles as the guard nods his head and heads back to the center of the camp the way that they came. As soon as the guard is out of an earshot Dre hits Razzo’s shoulder with its one good arm.

Dre yells: “I AM NOT STAYING IN THIS DUMP, I AM ABOVE THIS! IT’S GOING TO BURN DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND KILL THIS WHOLE CAMP, AND MAYBE THAT’S FOR THE BETTER BECAUSE EVERYONE KEEPS CALLING ME A ROBOT! AND WHY DID YOU VOLUNTEER ME ON ANOTHER SUICIDE MISSION, DO YOU WANT TO DIE!!”

“Are you finished yet? Talk about a drama queen…” - mutters Razzo heading inside the tent.

Dre yells storming off after him: “ DRAMA QUEEN?!? I’M AN AUTOMATON DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE I’M NOT FINISHED!!”

“Shhh relax, let's just talk about it” - says Razzo.

At this point a couple locals are beginning to gather around the tent hoping to maybe get some entertainment value between the Automaton and the human fighting. Dre notices the small crowd beginning to gather and walks into the pop up with an attitude.

As the robot finally comes in to see Razzo casually lying down on one of the beds on the one side, putting one leg over the other with an arm behind his head and Dre walks over to the bed and stands over him.

Dre looks as though he’s about to start heating up and fumes will start escaping from its head.

Dre exclaims: “Well, are we going to talk about what you just agreed to or not!?”

“What is there to talk about when the plans are made and put in motion, plus I saved you so you essentially owe me one”. - sighs Razzo calmly replying while staring at the holes in the ceiling.

Dre visibly frustrated: “I’m going to tell the leaders what you’re planning to do, I’m sure they would love to hear what sort of adventure you made up”.

Razzo calmly waves off the remarks and says: “You see the situation that we’re in? People need our help, we were going to the colosseum to help people in the first place weren’t we? Plus I’m sure that the leaders will be happy to hear that we’re ready to volunteer and help out around here”.

Dre, beginning to understand that there will be no way out of this situation, sits down on the bed across from Razzo. With the frustration building up inside Dre begins to shut itself off and recharge its power. Razzo notices that Dre is becoming very still and gets up and walks up to the Automaton. He waves his hand in front of Dre’s face, then he dances a little bit in front of him to no reaction. Razzo gets really close to Dre then pokes it with one hand, no reaction. Razzo assumes Dre has gone to sleep but thinks to himself that it can’t be comfortable to sleep sitting up, no matter who you are and how frustrated or tired you are. Razzo goes and swings Dre’s legs up and turns the Automatons legs inward onto the bed and places them onto the bed, he then goes and pushes back Dre’s body till the Automaton is lying on its back. Razzo dusts his hands off, concluding that his job is done and goes back and lies down on his bed on the other side of the pop up tent. He thinks to himself how life has brought him to this point and tries to reflect on life before the factory’s explosion. How he didn’t do much in school, used to waste time wandering the streets of Rome as a kid and truly enjoyed his life. Then how life got serious, he started working as a teenager in one plant and how that became his life for several years then jumped around from factory to plant after coming of age to be deemed an adult. As he reflected he realized that life hadn’t really started until this big event occurred in his life. Then he reflected on the flying light he saw in the factory before he went to sleep for what’s seemingly to be a couple months. Everyone keeps saying that it’s inside him yet he doesn’t feel any different. Nothing looks different through his eyes. Everything he touches feels almost the same but as if he’s missing something at the edge of his fingertips, as if a fraction of the tip of his finger is missing and isn’t delivering on that feeling. Razzo doesn’t fixate on it too much and thinks of what he will be able to accomplish with this new found energy. As he gets lost in thought he hears some grumbling outside the pop up house and there’s an old man and a young boy arguing over something. The old man is short in stature and thin yet healthy for his age, he wears glasses and has beady eyes. He’s got a mustache and a long white beard that he twirls with his fingers. He’s hunched over something and in this stance it makes his thinning hair and bald spot the things that your eyes attract to. He’s got sensible attire that’s in good condition for the circumstances that looks a little dirty. The young boy is a bit taller but a pudgy kid with no shirt on and something in his hand that he’s trying to eat. By the looks of it for this kid no matter the situation it looks like he has a knack for finding the food supply. Razzo, curious to see what all the hassle is about, sticks his head out of the hole of the tent. As he sticks his head out the two people arguing look over at him with weird looks.

The old man shouts: “What are you looking at cretin?”

“Not much just wanted to see what the commotion was” as he finishes his sentence he proceeds to get hit in the head with a flying shoe.

Razzo says in shock: “Clearly flying shoes are the topic of the day”.

The boy shouts at him: “Get outta here wasteman we don’t got nothing for ya”.

Razzo sticks his head back inside, then goes to the exit of the pop up house and walks out. He walks over to where the shoe that hit him in the head is lying down and picks it up. He then walks over to the boy and the old man, at which point the boy out of fear of retaliation runs away as fast as he can. Well as fast as one can with only one shoe on and carrying a snack in one hand while chomping on it while making a getaway.

The old man grunts and says: “I wish the kid was back, it would have been much easier to share the fire with him than with your mammoth size”.

Razzo looks down to what the old man is referring to and sees that there’s a small electric fire that is about to dwindle and doesn’t have much life in it. The electric fire is powered by a circular energy storage that connects to two bars that cross through each other to make an x like shape and out of that shape produce a blue flame. There’s a cover for the fire that amplifies the heat while not allowing the flame to escape. The cover can be molded into various shapes with the flexible material that it’s made of, depending on if the purpose is cooking, heating, waste incineration, lighting or slash-and-burn for agriculture uses. It’s a very useful survival tool that is compact and easy to pick up and take on the go. Razzo hands over the shoe to the old man and takes a closer look at the fire where he sees that the output for the flame is coming from and one of the outputs is dead.

He turns to the old man and tells him: “Stand back, it's about to get hot in here”.

Razzo then crouches down near the flame, shakes the circular canister a bit and then leans away from the fire as he turns the valve. Upon turning the valve the fire lights up a bit brighter and then after a couple minutes goes out completely.

The old man rolls his eyes and says: “I could have done that too and without any of the theatrics”.

The old man begins to walk away and mumbles under his breath: “can’t have shit around here”.

As the old man leaves Razzo looking dumbfounded at the electric fire. He begins to inspect the elements of the portable fire. In theory everything should have worked out and the flame should’ve gotten bigger with more flow of energy. Razzo remembers that he didn’t really pay attention in any classes in school and that he could be completely wrong, for whatever it’s worth he’s confident that he’s right. He thinks to himself well that’s where theory and experimentation change the outcome because a theory doesn’t work if it’s not backed by experiments, or does it? As he stares and ponders the philosophical question of the electric fire he doesn’t notice as behind him the leaders had quietly walked up.

Anker states in a rich voice: “Already scaring off the locals? Not a good way to set an impression in the community you’re staying in”.

Razzo doesn’t look up from the fire, already knowing who’s around him quietly replies: “I figured I could help out and at least do something for the people around me”.

A couple of the leaders closest to him overhear his comment and one of those is Jefe who takes any opportunity to take a jab at someone. Surprisingly his people haven’t voted him out yet or the other leaders haven’t had a coup against him. Still unknown what he’s good for aside from taking slights at people. Jefe goes and crouches down next to Razzo and looks around at the community that Razzo and Dre are staying in.

Jefe smirks and says: “Yeah these people typically don’t want your help and rather be left alone to their own instruments. I’m surprised that you didn’t get assaulted by one of them”.

Razzo turns to him and says: “Oh I did, I got a shoe thrown at me, now the kid that threw the shoe is gone, and same with the old man that I gave the shoe to”. Before he gets up he shoves the dead electric fire into Jefe’s chest and says: “I’m still expecting an apology”. Razzo then gets up walking past the leaders on his way to the tent.

As he sits down on his bed the leaders come up and a couple sit on the bed next to him and the rest bring small stools to sit on in the pop up house. Izabela sits on the right side of Razzo and she has a small box in her hands. She goes and hands over the box to him who inspects it from all sides.

Kaner clears his throat and says: “Look inside the box the”.

Izabela goes and flips the box the right side up and slides the lid off the box. Razzo looks into the box and sees a small bracelet with many black beads on it.

With a puzzled expression he says: “What do I do with this?”

Em jumps in the conversation: “Put it on of course silly, but I’ll let you in on a secret; it’s not just for fashion”. She giggles as she takes out the bracelet and takes Razzo’s left hand and slides it on for him.

“Am I missing something because it feels no different”.

“You’re not going to feel any different silly. What this bracelet allows you to do is channel your energy that’s inside you, I don’t know too much of the science behind it, that's more of Kronos’ thing”. - replies Em.

Kronos steps in: “Like what Em said, this bracelet allows you to garner your inner energy and use it for a variety of things. You can use the energy to create weapons from it, from the simple things like spears, swords, bow. To more complex things such as guns and rockets, if you're really good at creating and bending energy you will be able to use raw energy as a weapon although we haven’t seen that in a while, the last person to do it was Kaner but that put him in a coma for a couple weeks. What else you can do is direct your energy, so you can use it to power things, such as electric fire you were tinkering with outside. You will be able to tell when something is powered up because you should still feel your hands heating up from the transfer of energy, or in certain cases simply things begin to slowly change color as the threshold for how much energy it can hold begins to reach its limits. How this works is that the bracelet acts as a conductor for you to start pulling energy from within. The interesting thing is that it works with anyone”. Kaner goes and grabs the bracelet off Razzo’s wrist and puts it on his wrist. He then touches his pointer fingers together and spreads them and as he spreads them a thin blue line no thicker than a shoelace is drawn between the fingers. Kronos then pinches the line with the hand that doesn’t have the bracelet and in a sharp motion rips off the line. He then twirls it around a little bit in the air like a string, then casually rolls it up with two fingers into a ball and grabs the electric light from Jefe and sticks it into the power supply. The energy goes through the power supply and as it soaks in the flame is reignited and Kronos places the electric fire back on the ground. Kronos then takes off the bracelet and hands it back over to Razzo.

Kronos continues his explanation: “You see how the whole process works is that it takes the energy from what you consume and allows you to transfer it out and use it as a tool. So typically people eat and sleep and that gives them energy and the output for that is quite simply walking, running, exercising, thinking, these are all things that consume energy. What this tool does is it allows for a different avenue for outputting this energy. Instead of running or jumping or thinking some of that energy that’s in you is outputted through this bracelet as your energy in its essence. We become an engine with that bracelet being what we produce. The difference between normal people and you is that for us it uses the energy from what we consume be it sleep or food or even in certain cases activities such as meditation. For you it will be mainly drawn from the star that’s within you, and a little bit from sleep that you get whenever you get it.”

Razzo asks a question: “So does that mean that when I use the bracelet to create energy I am essentially slowly killing myself?”

There’s a loud silence around the room as no one wants to say the wrong thing to scare Razzo.

Kaner gets the courage and speaks: “Speaking from experience yes it can and there’s potentially for it. But you have to understand that with that energy source in you, you have a couple billion years left to go before it burns out and you die. When you’ll be using energy on our level you’ll be taking off days at a time or maybe a week or a month at most. It all depends on how much energy you use but for something simple like what Kronos did it will be at most a few minutes or maybe half an hour. Don’t stress over the finer details because it will be fractions of the time that you have”.

Razzo gets a little somber but nods his head and replies: “Well it would be selfish for me to simply keep all this energy for myself when I could help with it. I won’t dwell on it, but why did you give it to me now?”

Izabela chimes in: “Because we got the scouting report back from the tip that your companion gave us and the information is accurate so we’ll be planning for a freedom operation at the colosseum. We were hoping you would help us because we will need all hands on deck if we’re to stand a chance and be successful”.

As she says this she touches his right hand with her left and looks at him for a while.

Razzo, having trouble thinking, blurts out: “Okayes!”

Everyone looks at him with a puzzled expression.

He corrects himself and says confidently: “Okay yes I will help out as much as I can!”

Anker boasts: “What a good lad I always believed in the kid!”

All around the room everyone is smiling as if the mission had already been accomplished.

Jefe jumps in to say his piece before the mood is ruined: “Yeah sorry about before, shouldn’t have come off like that”.

Razzo just smiles and gives him a nod. As everyone feeling rejoiced and spirits are lifted the commotion causes Dre to wake up and the robot not remembering that it was lying down when it powered off shoots up from its position.

Kaner says to the group: “We’re glad to have you on board Razzo, take some time to get accustomed to the new tool and play around with it a bit. We’ve got lots of planning to do so if you have any questions about anything or want to pop by and talk to one of us, we’ll be in the leaders tent planning the operation”.

The mood settles down a bit and the leaders looking at one another all nod their heads and stand up and leave. They leave behind the electric fire as well as the chairs that they had brought in. As they all leave Razzo looks over and sees Dre staring at him, particularly the bracelet on his left wrist.

Razzo asks Dre: “So how was your nap?”