Chapter 10 - The Tutorial (Beyond the Door).

Nothing happened. The two icons floated in the air above dataslate, unchanged after Søren tapped the cyan icon. He swiped his hand through both icons in various directions to no effect. There's something I'm missing here. Søren tried turning the dataslate over but the hologram remained exactly in the same place. He then put the dataslate into the satchel and the hologram faded out and vanished.

"Interesting."

Søren retrieved the same dataslate from the satchel and closed his eyes, running his fingers along the edges. A subtle bevel and texture revealed the orientation of the dataslate. The bevel and texture must be for grip, Søren figured. It did feel a little rough on his fingers. He lifted the dataslate again and swiped across the front face. The slight difference between the back and the front was noticeable now that he had discovered it. As before, the cyan and red icons appeared in front of Søren. Keeping the thought in his mind that the holographic interface should remain, he slid the dataslate into an empty pocket on the front of his jumpsuit.

Success. Intent is key to understand and utilizing this technology. I wonder how it reads intent and what safeguards are in place to prevent the abuse of such a technology. He frowned, considering the implications that his thoughts or at least surface thoughts could be read by the Guide and whoever was running this place. Can't worry about that too much right now, he thought and turned back to the hologram in front of him and took a step away. The hologram followed him, maintaining a short distance between him and itself. The gap was a few inches shy of arm's length. A distance that would be comfortable for reaching up and manipulating the hologram without having to look down at an angle all the time.

Reaching up towards the cyan icon again, Søren focused his intent towards activation or turning the device on. His index finger reached the icon and was held in place for a moment by a slight pressure and then he felt it shift slightly away and an audible click sounded in the air in front of him. This truly is an amazing technology. The two icons swirled into a multi-colored vortex that then split up into a dozen different icons floating in the air haphazardly in front of Søren. The air in front of Søren darkened slightly, making it easier to see each of the cyan icons scattered about. Carefully, lest he activate something he didn't intend to activate, he dropped his arm to his side and began to study each of the icons.

Five icons beneath an icon that looked like his satchel were lined up in a column off to one side, each with a pulsing cyan circle around them. Two of the icons were tilted rectangular shapes. The third was a wireframe representation of the camera drone he had placed on the charge pad. The remaining two looked like representations of the battery pack and the pistol itself. He focused his intent on that column and those five icons spun towards the center of his view while the rest of the icons slid outwards and faded to near-total transparency. The items on the charge pads arranged themselves in a downward pointing pentagon. Beneath each icon was a small bar showing the charge status of each item. The other two dataslates had a full charge, as did the battery pack on the pistol. The drone and battery pack were both about halfway charged.

Søren reached out and tapped the drone's icon. The other four icons spun away to join the others in the background while the drone's icon shifted to the top left and a spreadsheet-like document appeared in front of him. The datasheet was filled with text and symbols he could only surmise were the specs of the drone. Each line utterly incomprehensible to him without any base to start a translation from.

"Gabh trasna ort fhein! You could at least translate this into something I can read!" Søren shouted into the room. If the Guide was listening, they did nothing. The text on the datasheet remained incomprehensible to Søren. He angrily swiped at the hologram in front of him and the drone icon spun away and its datasheet faded into nothingness as the rest of the icons returned to a scattered arrangement in front of him. One of the icons caught his eye, a stylized feather in front of an inkpot. Curious, he tapped it with the intent of opening it foremost in his mind. The icon zipped to the top left corner of his view as the rest of the icons faded into the background. A white square unfolded in front of him with a series of icons and shapes down the left side. Søren reached out and tried drawing a line on the sheet in front of him, but nothing appeared.

"Let's see if it records dictation," Søren said, watching the hologram carefully. The words he spoke appeared on the document, written in English. Dammit... was hoping it would translate into whatever language is written everywhere. He sighed and made a swiping motion at the letters written in front of him. The sheet was wiped clean but continued to float in front of him. He stood there for a moment, lost in thought, and then noticed another icon at the bottom of the sheet. He tapped the icon and two holographic spheres covered in the symbols of the Guide's language appeared in front of him.

"Make's sense they'd have a different style of interface for holograms," he said softly. He reached out to take the two spheres in his hands, feeling the holographic light as if it were a solid object. The two halves of the keyboard felt unnaturally smooth to him except along the edges of each key and the center of the key where the symbol was placed. Like the dataslates, he could detect a subtle texture, a difference between the symbol and the rest of the key. Experimentally, he tapped one of the keys and watched as the symbol appeared on the sheet in front of him. Useful, but not helpful, unfortunately, he thought to himself.

After a few minutes of experimenting and testing the different keys, Søren was able to navigate the text in the document, highlight, copy, and replace text, but had been unable to glean any hints to the meaning of the symbols or icons on the interface. With a faint snarl on his features, lip upturned slightly, Søren thrust the control spheres away from him and swiped away the document with the intent of removing it at the top of his thoughts. The document crumpled up into a ball and soared through the hologram to a cylindrical icon. The icon flared outwards a tiny bit near the top.

"Suppose that's the icon for the bin," Søren said. He glanced at the time on his interface and figured he had a little more than an hour left in the challenge. Another glance at the hologram and the icons for the charge pads showed that the drone was fully charged and the depleted battery pack was around eighty percent full. Søren walked over to the charge pads, the hologram dutifully following him, maintaining a short distance away from his chest until he swiped at it again, his intent set on deactivating the interface. The hologram faded from view and then he picked up the pistol and drone from the workbench. His gaze landed on the pistol and another idea formed in his thoughts.

"Eh, it worked with the satchel," he said to himself as he focused his intent on attaching the pistol to the side of his jumpsuit. When the plasma pistol touched his left leg along the outside of his thigh, the jumpsuit shifted slightly, creating a stiff raised section around his leg like a strap at the end of the barrel and near the grip. Søren let go of the pistol and it remained in place, securely attached to his jumpsuit. He then did the same with the drone on his upper left arm before retrieving the crystal knife and trying the same thing on his right leg. Unlike with the pistol and the drone, the jumpsuit didn't appear to react to the knife and it started to slide out of his grip.

Søren's forehead creased as his eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened. He tightened his grip on the knife and lifted it closer to his eyes to inspect the details, but nothing jumped out at him as to why the jumpsuit would not attach to the knife.

"I suppose it could be incompatible technology or materials, but why would it be here?"

Søren returned the crystal knife to the satchel with a slight shake of his head and then added a handful of the smaller bits and pieces of equipment scattered around the different workbenches. He grabbed the other drone and placed it on a charge pad and stored the now fully charged battery pack into the satchel along with the other dataslates. Finally, he went over to the door and examined the access pad off to the side.

"Let's see if this works," he said, pulling out the dataslate from his pocket that he had activated earlier. Søren waved the dataslate over the access pad and an angry red glow illuminated the top of the access pad from inside. A whirring sound above him was the only warning he had before two small turrets spun up and began seeking him out. Søren backpedaled quickly and tumbled to his ass. He used the momentum to continue rolling backwards and pushed up off the floor as two plasma blasts blackened the floor where he had just been. His left hand sought out the plasma pistol and he ripped it free from the jumpsuit. His index finger slid inside the trigger guard, though no actual trigger existed.

Intent alone was the trigger. Søren aimed at the turret on the left and squeezed the pistol grip in his hand. The blast of plasma went wide, scorching the wall beside the turret. Søren corrected his aim and squeezed the grip again. Another bolt of plasma exited the barrel and destroyed the turret. He then threw himself sideways to his left, sliding behind the nearest workbench. Heat just on the edge of being painful on his bicep warned him of how close he had come to potentially dying from the defenses. The suit had blackened and frayed where the plasma has grazed his upper arm, but he could already see it was starting to knit itself back together. Nice, self-repairing. His health bar didn't drop at all fortunately. Don't want to miss out on that third Perfect Run achievement.

Søren grimaced and pushed the pain to the back of his thoughts and peeked around the side of the workbench. The turret shifted slightly with a whirring sound, unerringly aiming at Søren. The subtle whine of a capacitor being discharged alerted him to the incoming attack. He slid back behind the workbench just in time. The bolt of plasma melted a part of the corner. Bits of metallic ceramic dripped down the side and then hardened. He reached up blindly onto the top of the workbench and grabbed the first object he could find. He tossed it across the floor and the turret faithfully tracked the object. Another whine of a capacitor discharging sounded and the object was slagged.

Søren popped up from behind the workbench and dropped his arms onto the edge to steady his aim. A single shot exited from his pulsed plasma pistol and destroyed the turret. Hardened trails of the metallic ceramic material decorated the wall beneath the turret. The access pad to the door still glowed an angry red. Søren lined up the barrel of the pistol toward the access pad and sent a bolt of plasma into the center of it. Unlike the expectation based on events in many action movies, the door stubbornly remained closed as sparks erupted from within the pad.

"Ah dammit," Søren cursed. "I probably just locked it from the other side as well." He walked over to the door and inspected the sparking access pad. The outer casing had been melted by the plasma, dripping down the wall and hardening like the workbench had and the turrets when they were destroyed. Small electrical cables had been vaporized by the plasma leaving melted tips sparking into the surrounding material.

"Hmm, fuck." Søren looked at the pistol in his hand and the door. "Can't get the drone to work. Blew up the access pad. Should nae have done that. Ah, blowing stuff up. Hopefully still an option." Søren dropped one knee to the floor and set his pistol down as he peeled off the satchel. He dug around inside the container and brought out a small wedge shaped item. The battery pack for the pulse plasma pistol was placed snug against the door.

"Let's see if this makes a big enough boom."

Søren grabbed the plasma pistol and retreated behind the nearest workbench. As he crouched down and used the edge of the workbench to steady his aim, he considered the power of the plasma pistol he'd witnessed so far and moved further away from the door. Søren kneeled behind a bench on the far side of the chamber, near the small room in which he had had his only meal so far since waking up in this place. Here goes something. The first bolt of plasma zipped across the room and struck the floor in front of the battery. Søren cursed and checked the charge gauge on his pistol. It had dipped lower, beginning to turn yellow-green. Around eighty percent left, Søren estimated.

He lifted the plasma pistol again and steadied his aim by resting his arms against the side of the workbench. The second bolt of plasma streaked across the chamber and struck the fully charged battery pack. The explosion rattled the room and knocked a wave of items off the tops of the workbenches. Søren ducked behind the workbench and threw his arms over his head to ward off any errant debris that might fall on him. The heat rose dramatically within the chamber and the foul stench of burnt wiring filled the area. The lights flashed to red and a warning klaxon echoed over the dying rumbles of the explosion.

Søren cautiously got to his feet and looked at the other end of the room. He attached the pistol to his leg absentmindedly as he took in the scene. The parts of the wall that had not been vaporized by the blast had been peeled back into the chamber beyond like banana peels. Black scorch marks outlined the destroyed doorway. A dirty haze hung in the air preventing him from seeing little more than a set of steps rising upwards into darkness. The workbench nearest the explosion had lost over half its material and the remainder looked like melted wax. Ripples melted into the floor spread outward from the epicenter of the explosion.

"May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far." The words escaped unbidden from Søren's lips, his eyes wide at the extent of the destruction. The phrase was an old saying on his mother's side of the family. One they liked to share to sound wise around visiting friends and company.

"I think I might have gone too far." One of the ceiling panels that lit the room sparked with a surge of electricity and cracked roughly in half. The larger piece broke free and crashed onto the floor with a sharp echoing sound. Søren picked his way around the debris from the explosion and headed towards the exit he had explosively created. As he neared the site of the explosion, he took a deep breath, not intending to breathe in any of the smoke or particulates hanging in the air still.

Despite holding his breath, the acrid haze burned his nostrils and made his eyes water as he moved through it. The greyish smoke wafted around him gently. It was only with a great force of will that Søren was able to push through the area without reflexively taking a deep breath in. He stumbled when his foot hit the bottom of the steps. Tentatively, he climbed the steps, taking them one at a time. Halfway up, the chamber shook and a stream of dust and tiny bits of rubble fell from above. Behind him, a garbled and unintelligible message echoed in the ruined chamber.

Søren pushed forward up the steps and found himself in a massive hemispherical chamber. The white ceramic material arced upwards into the darkness. His gaze then fell into the center of the room and he slumped sideways into the wall as an image was overlaid on his vision. A circular ring stood in the center of the room at the end of a long walkway, metal glass railings lining the walkway. At the same time, he saw a second circular ring made of the same white ceramic material as the first overlaid on the scene. Instead of the metal walkway, he saw an old wood and rope bridge with thin vines holding it up, stretching across a deep chasm towards the ring. Overlaid on the white dome was an ancient cave, deep underground.

"Aaaaaaugh!" he screamed as a blinding pain in his head peaked from the conflicting visions. He dropped to his knees and slumped forward. Blood leaked from his ears and his breath was ragged. He could feel his heart racing inside his chest. When he was able to finally open his eyes, he saw the desiccated corpse of a four-foot-tall chameleon-like humanoid sitting against the wall. It wore a garment made from fibrous leaves woven into a striking pattern, though the leaves looked like they were on the verge of falling apart. A thin corded belt was wrapped around its waist and an empty dagger-sized sheath hung from one side. On the floor at its feet was a spear about six feet long, tipped with a light blue crystalline blade like the crystal dagger Søren had acquired earlier. The anguish frozen on the features of the dead creature reached across the alien divide that separated them and filled Søren with a deep sense of sorrow and grief.