Athanasia: My Hacker System

Cissel rolled her eyes, though she didn’t sheathe her blades. Both she and Elena were practically drooling at the blue-tinted stone.

"Come on, John," Cissel pleaded, her voice uncharacteristically high. "Just let us take a little bit of these beautiful rocks. For science."

"We promise we’ll behave!" Elena added, gulping as she stared at the big rock again. John shook his head, struggling to suppress a laugh at their transparent desperation.

"Wait a few days," he said firmly. He turned to Goven, throwing the Kroger a pointed look. "We’ll be ready to excavate some of these in a few days, right?"

"Ah, right! Yes! Absolutely! A few days!" Goven stammered. The hesitation was etched into every line of his alien face; he was lying through his teeth, and everyone knew it. Yet, he had to play along with John’s lead, especially when John gave him a subtle, commanding nod.

In reality, Goven had pulled John aside the previous night to explain that mining these stones was a logistical nightmare.

One of the reasons the Krogers were highly sought after by other races was for their expertise in this field, but even for them, the preparations took weeks. They needed to construct specialised dampening tools and a grand mining infrastructure to process the ore safely.

As they walked back toward the main camp, Goven kept his voice hushed so the others wouldn’t overhear the further details of the big plan. However, he had drastically underestimated the girls’ craving for anything that went boom.

John had to reiterate the point: if Goven didn’t produce at least a few unrefined samples within forty-eight hours, the girls would inevitably sneak out and attempt to mine the hill with their sledgehammers and daggers, likely levelling the entire mine and large area around in the process.

Goven didn’t need more convincing. He hurried off toward his ten thousand Kroger kin, moving with a surprising, lumbering speed for his broad frame. Watching him dash away in a panic made John shake his head in hopeless amusement.

"So, what’s the plan now?" Ricky asked, noticing that John wasn’t heading toward the central lake where the various races had begun erecting a makeshift village of tents and prefabricated small houses. Instead, John was leading their small group toward the north, marching with purpose away from the safety of the camp.

"I noticed the presence of one gate at each cardinal point of the Grand Wall," John said, deciding on the name for their massive defensive perimeter, inspired by the ancient wonder back on Earth.

"I haven’t noticed any other races venturing outside their protection bubbles, but something tells me we shouldn’t just sit here and wait for the fog to clear."

"We’re going out? Out-out?" Elena’s mood shifted instantly. The disappointment of the missed grenades vanished, replaced by a spark of pure delight.

"Are you sure about this?" Cissel asked, her voice dropping back into its usual cautious tone. "There must be a reason the other races are huddled inside their domes. If there is a six-month safety period, it means the world outside is a meat grinder."

"That’s exactly why we need to go," John replied calmly. "If there’s a hidden danger out there that we aren’t aware of, I’d rather get a firsthand taste of it while we still have a protection period to retreat to."

"Besides, we’re heading back to the academy in a few days anyway," Luke added, hefting his massive club and swinging it through the air. The whistling of the heavy weapon seemed to reinvigorate him.

"I’m dying for some action. This peaceful, lazy life is starting to dull my soul. I wasn’t built for sitting around campfires and looking at pretty lights."

The others nodded in agreement, their faces set with a resolve that felt more natural to them than the relaxation of the previous day. Seeing this, John couldn’t help but wonder: was this restlessness hidden deep inside, or had the high-intensity life of the pocket trial fundamentally rewired them?

They had spent months dancing on the edge of a blade; perhaps the peaceful, static life of the zone felt less like a reward and more like a stagnant pond.

The team marched for nearly twelve hours, traversing the vast interior of their new territory. Finally, the northern gate loomed over them. It was a colossal feat of engineering that dwarfed the skyscrapers of the old world.

Spanning several kilometres in width and soaring to a height of over seven hundred meters, the gate was a literal mountain of reinforced metal.

It remained tightly shut, a silent titan guarding the border. However, as John stepped forward and placed his palm against the cold, dark surface, the structure groaned.

It didn’t swing open on hinges; instead, the hardened metallic material seemed to sense his sovereign authority. The surface retracted and folded inward, creating a gap large enough for a company of humans and Bulltors to march through thirty abreast without bottlenecking.

"That’s a long tunnel," Luke muttered as they stepped into the breach.

They found themselves inside a massive corridor cutting through the base of the Grand Wall. There was no lighting within the passage; the only illumination came from the two shimmering circles of light at either end. The air inside was cool and carried a faint, metallic tang.

They walked for nearly half an hour, their footsteps echoing against the reinforced walls. The pace was cautious, but when they finally emerged from the northern side, a collective breath of relief escaped them. It felt as though they had been released from a subterranean prison into a world of limitless potential.

"This world is really beautiful," Cissel whispered.

For the next hour, they trekked through a lush, green wilderness. The landscape outside the walls was a vibrant tapestry of alien flora.

Massive, swaying bamboo-like stalks reached toward the sky, and thick carpets of iridescent grass crunched softly beneath their boots. Clusters of flowers that resembled oversized roses appeared in the distance, their petals shimmering with a faint, bioluminescent glow.

"Don’t touch anything," John warned sharply, his eyes darting between the thickets. He directed the look specifically at Elena and Cissel. "We’re in a new, unknown world. We have no idea if these plants are harmless, toxic, or predatory. Keep your hands to yourselves."

"That’s just mean," Elena complained, her lower lip pouting in a display of mock childishness that didn’t quite hide the sparkle of curiosity in her eyes. "First, you won’t let us have the rock grenades, and now you’re being a bully to the flowers. What did these stunning roses ever do to you? I just wanted to make a floral collar, that’s all."

"I was thinking a few would look perfect in my hair," Cissel added, her tone light but her eyes pleading. The beauty of the untainted world was tugging at her.

John’s stance didn’t waver. "We keep moving," he commanded, pointing toward the horizon. "We’re approaching the edge of the protection dome. We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side. Stay on high alert and stop eyeing the roses!"

Just as he turned his head to check the path ahead, the two girls made a synchronised lunging motion toward a nearby bush, only to be caught by the stern gazes of Luke and Ricky. They huffed in unison, finally falling back into discipline.

Another hour of walking brought them to the ultimate boundary. A towering wall of shimmering white mist stood before them. It reached from the ground to the heavens, a semi-translucent veil that obscured the world beyond. John didn’t hesitate. He walked forward and stepped into the mist.

He felt no resistance and no change in pressure. It was like walking through a cool morning fog on Earth.

"It’s just like the early morning mist back home," Luke exclaimed as he followed John through to the other side. "I didn’t feel a thing. No resistance at all."

"That’s likely because we are recognised as the natural inhabitants of the zone," Ricky explained. "For us, it’s a door. For any outsider or hostile race, I imagine this veil is impregnable."

He turned his gaze toward the open expanse that stretched toward the western horizon. The land outside the dome was rugged and untamed, filled with different rock formations and distant, dark trees. "Any direction in particular, John?"

"Let’s scout that way," John said, pointing toward the west. On his map, he had spotted a cluster of six distinct zones appearing as small white blips in the distance. "Let’s go see who our neighbors are and say hello."

John had a very specific set of objectives for this trip. He needed to know if the white dome was truly invincible. He wanted to test if his own barrage of attacks, or the attacks of others, could crack or shatter the protection. If their safety was dependent on a veil that could be worn down by attrition, he needed to know now so he could adjust their six-month plan.

Furthermore, he needed to identify the races dwelling nearby. In the new world, your neighbours weren’t just people living next door; they were potential allies to be recruited or existential threats to be neutralised.

He intended to spend the next few days gathering intelligence, studying their movements, and planning the ultimate defence of the Human Zone.