Camping Ch 13

 

"So how many Gates are there?" Joon was wondering to himself. They were walking briskly down a long white corridor, trying to ignore the looks they were getting from lab workers and guards alike. 

Maia shook her head, frustrated. 

Joon could see doors all along the length of the corridor. Surely they didn't all contain Gates? No, that was not possible. Even a single Gate required immense resources. Rumor was that they weren't even built by people- rather, they'd been engineered by extraterrestrials. He'd heard the more outlandish stuff also. Rumors that entire areas of the base weren't even manned by humans, but by... other things. Rumors of a biowarfare division, robotics bays. He'd seen no evidence of that. 

Maia was muttering to herself. "...unessential. Now I've seen too much. They're likely to shoot me as look at me when I show up."

"No," Joon replied, but honestly he wasn't so sure. His joke about ducking through a dimensional doorway and disappearing didn't sound so bad now. 

"...he's in a GOA- Gate Observation Area. Why is he there?"

The comm. Stella's voice. 

"Not a great place for him to stumble into." A male voice. 

Joon realized he was not meant to be privy to this conversation. Why was he... then he realized. Mallory must have thumbed on her comm- warning him? He motioned for Maia to be silent. 

"Well, Joon I can handle. He'll be discreet, " Stella asserted. "The problem is he's got some woman with him. Isn't that the one he was playing around with?"

"Could be," Mallory spoke up now. Joon smiled. She knew damn well it was. Beside him he could see Maia fuming. 

"Does she need to be... taken care of?" The male voice. 

"No. Well, I don't think so. She works here, it's not like it's THAT big a secret. Then again..."

The voices faded as they if they were moving away. The comm went dead. 

Maia was glaring at him. 

"See?" 

"Calm down." He tried to placate her. Still... 

"I wonder if we should get you back to your group, rather than take you to Command."

"You think? Although they can kill me wherever I am." 

"True. No! Sorry... I just meant..."

At that moment something strange happened. As they rounded a corner a spherical... something floated by. It was the size of a soccer ball, with glowing eyes protruding all around it- each one a different color- and several tentacles waving as well. It floated by them and then turned the corner. 

"Wha...?" said Maia. 

"You have got to be kidding," said Joon. "Are those real?"

"What are they?"

"They're called Gaxians, so I'm told. From another dimension... they feed on energy. Relatively benign, if you don't mess with 'em."

"You know about these?" 

"Just rumors. I didn't think they were real. Scuttlebut is they're used as energy dampeners in high risk areas, since they feed on the stuff." 

"Why couldn't I have been, like, a teacher?"

Joon nodded as they came to an archway. Above it were the words WELCOME TO QUADRANT 1A. 

"Well, we're here."