She half-bowed, turning and leaving him, disappearing through a small decorative door.
Everything about this experience was strange, out of place. The door she had left through, clearly influenced strongly by Kusari design, but where the usual Kusari symbol would be was a sigil, a logo or sign of somekind.
Axel didn't recognise it, meaning it bore no clue as to who his savior or saviors were, if they had even saved him at all, perhaps he was a prisoner.
This did not feel like a prison, no bars or restraints, no locks or visable guards. With his eyes focusing better, he was able to study the room he was in for the first time.
It was too large to be a hospital room, spaced out to allow a pleasant atmosphere for the guest, or prisoner perhaps. The walls were exceptionally decorative, a sign of wealth or resource, with expensive looking furniture and what appeared to be christmas decorations.
This seemed like a distant dream, a hotel room perhaps, though she said they were on a ship. A Liner or Transport ship perhaps, too fancy and advanced to be a medical frigate, and he couldn't hear the cheap hum of the engines present on such ships.
Across from him was a large console, complete with a seventy-two inch screen and a speaker system, softly playing a classical collection of songs. He felt a remote in his hand, a smaller console with it's own screen and keypad, to navigate the console without having to shift from his bed.
Axel shifted his right hand over his chest, slowly groaning as his muscles worked for the first time in almost two decades, not that he really knew that fact. He pinched himself gently, hoping that the tingles of pain confirmed reality, and that the myth about pain in dreams was false.
The pain was refreshing. Feeling nothing for so long, it made you miss any sensation. Even if that sensation was not one of the pleasant variety. The pinch also served to give Axel a rough estimate of how badly his muscles had degraded in his heart area. It was bad, from what he could tell. His muscles offered little resistance to the pinch, and all he could feel was a thin layer of fat.
Moving his arm back to his side took superhuman effort. If he was going to get moving again, he would need time to recover and rebuild his muscles. Starting with his mind.
He crawled his hand across the bed sheet toward the remote which he had dropped to move his arm to his chest. He brought it up so he could see the options, and then moved his other arm to hold it whilst his right arm pressed buttons. The first muscle he needed to recover was by far the most important. His brain and knowledge which could be necessary to survive, he needed to maintain.
He began to browse through the neural net, quickly adapting to the options and button placement on the remote. It was a plastic, and he occasionally found himself just running his fingers over the device. Sometimes laying it on his chest, and running his hands along the fabric of the blanket. He had had no idea what he had missed until it was taken away from him.
It had been eighteen years. Eighteen years. Eighteen years since he had last moved, or touched, or seen light. Seen a face. But it had been much longer since he had seen a friend. He pushed these thoughts back now, and focused on what he was seeing on the console.
A new House? Sirius-wide war? Axel cared little about any of the other articles he had seen. The discovery of alien life was old news, so he skipped any news reports concerning new alien lifeforms. But all of the war now in the little area of space claimed by humanity was deeply interesting for him. It would give him new opportunities. And Gallia could perhaps one day serve as a safe haven. It was doubtful they had heard of him, so if he could be smuggled in he would be safe.
But he had to concentrate on his current situation. That woman, the one who had been with him when he had woken up, had been wearing a Maltese Naval uniform. Was he in the captivity of the Outcasts? What did they want from him? Perhaps, he thought, they wanted him to work on new chemical attacks to suit their purposes. Or wanted to force him into other fields of research.
He couldn't think about that now. Too many new ideas were whizzing through his head, and he needed rest. Eighteen years in a coma, and yet he still needed to sleep? Surely he should have had enough rest to last a lifetime? Perhaps, if he had enough time, he could remove the need for sleep? He drifted into sleep with the idea on his mind.
[17:45:39] Wolfs Ghost (Murphy): Tom, you have problems. Go kill yourself.
[19:25:12] Johnny (Jam): Tomtom, I will beat you with a spoon.
[14:22:56] Prarabdh Thakur: KILL HIM WITH A SHEEP.
[17:40:48] Eagle (Junes): Tom should be slapped with a spoon.
[11:32:18] Warspite: Thank you for being so awesome Tom. <3
[18:17:36] Metano: I love you tomtom
[20:06:24] Warspite: I will seriously give you epic head.
' Wrote:Edit: also, Tomtomrawr, fappin' like a boss.
He woke up eight hours later. True rest was nice, he admitted to himself. His idea of removing sleep, although very useful, would probably overstress him and cause him to commit suicide. Or something like that, Axel wasn't entirely sure. Anything was possible.
Over the course of the day he continued browsing the neural net and practice muscle movements. Although most movements shot pain up his spine they were possible, which was better than nothing. The fear of complete muscle degradation beyond recovery had been prominent in his thoughts, but those fears now vanished.
He studied Gallia closely. He needed to, if he would one day need to immerse himself in its society without drawing attention. The information on the neural net was vague, and he wasn't sure which sources to trust. He would need to conduct a closer study once he was free from wherever he was.
The wars were also of close interest to him. Bretonia was losing its war, and Rheinland losing its one. If Gallia didn't make any moves, Kusari and Liberty could be expanding their borders quite rapidly at the rate the wars were going. Leeds was half-occupied already, with the planet preparing for invasion. Hamburg was constantly being raided by Libertonian capital ships. From what Axel had discovered, it seemed Rheinland had decided to take a snub craft approach after losing most of their capital ships in another war, taking place shortly after he was incarcerated. The events of that war didn't matter to him, so he spent no time researching it.
So much had happened. But most of it provided him with more opportunities. New possible people he could work with in exchange for assistance. New safe havens if things took a turn for the worst.
He found his eyes drawn to the symbol on the door. All day, he had on occasion found himself looking at it in fascination. He definitely hadn't seen it before, so who's emblem was it? Mozart played throughout the day, regardless of the mood he was in. But it did help him think, and concentrate.
By the end of the day, he was preparing himself to stand and walk. He was sitting up, his legs hanging over the side of the bed. Slowly and carefully, he stretched his feet down to touch the floor. Right, then left foot. The linoleum floor was cold on the soles of his feet, but he ignored that and launched the rest of his body from the bed. He was standing.
[17:45:39] Wolfs Ghost (Murphy): Tom, you have problems. Go kill yourself.
[19:25:12] Johnny (Jam): Tomtom, I will beat you with a spoon.
[14:22:56] Prarabdh Thakur: KILL HIM WITH A SHEEP.
[17:40:48] Eagle (Junes): Tom should be slapped with a spoon.
[11:32:18] Warspite: Thank you for being so awesome Tom. <3
[18:17:36] Metano: I love you tomtom
[20:06:24] Warspite: I will seriously give you epic head.
' Wrote:Edit: also, Tomtomrawr, fappin' like a boss.
"Good, you're up" the woman spoke, her figure standing in the now-open door. Axel hadn't seen the door open, he hadn't heard it, nor her swift movements. Everything about his surroundings made him feel a little uneasy, and the woman seemed to fit perfectly with the surroundings, she was equally eerie and strange.
"We expected another day or so of rest before you chose movement, you are a most interesting patient"
Axel began to speak, his mouth opening as the thoughts in his head translated to words, quickly cut off before he could utter the first word,
"Of course, it is only natural you would wish to see more of your surroundings, come, I will show you the rest of the ship"
The woman stepped forward and handed a walking stick to Axel, allowing him to support himself independantly, slipping herself under his right arm to help his movement.
"Your name... you never told me your name"
"There was a time I was known as Maria Reyes, long before I came to this place, you may refer to me as Maria if you like" her Hispanic accent was stronger than ever as she spoke,
Axel nodded, focusing all his strength on moving his legs and keeping his balance, his movements towards the door were slow and stiff.
"The ship... what is the name of this ship?"
"It has been referred to by many as the Mandate of Heaven" Maria explained,
It was no ship Axel had ever heard of, so it obviously wasn't famous or infamous enough to gain public recognition. It didn't sound like it originated from any of the colony houses, certainly not Rheinland. His mind dabbled in the possibility that he was a prisoner, but he had been shown nothing but hospitality so far.
Moving through the door and into the halls of the ship took a long time, considering Axel's motor skills and muscles hadn't quite recovered yet. He didn't see this as much of a drawback though, as it allowed him to view the smaller details he would normally pass without a second glance.
The walls of the corridor were ornate, made of very expensive materials of the finest Kusari craftship hands. The designs were centuries old, dating back to when Kusari first built itself as the house it is today.
Inscribed on the trimmings were a number of symbols, mostly Japanese with older and newer scripings, combined with strange sort of written dialect, a number of runes, curvaceous and eye-catching.
Even stranger than that, was the technology of the ship, it was unlike anything Axel had seen, it didn't seem human in origin at all. Every line of circuitry running elegantly along the corners of the corridors, down to the light fixtures themselves, were a strange kind of alternate technology. They all seemed to eminate a sort of blueish hue, pulsating with a strange and unfamiliar form of energy.
The circuitry didn't seem to be conducting electricity of any kind, and there were parts where the lines stopped and large gaps were filled with bright beams of light. This form of technology was almost organic, and he could have sworn that parts of it may have even been biological.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Maria spoke, her voice loud enough to be heard over the gentle and theraputic sounds of the ship,
"It's amazing... I've never seen anything like it..."
The corridors opened occasionally into larger rooms, each one like a lobby of a hotel, with their own staircases and elegant doors leading off to different decks and rooms respectively.
"Come, we will take you to one of the forward observation decks" Maria calmly instructed, leading him up some gentle steps to a higher deck.
Axel followed obediently, which he considered rare behaviour. Normally he had some sort of idea of where he was, where he was going, so he could act independent of others. But now it was different. He had to comply, because he didn't know where he was. And how far would he even manage to "run"? Five feet? If he was lucky.
He felt vulnerable. He felt like the prey at the mercy of a predator. He had no defence. And he felt angry with himself for getting into the situation in the first place. He had failed to elude capture by the authorities, too consumed by the drama being performed around him to care. And it had cost him dearly.
He had a thought. How old was he now? He'd been born in 754A.S., and if the current year was 818A.S. then... Sixty-four, or sixty-five. Eighteen years, gone. Just like that. Lost time. And he had so much to do. He would need to catch up, but those were thoughts for another time. Right now he concentrated on soldiering up the stairs, Maria helping him like some tired child after running around the playground for too long.
They reached the top, Maria continuing to move them forward dispute Axel's desire to stop. He was an old man now, in the middle of his life. The average life expectancy was one hundred and twenty, but he hoped that would have increased by a few years. New medical advances to go with the organic conduits.
As they pushed onward toward one of the observation rooms, his mind trailed to the conduits. Pulsing, glowing, could they have been developed in the eighteen years he had been gone? If he was in captivity by the Outcasts, then quite possibly. He didn't know the extent of Outcast technological advances compared to the Houses, so they could have anything. He found himself curious as to how they worked.
They reached an observation room. A massive window showed him what lay beyond the borders of the vessel. He gasped at the spectacular sight.
[17:45:39] Wolfs Ghost (Murphy): Tom, you have problems. Go kill yourself.
[19:25:12] Johnny (Jam): Tomtom, I will beat you with a spoon.
[14:22:56] Prarabdh Thakur: KILL HIM WITH A SHEEP.
[17:40:48] Eagle (Junes): Tom should be slapped with a spoon.
[11:32:18] Warspite: Thank you for being so awesome Tom. <3
[18:17:36] Metano: I love you tomtom
[20:06:24] Warspite: I will seriously give you epic head.
' Wrote:Edit: also, Tomtomrawr, fappin' like a boss.
