unWANTED : Walk with Acceptance

by travelingbard

Prologue

"5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

CONTACT”

The computerized voice over the PA system announced as the numbers were displayed on the big multi-screen set high on the wall so that it could be seen from every part of the room.

"Trans dimensional algorithm alignment source reached," one technician re-laid what his screen displayed. "All green across the board, Sir."

"Good," said Professor Kosciss as he walked to the technician's computer to conform this himself. He smiled at what he read and took a slip of his coffee. "Begin protocol 5 through 20, Mr. Johnson. If everything is still green, move thought 24 up to 54."

“Yes Sir.”

Johnson typed in the appropriate keys.

“All clear, Sir.”

“Excellent," the satisfied Professor said, taking another sip. He walked over to his desk and typed a few keys on his computer and brought up a screen with a man in a doctor's coat.

“How is our Zero doing today, Adam?”

The doctor looked up from his computer and into the camera. “He's doing good, Psychosis. Skeletal re-structure is coming along nicely. Muscle and nerve system reconnected. His bio readings are normal. Once his memory is wiped and re-calibrated, he'll be ready for integration.”

“Perfect,” the Professor said, turning from the screen. He suddenly stop mid-sip and looked back at Adam. “What did you call me?” he asked.

“What, Psychosis?”

“Yeah, that. You better be spelling it 'S-Y-E-R-I-S space K-O-S-C-I-S-S'.”

“You know me, Tristan. Never was good at spelling.” Adam flashed his smile as he messed with his old friend.

The Professor sighed and ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. “Why do I even bother?” he muttered.

Adam's chuckling was interrupted by his phone ringing. He looked at the screen.

“Who is it?” The Professor asked.

Adam looked at the text. “It's a reminder from Sharen to pick up little Susie's cake.”

Kosciss slapped his forehead. “Is that today?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Can you believe my little girl's six alrea...” Adam was interrupted by the sound of his computer beeping. "What a minute. Brain activity just spiked. It’s in the yellow."

A slight frown formed itself on Tristan's face. "What?"

Adam typed his keyboard before looking up at the camera.
“He's dreaming again.”

Unusual, thought Trick, "I thought we stop that."

"I thought so too, but it looks like he just keeps bypassing the suppressants.”

“Humm. Increase the voltage to 10%.

“Way ahead of ya,” Adam typed the keys in,
"Activity down to half green."

"Increase to 30%."

A few seconds pass as Adam did as he was told.

"Cranial activity at full green. Subject is stabilizing. All clear," Adam said.

"Good," said the destructed Professor. I'll look at the data once all of this is over, he thought. He turned from the computer and pushed the button for the intercom. He picked up the mic for the facility's PA's and tapped it to make sure it was on and he cleared his voice.

“All right people, this is it. Just like the last time. Begin temporal sync dimension phase Alpha Delta."

"YES SIR!" could be heard from everywhere. The sound of keys being typed filled the room, along with voices reading out the data on everyone's screens. It was almost melodic to Tristan.

Tristan took a swig of his cup-of-Joe, smiled, and spread his arms out to take it all in. "I love this job," he said to no one in particular.

"Sir, we are ahead of schedule. The output of dimensional warp has increased to 50.5% and rising, Sir."

Tristan turned his head to find the person that said this wonderful information. It came from a women with flaming red hair in seat 12. Trick put down the mic and walked over to the screen.

"Huh," he mumbled, "This is unexpected. Count?" The Professor called out, "Count. With this new development, what is our time frame now with the warp jump?"

A tall slender man looked up from his computer and answered, "10 minutes, Sir."

"Thank you, Count," Tristan turned his attention to the red headed women sitting in front of the screen, "I haven't seen you around here before. What's your name?"

The women turned her swivel chair around to face the Professor, "Maya, Sir. Maya O'Neill. I was transferred here just this morning."

“Really? From Logistics, I presume?”

The young lady nodded in agreement.
“Well welcome Ms. O'Neill" Tristan extend his hand."May I call you Scarlet? It's your red hair, you see. It's absolutely marvelous."

Maya blushed and nodded as she shook Tristan's hand.

"Wonderful!" Tristan turned to the rest of the room and raised his voice, "Everyone? Please give a big warm welcome to Scarlet! Make her feel at home!"

The room was filled with, "Welcome, Scarlet!" and "Hi, Scarlet!" and, "I love your hair!"
But one voice shouted out something else entirely off subject.

"What was that, Mr. Hip? Speak up please," said Tristan as he cupped a hand around his ear.

“SIR! HYPER LINK JUST DROPPED TO 70%!" screamed Mr. Hip. "NOW IT'S AT 65%! 50%! 45%! IT KEEPS DROPPING, SIR!"

The room went quiet. Suddenly the alarm sounded and the computerized voice came on the PA system, "WARNING! WARNING! SUBSPACE OPTIMAL LEVELS HAVE DROPPED BELOW SAFETY PROTOCOL IN SECTION 5 THOUGH 54!"

"WHAT?" screamed Tristan as he rushed over to his desk. There's only one person who can do this! he thought as he brought up the feed from Zero's room. “Adam! What's happening to Zero?!"

"I don't know! His brain activity just shot through the roof! He's already passed the safety measures and bypassed the automatic shutdown system! I can't turn him off! He's resetting himself!"

"WHAT?"

The room began to shake.

"no no no NO!" yelled Tristan, slamming a fist against the desk. "Count! What the estimated time of deterioration of the dimensional jump?"

Count did his calculations and put them on the big screen.

“120 seconds” it read.

It started counting down.

Tristan swore very loudly. "Cut all power to Zero's room and the jump system before he can jump!" Trick screamed to everyone in the room. He then pointed to Adam in the box, "And get Adam out of there!"

Panic filled the room as everyone tried to find a way to stop the power. Elsewhere the security team burst through the hall doors that led to Zero's glass box of a room and began wailing on the thing. They used everything they could get there hand on; batons, portable battering rams, chairs, makeshift battering rams using desks on chairs. Nothing could penetrate the diamond like substance.

There was no progress back in the control room as Mr. Hip yelled over all the commotion, “All the shutdown circuits just turned back on!"

“What?! How?!” yelled Tristan.

“I don't know! Even the backup generators just turned on!”

“Well, where's the power going?!”

Hip typed a few keys and looked up from his screen in horror. “It's going to..."he was interrupted as the tremor intensified. The lights started to pop in their sockets, sending sparks and glass everywhere.

"TO WHERE, MR. HIP!?!" Tristan screamed as he covered his head.

"TRISTAN!"

Tristan turned to his computer to find that Adam was trying to get his attention. Adam pointed to a glowing Zero. Tristan finally understood what was happening.

"HE'S ABOUT TO JUMP!" he yelled. He ran out of the control room and down the hallway to Zero's room. The security team had made no progress with the glass door. Broken pieces of batons, chairs, and desks laid everywhere.

"ADAM! GET OUT OF THERE!" Tristan screamed, desperately pounding his fits against the indestructible material.

"I CAN'T! THE DOOR WON'T OPEN!" Fear had taken control Adam. He started throwing things at the glass but they just bounced back. He resorted to using his hands like his friend, but meet with the same results.

Zero’s eyes flung open as he screamed in agony. His eyes and mouth emitted a blinding white light as his gold body glowed still brighter.

"13 SECONDS EVERYONE!" screamed Count over the intercom.

The noise of the tremors had risen to an almost deafening roar.

Exhausted, Tristan fell to his knees, and leaned his head against the glass. "I'm sorry, Adam!” he said through his tears. “I'm so sorry!”

"It's OK, psychosis. I'll be fine," Adam said in a calm voice. He placed his open palm on the glass in front of Tristan.

Tristan copied the action.

"Who knows?” Adam continued, “Maybe this new place will be fun." He stepped back from the glass and saluted his friend for the last time. "It's been an honor, SIR. Please take care of my family."

"I will," Tristan said. He pulled out walkie-talkie and asked count how much time there was left.

3 Seconds.

"EVERYONE HANG ON!" Tristan screamed.

Zero had reached the point of supernova brightness. Tristan peeked through his fingers and could just make out the image of Adam still saluting him.

Then Zero jumped, taking Adam and the box with him.

**********

"I FOUND HIM!"

Tristan woke up to someone yelling. He opened his eyes to find that Sarge, the head of security, was leaning over him.

“Don't worry, Sir. Help is on the way.”

“Uhhh.” Tristan was finding it hard to breath. It felt like the 5 o'clock train blindsided him. He tried to sit up and fell back again do to the pain of this mistake.

"Hold on, Commander. You're in no shape to be moving.” Sarge turned his head and yelled, “We need a medic over here!”

A man came over and dropped down to his knees. “Here you go, Sir. This'll help with the pain." The medic gave him a shot of whatever was in the syringe.

"Thank you, Wade. And thank you, Sarge," Tristan said weakly, "Now go help some other people, please, Wade. They need more help than I do."

"Yes Sir," Wade got up and headed to the other people that were calling his name.

“Thought we lost you, Commander," Sarge said in his gruff military tone. “You were right there when Zero jumped.”

Tristan's whole day came rushing back to him. “You almost did. And I've told you before, Steven; please call me Tristan. I'm no Commander.”

"I am sorry for you’re lost, Commander," Sarge said, ignoring the order. “Adam was a good man.”

“Yes he was.” Tristan looked at the sky through the massive hole in the ceiling. “What am I going to tell Sharen?” he asked.

A moment of silence passed.

"SCARLET!" Tristan yelled as loud as he could, “DAMAGE REPORT!"

Scarlet came limping to him with a clip board. "Here you are, Sir."

Trick took the board and read it over. The damage was immense. The pages just kept going.

"Do we know where Zero jumped to?" asked Sarge.

Scarlet nodded, "Its on page 20."

Tristan flipped the page with a single word written right in the middle.

"Where the heck is EQUESTRIA?" Trick asked as he sounded out the unfamiliar name.

"We don't know, Sir. The power is out and all the computers are broken. We were lucky to get a name.”

Tristan handed her the clipboard and said, "Get every available personal that's not dead working on another jump gate now."

"Yes Sir!" Scarlet exclaimed, hobbling away.

"Commander, shouldn't we bury our dead and contact their family's first?"

Tristan placed his hand on the sergeant’s shoulder as he walked by to observe the damage.

"Right now we need to get Zero back before he does any more damage."

"Sir?"

Tristan kept walking until the tips of his shoes were hanging over the side of the crater that was once Zero’s room.

"We need to get him back as soon as possible, Sarge. The residents of this "EQUESTRIA" are about to have their whole world turned upside down. They will fear him and hate him. There is no place for Zero anywhere but here.”