//------------------------------//
// Winding the key 
// Story: Out of my Element 
// by TheLostwriter 
//------------------------------//


Out of my Element


Chapter 20: Winding the key


I woke up and stretched my eye's pinched shut as my fingernails dug into my palm, I paused for a second and thought, fingernails? A smile spread across my face as I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom, I was me. I began to laugh as I examined my face in the mirror, stretching cheeks peering into my own eyes.

It was a dream, I thought still smiling. "It was all a dream," I repeated out loud before turning around and going back to my room to find my glasses. I was back, no I never left! I thought with glee. I dug my cell phone out of yesterday's pants and checked the date. The second stage presentation for investors was today. I checked the time next and relaxed it was seven in the morning I had more than seven hours before the presentation. I gave a lite laugh, turned around and headed back into the bathroom to get ready for work.    

I was out the door in forty-five minutes, dressed in suit and overcoat headed towards the garage. As the door opened it revealed my baby blue classic mustang. I waited for the door to open fully and as I did my smile grew wider, I loved that car for the same reason I loved that wagon of Jacks. I started the engine as soon as I climbed in and listened to the horses rumble under her hood. "Well Super Presh, I doubt the people who worked on you ever thought you would be still be running," I thought aloud to the car before asking, "You ready?"

As if in response the engine shifted into a steady rumble as it came up to temperature and the idle kicked in. I backed the car out of the garage and tuned into my favorite radio station as I waited for the door to close. Once the door hit the ground I was gone leaving a new set of black streaks of rubber beside several others on the concrete driveway.    

I walked in the front door of a small skyscraper, I'm not even sure if this building was tall enough to be a sky scraper, forty stories. Anyway I walked into the building that housed Orbital Construction Service Solutions headquarters. We had signed a five-year lease on the entire thirty-fourth floor two years ago and while we didn't have many employees it did look better to potential investors than a three bedroom house in the suburbs.

I walked past my secretary and asked, "Hey Jen, any calls?"

"No Mr. Smith, I assume I don't have to remind you about the presentation," she asked in reply.

"Nope I've got that," I said as I reached my office door and opened it. I looked back at her desk and said, "Jen I've told you before just call me Steel, you've worked for us long enough to do that." I quickly closed the door before she could counter my argument, this had become a bit of a game between us.

I smiled as I walked between two leather couches and towards the large wooden desk situated in the corner of the room. The big reason we pushed for the thirty-fourth floor in this building was that it gave us an unobstructed view out of the city in two directions. The offices were on along one of the clear walls and the presentation room on the other. The office space on the city side of the building housed our "mission control" facilities. All of which would be part of the investment tour, if all things went well we would have the first part of a privately constructed space station in orbit in less than a year. From there a turnaround station in orbit over Mars and mining facilities in the asteroid belt wouldn't be far behind.

As legacies go mine would be in the book as long as Earth mattered and I couldn't ask for more than that. I laughed again and spun the chair around to look over the city. I knew I should be going over the presentation material but the adrenalin was already flowing and with that it would be a waist. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes, my smile helping to pinch them shut tighter. I sighed and relaxed, it was a good day.

Then I heard Jen's voice over the intercom, "Mr. Smith you have some," she paused here for quite some time before continuing, "some people here to see you."
In the background I thought I heard a familiar voice call my name, and that was enough to cause my heart to sink. I took a ragged breath before reaching for the intercom button and asked, "are the investors here early?" Some part of me knew the answer and but I suppressed the feeling.

"No sir, they claim to be friends of yours," she answered her voice giving the word friend and odd note.

I sighed, stamped my gut down, said a little prayer and responded with, "Send them in."
The door opened and six younger women walked in. The youngest probably a freshman in college in exercise clothing, sweat pants, sports bra and an open zip-up hoodie with rainbow dyed hair. The oldest was a toss up between a blond in blue jeans, white tank-top and an open green plaid button up shirt or the auburn haired woman in a white pantsuit and purple overcoat. In between was a thin strawberry blond in a yellow sundress, a chunky girl with crazy dyed pink hair dressed in a "The Cake is a Lie" T-shirt and blue jeans. Finally there was a dark brunette in a classy school uniform, long skirt, tall socks and a vest; it was the style I would expect to find in Japan. My gut had been right on that voice that I had heard and I slammed my face down on the desk and began to cry as I muttered, "No, it was a dream," over and over again.

Pinkie ran up to the desk and asked, "So this is your world it's so cool," she was distracted by the view out the window and ran up to it. "Oooohhh," she muttered as she pressed her face up against the glass.

Rainbow jumped over the back of the sofa landing on the cushions with a slight bounce. She then looked around the office and said, "This sure is a swanky place, and what is this sofa made of, it's super soft."

"Same as my jacket," I muttered my face still on the desk.

"Whoa," shouted Dash as she leaped from the couch tripped over the coffee table and crashed face first into the identical couch on the other side.

Fluttershy walked over to her face down friend and said, "Don't worry Rainbow this isn't real it's all a dream."

I sat up and said, "No this is real, you all are the dream."

Rarity walked over and sat on the corner of my desk. She began to speak but was cut off by Pinkie saying, "You know what dream this reminds me of? That dream where Steel was and evil dictator meanie pants."

For an instant I felt a ragged hole in my cheek. Once the feeling passed I stood up fast enough to slam my chair into the wall of windows behind me. "Never compare me to that thing again," I growled.

They all looked at me with wide eyes and then were gone. I snorted and sat up wiping the drool from my face and looking around the office. My reflection off the computer monitor showed my hair in a messed up state and my eyes were bloodshot probably because of how fast my heart was beating.

I heard the intercom chirp and then Jen said, "Mr. Smith some of the investors are here early."

I held down the reply button and said, "give me a moment and I'll be out."

"Be quick you know how Mr. Spreckels doesn't like to wait,” she replied a slight note of urgency in her voice.    

Mr. Spreckels was a handsie old German pervert that had keyed in on Jen so I quickly straightened myself up and went out to rescue her. What followed was two hours of hobnobbing with five of our first investors as we waited for the meeting to start. About a half hour before meeting time Jack came out of the presentation room and gave me the thumbs up, we were set to start.

After a little more talking I walked over to the door, called everyone's attention, opened the door and stood to the side while saying, "It's about time for the meeting to start."

I heard mutters of, "It's about time," and, "I thought we were going to be feed during this," and grimaced slightly before my smile returned. I recognized most of the people here, about half of the group was private investors and the other half was a mix of investment houses and potential business partners. In all it was around sixty people more than what we felt we needed but less than what we hoped. The room was large enough that it could have easily fit twice there number with plenty of room to spare. In fact the number we had hoped for was about twice what we had.

I sighed and threw on my most charming smile as I walked down towards the stage. Jack was already there and the three projectors were already on each showing a synced advertisement for OCSS. As I walked up to him we bumped fists and I muttered, "You ready?"

He replied with a smile and a nod while saying, "Here you need to put this on." Then he handed me the clip on microphone and transmitter before walking up to the podium. He smiled and tapped a credit card remote the lights in the room dimmed and the shutters over the window closed.  

I had the microphone set up and had turned around in time to see him start his part of the speech. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. I know you have been given the summary of why we asked you here," the projectors changed to show images of the ISS. "Some of you may not know that the technological triumph that is the International Space Station cost an estimated one hundred and fifty billion dollars. We here at O.C.S.S. have discovered a way to produce a station with twice the internal volume, at two thirds the cost in under a quarter of the time. I will pause here for video of our proof of concept."

The three projectors began to show different angles of a heavily modified Mig-25 and four booster rockets mounted on the wings. The plane had flown up to its maximum operating ceiling around twenty six miles before the rockets kicked on and shoved the craft into low orbit. It made three orbits around the earth before performing a geostationary re-entry.

This was my time to shine. I stepped up to the podium and said, "That craft was prototyped, built and launched for half of what it costs to launch the Space Shuttle." As I talked a slide show followed along showing the concepts we were discussing and their projected costs and benefits. "We project that in less than five years we can have a station in orbit over the Moon, Earth, and Mars. We can also have semi-permanent construction facilities on Mars, the Moon, and mining stations in the asteroid belt shortly after. You may be asking how these steps will make us money. Simple it is expensive to put resources in orbit over this planet. We have a representative of a computer hardware manufacturer here, could your company make use of a zero gravity production plant? That silicon has to come from somewhere." I continued as I heard murmurs in the crowd. "Construction of permanent starships would be required; do you think a cruise line would be interested in that?  How would we get people up there? Simple we would use a reusable launch vehicle based on the station launch vehicle capable of transporting two hundred people into orbit a little more expensively than a modern airline."

I smiled as I stepped back this was Jack's turn to talk again. I almost tripped as I backed away, the door had opened and six familiar people stepped through. I covered my microphone and whispered to Jack, "You’re going to need to cover for me. I need to take care of something."

He nodded and continued the presentation as I walked off the stage. The first thing I did was to remove the microphone and the second was to loosen my tie it was beginning to feel constricting. Then I walked back to the back of the room where the six girls were seated.

"What's going on," I growled to what had to be figments of my imagination.

The one that had to be Twilight answered, "Steel you're in the hospital in some sort of coma. You pushed the creature out and the Elements fired but couldn't close the tear something was in the way. Somehow you cast a anchoring spell and Logia pulled you back. You have been unconscious since then. After a while the six of us decided to see if our dreams were still linked and then we decided to see if you were dreaming."  She paused for a moment and looked past me towards the presentation, "I know you want to stay, I want to stay and explore as well but we all need to wake up."

I looked at her and I could feel my face fall. I still wore a smile but I felt my throat pinch and my eye began to water as I said, "But I made it home, that's all I wanted. If you’re right, now I can never go home. I'm going to have to give up on everything you see here. Pushing my people to the stars, giving them an enemy, letting them fight against the unknown. This is who I am its gone, forever out of reach."        

I felt an arm reach over my shoulder, and I looked to see the strawberry blond in the sundress looking at me. "This hug makes more sense now," she said softly as she squeezed my shoulders. "You haven't lost who you are. You now live in a world where someone with goal of peace and advancement is always needed."  

"That's right," added Rarity, "Jack told us that your company did better than what you had ever expected. You might not have been there but you made a difference. Now you have an opportunity to do more than what your previous goal was to step further."
        
I felt my jaw quiver as I turned back towards the stage, Jack had finished his speech and the room was full of murmurs. Every once and awhile I thought I could hear someone call my name, I swallowed and looked up at the images the projectors were broadcasting. Each one was off set showing different parts of the presentation.

Suddenly the blinds covering the windows shot up and I was alone, there was no one in the room. I looked around and called out, "Hello?"

I heard a familiar feminine voice call out, "Steel are you awake?" Then silence followed as the voice came again this time further away, "Doctor, Nurse, he said something, I think he's waking up."

I groaned as my world melted away from me, I was still in the world of the technicolor talking ponies. Several ponies I was familiar with were in my room, the nurse from when I first woke up, Logia, and my usual doctor. The doctor and nurse pulled the feeding tube out of my throat and asked me several basic questions that I answered before leaving.

Logia stood there for a moment before saying, "Steel I don't know the entirety of what's going on but I'll be here if you want to talk."  

Silence filled the air, I didn't know what to say I heart broken and comforted by her presents. I groaned again and rolled over towards the window, tears rolling down my face. I didn't want to be here and now I couldn't leave without putting them in danger by tearing a new hole in the dimensional membrane.

You realize that home is just weaker than this place in defending itself from this kind of invasion, said the voice in my head. By going back you would have lead that thing there.
It was you that cast the anchor wasn't it, I thought back.

Guilty as charged, I'm just not as selfish as you. I just saved our home, I could feel the arrogant pride that came along with that statement.

Bull, you just want to use the knowledge we have to gain power here. You're no saint you're as much greedy selfish bastard as I am, heck even more so, I sent this one back with a feeling of dry cynicism. It's a terrible thing when you can't trust yourself. Now just leave me alone. I need to figure out who I am.