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Trieste (part 2)
Posted By: Aleks G.<haloaleks1992@hotmail.com>
Date: 8 August 2007, 5:34 am
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"I think he's gonna wake up…" a muffled voice announced.
Adam opened his eyes, but a dense mist and his own tiredness crowded his vision.
"Yeah…he's awake alright." the voice laughed.
Adam moved his arms, they hurt like a bitch, but he moved them. He pushed his palms up and hit glass, thick, cold glass.
"Vent the Freon-gas!" the voice yelled.
"Yes sir, venting now" another, more digitized feminine voice responded.
The cloudy mist that obscured Adams vision faded, and the image of a young man standing right in front of his glass prison appeared.
"Do you want to tell him or should I?" the man turned to look at the computer terminal behind him, where a beautiful, and scantily clad, woman sat. He recognized her voice as the one he heard earlier as she spoke.
"You tell him, Phoenix, you've probably been waiting for this for a long time."
"Thanks Trieste, Well….uh….Mr. -err…."
"Halkinson." Adam was glad he could remember his own name.
"Right….Halkinson….I don't know how to put this exactly, but….welcome to the future." The man grinned, but he looked like he wasn't kidding, "crack the case!"
The glass panel shuddered and groaned, and then it lifted up and out of the way. Adam jumped up, and then dumped out of the tube face-first. Trieste giggled at Adams clumsiness.
"Try to take it easy pal," Phoenix said, "You haven't used your body in five-hundred-and-some years."
"Come again?" Adam cried, still lying on the floor, "FIVE HUNDRED?!"
"Yeah, you were frozen in…uhhh…"
"Ugh" Trieste groaned, "September 23rd, 2009"
"Right….thanks Tri…welcome to the year 2547" the man groaned, and extended his hand to help Adam from the metal floor, "I'm Shaun by the way."
"Shaun Phoenix?" Adam asked, as he lifted himself to his feet, "Your name is actually Shaun Phoenix?"
"Ya…why?" Shaun squinted.
"No reason….its just a little….weird" Adam couldn't say what he wanted to say, it didn't feel right to say "Phoenix" was such a lame-ass name that it wasn't a surprise that he wasn't ever going to be famous, it just seemed too fake. "I'm Adam, Adam Tyler Halkinson."
"Come on…I wanna make you crap yourself…" Shaun grabbed Adams arm.
Adam reluctantly followed Phoenix across the large room, which was filled with many more cryogenic-tubes. Shaun pointed at the beautiful girl sitting on the edge of the computer terminal, Trieste. Adam extended his hand to shake hers, and she humored him by extending hers as well, when his hand passed through hers, Adam jumped backwards. "What the hell are you?" He cried.
"I'm Trieste, his sexy assistant." the woman laughed pointing at Shaun. "They picked me because no human girl would ever put up with him for longer than a few minutes."
Adam laughed at her sharp humor, and Shaun glared at her.
"Shaun…" she laughed and folded her arms over her chest, "quit staring!"
"Ha ha Tri, very funny…" Shaun said sarcastically, "now uncross your arms; you'll want to give our guest a good look."
Adam blushed, "that's fine, and I think I can take a few more minutes without seeing anyone topless"
Trieste smiled at him, "You're one of the non-perverted ones, and I like you already"
Even though he was already blushing, he reddened even more, thirty seconds in a new world, and he had a girl who liked him.
"Alright, enough fraternizing," Shaun said, "let's get you to the military training camp, right through here."
Adam looked around, Shaun was pointing to a hollow space in a wall, no doorway in it or anything. Suddenly lights winked on in the top and bottom of the hollow spot, and a green haze filled the hollow opening. Shaun stepped half-way through and grabbed Adam's arm, pulling him into the green mist. The next thing Adam knew, he was in a completely different room. It was white, and all along the walls hundreds of different weapons, ranging from tiny, easy-to-conceal pistols, to Man-sized rocket launchers and back-pack sized bombs.
"Pick what you want, go test it out over there in the 'play-ground'" Shaun said, "someone will get you eventually"
Shaun shook Adams hand and stepped back through the teleporter. Adam looked at the buffet of carnage set out around him, he had unlimited choice. He immediately ran to the rifle area, a whole wall stacked with different long-guns. He grabbed rifle with a scope and a small ammo counter, and pulled a large chrome-plated pistol from the rack behind him. Adam stepped into the 'play-ground' with his rifle at his shoulder, ready to kill. A cardboard target popped up from behind a wall, and he took its head off. Another popped up in a window; he removed its arms, and put a bullet right through its heart. This rifle was great, a healthy combination of firepower, stopping power, and accuracy. To humor his 'targets' he slung the rifle and pulled the pistol from his holster. When a target popped up, he shot it, and the round blew a fist-sized hole in the targets chest, maybe using the pistol wasn't the way to be nice to his targets; it seemed to do more damage than the rifle. Adam walked through most of the training area with the pistol, opening large gaps in the heads and torsos of the cardboard targets. When he got to the end, he hit the small button labeled 'finish' and he heard what sounded like digital applause, from a single person.
"Very good," Trieste appeared before him, clapping, "and I can't wait to see what else you can do…" Adam caught her wink, but immediately dismissed it as just a clever joke.
An Artificial Intelligence construct coming on to me? Now who's crazy?
Adam nodded, hoping the A.I. wasn't actually attracted to him, hoping, praying that it was just a clever program to make the construct seem more human. Trieste put her hand on his shoulder, or as close as she could without going through him.
"Follow me, Adam…" she turned and led him to another teleporter, and Adam couldn't help but looking, she had a very nice body, and with what she was wearing, or wasn't wearing for that matter, it made her look all the better.
"Why thank you," she said.
"What?" Adam asked.
"Oh come on now," she giggled, "just because I'm facing away, doesn't mean I'm not tracking your eye movements, and your heart and respiratory levels. You like me don't you?"
"Aww hell," Adam rolled his eyes, "yes…but keep in mind I've been alone for a few years"
"Five hundred and thirty eight years," she corrected him.
"I meant years that I was conscious," he said with a sigh.
Trieste turned to face him, and Adam immediately looked at the ceiling, just to avoid making eye contact, and then the inevitable outcome of looking a bit lower than her eyes.
She giggled and walked around him. Inspecting his body, and that's when Adam realized he was only wearing underwear. He winced and tried to cover himself.
"Oh, it's much too late for that." Trieste smiled at him, "I took at least a hundred pictures, and you know what, I'm saving them."
Okay...it's not just a clever bit of programming.
"You'd do well in the Marine Core, Inner System Defense Division; you're well suited to armed combat, and this planet's gravity," she said matter-of-factly, then added "and you have a cute butt."
Adam tensed at the last few words, an A.I. had just commented him on his ass, and she's awfully forward for an A.I.
"Wait…" Adam asked, "this planets gravity?"
"Well….we didn't exactly move five-hundred years in the future without developing a bit of space-travel technology," she said, "we've explored several galaxies outside of this one, and found many inhabitable planets. The one you'd be suited for is called Satyr; it's a farming planet, one we share with the Alliance."
"Huh?" Adam squinted, all this information, something about an Alliance, what happened in the last five-hundred years? "What's the Alliance?"
Trieste sighed deeply, and her chest puffed out, nearly slipping free of the thin scraps of cloth keeping her decently clothed. "The Alliance are a group of Aliens that have some sort of religious standing with our planet, after a large signal pulse was sent out into space by some sort of foreign technology, the aliens came to Earth. There was a bit of a negotiational war, but nobody got hurt, and we developed a partnership. They agreed to trade their technology for our different cultures and our teachings of what we've learned about our universe."
"I see," Adam said, taking everything she said,
"Alright," Trieste said, "we better get going before someone thinks I'm trying to keep you all to myself."
Trieste stepped up to another teleporter, and faded right next to it. Adam knew he had to step through, but he wondered where he would end up next. The green haze filled his vision, and Adam felt gravity leave and return as suddenly as the blink of an eye. He appeared in a large closed dome. Dozens of lights illuminated the empty flat grounds. The two brightest spotlights shone on a white sheet that covered something over six feet tall. Trieste reappeared in front of him and walked him to the sheet, as a few people stepped through a door to Adams left, Trieste immediately moved to cover Adam, he was after all, still in his underwear. Among the group of five people were a scientist, a grizzled old man in a naval suit, and three standard soldiers. Trieste formed a holographic sheet to cover Adam from the waist down, and she stepped out of the way. The scientist opened his lab coat, and pulled an elastic-composite body suit from one of the deep pockets on his white coat. He tossed it at Adam,
"Put this on….you'll have to take off anything you may have on now."
Again Trieste stepped in front of Adam, and he quickly pulled the stretchy black suit over his feet, and pulled it up to his chest. He found the arm holes and slipped into those as well, when he adjusted himself to the suit, it felt quite nice, and it fit snugly up to his neck. The scientist grabbed the sheet covering the object Adam noticed before, and ripped it off. Underneath, a suit of armor, but far more advanced than the one the three marines who were nearby wore. This was tougher, less bulky, more efficient, and it had a full helmet with a chrome plated visor.
"This," The scientist waved his hand at the suit, "is the product of fifteen years of calculations, studies, and testing. It is the best armor known to mankind, developed from reverse engineered alien technology."
Trieste leaned over to Adam,
"Here comes the best part."
"You, as an experienced armor tester from the twenty-first century, will be the first to test it," the scientist smiled. "Good luck soldier."
After nearly a half-hour of putting on the armor piece by piece, Adam started to get restless, but he tried to remain still as the scientist and the three marines assembled his 'second skin'.
"Okay…we're done….hit the charger." The scientist ordered.
A small blue bar appeared in the corner of Adams display on his visor, it filled up slowly, but as it got to half-way, he could feel his joints loosening up. Adam clenched his fingers, and he could feel the extra power he had now, the extra force he could produce.
"Now that you're nearly fully charged," the scientist walked a bit closer, "we need to find you an artificial intelligence to be your partner for life."
Trieste glowed for a moment; she jumped and put her hand in the air, yelling,
"I want to, I want to!" when she landed, her cloth straps snapped, and for a second she turned bright red before she spun around and 'fixed' the straps by re-coding them. She had a right to be embarrassed, everybody saw what happened, and she wasn't as willing to be so open in public anymore.
"Trieste, you seem to be a viable candidate for his armor, as soon as he reaches full charge, up-link yourself to his armor." The scientist said.
"Yes sir," the A.I. saluted, but kept her other arm across her chest, making sure she wouldn't slip out again.
As soon as Adam's suit beeped to indicate a full charge, Trieste faded, and he immediately felt her presence inside his armor and mind, it felt like warm chocolate was poured over his body, and he shuddered it off.
"Even your mind is sexy…" Trieste said from inside his mind, as she appeared in a small screen in the corner of his visor. "I'm going to love it here, but I might have to move some things….tell me if you have a stroke." Her little quip worried him.
"Can she read my mind?" he asked the scientist. "Or screw with my brain functions?"
"Well," the scientist scratched his head, "she cant mess with your brain functions, but she can tell what you're thinking, I wouldn't think anything too bad around her, cause, she may like you, but she's nasty when she's pissed off."
Adam looked at the little image of Trieste show-dancing in his little screen.
"That's good to know…"
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