Chapter 131 - 129 Beyond What We Can Comprehend

Chapter 131: Chapter 129 Beyond What We Can Comprehend

The silence following the announcement lasted only a few seconds.

In front of the human team, the seven invaders remained motionless on the ring suspended in space. Their humanoid bodies displayed differences too marked from one another to be confused. One was tall and thin, with disproportionately long limbs; another had a broad and heavy torso, while the others displayed bodies covered in natural plates and structures that seemed to have been designed to withstand impossible forces.

Then, they all began to change.

There were no helmets descending from anywhere nor mechanical pieces being placed over their bodies.

The invaders’ ARMEX were born from them.

The surface of their bodies began to become covered with a dark, shiny matter that advanced as if it were alive. The plates emerged from their shoulders, traveled across their chests, and descended along their limbs. Some looked like bone; others had the appearance of wet metal, although none reflected the light of the stars exactly.

An elongated helmet appeared over the first one, crowned by two curved horns. From his back sprouted two structures resembling thrusters, although, instead of metal, they were formed by overlapping segments that vibrated with a reddish energy. His arms ended covered in sharp plates, and small blades began to unfold from his forearms.

The second invader underwent an even heavier transformation. His broad body became enclosed in a thick structure that seemed to have grown directly from his flesh. Several plates overlapped across his torso, and protrusions ran along his back until they formed a kind of organic propulsion system. His head disappeared beneath a faceless helmet, from which only two points of light protruded.

The other five followed the same process.

Each one manifested a different variation of the same principle. There were structures resembling spines, plates that moved like external muscles, blades integrated into the limbs, and energy conduits that pulsed beneath the surfaces of their ARMEX.

They looked like armor.

But they also looked like creatures.

The difference was deliberate.

That was not a representation of human technology. It was the interpretation that the system had created to turn those imaginary enemies into authentic Rakzar combatants.

In front of them, the five humans began to do the same.

Sebastián slightly closed his eyes.

His body responded to the thought.

The ARMEX appeared from the neck downward, quickly enveloping him. The dark surface covered his torso and descended over his arms, abdomen, and legs. Dull red lines appeared across his chest and thighs, while the practice core lit up with that low pulse he already knew.

No helmet appeared.

The suit closed up to his chin through a high, firm collar that protected the upper part of his body without interfering with his vision.

Sebastián opened his eyes.

The ARMEX was complete.

Virka was next.

The matte black covered her body with almost perfect precision. The violet veins began to run across her back and sides, extending to her arms and legs. The plates adjusted to every movement as if they had been designed around her from the beginning.

When it reached her hands, the gloves did not appear. Instead, several biomechanical pieces unfolded over her fingers and lengthened to form thin and resistant claws.

Virka flexed one hand.

The claws responded immediately.

Zaira remained motionless as her own ARMEX formed around her. The glossy black appeared first. Then the silver plates and orange details emerged. The biomechanical structures followed the line of her abdomen, thighs, and spine, closing around her body with a precision that recalled the design she already knew.

Her red hair remained tied up.

Her golden eyes observed the field.

There was no need to change anything.

That was her ARMEX.

Óscar smiled.

His android body began to emit a series of energy pulses.

The navy blue ARMEX appeared over his robotic structure, but it did not merely cover it. It integrated with it.

The plates fused with his metallic body and the golden lines began to run across his arms, legs, and torso like living circuits. The thrusters on his legs became incorporated into the ARMEX structure, and small pieces unfolded around his joints to increase mobility.

The result no longer looked like an android using armor.

It looked as though both had been built as a single machine.

Óscar moved an arm.

The mechanisms responded with immediate precision.

—I like this.

His smile widened.

Valentina observed her own body.

For an instant, nothing happened.

Then she remembered exactly how she wanted to look.

Her ARMEX began to appear.

White covered her body first, followed by black surfaces that ran along her sides. Small biomechanical plates appeared over her shoulders, arms, waist, thighs, and calves. They were not large or heavy. They seemed to be made to move with her.

Soft violet lines ran across some of the plates and began to glow.

The collar rose slightly until it covered part of her throat.

A light visor appeared around her eyes.

Two small folded structures emerged on her back and remained closed against her body.

Valentina raised her arms.

—Look!

Virka turned toward her.

—It’s very pretty.

Valentina smiled.

The ARMEX finished synchronizing.

For an instant, the twelve combatants remained motionless: five humans and seven invaders. The ring stretched beneath their feet, and the black hole remained behind them, silently devouring the light that came too close to its horizon.

Then, a luminous line appeared over the track.

The starting signal.

Óscar slightly leaned his body forward. Sebastián adopted a firm stance. Virka flexed her fingers, and the claws emitted a violet flash. Zaira slightly lowered her center of gravity, and Valentina looked forward.

The seven invaders did the same.

The system’s voice was heard again.

—Ready.

The track began to light up.

—Three.

The stars seemed to move farther away.

—Two.

Óscar’s thrusters activated, and the invaders’ structures began to release energy.

—One.

The entire ring shone.

—Start!

The twelve combatants shot forward.

The first race had begun.

The training space was left behind.

Without any visible displacement taking place, the dark immensity of that artificial reality disappeared and gave way to a spacious room, bathed in a faint cyan hue. White light ran along the walls and ceiling through continuous lines, illuminating the place with a clean clarity that contrasted with the darkness of the virtual setting they had just left behind.

At the center of the room were three translucent spheres. They remained suspended in the air, separated from one another and held up by an invisible field. Above them, embedded in the ceiling, a disk emitted regular pulses of energy. Another identical device was located on the floor, exactly beneath the spheres. Each pulse traveled through the space between both points and kept the field that held them suspended stable.

Inside the first sphere floated a white cloud. Its form did not remain completely still; it slowly expanded and contracted, as if small currents moved through its interior without dispersing it. In the second was a black cube, perfectly defined, suspended in the center of the translucent sphere. Its surface absorbed part of the room’s illumination and seemed darker the closer it was to the cyan lights.

The third contained a small star. Its glow was white and faint, but constant. It did not cast an intense light over the room; it barely maintained a contained glow around its tiny body, as if all that energy were confined within the limits of the sphere.

Some distance from the three samples, Reichel remained in front of a worktable covered with holographic projections. Her hair, between violet and pink, fell around her face, while the dark glasses hid her eyes. Several transparent screens floated before her, displaying records, graphs, and readings that changed continuously.

Beside her stood Doctor Jorge.

He was an elderly man whose body showed the accumulated wear of the years. His back remained slightly curved with age as he examined the projections attentively. The white lab coat he wore was clean and perfectly cared for, contrasting with the complexity of the data unfolding before him.

Neither of them spoke.

The silence of the room was interrupted only by the electronic sounds of the analysis systems and the regular pulses of the devices that kept the three spheres suspended.

Reichel moved one of the screens and compared several records. Doctor Jorge did the same with another.

Before them, the white cloud changed shape slightly again. The black cube remained motionless. The small star emitted a barely perceptible flash.

The analyses continued.

And while the machines continued processing every piece of data, both remained focused in front of the three samples, waiting for the results to finish revealing what still remained hidden within them.

The silence of the laboratory had changed.

It was no longer the silence of waiting, but that of something that had just finished speaking.

The three translucent spheres remained suspended between the disks installed in the ceiling and the floor of the cyan room. The white pulses traveled across their surfaces with an almost imperceptible regularity, keeping each one in the same point in space. Inside them remained their respective contents: the white cloud, the black cube, and the small star of faint light.

In front of the spheres, the holographic screens on the table had stopped displaying progress bars.

The analyses were complete.

Doctor Jorge remained motionless for several seconds, his gaze fixed on the data floating before him. His back, slightly curved by the years, contrasted with the precision with which he moved one hand over the interface, shifting layers of information until he gathered the main results.

—We now have the first complete results —he finally said.

Reichel, standing beside him, tilted her head slightly. Her dark glasses reflected the bluish projections while a strand of her hair, between violet and pink, fell over one of her shoulders.

—And?

Jorge enlarged three structures in the air.

—Sample Alpha. Sample Beta. Sample Omega.

The names appeared above each representation.

—All three possess a common biological foundation —he continued—. Proteins and collagen organized into a glycoprotein structure with an extraordinarily close correspondence to human cellular tissue.

Reichel let out a small laugh.

—“Extraordinarily close” sounds like an elegant way of saying that we also have no fucking idea how they did it.

Jorge glanced at her.

—It is a precise way of saying that we cannot explain how it was constructed.

—Much more reassuring.

Jorge ignored the comment and expanded the information.

—The structure exhibits an almost absolute biorecognition behavior. The organism does not identify it as a foreign material. The biological compatibility is too high to consider it accidental.

Reichel stopped smiling for an instant.

—Then the structure was designed to be recognized by the body.

—That is what the results indicate.

Another window appeared beside the previous ones.

—And the three samples also share the same metallic base —Jorge added—. Isotopic titanium integrated directly into the biological matrix.

Reichel brought her face closer to the projection.

—Integrated, not attached?

—Integrated.

The word hung suspended between them.

Jorge enlarged a microscopic section of the structure. The organic molecules and the metallic component appeared intertwined in a configuration that seemed too orderly to have arisen by chance.

—The titanium considerably increases the structural resistance and conductivity of the whole. The combination prevents the matrix from deforming under conditions that should alter a conventional biological structure.

Reichel let out a slow breath.

—And that explains how they can keep the contents enclosed without the sphere breaking.

—In part.

Reichel raised an eyebrow.

—In part?

Jorge changed the information on the screen. The data related to the interiors of Alpha and Beta appeared marked in red.

—Because we cannot directly analyze what they contain.

Reichel observed the indicators.

—The cloud and the cube?

—Both.

The system displayed incomplete lines of information, accompanied by multiple records of unknown data.

—The external structure can be analyzed —Jorge explained—. Its biological and metallic composition is identifiable. But when the sensors attempt to penetrate beyond the matrix and study the internal content, the results cease to be conclusive.

Reichel crossed her arms.

—As if the system knew there was something there, but did not know what it was looking at.

—Exactly.

She let out a small laugh, this time without amusement.

—How kind.

Jorge did not respond.

Both had reached the same limit. They could describe the structure, determine part of its components, measure its resistance and conductivity, and even understand, to a certain extent, the function of the biological matrix.

But what really mattered remained hidden.

Reichel slid a hand across the screen and overlaid the analyses of Alpha and Beta.

—The curious thing is that they are practically identical.

—Not practically —Jorge corrected—. The base structure is the same.

Reichel looked at him.

—Then we have two different objects with the same external architecture and internal components that we cannot identify.

—Yes.

—And we still don’t know who could have manufactured them.

Jorge remained silent.

The answer was absent even from his own databases.

Reichel let out another brief laugh.

—Definitely not something we could buy at a store.

Jorge turned his gaze toward the third sphere.

Omega.

The white star remained motionless inside its translucent container. Its faint light seemed far too small to justify the amount of information it had generated.

—But Alpha and Beta are not the real problem.

Reichel followed his gaze.

—Omega.

Jorge expanded the results.

The screens changed.

The biological structure of Omega appeared first. At a glance, it seemed to follow the same pattern as the other two: proteins, collagen, and glycoproteins. The same biological base.

But beneath that information, another sequence appeared.

A molecular chain that neither of them had ever seen before.

—The biological base remains recognizable —Jorge said—. However, there is an additional modification.

Reichel moved closer.

—What kind of modification?

—We don’t know.

The sequence lit up.

—Part of the structure matches the biological composition of Alpha and Beta. The rest is intertwined with an organic molecular sequence that does not correspond to any reference in our databases.

Reichel remained staring at it.

—None?

—None.

—That is new.

Jorge changed windows.

The metallic composition then appeared.

—The same isotopic titanium base is present —he explained—. But here, too, the composition does not end there.

A three-dimensional representation displayed the metallic matrix.

—Density and spectrometry sensors indicate a tripartite solid solution. Titanium continues to be the base element, but it is fused with two other metallic components that we have been unable to identify.

Reichel slightly furrowed her brow.

—Unable to identify them, or unable to find them in the database?

—Both.

Silence returned.

Jorge expanded the mechanical values.

Omega’s resistance greatly exceeded that recorded in Alpha and Beta.

—The structure is considerably more stable —he said—. More resistant, more conductive, and much more difficult to penetrate using our instruments.

Reichel placed both hands on the table.

—How much were we able to analyze?

Jorge observed the percentage that remained on the screen.

—Thirty-eight percent of the complete structure.

Reichel closed her eyes for an instant.

—Thirty-eight.

—It is the most we have obtained.

—After all that time.

—After all our technology.

Reichel let out a brief, tired laugh.

—That hurts a little.

Jorge did not smile.

—What worries me most is not the percentage.

Reichel looked at him again.

—The star.

Jorge nodded.

The data related to the small luminous body appeared before them: errors, incomplete readings, interference, and values that disappeared before being processed.

The system could not determine its composition.

It could not even establish a preliminary classification.

—We have not obtained a reliable reading of the contents of Omega —Jorge said—. The interference begins before the sensors can complete the analysis.

Reichel observed the data for several seconds.

—What if the problem isn’t with our sensors?

Jorge looked at her.

—Explain yourself.

Reichel pointed at the star.

—What if it’s doing something?

Jorge remained silent.

Reichel shrugged slightly.

—I’m not saying it’s alive. I’m just saying that maybe we’re not trying to analyze something passive.

Jorge turned his gaze back toward the sphere.

—We don’t have enough evidence to affirm that.

—I know.

Reichel barely smiled.

—But we also don’t have any evidence to rule it out.

Before Jorge could respond, a notification appeared over the table.

Both turned toward it.

The projection changed and displayed an authorized access message.

SELENA VIRELL AND HELENA CAELIS — SCHEDULED ENTRY TO THE CYAN ANALYSIS ROOM.

Reichel raised her eyebrows slightly.

—Looks like we’re going to have company.

Jorge closed some of the windows and left only the main results.

—Then we’ll have to explain to them what we found.

Reichel looked again at the three spheres.

The cloud.

The cube.

The star.

—That is going to be interesting.

The white lights continued pulsing across the translucent surfaces.

And, for the first time since they had begun the analyses, the laboratory seemed too small to contain all the questions that had just appeared.

________________________________________

END OF Chapter 129 The path continues...

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