The Foundation Zone: Extensions, Amber Millard [best e book reader android .TXT] 📗

Marie stood and shouted at the two, explaining that she wanted to get home when all of a sudden, there was a blast of energy that caused the entire dome to vibrate. Immediately Saatswei’ell turned on his heels and ran for the Room of Light and Darkness, with Marie and Bialai in tow, literally. It was taxing pulling to two ladies against their will towards the explosion. Marie was very worried but Bialai was panicking purely from the knowledge that the blast of energy came from a life force having a burn out.

Each life form has a certain amount of energy within them; in order to burn out the life form must build up a certain amount of energy and close any way to vent it out. While on Earth this may be called blowing your top, where Marie was it is called a burn out. It’s not a pretty sight because the life form causing it goes through a rapid stage of development. Typically the life form will change between colors and suck the energy from its surroundings, next it glows very bright and finally, without any warning, the life form explodes. Usually the life form survives, it’s just exhausted after a burn out, but for anyone standing close enough, it can be dangerous.

There was a crowd already standing outside, inspecting the damage, when the room began to vibrate and once again signaling an oncoming burn out. The crowd vanished as the door exploded as well as the proper entrance itself. The initial blast blew a rugged cave like opening through the wall, relieving the growing crowd inside. Screams, orders shouted from every direction; both Takzens and humans alike were in a scurry, trying to find their own bearings. A few of the burned out life forces floated out of the room, bumping into passersby; it takes a while to regain energy alone so by instinct the life forces wanders to the nearest source of power. Sometime later the life forces stood still with their eyes closed, emanating a soft glow. Marie observed in amazement while Bialai stood with her eyes wide open. She stood still waiting for something; burn outs sometimes come back stronger than the initial blast and Bialai had the misfortune to stand in the way of a powerful secondary wave a while back.

Bialai concentrated on the energy, she could just barely see the fluctuation drawing back into the room when Saatswei’ell grabbed the ladies to move back some more. He backed into a room down the hall when the wave blasted through the chamber. This time the wall was blasted out altogether. There was no dust to wait to settle but a mist of free raw energy hanging in the air. It has a silvery-white color to it. The three waited patiently for a third wave; moments went by but to everyone’s relief nothing happened.

Saatswei’ell instantly teleported to the Chamber of Light and Darkness, hoping to quickly assess what was going on, before anyone else had the chance. Laand’ell stood looking as dull as usual, but there was a hint of exhaustion across his face. Everyone looked exhausted, but Saatswei’ell couldn’t tell because a good number of people were facing everywhere. Some stood while others hovered close to the floor and then there were those that floated in the air! Some just hung in the air but it was chaotic all the same. Best thing to do was stay out of the room if you didn’t know how to maneuver yourself about in there; however the Takzens knew all too well how to dodge as well as catch flyers.

A few skilled Takzens even learned how to withstand a singular blast; others learned how to build up their energy by pulling energy from their surroundings and some went further by pulling energy from complete beings. Those who practiced that art were shunned and forced out. There was a way to block and turn the energy back on them; that was a rare gift.

Laand’ell stood just at the boarder of the control area looking mildly dazed. He barely registered someone rematerializing in front of him, surrounding him with a protective shield. The same was done with everyone else in the room. Flyers and catchers all over the place! Some of the foreigners recovering outside the chamber, from the first blast, decided to disappear. Takzens were trying to help some of the foreigners as well as their own maintain their alternate bodily state because the original form was shapeless. Plus if they go back shapeless then they would have to start from scratch; that would take time.

The first form is easy to switch to and uses less energy than any other. However, it also means that the newcomer would have to learn everything from scratch and depending on the person that takes time. A shapeless energetic mist; it’s the freest form. The energy is raw and free flowing.

It was too late for a couple of life forms; they had shifted into the first form. A few extra Takzens were called to assist them in finding their secondary form quickly. While the majority of the crowd was preoccupied with the recovery, Mcen rose above the crowd in the room to announce

“Be advised that cycle 10 will be entering into the primary as well as secondary room, momentarily. Please prepare for the new test subjects.” Everyone paused to take in what they just heard, a moment later… a small flood of people poured out of the Chamber of Light and Darkness; down the hall came a muffled outcry.

Marie found herself lost in the first room and away from Saatswei’ell. She was looking franticly for him and Bialai when she noticed a small black figure swooping in the air.

“A crow, what’s a crow doing in here?” She said to herself; thinking higher life forms like her were the only types tagged.

Down the hall the screams grew, then died almost immediately. If she had a heart, it would skip a beat at the sudden change. The Takzens were still the tallest beings in the room with the exception of the few humans that matched their height. Marie discovered Saatswei’ells head near the entrance and then moved to get a hold of him. The second she did, he instantly transported to the secondary room where they found a Takzen touching the head of a tiger and many more touching humans and animals. Everyone and everything stood still in a hypnotic daze.

It was frightening to see how much the Takzens could control; so much so that Marie had a fluctuation show on her band. She turned away getting ready to run when Bialai grabbed her. Marie tried to fight back when she grabbed her arm but instead of a tug of war she found herself draining the life out of her. Saatswei’ell looked on surprised and horrified; Bialai was aware of this ability but didn’t expect Marie to catch on at all and grabbed her hand. Instantly Marie’s consciousness was turned inside where she discovered herself standing in a hollowed black space. A moment later a semi shapeless figure was approaching her, with each rushing step the body became familiar. Bialai looked desperate.

“You have to stop holding me!”

“Me?! You’re the one who grabbed first; what were you going to do, control me like the others?!”

Saatswei’ell stood around taking in the entire room. He couldn’t understand what was going on. Ree’oal appeared behind him,

“Thank you Saatswei’ell, I believe we can take it from here.” Saatswei’ell looked confused then asked

“Grand Head, who authorized the Blend on the subjects?” Ree’oal looked past Saatswei’ell, he stayed quiet but he had to ask.

“Did you authorize this?” Saatswei’ell felt insulted,

“You think I would recruit all these beings just to fast forward my experiment?! I was almost finished but wouldn’t collect this much to end it!”

“That may be but what about now? Why is there so many here right now?!” the Grand Head retorted.

All Saatswei’ell could come back with was “I don’t know. I don’t know how they got here. I had everything preset so that this wouldn’t happen.” Saatswei’ell was so shocked by what the accident that a great fluctuation showed in his band; Ree’oal had to focus some energy to bring Saatswei’ell back to his senses.

While Ree’oal was helping Saatswei’ell to focus, he noticed a struggle in the distance. It didn’t look like an average Blend, it looked more like…

“A leaching!”

Slowly Ree’oal rose above the crowd and hovered towards Bialai and Marie. As soon as he let go of the bewildered scientist, he prepared himself to break the bond. Blending can be very stable as long as at least one being is in control. From the looks of the pair, Marie was dominating but only for a short time, now that Bialai felt grounded she started to fight back. Not sure that he wanted to expose Marie to the amount of energy needed to break the bond, he instead took a chance grabbing onto their shoulders and was instantly zapped into the shared consciousness. There was no one around when he first took in the scene, above him, however was a different story. Bolts of lightning flashed through the air. The imaginary environment was lighting up because the blots were Bailai and Marie having a duel; each time their attacks connected the air lit up.

Saatswei’ell wasn’t comfortable with Blends; it always made him feel as though he was voluntarily compromising himself, but he had an idea. He removed his shirt because the process would take serious control of both mind and personal energy to handle the energy of others. As he worked to position himself as best as possible, he noticed the way the three were tied into the Blend. Saatswei’ell placed his left hand on the right side of Marie’s neck, his right hand on the left side of Bialai’s neck and his right foot up the left pant leg of Ree’oal. Inside, the three could feel something engaged in their hold, which stopped the ladies fighting altogether and brought Ree’oal to their attention. Bialai was the first to speak,

“Grand Head Ree’oal, are you the one who’s doing this to us?!” Both the ladies were brought to ground level by the glowing spots on their necks; when Bialai looked up she saw the Grand Head gripping his left foreleg.

“Who’s leaching us?!” she called out once more. Ree’oal looked focused on staying on one knee,

“I don’t know but it feels familiar!”

Outside Saatswei’ell’s eyes were closed, breathing controlled, body glowing and slightly tense from the amount of energy he was taking in. He felt Marie being deprived, when he cracked open his eyes to inspect her, the condition made his heart melt just enough that a jolt escaped and recharged the three; with just a fraction of restoration, Ree’oal and Bialai finally discovered that was Saatswei’ell doing it.

 Marie laid on the floor confused about the whole ordeal; she had just enough power now to maneuver about on the floor. Turning onto her side, she faced the two Takzens debating about how to break out of the Blend, but each idea brought up was turn down. She wondered what Saatswei’ell