"Check your ledge, or risk checking into smackdown hotel later. Right T_Mac?"
-Fractal_Wave
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| The giants heart | | | Author: | | | IP: | max01-dyXXXX | | Date: | 03/06/02 07:03 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Keanu_Reaver: 7.9200 |  |
Kelvena slowly lowered head deep in thought, afraid of what she might see beyond those ominous yet subtle doors. She knew in her uniform she had the secrets to the past but she could not deny herself, there was no other path...no other choice to make...nothing left to do.
Slowly and apprehensively, she lifted her right foot and inched it forward towards those doors and slowly set it down. She breathed in a deep sigh of relief as her first step was behind her. She took a second to calm herself down and finally, slowly at first, began making her way to the doors.
Walking up close to the doors, she first peered into the square windows near the top...only to be greeted with blackness. 'Tint!" she thought as she diverted her attention to the innocent metal handle down by her lower torso. Once again taking a second to clear her mind, she wrapped her nervous fingers around the cold slab of metal and very slowly turned it down.
The door gave no resistance as Kelvena slowly pushed it open. To Kelvena's surprise, the place looked bland and uninteresting. Computers lined the walls and small metal desks with compartments attached were scattered across the silver steel floor. Small men, all in white lab coats, bustled about in this room like mindless worker bee's in the hive.
None of the men had noticed her and seeing nothing of any relevance at all, Kelvena frowned slightly and began closing the door when one of the men stopped her.
"Kelvena, ves?" The scientist said, not even attempting to hide the accent.
"...You know who I am?" Kelvena said, her mind racing, hunting for any logical explanation on how this man could know her name.
"Ves! Joo are vanted by zee mazter!" The man said with much enthusiasm in his voice.
"The...master?" Kelvena said, still not making any sense of the situation.
Suddenly without warning, the scientist grabbed her arm and, showing inhuman strength, forcefully led her to another, much larger, set of doors.
"W-whats going on?!" Kelvena managed to blurt out, trying in vain to free herself of the grasp of the scientist.
"Zee mazter vill not vait!" The man blurted out and motioned to the doors. "Go young van...zee anzers joo seek vill be found in zere."
Kelvena cast a single glance at the man, quickly noticing not a single spark of life behind his thick bifocals. She contemplated leaving and was methodically planning her escape in her head when once again the voices took over and commanded her to enter.
Though not under any form of possession, she had no control over her body as she pushed the giant steel doors open, revealing a gargantuan empty room with a single small steel pathway leading to pure blackness.
One by one, the lights all began to turn on, revealing the room to be a giant control room, and at the end of the pathway rests a single gigantic computer. Kelvena, out of curiosity, took a small peek down, only to be greeted by more darkness.
"bottomless..." She thought as she stood mesmerized staring into the blackened abyss below the small walkway.
Swallowing her fears, she mustered up all her courage and set forth down the walkway to the giant mainframe computer. The pathway seemed to stretch on forever, though Kelvena never really noticed, still mesmerized by the giant control room.
"Nothing like this exists in Protoss culture...or Terran culture for that matter..." Kelvena said, desperatelly trying to gather her thoughts.
"That is because I am neither." Boomed a loud, thunderous, and very monotone voice.
"W-who's there?!" Kelvena cried out, shocked by the thunderous voice, and the immense size of the mainframe that she was now face to face with.
"'Who'? I have been refered to by a great many names, but never 'who'" The voice once again boomed out.
"W-whats going on..." Kelvena said to herself as she shut her eyes tight, hoping to wake up in the comfort of her friends.
"I am very dissapointed by your show of cowardice Kelvena, so I shall reveal myself. I am the artificial intellegence known as 'MAXIM', the mainframe before you is my body, and this control room is my home." The voice once again boomed out, revealing itself.
"Maxim...the general...?" Kelvena said, slowly picking out truths through the confusion.
"The general...the puppet...the bait...A simple man to server as a figure head for the fragile terran minds inhabiting this camp, and to lead you here before me." MAXIM boomed out in that deep monotone voice.
"To...bring me here?" Kelvena said, realizing every answer she receives would bring a plethora of new questions.
"Yes...I have been following you, studying you, since the day your existance began." MAXIM once again responded.
"Existance began..." Kelvena said going back into deep thought.
"Yes, I realize this will be difficult to understand at your current state, but you were neither conceived nor created...You simply 'came to be'"
"I...I need answers..." Kelvena said trying to take in all the information at once.
"Your tenacity in this quest for knowledge does not surprise me Kelvena, but do not let it be your downfall. But we do share common goals, we both seek understanding, if you are willing I will give you coordinates of a certain spot on this world, you will know what to do when you get there."
"I accept..." Kelvena said, knowing there was no other choice.
"You have pleasured me...Go, journey to those coordinates, and return to me, we shall both gain understanding." MAXIM bellowed out as a small disc shot out onto the ground at Kelvena's feet.
Kelvena solemnly picked the small disc up and stuck it between the pages of one of the books and slowly turned back towards the entrance of the control room. More confused then ever, she spent the entire walk back to the front of the laboratory trying to make sense of the happenings, unable to find any logic at all in it.
She pushed open the doors very nonchalantly but once again stood in deep shock at the front room of the laboratory. The entire place was covered in a shroud of darkness as not a single light, nor computer was on, and the once bustling bee hive of scientists was now void of life. Kelvena could only smile as she made her way to the front doors, now thinking nothing in this world could surprise her.
Exiting the laboratory, she once again put on her medic demeanor and made her way out, merrily waving to the many terran citizens in and out of the command center, and not failing to laugh to herself at the still ongoing fire at the factory that Xaniir torched.
Finally exiting the terran camp completly, she quickly removed the medic uniform and stuck the books in a small satchel at her side and began the arduous and lonely journey back to her ravine home.
Xaniir and James arrived back right on schedule, both noticably upset by Kelvena's choice. They arrived in the executors office in the lead nexus still very disheartened and making no attempt to hide it.
"I trust everything went alright...?" Sabhur said, not failing to notice the look of disdain on the faces of James and Xaniir.
"Yes...everything went according to plan...but Kelvena never left the building..." Xaniir managed to choke out.
"What?!" Zeltior bellowed out and immediatly turned his attention to the terran man in front of him.
"Whoa whoa there bronco...I did my part, the lil' lass made the decision to stay in that compound on her own!" James said immediatly jumping to his own defense.
"He speaks truth kind Zeltior, he fulfilled his end of the bargain..." Xaniir said, explaining the situation to Zeltior.
"No more of this will be spoken, we will sleep tonight and should Kelvena not return, then we will decide our course of action. You shall not step foot out of this nexus terran." Sabhur said, calmly taking the lead.
With that, the three protoss men and one terran man all scattered about the nexus to their chambers...though sleep never accompanied them. Though they did require the information those books held, they, even James, felt genuine remorse for their comrade behind enemy lines.
Finally, the moment they had all waited for, Sabhur finally called the meeting. Zeltior, James, and Xaniir all made haste to the executors office, wasting no time. One by one they all entered Sabhur's office and sat down, awaiting the eventual start of the meeting.
"Zeltior...James...Xaniir...We have a crisis on our hands." Sabhur said, officially beginning the meeting. "Our comrade, our friend, is caught deep within the giant to the east. We must rescue her for not only is the information she carries very valuable to us, but she is a true protoss warrior."
"I am prepared to do anything to see the success of her rescue." Zeltior bravely said.
"Yee haw! Lets rock that boat ba..." James started.
Suddenly without warning, the doors flew open and there stood a very angry Kelvena looking around the room till her gaze finally fell upon the startled James.
Quickly pacing over to the terran man, Kelvena grabbed him by the front of the shirt and slammed him into the bright yellow nexus walls.
"Who are you and why did you set me up?!" Kelvena screamed out.
"Whoa whoa calm yourself lass, let me explain before you crush my throat!" James said gasping for air.
Releasing her grip slightly she stood inches from James and very impatiently awaited his explanation.
"Alright...I sent you to that base by orders of MAXIM, he just told me to go lure you into the base, he never mentioned what he would do," James said nervously.
"I do not understand..." Xaniir said slowly.
"Oh thats right! You fellers dont know who MAXIM is! He's the real general of the base, a giant computer! He made the fake general as a puppet, didnt think most people would understand him, but I did so my alliegence is ta him," James said explaining his motives.
"And what did this...computer...want with our Kelvena?!" Sabhur said feeling his patience growing thin.
"I can answer that." Kelvena said taking a small step forward while flipping through the pages of the book she put the disk in. "Here...this disc was given to me by MAXIM, he told me if I sought understanding, that I should go to the coordinates on this disc..." Kelvena said handing the disc to Zeltior.
Zeltior was quick to notice the disc was actually of protoss origin so he immediatly put the disc in the drive on the computer console at the executors desk. A small screen appeared on the monitor showing a barren range of land and the exact coordinates of where to find it were posted on the bottom right corner.
Everyone but Zeltior stood there curious as to where the location pointed too, but Zeltior stood there in pure shock.
"That...that is the exact same coordinates where 'mount zion' was said to have been in the articles..." Zeltior said staring at the coordinates.
"...I see, then there is no point in questioning the validity of the importance of these coordinates, get your rest, we depart at dusk." Sabhur said very solemnly.
Once again all the others scattered about the nexus to their own bed chambers, now able to rest easy...all except for Zeltior and Sabhur.
"This, this is not right." Zeltior said looking straight at Sabhur.
"We are not the ones to decide what is right and wrong, we are only here to achieve our mission no matter what stands in the way." Sabhur responded, then motioned to Zeltior to go to his bed chamber as well.
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