“You were unconscious for twenty days. And yes, the fleet won. Eleven Sowir ships managed to escape but we won.”
“Good.” Adrian said relived. Then the doors opened again and Alexander walked in followed by Akash who immediately did the same thing Sora did. Adrian laughed and petted him behind the ears.
“You are awake.” Alex said, there was a touch of disbelief in his voice.
“Obviously.” Adrian said rolling his eyes. He saw Alex and Laura exchange a look. Then Alex walked over to the monitoring machines beside his bed and took a look. Then he turned back to Adrian.
“How are you feeling? Does everything feel the same?” Alex asked hesitantly.
“Well, yes. What is this about?” Adrian said, but then he noticed that something was missing.
“Iris?” Adrian asked. There was no response. “Where is Iris?” He asked out loud as he heard no response from her.
The two exchanged looks again, and Adrian snapped. “Stop dancing around and answer me! What is wrong?”
Alex sighed and looked Adrian in the eyes. “Adrian, we thought that you wouldn’t wake up again.”
“Why did you think that?”
“We don’t really know what happened to you. To your brain actually. It changed somehow…”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Adrian asked annoyed.
“We don’t know if this was the result of you using the Watchtower, or if it was something else. But your brain underwent a change, a physical change. Its entire structure shifted and new tissue grew. Your brain is about four percent larger now, and the ridges of your cerebral cortex have softened, some have disappeared entirely. Your brain waves have shifted significantly. The parts of your brain that were there before, have normal readings. But the new parts and the shifts have created something that we can’t understand. Parts that you weren’t using before are now active. Not to mention what happened to your nervous system.”
Adrian looked at his friend open-mouthed, then turned to Laura who looked worried. “And that means what?” Adrian asked Alex.
“We don’t know Adrian. We thought that you wouldn’t wake up, and if you did that you wouldn’t be you anymore.”
“Well, I am me. So where is Iris? Why isn’t she speaking?”
“When this transformation started, the nanites in your body tried to repair what they saw as damage. That is why you felt so much pain while using the Watchtower, it happened the first time also. The nanites probably stopped the transformation the first time. But the second time you were pushing your brain harder and further with the Watchtower, and we believe that that stress is what triggered this. Only this time you didn’t stop. And the nanites kept trying to prevent it, until Iris realized what was happening and instructed the nanites to stop.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.” Adrian said, fear gripping his heart.
“The change severed all connections with your implant Adrian. The entire structure of your brain changed. Iris instructed the nanites to break down the implant, so that it didn’t impede the transformation.” Alex said.
Adrian immediately felt his fear intensify. Iris wasn’t inside the implant, but her core that was separate. “And the core?” He asked quickly.
Alex shifted uncomfortably, “We did manage to retrieve the core. But you and Iris were a unique case, she was intertwined with your brain intimately, we don’t know how much of her is left.”
“Where is she?”
“At the Research and Development center here on Sanctuary. They have been trying to repair the core and reactivate her, but I don’t know much else.” Alexander said.
“I am going there now.” Adrian said and swung his legs off the bed. Alex immediately grabbed and pushed him back to the bed.
“You are not going anywhere, we need to do test and make sure that everything is alright. What happened to Iris won’t change if you go there. I’ll call the people working on her and tell you what is happening, but you need to stay here where we can monitor you.” Alex said looking at Adrian, “Please.” He added.
Finally Adrian relented. “Alright, but do your tests quickly, I am feeling fine and I don’t plan on being in this bed for long.”
“Adrian finally woke up.” Laura said.
“He did? I thought that the doctors said it wasn’t likely.” Tomas said.
“They can’t explain it. But then again they can’t explain what happened either.” Laura said.
“And he is himself?” Seo-yun asked.
“Thankfully, yes. I talked with him for hours yesterday, he was completely himself.”
“That’s great. But I am still worried about it, the sphere’s computer knows what happened, but refuses to elaborate, he did say that this wasn’t life threatening. Whatever it is.” Seo-yun said.
Laura nodded. After a month of watching over Adrian not knowing if he would wake up, she felt relieved to have him awake. The doctors were still doing tests and trying to figure out what happened.
“Hopefully everything will be alright.” Tomas added. “But we still have a war to fight even without him. Is there any word from the fleets?”
“The Third Fleet has complete control over the Rasaka system and are in the process of taking the other border systems with Rasaka as their base.” Laura said.
“And the Second Fleet?” Tomas asked.
“There is still fighting going on the shipyards, we have only taken about half of them and two thirds of their stations. All prisoners are sent back to Sanctuary, but there isn’t a lot of them. We have encountered only a small number of Sowir, compared to their agents which are numerous.” Laura answered.
“And have gotten anything from the prisoners from Rasaka?”
Laura glanced at Seo-yun letting her answer.
“Sadly, no. The Sowir have no ability to speak, we believe that they use their mental abilities to communicate. And we aren’t putting any of our people close enough to a conscious Sowir for them to influence them. We have however recovered the devices that the Sowir use to translate their way of communication into a spoken language. The devices are currently on-route to Sanctuary, so we will try to establish communications once they arrive.” Seo-yun said.
“Good. Anything else?” Tomas asked.
“Well. We have analyzed the data that we managed to recover from the Sowir stations and shipyards in Laraska. It appears that they were building a lot of machines with the purpose of fighting underground. And all of these machines were going to Guxaxac.” Laura said.
“Guxaxac? Why would they need them there?” Tomas asked.
“We didn’t understand either. So we sent a probe to the system. We just got the sensor feeds this morning. The Sowir have a fleet of about two hundred ships in orbit of Guxaxac, and about half of them are troop ships. And they don’t have any station in orbit or permanent installations on the ground…” Laura answered.
“You don’t think that… But it has been more than a hundred years!” Tomas exclaimed.
“The Guxcacul are subterranean. And we know that their cities are deep underground close to their planet’s core. And Sowir aren’t really suited for battles in closed quarters where the numbers of their agents mean little.” Laura commented.
“They could still be alive… We need to make sure.” Tomas said.
Laura smiled. “I already have plans to send a team to the planet, but we will need Warpath’s Specter to do it. I’m sure that Adrian would approve, but I will check with Isani just in case.”
“Alright then, let us hope that we finally get some good news.”
Chapter Twenty Seven