56. Glow Boy

        The Firmary meeting was cut short by an urgent meeting called for by Doctor Seton. Atalon led his entourage down the labyrinth of stairwells and hallways to Seton's office where, to their surprise, a Serpent example from Culloom awaited.

         "Your Honor!" Seton welcomed the group as they entered in royal fashion. "Allow me to introduce you to Orien!" He gestured to the boy. "Orien, I'd like you to meet King Atalon, you know who King Atalon is, don't you?"

         "Yes..." Orien snapped to salute as rehearsed, giddy to be in the king's presence for real. "Your Honor."

         "He's a double serpent" Hedena filled the king in on the boy's talents. "It's just a miracle he wasn't slaughtered with the rest of them. A miracle. We need blood like that right now, right Medena?"

         "My, my... what a lucky boy you are" Medena smiled, pleased to learn one of the Culloom students had been saved.

         Orien was terrified, what on earth were they saying? Slaughtered with the rest of them? Wide-eyed, he couldn't hide his fear of the enormous Anunnaki gods that had descended from their lofty peaks into Doctor Seton's office to inspect him that day.

         "King Atalon and the gods came all the way to see what special tricks you can do with the Crystal Skull" the doctor informed. "Can you show them?"
         Knowing not why they were here, Orien turned toward the Crystal Skull, wondering what was so special about it? Was it the flickering light? He had made it flicker? It made no sense, he had only just discovered this new ability... "I... I think so..."
         "Excellent! Lights!"

         Adon turned out the lamps and the room went dim. The pressure made Orien even more nervous, still struggling with what they had disclosed about Culloom, his pulse was pounding now, he wanted to please the king more than anyone but now he had to concentrate, he had to try to do something he had done naturally...
         The gods waited in silence as he focused on the skull, trying to rekindle the lights but they could see he was struggling, once again it looked like the doctor had raised a false alarm.

         Orien felt the pressure rising, what had come naturally was now hard to make happen, hard with so many important eyes focusing on him, expecting to see results he didn't know how to control.

         Atalon shifted impatiently as the results failed to appear, after a few minutes he stood up to leave but Seton waved him down, encouraging him to be patient.

         Orien tried to ignore the building pressure and narrowed his focus on the eyes of the skull, slowly succumbing to their hypnotic charge.... Suddenly a small flicker of electricity lit up the crystal hollows, emitting a soft glow.

         "Ha-haaa!" Atalon jumped up with excitement. "Look it! My, my, Orien, what a SPECIAL boy you are!" He clapped in applause. "Hedena tells me you want to be a scientist. Is this true?"
         Orien smiled at the friendly king, thrilled to have made him so happy.

         "I want to be an Astronaut" he corrected. "I want to invent a vimana that can take me to another planet. That's where I came from."
         Atalon fell silent and got up to leave, seemingly disappointed all of a sudden. "You came from Culloom" he reminded, on his way out. "But unfortunately it was savaged by Aquilla and his filthy dogons while you were here. You are lucky to be alive. I'm sure Hedena can arrange for you to finish your schooling in Lochia!"

         The Ebar Colonization Project had opened many doors, for Bell it had offered the opportunity to advance his career. An officer now, he was already decorated with medals, he had done well and was rapidly moving up the ranks, he was one of Halios's best soldiers and he knew it. As if born for the role, he seamlessly led his troops in their task to reclaim the island. Culloom had been easy to secure, Torus’s crew could tackle it but Gora had been a little harder, given the imminent threat of dogons, returning.
         The clean up crews in Gora were Halios's aribu, trained for combat, they weren't used to fighting off dogons, let alone sorting through rubble and ruins, salvaging whatever samples, examples, books and equipment they could find. It was gruelling work, the air was thick with smoke, an electrical fire was blazing out of control adding extra chaos, the stench of burning flesh and chemicals was almost unbearable.

         Suddenly an explosion rocked the lab as a fuel tank caught fire, then, in a blinding beam of light, they were blasted by a secondary explosion that torpedoed throughout the facility, knocking them off their feet.

         The meeting in Doctor Seton's office promptly relocated to Atalon's private quarters on the penthouse floor, Orien's abilities had opened a whole new can of worms at the eleventh hour.

         "I want to increase his conditioning" Seton urged. "I need him in the lab full time."
         Atalon was eager for Doctor Seton to understand how the crystal energy worked, however he knew the risks involved. "You will NOT keep that tadpole in your swamp" Atalon snapped.

         "It's best if we keep him in Lochia" Medena insisted, "we ought to stick with proven technologies if we're going to use him for cloning research, given the short supply. We need to study his psychological energies, harness that ability, not DESTROY it!"

         "I think that's an excellent idea" Atalon nodded in agreement. "Glow Boy will remain in Lochia. End of debate." 

         This was exactly the kind of breakthrough Medena needed to make a case for renovations. "We'll need to upgrade the Meden Institute to accommodate this new program, if we're going to do it right."