The Empyreal Device Part 1

[Cosmic24]

I had this idea while flying home from christmas vacation and I've finally got around to writing it. Grammar, pace, cohesiveness, the usual critique. Here's what I have so far... Enjoy

Part 1

My name is Gordon Oliver Dunston.When I was fifteen years old my father was an important man, and he never had time for me. I once asked my father why his job was so important, but all he could say was that some questions didnt have answers. I used to have dreams about what he was doing in that huge room on the south edge of the building. Sometimes late at night I could almost hear him laughing. One day my curiosity got the better of me and I designed a plan to sneak into his labrotory. He was to spend seven days on a trip to the galactic council. It was then that I decided to hatch my scheme.

The facility itself was not internally guarded at all. There were service robots that wondered about perfoming menial work, but otherwise I just had to make sure I didnt leave any signs of my visit. I had noticed that my father needed to speak his name into the control panel on the door to the labrotory to open it. Cleverly I had recorded him saying it into a voice recorder the day before. The door opened without hesitation. Inside was a massive array of computers and endless amounts of wires that seemed to come from everywhere. At the center of the room there was a large chair with a helmet looking object hanging from above it. As I walked more towards the middle of the room, I could see that the ceiling raised up for hundreds of feet. There will millions of tiny bands of light that pulsed gently upwards toward the center. It was truly an amazing structure, and it made me much more curious to find out what went on there. The chair which obviously served as the work station was really quite large. The seat itself was of normal size, but thousands of tiny switches, buttons, lights, meters, data screens, and what looked like small joysticks lined the sides. I sat in the chair a bit reluctantly and as I did the chair felt like it began to float. Before I could even think about getting out, I was nearly fifty feet in the air. The lights above now closer made a humming noise that I'll never forget. The helmet that hung from the top of the chair then snugly fit itself around my head and I could see nothing.

I was guessing that at some point something would visualize. A whole minute later, nothing still. I tried to take off the helmet but there must have been a clip somewhere latching it on. As I felt around the helmet I could tell that there were some buttons lining the outer edges so I pressed one. The resulting shock that followed as a stream of light pulsed across my vision was intense. A large white rectangle with rounded edges appeared in front of me with two lists of commands inside it. The top-left command read 'GENERAL PHYSICS', followed by 'EXPANSION RATE', 'CHEM STAT', and 'STELLAR DYNAMICS'. The list on the right read 'BIO DYNAMICS', 'EVO RATE', and 'LIVE CONTROL'. Of course at fifteen years old none of it really meant anything to me. The only thing I could actually make out was Live Control. As I read it aloud to myself it changed from white to green and shifted across to the top left of the rectangle, replacing the lists with a new one. Now a long list of strange words lined my vision. I did notice however that along the bottom of the rectangle in big red letters was a new command called 'INTELLICAST'. It stuck out like a sore thumb with its crimson glow against the white of the rectangle. I sounded out the word as best as I could and instantly a piercing ring blasted into my ear drums sending shivers throughout my body. It was way too much for me, and I knew I had to get out of the chair somehow. I fiddled around with the buttons surrounding the helmet but had no luck unlatching it. Again, I was stuck, surrounded by blackness, scared to death of what my father would do if he knew I had damaged something.

The darkness was cold too. All I wanted was to be able to see again. Even the sensation of light on my skin would feel warmer. Then the strangest thing started happening. A tiny speckle of light, like a star, twinkled itself into existence followed by hundreds more appearing all around me...