Chapter 10 - Homecoming

When Balthazar came out the room, he saw Salazar leaning against the wall reading something on the screen of his wrist band. He was completely immersed into it and didn't notice that Balthazar was out till he got near him.

"Do you research genetic improvements and stuff?" asked Balthazar. "Though I never have involved myself in it, I have seen my sister reading similar simulation reports."

"No, I don't. My work is more along the lines of poison, reactionary agents, their antidotes and stuff. I might be using a framework similar to that you had seen," said Salazar hiding the report.

"As Walter would have already told you, I will be you mentor. We will meet frequently from now on. I don't need to know all the things you do, but I will be evaluating your performance over this three month period," he said. "I am basically an assassin, I specialize in poisons, bio-agents, etc. I would suggest that you spend at least an hour with me every day for this period."

"Come on, I will take you to my lab. Though you have a basic knowledge of the human body, general poisons and harmful agents. You are quite lacking in the way of assassins. There, we concoct new ways to eliminate the threats and also ways to protect ourselves from the same," said Salazar as he started to move through the tunnels.

"The first thing you need to learn is the various symbols and signs, we use here in the forbidden grounds. You cannot accidentally go into places where you are not allowed into. I will provide you with the required information," said Salazar. He soon stopped in front of a door and typed in a password.

"Maybe, you haven't noticed but your wrist band hasn't been able to connect to the network outside. There is a separate network running in the forbidden area, which connects to the network outside. The usual wrist bands cant access the internet from here. We make a special modification to them that allows us to access the internetwork and also to connect among us securely. We first need to have your wrist band set up. Then we can move on to my work space," said Salazar taking him into the room.

The room was filled with a lot of equipment. But there was no personnel in the room. There were many automatons present beside the equipment. Salazar had Balthazar remove his wrist band and place it around a cylinder and then handed it over to an automaton. He then proceeded with giving it a couple of instructions and it began it's work.

After a couple of minutes, another wrist band which appeared the same as his was handed over to him. "This is the modified version. This will work both inside and outside the forbidden area. It has a special memory device which syncs and stores information on to our servers. It also allows us to track you location. But it is not advised to wear it an a few secure places in the world. I will inform you of that later on. So, keep the original one also with you and don't lose it." said Salazar handing over both the wrist bands to him.

"From now on, you will be injected with a solution containing pico-technological bots once every month or so. It is mandatory and is not standardized by the alliance. It will be a personal make of the Blyth researchers. There would be regular updates of you wrist band and also the nano-tech. Your wrist band allows to keep track of this too and it the access pass for both. These modified bands can only be worn by someone who has our specific pico-tech in their body, else their special functions can't be accessed," explained Salazar.

Soon, they went to another room of automatons where Balthazar had the pico-tech serum administered. Once, the serum was administered, Balthazar could finally equip the new wrist band. Later, Salazar had taken him to a dead end. There was a sculpture of a large snake with its fangs bared at the end. Salazar went to a corner beside the sculpture. As he went past the sculpture a small hatch appeared by the corner. He opened the hatch and together walked down the stairs into a narrow tunnel about 30 meters long.

"Come quickly. The defences are disable for only 20 seconds," said Salazar as he ran along the tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel there was a platform and few small hover cars. They got into one of them and Salazar instructed it to go to their location. "My work is quite sensitive and requires to be done at a certain distance away for safety purposes. We are going beyond the forbidden area about 5 kilometers underground.," said Salazar as the car was speeding through the tunnel.

"You are temporarily given access as my apprentice. Once we reach the lab, I will introduce the rest. I will provide you with materials regarding the basic signs and symbols and various places of the forbidden area. Most of the labs and offices are marked by sculptures or symbols as you have seen. Even the waypoints and warning marks are in a similar fashion. It would be a bit hard to keep track of it all for now, but in a month's time you will be as comfortable as the rest of us," said Salazar.

A minute later, they reached a stop where they got down. "Finally, I am out of the cave," thought Balthazar as he got out of the car into a small, well-lit modern lobby made of poly-synthetic materials instead of stone. They got into an elevator at the lobby, which transported them a few floors up.

"Where are we?" asked Balthazar.

"This is the Manasa research laboratory, it is one of the laboratories under the Research division of the Blyth Medical. I work here at the capacity of one of the administrator here leading a group of pharmaceutical researchers. But, my actual work is done underground," explained Salazar.

They soon got out of the elevator into a corridor and soon reached Salazar's office. Once in his office, Salazar connected Balthazar's wrist band to the computer there and transferred a few manuals with no names to him. "These manuals would allow you to navigate through the tunnels at the forbidden region. There will be a lot of censored information in the manuals which you wouldn't be able to view. It can only be viewed if you have the right clearance level. These can only be viewed through your wrist band and can't be transferred to any other device. Any such attempt would damage you wrist band and make it useless," said Salazar.

"These can't be transferred to any other device?" thought Balthazar looking at the computer from which he got the manuals. "Whenever there is a new member, a software package is sent to his mentor that allows to transfer the manuals to his wrist band," said Salazar as if he read what was going through Balthazar's mind.

Salazar sent a few more books to him. "These explain the basics of poisons, antidotes, the human body and also the biological details we managed to gather about various aliens including the new threat of the apes. Failure would be a common occurance to an assassin who doesn't know how his targets bodies function. There are a lot of scenarios where we intend to make a kill look like an accident or an ailment. Go through the contents of these and you will be more effective at it."

"You have the access to my labs as my apprentice but no one of the regular staff above the ground can know about you. Every morning from 5 a.m to 6 a.m will be your physical training and evaluation. This will be done at forbidden region. I expect you to remember the basic symbols and signs of the forbidden region by tomorrow morning. For another hour, we will discuss about your knowledge and techniques. That is all for now. Now get back to the forbidden region and out of it. You already have the maps and information on your wrist band. At the border of forbidden region there is will always be a transport that we use to get to the mansion grounds," said Salazar sending him out of the room.

"See you tomorrow morning," he said as he closed the door on Balthazar.

Balthazar immediately checked his wrist band for the map and the manuals. He quickly followed it and went back to underground tunnels of the forbidden region. Once, in the forbidden region, he decided that it would be the best time for him to get acquainted with the area. He spent more than two hours wandering the tunnels before he finally got above ground. Above the ground, there was no network coverage for even the modified wrist band. He had to check the manual and soon managed to find a few signs on the surrounding boulders and finally an hour later, managed to get to border of the forbidden region.

As Salazar had said there were a few hover cars parked there. Balthazar could access them with his wrist band. He immediately set off to the mansion. The mansion was white in color and housed almost all of the family, except for those who decided to have a live separately due to their work. As he reached the mansion, he was greeted by the old butler, Thaddeus Crane. Thaddeus had been serving the family for more than 20 years now. He was as old as John Blyth, Balthazar's father and was a veteran fighter who used to coach at the family gymnasium. Balthazar had known him ever since he was a little kid. He was the only butler in the mansion. Most of the housework was done by automatons. He was just there to maintain and command the automatons.

"Good Morning, young master Balthazar," he greeted. "I have taken the liberty to move your luggage to your old room. The breakfast is ready at the dining room. Please, do wash yourself before you go. Patriarch has requested your presence at his office after breakfast. Do make haste. He would leave the premises by 9 a.m," continued Thaddeus.

"Thanks, Thaddeus. It sure is good to see a familiar face," said Balthazar as quickly moved to his room. On the way, he was greeted by few family members who were on their way to the dining hall. The Blyth family was very big. He had a lot of cousins and uncles. A large number of them were the involved in the administration of the planet and its associated celestial bodies. They had their executive offices at the east wing of the mansion. Every person had his own work and breakfast was the only time when there was a chance for all of them to meet. As a result, the dining hall was like a large conference room during breakfast with many of the family engaged in lively conversion with each other.

The incident on the PK-170-B moon base was still a topic of gossip among the majority of the alliance and the alliance had just provided official comment on the ape wreckage at the moon. It was noticed that the aliens were more technologically advanced than they had previously assumed. It was informed that two bodies of a new species of the aliens were recovered from the wreckage and it provided enough evidence, that the black scaled apes that humanity have encountered for the past century were a lower tier of being among the species and that there would definitely be more variants mostly stronger ones among the alien hierarchy.

This caused waves of turmoil at various levels of the alliance administration. It was unanimously decided by the various powers of the alliance to provide more funding and manpower towards the war effort in order to better understand and defend against the alien forces. A list of martyrs at the citadel was announced, declaring that their valiant struggle had resulted in safeguarding humanity's freedom and managed to provide valuable intelligence about the alien threat.

Balthazar who was the colonel at the PK-170-B moon base and almost died in the attack was already considered a celebrity. The new report on the invasion made him a rising star at the military. The dining hall was abuzz with discussion on the aliens, when Balthazar had arrived.

The members of the family could check the menu and order the food on their way to the dining hall and it was common for them to order on their way to speed up the process. This caused some of the family to notice that he was arriving. Balthazar who had been hoping of silently having breakfast and meeting his grandfather was surprised by a large ovation from as soon as he entered the dining hall. He had become a celebrity at the alliance military and many members of the family who had never taken much interest in him gather to make his acquaintance.

To Balthazar, who after his parents death was considered as a plague most of the family, this was a welcome and heart-fulfilling surprise. The family had always members who worked in the military, but most of them were as medical or research personnel not at a post who had administrative authority. Balthazar was already a young colonel and his merits at the recent invasion ensured him a surefire way up the career ladder. Even some of the elders who knew about the rivalry between John and Max and supported Max after John's death came to greet his and wish him well in his endeavours. He never expected his homecoming to be on such a happy note.

Balthazar who had never been noticed or talked to by most of the older generation of the family had finally began to find a sense of belonging to the family. He who just wished for a chance to be able to not disappoint his grandfather and sister has some how managed to garner the good will of most of the family. He politely conversed with every one who approached him and more than an hour later, he finally exited the dining hall. Having been an outcast before the miracle he could hardly contain his happiness, the smile stuck on his face and was almost giddy.

Though he was elated at the turn of events, he knew that it was all possible because of a miracle and not because of his personal strength or capabilities. He knew that he had to quickly gather enough power and connections to maintain his state at the family and also to protect his loved ones. He understood that this was just the beginning of his new life and his fame both in and out of the shadows of the world is bound to surpass that of his previous life.

He seated himself down on the furniture at the main hall and a few moments later managed to steady his bearing. A small reminder on his wrist band made him realize that he would be late for the meeting with his grandfather. He immediately set off to meet Winston.