New Toys

I would definitely need to add hot chocolate and coffee to the list of supplies that I wanted from Earth because the juxtaposition between a dull silver boxy robot and the voice of a little girl was too much for me to handle without some type of caffeine.

The bot seemed to be looking at me as if expecting some type of response so I nodded. "What do I call you?" I asked it.

"I am S84," said the bot. Shaking my head I tried to come up with a different name, one that I might actually remember. Thinking about its voice, I decided to call it Chan Juan. Telling the bot that, the girl's voice seemed excited and happy. "I understand, thank you for giving me a name!"

I simply smiled as I followed behind the bot quietly. We were going down more than a few floors. It would take me years before I got used to this place enough that I could find my own way around. Chan Juan stopped at a door and her arm extended to enter a passcode into the keypad.

"These are all the weapons from this sector," she said as the doors opened. The room itself was fairly large with cabinets on three out of four walls and two tables in the middle of the room. I assumed that the tables were there so you could inspect the weapons and maybe clean them.

Chun Juan rolled to the first cabinet on the left side and inputted another code in order to open them up. Continuing down the line, she opened each and every one in the room. "If you have questions you can ask Jun Li, I need to go." With that, the little bot turned around and left me in the middle of the most exotic collection of weapons I have ever seen.

"And these are only from this sector," I mused out loud as I started at the first case and scanned the offerings.

"Actually, this is room one of ten that contain weapons from this sector," interjected Jun Li, his voice coming over the lone speaker in the room. "This entire level is nothing but weapons," he continued as if it wasn't a big deal.

I raised an eyebrow at his statement. "Do I even want to know how large this level is?" I asked with a laugh.

"According to Earth measurements?" he replied not phased at all by my question.

"Sure," I said with a nod.

"According to the standard unit of measurement preferred by County M, it would be approximately 52 miles by 52 miles."

I blinked a few times. This level was 2 full marathons by 2 full marathons and a single marathon would take an average person approximately 5 hours to run. That meant that if I was running, it would take me 10 hours to go from one end of this level to another. However, since I don't run, that meant it would take me almost a full day to walk it.

"Does that mean that you are the same length and width?" I asked Jun Li assuming that he would say yes, but once again, it would be best for me not to assume anything at this point in time.

"No, the ship itself is much larger. It is just because it is one of the lower floors that it is so small."

You know what? I think I will need to keep the tablet with the map on me at all times, there was no way I was going to find my way any time soon.

"I understand," I said with a nod. Pushing aside the size of Jun Li right now, I turned my attention back to the weapons case.

The first one had a wide variety of cold weapons that, while I was not familiar with, were similar enough to the blades found on Earth that I could assume what they were used for. There were several different types of swords including some that looked like long blades, katanas, claymores, and even curved swords.

The next case held what looked like different knives while the third case was what I would classify as 'fun' blades including fan blades, chakrams, scythes, spiked hand claws, and even a Bat'leth, which I didn't even think existed outside of television.

So far, the third case was my favorite. I ran my hand gently between the unusual blades wondering how I would even begin to learn how to use them. "If you are interested, you can take them up a level to the training gym. There are videos of each blade in action so you can study them if you want," said Jun Li cutting through my thoughts.

"I will definitely have to do that," I chuckled. I had a lot of free time and learning how to properly use the chakrams would be both educational and fun.

The fourth case held the hot weapons. And when I say hot, I mean hot. "Those are the laser devices," said Jun Li as I stood in front of a case that looked like it housed handguns from some movie or another. "Laser devices?" I asked, not sure what he meant by that.

"Yes, they can either produce a heated beam that can be used to cut things or they can be used to produce a frozen beam that can freeze the object first before penetrating it. If used on an individual it will cause them to be encased in ice before they shatter.

Okay, so it was a handheld version of Sub-Zero. Got it.

Moving on, I continued to study the cases in front of me. The third case had captured my attention the most so I made a note on my tablet map of what was in the room so I could go back and study them better in the future.

"If you wish, you can go to the room next door, that one holds armor and more self-defense or passive-type weapons," suggested Jun Li.

"Passive weapons?" I asked him. To me that sounded more like an oxymoron than anything else. How could a weapon be passive?

"Yes," he assured me. "In fact, I think there is one in there that looks like earrings but instead encases an individual in a protective barrier if it senses any threats."

Okay, that one sounded cool.