In the Beginning

Stefan paused before leaving the wall of the city to modify his heads-up-display for the journey ahead.  He had always kept it off most of the time as he found it distracting, but he couldn't afford not to at least have a compass on him.  He had had no time to prepare in any way, other than to know that his exact course would need to be planned when he found a safe place to stop for the night.  Now, without the company of the Order members at all times, safety would be a scarce commodity.

His compass positioned in the outskirts of his vision, Stefan began to walk south.  It was more or less the correct direction and he had been told his whole life that the badlands surrounded this forest from the northeast to the south west.  Forest to the north and northwest and straight west was the grand ocean Pacifica.  Though tempting to see, an ocean front trek carried with it unknown passages.  The coast had not been where it was long enough to provide a safe and level passage south.

South it was.  Stefan forged a path seldom taken through this forest of giants and hoped that it would not end too soon.  The badlands were a dangerous place for a sole wanderer.  The peoples of those plains respected the Order for their strength in numbers and technological powers that verged on magic to them.  The did not, however, respect the individuals of the Order.  We were seen as outsiders to take advantage of, and profit in their sale of their own children.  Stefan had heard stories of the expelled.  Those who chose not to seek the expulsion village rarely made their way to join fiefs.  Their bodies were usually mutilated bandits or raiders who would try to use the implants they recovered themselves.  Stefan hoped that if he did end up having to go to the badlands, he would look different enough from a standard Order member to get by.  He had never known the forest to cause him any harm, so he would stay there as long as he could.

It did not take long for Stefan to tire.  Fallen trees, slippery moss and his aching virgin travelers feet caused more of a problem than he had expected.  Checking his navigation display, he had traveled less than five kilometers.  The sun was also setting, and he had made no effort yet to find shelter of any kind.  Mistakes that Stefan knew would be fatal if he didn't make a more concerted effort to pay attention to his situation.  Daydreaming was not going to be an option on this journey.  He peered around for any landmarks that could be used as shelter.  A fallen tree a few meters away caught his eye.  It was hallow and a good diameter to allow him to sit up and plot his next days travel plans.  

Stefan climbed inside the damp log and a few meters and collapsed with exhaustion.  Five meters was not enough to feel so tired, but he suspected that the emotional stresses of the day probably didn't help much.  He pulled a proximity node from the inside of his cloak and set it by the opening of the log.  He wrapped the cloak around him tightly and curled up in a ball on the spongy dirt.  He slept deeper than he ever had before.  Dreams didn't haunt him this time.

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Stefan was jolted awake by a trill beep that sounded in his head only.  He mind was slow to comprehend what was going on and foggy from the sleep.  It was early morning.  The sun was still an hour from rising, but the blackness of the night was giving way to an inky blue.  He sat up and realized that the beeping was the proximity sensor.  He grabbed it and replaced it in his cloak.  Squatting down on his hands and knees he ready himself to leave the log at a run.

Before Stefan knew what was happening the log was sent rolling.  The ground that he was kneeling on was no longer attached to the log and he found himself out in the open, the light much brighter than he was expecting.  He hesitated to move in his astonishment.  He looked around and saw the silhouette of the largest animal he had ever seen.  It was on all fours, and at the sight of Stefan, it reared up on its back legs and roared with a ferocity that shook all of the sleeping animals of the forest awake.  It then began to drop back on all fours toward Stefan.

With a speed that Stefan was not aware that he possessed, he dropped his weight back on his heels and pushed hard on the Barhus boots.  They rocketed him along the forest floor away from the beast and he crashed into a bank of a small creek.  Stunned for a second, Stefan looked after the animal.  It did not mover immediately, but was soon in a full gallop after its prey.  Stefan shook off the paralyzing pain as best he could so he could think.  He turned and clambered up the small ravine and without thinking, turned and pressing his heels down hard again soared through the air over the beasts head as it swiped to bring Stefan down to his level.

Stefan's flight was short lived, but his landing was already better than his last.  He slid through the moss and needles and gained purchase in the ground to dart behind a tree.  The surprised animal had already turned to give chase, but had lost sight of him this time.  This gave him several seconds to come up with a more permanent escape.  The adrenalin pumping through Stefan's veins started to slow down time.  He was certain that it must have been hours since hiding and there was so little time now to get moving.  He made up his mind in those brief adrenalin fueled seconds.  He sprinted as quickly as he could, relying heavily on the purchase his boots provided to a tree that was hidden by his previous hiding spot from the beast.  Ten meters from the tree, he made a one, two, three leap, landed hard on his heels for a third time and soared upwards in the direction of his goal.

He grabbed the bark of the new tree with his gloves as his body slammed against it.  He had successfully five meters up the tree, but it was not yet enough.  Regaining his breath the best he could, he moved his hands closer to his chest, placed the balls of his feet against the trunk and tried his best to run up the tree.  The savage animal slammed its body hard against the base of the same tree shortly afterwards.  The tree swayed under the force gently.  With vain attempts to claw and slash at Stefan, it was clear, the behemoth had outgrown its ability to climb.  

Stefan retreated further up the tree in attempt to convince the beast that he was no longer viable prey.  It had other things in mind.  After an hour of waiting, it was clear that the animal would and could wait longer than Stefan was willing.  It had laid down to rest, waiting for its chance to pounce at the escaping food.

Sitting on a branch against the trunk, Stefan used the time to access to mainframe and plan his trip.  His entry into the database felt different than usual.  This was the first access he had made since before the Parting of the Ways ceremony, and a firewall had been put in place.  His access to information was still there, but he was unable to make changes to mainframe documents or query members anymore.  It was something that he knew would happen, but caught him off guard nonetheless.

He searched area maps and attempted to design a path for himself based on the various information the Order had, but his notes seemed to was away as soon as he would make them.  He would have to download everything he needed for his trip apparently, and he would not be able to store all of it at once.  His implants were tiny compared to the data he would have liked to have with him.  He decided to download only the maps.

Stefan planned and re-planned every path he felt he should take.  The planning troubled him though.  No matter what path he took, his calculations, as conservative as he could make them, came up with roughly the same amount of time to his destination.  Ten months to get there, ten months back, barring any complications.  And that was the problem, he was sitting in a complication currently and hadn't come up with a solution to that problem yet.  He closed down his planning folders in his heads-up-display and reached into his cloak and grabbed a ration block.  He took a bite and winced in annoyance.  Stefan could best describe the taste as dirt that could use a little bit of salt.  He would have to get used to them, especially because they would be the only food he would be getting stuck up a tree.

Stefan's head began to clear.  Carbohydrates flooded his body and he could finally think more clearly with the energy.  He looked around at all the trees around him and looked up at the top of the tree he was in.  His tree was not the tallest around, but it did give him an idea that might solve more than one issue at once.  He climbed to the top of the tree, found the highest sturdiest branch he could and buttoned up his cloak around him.  He had read about the capabilities of the clothing he was provided the previous day through his journey to get where he was now.  The last time he would be making such a horrific error, he thought to himself.  Still, it did prepare him for this.

Pulling a tab inside the sleeve of the cloak, it began to shrink around him, pulling the loose ends  snug against his body, bunching up in the back to form what appeared to be a tall rudder, and opening up two slits under his arms.  He was ready to skip over as many kilometers as he could.  But as the cloak made itself aerodynamic, he saw something flash in his peripheral vision.  He swung his head around and saw the gleaming spires of the Citadel.  Only five kilometers away, it was so close.  Stefan sighed with disappointment.  His expectations for his first day of the freedom he had yearned for had not gone quite as expected.

Turning around to the south once more, Stefan prepared himself.  He hunkered down, priming his legs, positioned his heels against the in the crook of the tree between the branch and the trunk and pushed off hard at forty five degree angle.  Soaring through the sky, the wings of his backpack extended, the fins on his boots popped out and his cloak rudder corrected a roll that was given to him by the push.  His body reached the apex of his jump and felt the winglets grab the air and carry him forward more quickly than downward.  He had real speed on his journey now, and was finally going to get some distance, he hoped.  But hope springs eternal.

The winglets were not made for gliding, as Stefan soon discovered.  He was loosing altitude faster than he could get past more than a few dozen trees.  As he descended past the first few layers of the trees, he reached out a hand and spun around the trunk of passing tree, allowing him to land feet first on the branch of an adjacent tree.  This first attempt was at least an excellent test of theory, but modification of technique was needed to get more than a hundred meters.  He climbed to the top of his new tree and started the process again.

Stefan made it a little farther this time, but that had more to do with the topography of the canopy than any skill on his part.  Again he lept, changing the angle of his push to go higher.  But his speed was too slow and the winglets too small to carry him as far.  Attempt after attempt, he tried all the variations he could think of to get some real distance.  He rested every few jumps, ate when his body told him he needed to and carried on until the sun grew tired of the day.

Stefan used straps that were built into his cloak and constructed a hammock out of it and lay back in the canopy of two trees.  He had come ten kilometers this day, and was pleased that he was at least improving on distance, but knew that there were only so many jumps his body could take.  The effort needed was more than he thought he could take.  He forced himself to stay awake into the dying light and studied the documents Seriana had provided on his winged backpack.

The information bored Stefan to no end.  His brain was not willing to take in any new information.  Right as he was about to leave it for the morning, he saw something promising.  A footnote posted in the research notes from the designer.

Winglet length and width standardized by programming for prototype.  Modification possible if further funding is provided.

Stefan pulled up the interface with the backpack.  There he found what he needed.  An encrypted access to a full range of flight modes.  The military only needed a single use at the time of its creation.  The references in the major documentation suggested that the excess material used to create the winglets was for field maintenance on a damaged wing, but it could be used to extend the wings further.

Quickly accessing the mainframe, Stefan calculated the shape and size needed to by certain birds referenced in the archive and downloaded them onto his internal storage.  Using a compiling program, he loaded the files into the backpack and hacked an always on interface into his heads-up-display.  It wasn't the most attractive hack he had done to his display, but it was possibly the most useful.  He would have to wait for the morning.  He needed sleep.

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Author's Note

Chapter is incomplete, and so is the rest of the story.

Reviews

[ThePiercedWriter]

If I were you I would split this chapter, because, on an online writing site, it can be intimidating when readers see that the chapter is very long. Splitting up the paragraphs and chapters are always a good way to go. :) Here are some of the mistakes that I found, I'm not done so I will be back to find more if there are any.

Sentence fragment: "He mind was slow to comprehend what was going on and foggy from the sleep," I think you meant to have "his" instead of "he"

Sentence fragment: "Squatting down on his hands and knees he ready himself to leave the log at a run"