Chapter 3

The trip over the Atlantic was long and boring, but as the plane began its descent toward Switzerland; Kyle became nervous about what was waiting for him. He turned to Paoli and saw a huge grin straining to break his face.

"What the hell are you grinning about?"

"Oh, I'm just imaging all the possible expressions on your face when you find out what we have in store for you later."

"Paoli?" Kyle threaten, "If I die of heart attack from whatever surprise you have waiting, I'm going to haunt you until the day you die, then when you come back as ghost I'm gonna break your neck."

Paoli laughed, "Relax, I know you'll definitely gonna love this one."

Just as Kyle was about to reply, the jolt from the plane touching down silenced him. Apart from the jolt, the descent and the landing was rather smooth, and before Kyle knew it, they've arrived at a hanger where Paoli had told him that his driver was waiting for them. While Paoli went over to talk with the pilot, Kyle stepped out of the plane and took a look around. Apart from the newest model of Rolls Royce Phantom parked in front of the white hanger, the airport looked identical to the one they had left yesterday. As Kyle continued to look around, he noticed that the driver had already begun to pack the luggage into the trunk. Paoli stepped out just as the driver packed in the last luggage and turned to Paoli.

"Sire, your grandparents suggested that you skip the trip to the Domus and head directly to the Company, they will be staying at the New Athena for the duration and would like for you two to stay there as well."

"Hold on," Paoli turned to Kyle, "Do you want to stop by the Domus, or do as he said and skip the trip altogether?"

"I don't know, what's New Athena?"

"It's kinda like a gated community for people who work at the company. There's plenty of housing there and you can pick the one you want."

"Yeah, that sound good, let's do that."

"All right," he turned back to the driver, "you heard him."

"Yes sir."

Kyle and Paoli got in the Phantom and soon they were heading for the Company. Kyle asked, "So why do you all call it the Company? Doesn't it have a name?"

"No, we just call it the Company."

"You know, in the movies, if someone were to belong to a certain group that is just named Company, it tends to mean that they are either organized crime or Black ops. Which one do you belong to?"

Paoli chuckled, "None of the above, you see, from the Switzerland government's point of view, we're just a club. But to us, the Company is a place where many people who work in the same field can get together and exchange information, work on projects, or other stuff like that. In the beginning we tried to come up with a name, but none could agree on one, so we just started calling it the Company and haven't stopped since then."

"Oh, so why are we going there instead of New Athena?"

"Because the only way to get into New Athena is through the Company, we have the only route connecting the Company to New Athena."

"How is that possible?"

Paoli just grinned and said "Wait and see, that's part of the surprise." He looked out of the window and announced, "We're here."

"So soon!"

"Yeah, the airport's right next to the Company, and the Domus is right between both and is slightly south of the Company." Paoli turned to Kyle, "You thought we had a long trip ahead of us didn't you?"

"Yeah."

Paoli chuckled, and then reluctantly he sobered, "Kyle, before we get out of this car, I'm going to have to ask you that whatever you see from now on be kept secret. If the world finds out, they'll do anything to take what we know and have."

"Paoli, there's no need to ask me, I knew that the minute you told me that you could take me into space."

"Really?"

"Yes, the comment about 'none of that orbit crap, I meant real traveling, like to Mars' kinda clued me in."

"I guess I did reveal a little bit too much."

"If it was anybody else, that wouldn't be enough to clue them in, but I know you, you wouldn't have made that comment if it wasn't possible."

"Well, since I've already partly let the cat out of the bag, let's grab the cat's tail and drag it out the rest of the way."

Paoli opened the door and got out; Kyle followed, and a huge white monolithic dome building met his eye.

"Ooh, Monolithic dome." Kyle whistled, "I remember the last time we ran into one of those."

"Yeah, that was the only house we couldn't break into."

"I know, that was the one fish that got away. Later, when I was working at security, I ran into few monolithic dome houses. They didn't need much updating, just sensors for the windows and the doors and that was it."

"Our experience with that monolithic dome home was why I recommend it when the old building was demolished."

"Really? What happened to the old building?"

"The building was built about a year after my grandfather was born, and by the time I came over, it was already on its last leg. My grandfather had bought it about fifteen years previous. And when the building inspectors found all the rust eating away at the steel foundation of the building, my grandfather decided to have the old building demolished and build a new one on the site. I recommended the dome, and when my grandfather asked why, I told him that the only house I couldn't break into was that monolithic one."

"Your grandparents know about your burglary past?"

"Yes, when I eventually came to trust them. They surprised me, you know. When I told them about it, grandpa just asked, 'one, did you ever harmed anybody accidently or on purpose in the course of burglary? No. Ok, two, which type of people did you steal from? The riches, ok, and then I have no problem with your history.' I'm sure you can understand when I say I was surprised as hell."

"Yeah. So how long did it take to build this?"

"About a year. Come on, let's go inside and I'll give you the nickel tour."

Kyle and Paoli went inside and after passing through several security checkpoints, they approached an nondescript elevator with what looked like biometric hand scanner beside the elevator. Paoli placed his right hand on the scanner and there was a beep sound then the elevator door opened. After allowing Kyle to go first in the elevator, Paoli followed inside and inserted a key into the elevator panel. He turned it counter clockwise which caused a hidden flap to open revealing a single button that Paoli pushed. The elevator door shut and started its descend. After as short ride, the elevator opened into a massive underground chamber. It wasn't the staggering size of the chamber that held Kyle's attention; it was all the strangely familiar shaped crafts laid out side by side along the chamber's wall. Paoli walked up behind Kyle while he stood there staring at all the crafts,

"Pegasus class shuttles, based on the body design of the Martin X-23 Prime, it carries eight men including the pilot and co-pilot. We'll be using one to get to New Athena."

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but," Kyle turned his head toward Paoli, "where's New Athena?"

"Under the surface of the moon, well, to be more specific, under the surface on the dark side of the moon."

Kyle shook his head, "That's impossible, no one has this kind of technology, how the hell did you get this?"

"Believe it or not, the origin of all this can be traced back to WW2. It's a pretty long story, and grandpa wants to be the one to tell you about it. So come on, we'll get you a closer look at the shuttle before heading to New Athena."

Paoli led Kyle over to one of the shuttle and stood by allowing Kyle to inspect the shuttle. Kyle slowly walked around the shuttle, while he walked, around, something began to bothering him about the shuttle. It wasn't until he arrived at the tail section of the shuttle that he realized what it was.

"Hey Paoli, where's the engine for this shuttle, I can't even see anything resembling exhaust."

"Oh, we don't use the typical engines that you would be familiar with, there's few different kinds of engines out there but the most common type used are the Planetary drive which is used for short distance travel, usually within the atmosphere of an planet out to 500 miles away from the planet. After 500 miles, we switch to Space Manipulating Drive, or SMD as we usually call it. We're not allowed to use the SMD within 500 miles of any planetary body due to its tendency to cause several problems such as climate changes, or displacement of the planet's crust or magma."

The images of the possible damages by the SMD flashed through Kyle's mind, "Damn." he muttered then chuckled, "I have so many other questions I don't even know where to start."

"Well, you could hold onto all the questions and wait until after grandpa tells you everything. That may answer some of your questions. As for your original question, the engines are on the underside of the wing, there's what look like two strips of exotic metal under each wing, that's the manifolds, it'll extend out maybe a foot when it's in use."

"Oh, ok. I think I'll hold onto the rest of the questions like you suggest." Kyle answered absently, and Paoli chuckled. He nudged Kyle toward the opened hatch located just behind what seems to be the cockpit. Inside, Paoli and Kyle passed through the airlock and into the passenger section.

"This obviously is the passenger section, and over there," Paoli pointed towards the front of the shuttle, "is the cockpit. Are you interest in having first hand view of the trip to the moon?"

"Yeah, of course, I do."

"Good, I need a co-pilot. Come on." They went into the cockpit, Paoli took the pilot's seat and Kyle took the co-pilot. Kyle watched as Paoli's hand danced across the console, and all of suddenly there was banging and clanking coming from behind them.

"What the hell was that?"

"Huh?" Paoli listened then shrugged, "That's just the manifolds extending out don't worry."

"All right." Kyle watched as a section of the underground chamber's roof slide open to allow the shuttle to exit. As the shuttle ascend upward toward space, he could see the monolithic dome shrinking. A thought popped into his head and he turned to Paoli,

"How come nobody saw us taking off? It's broad daylight and I'm sure there's bunch of radar around here."

"Every shuttle that visits Earth is required to be outfitted with hologram emitters along its entire hull. These allow us to 'cloak' the shuttles and prevent anybody from see anything. And radar are easy, the painting on the craft easily absorb the radar."

"Hologram! You have hologram."

"I knew that'll get your attention," Paoli laughed, "We do have hologram, unfortunately it's just not as advance as Star Trek. Our are more grainy and doesn't have force field to give it any solidity, if you try to put your hand on it, it'll just pass right through."

"Pity, I would've loved to have one just like that."

"Do you know that Sci Fi show called Andromeda, with Kevin Sorbo?"

"Yeah, I loved that show."

"Do you remember how the Andromeda hologram looked?" Kyle nodded, "That's what our holograms' like."

"Well, that's way better than what we have now back on earth."

Paoli nodded, "I know. Our technologies are much more advanced than anything that's on earth right now. One of the Company's jobs is to watch for every advance technologies that come anywhere near earth, to prevent any of those technologies from reaching the public."

"How advanced are your technologies, I mean, it's pretty obvious that you're very advanced, but I'm curious how advanced?"

"Advanced enough to visit nearly quarter of the Milky Way."

"WHAT!" Kyle exclaimed in surprise, "You visited a quarter of the Milky way?"

"Personally, no, but I know quite a few who did. My grandparents, for instance, and they also said that my parents did too. That's why I couldn't visit you for eighteen years."

"Ok, now I understand. Please tell me there's life out there."

"Plenty of them, although we don't interact with them much. Life out there's pretty much every man for himself. Pirates, slaves, murders, and all the bad craps, they've been on the rampant long before we got into space."

Paoli's attention shifted to the beeping sound coming from one of the instrumental panel, he pushed few button on the panel and explained,

"We just left the 500 miles boundary, and I've set the SMD at .01 light speeds; it'll take us less than thirty minutes to get to the 500 miles limit around the moon."

"Thirty minutes! Last time anybody went to the moon, it took them four days to get there."

"Miracles of advanced technologies."

Thirty minutes later, the console beeped and Paoli turned to it, "We're about to reach the 500 mile limit. I'm going to turn off the SMD and let the inertia carry us in. Control should be contacting me soon." The last sentence had barely left his mouth before a window popped up on the viewscreen showing one of the controllers,

"Shuttle 471, you're cleared for landing in the main bay. Slip 33 is open; your grandparent's are waiting for you, Paoli."