05-04-2018, 02:11 PM
Schematics (Arc 2)
Coruscant
In the week that followed Dexter’s arrival in the Omniverse, the young Prime settled rapidly into his life at Gizmo Labs. Still lacking tangible memories of the time prior to encountering Omni’s grinning silhouette, he felt it prudent and logical to take the sweeping changes that had come over his life in stride. One thing was for sure, for a keen scientific mind such as Dexter’s, Coruscant offered no shortage of marvels to whet his intellectual appetite. He had not yet ventured out of Gizmo Labs, and indeed spent most of his time in his tiny living quarters, and yet he counted that first week among the most exhilarating of his life.
In total, seventeen people lived in the underground compound. Aside from Gizmo and Baxla, there were seven other HARPY pilots, a handful of computer hackers, and two silent custodians who scurried down the long corridors night and day in their tireless upkeep of Gizmo’s laboratories. The furthest from a social creature, and still not fully trusting his duplicitous hosts, Dexter kept to himself unless summoned, content to pore through the stack of volumes detailing every known aspect of the Omniverse, which Baxla had provided him with on the night of his arrival.
Above it all, though—above every interaction with Baxla and Gizmo—, Dexter felt a looming presence, the inevitability of the mission Gizmo seemed so sure the young Prime would carry out.
Dexter had not heard mention of the schematics again, neither out loud nor picked up by his newfound mental abilities, but a hush often descended on the room when he entered, all eyes looking determinedly anywhere but at him. Had he not known better, he would have attributed it to the simple presence of a newcomer, particularly of a Prime, a group Dexter quickly realized was a very small minority of the Omniverse’s inhabitants. Still, he felt safe enough and relished the opportunity to learn and better prepare himself for the oncoming trials.
In one of the towering volumes of Omniverse history, Dexter discovered a passage about a Prime that piqued his interest: Tearan Wover. Among the most powerful Primes in the Omniverse, Tearan Wover’s domain was that of the mind, bending and shaping physics like clay to suit his purposes. An adept telepath, the passage stated, Tearan could convey his thoughts directly into the minds of others as easily as speaking the words aloud and could listen in on the thoughts or telepathic conversations of others.
Dexter felt he had his answer. It had to be telepathy that allowed him to overhear the conversations between Baxla and Gizmo, or Baxla and the guard outside the gate to Coruscant. Because he had not ‘overheard’ any more conversations since that first night, he posited the ability only came to him in times of danger or stress. To truly excel as a Prime, though, Dexter knew he had to gain a better understanding of his telepathy, to refine his abilities.
Even beyond that, when he walked into a room and everyone got quiet, Dexter wanted—needed to know why.