The Lonely Traveler

Chapter 1: A Walk in the Park

Year: 3255

Planet: Earth (Once Gliese 486b)

Ben woke up in his apartment for the last time. He got up from the sleeping bag on the floor and picked up his bag. He made his way to his bathroom where he began to brush his teeth. Ben had somewhat messy brown hair, and a handsome face. He stood to six feet, had a fit body and lightly tanned skin. The most noticeable feature he had were his glow in the dark, purple eyes. A small amount of the human population had purple eyes, and it was only because of a genetic mutation that were caused by unstable Endorium power leaks, which even then were not dangerous.

Ben finished brushing and packed the last of his things into his backpack and left his apartment. He handed the key to landlord on the way out and began walking. He made his way to a café nearby, where he bought a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. He walked to the park a couple blocks down. He sat down and ate. Ben looked up at the sky to see the sun. The trees with the Blue and purple leaves. It was beautiful.

Ben finished his breakfast and recycled the trash. He continued walking towards the transit station nearby. He saw couples walking on the path. People sitting under trees and kids playing with their dogs. Ben would not see any of this for Months at a time. He made his way to the train station, scanned his pass, and got on. Soon enough, the train doors closed and began to move.

Ben looked at his phone on the train since he had nothing better to do. After a couple stops, he put his phone away after hearing, "Next Stop, Hadreon Industries I.A.A. Launchpad". He got off the train and into the building. He walked until he got to the building lobby, where he walked up the front desk and placed his ID on the counter in front of a woman. She took the ID and placed it under a scanner.

"Benjamin Hyde, Armory A. You will know where your gear is." The woman said, handing the card back.

"Thank you." Replied Ben.

Ben made his way to the armory and opened the door to it. Inside was a small hallway, the wall's being lined with frosted glass doors. A large majority of the doors had signs above them with names. As Ben moved forward, the doors cleared the frost, making what was inside more visible. Inside of the small rooms (only big enough for two people to fit inside) were a Starsuit, weapon, and tools. The Starsuit's looked like normal spacesuits, but more high-tech and armored for combat. Their appearance varied on what the user had ordered them to look like.  Some rooms had a small triangular tablet instead of a traditional suit.

Ben continued until he saw his name. He walked up to the door, and opened it. Inside was a Handgun, a couple of magazines for the gun, and O.P.A.A. unit(Onboard Personal Autopilot Assistant) and where the Starsuit would be, a stand with a triangular tablet the size of Ben's palm. The tablet was light to hold. In the middle of it was a purple light. The tablets color itself was an iron grey. On the back of it was an instruction card on how to use the tablet.

"Place tablet on the middle of chest and let the tablet inject Nanobots into bloodstream" Ben said out loud.

Ben placed the tablet near the top of his chest, in the middle. The moment the tablet was on his skin, he felt three small pinch's. He let go of the tablet, where it sat comfortably. He waited for about a minute before heard a beep. Soon after the beep, a layer of metal began to spread from the tablet, covering every inch of his body. His vision got dark as the metal covered his face, but soon he could see clearly again. A "Head up display" was put into his vision.

"Ha-dre-on. Starsuit-Nano MK 3, Powering Up. . ." The suit chimed, "Running diagnostics. Life Support: ONLINE, Shields: PRIMED, Communications: ONLINE. All Primary Systems Online. Welcome, Benjamin Hyde, I am PIA, your Personal, Informational, Assistant." 

Ben looked in the mirror next to the door. The suit was a light gray and covered him entirely. His hands had claws that were retractable. The visor of the suit was a wide, up-side down triangle. The cheeks of the suit had what looked like air filters or vents. Two small antennas were on the side of his head and lights were on opposite sides of the visor. He changed the color of the suit to a primary orange, secondary purple, and accent black. It was only after he changed the appearance that he had realized he controlled the suit with his mind.

Ben holstered his gun and left the room, deactivating his helmet, and continued down the hallway to a closed 'I.A.A. Only' door. Inside was a waiting room. There were about four people in the room. He looked to his left, where he saw a desk with someone filing paperwork, and next to the desk was a door with a sign that read "To the Launchpad". There was a large window that overlooked the launchpad. On the launchpad, there were about five towers, and only four had ships on them. Each ship was not propped onto the towers yet, they were on the ground in front of them, on rails. Each starship had been attached to Space Shuttle grade thrusters. Ben quickly found his ship, the Primum 1. The Ship was a Military Class Fighter Cargo Starship, and was one of a kind for only two were made. 

The Ship had a similar body to a Space Shuttle, except smaller and not as tall. The ship was a light grey color and purple accents. The ship had five main engines and four supports thrusters on the outer engines. The outer four engines made a rectangle if you were to connect them with lines, but curve the lines outward and you had the back of the main body. A larger engine was in the middle of that rectangle. The Primum 1 had been in the family for a long, being used by his older relatives to escape a planet. It was only not to long ago that Ben had the ship restored and upgraded to present starship standards, like an improved Hyperdrive.

Ben sat down in one of the seats that over looked the launchpad, and relaxed. He was leaving Earth, very soon.