A new paradigm

Ok so I finished the next chapter for the Gabby universe and wanted to inform you that I'll be posting it but the next content will be in a few weeks because I have midterms I need to study for. So here is the next chapter.

As I headed down to Marcus's lab I tried to compare how my body felt before this device was attached and how it feels now. I've started to notice that this sensation that I used to have is gone but it's been replaced by the creeping sensation. When I entered into the module with Marcus's lab I thought about how I could get through this meeting quickly. I stopped in front of the lab door and took a deep breath to calm my nerves and entered.
"Marcus I was wondering about the new artifacts your team brought back. Could I look at them?"
"Hey Gabrielle, you can but is that really why you came all the way down here. To look at some old junk most likely. Come on you came to spend some intimate time with me."
I almost gagged but I knew if I did Marcus would never allow me to see the artifacts. So I just said that I really wanted to see the devices. He seemed to have his spirits lowered but went and retrieved the artifacts.
  "Here they are. I really despise these god forsaken Precursor technologies they don't respond, you can't interact them them, they give off nothing and most importantly they can't be broken. So when you get angry and slam them against the floor nothing happens."
I was to intent on staring at the newest artifact that I didn't really hear what Marcus was saying. The artifact was a long cylinder that had some of the same characters as the wall in the main temple but something was weird about them. I thought I saw some color going through the symbols and the crawling sensation felt like it was speeding up. I picked the thing up in my right hand and saw five small holes on the bottom. I twirled the thing around trying to determine the pattern of the color. I had completely forgotten about Marcus and became immersed on determining the pattern.
After what felt like hours but actually only a few minutes I figured it out and pressed the colored symbol when it appeared. This is when I heard Marcus for the first time since looking at the artifact.
"The symbols are colored. How the hell did you do that, I've been trying to figure out how to activate that thing since I got it."
"I don't know I just saw some symbols lighting up and then saw the pattern of how the symbols lit up and pressed the next in the sequence. I wonder what this does?"
Marcus came over to me and tried to grab it but it sent a small electrical charge when he touched into him. I apologized and then tried to remove it myself but it wouldn't let me. It was like the devices was attached to my fingers now. I tried to press any of the symbols but they just stopped glowing for a few seconds then came back on.
"Why the hell doesn't it come off. Get it off, get it off, I want this stupid thing off of my arm," I yelled while bashing it against a desk.
On the last hit I accidentally missed the table surface and the object hit artifact spun. I realized that the artifact must have some kind of locking mechanism. I started rotating the thing and noticed that when I rotate it three symbols changed colors and went about determining what I had to do to release the lock. I tried to press the symbols when they changed color but that just did the same thing as when I pressed the symbols before and then I tried to rotate it like an old fashion lock when the colors came up but in both cases it just failed. After all of this I took a deep breathe and started thinking about what else I could do.
"Okay so it rotates, maybe it also moves up and down. What do you think Marcus."
"Hmm it could work if the mechanism is a lock then maybe the symbols or the colors are meant to represent when you should go down or up. You should try it."
I nodded and started to rotate the artifact until the first symbol light up. Then I pushed on the top and the thing slide down. I laughed and noticed the symbol was white now and started to rotate the artifact again. As I rotated it a second time I found that the old symbols didn't light up now but new ones did. I Aldo found that the artifact didn't rotate all the way around this time. I ended up just back tracking to the last lit symbol and pushed down but this time it didn't work. After a few attempts on the other symbols I realized I might have to push up and once I did it went back to its original position.
I tried removing it now but it still wouldn't let go and I started rotating it again and found only on symbol lit up this time. Like the previous two I tried to push up and down when I saw this new symbol but it didn't work. Then I pushed it and the rotating shaft shot forward and a new set of symbols appeared. I tried to remove it and rotate the artifact but it wouldn't budge. I was getting furious at this device and angrily hit it and some sort of surge went from it through me.
I felt disoriented and I thought I might have just electrocuted myself and looked down at the symbols. I can't explain it but the symbols started to looked familiar. It seeme like I now could place names to the symbols. For some reason I realized the bottom of the three symbols read release, the middle was integrate, and the top one was activate. I didn't want to deal with the artifact any longer and so went to press the release symbol but accidentally pressed integrate. Another surge of energy passed through me again but nothing happened and I pressed release. I pulled the device off and it returned to its original cylindrical form.
Marcus started to talk but between my elation that the stupid artifact was off of me and new found ability to read an alien language that has been dead for millions of years all I heard was, "I'm going to call an emergency meeting to discuss what just happened here if you don't mind."
"Okay, I suggest we do it in the armory. Also can I look at some of these other artifacts."
"I'll say we should do it in the armory but I don't think that you should touch the other things just yet. Maybe try and figure out what the cylinder one does."
I guessed that he is right and grabbed the cylinder again but no light appeared. Then I placed my fingers in the holes thinking maybe their required and the artifact returned to the last state it was in. This time around I pressed the activate symbol. There was no energy surge this time but the artifact slimmed down and formed a black barrel along my arm. It was an odd feeling, the barrel felt like it was a limb now. I couldn't feel my fingers at all now and should have felt horrified but I wasn't. In fact I was curious why it felt this way and what it was. I saw that the release symbol was still up but the activate and integrate had been replaced by two new symbols.
I stared at these new symbols and had their names on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't place them like I did the others. I decided to press the middle one and all of the symbols changed. The artifact now had four buttons on it. The top one was now a white colored version of the symbol I pressed and now a set of two symbols occupied the middle one. I don't know how but I realized that they meant scan and repair. The second from the bottom on the artifact looked like the top one of the previous and the last was release.
I lightly pressed the scan symbol to just see what would happen. The entire artifact started to change shape. Now instead of it being a cylinder with a hole at the end, the end was shaped like an cylindrical obelisk. I mean that the end was more like a pyramid than a flat surface.
"I wonder how is it supposed to scan," I said not realizing I wasn't just thinking it but before I could realize what happened a wide angled beam came out and information started pouring into my head.
"Stop, dear god Mae it stop the scan," I yelled terrified because the amount of information coming in was staggering. The horror of the experience ended thankfully soon after my little outburst.
I started to realize that the scanner was voice activated and when I activated it the artifact must had started some kind of generic scan. I started to wonder if I could isolate the form of data or control the flow of the data. I asked Marcus to stand still because I thought I might be able to do just a medical scan and slow down the upload rate to be a little easier to interpret.
I said, "Medical scan slow down scanner," and when I pointed at anything except Marcus no information came but the information rate was still a little too much for me but it did slow down. So I kept on saying slow down scanner and I eventually was able to know what it was saying.
The device was interpreting human physiology against some template that the device must have built in to it. I decided that I had used the scan mode enough and considered using the repair but decided against it because it probably was a medical function and set to repair based on the same template as the medical scan. After a while I decided to go through the second category that was available to me at the beginning.
I pressed the symbol and it went through much of the same actions as the section for scan and repair did. This time around the second section had only one symbol and it said blaster. I pressed it and the end of the device extended out and glowed. At the same time what looked like a target reticle appeared over my vision and every time I moved the blaster it moved as well. I was more than a little curious on what this device does and started saying things that might trigger it. I did this for what felt like ever and I got frustrated and wanted to take it out on something. I saw a cup and was about to go over to it when a blast came out of the device and it obliterated the cup while leaving a whole in the metal desk of what looked like six inches. That's when the fire alarm went off and Marcus's lab odor went into lockdown mode.