Chapter 13 A needed explanation.

Days came and went. Week after week passed by. My new life grew, each day I discovered and experienced new things. The weekly routine of the dome grew on me. Each week we went on one excursion out of the dome. Each excursion brought new memories, laughs, and adventures. I was having the time of my life. The friends I had made in such a short time grew on me, and after a while we all seemed to forget that I had ever not been here with them. I felt as though each day was a new surprise. This new world seemed free of pain, stress, or even fear….but it wasn’t.
The five of us were on another excursion that day. I had adjusted to life in this new world. As we walked I was able to identify many of the mutants we had encountered before. A few weeks prior I had even been able to settle the score with another long clawed hairy beast, like the one from the ravine from before. We were in a relatively known sector. In fact, we had just done an excursion here about two weeks ago. This one wouldn’t be the same.
Caulin was walking in the lead looking for a fight as always. Gohn strode laxly behind him. I kept pace with the girls talking with Terry as we walked. “ We haven’t been sent out to look for any new species for a while.” I remarked to her as we walked ducking our head through the thick underbrush. “ I wonder how close you guys are to discovering them all?”
Terry laughed like I had said something funny. “ We aren’t even close to identifying all the unknown species.” She replied. “ Frankly, there are just too many for us to identify. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never discover them all.”
I raised an eyebrow. “ I bet we can.” I said optimistically. “ It may take another forty or fifty years, but the way we are going there can’t be to many places left to hide.”
Terry smiled softly and nodded her head. Just then Caulin shouted from up ahead. “look down there!” he exclaimed pointing over a ridge. I jogged up to see what he was pointing at.
Down below us there was a stampede of creatures running faster than I had ever seen anything move before. The strange animals resembled horses in that they shared the same body, but the head was drastically different. Instead of coming up like a horses these beasts held their heads low to the ground as they ran. I was amazed that they didn’t kick themselves in the head as the bolted around. The head was rather flat with large pincers like teeth that swept through the long tall grass of the plain they ran through, slicing it down and eating it in one fluid motion.
Gohn peered over the ridge as well. A perplexed look came over his face. “ That’s weird.” he said. “ The eponi usually don’t run that wildly. They usually just jog slowly eating as they move.” Apparently, The beasts were called eponi, probably a derivative from the Greek name for horse. Gohn continued, “ Lets go see what is going on down there.” We all agreed.
Curiously, we crept down from our ledge to see what had spooked the eponi. When we reached the plain the stampede had long past. We surveyed the area hoping to find some clue as to what was going on.
We followed the trail the eponi had blazed for us back to where they had come from. The trail ended at a clearing right in front of the forest. The grass in that area was covered by a reddish liquid that looked like blood. Terry looked around and scratched her head. “ It looks like something attacked them and that is what spooked them.” She said sounding a little worried.
Caulin cocked his head to the side, “ What on earth would attack a HERD of eponi?” he asked. “ Those things would tear just about anything apart if they were attacked. No this blood must have come from something else.”
“But why else would they be stampeding like that?” Scyll said softly. Gohn, Caulin, and Terry all looked at each other and shook their heads in confusion.
Caulin finally stood and started walking back, “ Well whatever happened, it is done and gone now there is no use trying to figure it out.” There was a sudden crash that came from the forest. Then another. We stood still listening. Not quiet scared yet, but more likely confused.
After a moment had past Gohn walked over to the edge of the forest, and peered in. Gohn face went instantly pale. His eyes widened. “run,” he whispered. We all stood motionless wondering if this was another one of his jokes. Then Gohn turned and screamed “ RUN!!” this time we listened.
Suddenly we were all very afraid. I hadn’t seen what Gohn had seen, but after seeing the look on his face as he ran along side me, I really didn’t want. Unfortunately, human nature got the better of me. I turned and look to see if we were being chased. At that very moment it crashed out of the forest after us. It looked like a thing from a nightmare, and at that moment I prayed that that was what I was having.
The monster stood upright with a hunch back posture. It stood a good fifteen feet high even with the hunch. Its head was lined with hundreds of oversized teeth, forming a gruesome grin. The head protruded outward from its chest below the massive treelike arms. Each hand wielded three, foot long razor sharp claws, still dripping with the blood of the eponi, it had just killed. Its skin appeared thick and leathery, it was the color of mold and had a smell to match. I swear at that moment I was sure I was looking at some kind of demon.
The monster tore after us. It’s enormous stride closing the distance with every passing step. We sprinted, the adrenaline pumping in our veins making us tear across the field faster than we could have ever before. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough.
The behemoth was practically on us it raked its claws out through the air nearly taking off Gohn’s head. In response, Gohn fired blindly backward with one arm as he ran. The darts planted firmly into the beasts chest, but had no effect.
My chest burned, my legs burned, my lungs burned, I felt as though my whole body was aflame. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer. In fact, as I soon found out, I didn’t have to. Though, the reason gave me no relief.
I saw Terry turn a corner and then stop dead in her tracks. As I rounded the corner myself I saw why. A sheer rock wall blocked our path. The creature slowed behind us, as though it knew we had no way out now.
Caulin was the first of us to accept our alternative, he turned toward the monster, and drew out his symbiote. The monster bounded toward him and swung a massive claw. Caulin ducked and shoved his staff into the beasts stomach unleashing a horrible wave of sparks. I raced toward him to help, as Gohn opened fire doting the creature with darts up and down his arms and head. I grew a long scythe like blade as I ran. When I reached the monster I planted it into its back just between the shoulder blades. The blade sunk in deep. I felt like we were about to bring the monster down, but it had a different idea. To my horror it swatted Caulin like a fly, knocking him about five feet away, where he crumpled to the ground. Then the monster reached around and grabbed me by my foot and yanked me and the blade out in one lightning fast motion. It then slung me like a rag doll. I flew though the air across the plain, and crashed into Gohn, we fell together to the ground in a heap. The monster tore across the field toward us, as it approached it raised its right claw into the air to skewer us. A split second before our doom, Terry’s caudal grabbed us and spirited us away out of its reach. This infuriated the behemoth. It bellowed it’s complaint after us and started in our direction.
At that moment, Caulin was back on his feet. He sprinted back at the monster, and swung with all his strength at the back of it’s knee. The blow coupled with a strong shock caused that leg to buckle, and the beast toppled to the ground throwing up dirt and dust everywhere.
I turn my attention back to Gohn. He was still unconscious. Terry bent over him fumbled through her pouch for different medicines to help him. Suddenly I heard Scyll scream. I turned back to the fight to see Caulin caught up in the beast’s vice grip. The creature was back on his feet and was squeezing the life out Caulin. I sprinted back toward them, vaguely aware of a sharp pain in side most likely from a bruised rib. As I ran a blur of black tore past me. It was Scyll’s symbiote. The swarm of ravenous snakes all latched in unison to the arm that held Caulin. They tore at it until there was blood from the monster’s injuries soaking into the ground.
The creature released Caulin, who fell limply at the beasts feet. Scyll continued her assault now focusing on the monster’s ugly head. Once again Terry’s caudal shot its tail out and pulled Caulin out of harms way. Deprived of yet another prey, the monster turned it’s focus on the snakes, now viciously tearing at it’s face. With a flash reflex the creature caught all the snakes up in one hand and pulled them off its face. It snarled back at the swarm and turned it’s gaze toward Scyll. With a strong yank it started to pull the snakes and Scyll toward it. Scyll fell forward and screamed as she was dragged toward the hungry thing.
By then, I had finally made it to the monster. I thrust my claw out and into the wrist holding Scyll’s symbiote. It released her snakes suddenly, startled by my attack. Scyll’s symbiote shot back into its hiding in her arm, but she continued to lay there on the ground. I squared off with my opponent. I grew a new blade this one as long as I could, making it about three feet and as sharp as I could will it. The creature eyed me, drooling sloppily, clearly perturbed by us but utterly unthreatened.
In the corner of my eye I saw that Gohn was on his feet again. He had changed his pathogen and was taking aim. With unbelievable accuracy, he opened fire. From where he stood over 200ft away he aimed at the cuts Scyll’s symbiote had caused on the monster’s arms. The darts flew each hitting its mark. The creature screeched an awful sound as the wounds on its arm spontaneously festered and blistered.
I took that chance to attack. I swung as hard as I could at the monster’s belly, but it dodged back and the blade cut instead across it’s leg. I knew I didn’t have time for another miss, if I didn’t kill it with my next attack I was almost sure it would kill me. I chose the perfect moment and lunged with everything I had. My blade sped toward the monsters putrid face. In a blur the fiend threw up it’s right hand to shield my attack. The blade impaled the monster’s hand, but didn’t so much as knick it’s head.
The monster closed it’s hand around my arm with the blade still protruding out the other side of its hand. It lifted me off the ground pulling me to eye level with it. I trembled uncontrollably as I gazed into the monster’s cold stare. Everything we had done to it, nothing seemed capable of stopping its onslaught. It dashed me to the ground. As I looked up it’s huge foot filled my field of vision. Gradually the beast brought it down, and began to slowly deliberately crush my skull.
I heard Terry scream. Gohn still pumped dart after dart into the beast, but to no avail. Caulin and Scyll were still unconscious. Everything started to get quiet. I became dizzy, then sick. The pressure continued to build. I blacked out for a second. In that moment of darkness my life didn’t flash before my eyes as it should when one is about to die. No, instead all I saw was Terry. Her face was strong at first and then slowly faded. It was replaced by a deep booming voice. The same I had heard before. “NO! She will be ruined! Stop this!”
I came to a moment later and saw the beast’s foot lifting from my head. I was confused. Why wasn’t I dead? My vision was tunneled and the sound hadn’t yet returned to the world. I looked up and saw the monster being pelted by hundreds of thousands of small projectiles.
I blinked repeatedly trying to regain some focus to make sense of this. I traced the lines of fire to the ridge above us. There I saw a small army of soldiers, armed with the teeth guns I had seen before. They were all firing together at the monster. The tiny bullets did nothing to beast, but seemed to come in such mass that the beast was being forced back.
I spotted Janus up on the ridge. He was walking behind the ranks of gunmen yelling orders. Suddenly four flashes shot out from behind the men. The figures streaked down the cliff and landed on the ground near Terry and Gohn.
These flashes turned out to be giant lizard like creatures, each with two men mounted on them. One steered the lizard the other carried a ten foot long pole. The monster sprinted toward these new targets. The four men carrying the long poles jumped off their mounts and quickly methodically encircled the behemoth. As it approached one of the men shoved his pole into the beasts neck. The pole seemed to be similar to Caulin’s symbiote because as soon as he did this sparks started to fly from the monster. After a moment, the pike man pulled away and one of the others shocked the monster from behind.
They continued to trade off like this, while the gunners still fired from above, and the combined strategy seemed to effectively subdue the creature. They worked together like a well oiled machine. With all the efficiency and crispness one would expect from a military unit.
At the same time that the soldiers subdued the monster the lizard drivers quickly collected me and Terry, as well as the others. Once we were all out of the way, I heard Janus yell, “ Shock team back, Hector, cook us some steak.” A muffled laugh came down the ranks of soldiers as they continued their fire.
A lone soldier dropped his gun and slid down the steep embankment. He was tall with fiery red hair. He wore the standard issue black uniform worn by all the soldiers, but with a strange accessory. On his back were two transparent tanks. In one there was a bluish liquid, in the other a red one. From the tanks small veins lead down to his wrists.
When he reached the bottom of the gorge, he stood only twenty feet from the beast. The beast still swayed from its dizzying bouts of consecutive shocks. Hector clasped his hands together. I saw the strange liquids flow down their veins into his wrists. When he unclasped his hands I saw a small egg had been formed. The egg was divided into two separate compartments by a thin membrane inside it. Hector pitched the egg at the monster. It crashed into the beast’s shoulder and to my amazement, when the egg broke, as soon as the two liquids mixed a terrible explosion occurred. The beast snapped back to focus, as its arm was nearly severed by the blast. Wreathed in flame the monster charged him. Hector stood fast and clasped his hands once again. As the beast sprinted forward it opened its jaws and bellowed in rage. No sooner had the beast opened its mouth then Hector pitched his egg inside. The monster’s jaw snapped shut and a blast erupted inside the monster. The beast collapsed to the ground as a large flame sprouted from its mouth. Making it look like some mighty dragon in its death throws, and true to the scene Hector stood there like a knight and turned slowly and looked up to us on the ridge.
“Nicely done, Hector.” Janus called down. Hector saluted. I looked over relieved to find all my friends were once again conscious, though Caulin needed help to stand. But none the less Caulin couldn’t help, but jeer down to Hector. “ Yea, I see you finished the job we started.” he called down smiling. “ Next time you try that without an army at your back.”
Hector smiled and replied. “ I’ll leave that to you, my friend. You have a much thicker head than I, much better for taking a beating.” Gohn mustered a small laugh at this in spite of holding his side from some bad injuries.
They all smile, my friends. I wanted to smile with them, but I was furious. “Why are we doing this!” I yelled. All the soldiers and my friends turned and gave me a quizzical look. “ This is insane!” I continued. “Why on earth would you people be crazy enough to run around out here with things like that running around?! What is this some sort of cheap thrill?! We almost died, and we would have if it wasn’t for Janus and his troops! Don’t give me any crap about science, or needing to discover all the new mutant strains. That’s crap!” I was flustered breathing heavily, but still I went on. “ If it is so necessary for you to classify these mutants then go out with military attachment. Going out in a group of five, when there are things like that out there. That’s madness!”
I gasped for air and stared at my friends waiting for a reply. Everyone was silent. The soldiers fidgeted uncomfortable by the situation. Janus bowed his head. As I turned my gaze from one of my friends to another they each looked away. As if shamed by my rebuke. A wind picked up and swayed the grass around me. Whistling through the trees in the silence.
I looked to Terry. Tears fell down her cheeks, but she looked away. Scyll biting her lip averted her eyes from mine. Even Caulin wouldn’t look at me. Finally, Gohn cut through the silence. “We don’t have a choice.” He said slowly. I frowned confused. So he continued, “ David, there is something wrong in the Dome.”
I hesitated not sure if I wanted the answer, but I pressed for more. “ What?”
Gohn swallowed hard, and then continued, “ There is a virus. A disease that we can’t cure.” He stumbled searching for the words. “ It kills hundreds every month. We believe if we don’t do something….It will kill everyone.”
I stood there stunned, “ So what do these excursion have to do with it?” I asked.
“A while ago when the disease first started the people living in the dome engineered a tracer. They implanted the tracer and a drop of infected blood into a group of genetically engineered spiders. They release them out of the dome and were able to track them with a sensor on the top of the dome. The spiders infected at least one mutant from each of the new species that lived outside of the dome. The people hoped that some of the mutants out there might be resistant to the virus and we could capture that creature and get some of its DNA and use it to…” he paused, “ solve our problem.” I nodded beginning to understand. He continued, “ The virus killed all off all the mutants it came in contact with….except one. The dome still picks up a signal from that mutant, all the others are gone. We don’t know exactly where it is, but we think it is in the area near the impact crater from the original nuclear detonation site.”
I struggled to take it all in. “ Why don’t, you just send your army out and find it then?” I asked.
“We tried.” Gohn replied. “When they discovered one of the mutants was immune to the virus they sent out a search party for it. There were five hundred men. For some reason they attracted the attention of every predator in a fifty mile radius. It was a slaughter. David one thing you have to understand. That monster down there that we just fought, is nothing compared to some of the nightmares that live closer to the crater. As you get closer and closer the mutants get more and more deadly. We determined that only an elite group of six to eight can sneak through, find the mutant that is immune to the virus, and get back with any chance of survival. That is why we do this, David. Trust me it’s not some cheap thrill. We come out here, trying to go a bit farther each time. So that hopefully, we will one day be able to save the dome…before it’s too late.” Gohn finished.
I felt like I had just been hit by a truck…again. I asked, “ Why didn’t someone tell me?”
Terry spoke first. “ Sometimes, we try to forget. We play like it is just a game. I’m sorry, I should have told you, but it’s just too hard…..” she trailed off unable to say more.
This time it was Scyll who broke in, “ David, have you ever seen anyone older than 27 or 28 in the Dome?”
My stomach clenched, I shook my head and said, “ No.. why?”
“No, one makes it past that age.” She said sobbing. “ David we are all sick.”
I shook my head not wanting to believe what I was hearing. “ NO! you can’t be none of you seem sick, heck you are all in the best shape of anyone I ever seen.”
Gohn shook his head, “ The virus incubates, approximately 25 to 26 years before going active. When it goes active it attacks in bouts. At first once a month, then once a week, until everyday the person is hit by it. It’s a terrible thing to see David. When the disease goes active. The person….” he couldn’t go on.
Caulin finished what Gohn had started, “ The person vomits blood, by the liter, after that convulsions follow.” As he talked his eyes were distant, remembering the horror he had seen first hand many times. He continued his description, in the gruesome detail only Caulin could give. I wanted him to stop, but I couldn’t speak a word.
After Caulin had finished, Terry spoke slowly to me, “ There’s one more thing, David.” She said. “ Everyone is infected by the virus.”
I nodded, “I know you just told me that.” I replied.“No… David everyone, including you.” She said tears streaming down her face. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. “That is why I went back to the doctor’s office after we found out about your regenerative ability. I wanted to know if maybe somehow with that ability you were immune to the virus, but you weren’t. We were all infected at birth, but you were not infected till we woke you up. We didn’t mean to wake you up… when we saw you there we assumed you were dead, but after we opened the chamber you started to move…. I sorry David…” she said now unable to say anymore.
I walked up to her and placed my arms around her. “ It’s alright,” I said as she cried on my shoulder. “ I’m glad you woke me up.” She looked up into my eyes, tears still streaming down her face. I smiled at her. She returned a weak smile back, there was a look on her face like she wanted to say something more, but couldn’t quite get it out. I didn’t press the issue any furthur. At that point I already knew more than I wanted.
We returned to the dome in silence, escorted by Janus and his men. I was torn apart by everything that had been said. That day I found that this new world wasn’t free of pain, stress, or fear. No quite to the contrary, it was full of it.

Chapter 12 Scyll’s Surprise

The next morning came in a flash. With my mind still racing from the evening before, I felt like I had only just entered my room when the artificial bioluminescent lighting began to relight the dome signaling the beginning of a new day. I prepared for the excursion, going through all of the morning routines. After I was finished I raced down to the cafeteria to meet the others. For the first time since I had arrived in the dome I was actually early to the meeting. I retrieved a nutrient cracker and munched on it as I waited, marveling still with every bite at the exquisite taste.
Gohn was the next person to arrive. “ Wow, I can’t believe you’re here early for once.” Gohn exclaimed laughing.
“Well I couldn’t have you thinking I was going to start slowing down after you cheated in our fight yesterday.” I shot back.
Gohn laughed, and then tried to act as though he didn’t know what I was talking about. “ I won yesterday fair and square. It’s not my fault you can’t concentrate whenever a pretty girl enters the room.” Gohn said.
I shook my head smiling. “ Yea well here comes Caulin we will ask him.” I said pointing to Caulin as he walked up to us. “ Hey Caulin, I had Gohn yesterday didn’t I?”
Caulin just laughed “ I don’t know about that, but I sure whooped him after you left.” He said elbowing Gohn. Gohn just shot him a dirty look, and didn’t respond. We all continued to laugh and go back and forth like that, until the girls showed up.
Terry smiled at me from across the room as they walked over to us. I smiled back already starting to daydream. She really did make it hard for me to concentrate, I couldn’t argue with Gohn there.
After we talked for a bit and the others got their food, Terry started in on what we had planned for the day. “Ok, today we are just going out to look around and see if we find anything new.” She said. “ Scyll found us, a pretty good spot around sector 37, we should get some good practice, but there isn’t likely to be anything we haven’t seem before.” as she finished she added “ Even though this should be an easy trip we have to remember to stay on guard.”
Caulin and Gohn rolled their eyes in unison. “ Yes mother.” Gohn said sarcastically. Terry rolled her eyes back at them, I just smirked, and Scyll giggled a little. With that we headed once again out of the dome.
There was no big deal as we left this time as there had been before. Janus didn’t come to brief us or anything. We simply walked to the exit. We still went through the same pre exit check out as before, but this time I knew what was coming so I wasn’t really nervous. Though my stomach did churn a little as those huge doors began to slide open again.
We hiked out this time striking a path through some slightly less dense forest region than before, which made the trip much easier and a whole lot less work. The trip out this time seemed rather uneventful for most of the hike. I saw a few new mutants, though most weren’t that dangerous looking. Even after we reached the area that Scyll had marked out for us to explore, we didn’t run into all that much trouble. To be honest we were all getting a little bored.
“Well…” Caulin said less than enthusiastically. “ I was kind of hoping this was going to be a fun trip, but I don’t see anything out here.”
Scyll sighed, “ I am really sorry guys I thought this would be a good spot.” she said looking around as if she was expecting to find something for us to do. “ I guess this trip was a bad idea.”
“No kidding” Caulin said. Scyll bowed her head and slumped her shoulders sullenly. When Caulin saw that he quickly tried to take it back. “ I didn’t mean that you had a bad idea I meant that this was a bad um, no wait, crap.” Caulin said kicking himself again for saying something stupid like that.
Terry comforted her “ It’s no ones fault, there was no way you could have known that we wouldn’t get any action out here.” Terry said. Scyll nodded.
Gohn looked away and then smiled. “ Well I guess we could just leave, but then who would fight those two.” He said pointing to two figures in the distance.
We all turned to look. Sure enough about a hundred feet away there were two large grotesque mutants lumbering out of the woods into the field we were in. The two of them were hideously misshapen to my eyes. Though they probably fit right in to this strange new world. They walked on four short stubby legs that resembled an alligator‘s body, but their torsos bent upward giving a kind of centaur visage. They were covered in a thin grayish hair, that only lightly hid their rippling muscles. Their arms too were thick and muscular, resembling that of a gorilla, but of all their strange features it was the head that was most shocking. There wasn’t one.
“Finally,” Caulin said to Gohn. “ We haven’t gotten to kill one of these in a long time. I get the one on the right you and David can take the one on the left.” After he said that he gave Gohn a sly wink. I arched an eyebrow not understanding, but Gohn just sighed and shook his head.
The three of us took off toward our respective targets. I tried to follow Gohn’s lead, hoping to work as well with him as Caulin had. I grew out my blade. I went for a long blade to counter the long arms of the beast. As we ran the two curious creatures turned toward us and began banging their fists on the ground. I could only guess that what they were doing was some form of communication, but lacking a head I never quiet figured out how they saw or new we were coming to begin with.
As he had done with Caulin before, when we were about 50 feet away Gohn stopped and took aim at the creature we were assigned to, which had begun bounding awkwardly toward us. I continued running, filled with a new confidence knowing that I would heal quickly if I was hurt, but I tried not to think about the fact that I probably wouldn’t heal if I were killed.
Once I reached the animal I swung hard, to my surprise the beast leaned back and dodged my attack. It, in turn grabbed my outstretched arm and lifted me off the ground. I winced in anticipation as it brought back it’s other hand to smash in my face. Luckily, Gohn was there. Three dart were quickly planted firmly into the arm that was holding me. The arm immediately went limp, and I dropped free to the ground. Clearly upset, the monster jumped onto me pining me down with its two front legs and wailing on me with its uninjured arm. I brought my symbiote up to guard my face, but took several disorienting blows to the chest and stomach. All the while Gohn fired dart after dart into the things massive barrel chest, with no effect.
In frustration, and pain, I finally screamed, “ Try a different pathogen!” At the same time I mustered all my strength the push the thing off of me. It wouldn’t budge on its own, but after I stuck my symbiote’s claw deep into its side it finally let me go. I released the blade into the creature and promptly began to grow a new one. It took Gohn a second to change the pathogens on his darts, I’m not sure how he does it, but the next round of poison seemed to do the trick a little better. With each dart the creature became more and more sluggish. I slashed at it again and again. Even though it was slowing down it still landed a few more solid blows to me. A few bruises later I was able to bring the thing down for good. I charged it, and dodged it’s now slow sluggish lunge at me. Then I jumped up and plunged my blade deep into the fiends chest. Its torso folded backward onto is alligator body, and it flailed a final spasm before slumping into a awkward, unmoving position.
I cheered and looked back to Gohn giving him a thumbs up, but he was looking over to see how Caulin was doing. I turned just in time to see Caulin get smashed in the face by a pile driver of a fist. He flew back several feet before crumpling to the ground and lying still.
My eyes went wide. “ we have to help him.” I yelled already running toward him. Gohn just shook his head again and sighed and slowly started after me.
My mind raced. Was he okay? After receiving a few hits myself I was worried that Caulin might have gotten more than he had bargained for. I was even more confused at why Gohn was being so ambivalent.
I was no more than 20 feet from Caulin when I saw Scyll. She was standing about the same distance from Caulin as I was. She seemed to have a look of either fear or intense anger on her face, I couldn’t decide which. I watched confused as she threw up her right hand. I slowed, a little shocked because since I had gotten here she had always hidden her right hand under her long flowing dress sleeve. I was about to find out why. Scyll pulled back the long sleeve revealing her bare arm. Like the other arm this one was slender and smooth, in fact it appeared exactly the same as the other arm save a small hole in the palm of her hand. What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. To my utter horror from the small hole in her palm emerged hundreds of black slimy snake like heads. They squeezed impossibly from her thin slender arm. Each writhed flying like lightning toward the beast. Their tails seemed to recede deep into Scyll’s arm. The snake like protrusions all seemed to have minds of their own as they shot through the air. Scyll turned her head away and closed her eyes, as the hundreds of snakes extended from her, each mouth lined with razor sharp teeth. The snakes long bodies flowed all the way back to Scyll’s shaking hand, like a solid stream of black water from a garden hose. Scyll’s arm seemed to tremble as though almost trying to hold back the onslaught if even just a little. The snake heads drooled as they encircled the beast only nipping at first toying with it. Finally, one head dug into the beasts back right between the shoulder blades. It ripped off a large piece of flesh and then the feeding frenzy began.
When I had started running, after I saw the beast lay out Caulin, I had every intention of killing it, but now watching Scyll’s symbiote tear it apart, eating it alive. I felt sorry for it, and … I felt sick. The beast flailed grabbing one head only to be assaulted by a hundred more. Finally, the beast attempted to flee, but the snakes shot after it. They seemed to be able to stretch forever from her arm. They re-circled the beast. Two of them wrapped themselves around its legs entangling it to prevent another escape attempt. The monster tried to fight back, it really gave all it had, but there were just too many. After several minutes the beast laid still, but the long snake like heads frenzied on. Snapping at each other at times seeming to be competing over every last piece of flesh.
After a moment. Scyll finally turned back. There was a fiery look in her eyes as she watched her symbiote in action. She pulled her arm back attempting to withdraw them back to their hiding space, but they resisted not finished with their meal. It took her a second but she was able to will them back. Slowly begrudgingly they rescinded back into her arm. As the last head disappeared back into the hole on her palm she quickly recovered it with her sleeve and held it back to her body.
Her demeanor instantly changed back to the old Scyll. She seemed absolutely mortified that we had seen her use her symbiote. She turned away from us all, and seemed a rather upset.
In the midst of the incredible event I had completely forgotten about Caulin. I quickly turned to him to make sure he was alright. To my amazement he was lying on the ground propped up on one elbow with a huge grin on his face.
Gohn continued to shake his head. “ You know one of these days she isn’t going to save your sorry butt.” he said exasperated
Terry scowled, “ You can be a real jerk sometimes you know Caulin.” she said.
I spun around to each of them. “ Wait, what just happened, and where did Scyll get that symbiote?!” I said utterly confused once again. Caulin stood up and walked over to Scyll, while Gohn explained to me. “ Caulin fakes an injury every once in a while because he knows that Scyll will only use her symbiote if she thinks he is in trouble.” I shook my head in disbelief. “ He loves watching her use it. I guess that kind of thing is cool to him.” Gohn finished, rubbing his temple as if to fight off one of the headaches Caulin seemed to give him so often.
Caulin turned Scyll around and lifted her chin so that she looked him in the eyes. “She likes her symbiote. I know you all think I’m a jerk, but if she didn’t think that this was the symbiote for her then she wouldn’t have picked it. She may never admit it, but that kind of animal killer instinct is a big part of who she is. I just have to coax it out every once in a while.” Caulin said. To my surprise Scyll smiled shyly back at him. She didn’t say anything, but I had a feeling Caulin was right.
“ Well, I think that is enough excitement for this trip, lets head back before Caulin fakes hurt again because then I will hurt him for real.” Terry said only half joking. Caulin laughed and we headed back to the dome.
I shook my head. Since I had met her, Scyll had been only the sweetest albeit shyest person I had ever met, but after what I had seen today, I realized that she wasn’t all of what she seemed. I was starting to get the feeling that a lot in this world was like that, but one thing was for sure, Scyll had definitely surprised me with that one.

Chapter 11 Dome life

Several days past uneventful. It seemed that our group only ventured out of the dome about once a week. In the mean time though, it seemed that everyone had something to do. Except for me. I resigned myself to following each of them around to check out their daily routines.
Caulin was the first one I decided to hang out with. Caulin’s day was very simple. He woke up early and started the day off with a nice run through the dome. After he had his run he moved into the gym. I use the term gym loosely here. Though the principle was the same the methods were slightly different.
I followed Caulin into the “gym”. The room was next to the sparring room that I had fought him in earlier. This one was large though smaller than the sparring room. In this room there were several chords that protruded from the ceiling and attached to the walls. The chords formed a maze of intercrossing webs that spanned through an entire section of the room. On the other side of the room were more chords some came from the wall others from the floor. These simply hung limply. Next to these were several things I assumed were used for weights, they were made of a bony material though.
Caulin stretched a little and then said, “ I usually like to start on the chords and work my way up to the weights.”
I nodded “ Sounds like a plan, so what exactly are these chords for?” Caulin smiled
“ I’ll show you.” He said cockily. With that he jumped to one of the chords and swung on it like a rope. He swung through a small routine. I could tell that he had done this many time before.
I watched, impressed by how effortlessly he seemed to make it look. He went through the routine a few times and then finally jumped back down landing in front of me in a classic gymnastic dismount fashion. “ Want to give it a try.” Caulin asked me. I had a feeling that he wanted me to try it so that he could gloat when I couldn’t get through the whole coarse, but I decided to try it anyway.
I approached the rope closed my eyes and visualized what I had seen Caulin do. I hesitated, not wanting to make a fool of myself. I looked back to Caulin. He smirked coyly. I turned back to the coarse. Ok I said to myself lets see what these nanites have done for me.
I sprinted toward the coarse. A few feet before the first rope I jumped I grabbed it with my left hand and swung up to the next rope. I gripped this one with both hands. I tucked my legs up and vaulted forward to the next one. I flipped and swung through the course, no where near as smoothly or polished as Caulin had, but never the less successfully.
I finished the routine in the same way Caulin had dismounting with a flip and landing in front of him. I took a deep breath. “That wasn’t so bad.” I said emulating Caulin’s cockiness.
Caulin fumed, “ It took me three months just to get through that course. Gohn hasn’t even made it through yet.” Caulin ranted. “ I don’t believe it.” Caulin sighed in frustration. “ Okay, well lets see if you can lift.”
We strolled to the bone weights and Caulin approached what appeared to be a bench. He heaved an enormous bar shaped bone up into his arms. He then laid back on the bench and pressed it straight up several times.
When he finally dropped the weight I could feel the vibrations as it hit the floor. He gasped for air for a second then said slowly still recovering his breath. “ Let’s see you do that.” I arched an eyebrow.
In high school I had lifted for football, but the weight Caulin had just done was clearly more than 400 lbs and I had never made it past 300. I shrugged my shoulders and decided to give it a try none the less.
I struggled to lift the bar off the ground. I could see Caulin smiling out of the corner of my eye. As I laid back on the bench I had to be careful to keep the bar from crushing me. I cracked my neck closed my eyes and pressed with all I had. Slowly but surely the bar lifted. I strained, then I gave one final push, yelled and my arms finally straightened. I dropped the bar after one rep. That was enough for me.
Caulin shook his head. “ David, I have to hand it to you. The stuff you just did has taken me years to do.” He said. Then paused for a second. “ You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get any those nano thingies you were talking about?” I smiled and laughed. We finished his work out. I was amazed at how much he did. The workout alone took most of the day. He was definitely dedicated to physical fitness. I was impressed with him, but I was even more amazed with myself, the mere fact that I could even begin to compete with a workout routine like that was incredible.
The next day I went out and decided to see what Gohn was doing. I strolled out of my room and began to search through the dome. I was astonished that I seemed to actually be able to pick my way around the dome now. I had only been here a couple of days and I was already starting to feel at home. I rode one of the pulsating platforms that carried the inhabitants of the dome across the open central area. The platform was attached to a long enormous sized piece of what looked like muscle tissue. As the muscle tensed the platform shot across the dome, and then when it relaxed the platform would return. There were hundreds of people bustling around getting on and off. I was amazed that no one ever fell off the platform because like everything else in the dome there were no railings, this place seemed to have evolved beyond accidents. I on the other hand found myself awkwardly nervous while I hurriedly stepped on and off the moving platform. People gave me looks as I stood uneasily in the center of the platform.
After finishing my ride on the platform, I proceeded to an area of the dome full of crisscrossing hallways and rooms. This was where Gohn had said he would be. I poked into several rooms before I finally found him. Quite to my surprise, Gohn was seated in an almost scientific setting. I had expected something more like that of Caulin, but it seemed that Gohn’s daily routine was somewhat different.
When I entered he looked up from what appeared to be a microscope. “ Is that what I think it is?” I asked him quizzically.
Gohn simply responded “ Nope.” then he laughed, “ of coarse I can’t have any idea what your thinking so I guess it could be.” He said sarcastically.
I rolled my eyes, and said exasperated “ I was thinking that it looks an awful lot like a microscope.”
“ Well then I guess it is what you thought it was.” Gohn said still smiling.
I thought for a moment “ I assume it is organic like everything else here” Gohn nodded. Then I smirked, “ When I was in school I used microscopes to look at living tissues, and here you are using living tissue to look at…” I paused, “ what exactly are you looking at here?”
Gohn explained to me that he was working on new pathogens for his darts. He said that each time he went outside the dome and used some of his pathogens, He could never use them again. “ Most of the animals out there are still evolving so fast that they will gain immunity to my pathogens within a day or two of my using them, I have gone out and used a particular pathogen one day then the next day I tried to use the same on an entirely different species in an entirely different sector and the disease had no effect.”
“ Wow,” I said, “ Must be tough to keep coming up with new strains.”
Gohn nodded, “ It seems to get harder each time I go out. When we go into the sectors with the stronger mutant species, I have found that some of them have such strong immune systems that even my new strains have no effect on them.”
He showed me the process he used to engineer the diseases and then inject the genetic information into his symbiote. The whole process took several hours, the whole time through I asked questions and he would answer, though he was sarcastic so often I found at times I wasn’t sure if he was telling me the truth or just being cynical.
We worked in the lab for most of the day. I caught on quickly to the various laboratory techniques, most were very similar to ones I had used back in college in my own science labs. “ And I thought that I would never use the stuff I learned in biology lab.” I thought to myself with a chuckle. Then again who could of ever imagined I would find myself in a situation like this? Cooking up diseases in a lab to use to fight mutants. I shook my head, it sounded like something out of a bad sci-fi novel.
As we worked I found myself watched Gohn, thinking back to when me and my brother had been young. We would always do things together. I would always come up with the ideas for things and I would make my brother do all the grunt work. It had never ceased to amaze me how tireless he would work. He would work and work until everything was perfect. He always pretended that he hated it and would sarcastically call me a slave driver, but he must have enjoyed it because each time I came up with some new idea he would help me. Watching Gohn then, the way he painstakingly worked, I couldn’t help, but remember my brother.
“What are you think so hard about?” Gohn said catching me in my daydream.
I laughed. “Well, to be honest, you remind me a lot of my younger brother. I can’t help, but think about how he used to be able to work for hours doing the same thing, just like you are now.” I said. “ Do you have any siblings?”
Gohn paused what he was doing for a second and thought. “yea… I did.” He replied a kind of pain in his eyes. “He would be about your age, but he died” He turned back to his work and then add without looking back. “You kind of remind me of him too. Well, at least how I remember him.”
I felt a pang of regret for bringing it up. “I am sorry, I know how hard it is losing a brother.”
After a while Gohn finally said, “ Well, I’m sick of this.” He started putting away his equipment. “ How about we go down to the gym and work on some target practice?” I nodded eagerly in agreement. I hadn’t liked working in biology labs when I was in college and not surprisingly I still wasn’t all that fond of it.
We left the lab, and I followed Gohn through the maze of dimly lit corridors, through more bizarre transport veins and platforms, until we were back at the same gym I had spent the day with Caulin at yesterday.
Gohn and I went through a short workout similar to the one I had done with Caulin the day before, but no where near as strenuous. Gohn appeared irritated that I was already better than him at most of the stuff. “Great, your almost as bad as Caulin. I was hoping that with a new guy here I would finally be better than someone at this stupid stuff.” Gohn said mockingly.
I laughed, “ Yea Caulin said you say something like that.”
Gohn rolled his eyes, “ I am sure he did. O well, my spatiality isn’t strength, it’s accuracy. Let’s see if your nano tech cells can help you with that.”
With that he strode over to yet another room adjoined to the sparring room. The room was long and narrow almost like a hallway. At the far end away from us, there were a series of hundreds of small flat circular shaped things hanging tightly from the ceiling about ten feet above the floor. Each one was attached to the ceiling by a long cord that was scrunched up to keep the disk close to the ceiling. The closest of the disks was about 50ft away, and the farthest at least a hundred feet.
Gohn walked up to a mineral card slot and inserted one of his cards. He then turned and faced down the hall toward the hanging disks. He raised his arms and tensed up waiting for something. After a moment one of the disk quickly descended from the ceiling. It was about 60ft away. Gohn didn’t even have to aim, without hesitation, he shot a single dart that hit the disk squarely in the center. As soon as the disk was hit it shot back up to the ceiling and a different disk descended this one was farther away, maybe 75ft. Again Gohn instantly fired a dart and again it landed dead center, vaulting the disk back to it hiding place near the ceiling.
This went on for several minutes. Each one farther away than the one before until the ones that descended were all at the very far side of the room. I stood quite impressed as time and time again, Gohn effortlessly shot each and every target with pinpoint accuracy.
When the last disk shot up to the ceiling and no more came down Gohn finally lowered his arms. “ That was a pretty good warm up, but I think its time to step it up.” He approached the mineral slot once more and this time inserted a different card. He spun around quickly this time to ready himself.
Step it up, Gohn did. This time the disks dropped much faster, and where as there had been a pause between each target before this time there was no such luxury. My eyes widened as the targets rose and fell. Sometime multiple targets would fall at once. I blinked my eyes dizzy from the sporadic movements. I couldn’t even begin to keep up with them, but Gohn was on fire. This time he had both arms raised. The air sacs on his biceps pulsed rhythmically firing his dart in rapid succession. It appeared that he was hitting all the targets dead on like before, but I won’t pretend that I could have told you if he ever missed.
After several minutes of this the targets finally slowed and stopped. Gohn gasped for air, exhausted from the endeavor. “ Not bad.” he said through a labored breath. “ I got all of them, but some of them weren’t dead centered.”
I just stared at him “ You’ve got to be kidding, that was amazing! I mean how could you even tell if you hit them at all much less in the center?”
Gohn smiled cockily, “ What you couldn’t?” He said teasing. I just shook my head laughed. “ Well, I hope you were paying attention because now its your turn.” Gohn said to me.
I arched and eyebrow. “ My turn?” I asked a little confused. “ I don’t have anything that can shoot though.”
Gohn cocked his head to the side “yea you do.” He said matter-of-factly, “ Didn’t you know that your symbiote can shoot out spines?”
I started to say “ Of coarse not”, but I stopped myself. I looked down and searched my mind. A picture or a feeling slowly rose into my consciousness. “ yea I guess I did.” I said with a wry smile, shaking my head.
“Good, well how about you give it a try then?” Gohn requested. I nodded and lifted my right arm pointing it down the room toward the targets. I closed my eyes and searched my mind to figure out how to use this new talent. I let go and the symbiote took over. A small spine grew out of the symbiote. This one was thin and round like a porcupine’s quill, not at all like the long scythe like claws it usually grew. It was only about six inches long and was perfectly straight.
“I set it so only one target drops at a time and they cycle slowly. Your symbiote isn’t meant for rapid fire like mine.” Gohn said walking over to the card slot and slipping in a new mineral card.
I opened my eyes. One of the targets slowly descended from the ceiling. I squinted to see it clearly and took aim with my symbiote. I breathed deliberately, swallowed hard and tensed my arm. The spine receded back into the symbiote and then was slingshoted out.
The dart whizzed through the air. I held my breath and watch as it flew through the air… completely missing the target. My shoulders slumped in disappointment. I had been doing so well at everything I had tried up to this point I had assumed that this would come easy too.
Gohn bit his lip holding in a laugh. “ That was really close.” he said mockingly. Then he smiled and said with a laugh, “ How about you give it a few more tries?”
I spent the next two hours shooting. At first Gohn attempted to hold back his laughter, but by the end he was in tears.
“ I hate to say I man, but you are the worst shot I have ever seen.” Gohn said still laughing. “ I think you had better call it a night.”
I fumed. “ I swear I am not leaving here till I hit one of those stupid targets.”
Gohn laughed “ well I’ll see you in a week or two then.” He said teasing me. “ I have more work to do in the lab tomorrow so I have to get to sleep. I’ll see you later, oh and good luck.”
I gave him a dirty look and resumed practicing. I practiced all night. After a while I was able to hit the targets once in a while, but I was going for consistency. I had always had a bad habit of setting myself to complete a task and even when I failed a hundred times I would still keep trying it. It was a trait that had driven my little brother crazy when we were kids and I got stuck trying to do something in a video game.
Gohn’s chiding had just made it that much worse. It seemed just like when my little brother would tease me when he was beating me at a game. I hated looking stupid. I was so determined to get good at it that I even went back to my room to get more mineral cards after I ran out. For some reason I was always winding up with extras at the end of the day so I decided to use them now.
I still wasn’t sleeping so I didn’t have to worry about losing sleep. I finally called it quits about an hour before everyone usually woke up. I had finally gotten it down so that I would hit about 7 out of 10 of my shots. Of course that was with them only coming down one at a time and doing so very slowly, but it took my symbiote a few second to regenerate a new spine, so considering I couldn’t hit anything before, I felt that that was a huge improvement.
When I got back to my room I collapsed. I still couldn’t sleep, but that didn’t stop me from spending most of the day relaxing in my room. After I finally felt rested up I went back to the gym and worked out with Caulin for a while until Gohn came in. Needless to say Gohn was stunned when we went back to the targeting room, and I hit the target on my first shot.
“ I got to hand it to you, David.” Gohn said. “ you are nothing if not dedicated.”
I smiled. “ That’s what I was going for.” I said.
The next day I went to see what Scyll and Terry were up to. I hadn’t talked to Terry for a couple of days and I was starting to wonder if she was uncomfortably around me for some reason after the incident at the doctors office.
Much to my relief though when I found her she assured me that that wasn’t the case. She had just been really busy the past few day processing the new mutant we encounter in our last trip. I was surprised to find out that it was her and Scyll’s responsibility to code and categorize the new mutant strains that our team encountered.
“ Yea me and Scyll actually have to work when we aren’t outside, unlike some people.” Terry had said referring to Gohn and Caulin. “ Come on, I’ll show you what responsible people do here in the dome.” Terry said laughing. Gohn and Caulin were with me at the time. “ You know you two are always welcome to come help too you know.”
Caulin and Gohn just looked at each other and laughed. “ Umm, yea we’ll be right there you all get started without us.” Gohn said as seriously as he could muster. “What? I don’t think so I am not going to spend all day stuck in the stupid lab.” Caulin protested.
Gohn rolled his eyes. “ Come on you idiot.” He said, as they walked away quickly.
Scyll sighed “ I guess its just going to be us again.” She said
Terry nodded. “ Well at least we have one decent guy finally.” Terry said nodding to me. Scyll giggled, and I blushed a little though I was happy to get the added attention again.
With that Terry and Scyll lead me to another lab. This one was different than Gohn’s lab. Unlike his where it had been only a small room with only him working, this one was full of people. Men and women all in their respective black and whit lab coats. The room was enormous and full of a pungent chemical aroma that burned at my nostrils.
Terry and Scyll worked alongside the many other people. The lab was bustling with activity. I tried my best to keep up. I helped with odd jobs here and there. There was so much to do that we didn’t have very much time to talk.
Hours flew by. We were so busy that the day seemed gone before I even could begin to realize it. “Thanks for all your help David” Terry said when there was time for a breath. “ It’s nice to finally get someone who’s not lazy!” Scyll laughed and nodded. I blushed a little.
To be honest I was surprised I was any help at all. I had the hardest time keeping focused on anything. I found my eyes drifting towards Terry constantly. I kept trying to pay attention to the things I was suppose to be doing, but my eyes wouldn’t listen. I got in trouble a few times almost ruining the tests that I was doing. She was just so graceful. As she glided around the lab her feet didn’t seem to touch the ground. Every once in while her eyes would meet mine and she would smile. Of course I would immediately try to pretend that I was paying attention to my work, but I doubt my ruse fooled her.
In spite of what Gohn and Caulin had said, I enjoyed my day with the girls in the lab, but when it was over I was exhausted. I realized why I had seen so little of Terry and Scyll the past few days. When we were finished with our work we all were ready to get back to our rooms. “We did a good job today, I think we will be done with all the tests by tomorrow.” Terry said as we walked back to our rooms.
“Yea.” I said taking in a deep breath, “ I don’t know if I have worked so hard before in my life. Your guys day is definitely harder than Gohn’s or Caulin’s.”
Terry and Scyll laughed, “ Yea, Its usually not this busy, but with a new species to test things can get kind of hectic.” Terry said. “Thanks again for helping, I think we can handle it tomorrow, I only have to run one more test and then I am going to start getting ready for the excursion that we are going to go on the next day.”
I smiled. “ Darn, so you guys won’t need my help tomorrow?” I said being only partially sarcastic.
Terry shook her head, “ No, I think we will be fine, you can relax tomorrow.” She said. “ Oh, but save some time before sunset I want to show you something, okay.”
I smiled, “ Sounds good, I’ll do that.”
Terry and Scyll stopped at a long corridor that branched off from where we were walking. “ This is our stop. I will see you tomorrow, Goodnight.” Terry said. I said goodnight to back to her and Scyll and paused to watch for a second as they walked away.
I smiled to myself as I continued back to my room. This place was turning out to be okay after all.
The following day I worked out with Caulin again. This time I fought a little harder trying to keep up with him. I have to say I think that I gave him a run for his money. After that we met Gohn for lunch in the cafeteria.
“ So synthesize any new treats for us this morning?” Caulin asked Gohn.
Gohn shrugged nonchalantly, “ Oh I don’t know I might have some nice surprises for you tomorrow.” He replied in classic Gohn fashion. “ So how did your work out go.”
“Not to bad, David’s getting better, no where near my caliber, but I think he might already have passed you up.” Caulin said jeeringly.
Gohn arched an eyebrow. “ Really?” He said slyly, “ Well we all know there is only one way to find out for sure, now isn’t there.” He looked at me challengingly.
I laughed, “ Sure why not we all know at the rate I’m progressing I will be unbeatable by either of you, in a few days anyway, minus well go a few rounds now while your still a challenge.” I taunted mimicking their coy attitudes.
Caulin raised his eyebrows and turned to Gohn, “ Big talk from the newbie. I do believe that is grounds for a duel.” We all laughed and raced each other up to the sparring room.
When we got there Gohn and I climbed into the ring. I decided against Gohn I would be better suited by a shield than a sword so I concentrated on my symbiote. Slowly a claw grew out, it curved and widened until I had myself a stout little shield that ran up the length of my forearm and bent into an almost circular fashion.
Gohn raised his eyebrows. “ Hmm, this should be interesting indeed.” He said then with a smirk he added, “ I might even have to put forth some effort here.”
Caulin grinned as he watched us squaring off. “I get the winner.” He said getting pumped up at the simple thought of a good fight.
Gohn’s eyes narrowed as he began to walk slowly in a circle around me. His arms still down at his side knowing that with out a blade I was no immediate threat. I stood not moving, my eyes trained on him. I could feel the information flowing from the symbiote. Hundreds of programmed attack and defense strategies melted into my consciousness from it. Suddenly both of Gohn’s arms shot up. Like lightning he shot to darts one for my head and the other at my stomach. Luckily I had expected he would try that. I brought my right arm to up to my stomach to receive that dart and I moved my head and neck out of the way of the other. I felt the first dart impact my symbiote, and the second whiz past my left ear.
There was no time for celebration. Gohn responded with a rapid fire of darts to follow. Every single one with pinpoint accuracy. He stood stationary like a turret rotating his upper body to follow me as I dodged this way and that. I was able to evade many of them and most the rest impacted harmlessly into my shield, but inevitably I was skimmed a few times and even received a few that went deep into my left arm. Luckily my arm quickly recovered the injuries and I wasn’t slowed by them.
I spent several minutes almost comically attempting to evade Gohn’s onslaught. After a while I decided I needed to take this in to melee range. I sprinted full speed toward Gohn. He continued his nonstop barrage. When I was still several feet away I stopped planted my feet and spun around releasing my shield like a discus at Gohn. This caught him completely off guard. To his surprise it smashed violently into his chin sending him sprawling to the floor. I took advantage of this to close the remaining gap between us. I also grew a blunt foot long and half foot wide sword that I could use as both a bludgeon and a shield. .
Gohn rolled over, recovered now from the shock of my attack, he spun around on the ground to get on his stomach and quickly pushed himself to his feet. To my surprise instead of running away from me to get some distance between us again he charged me. I swung my club shaped claw at him. He brought his right arm up and received the blow with the tube that ran down his forearm. I was stunned that it was so hard. It received the impact like hitting a bar, and didn’t seem to hurt him at all. He spun around connecting his other forearm to my face as he came about. It was like getting hit in the face with a bat. I was completely disoriented from the blow for a few seconds. I staggered backward. He brought his arms up again this time with the two barrels pointed at my chest.
I regained my composure just in time to hit the floor and evade his darts. I pushed up against the ground with my hands and kicked off the ground springing forward in an almost football tackle. I hit Gohn in the stomach and took him down hard. We wrestled on the floor for several minute. Caulin shouting at us in encouragement. “ Nice one, now hit him with that hand, yea!”. He appeared to be having almost as much fun as us.
I finally managed to get on top. I kneeled on his chest and raised my right arm to smack him in the face with my club, when I saw Terry enter the room. I paused for just a second when I saw her, unfortunately that second was all Gohn needed. He kicked me off and rolled up to kneel on my chest he held my symbiote arm down with one hand and leveled the barrel of the other arm directly at my face. I could see down the barrel it was so close to my right eye. I had no choice but to submit. Gohn helped me up. He patted my on the back “That was a nice fight. You just about had me.” He then turned to Terry, “ I must thank you, if it hadn’t been for your distraction I might have a considerable headache right now.”
Terry smiled and bowed curtly. “ Anything I can do to help.” She said laughing. My cheeks burned in embarrassment. “ Well David are you ready to go?” She asked. I nodded and turned to Gohn.
“Next time you won’t be so lucky.” I said with a smile. He shrugged and looked at Caulin pretending he didn’t know what I was talking about. “ Well good luck Caulin, give him a few more volts from me will you.” I said with a laugh.
He smiled and said. “Oh I plan too.” With that me and Terry left the two of them to their next fight.
I followed Terry for several minutes before I finally asked, “ So what exactly are we doing?”
She smile in her mysterious way and looked me in the eyes. “ You’ll see.” was all she would give me. I arched an eyebrow and wondered to myself what she could possible have in her head.
We climbed several floors. It seemed that we entered one lift after another. It wasn’t long before we were at the top floor of the dome. I looked down and felt a sudden sense of vertigo as I peered over the edge of the floor we were on. It was like being at the top floor of a sky scraper with no fencing to keep you from falling down. I took a deep breath and continued to follow Terry. As she walked in front of me I found myself watching her. She carried herself with an unparalleled air of surety and energy. At her side as always was her faithful Caudal. It walked funny, waddling as fast as it could to keep up with her, its extraordinarily long tail wrapped tightly around its waist. We emerged from the dome onto a sort of small balcony. Terry looked left and right to make sure no one was watching.
“Hold on to me.” she said. My eyebrow shot up. “ Just do it.” she said again. Timidly I put my arms around her. “ hold on tight.” With that she signaled something to her caudal and it jumped onto her back. It’s stout arms grabbed her around the shoulders and it shot its tail up. I watched in curiosity as the tail disappeared over the top of the dome. A moment later to my surprise we lifted suddenly and quickly, being pulled up by the amazingly strong tail of the caudal. We rose swiftly. My stomach did flips as I watched the ground disappear beneath my feet.
We reached the very top of the dome where the caudal had grabbed a strange antenna like thing, that stuck out from the peak of the dome, to pull us up. The dome was so large that the very top of the dome was actually quite flat. We easily walked around. There wasn’t another person in sight. It was getting late and the sun was slowly edging toward the horizon, preparing to dive out of sight to hide until morning.
Terry sat down and faced the sunset. I came and sat down next to her. “ I like to come up here from time to time just to watch the sun set.” she said, her gaze trained on the horizon. I followed her eyes. For the first time I really looked out. The view was breath taking. I could see on one side of us the huge forest we had ventured into the week before. The trees towering even above us, but the sun was setting on the other side of the dome. This side was actually relatively barren.
“Can you see it out there near the very edge of the horizon.” She asked pointing in the direction that she had been looking at. I squinted in the distance I could see the vague shadowed silhouette of the once Chicago Skyline. My eyes widened. As the sun set the shadows of the crumbling skyscrapers danced over the landscape. “Whenever I come up here I look at those buildings. I dream of the life that I might have had in cities like those. The freedom to do whatever I wanted. Go anywhere and never have to worry about danger or anything else…” She trailed off with a sigh. “ What’s it like?” She turned to me her eyes full of wonder and hope. I could have told her that it wasn’t that great or that it had its flaws, but she was so entranced that I couldn’t bring myself to dash her dreams. I hesitated, almost not wanting to delve back into that part of my life, fearing it would be too painful. Finally, I closed my eyes and said. “It was definitely a lot different. More people and definitely no monsters to fight.” She smiled her eyes trained on me. They seemed to beg for more. So I gave it to her. I told her everything. The sun disappeared, the world grew dark, I could hear beasts making their sounds through the otherwise silent night air, but I continued. I explained school, college, work. Things so ordinary to me fascinated her. I began to understand how they must have all felt about me, asking questions about their lives.
I told her about television, movies, books. I told her stories about when I was a kid growing up. I went through every vacation I could remember. I told her every funny or interesting story I had, then told her some that I didn’t think were interesting. She listened intently to everything. I could practically see her fantasies dancing in her large hazel eyes.
We sat there for hours she rested her head on my shoulder as I continued. Finally, I had said all that I could think to say about my time. She smiled, “ I wish we were there.” She said looking into the darkness toward the city that we could no longer see. “ Living in your time.”
We sat in silence for a while. “ It’s not bad here though.” I said. “ Your lives are exciting and interesting.”
She smiled, “ yea they are.” She said. “ And we have an exciting day planed for tomorrow. So we had better get back to our rooms to rest.” I reluctantly agreed. Her Caudal lowered us back down and we returned. When we got to her room she stopped and said. “Thank you. I have always wanted to know about life before. Now even though I will never get to experience it myself, I think that through you I have seen everything that I always wanted to see.” She smiled and then turned and entered her room. When she went in I could see Scyll waiting for her, the two of them were talking away even before the door had closed behind her.
I walked back with a spring in my step. I hadn’t slept since I had woken from my coma, but that night I didn’t think I could have slept anyways. I spent the rest of the night thinking through that evenings events replaying them in my mind. I didn’t think I could deceive myself anymore. I was crazy about Terry.

Chapter 10 Another surprise?

Caulin and Gohn winced as Terry bandaged their minced backs. She worked skillfully like a field nurse in some world war two hospital. She treated all the injuries with different chemicals that had been perfected to fight the various new diseases the mutants carried and fight any poisons that might be in the wounds. She also applied some different medicines to help the wounds to heal faster, so they would be back to normal quickly.
“These guys really have this together” I thought to myself. “Caulin and Gohn have mastered killing the mutants, Terry acts as a medic, and Scyll is the navigator. So where does that leave me?” I shook off the thought. I would prove myself useful. I had to. I felt that if I didn’t I would never really feel like I fit in here. Little did I know how soon my chance would be.
“Ok we had better head out.” Terry said after she had slapped the last bandage on Gohn’s bloody back. “If we don’t get this to the lab soon the DNA will be useless.” She added pointing to our dead mutant that Gohn carried like a trophy.
We headed out following the same path we had came from. We walked slowly through the thick underbrush, a while until Scyll stopped us. She was pouring over one of her maps and she said. “ I think that we might be able to take a short cut back.” She turned the map to show us and pointed to a point. “This ravine will take us right back to the dome. I mean if you guys are okay with that.”
The other turned to each other and shrugged. “ Sound good to me.” Caulin said. “Lead the way fearless navigator.” Scyll blushed and timidly lead us to the ravine.
As we walked down into the ravine the walls rose on either side of us. Several small waterfalls streamed down the walls, ending in small pools that drained into unseen holes in the ground. I began to wonder what we would do if something attacked us from above. I tried to shake the idea, but couldn’t help, but glance up every few minutes into the impenetrable brush above. The overgrowth created a sort of ceiling blocking out a decent bit of the sun. I continued to scan the bushes and branches overhead, but it wasn’t from above that our problem came.
As we turned a bend in the ravine we saw about twenty yards away blocking our path, a bulky mutant hunched over some dead thing devouring it greedily. The beast was about as tall as a man, but much thicker built. Its arms drug the ground like a gorilla. It had short stubby legs, but its torso and arms were thickly built. The most demanding feature of it was its hair though. The creature was covered head to toe in extremely long thick mangled hair. There were no eye discernable from it large head because of its shaggy mane. The only feature distinguishable was it massive protruding teeth that were currently ripping into some poor dead thing, so mutilated it couldn’t be recognized. The hairy beast ripped off the flesh of its prey using its three huge claws that were at the end of each of its arms, blood and gore matting the creatures odd coat.
“Nice,” Caulin said grabbing his symbiote. “ I love taking these down. Nice and easy. I‘ll have us through here in no time.”
Gohn stopped him. “ Hey why not let David handle this one?” He said. “ Like you said this one is easy. It would be a great one for him to start out on.” Caulin thought about it for a moment and then nodded in approval.
I started to get nervous. I had wanted to prove myself, but despite what Caulin and Gohn had said, this mutant didn’t look all that “easy”.
Terry noticed my hesitation. “ I’m not sure he’s ready. I mean he has only been out here this one time.” I appreciated her concern for me, but hearing her say that just made me feel even worse about the idea of backing out.
I had to do this. To prove to them, and probably more to myself that I fit in here. “No, I can do this.” I said in my best cocky attitude. I walked cautiously toward the beast. My right arm instinctively tensed up and the symbiote grew a blade about three feet long and as sharp as I could will it to be.
As I approached the hairy predator looked up from its prey. I wondered how good it vision could be considering that its eyes were lost in impossibly thick mane. I heard a sniffing sound and a low growl emerged from the monster. I stopped for a moment and looked back. The others were watching me closely. Caulin and Gohn looked excited and gave a quick signal to go for it. Terry on the other hand looked a little worried. Her brow knitted in concern.
I turned back to my adversary. I looked down at my blade and started forward again. This time the beast rose. It bellowed out a warning for me not to come any closer. I slowly took another step. Apparently, that was the last straw for it. It raised its monstrous arms and showed off its deadly foot long claws. I bit my lip and raised my claw toward it. The creature fidgeted a little, clearly perturbed at my presence, but for some reason unwilling or unable to charge. Finally, as it started toward me I realized why Gohn and Caulin had felt so unthreatened by it. It lumbered toward me slowly, having a difficult time supporting its large upper body mass with its short stubby legs. The creature was far from graceful. It seemed that all this beast had going for it was its strength and claws. It must have relied on its prey coming to it in order to get its kills. The animal it had been eating must have fallen down the ravine and hurt itself for this slow brute to catch it.
I felt a surge of confidence know realizing my foe’s weakness. I ran forward to attack it. The creature flailed its large claws in all directions in a haphazard attempt to filet me. I easily avoided its cumbersome attack and quickly sliced it across its chest. Blood spilled out further matting its thick fur, the blood mingling with the gore of its prey. Caulin cheered at my success. The beast swung it right paw sweeping toward my head. I ducked and cut the air above me with my symbiote’s claw, catching the beast arm and severing it with surprising ease. The mutant yelped in pain, but didn’t stop this time it struck with it teeth. It lunged attempting to sinks it’s jaws into my right shoulder. I jumped backward landing on my back and kicking the creatures oncoming head.
Each move I made seemed to flow to me from my symbiote. It was as natural as walking to me now. My senses seemed sharpened and my adrenaline flowed freely. It was exhilarating.
Another claw came at me, the beast now swinging with its good arm, I dodged and decided to severe this one to. The second arm fell limply next to the first. Blood was everywhere. The mutant stumbled away in a weak attempt to escape, but it was too late it had lost to much blood, and began to slow until it ultimately collapsed. I felt mildly bad for the awkward creature, but in this world it was kill or be killed.
I heard an applause and cheers from my friends behind me. I turned to walk back to them when I felt something heavy land on top of me. It knocked me to the ground. I rolled quickly to see what had attacked me. It was another hairy creature, it had seen me kill it’s friend from above on the ledge of the ravine, and had jumped down in a rage. It seemed, these creatures were not just a scavengers after all.
It swung it claw wildly grunting in a fury. I caught one of the swings cleanly across the face. The three enormous claw racked my flesh and cut deep. Terry screamed, Caulin was already running to me, and Gohn had his symbiotes leveled at my assailant. Scyll was still in shock.
I clutched my face with my left hand, trying to stem the bleeding. I would have expect myself to be terrified. The old me would have been, but a lot had changed in the last two days. The new me was furious. I roared in anger thrusting my blade in an uppercut straight into the monster’s chest. I rose to my feet as I push the blade in deeper. It plunged through vital organs and bones, until it erupted out the monsters back. I continued to push forward until the blade sank into the opposite wall of the ravine. The blade stuck into the dirt wall. I released the blade, and my opponent hung lifelessly from the wall I had mounted it to.
Caulin stopped dead in his tracks. Gohn slowly lowered his arms. A general look of shock was on their face. Terry ran to me. “ O my gosh are you ok?!” she cried urgently her voice full of apprehension. She quickly lead me to one of the water falls to rinse the blood off my face. I plunged my whole face down into one of the pools. The wounds stung as the water cleaned them out. After I had gotten most the blood off I looked down into my reflection in the pool to survey the damage.
My eyes widened in disbelief. As I watched the reflection in the shimmering pool. I saw the gaping cuts that spanned across my face, slowly begin to close. To my utter amazement the cuts seemed to heal. I touched them with my hands not believing the reflection I saw, but I could feel them closing, regenerating.
“What is it!?” Terry said, noticing my shock. I looked up at her and she gasped.
“How is that possible?” All the others saw too. In a few minutes everyone was crowded around me watching in amazement as the cuts vanished before their eyes. After only a few minutes they were gone completely and my face appeared to be back to normal.
I looked down at the symbiote on my arm. “ Is this some kind of side effect of the symbiote?” I asked as confused as ever.
“It can’t be.” Gohn said. “ I have never seen anything like that.” The air buzzed with excitement, amazement, and disbelief, as we debated all the possible reasons.
Finally, after several minutes Terry said. “How about we just go back to the dome. David’s blood tests should be in by now and maybe they will have something to tell us about what is going on.” We all agreed and together we started once again back to the dome.
The rest of our trip was uneventful. We hiked quickly through the ravine, and just as Scyll had promised emerged within sight of the dome. We reentered the dome through the same door we had come out. Terry gave the dead mutant specimen to one of the people that came to us and told them that she would file the report later.
We went straight to the doctors office that I had gone to originally to get the blood work done, eagerly anticipating what we would find out, when we got there.
I was especially curious. I mean when your own body starts doing things you don’t understand you begin to worry.
We all burst into the small office and Caulin immediately said. “ Do you have David’s blood tests back yet?” The doctor looked up slightly startled by our sudden and hurried entrance into his office.
“Yes of course.” He replied calmly. “ I assume you have discovered your friends unique gift.” they all nodded.
“What is wrong with me.” I demanded. Still shaken from everything. “Only a half hour ago I had some beast rip my face off and only a few minutes later its like nothing happened.”
The doctor laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with you, to the contrary there is something extremely right.” He lifted a sheet of leather sheet that seemed to have some writing on it. I assumed that was what the dome used as paper. “ The tests showed that there are several thousand abiotic cells in your body.”
“Abiotic cells? How can something be nonliving and still be a cell?” I asked getting impatient.
The doctor continued. “ They appear to be microscopic machines. They flow through your body in your blood and are constantly repairing things. They seem to break down normally indigestible food particles and use them to multiply themselves and repair damaged tissue in your body.” he paused for a moment to clear his throat. “ I assume that they were engineered back in your generation and where used in some kind of conjunction with your cryogenic sleep to repair some sort of damage you must have sustained.”
I staggered, my mind raced back to the dream I had had. Images of the accident and the voices of the doctors flooded my mind. “Nanotechnology.” I said after several minutes. They all looked at me quizzically. “ That’s what the doctor called it. It was some cutting edge technology, they wanted to use it on me to help me while I was in the coma.”
“Um.. If you were in a coma how do you know what the doctors said?” Gohn asked slightly skeptical.
I closed my eyes and bowed my head, letting out a sigh. “I don’t know.” I replied mildly defeated.
Everyone was silent as we left the office. No one was really sure what to think of the situation as a whole. Caulin looked around at everyone and then said finally, “ What’s wrong with all of you, your acting like this is a bad thing. Its not. This is awesome, David here is practically unkillable.” He laughed. “ I mean who cares if it is a little strange, and he is remembering things he shouldn’t what difference does I make. I mean this is good right?”
Everyone stopped and thought for a moment. “I hate to admit it, but what Caulin said actually makes sense.” Gohn remarked. Then he shuddered. “ That freaks me out more than David’s nano-whatevers.” He laughed as Caulin hit him in the shoulder. We all laughed and shrugged off whatever uncomfortable thoughts we were having.
I was far from settled on the matter though, but Caulin was right. This was really a good thing. I put the thought from my mind and focused on the positive. “So I really kicked butt against those two hairy monsters. Not bad for my first time huh.” I said proudly. The others laughed as the tension broke.
Caulin jumped in and started to go through the fight. “ Yea that was incredible. First, you tore up that one taking its arms off. Then you got blind sighted by the other and yet you were still able to take it down before we could help. I was impressed.”
After that we talked for a long time about the trip. We laughed and marveled at all everything that had happened. Caulin and Gohn couldn’t get over my first fight, even Scyll congratulated me on doing well. Terry just smiled she didn’t say much her mind seemed to be on something else.
After a few minutes while we were still going over the events of the day, Terry said suddenly, “ Hey I forgot something back at the office I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute.” She then turned and jogged back toward the office.”
Caulin arched an eyebrow. “ What was that about?” He shrugged and then continued his conversation about what he had thought about our fight with the squirrel beast. As he and the others continued their discussions, my mind wandered to Terry. I looked back in the direction she had left. She had seemed concerned about something. I didn’t like it. I always thought that I was sensitive to people’s motives and feelings, and Terry definitely hadn’t “forgotten anything at the office”. I sighed there seemed no end the mysteries of this new world. Finally, I shook my head and rejoined the others in their talk which had now turned to an argument about whether or not Caulin had meant to attract the other pig beasts. Me, Gohn, and Scyll all laughed as Caulin unsuccessfully attempted to convince us.

Chapter 9 The Unknown mutant

Chapter 9 The unknown mutant
As I walked, climbed and often stumbled through the tropical almost alien environment, I found myself spending most of my time looking at the innumerous varieties of new creatures that inhabited this strange new world. As we proceeded deeper into the forest I saw larger things than massive bugs I had seen when we had first ventured in. Some of them were bulky, slow moving, armored creatures. One I had seen appeared to be some kind of descendent of turtles. It looked roughly the same as before, except this one was as big as a large cow and its head was much longer than a normal turtles. It had a razor sharp beak that it used to eat entire bushes at a time. It just slowly drug it’s self along devouring one bush after the next. The rest of my friends didn’t pay to much attention to it apparently they had seen them many times before and new they were no threat to us. On the other hand I also saw some other things that appeared slightly less benign.
Some resembled wolves and large wildcats. These on the other hand my friends paid great attention to. Several of these creatures prowled above us in the branches of trees and tall roots. They stalked us for a while growling and drooling until Gohn raised his arm and shot three darts at one of the biggest ones. There must have been a different pathogen on that dart because instead of falling over into convulsion like the pig beasts had before this one let out a terrifying roar. The skin around where the darts had pierced the beast in its upper right leg melted off as if being burned by some extremely potent acid. The wounds opened and festered with a smell that burned in my nostrils. The creature’s leg burned clean off, but the acid continued up into the chest area. I began to feel almost sorry for the thing as it started to whimper in despair. As the skin around its chest dissolved I could see it vital organs. The girls looked away as it began to writhe in its torment. The acidic disease continued, after several of the internal organs had been destroyed the pathetic display ended and the creature finally laid still. Its pack had stood motionless and watched the death of their leader. They looked back at Gohn and then quickly bounded away back into the forest. “We shouldn’t have to worry about any of those attacking us for a while.” Gohn said.
“No kidding the way that thing died I doubt anything within a two mile radius is going to give us any trouble for the rest of this trip. Nice one Gohn.” Caulin said laughing.
I marveled at the display. It made me feel a little safer knowing how experienced these guys were out here. They all seemed to know what to do.
It seemed Caulin was right. After Gohn’s shocking display of force all the forest seemed to have emptied out of our way. We walked for another hour until finally, Scyll looked at one of her maps and said. “This is the spot that the unknown mutant was spotted by Janus’s patrol.”
Terry looked around and said. “ Okay, everyone keep your eyes peeled for a mutant that looks strange, and Caulin don’t kill anything until we know its not the mutant we are looking for. We need to find the thing alive and see what it can do then Gohn will sedate it and we will bring it back to the lab at the dome for testing.”
Caulin yawned bored by the whole thing. “ Yea, Yea, we know we were at the briefing too.” Terry just rolled her eyes.
“Okay, lets do this.” I said. Trying not to sound to excited, or nervous.
“Sounds good to me.” Gohn agreed. Scyll only nodded. We then continued on through the brush.
After a few minutes I stopped and scratched my head. “ Um, I just realized everything out here looks strange to me. What should I be looking for.” Terry smiled trying to hold back a laugh.
“How about you just follow us.” She said. “ You’ll figure this place out soon enough.” Scyll turned suddenly and pointed to a branch high above us.
“There is no way this is going to be that easy.” Gohn said in disbelief as he turned to look at the branch. He didn’t know how right he was. “ Unbelievably.” He added as he took aim with is right arm steadying it with his left as he had done earlier. “Looks like we are going to get home early tonight.”
The mutant was small. To be honest I would have sworn it was an oversized squirrel, except that the two front teeth that are on a squirrel were normally flat and the teeth on this thing were sharp. It’s tail wasn’t big and fluffy instead it looked like a rats tail naked and long, and finally it had claws. I mean its hands were claws. As I looked at it I almost laughed. We had stumbled onto the mutant squirrel from hell. It looked like the monster on a bad horror movie. One of those corny ones from the eighties.
Gohn aimed at it. The mutant just cocked its head looking at us in curiosity. Gohn fired, his darts flew like lightning toward the mutant, but the mutant was incredibly fast. It dodged to the left and the darts stuck harmlessly into the tree.
Caulin laughed “ Nice shot, ace.” He said. “ Now it is going to run away and we will never catch it.” But the mutant didn’t run, well not away at least. To our utter shock and surprise the mutant squirrel charged Gohn! None of us had time to react. Faster than we could move the mutant was down the tree and on top of Gohn. The thing began to dig its claws over and over again into his back and whenever he swatted at it, it would move to a new spot. It almost reminded me of a stupid British movie I had seen once, called Monte Python. Where a single rabbit kills an entire battlement of knights. It would have been hysterical if it wasn’t so serious. We rushed to Gohn, but the mutant simply jumped off him and onto Caulin. Caulin grabbed his staff and started smacking himself over and over in an attempt to get the rabid squirrel off. This thing was unbelievably vicious. After we all vainly tried to grab or even touch the squirrel beast it finally jumped off Caulin and into a tree. It then jumped from that tree to a different one. We chased after it. Gohn shot like a madman clearly furious, about the brutalizing he had received from the creature. The creature stopped finally in a branch out of our reach. It seemed to think it was safe because it knew Gohn couldn’t hit it with his darts. But Caulin had a different idea. He ran up to the tree and struck it with his symbiote. The staff released a huge pulse of electricity that ran up the tree even to the branch the mutant was on. He ran the current through the tree for several minutes. When he stopped the mutant fell lifelessly from the tree. Gohn picked it up by the tail.
“Well, its dead now.” I said looking the charred remains over. Gohn nodded with satisfaction. We all looked at the little thing then at each other. Minutes later we all broke out in laughter.
“That was the craziest thing I have ever seen.” Caulin said tears rolling down his cheeks because he was laughing so hard. “ I mean its only two feet long. And it was kicking our butts.”
It took us all several minutes to regain our composure. Then Terry said. “ I know we are suppose to bring one back alive, but I think this will have to do To be honest if that woke up in the lab there would be no stopping it.” she chuckled a little having a hard time trying to keep herself from laughing more. She rubbed her cheeks that were sore from laughing so hard. “ Ok, let me have a look at those wounds.”

Chapter 8 The fight

Chapter 8 The fight
Scyll reached into a small satchel that she was now carrying and withdrew a map made from some sort of leathery material. “Sector 32 is about two miles to our north.” She said as always speaking in her small timid voice.
I almost stopped to ask which way north was, but I realized that I could feel “north”. It was unexplainably weird, but I guessed that the symbiote, like many animals could sense magnetic poles, and it appeared that the symbiote relayed that information on to me. I shuddered a little. Having something else in my head like that was kind of uncomfortable. Though at the same time I began to wonder what else this symbiote could do.
Caulin and Gohn lead us into the forest. As we walked I saw small creatures scurrying here and there. Some resembled oversized insects, often having too many arms or abnormally large jaws. Though if I had seen most of these things back in my time I would have simply assumed I was in some remote South American rain forest. Up until that moment I had yet to see any “mutants” that really seemed too dangerous or disturbing. Like I said up until that moment. Because at that moment I found myself looking at something that did sort of freak me out. Caulin and Gohn had already started to square off with it
“Looks like this trip is going to be exciting after all.” Caulin said a cocky air in his voice, “ I got this one. David, just stand back and watch a pro.” The creature sort of reminded me of an oversized warthog… if it had mated with a bulldog. It’s body was devoid of any visible hair and it was covered in a putrid smelling mud. It skin was a brownish gray and it was full of fat. The jaw protruded from the otherwise flat face and two very long, in fact completely oversized tusks stuck out. The legs, and stance were what reminded me of a bulldog. They were short and bent inward, but also they appeared to be rippling with muscle.
The beast was clearly perturbed at our mere presence, and didn’t seem to want to let us just leave it alone. Caulin reached for his symbiote from around his waist. It straightened into his staff and he gripped if firmly in his right hand. The creature lunged forward in an attempt to gore Caulin with it large tusks. Caulin dodged to the left and smacked the creature on the back. Sparks flew and the mutant let out a terrible howl.
“Caulin!” Terry yelled “You have to keep it quiet, that’s a pack animal!” Caulin’s cocky expression faded from his face as he seemed to remember. At that moment I heard the responding howls that sounded identical to the beast’s.
Gohn sighed in a mixture of annoyance and frustration. “ Nice job.. Pro” He said, poising himself for an attack.
Caulin got defensive “ Hey, come one we can take a few of these things” he said.
“Easy,” of course as he said that the hog beast who had just recovered from the stun of the shock decided it was time to charge again. Not paying attention Caulin realized just in time to thrust his symbiote up in defense. The huge animal plowed into him. The creature leapt up and knocked Caulin down. Caulin’s staff was the only thing that kept the beasts mouth away from his face. Gohn leveled his arms at the thing, but before he had a chance to fire, Caulin’s symbiote lit up with an enormous charge of electricity. For a second the creature seemed to glow. Caulin bench pressed it off of him using his legs to kick its enormous girth back. Caulin jumped up and spun his staff thrusting it down, end first into the beasts stomach. He let loose another jolt of electricity on the thing until smoke started to come from the things mouth.
“Nice, now lets take his friends” Gohn said pointing to the six other monsters that had just approached from behind us. “ You want to solo these too?” He laughed.
Caulin scowled “ Will you just come one” He said clearly still embarrassed at the mistake he had made earlier. Scyll and Terry seemed to just laugh and appeared not to be overly interested in helping .
“There are six of them don’t you think we should help them out.” I asked them.
Terry just laughed. “O they can handle this. Those two are just being dramatic.” She responded with a giggle. “ I wouldn’t doubt that they could kill twenty of those things each without too much of a struggle. If they need help we’ll step in. Till then I tend to let them have their fun.”
As Caulin ran head first in to the group, Gohn hung back. He put on his mask and took aim. The two seem to fit together like a well oiled machine. Caulin stood in the middle of the beasts drawing their attention. As they took turns charging him. He would simply dodge then shock them. While he danced with them like some kind of Spanish matador, Gohn shot them. A few seconds after each creature had been shot it would stumble a moment and then fall over in convulsion. Caulin would then finish it off with a blast from his staff. They did this one at a time, until there was only one left. By this time the beast had noticed Gohn picking them off. He turned from Caulin and charged instead at Gohn. Gohn stood perfectly calm and took careful aim with only his right arm using his left arm to steady the other. The creature was no more than ten feet from him when he finally shot. The dart flew directly into the charging animal’s left eye and proceed immediately into it’s brain. This one dropped instantly and slid from its momentum stopping only inches in front of Gohn’s feet.
Terry applauded sarcastically. Then she stopped and looked down to her caudal who was standing next to her. All she did was make a small jerk of her head, and her caudal bent forward and it’s tail shot out in the direction of Caulin and Gohn who were now walking back. The tail flew by them. They spun around to see what was going on just in time to see that one of the pig beasts hadn’t had quite enough yet. It had gotten back to its feet and was preparing to charge them while they weren’t looking. The caudal’s tail wrapped around the neck of the beast and then jerked it backward like a dog on a leash. The beast struggle to get free but the caudal’s tail displayed surprising strength. The tail forced the monster down to its side and then squeezed. The beast flailed chocking for a moment then the tail spun around snapping it’s prey’s neck and turning the head completely around. After that the animal stopped squirming. The caudal’s tail quickly retracted and then the caudal jumped back onto its perch on Terry’s shoulder.
Caulin looked back to the now dead creature, then to Terry “ thanks” He said casually not as if she had saved his life, but more as if she had saved him some work.
“ No problem” She replied. “ Lets get moving again we wasted too much time already and we haven’t even made it to the sector we are suppose to be in yet.” We started to walk again my mind still reeling from the battle I had just watched. It was impressive I had to admit these guys seemed to have this down to an art.
Scyll matched pace with Caulin and said softly, “ You did a really good job back there. Even if you did lure the other six.” She smiled Caulin scratched his head apparently recovered now from his prior embarrassment.
“ Yea well you know I did that on purpose, I have to keep ole Gohn there on his toes.” Caulin said in his once again usual cockiness. “I mean if I take everything myself then Gohn will never get any practice, and then I’ll never get a real challenge in the sparring room.” Gohn laughed at the remark.
“yep, so getting mauled by that first one was just all part of your plan” He said mockingly.
Caulin nodded smiling. “ Of coarse what did you think I was actually caught off guard.” He said with a swagger in his step. “ I am never caught off gua-” Terry’s caudal shot its tail down tripping Caulin and almost making him fall down face first in to the ground.
“ What was that last part I didn’t quite catch it.” Terry said laughing
“ Dang it, will you stop doing that.” Caulin retorted. We all laughed as we continued down through the dense undergrowth. There wasn’t a path to follow. So we spent a lot of time pushing through vines and bushes and climbing over house sized roots. I extended a small claw from my symbiote and used it to cut through the foliage like a machete. The thick air filled my lungs with each breath, it was so wet I felt like I was in a sauna. Other than the first fight with the warthog mutant the rest of the trip to the area was rather uneventful.