Chapter 14: The Outlanders

In the weeks that followed life slowly returned to normal, but the words spoken on that fateful day were not forgotten. After we had all recovered from our wounds, we increased our training. If it is possible even Caulin’s workout routine became even more strenuous. Instead of leaving the dome only once a week, we went out twice. I was beginning to feel like I finally knew all the secrets of this new world, but once again I was mistaken.
Once again we left our dome, this time we would be headed to the south, rumors of some new mutant had once again been spread among the troops. We were sent to investigate these rumors. As before, when sent on an "official" mission Janus met us in the briefing room before we left.
We stood in the empty room with the two armed guards standing at attention. A small side door opened and Janus strode once again into the room, dressed as always in his black military uniform, and white mask. He started immediately into the briefing, "As you all know by now, yet another new mutant was believed to have been spotted in sector 58 to our immediate south. The reports are spotty. A glimpse here and there, but what we have come to conclude is the presences of a biped, approximately six foot, highly agile and remarkably strong. Two of my men were injured by it while on patrol." Janus paused for a moment thinking something in his head, then he continued, " This mutant is believed to be very dangerous. Be careful." Unlike before he made no idle chat, instead after delivering the briefing he left immediately. Me and my friends exchanged glances at the Generals unusual behavior.
We proceeded out of the dome. As we traveled we started to talk.
"Another mutant hunt." Caulin said with a sigh. " I hate these. They take forever and almost never wind up with a good fight"
"Now your just saying that because the last one we went on you got beaten up by a squirrel." Gohn said with snicker.
"I seem to remember both of you were beaten up by that squirrel." I said with a chuckle. Terry nudged me and laughed, while Caulin and Gohn gave me dirty looks. It was good to laugh again.
We took our time not really knowing where to look. The southern sectors were farther from the impact crater than even the dome, and the mutations in these regions were usually especially tame. That made this mission all that much more peculiar. Janus had said that there was a "dangerous" mutant out here, but why. What would some mutant of any strength be doing out here. In the weeks that had passed I had studied the records they had on mutant behaviors, in an effort to improve myself and maybe help our team. One thing I had discovered was that the stronger mutants generally required bigger prey which generally was also to the north. Even our last encounter with the large hunch backed mutant had fit these guidelines. It was far out of its charted territory, but it had gotten there because it was chasing the eponi herds. I pondered these strange facts as we walked.
"What’s on your mind?" Terry asked me. I broke from my thoughts and returned to reality. I looked back at her. " Well you have been awfully quiet for the past hour." She said.
I scratched my head and cocked any eyebrow. "Well I was just thinking that this seems to be kind of a strange mission." I said.
Terry knitted her eyebrows confused, "How so?" she asked. I explained to her what I had been thinking. "Huh, I don’t know what a strong mutant would be doing down here I guess I never stopped to question it." She said after I had finished.
Something about her saying that didn’t set right with me. How could she not have thought of that. She had lived here her whole life, and spent most of it dealing with these mutants. Surely, she knew more about their habits than I did, in fact I knew she did. Then why had this question not occurred to her, better yet why had it not occurred to any of them?
The forest here in this area was much tamer than the one to the north. We strolled easily through the undergrowth. I kind of enjoyed this lax trip, for me it was a welcome alternative to the excessive excitement of our past excursions. Caulin on the other hand was bored out of his mind.
"This is painful." He whimpered. " There is nothing out here. Lets just head back." Gohn laughed, " That’s the spirit Caulin, always going the extra mile."
Scyll consulted her map and said, "Well, we have covered the entire sector we were assigned to, and there is no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Maybe we should head back."
We started back. The trip was uneventful till we reached a small clearing in the forest we had missed on our first trip around. As we walked out into the clearing we stretched and decided to stop for a while. The area was soft and grassy and we were exhausted from hiking all day. We sat there talking for several moments.
"So this was a nice break, but I think we should get moving to make it back before dark." Scyll said after we had been there for a while.
Just then Gohn snapped his head up. "I just saw something moving over there." Gohn said pointing to a spot in the woods. We all stood quickly, each of us thought this might finally be the mutant we were looking for.
I saw a flash of movement in the woods, then again and again. Whatever it was it moved incredibly fast. Suddenly without warning a stone flew out from behind one of the trees and smashed into my face. I dropped to the ground and covered my face. Terry quickly ran over to me.
Gohn fired into at the area the stone had come from, but it was too late. Caulin drew his symbiot and angrily shouted, " Come on! Show your self!"
To our shock and awe an angry reply came out from the forest. " Fine! Dome scum!" I looked up my bleeding nose already repaired.
"What on earth, a human?" I cried dumbfounded. A young man walked out from behind a tree. Slowly cautiously approaching us, a look of pure hatred on his face. He was of an average height and build. He looked to be about my age. His jet black hair was long and wildly unkempt, he had a sloppily shaven beard matted with dirt. His clothes were that of a standard dome attire, but they were worn and faded from their original black to a kind of gray. On his back was a pack of sorts it seemed to cling to him. It had many long vine like extensions that snaked their way around his arms and legs. I assumed this was his symbiot, but I had to admit that as disheveled as he was I would almost have believed the thing was just a vine growing from his back.
Gohn staggered at the sight of him. He squinted and cocked his head to the side not believing what he saw. " Evander." Gohn said resentment laced in his voice. "
The intruder replied. " yes Gohn, its me. Did Janus send you here to kill me?" He spat on the ground as though the mere mentioning of Janus’s name left a bad taste in his mouth.
Terry spoke up. "No. of course not there were reports of a dangerous mutant in this area. We were sent to investigate it."
Evander scoffed and shook his head. " As if I would ever believe you." He said. "after everything you people have done."
I turned to my friends once again lost in the shuffle. " What the heck is going on? You guys know this creep?"
Gohn scowled, "Unfortunately, he is my brother." He said coldly.
My eyes widened in shock. "You told me your brother was dead." I said to Gohn.
Gohn sneered. " He minus well be. He abandoned me a little while after our mother died. He lost it and started blaming the dome for mom’s death. Then one day he just up and left to join the outlanders. "
Evander’s face turned bright red with rage. " I told you to come with me, but no you had to stay with your beloved dome scum"
I turned to Terry, still confused, " Who are the outlanders?" I asked.
Terry proceeded to explain. " Some people choose not to live in the dome." she said. " Some people do it because they don’t want to be fenced in. They think that we should learn to live in the new world. Others feel that the dome is unnatural, or even evil. Evander left after his mother died. Most of the others have never known their parents. Most of the time they die before they are old enough to remember, but Evander’s mother was fairly young when he was born. She was able to raise him herself, but inevitably the disease caught up with her. She fought the disease longer than most, and as a direct result suffered one of the worst cases we have ever seen. She died when he was thirteen. After that he blamed the dome for her death."
"Why?" I asked.
"Some people need something to blame, when bad things happen." Terry replied.
"Enough!" Evander yelled. " You don’t know anything! You mindless drones just accept it all! Well no more you have to pay for what happened to my mother!"
"Stop using her for your excuse for running away! You just couldn’t handle it. Dang it why can’t you just grow up!" Gohn screamed back at him.
I winced at the situation. I felt bad for both of them. I couldn’t imagine what kind of psychological problems one would develop having to spend his entire childhood watching his own mother die. I wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand I really didn’t want to hurt him, but on the other he really did want to hurt us.
Gohn leveled his arms at Evander, and slowly began walking around him. Evander stood seething, tensed, and ready to strike. His eyes traced Gohn’s movement around him. Caulin too took point on the opposite side of Evander from Gohn. Terry and Scyll both backed away unwilling to engage this opponent. I stood torn over what I should do.
Without warning Evander attacked. I was blown away by his speed and agility. The vines extending around his arms and legs seemed to augment his strength and speed. In the blink of an eye, he had spun around and tore through the ten feet between him and Gohn.
Gohn fire with both arms, his speed on the trigger made him seem like a cowboy out of an old Clint Eastwood movie, but it was no match for the lightning moves of Evander. The darts flew through the air, Evander ducked and dodged, fluid as though he had slowed time just for himself. Not a single dart so much as skimmed him. He reached Gohn and grabbed him by his neck. He lifted him off the ground and threw him over his shoulder. Gohn hit the ground and rolled hard. He winced cuts and dirt now covered his body, but he quickly returned to his feet just the same.
Caulin ran toward Evander, but he could not match his speed. In a single bound Evander was up and over Caulin, landing behind his back. He gave a swift backward kick knocking Caulin face first to ground.
I couldn’t stand by any more. No matter what life had lead him to this point. He was who he was, and I couldn’t let him hurt my friends. I charged him. As I ran I grew out a blunted claw to act as a club. I swung hard at his face, he leaned back, a clean miss. I let my momentum from the missed swing carry around and brought my foot around in a swinging kick. Evander grabbed me by the ankle and flipped me head over heels.
From my back I saw Caulin was on him again. The two exchanged blows, but Caulin could not manage to contact Evander with his staff. Gohn fired from a few feet away. Evander hit the dirt to avoid them, but in the process gave Caulin a chance to strike. Caulin’s staff went limp and as fast as he could he wrapped his symbiot around Evander’s neck. He then wrenched Evander to his feet and place him squarely open for Gohn to hit him with a few paralyzing darts. Evander struggled under the combined discomfort of being strangled and shocked at the same time.
I quickly returned to my feet to aide Caulin in restraining him. I grabbed his right arm as Gohn took careful aim with his symbiot. Gohn fired three darts in rapid succession. In that same instant Evander jumped and flipped over Caulin breaking free of his strangle hold and landing behind Caulin, as if that had been his plan all along. The three darts hit into Caulin’s chest with three dull thuds. Caulin collapsed instantly into a heap dropping his symbiot to the ground next to him.
Gohn yelled in frustration, and let loose a storm of needles peppering the entire area, not a single one hitting it’s elusive target. In a flash Evander was on him. He threw a single punch, that connected to Gohn’s jaw. The blow knocked Gohn out cold.
My eyes went red with anger. I sprinted across the field yelling the whole way like some crazed animal making its final attack. He stood staring right at me as I charged him, unmoving, completely without fear. When I was only a few feet from him I swung hard. A second before my blow landed, he raised his arm and caught my claw. In one movement he tore out the club I had grown, and with his other hand grabbed my shirt and jerked me up so I was face to face with him.
"Who are you? I don’t recognize you." Evander said roughly as he eyed me over.
"My name is David." I said returning his icy stare.
"He is from before the war. He was frozen, and we found him." Terry shouted. "Let him go, and leave us alone we never did anything to you."
He pitched me to the ground, and looked around at us. Caulin began to regain his mobility and shifted up to look at him. Gohn shook off the disorientation of his blow and rubbed his jaw in pain. I continued to look up at him from my back. He sneered in disdain. "Just get out of here." He said turning and walking away. After a second he stopped and turned back to face us. He looked each of us in the eye, but paused for a long time at me, before finally turning again and walking out of view.
Terry rushed over to me and helped me to my feet. Gohn stood kicked the ground in frustration. Scyll knelt down beside Caulin checking to make sure he was alright. I walked over to him with Terry. She dug through her satchel and pulled out a syringe and injected Caulin with a stimulant to counter the paralytics from Gohn’s darts.
Once Caulin was back on his feet he started to complain. " Why on earth did we let him go?" He ranted. " He deserves to get the crap beaten out of him for attacking us like that."
Scyll scowled at him in return. " I suppose you were just about to give it to him too. Right?" Caulin fumed, but said nothing.
We returned to the dome in relative silence, part because we were in pain, and part because we were humiliated. He was just one guy how on earth did he manage to take all of us? I figured life outside the dome must have to be pretty rough, and they had said that Evander used to be one of the dome’s best soldiers. Worn out and exhausted from the days exploits we each turned in for the night once we had made it back. Terry told Janus that we would file our report the next morning. So the others went to their rooms to collapse into a dreamless sleep, while I returned to my room to resume my sleepless dream.