The Dome Free online novel

Chapter 19: A Hellish Guest

2009-10-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Time slowed down in my mind as the nightmare continued. The creature charged toward us across the plane, its every footfall shook the ground as though the earth itself shared our dread. I tried with every fiber of my being to think of something, some way in which to escape or defeat the animal, but my mind was just kept playing the image of my head being crushed under those gargantuan talons. I could actually hear the sickening crunch of my skull, the pressure that made my ears pop and eyes tear up.
There were suddenly several faint puffs of air to my left, that came so fast it sounded like the propellers of a distant helicopter. I snapped back to reality and realized it was Gohn already firing away at our ever approaching enemy. I closed my eyes and bowed my head. As a long slender blade slide slowly from the sheath of my symbiot, I prayed a short prayer, “God help us” I pleaded under my breath.
My eyes snapped open and I felt myself fill with rage. I raised my now long blade high over my head pointed at the creatures barreled thick hide chest, and charged with everything I had left.
My fear was gone, my pain was numbed, and I… I was unstoppable. At least at that moment that’s how I felt. In my heart at that moment I knew that I would kill that monster.. Even if it brought me down with it.
As I closed the gap between us, Gohn’s darts whizzing past only inches from my head, I felt a final rush of adrenaline flow through me. When I met the behemoth, it roared its awful roar, and swung hard from above, its razor sharp claws aimed for my head. I rolled my shoulder hard forwards, hitting the dirt in a mid sprint somersault, the demonic claw raking down my back missing my head by a needles width. As I completed my acrobatic endeavor, I continued my momentum forward thrusting upward with everything I had determined to pierce its heart and end the fight with this single attack.
The force of my attack was strong in spite of my various injuries. I felt a twinge of excitement as my weapon hit home. A perfect unhindered hit right into the creatures exposed chest.
There was a satisfying crunch, but my arm suddenly felt light. In puzzlement, I looked up to symbiot. A feeling of complete despair and shock rocked my mind, as I watched in seeming slow motion my blade shatter into a hundred shards, destroyed on impact with the creatures still uninjured body.
I only stared on in disbelief making no attempt to cover myself from the blow of the monster kick to my stomach. Lucky for me the claws of its talons only impaled my obliques as my body fit easily between the creature “toes”. I flew back several feet landing on my back.
In the past several months I had come to know despair. It is a truly maddening emotion. Most people from my time don’t truly appreciate the totality of this particular feeling. I guess I would describe it like this, imagine working for years to finish some life goal, putting everything you have into that one project and then waking up one day to find it has all been destroyed. Take that feeling and multiply it by a thousand, and then you will still have no idea what it’s like to experience true despair.
I didn’t have anything left. I didn’t even have the energy to look away as the vile being stood over me. I felt a sudden gust of wind brush over the tall grass all around us. It washed over me like a final blessing. The soothing kiss of sorrowful angel.
I’m sure my friends were doing everything in their power to save me, but I knew it was over…….. Thank God I am not always right.
There was a unexpected shout from my left, an unfamiliar cry. Instinctively, I rolled my head over to see what it was. Suddenly there was a flash of movement from the tall grass that surrounded our battleground, as a tall figure leapt from the hidden area. It moved like the wind itself a blur of white headed straight for me and my current opponent.
To my surprise, the figure was a man. Though towering above me, there in front of that monster he looked more like some mythic being, sent from God to protect us. Long mangled black gray hair fell around his shoulders framing his worn face that was so stern and emotionless it could have been hewn from stone. A long lab coat hung loosely from his broad shoulders twisting and flailing in the now growing wind. It was worn tattered and stained. It’s once white fibers were now a dingy faded mix of black brown and gray, and at the shoulder blades of the coat were two large tears with dark red blood stains that made it look like two demonic eyes were staring at you.
Without a word or even a look the strangle man engaged the creature. The beast roared infuriated at this intrusion and lifted its right arm into the air to skewer this new morsel, but the man made no indication of fear. He only continued to stare at the beast with his stone face. As the claw of the monster sped down toward the mans head, he quickly lunged forward dropping to one knee directly under the creatures belly.
Without warning a third arm tore up from one of the bloodied tears in his coat. The arm was inhuman, it was black and bony. It seemed to be attached to man in a way that allowed it to fold down through the holes and cling tight to his back, with a sort of reverse joint, so it would be able to come easily over his shoulders. At the end of the arm was no hand, but a pincer like claw. While shut it came to a sharp point and when open had only two sharp flexible digits….and it was fast very fast.
With one single fluid movement the arm tore into the belly of the creature and the retracted. The whole movement took no longer than a blink of an eye, and there in the pincer of the mans symbiot was the creatures heart. The stunned monster only stared on. It made no sounds of anger. No roar bellow or even grunt. It lurched hard to the left and fell in a thunderous heap. The mans symbiot dropped the heart in the dirt and he turned to face me for the first time.
His small brown eyes were barely visible under his disheveled hair, but as I looked into them, they seemed hollow to me. As though he looked through you. Wisdom showed in the many creased lines of his face though they were hidden as well by a thick beard. Furthermore, he hung his head downward so a constant shadow was cast over what little could be seen of his features.
“This one was a female.” The strange man explained unsolicited. “you can tell by the extra claw on its left hand.” We all continued to stare at the man in disbelief still too shocked for words. “The females have a very thick breast bone that protects the baby while they are pregnant. That’s why David’s attack failed. If you want to strike at the heart you have to reach under the breast plate from the abdomen. It is an easy mistake to make.” when none of us responded to the gruff mans lecture he turned to me. "Are you alright David?" he ask not even the slightest hint of real concern or any other emotion for that matter showed in his stoic visage.
"I ...I am fine" I stammered finally. Millions of questions flew through my mind, who was he, how did he know my name, what in the hell was he doing out here..... The list went on and on.
But it was Terry that asked the first question "How old are you?" she whispered an air of desperation laced in her voice. I arched an eyebrow at her question as I slowly picked myself off the ground. I looked at our savior once more and the light finally clicked in my head .
My eyes widened as I realized what all my friends had seen immediately. Scyll had told me that nothing in this world lives past 30 yet this man standing here now looked to be at least 40.
The man smile, the first human expression he had shown thus far. He lifted his head peering directly into Terry's eyes from under his matted hair. " That was sooner than I expected. I must be looking worse than usual today. I know what you are really asking though... And sadly the answer is no. I suffer from the same affliction that plagues each and everyone of you. " he said in his deep gruff voice. " I have just been fighting it longer than most. Though, I am not quite as old as you probably think I am."
"How have you managed to stay so healthy if the disease has been active in you for that long?" Gohn pried suspiciously.
The man grunted out a coarse laugh. "I am far from 'healthy' but I would have to say that life outside the dome is hard ....hard enough to keep you going through it. Regardless of the pain.”
My mind was reeling, a moment ago I was sure I was dead. Now I stood facing a man that had done in a single blow, what had taken, all of us, everything we had, to accomplish. "Who are you?" I said finally.
The man looked at me his face returning to its statuesque appearance as he once again lowered his head. His eye pierced mine as he peered at me from the shadows of his face. When he finally spoke the words were slow and deliberate. “My name is Virgil. I am here to show you the way.”
“The way.. To what?” Scyll asked softly still kneeling next to Caulin. She looked exhausted tear stains still covered her face. The events of the day had clearly taxed her more than she would ever admit. Though looking around I guess the same could be said about any of us at that point.
Once again the stranger spoke, “ I know that you have been searching for a mutant, and that that mutant is believed to live near the impact crater. I have traveled that far before, though not without difficulty. We call it hell’s basin, because the things I saw there would bring fear to the devil himself. Nevertheless, if you are willing to follow I will be your guide through hell.”
We stood in stunned silence. None of us could have ever expected to find someone who had made it that far out alone and survived, but after what he had just accomplished I was inclined to believe him.
I looked to each of my friends trying to get a feel for what everyone was thinking. Caulin still lying on the ground looked confused his brow knitted in thought still trying to get a handle on the situation. Next to him Scyll was biting her lip a pained expression of fear and uncertainty showed in her soft eyes.
As my eyes drifted to Gohn I instantly knew what he was thinking. His demeanor was unmistakable. His body was stiff, tensed to the point of breaking. His jaw was clenched so hard that his face had gone blood red, and his fists were trembling. Finally he could hold it in no longer. “WHY WOULD WE EVER TRUST YOU!!!” he screamed. “YOU BETRAY US AND SEND YOUR MEN TO ATTACK US. YOU TRICK MY BROTHER INTO LEAVING THE DOME! TELL ME PLEASE WHY SHOULD WE TRUST YOU?!”
“because we have no other choice…” Terry said slowly. “This is our only real hope.”
Gohn spun around to face her, his eyes bulging from his sockets as the normally aloof young man struggled to control himself. “WHAT!!! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!! WE CAN MAKE IT THERE ON OUR OWN! WE DON’T NEED HELP FROM TRAITORS!”
“No……we can’t Gohn.” Caulin said with uncharacteristic wisdom. He stood slowly clutching his broken body as he did. Scyll cringed attempting to pull him back off his feet, but Caulin shook her off as gently as he could. “I above all hate to admit weakness, but we were dead a minute ago man. He just did something that no man in the dome could have done. If we seriously want to do this we will need his help.”
Gohn’s shoulders sunk defeated. He walked toward the edge of the clearing, as he passed me our eyes met and he muttered under his breath “we just can’t trust him”.
I looked back to Virgil, our mysterious savior. His rugged face looked back at me always singling me out of the group. I chill ran down my spine. “Why do you want to help us,” I asked. “ I thought the outlanders hated the dome.”
“Hate is a strong word, David.” he said once again calling only me by name. “ We chose not to live in the dome, and there are as many reasons for that as there are outlanders. I personally chose this path because I want the freedom to choose…my way of life and where I go. I think that mankind can survive in this new wild and someday thrive once again. I fear that staying confined in the dome will only weaken us as a people. As to my reasons for wanting to help you that is simple enough. I am a human. I wish for nothing more than for mankind to survive. I know that only the dome has the ability to cure this disease. So I will do everything in my power to help you reach that goal.”
I looked to Terry. Her face was solemn, the playful smile I loved was gone from her face as she considered the help from this total stranger. More than any of us I knew that Terry was driven to complete this task. This mission that she seemed to have taken on as her sole responsibility. I still didn’t understand why she was so committed, what secrets from her past made her feel so much more connected to this than most others in the dome, but at that moment one thing I did know was what her response would be. “We will do it.” She said finally. “We will have to return tonight to get supplies from the dome. When and where do you want to meet us?”
Virgil nodded in approval, “Leave when you are ready, and I will find you.” and that was all he said. We watched the enigma as he slid silently into the tall grass all traces of him seeming to vanish the second he left our immediate sight, and once again we were alone in the treacherous wild.
The hike back to our mounts was a silent one. Each person reacting to this sudden unexpected change of events in their own way. I lead the way back using my symbiot to blaze a trail through the tall grass. Terry and Scyll both helped Caulin walk behind me, and Gohn sulked in the back still fuming about our new “ally”.
When we made it back Terry and Scyll tended to Caulin with a few extra medical supplies we had left near our camp. As I worked on loading the basilisks up Gohn approached me. I eyed him over seeing he was still in a foul mood. “Are you going to be ok with this Gohn?” I asked him.
“no.” he said flatly, “but seeing as how I have little choice in the matter now, I am willing, if for no other reason than to tell you I told you so when he screws us.” He grabbed up a pack and shoved it roughly onto his mount, and then sighed, “He stole my brother from me David. We used to be close. After our mother died, he had a hard time dealing with things. Back then he was a lead soldier in a special combat squad, he used that to take out his anger. One day his team was attacked by a group of mutants and apparently Virgil saved him after the rest of his squad was dead. It was a month before he returned, and it was like he was a different person. He came in ranting about how the dome was evil and everyone in it were just mindless drones. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. When I refused to leave the dome with him. He never spoke to me again. That was five years ago. The first time I saw him again was on that excursion with you. Virgil brain washed him somehow. I am warning you…I won’t let him do the same thing to us!” he took a deep breath trying to calm himself down. “You are like a brother to me now David. I need you to tell me you won’t let him do anything that will jeopardize this mission. We are the only hope for the dome, and I think it is obvious why he would want to interfere with that. I go along with this, but only till we get the source and our only mission is to get the source. Nothing else he says will affect you or me.”
“ok, Gohn.” I swore, surprised at his seriousness. “We won’t let him do to us what he did to your brother.” I said the words, and I wanted to believe them, but how could we do this if we don’t trust him. We can’t do it without him so we will just have to take what we can get. My mind flashed back to the picture of Virgil’s face. His deep piercing eyes. Can we trust him…….

Chapter 18 Pleasant memories

2009-08-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

We hiked through the thick brush till we had reached the top of the hill Jessica had pointed toward. Sure enough as we peered over it we saw a great expansive plains. It followed next to a long river that wound its way up for miles. Even from where we stood we could see an innumerable count of wildlife, big and small every shape and size. Even my friends couldn’t contain their awe.
We stood there jaws agape as enormous herds of eponi raced across the fields below us, and there were others too. A family of giant bear like animals emerged from the river and shook there thick fur hides dry revealing the rippling muscles that fur concealed. Farther down stream was a lone behemoth of a animal bathing in the water.
The creature easily stood two stories tall on all four legs, but it looked like the creature could stand up right if it so desired. I didn’t even want to imagine the size of it if it were to do that. The creature massive tail swung out extremely dexterously like an elephant’s trunk the animal used the tail to sweep water over it’s body. It’s front legs were slightly longer than it’s back legs and a gruesome retractable spike protruded from the forearm. It’s head was small, and mildly disfigured by the large protruding lower jaw.
Needless to say the other animal steered clear of this brutish thing, I felt that we should do the same.
"Wow." Terry whispered. "I have never seen so many mutants in one place."
"I know." Scyll added. "I can’t identify half of these." She looked anxiously across the plain. " I don’t know about this. Maybe we should find a less populated route."
Terry shook her head. "No. this has to be it." She sighed. "We can’t put this off any longer. That river will take us as close ground zero as any path in the woods, and at least out here we will be able to see anything coming from a ways off."
Gohn groaned. "Yea. That way we can get a good look at them before they eat us." He said. Caulin and I chuckled at that.
Terry rolled her eyes, "None the less, that is where we are going. Get ready we will make camp over in that grove for the night and tomorrow we will check out those plains before we head back to the dome."
Caulin snapped a quick salute. "Yes ma’am" He said patronizingly.
We set up a quick camp using few trees as cover. The spot wasn’t quite as safe feeling as our last spot and as close as we still were to all those giant mutants it took the others quite a while to fall asleep. I took watch again. I told the others not to worry about taking shifts and just to get a goodnight sleep. Terry didn’t like the idea, but I was able to persuade her eventually.
I woke the others early the next morning. "Great the sun is almost up, I am so glad to be awake." Caulin grumbled looking around with his still partially glazed eyes.
Gohn sat up, winced and then started to rub his neck, "Sleeping outside is wonderful, I never felt so well rested." He muttered sarcastically.
As the others slowly started to clean up and get ready to head out, I climbed back up the ridge to scout out the path we could take down the cliff. From on top of the ridge once again I saw the open fields below me teaming with life. I scanned the plains and watched for a moment as the tall grass rippled like a wave from a sudden gust of wind. I let the air wash over me as I enjoyed the view. In spite of the ominous look of many of the creatures below it was hard not to feel refreshed in the warm dawn light and a cool breeze, but the day was just starting and this fair weather felt like a mask for the deadly world around us.
I found a place where we would be able to safely climb down. I tested the rocks to make sure the were sturdy while I waited on the others. A few minutes later others arrived and followed me down the path I had found. We then stood at the base of the cliff
starring across the plain. From atop the cliff the area had seemed enormous, but now that we stood at the same level as everything we were awestruck. The scale of our surroundings was immeasurable. Before the creatures we had seen looked large, but now even from a distance it became painfully clear that "large" was an understatement.
The grass came to our wastes and seemed to blanket the world around us. Gohn anxiously scanned the area. "This grass is so thick anything could be lurking ten feet from us and we wouldn’t even notice." He grumbled.
"We will just have to move carefully." Terry replied. "Lets go." We walked for a while. I was amazed at how long it took us just to reach the river, from the cliff it had seemed like a short walk. As we approached the river the grass became shorter and more rocky because of the river bed. We could hear the roar of rapids coming from about a mile downstream. The river here was enormous I scratched my head trying to think what river this could have been from my time, there seemed no way a river this big could have developed out of no where.
As we walked up stream next to the river we saw several of the same mutants we had seen from the cliff. The most intimidating of which were the bear mutants. They stood about the size of an elephant on all fours, luckily for us they currently were fishing up enormous trout from the river as we passed there were four of them, one had leered at us let out a terrible below when he saw us, but he seemed to occupied to leave his fishing position. The teeth on the bears reminded me of some sort of saber-toothed cat. Needless to say I was quite relieved that the beasts let us pass unmolested.
Scyll continued to sketch out crude maps of the area as we traveled, we moved slowly not really wanting to go too far before we had to head back to the dome.
Suddenly there was a sound like thunder that came from behind us, and the ground shook beneath our feet. We spun around and watched in surprise as a herd of eponi tore across the fields only about a hundred feet away from us. As they ran they devoured the tall grass with their sweeping mandibles leaving a nice low cut path behind them. A small cloud us dust sprang up from their trampling hooves and started to sweep over us. I coughed and waved my hand futilely attempting to clear the air in front of me.
Gradually the stampeding herd slowed by the riverside, by the hundreds the creatures waded into the water to drink and bathe. To our left there was a small wooded area, I squinted my eyes to peer into the small forest. Something about the trees looked out of place. Terry came over to me to see what I was looking at. "Do you see something?" she asked attempting to trace my line of sight.
"I am not sure, but.." suddenly I knew what I was looking at. My heart dropped into my stomach as my eyes begrudgingly made out the silhouette of the same type of mutant that we had run into last time we were near eponi. "Oh God…." I prayed. "Not again."
Terry looked at me with a puzzled expression. Her confusion was soon dissipated when the creature finally decided to make its move. It tore out of its cover ripping a tree from its roots as it ran. It was halfway to the eponi herd before a rippling scream went through the eponi herd. They were jumping over and trampling each other in an attempt to escape. Before we could move we were caught up in the middle of the stampede. Deadly razor sharp teeth of the eponi cut through the air all around us. We spun around this way and that, but in spite of our efforts I received a large gash down the side of my left arm, and Caulin got a slice on his calf when he narrowly avoided being gored.
We ran with the herd as best we could trying to weave our way out of the fray. All the while the giant creature tore through the eponi. It would kill one then leave it where it lied moving to the next one. We were not as fast as the eponi. It became terrifyingly apparent as the majority of the herd escaped that we were going to be left behind with the monster, and it wasn’t going to stop till everything still around it was dead.
The last of the living eponi finally scampered past us. The behemoth was currently chewing on the haunches of one of its kills holding it’s prey with one hand as it lumbered around looking for more to kill. I seriously considered running for my life, but last time the only thing that did was wear us out, no this time we had to go in fighting.
It didn’t take long for the beast to notice us, we were small compared to its normal prey so it wasn’t terribly interested in us, but none the less it wasn’t going to let us leave. It started to bound toward us almost like an ape using its forelimbs to brace itself as it ran.
Caulin licked his lips and took a deep breath, "So here we go again." he said a slight tremble in his voice.
"You think Janus is going to barge in to save us this time?" Gohn said half joking. We all managed nervous smiles at the remark.
A shudder went down my spine. The last time we had fought one of these I had almost gotten my head crushed, I didn’t want that to happen again.
We charged together attempting to hit hard and fast and catch it off guard. Caulin circled around behind the beast while Gohn distracted it with a steady fire of darts concentrating at the head. I charged straight at him growing out a long scythe like claw. Scyll’s symbiot screamed from her arm and began tearing at the beast’s right arm while Terry’s caudal’s tail wrapped around the left hand.
The creature was stunned by the force of our combined attack. Caulin stuck the beast hard in the back of the knee with his symbiot let loose a strong jolt bringing the beast to the ground. I jumped up onto its chest to deliver a final blow before it could react to our attack, but the monster pulled its monstrous arm away from Scyll’s symbiot, and with one massive swing, I was flung to ground.
The beast let out a horrendous roar, and climbed back to its feet. Drool fell from putrid mouth. We braced ourselves for the creature to attack. I wiped the sweat from my eyes. The beast eyed each of us. The ravenous ever hungering eyes passed from person to person until it finally settled on me.
I cursed under my breath. "Here it comes." I said to myself. I started to run to get away, but a thought came to my mind. Even as I thought it I felt like screaming "No you idiot!"
In the corner of my eye I saw Terry signaling for to run to her. I slowly shook my head. I made eye contact with each of my friends. Without saying a word they knew what I was planning. Terry’s eyes went wide. She shook her head violently in opposition.
I hesitated for a second, but it was too late to back out now. Finally, the beast lunged, the bloodied claws tore the very air . I took a deep breath cringing. My teeth clenched so hard that lost feeling in my face. Terry’s blood curdling scream pierced my somewhere in the back of my mind. The creatures massive hand filled my vision. At the last second, I rolled my shoulder back and dropped to one knee.
The creature’s claws ripped into my shoulder. I felt the muscles and bone wrench and tear. I couldn’t breath. I felt dizzy. The creature lifted me from the ground pulling me right up to its gaping jaws. Its breath reeked of death, and it made me nauseous.
I shook my head trying to clear my thoughts. I mustered all my remaining strength to drive my blade up through the lower jaw of my opponent. It let out a terrible cry and flung me to the ground.
As the creature writhed from my wound, the blade still protruding from its chin, Gohn and Caulin rushed in to finish the creature. Caulin wrapped his symbiot around the creature neck and let loose a series of jolts. With a strong jerk the creature fell backwards still wailing from my attack. I wasted no time jumping up onto its barrel chest, as I grew out a spear length claw.
Terry and Syll both used their respective weapons to hold the mutant's arms down.
I released the claw I had formed and held it with both hands pointing the tip at the creatures exposed chest. It snapped at me with its injured jaw but was still to disoriented from Caulin's shocks and Gohns darts to shack us off.
With one fluid motion I plunged the spear downward into my enemys chest. It let out a bellow of despairing rage as the mortal wound struck deep.
Then to my shock rather than give up and die the beast tore itself free of our combined shackles. I fell to the ground as the seeming juggarnaut returned to its feet.
We stared I awe at its sheer force of will. It bellow another awful roar, as if to say the fight was not over yet. It charged me clearly wanting revenge for the two barbs that stuck out from its mouth and chest.
I grew another blade and move back to my freinds for support. As the beast attaked I lunged foward slicing across its left leg. The monster ignored the new wound brought its fist down hard upon my back. I dropped to the ground the air nocked out of me.
Gohn came to my aide standing over me and firing his darts directly up into the animals open mouth. The wounds in its mouth quickly turned into deep holes, filed with blood and puss. The creature was forced to back away from us for a moment to regain its focus.
This gave me the cahnce to return to my feet and prepare for another go, but Caulin jad already beaten me to it. Once again from behind he struck the thing in the back with point of his symbiote making sure to keep his distance from our dangerious enemy.
unfortunatly, this distance wasn't enough and the beast with a quick turn and a short step managed to pin Caulin to ground under its massive foot. Syll's snakes viciously ravaged the leg of the beast, the assault went unnoticed. The creature raised it right claw to skewer him. Terry's caudal quickly caught the arm and held it from its deadly work.
None the less Caulin was fadeing fast under the weight of the tremendous foot. I arrived behind it shoved my blad deep into the back of the knee on the leg that held Caulin down. That did it and the unrelenting thing finaly steped off a now uncounsious Caulin.
This time however instead of charging any of us the creature merely stumbled a few feet and then collasped. Finally the loss of blood from its wounds had caught up to it.
To our relief, this time our opponent stayed down. It flailed about weakly for a moment and then layed still. With one final bought of rage it opened its ravenous blood soaked jaws and let loose a terrible howl. The howl persisted for several minutes, I held my hands to my ears to fend off the fallen animals moans. Slowly the cry faded until it at last went silent.
We each let out a small sigh of relief. Even Caulin was back awake giving a pained smile, as he clutched his ribs.
Terry rushed to treat him. Kneeling next to him and giving him a shot of painkillers, as Syll joined her at his side. "I can't believe we did it" Caulin said cheerfully in spite of his pain.
Terry brought her hand to his mouth. " try not to talk for a bit I need to make sure no ribs were broken."
I winced at that thought as I felt my own injures. I was quite certain I had a few broken bones. Terry looked over at me in concern. " are alrigh David?"
I straigtened up and tried to play off the tension of the moment. "of course who do think I am. Caulin?" Gohn smirked, but Terry just rolled her eyes.
"you have been spending way to much time around these two." she remarked with fake distain.
Gohn laughed "what are you saying we are a bad influence on Dav..." his voice trailed off as a piercing howl riped through our ears. ...a howl that seemed to be a twin to the one the behmoth we just killed had let out in its death throws.
Syll stood up from Caulin's side trembling as she looked out toward the origin of our shared fear." no...no not another." she cried louder than her normal timid self. " we can't do this again." her words tore at my soul... She was right. This was it.
Me and Gohn readied ourselves for the impending attack. Neither Terry nor Syll seemed to have the heart to even put up that much of a charade.
The trees shook as the new monster appeared. It was as if our last oppenent had been resurected to exact its revenge. The creature took one look at its fallen mate and then another back at us. A bellow of rage was our only warning as it tore out across the plain towards us.
We braced ourselves as best we could. "at least we will go down fighting" Gohn said under his breath. I don't know if the remark was a serious one or not because at that moment it really did seem like we were about to "go down".

Chapter 17 Gun shots

2009-08-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Two days passed in the blink of an eye and already it was time for us to make another trip out. We met together at the cafeteria as usual and then headed to the stables we had gone to before to pick up our rides.
As I walked through the large training area, I found myself scanning the crowd to see if Hector was here again. My heart sped up as my eyes drifted from one soldier to the next, but when we reached the stables I still had not seen him. However, there was a tingling on the back of my neck that told me that somewhere, in that massive room, he could see me.
We rode off in the same direction as we had the day before. Our mounts flew through the underbrush even faster than they had before, after one trip there and back on this trail they had become familiar with it. Their powerful legs tore through the foliage, we hardly had to steer them as they followed almost exactly the steps they had taken a few days prior.
We passed the field the birds had attacked us in. Not a bone was left from the fight. The ground had been picked clean, most likely by scavengers, but to us it looked a trap that had been reset by a skilled hunter. Needless to say we decided not to there stop again.
We passed the place where we had camped. An anxious feeling built up in my stomach as once again we ventured further into the twisted forest. We slowed a bit as the basilisks became less familiar with the terrain. We looked around all curious of this new surrounding.
I saw that the trees in this area were actually getting smaller. They seemed to be choked by the underbrush. Vines climbed up each limb smothering them. The bushes were lined with thorns and seemed to dominate the ground.
We were forced to slow our progress even more as our mounts began to get cut repeatedly by the jagged plant life.
"Wow, I thought that the things were bad before this is crazy." I remarked. " If this gets any thicker we will have to get off and cut our way through."
Scyll nodded, " I think your right. We need to start looking to see if there is an easier path. Lets leave our mounts here and work our way around on foot."
Gohn sighed. " Yay. Now instead of the lizards getting scratched up we will be." he said sarcastically.
I jumped down from and reached up to help Terry down, but before I had a chance her little caudal sprang down from its perch on her shoulder and with its tail lifted her gently to the ground and then jumped back to her shoulder. She stroked its head.
I grew out a machete shaped blade and began methodically carving a path. We progressed slowly. Caulin yawned taunting me, "Hey David pick up the pace."
I cocked an eyebrow and then turned to him. I leveled my arm with the blade pointed right at him. I tensed the muscles and the blade shot forward. It whizzed by Caulin’s head and stuck into a tree next to him.
"Hey! What is the big idea?" He yelped in surprise.
I laughed, "there you go now take that blade and give me a hand." I grew out a blade for Gohn as well and we proceed to cut our way through.
As we slowly moved about Scyll jotted down notes about our surroundings attempting to put together a crude map for our next trip out this way.
Suddenly Terry’s caudal shot its tail out sweeping in a circle surrounding us. We stopped and looked over toward Terry. She signaled for us to be quiet. "He must have smelled something." She whispered.
We crouched together silently straining our ears in hopes of hearing what had spooked Terry’s pet. There was a sound of movement in the brush to our left.
Carefully we edged over to peered through the thorn bushes. Three tall four legged animals stood about a hundred yards away. They stood about ten feet tall and were thin as tree branches. Three quarters of their height came from their long legs. They had a thick scaly hide that showed through a thin covering of fur. They seemed perfectly bred for this thorny environment. They strode easily with a strange deer like grace.
Caulin sighed, "Well they don’t look very threatening. Terry, your caudal is too jumpy." He started to stand when a shrill shriek range though our ears. Our heads snapped back around just in time to see something spring from the trees.
It was a dark greenish brown that camouflaged it with the trees and had kept us from seeing it earlier. Its claws dug into wood and it crawled down the trunk with frightening quickness.
The creature had clearly descended from so sort of lizard, but though the physical similarities were clear the ferocity was unlike anything I had every seen. The creature leapt from the tree and sank its teeth and claws deep into one of the unsuspecting deer-like mutants. The remaining deer-mutants tore off through the brush like lightning, but the tree beast had already bagged its prey. With a sickening crunch the predator snapped its prey’s neck.
We backed away slowly, taking care not to alert the feasting animal. I took a deep breath. The sudden shock of the animals attack had taken me by surprise. I looked at each of my friends. A general look of discomfort was on all of their faces. Uneasily our glances shifted toward the trees around us. None of us would have been able to stop the creature if it had attacked one of us at that moment. It took the creature all of a second to kill its prey. There was no doubt that the world we were in now was even more dangerous than the one we had grown a costumed to.
"Can we really do this?" Gohn said, his voice just above a whisper. "Just the five of us, can we make it?"
Without stopping or hesitating Terry firmly answered him, "We have to." Gohn nodded back in agreement.
We walked for another hour in silence, still wary of our surroundings. The going was slow even with Gohn, Caulin, and I cutting through the brush we were still moving at a snails pace.
Finally, Caulin decided to break the silence. " I can’t take it anymore. We need to talk if for no other reason, we need to talk to keep our sanity. I don’t care if we are heard by the mutants out here, its not like they can’t hear all this chopping as it is."
Gohn sighed, "Yea, this will be a very long trip if we just edge slowly and quietly all the way there….. Though, making it there in one piece is slightly more important to me than being bored."
"We will be fine. I will protect you, my fragile little friend." Caulin said playfully slugging Gohn in the arm.
Gohn rubbed his arm and shot Caulin back an irritated look. He opened his mouth to say something snide in reply, but was cut off by Scyll. "Evander?" she said putting her hand to her mouth and pointing up toward a ridge above us.
Our eyes shot up toward the unfortunately familiar face looking down on us with hate filled eyes. Gohn’s demeanor instantly changed. Without saying a word he aimed his symbiot at the ridge. His fists were clenched so hard his knuckles were a ghost white.
From the ridge Evander shouted down at his brother. "In a hurry to start a fight," He said and then added with disdain, "little brother."
Gohn swallowed hard, as though he wanted to yell something in reply, but the usually verbose Gohn was at a loss for words. Instead he opened fire. Terry spun around and shouted, "NO! we can’t do this here its to dangerous." but her warning went unheeded.
With effortless grace Evander sprang from his perch, Gohn’s darts whizzed harmlessly into a random tree. Evander reached up and grabbed a branch high up on one of the nearby trees and with one hand vaulted himself like some sort of monkey, higher into the air, positioning directly over Gohn.
Gohn continued to fire fruitlessly into the branches, but Evander was just too fast. Finally, He came to rest on a branch over Gohn’s head and pushed off of it straight toward the ground. Caught off guard by the sudden attack Gohn staggered. Evander hit him head on, and the two of them went rolling into a briar bush nearby.
As quickly as he had attacked Evander leapt back into the branches. Caulin ran forward and struck the tree with his symbiot. Sparks flew from the branches as Evander from that tree to another, but not before the shock reached him.
Sparked from the blast he missed his target branch and tumbled back to earth. Caulin cheered for himself as Terry rushed to Gohn to help him out of the thorns
"Serves him right." Gohn muttered picking the bristles out of his hands.
Evander still un-phased returned to his feet, a large cut now showed down his right arm. "You are going to pay for that dome scum." He cried in anger.
He charged us again. Gohn fired several rounds, but was still unable to hit him. Caulin stepped forward with renewed confidence after his last "victory". I grew out a club and readied myself.
Evander reached us in only an instant. He jumped up and kicked off a nearby tree trunk and flew into Caulin, knocking him to the ground. I stepped up and swung at the back of Evander’s head. He leaned forward dodging my swing and kicked backwards at the same time. His foot connected with my chin and I sprawled down to the ground.
I rubbed my chin in pain and returned to my feet. Evander was squared off with Caulin. Caulin held his staff up defensively and the two of them circled each other each one waiting for the right time to strike.
I signaled to Gohn to move in behind him. Slowly Caulin, Gohn, and I circled around Evander. His eyes darted back and forth between us as turned paying close attention to every move we made.
As I looked into his cold eyes my mind flashed back to the that day in the military training area. Where Hector had squared off against a group of enemies with that same look in his eyes. I shuddered as I recollected what happened then.
I struggled to think of some sort of plan that would counter act his frightening strength and speed. I looked over toward the girls. They stood at the edge of our little fight. There was a look a fear and sadness in their eyes. I could see Scyll held her right arm tighter than usual, clearly they didn’t want to participate in this fight, but both seemed afraid if they didn’t something bad would happen.
I returned my concentration to the fight at hand. This stalemate wouldn’t hold much longer, the emotions were running far to high. I had an idea. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all I had. Before the others had a chance I rushed Evander.
With lightning reflexes he spun toward me and braced himself for my attack. As I ran I fired my club out at him. He easily dodged it. Before I reached him I grew another claw this one was sharp at the tip. Once I was in arms reach I swung at him as hard as I could.
Of course he dodged the attack with ease. By now Caulin and Gohn were coming to join the fight as well. As my blade skimmed by Evander’s chest, he grabbed my arm and spun me around bringing my own blade toward my throat. He then positioned me so that I was between him and Gohn.
"You had better lower your arms little brother." Evander said. " Those darts my hurt your friend."
Caulin and Gohn both froze. Scyll gasped. Terry screamed, " Evander! Stop this!" but he just sneered.
I looked forward at Gohn and with a faint smirk I said, " Fire away Gohn." Evander’s eyes opened wide not believing what I had said. He looked up just in time to see Gohn’s arms raised and ready to shoot him through me.
Caulin and Scyll looked on in disbelief and Terry started to yell something, but before anyone could do anything a loud crack rang out through the forest. The noise was loud, louder than anything in this new world ever was, but the sound was vaguely familiar to me.
We all stopped, like curious children and looked around for the source of the noise. Slowly each of our gazes landed on a ridge about a hundred feet away. A small girl stood atop the ridge brandishing a handgun in the air.
She kept her long blond hair up out of her face using a small bandana that seemed to have been cut from an old shirt. She looked to be about the same age as Gohn and Scyll. Her clothes were tattered and dirty, just like Evander’s, repeated use outdoors. She had an athletic build clearly developed from years of rough living in outside the dome. The most defining feature about her was the fact that she was geared from head to toe with guns and ammunitions. At her sides were two handguns in addition to the one she held, and strapped to her back was a large automatic rifle equipped with an impressive scope.
She slid down the ridge and nonchalantly walked right in the middle of our little fight, positioning herself directly between Gohn and Evander. She completely ignored us and looked right at Evander.
Evander stared back at her coldly, "Jessica, What are you doing here?" He said irritated.
The girl scoffed, " Well I am about to shoot you in the leg." She said pointing her gun at him. " What on earth are you doing?"
Evander sneered, " Get lost, this has nothing to do with you." He replied still holding my arm tightly.
Jessica sighed and put her hands on her hips the way girls do when they get angry. " Nothing to do with me huh." She said. "Virgil, sent me to watch you because for some reason he was afraid you might do something stupid. Well I can easily see here that he had absolutely nothing to worry about." She continued sarcastically while haphazardly waving her gun around the area.
My friends all looked one in confusion. It took me a moment to realize they most likely had never seen a gun in their life.
Jessica continued, " You were given precise orders, find them and report back. Even I thought you couldn’t possible screw this up, but I underestimated your immense stupidity." I laughed a little despite my circumstance. The girls sarcastic tone reminded me a little of Gohn. She put her hands to her head and massaged her temples and then said. " Good grief Evander. Let go of him I can’t talk to you seriously when look this stupid."
Begrudgingly Evander released me and immediately began to walk away. Gohn quickly brought up his symbiots and aimed them at Evander, " You are not going anywhere." He shouted.
In an instant Jessica’s gun snapped up pointed directly at Gohn. "Yes he is." she said calmly.
Gohn brought one of his arms over and aimed it at Jessica. "What the heck are those?" He asked
"they are guns from my time." I said. Then looking at her I added, "Where did you get those?"
She looked over at me. "around." She said, "We scavenge a lot of things and then refurbish them. It may not be as pretty as life for you dome dwellers, but we get by." She added the last part with a hint of bitterness. Though she didn’t seem to like the dome she did not seem to share the seething hatred of it with Evander. Slowly she lowered her gun and said, " Virgil asked us to find you."
"Who the hell is Virgil and what does he want us for?" Caulin yelled still wound up from the fight.
"I guess you could call him our leader." Jessica answered. "as for what he wants, I honestly don’t know he doesn’t usually take much interest in dome dwellers." She started to walk off after Evander, and then called back to us. "I imagine he will try to contact you soon, now that we have found you. By the way if you head about a mile to west over that hill there is a clearing that you can use to travel easier through this area."
Terry stepped forward. "Why are you telling us this. How can we trust you?"
"Do what you want." She replied indifferently. "But I will give you this warning. The clearing is a well traveled feeding ground for larger mutants. The travel will be easier and you won’t be bothered by smaller stealthier mutants, but keep your eyes peeled because every once in a while you will hit a very big one." With that she disappeared over the ridge.
Gohn shook off the stun that seemed to have settled over all of us and said. " Are we really just going to let them walk away after everything that just happened. I want some answers."
"Answers or revenge?" Scyll asked softly. Gohn shot her a look and she bowed her head quickly.
I straightened myself up and looked off in the direction the two outlanders had left. Who were they and what were they up to. I looked over at Terry. She was giving me a sour look. I cringed as she walked up to me. "What were you trying to pull back there?! Were you seriously going to have Gohn shoot Evander through you?!" She yelled.
"I.. Uh.. Well," I stammered. "I would have been ok. You know I recover fast."
She clenched her jaw and turned away from me. "Reckless moron." She muttered. "We should get going, and at least check out this clearing before we make camp for the night." She said marching away toward in the direction Jessica had indicated.
"Hey wait!" I called, but she kept going and ignored me completely. Scyll caught up with her and they walked together. Slowly I fell into step with Caulin and Gohn. Gohn walked silently still sulking, but Caulin wouldn’t stop talking.
"Ouch are you going to let your woman talk to you like that?" He teased completely over the fight we had just finished.
"My woman?" I asked rolling my eyes then with a sigh I added. "Shut up Caulin" That sparked a slight smile from Gohn as we continued after the girls.

Chapter 16 Uncharted territory

2009-08-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

The nights were always long for me. Sleep is a nice tool to fast forward through an existence that is too painful to handle. We use sleep to calm down, keep us from driving ourselves mad with our own thoughts. I no longer had that luxury, but I had sworn that I wouldn’t lose myself to that madness again, for Terry, all my other friends, and now… for Mahlah.
I whittled that painful night away in the gym. Taking my frustration out on the various training equipment. All the while deciding what had to be done next. Tomorrow, after her funeral, we would set out. I decided that we would go as far as possible and spend the night outside. Hopefully, after a doing that a few times each week, going farther each time…Hopefully, after a month or so we would be ready. We would be ready to find the cure.
When morning had come I was all set to convince them of my plan, but when I got to the cafeteria they were already there. Caulin looked up and nodded to me as I approached. "You look tired, man" He said concerned. " Did you rest at all?"
"Of course I did." I lied. "So I have been thinking about how we should do this. I think we should go out today. Right after Mahlah’s funeral. We can go out as far as possible and then camp outside for the night. We will come back the next morning, but I think I would be a good start at making a break into uncharted territory. I know we weren’t planning on an excursion today but…" I trailed off. The others were exchanging worried glances. I swallowed hard and tried to continue. " Look, I know I am the least qualified person here to be making plans like these, but I just feel like this is the best thing for us to do."
Terry’s eyes watered a little. She bit her lip the way she always does before giving me bad news. "David, its not that. We all agree. That was actually kind of what we had planned anyways, after we left you last night, but…" She sighed deeply. " But as for Mahlah’s funeral." She paused. "Hector had her cremated early this morning."
I stood frozen. My mind struggled to understand. I looked up and asked, " Why so soon?"
Terry winced not wanting to answer, but she did anyways. " Hector, didn’t want anyone else there. He said he want to do it alone."
I closed my eyes and shook my head, " You mean he didn’t want me there." She averted her eyes and said nothing. I took a deep breath. " Ok, well that is his decision to make. I have to respect that. Well I guess that means we don’t need to wait. Lets go, we will be able to make it even farther this way."
The others looked up at me, concern and pity seemed to pour out of their eyes. I didn’t look back at them. Instead I started off toward the exit, but I could still feel their sad stares baring down on me.
We arrived at the main exit, still walking in silence. A guard stopped us, as we walked up. "Please, wait here for a moment. Janus wanted to address you before you went out." The guard said.
I turned to Terry with a puzzled look on my face. "How did Janus know we were coming?"
Terry smiled, "I stopped by early this morning and told him we would be going out today." she said. I smiled for the first time in a while. It was hard to believe that she knew me that well.
The guard returned after a few minutes with Janus. Janus stroked his chin and walked up to us. "So, Terry tells me that you guys are wanting to go out today even though no excursion was previously planned, and on top of that you are wanting to stay out there overnight." He said scratching his head. "I was wondering what spurred this sudden decision?"
I started to speak up, but Caulin beat me to it. "Well sir, to be honest I was the one who made the decision." He said slyly. I shot him a questioning glance. " You see, Janus, I was just getting so bored with our usual assignments. I figured that this way I might actually get to have some fun."
Gohn couldn’t help himself. He rolled his eyes and sarcastically added, "yea, it’s bound to be a great time. I don’t know about you, but it has always been a dream of mine to go out with no idea where I was going or what to expect." He laughed and then threw an arm around Caulin. "But I am sure it is nothing the almighty Caulin can’t handle."
Caulin scowled at him, while Terry and Scyll both stifled giggles. Janus continued to stroke his chin and eyed us all. Finally he spoke, " Well, I guess there is no persuading you, so instead I guess I will give you a hand." The last few words he said staring me straight in my eyes. " Please come this way."
We walked slowly down a long corridor that was attached to the room we had been in. I had never seen this area, and from the looks on my friends faces all but Caulin hadn’t either.
The hallway opened into another enormous room, this one was filled with soldiers. I had no idea the dome’s army was so big. There had to of been ten thousand men in there. My friends all looked around with wide eyes, curious of this unknown area in their home. Only Caulin’s eyes were downcast, probably the first time I had ever seen him be anything but his cocky self.
The soldiers marched around in well organized lines, performing drills and breaking off into several training areas. Their movements were crisp and well rehearsed, It was hard to believe a force like this had been wiped out the last time someone tried to venture into uncharted territory. Hard to believe and a little scary.
Everything in this area was larger than life. An entire obstacle coarse lay in one corner of the room, currently being used by some of the soldiers. The coarse looked rough, I wondered if even Caulin could complete it, without being exhausted. There was a weight room next to it that made the one we had been using look like a playground.
Janus lead us toward the far side of this room. As we walked I saw something in the corner of my eye. Four men circled one soldier in what looked like a small sparring wring. I looked closely at the man standing in the center of wring. His back was bare and a strange symbiotic backpack lay at the side of the wring next to his shirt. His fiery red hair was what gave away his identity to me. It was Hector, he was in the middle of a combat demonstration. Several younger soldiers lined the wring ready to watch his amazing abilities.
It bother me, that he was able to be here though. As his four opponents circled him I began to understand. For a spit second I was able to see into his eyes. There are several stages of grief. One of them is anger. From the look in his eyes, it was apparent he was stuck on that stage, but at that moment, I had to admit, I probably was too. Unfortunately, I think we were both angry at the same person.
Hector stood unmoving as the four men stalked him, like wolves in a pack. A quick hand signal from one of them was the only warning as all at once the four men charged him.
Hector stood undaunted by the assailants. As they approached he took a quick step forward toward one of his opponents. With a single fluid movement he side step the man and grabbed the back of his shirt, sweeping his feet out and throwing him head first into one of the other men. The two smashed their heads together and fell unconscious to the ground.
The other two men quickly backed off and started to recircled him. Again, Hector stood completely unnerved by the situation. Then without any warning Hector pivoted on his left foot and sprinted toward the combatant on his right. He was on him in a second. The man had no time to react. Hector grabbed the soldiers shoulders and kneed him hard in the stomach. The soldier doubled over and collapsed.
The last uninjured fighter rushed to his teammates aid, but Hector had been counting on that. As the final assailant reached him Hector dropped to one knee and lunged forward catching his opponent around his legs. With an outstanding display of strength and agility, he lifted the soldier off his feet and used the soldiers own momentum to flip him over his back.
As the last fighter lay stunned on his back, Hector spun around and stepped his boot on the soldier neck. The soldiers eyes widened in fear, but Hector looked away from him. His gaze landed firmly on me.
I froze and for that moment the crowded room seemed empty. He had known I was watching from the beginning. My heart skipped a beat. I could feel his anger from across the room. I soaked it in.
After an endless moment, he broke our stare and lifted his boot from the soldiers neck. Without so much as a second glance he walked back, picked up his symbiot and left the arena. Stifled cheers rose up from the ranks that had been watching, as he left the wring.
"Hey, David." I heard Terry call out from up ahead. " What are you doing, crazy. Come on." She smiled and beckoned me to hurry. I jogged to catch up with them.
Terry looked at me questioningly when I rejoined them. I tried to wipe the emotions from my face and said, " I uh, saw some guys sparring and couldn’t help but watch." She gave a sad smile, not quite accepting my answer, but she seemed content to leave it be for the moment.
We made our way through the rest of the huge room, weaving in and out of the ranks of uniformed soldiers, till finally we made it to the far side of the room. This far corner seemed to be broken into a series of small stable like areas. Each stable holding at least two or three dozen large lizard mounts, the same ones that Janus’s soldiers had used to rescue us from the behemoth.
As we approached a soldier emerged from one of these stables. He was guiding three of the large beasts out from their pins and leading them in our direction. The soldier stopped in front of Janus and gave off a crisp salute. Janus returned his salute and then took the reins from the soldier.
Janus turned toward us and said, "These Basilisk mounts can reach and maintain speeds of up to forty mile per hour. They are adapted for climbing through the dense undergrowth of the forest out there. With these you should be able to reach the edge of our charted territory in only a few hours." He motioned to the soldier who had just lead out the beasts. "Lt. Vincent here will walk you through the basics of handling them. I have to attend to some things, now. I trust you all will be safe in your trip. I will await your report with great anticipation." With a small bow he then took his leave.
I climbed up onto one of the monstrous lizards, and tried to get a feel for it. Gohn and Caulin each took one and then Scyll climbed on with Caulin and Terry with me. The lieutenant led us out of the dome through a back door.
The lieutenant showed us some of the basics for handling the Basilisk mounts. It wasn’t really all that different from riding a horse, except it was bigger… and scaly. However, Janus had been right about them. They were fast and perfectly adapted for life in the thick undergrowth of the forests.
After about an hour of practice we were able to handle the creatures well enough to head out. We thanked Lt. Vincent and started off.
The air rushed past my face as we sped along, climbing over giant roots and over the thick bushes. It was incredible to watch the scenery fly by as we moved. The familiar landscape that we had been training on for the past several months passed quickly before my eyes. It wasn’t long before we had made it farther than I had ever gone before.
As we rode I could feel Terry’s hands around my waist, holding me tightly. It was hard to stay angry in the midst of this blissful situation, but somehow I managed.
We moved so quickly through the forest that we didn’t run into any hostile mutants. The ride in truth was quite peaceful. So peaceful it made me sick. I didn’t feel like I deserved for this trip to be this easy. Plus, I needed something to take out all this frustration.
After riding for about two hours, we came upon a large field that opened up in the middle of the forest. The area seemed safe, we would surely be able to see any danger from far off. The others were tired, so we decided to rest for a little while. I really didn’t want to, but I decided it would best just to go along with the group.
We dismounted and let the lizards roam around a little on their own. The lieutenant had said they were well trained so they wouldn’t run off without us. Caulin fell back onto the soft grass. "Whew, talk about sore. Man I feel like my legs are going to fall off." He said.
Gohn stretched his legs and sat down next to Caulin, " No, kidding, but I have to say it would have taken us most of the day to make this kind of distance on foot."
Terry sat down on the grass next to me. She held her caudal in her arms and stroked it gently like a cat, its long tail twisted around her arms and then her waist. She looked over to me, concern filled her eyes. "David, you have been really quiet this whole trip."
"I know," I said trying not to look at her. " I am tired that’s all." She arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. I sighed. " Yea, I am sure she believed that one." I muttered to myself under my breath.
We rested there for a little while. The others slept, but as usual I had no such luxury. No, instead I stared into to the distance. Looking off toward the unexplored territory ahead of us. We were all so caught up in everything that had happened that we seemed to all have forgotten how dangerous it was out there, but yet, I knew that this was what we had to do. It was what I had to do, or I would never forgive myself.
A sudden cry shook me from my daydream, and woke the others. One of the Basilisks had gotten spooked by something. It was jumping around and screeching in a painfully loud way.
I looked around, startled by the sudden ruckus. Terry turned to me and asked, "David, what is going on?"
I knitted my eyebrows and shook my head, " I don’t know the stupid lizard just starting screaming for no reason." I said as I continued to scan the area to find the source of the beast’s fear.
It wasn’t long before the other two basilisks were freaking out too. Caulin threw his hands up in frustration. " I don’t see anything. Those things are losing it over nothing. Come on lets get the dumb things and leave."
It was Scyll that figured it out first. She looked down at the ground for a moment with a vexed expression. I looked to see what had caught her eye. I saw shadows dancing all over the ground. Slowly my eyes eased upward.
They were circling us, like vultures circle some near dead beast in the desert. The mutant birds looked so small, but as they circled us they descended from where they were high in the sky. As they descended it became apparent that these mutants were not small.
Their wings were leathery and must have had at least a ten foot span. They were grayish in color and appeared to be all skin and bones. At the end of each wing was a small hand tipped with sharp claws. Giving them a hellishly demonic look. Their legs were reverse jointed and as they flew were tucked up under their bodies. Their small heads were attached to short stubby necks and had long beaks that came to a very sharp point. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the basilisks were the stupid ones anymore.
I turned to Gohn, " What are those?!" I asked.
He shrugged, " I have no idea, nothing I have ever seen." He squinted against the sun trying to count them. "Man, there looks like a lot of them though." he was right there was a lot, more than I could keep track of.
Caulin laughed. "It’s about time this got interesting." He said pulling out his symbiot. "Now all we have to do is figure out how to get them down here."
Gohn rolled his eyes. "A hundred, most likely blood thirsty mutants are flying over our head, and Caulin wants to play." He sighed deeply and readied his symbiot. "Looks like it is going to be another beautiful day."
I grew out a long sword, and looked over at Terry. Her caudal was perched on her shoulder its long tail flailed out completely unraveled, it snaked through the air showing off its absurd length.
Scyll stood next to Caulin, looking up uneasily. Honestly, we were all nervous. Even Caulin gripped his staff a little tighter than normal. We had never fought so many mutants before, especially not ones that could fly.
Gohn raised his right arm and steadied it with his left. "Lets get this started, already." He said grimly. He fired six darts in rapid succession. The darts tore through the air and imbedded into six different mutants. Gohn chose the most putrid form of death for these poor beasts. As they fell from the sky they rained down gore from the wounds he had inflicted.
Caulin snickered, " Yea, lets see how they react to that." He said his cockiness returning as he relaxed a bit, and the mutants did indeed react, though not in the way we had hoped. In a swarm they dove from the sky, like a summer downpour. I raised my arms instinctively to fend them off, but strangely we were not their target.
I watched in disgusted amazement as the beasts landed. They walked on all fours using their wings as another set of legs. Nipping at each other they approached the corpses of their fallen friends. One of the larger ones stepped up first fending off the others. It stood over one of the dead mutants and drove its long beak into it, sucking out the innards.
Caulin turned and gagged in disgust. We stood by as the scavengers tore the six fallen mutants apart. In mere seconds there was no trace left of the fallen beasts, but it was clear that these hellish birds weren’t satiated yet.
Their attack was blindingly fast. The crowd on the ground tore back into the air all at once like dust kicked up by the wind. They circled us, the sheer number of them was astounding, looking at them from below I would have sworn I was looking up through the eye of some terrible storm cloud, and without warning once again the cloud opened up in a downpour.
My mind went numb. Different emotions bubbled up amazement, shock, terror, but above all those was rage.
The first of them tore through the air diving at an unfathomable speed right toward me. The razor sharp beaks closed in on me like a rain of daggers. I heard Terry scream, but I wasn’t scared anymore.
I thrust my blade upwards as hard as I could as the first one came close enough. My blade connected with the creatures head and the sheer momentum of its dive forced the beast to be spit open as I sliced through the air.
The others were suddenly spooked not used to such small prey fighting back. They flared theirs wings and circle me again. In the mean time my friends had broken from their daze and started to engage the demon birds as well.
In the corner of my eye I saw Caulin dodging left and right swinging his staff frying one after another as they dove after him.
Gohn stood by his side firing fiercely up into the swarm above us. The dieing birds fell from above in increasing numbers, but still they kept at us.
Another group came diving after me. I started running. The creatures flared their wings skimming the ground shooting after me. After about thirty yards I spun around just in time to slice the wings off the first two chasing me. The others blew by me, leaving a gust of air in their wake. I leveled my blade at one of the escaping beasts and fired it out just as the creature arced up back into the sky. The blade impaled it and it fell lifelessly back to earth.
I turned back to see how the others were handling themselves. They had huddled close together and were working with each other to fend off the attacks of the swarming birds above. Terry’s caudal flung its tail out snatching one after another out of mid-flight. Then dashing them to the ground. Even Scyll’s symbiot was unleashed. The ravenous snakes shot out from her arm in every direction each snake searching out its own prey.
Caulin stood his ground at the center of them and would fend off any of them that came to close. Gohn stood, still by his side firing relentlessly. Altogether they formed an impressive defense, in spite of being hopelessly out numbered, it seemed it was the attackers that didn’t stand a chance.
Terry looked worriedly toward me and beckoned for me to join them. I turned back toward the group that had broken off to come after me. They were turning around now to make another pass. I steadied myself growing out another long sword.
The beasts broke off into four groups and circled me again. This time they dove at me from every direction. I spun and my heel and sprinted off toward the one on my right. I jumped into the air to meet it and severed its head as it came close enough. As I landed I spun around as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Three of the creatures flew into me. I flailed up my arms and parried the first ones beak, but the next one skimmed my shoulder taking a large chunk with it. I fell backward and grabbed my arm in pain.
I gritted my teeth, furious. I quickly returned to my feet and launched my blade straight into the creature that was still chewing on my flesh. The blade sunk in just below the neck. Once again the bird fell to the ground.
The remaining two let out a blood curdling screech that made me cover my ears in pain. I looked up and saw a significant portion of the flock that had been engaging my friends break off and swoop down in my direction.
There was easily a hundred of them. As they sped toward me I could see their shadow moving swiftly across the field. It danced like some kind of mythical dragon. I could vaguely hear Terry screaming something at me, but my mind was lost in the fight. I simply stood there and grew out another blade to fight with.
I am not sure exactly what I was doing. Maybe I honestly thought I could win.….. Maybe I really just wanted to die, but whatever it was I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly.
I thrust my symbiot forward into them as the black wave washed over me. Like a mad man I flung my sword around slicing at everything that moved. I was coved in scrapes and cuts. Suddenly one of them knocked head first into me and we tumbled backward together. I struggled as the monster raked at me with its claws. I lied on my back with it pinning me down, the wave of black still flying only feet above our heads. In the midst of the frenzy over me, another bird raked its claws through the one that pinned me down. Then another and another till the creature fell over dead.
Still lying on my back I continued flailing my claw uselessly. Finally, they all were past me. I staggered to my feet preparing for the second attack. Now certain that this time I would not make it out alive.
Suddenly, there was a deafening roar that came from the forest behind me. The birds instantly started to screech amongst themselves. Their once uniform flock now broke. Each of them tearing off in different directions. There was another roar and then a new massive beast
erupted from the forest. Standing at least two stories tall this new creature had no arms or tail. It literally appeared to be a giant set of jaws mounted on two powerful looking reverse jointed legs. This new creature sprinted out across the field and then leapt into the air snatching four of the birds in its massive jaws with one snap. There was a nauseating sound of bones crunching as the creature inhaled its meal.
I stood there entranced as the creature chased the birds back into the forest disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. The few remaining bird mutants were flying off as fast as they could.
I could hear the others cheering. "Awesome we did it!" Caulin shouted.
"I am just glad everyone is alright." I heard Terry say. I began to tremble in anger. I wasn’t done with them yet.
I looked over to my left and saw one of them its wing had been injured and it was now pathetically trying to hobble away. "I am not done with you!" I sneered. In three steps I was on him. I plunged my blade deep into the creatures back. Then I started to hack into it. I heard myself screaming something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I just kept hacking into it. Like it had done something terrible to me, but I don’t think I was really angry at that wretched thing.
Finally I sunk my blade into the beast a final time and released the sword into it. I looked down at my hands. Once again they were soaked in blood. Without thinking I began to vigorously wipe them on the grass and dirt. I just kept wiping them as hard as I could, but the blood wouldn’t go away.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Terry’s face. Her eyes watered with the same fear I had seen that night. I snapped back to reality. I looked around at my friends fear and sadness was all over their faces. I looked back at my hands. They were rubbed raw. The blood I now saw on them was my own, but even as I looked at them I could see the cuts slowly dissolving away.
I stood up wiping the blood and dirt onto my pants. I swallowed hard. Looking back toward where the basilisk mounts had run away to, about a hundred yards off near the edge of the forest.
"We had better get going." I said coldly. As I walked away, in the corner of my eye, I saw a single tear slide down Terry’s face. My heart hurt for her. Why did I have to cause them all so much pain?
We rode on for about another hour after that, by then the sun had started to go down and the looming shadows of the trees were making it very hard to see. The fight with the bird mutants had slowed us down a lot, and we hadn’t made it as far as I would have liked.
"Hey David," Terry said over my shoulder as we rode. "it is going to be dark soon we should think about finding a place to camp for the night, don’t you think?" I reluctantly nodded.
"Look over there." Scyll said pointing to a small clearing that nestled up between to massive trees. " That looks like it would be a good place to camp. The roots from those trees will provide some decent shelter and there is enough room to make a fire."
She looked to me for approval, as if I had suddenly taken the role of leader for this particular excursion. I shrugged, " Yea, that spot looks fine." I said.
We tied the basilisks up near the entrance to our makeshift camp, hoping that if anything unsavory came around they would most likely alert us as they had before.
We cleared the camp site and started the fire. Afterward we unpacked some of the supplies from the basilisks and had a small meal of meal crackers, before lying down to rest.
"We should probably sleep in shifts." Gohn said. " That way we won’t be caught off guard, I will…"
"I’ve got the first shift." I interrupted. "You all look tired get some rest I will wake one of you up in few hours to take over."
Gohn sighed and then shrugged his shoulders. Caulin stood up and walked over to me. He put his arm around my shoulder. "Hey you know you could be a real sport and just pull a double for me. I got a heck of a work out today, and I really could use some beauty sleep." He said with a smile.
Gohn scoffed at him and then added as he rolled over to sleep, " What are you talking about Caulin? All the sleep in the world can’t help you." Caulin frowned and tossed a small rock at Gohn. Scyll and Terry both chuckled at them. I stomached a half-hearted smile, but at the moment I really didn’t feel all that much like laughing.
Terry pulled up a sleeping bag over to where I was sitting for my watch. " Wake me up first, I will take the next shift." She said.
I nodded, "alright. Goodnight." I replied staring off into the darkness around us.
I wasn’t long before they were all asleep. Gohn had to get up and force Caulin over on his side because Caulin was keeping everyone else awake with his snoring, but after that even Gohn seemed to fall quickly asleep.
I wondered to myself what I was going to tell them when they woke up in the morning and I hadn’t changed shifts with any of them. I had never told them about my problems sleeping, and honestly I didn’t want to.
I spent the next few hours listening to the sounds of this strange new world. The cries of animals, the wind whistling through the trees.
I stood up and climbed to the top of one of the tall roots that made up our shelter. I peered out in the direction that I knew we still had to go. We were already in uncharted territory, but we were still so far away, and even if we did make it. How would we ever find this "special mutant". I sighed deeply.
"You weren’t planning on waking any of us up, were you?" I heard Terry’s voice say from below me. I cringed at the veiled rebuke.
"Well I was going to get around to it eventually." I lied pointlessly, as I slid down to where she was standing.
We sat down together by the fire and didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, Terry cut to the heart of the issue. "it’s not your fault you know." She said.
I looked up at her. She had a troubled look on her face, like she was concentrating on the fire as hard as she could. I looked away, " I know." I said.
"Earlier, as you were…." She stopped searching for the word.
"Losing it?" I volunteered.
She frowned, but continued. " You were screaming, "I am sorry" over and over again."
I rubbed my head, anxiety about the memory was burning in the pit of my stomach. "So that is what I was saying." I whispered.
"David, you did everything you could for Mahlah. Even Hector will realize that someday. You can’t torture yourself about this. There was just no way for you to save her." Terry said looking pleadingly into my eyes.
Slowly I answered, just now coming to this realization myself. "I….I know. I know there is nothing I could do to save her, and that is why I am so mad." She knitted her eyebrows not quite understanding. Actually I was only just then starting to myself. "While I was watching her, from the second I saw her pass out. I kept seeing you. Even though I did everything I could I still couldn’t save her. It made me realize how powerless I am against this disease, and it made me really scared. Because I can’t just stand and watch that happen to you!" I said fighting back my own tears. " That is why I have to find the cure. Because I don’t know what I would do if I lost you."
Terry looked back at me stunned. Her eyes turned very sad. Quietly she said, "Everyone dies eventually, David. You can’t try to stop everyone from dieing. It is not possible and its not healthy. All you can do is make the best of the time you are given. Besides I believe that even after death, life isn’t over. Don’t you?"
My heart skipped a beat. I froze. She was right. I remembered my mom always saying things like that to me. I looked back into her now teary eyes. I nodded. She smiled back at me. That smile alone seemed to be able to make everything better.
We sat there for a long while after that in silence. She scooted close to me and laid her head on my shoulder. Within minutes she was asleep. I still decided not to wake the others. I wanted to think some more, alone. No, not alone. I would never really be alone.
As I sat there, I thought about Mahlah and the small amount of time we had spent together. I remembered her cute little daughter and I even remembered Hector. She really loved them. I looked back at Terry sleeping there next to me, and I let myself relax for the first time in what had seemed to be a very long time.
The sun rose early the next day. Small rays of light escaped the ominous forest ceiling and sprinkled down among us. Gohn was the first to squint his eyes at the new light.
Stretching, he looked around as though lost for a moment until he remembered where he was. He rubbed his eyes lazily and sat up leaning against the massive tree that constituted our shelter. He noticed me and with a yawn he said, "David?" he rubbed his temples trying to banish the morning fog, "Did you stay up all night?" he asked.
I nodded quietly. He cocked and eyebrow and started to say something, but I held up a hand and said, "It’s ok. I fine now." He frowned unconvinced, but shrugged and let it go.
Caulin stirred next, woken by something other than the early morning sunlight. Begrudgingly he sat up looked at me and then Gohn, his eyes still half closed. "I am going to use the toilet." he grunted.
"What toilet?" Gohn replied with a coy smile. Caulin took another look around and then cursed under his breath. He stood up and lumbered off into the woods, carrying his staff.
I shook my head and laughed a little. Gohn nodded at me, "Good to see you smiling again." he said. "You going to be alright now?"
I nodded, " better at least." I replied, I took a deep breath and asked. " How do you deal with it?"
He shook his head. "You don’t." he replied simply. " when you have been dealing with death your whole life, you learn just to …. To bury it."
" I guess I see why you don’t talk about it." I said. He only nodded.
Suddenly I heard Scyll’s soft voice from behind me, "That is why we fight." she said. "So that one day people won’t have to deal with this."
I turned toward her she was sitting up now as was Terry. My face reddened as I realized they had been listening the whole time.
Just then Caulin strolled back into the camp. " Well I feel better." He cracked his neck and stretched his arms and then continued, " How about we have some breakfast I am starved."
Gohn rolled his eyes and tossed him a meal cracker from his pack. " Come on lets get packed up we have a long trip home today."
Caulin caught the cracker and downed it in one bite. His mouth still full he grumbled, " Do we have to?" He gave a sidelong glance at the Basilisk mounts and sighed, "My butt is still sore from yesterday."
I loaded my bag onto one of the large lizards. "Oh you’re just scared that we are going to run into another pig-beast and you’re going to be beaten up again." I said with a chuckle.
Caulin sneered, "Since when is he in a good mood again? I think I liked it better when he was moping." We all laughed, as we finished packing up.
The trip back was much easier. The basilisks seemed to run much faster and easier when heading back in the direction of their home. We sighted several mutants along the way, even a few that the others had not seen before, but we encountered no real resistance. We arrived home well before sundown, but we were still tired and decided to rest for the remainder of the evening after giving Janus a short report.

Chapter 15 To learn first hand

2009-08-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

The next day both Gohn and Caulin told me they were going to take the day off and rest, the fight had taken a toll on them and they need time to recoup. I on the other hand did not. Terry and Scyll both had work to do in the lab, and didn’t need my help. So that left me for the first time in a while with nothing to do. I was suddenly reminded again that outside my circle of friends I was very unfamiliar with the dome and the people inside it. When I thought about it to be honest, other than Terry, Caulin, Gohn, and Scyll, I really didn’t know anyone. I set out that day to explore the dome and maybe meet someone new.
The dome was really very similar in structure to that of a small city. There were a variety of jobs, most involved some sort of biology, but not all. Those jobs were located throughout the dome. Besides work people in the dome did do other things for entertainment. Some chose to work out like Caulin, but most participated in other activities. I found on some of the lower floors several children played strange games that involved some sort of chemistry and manipulation of a sort of biological cube. The children would place different types of mineral cards into the cube and manipulate it to perform certain tasks. I watched the children play for a while, but despite my best effort could not determine the rules of the game.
As I continued I saw there were a great many children, even young children running around with seemingly no adult supervision. My old instincts kept asking where those children’s parents were, but then I would stop myself. Those children most likely had no parents.
After walking on that floor for a while I decided to explore a different one. I went to one of the lifts that was on the side of the dome. I reached into my pocket to get a mineral card, but to my surprise I hadn’t brought enough. I stood there for several minutes contemplating what I was going to do with no mineral cards. I would be stuck here till someone came looking for me.
Luckily, at that same moment a familiar face walked up to that same lift. It was the nurse, Mahlah, that I had encountered when I first woke up in the dome. She a had a young girl with her no older than three.
I approached them and said, " Well I haven’t seen you in a while."
Mahlah turned and a look of surprise came to her face as she saw me. " Wow, David I have been hearing a lot about you. You have become rather famous around the dome."
"I have?" I replied a little surprised. " Why is that?"
"Well first of all you never gave those scientist the interview they wanted, so you are still quite an enigma to the majority of the public. On top of that news about you and your friend’s adventures outside the dome is becoming common small talk."
I scratched my head a little embarrassed about my new found stardom. Just then the little girl tugged on Mahlah’s arm and said, " Come on. I am bored."
I smiled, "So who this little cutie." I said and tickled the chin of the little girl.
She nodded, "This is my daughter, Antigone."
"Who’s the father?" I asked
"My husband, Hector." She said.
"So your Hector’s wife? Wow, I have to thank you, he saved my life out in the wild a few weeks ago."
She smiled, "Yes, he does that, they call him the hero of the dome. Though, sometimes I just wish he wouldn’t take so many risks, I worry about him."
It was then that I remembered why I had approached her in the first place. I hesitated for a second a little embarrassed about having to ask.. "Um…yea so I was wondering." I said awkwardly, " but I don’t have any mineral cards on me and I was hoping I could share this lift with you."
She eyed me strangely, confused by what I had just said. "But why would you be out of mineral cards?" She asked suspiciously.
"Well this is the first time I have really gone out around the dome on my own and I never know how many to bring." I replied. She arched her eyebrow for a second so I continued. "I was trying to look around and see the dome. I have been here for a few months, but I have never really been able to see that much. I had a free day and thought I would do some sight seeing."
Mahlah smiled and nodded her head. "well if you’d like I could show you a side of the dome most people don’t get to see." I nodded with interest. " Good, well come with me while I drop off my daughter at the nursery and then we will get started."
We talked for a while as we rode the lift to the floor where the nursery was. She asked me about my life before, and once again I found myself retelling what had become an all too painful tale.
"It must be hard…" she said after a few minutes of silence. "I can’t imagine what it must be like to have lost everything you lost."
I faked a smile trying to mask my pain. "It’s been hard," I admitted, "but everyone here has helped a lot. Living in this time has showed me how to be strong. You all are fighting this terrible disease, and yet everyone is still able to keep going."
She looked away seeming uncomfortable with the subject. I swallowed hard, chocking on the bitter taste of my own shoe. "ah-em, well," I said awkwardly, " Is this the nursery?"
She nodded. "This will take just a moment. How about you watch Antigone for me while I talk something over with the caretaker." she said slipping the young child into my arms.
I held the child awkwardly as her mother walked over to a lady and began to talk about something. I had never been comfortable holding other people’s children, it made me nervous. Suddenly with a giggle the small girl reached up and tugged hard on my ear. I was caught off guard. The child was surprisingly strong. " Oww!" I shouted, " Hey that’s mine."
Mahlah looked up from her conversation and brought her hand to her mouth stifling a laugh. The little girl in my arms eyed me curiously and then loudly said, "DOWN!" she looked me in the eyes with the surety and confidence that only a toddler can have, and then repeated herself once more, "DOWN!" this time she shoved me hard her tiny hands catching me in the neck. I stumbled backward tripping over a poorly placed toy and collapsing backward with a thud. The toddler landing on my chest knocking the air out of me.
I laid there stunned for a moment gasping. The toddler simply stood up, still on my chest and calmly walked over to the toy I had just tripped over and contently began to play.
Mahlah rushed over to me. "Are you alright!?" she asked.
I propped myself up on my elbows, and looked up at her. "Wow, you’ve got a strong little girl there." I said panting. With that me, Mahlah, and even the women she had been speaking to, burst out into an uncontrollable laughter.
Mahlah stooped down to help me to my feet. " Yea, she has a lot of her father’s strength in her, a fact he is quite proud of." She said still smiling.
I rubbed my bruised backside. "I imagine, she is only three and she can already beat me up." I said jokingly.
She chuckled and walked over to her daughter. "Antigone, now you apologize to Mr. David, for pushing him. You know better than that."
The small girl looked at her mother and then at me. Those sweet little blue eyes seemed to sparkle as the girl gave a shy little smile and said, "Sawy" then giggled as her mother tickled her.
"Come here you little rascal." Mahlah said sweeping the toddler up and giving her a big hug. "That’s my little girl, now mommy has to go to work. You behave yourself." She set her back down and patted her head and walked toward me. " Well, how about it? You ready to head out?" She asked.
I marveled for a moment. This women, Mahlah, she wasn’t much older than me. I imagine she was no older than 26 or 27, yet, she displayed the mothering abilities of someone much older. I was impressed at how mature she was. "I am ready if you are." I replied. "So where exactly are we going?"
"Well, if its alright with you I was going to show you where I work." She answered.
"and where is that?" I asked.
"I work in the health ward." she replied, " I am a nurse, remember?"
I was intrigued by this. Before the accident I had been a premed student. It might be interesting to get a look at what medicine was like here in the future. I nodded and said, "Sure, I would love to come along, I used to work in a hospital part time to help put myself through college."
"Wow, that would be great, we could use another helping hand." She said excitedly. With that we took off toward the health ward. She asked me tons of questions about what hospitals were like back in my time, while we walked. Each time I would say something she would have another question. As we talked I came to realize that the medical field I was used to was slightly different from this one.
When we arrived at the health ward, I was amazed at how large it was. It occupied an entire floor of the dome. As soon as we arrived Mahlah went straight to work. I spent most of the day following her around, trying to learn the bizarre treatment methods they practiced.
Some of the treatments were fairly similar to the one I had seen from my time. They used a battery of medicines and shots to counter the illnesses and infections we saw, but on top of medicines there were also many biological symbiots that the doctors and nurses used. Unlike mine these came on and off easily and different ones were used for different tasks. I saw one doctor performing a surgery in the middle of a crowed room all by himself. His symbiot attached to his shoulders and acted as four extra arms. Except at the end of each arm was a different tool that the doctor would use to either cut, sew, or even cauterize veins. Some of the nursing staff also used symbiots to aid multiple patients at once.
The whole scene was unreal. There were so many sick people. As I followed Mahlah I helped as best I could. After a while I got used to several of the treatments and was able to do some by myself. I was able to do this mainly because most the people here were suffering from the same disease. As I went from patient to patient the symptoms made it painfully clear what we were dealing with. I was used to a lot of diseases. As I had said before, when I was a premed student I worked in a hospital to put myself through college. I had worked in several wards, from intensive care to oncology. I had seen my share of terrible diseases, but …..nothing like this. My mind flashed to the vivid description Caulin had given me of the disease., but now seeing it first hand I realized that Caulin’s earlier words paled in comparison of the truth. There are no words that can fully describe the horror of this disease.
I understood why Mahlah had been hesitant before to talk about the illness. We treated as many as we could rushing from bedside to bedside, doing the best we could to ease their pains. I watched Mahlah, her mothering instinct shown clear as she treated the many sick patients. Even in the midst of so many people that she had to care for, she was able to talk to each and everyone of them. She was more effective at her job than simply giving out medicine. She gave out love. To be honest as I watched, I think it was that love that helped the patients more than even the strongest of the medicines.
After eight grueling hours her shift ended. I dragged my feet exhausted from simply trying to keep up with her, but she seemed utterly unaffected. She still walked with an air of pure life flowing from her. I felt like she may have even been more lively then when we had started the shift. I guess helping others was what she truly enjoyed doing.
We stepped onto another lift heading up from the health ward. "Thank you so much for all your help David." She said to me. " I am going to be meeting my husband for diner in a little while. He said he would pick Antigone up from the nursery so I have to head home and cook something for when they get back." She reached into her purse and pulled out a mineral card. "Here I know your out so use this one to get to the floor you need to go to."
I took the card, and said, " Thanks, for everything. This was a really good experience." her cheeks reddened, as I continued. "You were really amazing up there. The people are really lucky to have a nurse like you. I know you all don’t like to talk about the disease, but I know it is hard to deal with so much pain and suffering day in and day out. The fact that you are able to do that and still have so much joy and life to give. I find that truly incredible." I felt awkward after saying that like maybe I was being to forward.
She stood there in silence for a long time before finally saying, "Your right…it is hard for any of us to talk about the disease. There isn’t a person in this dome that hasn’t lost someone to it. Though I’m glad to finally be able to talk about it. I just know it can’t be healthy to lock up so many difficult emotions. You know, you’re the first person I have ever been able to talk to about

t. It is something no one ever talks about here. Thank you."
Suddenly my cheeks were the ones that were red. The lift we were on slowed as we came to the floor she was to get off on. A gust of air whistled past my face as the doors of the lift rushed open. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mahlah," I said holding out my hand.
She smiled and threw her arms around me in a big hug. I froze for a second a little shocked, but then I let myself embrace her. "It was very nice to meet you too. David." She said seeming to choke back tears.
As she walked away I called back to her. "You had better come and find me again. I want to spend another day helping out at the hospital with you as soon as I can." She smiled back at me, but her smile was sad.
A terrible feeling burned down in the pit of my stomach. Something wasn’t right. I continued to watch her as the doors on the lift closed, with an unreal slowness. With only a sliver of her form visible through the closing crack I saw her fall. I felt my heart falling with her, like a glass vase knocked off its pedestal, and when she reached the floor, I felt my heart shatter . Everything was in slow motion now. The doors had closed completely, but I had to get out. I grew a blade from my symbiot. With one violent slash the doors tore back open. A viscous gray slime oozed from the dome’s wound.
I ran to Mahlah, shouting her name all the while. I dropped to my knees and slid to her side. Her pale skin had turned to a ghost white, and she was colder than ice to my touch. I gasped for air, my heart pounding so hard I swore it would burst. I didn’t know what to do. I looked around frantically for help, but there was no one to be found. I screamed for help, but no one came.
She started convulsing. Every muscle in her body tightened at the same time. I saw blood starting to drip down from her nose, eyes, and ears. My mind reeled. Suddenly without warning she vomited blood. It was everywhere. My vision seemed painted red.
Finally I knew what I had to do. I scooped her up into my arms, and ran. The lift I had come from was clearly no longer an option. I looked around frantically. Then I looked to the edge of the floor we were on. I rushed to it and peered over. The health ward was five floors down. On that floor was a moving platform, that connected through the empty space in the dome. If I jumped at the right time I could land on it. I saw the platform rush from the other side. I didn’t think, I just jumped.
I fell for an eternity, and as I fell I prayed that I would hit the platform because if I missed, Mahlah and I would both surely die. I shifted her to hold her with only my left arm. As we approached the moving platform I reach out with the blade on my right arm. I dug it into the platform, and we made a gut-wrenching stop. I felt my shin bones crack and the muscles in my right arm tear, but we had made it.
I ignored the pain and the shocked stares of the other platform riders and as soon as I reached the other side I jumped onto the floor and fell to my knees. I screamed for a doctor, and then I passed out.
The only sleep I ever seem to get now is when I pass out, and the same voice plagues me each time. This time it’s echo said only one thing. "good" . I shook myself back to consciousness, now was no time to sleep.
I awoke in one of the hospital beds, with a nurse standing over me. " Where is she?" I asked still groggy from unconsciousness.
The nurse answered. "Mahlah is in the intensive disease ward. They are doing all they can for her, you need to go back to sleep that was quite a fall you had."
I struggled back to my feet. The nurse fought with me trying to get me back into bed. "I don’t sleep." I said. "I am fine." I hobbled away toward the intensive disease ward, my right arm still hanging limply at my side.
I looked at each bed as I limped down the hall, until I found her. A steady flow of medication was already hooked up to her with a strange heart-like thing pumping the medications into her like an IV. I walked up to the bedside. Her breathing was shallow. A doctor walked past me and saw me standing by her. He noticed my injuries and said, "You really need to get off your feet, you look like your going to fall apart."
I ignored him and asked, "Is she going to be alright.?"
The doctor sighed, "I don’t know. The disease affects everyone differently. There is no telling how this will turn out. From our records it seems she has only been displaying symptoms for about a month. This is only her second attack, but it is much more serious than most attacks are at this stage."
I looked up in disbelief. "So she has had this disease for that long, but she was just here running around full of life. How could she do that if she already had the disease?"
The doctor looked at me quizzically. "The disease is episodic. It attacks in waves usually each one is progressively worse until it kills you. I have seen people live with the disease for four years before it killed them, but I have also seen some who died on the first attack. There is just no telling."
With that the young doctor walked away to treat another patient. I looked down at Mahlah’s now seemingly lifeless body. "only a few minutes ago, I had commented on how full of life you seemed. How can this be!?" I muttered under my breath.
I kneeled down by her bedside waiting, hoping, praying for her to wake up….
Her death was quiet. She didn’t scream, whisper, or even gasp. There was a monitor hooked up to her. It swung a pendulum back and forth measuring her pulse. All at once it slowed….and then stopped. She was the first person to ever stand up for me in this new world. I had seen her now on three separate occasions and on each one she had done something to help me, and now seemingly without warning she was gone. I had only really known her for a day, but I cried like I had known her all my life.
When I finally had time to dry my tears and stand, I saw Hector hurrying across the hall leading Antigone by the hand. He stopped ten feet away. He collapsed to his knees and sobbed. Antigone, looked around frightened and confused, she waddled up to her mother still lying in the bed. She reached up and tugged at her mothers hand. "mommy." she just said…. over and over, while her father continued to cry uncontrollably.
My eyes were dry now. I had no more tears, but that scene was burned in my memory forever. It made me glad I never slept anymore because if I did this moment would surely haunt my dreams.
After a while, Hector was able to stand. He grabbed the doctor and shook him violently saying, " You said… You said she would live another year or two!! What happened to my wife!!?
The doctor placed a concerned hand on his shoulder. "You know how this disease works, Hector." the doctor said. "it affects everyone differently. Maybe if she had been brought to us sooner. Maybe then we could have saved her, but as it is. There was nothing we could do."
I felt the doctor’s words pierce my heart. I looked down in despair at my still blood stained hands. I had gotten her here as fast as I could. Hector looked to me. Hatred and anger still burning in his eyes. "What are you doing here?" He asked coldly.
I choked on my words. I tried to explain everything that had happened. I thought her husband deserved to know everything that had happened the day of her death. His eyes narrowed, and in two strides he was on me. He grabbed my by my shirt and shook me. "What was this just a game to you!!!??" he said screaming now. "What you just take your time. No hurry it’s just her life!!!"
I shook my head, "No." I tried to say, but he wouldn’t listen to me, and at that moment, I felt maybe I did deserve this…maybe it was my fault.
"How do I know that this isn’t your doing. She wasn’t suppose to die yet!!! Not yet!!" he beat his fists on my chest. The doctor tried to pull him off me with no success.
I looked over Hector’s shoulder and I saw my friends running towards us. As they approached, Hector threw me to the ground and stormed off leaving Antigone still standing there balling. A nurse picked her up and ran after him.
I sat there on the floor. I rested my head into my hands. Terry walked slowly up to me. "We heard what happened. Are you alright?" I looked up into her caring eyes. All I could manage was a small nod. "Come on, lets get you back." She helped me to my feet and with her arm around my waist guided me away.
Caulin walked over to the other side of me and said. "Don’t worry about Hector. He is just upset. He won’t hold this against you." I nodded as if I agreed, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t hold it against myself.
As we walked away I stopped and looked back. The doctors had covered her now, and were preparing to move her away. I choked down more tears and force myself to say, "We have to stop it." they all turned to face me. "We have to stop this disease. For good."
Terry looked me in the eyes and nodded. "David is right. This is it. We have to get serious about our mission. No more training missions. It’s time for us to move out and start exploring the uncharted areas." The others all nodded. After that we walked in silence.
When we reached my room, I told them I would need to be alone for a while. So they left me there. Terry stayed for a little and held me "Are you sure you are going to be ok?" She asked not sure if she should leave me alone.
"Yea. I will be fine." I lied. I didn’t think I would ever really be fine. That kind of experience changes you. I just hoped that this change would be enough to push me to end this disease, once and for all.

Chapter 14: The Outlanders

2009-08-07T13:10:00.001-07:00

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.

Chapter 13 A needed explanation.

2009-04-21T20:37:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-21T20:31:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-04-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T10:33:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-06T10:30:00.001-07:00

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.

Chapter 7 The new world

2009-04-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

Chapter 7 The new world
I spent the whole night sleeplessly wondering what the following day would have in store for me. The plans for the next morning were simple we were going to get some food and leave immediately.
Once morning finally came I jumped out of bed and started once again for the cafeteria. My stomach churned a little. I wondered what it was like outside the dome now. I was especially interested in the “mutants” that Terry had told me about the day before. She had said that some of them were dangerous. My mind played images of horror movies I had seen when I was younger, showing images of grossly deformed monsters and such. I shuddered. I hoped that the real “mutants” would prove to be a little less gruesome.
I retraced my steps from the day before, to my surprise I actually made it back to the cafeteria, and I only got lost twice. By the time I got there the others were already waiting.
“You sleep in again” Gohn said with a smile. “ I swear people from your time are sure lazy.”
I laughed. “Sadly your right.” I replied, only half kidding. Terry pulled me aside for a moment.
“ Are you sure your ready. I mean I don’t want to force you to do something if your not…. Feeling up to it.” She said with concern.
“ I will be fine.” I assured her.
She smiled, “Good” She said starting to walk back to the group. Then she turned walking backward she beckoned me to follow her. “ Come on. They already think your lazy you had better start stepping it up”
I laughed. Then I saluted sarcastically and said. “ Yes ma’m.” I really did feel like things would be ok. I had only known these people for a day now and I already felt like they were close friends.
We ate quickly. Again it was the same cracker that I had had before, but as good as it tasted I really didn’t care if that was the only thing I ever ate again. Which it very well could be. After we had finished our “meal” we started for the exit. The exit from the dome was on the bottom floor and took several lift rides and vessel transports to get there. I still couldn’t believe how huge this dome was. Especially, considering it was alive.
When we had finally reached the bottom floor we were approached by several men in black suits. They lead us to a room to be “prepared” to exit the dome. We were given several shots and then lead into a heavily guarded room. The room was guarded by 5 men armed not to the teeth, but with teeth. There were hundreds of teeth like protrusions hanging from a long tube that resembled Gohn’s arm. It appeared the tubes would shoot the “teeth” at a high speed toward any opposing target. It kind of reminded me of an old fashioned Gatlin gun.
A tall guy approached us from another room. He must have been important because the guards straightened a little more as he entered. Like I said he was tall. At least as tall as Caulin. He appeared to be the same age as all of us. His wore a very sharp black suit, consisting of a long jacket that resembled a trench coat, but more classy. Underneath he had a perfectly tailored tuxedo like attire. Though calling it a tuxedo wouldn’t be quite right. I guess it was more of a military uniform only it was all black with no ribbons or anything. His brownish black hair was slicked back in manner reminiscent of the 1950s or so. Covering half of his face was a white mask. That seemed to contrast with his all black suit, but also seemed to have a kind of ceremonial appeal. I had to admit the guy had an almost essence of importance exuded from all around him. He walked up and immediately started what I decided must be some kind of briefing.
“ Well as you all know a new species was sighted in the 32nd sector.” He started very authoritatively. “It doesn’t appear to be very dangerous, but it is unclassified nonetheless.” he drug on about the details of this stuff for a moment or two then kind of relaxed. “ I hope you all are doing well” he said politely. “ Be careful out there. You can never know for sure that every thing is as it seems.” As he was talking his eyes drifted to me. “ Ah. You must be the one Terry told me about. I am very sorry about what you have had to experience, but I hope that you are finding our world to your liking.”
I nodded a little uncomfortable at being the center of attention from what seemed to be a very important individual. “ yes this place is really amazing.” I mustered.
He smiled in approval. “ Good to hear it.” he said. “ I wouldn’t worry to much about anything dangerous out there. In case you didn’t know it your with the best excursion team we have in this dome. Not to mention the fact that if you guys run into any real trouble, which is unlikely my men are pulling patrols twenty four hours a day so we will be able to take care of anything.” I felt a little reassured by what he said. “ Where are my manners? I’m Commander General Janus Arachnosh.” I was mildly surprised. A general at his age? I shrugged it off and introduced myself.
“My name is David Homer.” I said as confidently as I could. “ It is an honor to meet you.”
“ Thank you, I’m glad to meet you as well.” He said. “ Well, I have to return to my troops good luck.” With that he exited the room through the same door he had entered from. The guards escorted us down a long corridor into a large room marked by an enormous door.
“ So exactly what was all that about?” I asked as we walked.
“ Janus is the head of the dome’s defenses. He commands all the troops. We have actually got a small army that patrols around the dome to make sure that no mutants can attack or break into the dome.” Caulin said rather proudly.
“What’s with the mask?” I asked then.
“ His face was burned by a mutant that spit acid a few years back during one of his patrols.” Caulin answered.
I raised my eyebrows in shock. “ a mutant that shoots acid?” I said. What had I gotten myself into. “I’m not so sure I’m ready for this after all.”
Gohn laughed. But Terry reassured me by saying, “ don’t worry there aren’t any acid spitting mutants in the sector we are investigating.”
“Well the new species we are looking for might spit acid,” Caulin said “ you never know.”
Terry sighed and rolled her eyes, Scyll elbowed Caulin. “ We are trying to make David feel better.” Scyll said Caulin.
Caulin winced. “ oops” he said and kind of laughed. In spite of my new “acid anxiety” I decided to continue with them anyways. I had to otherwise I would have felt like a coward or something like that.
We approach the giant door. It seemed to grow as we neared until it became impossibly tall and wide. I wondered to myself why on earth they would ever need a door this big. One of the guards walked to side of the door and inserted a special mineral card. Slowly the incredible door slide open. The light from the sun outside flooded and everyone in the room had to squint to keep from being blinded. I had forgotten how bright it was outside.
As the doors widened I got my first glimpse of the “new world” Everything was different. The first thing that my eyes were drawn to were the trees. They were tropical looking, to match the wet heat that now surrounded me, they had vines and huge palm like leaves, but unlike the tropical trees I was used to these were enormous. When I was a kid my parents had taken me to the redwood forest in California. The trees there had been amazing towering high like skyscrapers, and they were so big around that you could drive a truck through them. But compared to these trees the redwoods were nothing. I couldn’t even attempt to see the tops of them. The vines hanging from them alone were larger than anything I had ever seen.
As my eyes followed the immense trees down to the forest floor I caught a glimpse of the low-lying plants. Though clearly choked out by the huge trees, the underbrush was still daunting to look at. Its thick mangling bushes reached out from the forests and seemed to play across the landscape like some sort of disease. Different types of mosses, smaller trees, and bushes seem to battle for whatever remained of the forest floor. Most of them cramped together or even growing on top of something else. To be honest, it struck me as unnatural. In all my studies of biology in college I had always noticed a sense of balance in the natural world, but here there was no balance. Even just looking at the plant life I could see that this new world was a war zone. Everything fought for their right to survive in this new place. Which was, what I decided, exactly what we were going to have to do.

Chapter Six: Sybiotes

2009-04-01T22:36:00.002-07:00

The night before faded from my mind like a bad dream. I focused on the task at hand. After I had finished getting ready I collected the rest of my mineral card and left my room. I was suppose to meet the others down at the cafeteria.
I ran out the door and looked around. I scratched my head, in the midst of everything that had happened I had completely forgotten how to get back to the cafeteria. I nervously roamed the halls hoping to find something familiar.
Surprisingly, I did, but it wasn’t what I expected. As I was wandering around hopelessly lost I saw the nurse that had taken care of me the morning before. Timidly I approached her.
“Hi, um I think I saw you last morning.” I said. “Weren’t you my nurse?”
She looked at me startled for a moment. “Yea, how are you feeling?” Her expression changing from surprise to concern.
“ I am feeling fine.” I said and then added. “ a little confused, but otherwise fine.”
“ That is incredible.” She remarked. “ I have never seen anyone recover from such a long period of unconsciousness and especially not this fast.”
“Well I guess I am just lucky…” I said with a hint of sarcasm. “By the way, I never got a chance to thank you yesterday for helping me. I was really out of it then and those people were driving me crazy.”
“Oh don’t thank me. I wasn’t the one who got them to stop.” She said bashfully.
“I know, but you were the first one to stand up for me.” I insisted.
She nodded with a little smile. “Well my name is Mahlah.” She said, “I am glad I got to meet you.”
“Me too, My name is David.” I said. “ Before you go could you by any chance point me in the direction of the cafeteria?”
She smiled and laughed. “Sure, go down this hall until you come to a transporter tube. Take it down three floors and then go to your right. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks a lot.” I said. “ I hope I see you again soon.”
“Me too, I would really like to talk to you about your life sometime. I mean if you are ok with that.” She said as she started to walk away.
“Ok, it would be the least I could do, after you stood up for me yesterday.” I replied. She smiled and waved goodbye.
I started off in the other direction mentally rehearsing the directions she had given me. Sure enough they lead me straight to the cafeteria. After only a few seconds of hunting I found Terry and the others in the same spot they had been at the day before, waiting on me.
Terry came to me before I reached them and pulled me aside. “How are you doing?” She asked with the same concerned face I had seen the night before.
“I will be ok.” I said and then paused for a second looking her in the eyes and added, “now.” She smiled and walked with me back to the others.
“What is with you two? Only been here a day and already he gets all the attention.” Caulin said teasingly pointing to me.
“No, it just seems that way to you because girls intentionally avoid you.” Gohn said with a smirk. Scyll chuckled and shook her head.
Caulin scowled, “I don’t see you getting any special attention.” he sneered.
“Hey just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean I don’t. I will have you know the ladies love me.” He said brushing his shoulder off in mock coolness.
Terry cocked and eyebrow and smiled. “Right.” she said with a laugh. “well Casanova how about we get going. We have things we need to do.”
“What exactly are we doing today?” I asked.
“We need to take you to a doctor for a physical exam. Then I have to go pick something up.” Terry replied. With that we started off.
We continued to walk for a while until finally we came to a nondescript door that to me was far too similar to all the others to be distinguished. “This it?” I asked. They nodded and we went inside. It definitely wasn’t like any doctors visit I had ever had before The physician wore a plain black outfit. Obviously like the rest of the dome there were no computers in his office. Though he used mineral cards to interact with the dome walls to manipulate various things around the room. The checkup was long and tedious. He asked no questions just took several blood samples and performed a rigorous external exam. After the exam he simply nodded and declared me “Normal”. I guess as normal as any 1000 year old guy that had just woken up from a cryogenic sleep could be. He slipped the blood sample into a different slot on the wall and said that the dome would be done processing it and the results would be in tomorrow. After that we left the office.
“Well I need to go pick something up now. I will be back in a little while” Terry said. “You guys take David and show him around a bit. Ok?” Caulin and Gohn nodded and then smiled slyly. Terry waved goodbye and headed off.
“So where to know?” I asked.
Gohn and Caulin looked at each other and smiled again. Scyll rolled her eyes as if she already knew what they had in mind. “ The sparing room.” Caulin and Gohn said in unison. I started to ask, but the two bolted off. I ran to catch up. I followed them through the twisted pathways and lifts of dome till at last we reached a large open area. In the center of the expansive room was a large platform raised about a foot off the ground that appeared to be slightly softer than the surrounding floor. It seemed to be a fighting wring. Caulin and Gohn climbed into the wring and squared off.
What followed shocked me. I had just started to accept this new world. I had thought I was getting a handle on things. I was wrong. This was no boxing match, nor was it wrestling or karate. Caulin reached down to his “belt” as he pulled it from around his waist it straightened and became stiff. He began to spin it like a staff in right hand. Clockwise then counterclockwise showing off his handling with it. The two danced around for several minutes slowly methodically like two animals circling each other. Gohn lifted his arm and leveled it at Caulin pointing the end of the hollow tube attached to his forearm directly at him. Caulin lunged first. He ducked and swung his staff like thing upward knocking Gohn’s arm away. Gohn leapt backwards bringing his other arm to bear aiming it at Caulin’s chest. The sacs on Gohn’s bicep inflated and then like lightning contracted. The air followed though the veins into the tube and pushed out a thin spine the shot toward Caulin. Caulin deflected the shot with his staff and laughed
“Come on show something we have an audience.” Caulin said taunting Gohn. Gohn smirked and nodded.
“Ok, if you insist.” Gohn responded. As he spoke He sprinted toward Caulin. Caulin raised his staff to defend himself, but Gohn instead of attacking directly did an almost football juke to the left, tucked and rolled behind him. Quickly before Caulin could react he raised both arms and shot two more darts. Caulin bent backward thrust his staff into the ground and used it to vault backwards. He managed to completely dodge one dart but the second skimmed his thigh as he flipped. A small trickle of blood showed though his black pants.
“ Not bad.” Caulin said condescendingly. Gohn rolled his eyes. I couldn’t believe the two as they fought. Clearly they had done this many times before. It was about that time that Scyll caught up to us she had chosen to walk instead of run after us.
“ Those two never can pass up a chance to show off.” She said light heartedly in her soft voice. I should have been scared seeing the almost freakish fighting going on in front of me, but the boy in me couldn’t help but think, cool.
Back in the wring the two were still going at it Gohn had managed to get a few more scratches on Caulin, but Caulin was too agile to let anything more happen to him. I guess after a few minutes Caulin decided it was his turn. Caulin charged toward Gohn. Gohn shot several darts, but Caulin deflected or dodged each one. When he reached Gohn he dropped to one kneed and swung the staff knocking Gohn in the back of the leg bringing him down hard onto his back. Gohn quickly rolled backward to get on his feet again, but Caulin was ready for that. He lunged with the staff end first into Gohn’s stomach as he rose. Suddenly, an electric pulse shot through the staff and sparked as it reached Gohn’s stomach. The jolt knocked Gohn back onto his back once again. This time Gohn decided to secede to Caulin’s victory. Caulin helped Gohn up and they both came down to rejoin us.
“That was amazing!” I said. “ You two are incredible up there.”
“ Well I was pretty amazing.” Caulin said gloating. “ I must say it just comes naturally to me.”
“ Right. That why you spend 6 hours a day working out for that natural talent.” Gohn said scowling.
“ Don’t be jealous.” Caulin said flexing his bicep. “ I beat you fair just like always.”
“Well if you would let me use my pathogens then those little scratches might have made an impact.” Gohn said.
“You guys are hopeless” Scyll said exasperated.
“Well how about you show us how it is done?” Caulin said with a sly grin. Scyll blushed and shook her head. “Well how about you David?” Caulin said turning to me. “How about we see what your made of?”
I shot my eyebrows up and I said. “ Umm I don’t think so with that staff I’m pretty sure you would beat the crap out of me. I mean what are those things anyways?”
“These?” Caulin said pointing to his staff and then to Gohn‘s arms. I nodded. “These are our symbiots.”
“and what is a symbiote?” I asked still more than a little confused.
Gohn answered me. “ Symbiots are genetically engineered organisms that we use solely for self defense, and the occasional sparring.” Then he turned to Caulin. “ I think we need to get him one.”
“ No kidding, I need something new your starting to bore me.” Caulin said laughing. Gohn just gave him a dirty look and headed off to a different room.
“ Wait a second. I’m not so sure I want to have some kind of parasite hanging off me, plus I have no idea how to fight with something like that.” I said getting a little nervous.
“It’s not a parasite it is a symbiote. It doesn’t hurt you at all The only thing it does is give you something to defend yourself with. And don’t worry about learning how to use it the symbiot is engineered with fighting instincts that it will pass on to you as soon as you put it on.” Caulin explained. I could see that this was clearly Caulin’s element and he seemed more at home in this room than he had anywhere before. I was still a little hesitant about it, but at the same time I couldn’t help but be a little charmed by the idea of fighting like that. Gohn emerged a few minutes later carrying a scaly living bracer like thing in his hand. Caulin nodded in approval. “good choice.” he said.
Gohn handed me the bracer and motioned for me to put it on. I slipped it onto my right arm. Instantly I felt a creepy feeling as the nerves from the symbiot extended into my arm. It didn’t hurt, but it did freak me out a little. A few moments later I realized that I could feel the bracer. I was like an extension of my arm. I knew immediately how to use it. I even felt like I had a few ideas of basic combat techniques with it.
The bracer appeared to work like this. From the topside of the bracer I could grow a long blade or claw like thing that could be used as a sword of sorts. I could manipulate the length and width and curvature of the claw as I wished and even grow it out like a shield. After I was finished with the claw I could then detach that claw from the bracer to make room for a new claw.
I played around with my new “toy” for a few minutes until Caulin beckoned me to join him in the wring. I imitated what I had seen Gohn do earlier and circled Caulin. Caulin stood much more relaxed obviously knowing I wouldn’t be a major threat considering how inexperienced I was. I grew a simple blade from my symbiot. About two feet long and thin, but blunt. I intended to use it as a sword.
Caulin charged me first. I remembered what had happened to Gohn and I brought my blade down low to parry him. This time however Caulin pole vaulted over me and land behind me. I spun around as fast as I could only to receive a shocking jolt to my chest from Caulin’s symbiot. I was stunned for a moment, but shook it off fast. This time I lunged at Caulin. This took him off guard apparently he had expected me to stay stunned a little longer. He flailed his staff up to and block my lung and quickly spun around to smack me in the face. This time I went down.
He decided that now would be a good time to taunt me. “ Not bad, Not bad I may get a decent warm up today after al-” I cut him off jumping up and swinging the blade hard at his face. He leaned back just as the swing past the tip of his nose. “ Whoa. Ok you want to play hard.” he said regaining his composure. I came down with a another swing from over my head. He raised his staff horizontally to block me. We stay locked like that for a few moments. I continued to press down as hard as I could and he seemed to struggle to keep me pressed away. “Your are a lot stronger than you look.” He grunted under the strain. I really was. I had to admit I felt ten times as strong as I had ever been back before, and I felt like I was getting stronger the more I fought. I was breathing hard and my heart was pounding like a marching band drum, but I was not nearly as tired as I knew I should have been. We continued to grapple a moment longer and then Caulin let loose a strong jolt from his symbiote that knocked me several feet away onto my back. That one really stung.
Caulin came up to me and raised his staff as if to “finish me” when all of a sudden, something wrapped around his legs and pulled them out from under him. Forcing him to fall face first into the floor.
“ I thought I might find you all in here.” Terry said speaking from the door next to Scyll and Gohn. I follow the long rope like thing, that had tripped Caulin, from his legs to the door. It was a tail! The tail extended an impossible distance across the room from a very small thing next to Terry. The thing was an animal which was roughly the size of a cat, but had a body that resembled a stocky gorilla. The animal had no visible hair. It’s skin had a pebbly texture like that of a lizard, with a gray tint to it. It had only one eye that was solid black and took up a large portion of it’s head.
Gohn stood laughing uncontrollably at Caulin who was just now standing back up. He was rubbing his nose in discomfort. “What is that.” I asked pointing to the small animal.
Terry picked up the thing its dexterous tail retracted now and wrapped itself around Terry’s arm for support as it took a sort of perch on her shoulder. “ This is my caudal. I engineered it myself when I was a kid. I had to go pick it up from my room, and take it to get some more shots for the excursion tomorrow.”
“Excursion?” I asked.
“ Yea we are going back out of the dome tomorrow. To collect more samples.” Terry answered me as I walked back to her.
“Samples of what?” I inquired.
“ The mutants.” She responded and immediately began to explain for me. “ The radiation spawned a new world outside the dome. The radiation caused rapid mutation in the wildlife out there. And under the inhospitable climate and low resources the mutations that survived can be sometimes more than a little dangerous. We are collecting samples of the various mutant species DNA so we can categorize and classify all the new creatures. In hope that that will help us be better prepared if we ever have to fight one again.”
My mind drifted back to the giant rat that had attacked me before. Could it have been real after all?
“Hey why don’t you come with us?” Caulin asked, snapping me back to reality. “ You seemed to catch on pretty quick with that symbiot.”
“ I don’t want to be any trouble especially if it would put any of you in danger.” I replied.
“ Oh don’t worry we’re going into an already charted area tomorrow. There shouldn’t be anything out there we can’t handle.” Caulin persisted.
“All right,” I said. “ If that’s ok with the rest of you?” they all nodded. I was very pleased that Terry seemed especially happy about that decision.
She smile at me “ Well I guess we will see you tomorrow morning then.” She said. “Well, I’m going to bed. Goodnight all.” everyone else said the same, and we returned to our respective rooms. Gohn had to show me where mine was again, but after that he headed back to his own room for the night.

Chapter Five: waking Nightmares

2009-04-01T22:36:00.001-07:00

We walked a little further in silence until we reached a door. “Well this is it.” Caulin said pointing to the door.
“I guess we will see you in the morning.” Gohn said.
Scyll bowed her head and softly added, “ Have a goodnight.” I nodded back to each of them and said goodnight.
After that I entered my room, a quick scan showed this room to be little different from the one I had awoken in just a few hours earlier, this one didnt have an IV cord, but in the corner there was a small eclosed area that seemed to serve as a bathroom and shower. I laid down on the soft raised area of the floor that made up my “bed”. The organic piece of furnture seemed to mold to me as I layed there creating a pillow like bubble under my head. I was surprised at how comfortable it was, no matter what position I chose the bed would remoddle to fit me. Finally I decided I should try to sleep. I closed my eyes. Minutes turned to hours as I laid there, but sleep never came. After being “asleep” for so long I wondered if I would ever even need to sleep again. I began to do exactly what I had been trying to keep myself from doing since I had woken that morning. I began to think. Slowly at first like a rain storm building, thoughts began to trickle through my consciousness. Soon they soaked me like a downpour. The images of my family and friends flashed through my eyes. I closed them tighter in a vain attempt to shut out the ghosts. Gone. They were all gone. Not only them, but everything was gone. Everyplace I knew every hobby I had enjoyed all were gone. I would never see Old Aeolus and his diner again.
Worst of all, my brother’s picture seemed to be painted on my eyelids, every time I closed them I would see his face. I didn’t even want to think of what he looked like now.
I hate crying. As a guy you feel pathetic when you cry. Your eyes burn, and your stomach churns in pain, but the harder I fought the tears. The more it hurt. After a few hours I stopped fighting. I wished for sleep, I prayed for sleep, but sleep never came. It was a long, long night…
Eventually, I gave up lying there. I stood and walked over to the door. Next to the door was lying a stack of mineral cards. I shrugged my shoulders and picked up a few. I slide one into the slot next to the door. It opened. I walked out into the dome corridor. It was dark. Apparently, the bioluminescent light only worked while people were awake. Still I saw a few other people walking here and there. I walked out to the ledge of the floor I was on. There was no railing. Carefully, I peered down through the open center of the dome. It was enormous. Just looking out over the edge gave me a since of vertigo. I felt so alone here. I knew nothing of this world. What was there for me here. I walked to the very edge teetering back and forth. All I had to do was shift my weight… I let go. I felt myself fall through the air. I closed my eyes…
A moment later I landed on my back. Still on the same floor. I couldn’t do it. Rather than lean forward and fall several floors through the center of the dome I simply had let myself fall backwards onto the ground.
Terry’s face had stopped me. Her eyes. Those curious carefree eyes. Now were filled with fear. She had walked up from somewhere while I was not looking. “ What are you doing?” She asked softly. A strange fear in her voice. She was shaken by what she had seen.
“I…. I don’t know” was all I could muster. “ I guess this is all a little hard for me. What are you doing here?”
“I wake up early every morning and walk through the dome while it is still dark. It helps me think.” She said still somewhat emotional.
“ What do you think about?” I asked. My heart pounded in my chest like a machine gun.
“Different things.” She answered vaguely staring off into the distance. “ Do you really hate it here so much?”
“ It’s not that I hate it.” I answered slowly. “ I just. I am not sure I will ever fit in. My whole world has changed. I used to have goals dreams. Now I am not sure if I will be able to be anything in this new place.”
“You already are something” She said quickly almost defensively. “ You’re our friend.”
I smiled at that. The haunting thoughts I was having faded as we stood there together. “Thank you.” I said looking her directly in the eyes. “ If I hadn’t met you here then…” I looked back to the ledge I had been standing on a moment ago. I shook my head. “ I don’t know what I would do.” I finished.
She finally smiled again, “ I have to get back to my room. To finish getting ready. You had better get ready too. You have a big day today.” We got up and I went back to my room and she went back to hers.
When I got back to my room I made a decision. I had to leave my old life behind. It was over now. I said a silent goodbye to everything and everyone from before. Then I started to get ready for the day.

Chapter Four: the Team

2009-04-01T22:34:00.000-07:00

“So, where are we going now?” I asked Terry.
“ I want to introduce you to the rest of my team.” She said. “ They were with me when I found you.”
I was really glad that she was here. Otherwise I don’t know how I would have taken this. We walked a little further until we came to room full of people. “ This is the cafeteria. While we wait for the others you can get something to eat I’m sure your hungry.” I was and I guess I should’ve been, after all I hadn’t eaten in about a thousand years. “ Just a sec.” She said. “ I’ll go get you some.” She turned and walked away into the crowd of people. I waited patiently, but my stomach started to growl in anticipation. She returned only a few minutes later, but she wasn’t carrying anything. I raised my eyebrow and asked.
“Where’s the food?” She smiled and reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked hauntingly like another mineral card. I took it and looked it over. Again I asked. “Where’s the food?”
“That’s it, crazy.” she laughed. “ Go ahead try it.” I sniffed the cracker like thing suspiciously. My stomach roared fiercely in rebuttal. Timidly I bit into the cracker… The Flavor was like nothing I had ever experienced! I was overwhelmed! It was delicious. I devoured the rest of the cracker. Intantly, I felt more energized than ever. Plus I felt like I had just eaten a full meal.
“What on earth is this!” I exclaimed. Still blown away by the sheer taste and energy of it.
“ You like it?” She laughed. “ It contains an exact 24 hour dietary supplement of nutrients, minerals, and calories. Plus a few additives that stimulate the taste buds energize the nervous system, and simulate fullness.” She smiled as I continued to lick my lips. “ Hey there are the others.” She said pointing over through the crowd. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.” We pushed through the hordes of people and proceeded to a table on the far side of the room. Three people were seated around the table two guys and a girl. Terry called to them. “ Hey guys.” She shouted waving at them. They looked up and waved back as we walked up to them.
“Look who is finally awake.” one of the guys said. He looked to be about my age, but he was much taller than me at least half a foot. He was lean and muscularly built like an athlete. His blonde hair was buzzed short in a military fashion. He wore all black which seemed to be the tradition for the men in the dome. His shirt was tight, obviously to show off his muscular arms, and the sleeves were short cut off just before the elbow. He wore loose baggy pants that came down and covered his shoes. Around his waist hung something that resembled a snake or an eel of some sort, at the time I thought it must be a belt.
“That’s Caulin.” Terry said pointing to the guy who had just spoken. “ He has been with us since the beginning.” To the side she said to me. “ Don’t take him too seriously he can be kind of umm… slow.”
“ Hey! I heard that. I am not.” Caulin said jumping up quickly and banging his knee on the table. “ Ouch!” he cried sitting back down quickly to nurse his sore leg.
“Right.” The other guy said drawing it out sarcastically. “ You just keep telling yourself that.”
Terry smiled at the joke. “ and that is Gohn.” She said referring to the guy who had just spoken. “ don’t take him to seriously either. He has a tendency to be somewhat sarcastic.”
Gohn raised his eyebrows in fake offense. “ Me?” He said pointing to himself. “Never!” Gohn reclined in his chair nonchalantly. His posture seemed to match his personality. Gohn was clearly two or three years younger than Caulin, but also clearly had a keener wit as well. Gohn’s dark brown hair was longer than his older friend’s and was also a little unkempt. He was about my height maybe a little taller. He had a medium build. No where near the muscular tone of Caulin, but definitely not out of shape. He wore a black sleeveless vest that hung open revealing a black tank top underneath. His pants were less baggy than Caulin’s and you could see his black boots at the end of his legs. Around his neck hung a white breathing mask of some sort that appeared would cover his mouth and nose when worn properly. But overshadowing all his other features was definitely his arms. They were bare of clothing, but appeared almost deformed. Encircling the bicep of each arm were three fleshy sacs that appeared to be able to inflate, but were flat at the moment, and hugged tightly to his arms so that they were not too noticeable. From the sacs veins lead to small hollow tubes like things that ran down the length of his forearms stopping just before the wrists. This structure was obviously part of him, but at the same time looked somewhat foreign to his body. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but decided that I would put off asking until later. In case it was a sensitive subject.
Actually, looking at him made me a little uncomfortable. Not because of his arms, but because he resembled my little brother, both in appearance and demeanor. He was about the same age, and his hair color and style was similar. Gohn was a little more muscular and the facial features were different, but he definitely seemed to have a similar personality. Thinking about it made me sick. I knew I would never see my little brother again, or the rest of my family for that matter. I quickly put it out of my mind. I couldn’t stand to think of all that yet.
Terry then turned to the other girl. “ This is Scylla, but we usually just call her Scyll. She just joined the group a few weeks ago, but I don’t know how I ever put up with these other two without her.” To be honest I had almost forgot that she had been sitting there. She was very quiet and seemed more than a little embarrassed at simply being introduced. She sat very straight and kept her hands in her lap. She exuded a kind of politeness and innocence. She was clearly the youngest of the group probably only 19. Her hair was short and layered coming only just above her shoulders maybe an inch shorter than Terry‘s. It was a bright blonde color that sort of shined even in the dimly lit room. She had it styled so that it fell over one eye completely covering it in a way that only magnified her shy appearance. She wore a flowing white dress tied at the waist that came down just below the knees. It seem the style for girls to wear all white. The dress, interestingly, at one side was sleeveless revealing her long slender arm, but on the other side was a long sleeve that came down past her hand hiding that arm completely. Which she seemed to keep awkwardly close to her body as if she was ashamed of it, or afraid of revealing it.
She looked at me for only a moment then quickly turned her eyes away and said hurriedly. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.” We all talked a little while longer though Scyll said little, Caulin more than made up for her share of the conversation.
After a few minutes Terry finally said, “ Well, I have to go fill out some paperwork about our last trip. You guys don’t mind taking David back to his room do you?”
“ Of course not.” Caulin said grabbing me and pulling me next to him then putting his arm around my shoulder. “ we’ll all be getting along fine.”
“Great.” Terry said with a chuckle. “ Well then I’m off I will meet all you back here in the morning, ok?. Gohn make sure you show David how to get back here from his room.” He nodded. She then turned back to me, “Well it was nice meeting you, David. I hope you have a good night.”
I smiled and nodded, “Same to you.” We all said goodbye and Caulin, Gohn , and Scyll immediately started to walk. I quickly jumped up and fell into step behind them. We talked a lot as we walked down the long dome corridors. I asked questions about what life was like here and they responded, clearly amused that I seemed so intrigued by what they had known all their life.
After a while Caulin asked me. “ So I guess you don’t know anything about this place do you. I mean considering the world you remember was blown away a while ago.”
Scyll and Gohn stopped and gave Caulin a dirty look. “ Wow, that was possibly the stupidest and most insensitive thing I have every heard.” Gohn said to Caulin.
“What?” Caulin said in defense. “ I can’t help it if his home and everyone he knew is gone.”
“Wow, I stand corrected.” Gohn said shaking his head in disbelief. “ you are such a moron.”
Caulin threw his hand up in confusion. “ What did I say?” he asked looking around. Scyll and Gohn just put their hands to their foreheads as if fighting off a headache.
After a few minutes of thinking Caulin must have realized what had happened because he started to blush and smacked himself. Muttering the word “stupid”.
“ Don’t be offended by him.” Scyll said quietly as she came to walk beside me. “He really does mean well. He just seems to talk before he thinks.” She paused for a second. “long before he thinks.” I forced a smile. I really wasn’t offended, but I couldn’t help but be reminded by it. I really was in a strange world, and my world… well as Caulin had put it, my world had in fact been blown away.

Chapter three: Waking up?

2009-04-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

I don’t know exactly how long I “slept”, but I will never forget the day I woke.
A chill ran down my spine as I suddenly became aware of the cold dry air around me. My eyes burned furiously as they cracked open. I blinked several times before realizing that my surroundings were pitch dark. I stared for several seconds into the dark void around me, trying in vain to make out my environment. Finally, I began to feel around, slowly at first I felt to the edges of the bed I had been lying in. As my fingers reached the edge I felt a cold metal wall on either side of me. My muscles ached as I rolled over weakly attempting to decipher what I was feeling. My hands slid up the smooth walls as they curved into the ceiling only a foot or so above the bed.
My stomach began to churn and I broke into a cold sweat as a deep panic began to set into my still foggy perceptions. I’m in a coffin…I was buried alive!? My breathing shallowed, not helping my already faltering grip on consciousness. With everything I had, I pushed on the roof of my imagined coffin, slowly the top moved creaking with the strain of timeless disrepair. A sudden breeze flooded into the tank I had been in, flushing out the cold stale air, and replacing it with a hot dripping tropical atmosphere. The sudden climate change rocked my vulnerable senses. My once shallow breaths were now labored, struggling against the weight of this new environment, but the humidity felt soothing on my dry throat and lungs. I pulled myself slowly from the metallic tomb. My bare feet landed on tile as I climbed out, but to my shock I lacked the strength to support myself. I flailed desperately trying futilely to grasp something to stop from falling. I crashed to floor in a heap, alone in the darkness. My exhaustion overwhelmed me and I once again slipped away from wakefulness….
…I don’t know how long I slept there on the floor, but I awoke with a start. Something crashed in the room. The sharp sound stunned my long unused ears. I once again tested my eyes against the darkness. “still nothing” I muttered to myself coughing as I used my voice. Another crash reached my ears from the other side of the room. An eerie feeling came over me. I was lost, confused, disoriented, and still exhausted. What was worse was that on top of all that ……I wasn’t alone.
Every muscle in my body burned as I fought to crawl across the cold tile floor. Dust and dirt kicked up into my face as I reached and clawed, trying to head away from the sounds in the darkness. I didn’t know what was there and I didn’t want to find out. Another crash, this time closer. “what’s happening?!” I cried softly under my breath. “Where the hell am I? Why do I feel this way?” My confusion was only overcome by my fear. Suddenly, I could hear a low, rough, panting slowly approaching my position sprawled out on the floor. Then it began to sniff at me, it sounded like an animal of some sort. For a moment, I wondered if it was just a stray dog, my tension temporarily lessened at the thought that it could be something so benign.
I slowly began to crawl again hoping the animal would simply leave me alone. There was a gruff wheeze, from the beast as I began to move again. “It must be a dog” I thought again to myself. “It sounds like one. I am just getting worked up because of everything else.”
At that moment the animal jumped onto me, like a mad dog the creature bit into my arm. I yelled in pain as its teeth sank deep into my skin. My blood went cold with fear. I was going to die. I was going to die and I didn’t even know where I was… ALONE IN THE DARK I WAS GOING TO DIE!
I flailed around for something, anything that could help me fend off the creature. My hands grasped a small cylindrical metal object that was simply lying on the messy floor. I grasped it weakly and used it to hit the animal on the head attempting to force the creature to let go of my arm. After a few, painfully pathetic blows the creature let go, not likely because I was hitting it so much as to attack another part of my body.
As soon as the beast released me I scooted myself against the wall. I felt my weapon again and realized it was a flashlight of some sort. I fumbled with it for a second, trying to figure out how it worked. Then like lightning there was a flash of power in the dried up cells of the contraptions power source. The blazing light burned through the thick blackness melting it away. My own eyes were nearly blinded by the sudden brightness and flood of visual information flowing in. The creature scampered away from me attempting to shield itself from my new power.
As my vision adjusted to the new whiteness of the world, I saw my surrounding for the first time. It was a warehouse looking place full of hundreds of egg shaped pods like the one from which I had come. The room was massive and barren with what must have been, once a white wall, was now a grayish yellow from mold. Long non-functioning florescent light fixtures lined the ceiling to complete the depressing ambiance.
I swung the beam of my light across the room attempting to relocate my assailant. Without warning there was another crash to my immediate right. I swung my light around just in time to catch a flash of the animal.
My eyes widened in horror as I saw that it was no dog. It reared up on its hind legs standing at least four feet high, hissing and clawing at the air its red eyes burning from the light in my hand. It was covered from head to toe in a thick matted gray fur. A long snake-like tail swung out from behind it. Its teeth were bared revealing a full mouth of razor sharp yellow fangs, but despite the various differences there was no mistaking what I was looking at. It was a giant rat…
The light held the beast there for a moment before it started to flicker. A sick feeling came over me as I understood my last hope was about to fail me. The last thing I saw was drool falling from the rats mouth as it lowered back to all fours. Then the room was recovered by the darkness.
In a panic I look around frantically, as if I could still see my surroundings. I remembered that to my left one of the pods was still open. I had no other option I threw all of what little strength I had into my legs and willed myself to stand. I quickly flung myself into the pod and grabbed a small handle on the hatch. I slammed it shut just as the monster crashed into my new found haven.
I trembled like a helpless child as it started scratching furiously at the exterior of my shelter. The scratching was endless and maddening. I felt what seemed like another eternity go by as I huddled alone in my synthetic womb. Then I heard my attacker scream in pain. There was a short scuffle as it seemed to wrestle with something outside then another scream, again from the rat…. Then a whimper… Then silence. My head spun as the pent up anxieties overwhelmed me, and once again I let myself fall from consciousness.
White angel
I awoke again as the hatched of my pod was slowly opened. She was the first thing I saw. My eyes opened slowly burning from the light of the still nearly pitch dark room. She was amazing She wore a form fitting full white suit that covered her from the neck down. It cover her completely hands and feet. She also wore a white vest over the suit that came down to about the midriff. On her head was a small burette also white. Her hair was a blondish brown. It was wavy and came down to just above her shoulders. She had a soft complexion with slightly tan skin that was perfectly silky and smooth, but it was her eyes that captured me. They were a light hazel and they looked at me with a kind carefree wonder. I thought that I was looking at an angel. Maybe it was the fact that she was the first person I had seen in almost an eternity, but I felt different about this girl.
“Could he be from before the war?” She asked someone I couldn’t see. “ I mean he must be, no one has been here since that time, but that would make him over a thousand years old!” I tried to fight it, but my exhaustion was still to much I blacked out again after that, dreams once again filled up my consciousness, but this time my dreams were different. They started out well, I was with the girl in white, and I was happy for a change. Then things went wrong. The girl vanished from my dream. I felt a voice. It was deep and it echoed in my mind. It’s powerful boom shook my senses.
“What is it?” the voice asked. “ Destroy it! It will ruin everything! What is this? How can that be? She’ll be ruined. What can I do then? What choice do I have? Fine assimilate it then.” I had no idea what this dream meant but after that I woke up and found myself in a world completely different from the one I had left. At first I wondered if I was really awake at all.
Chapter 3: The Dome.
The room around me was completely empty save a strange oval on the wall with a large slit that appeared could open and close. I could only assume that it was meant to be some kind of door. Next to the door was another small slit in the wall this time about the size to fit a card of some sort. The room itself was a strange gray color. It wasn’t metal, wood, or plastic. It was hard about the consistency and smoothness of a fingernail. The lighting in the room came from an indeterminate area in the ceiling. There was no light fixture only a kind of glow that lit the entire room. I was laying on a small raised portion of the floor that was soft and made a sort of bed for me.
I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to adjust to the dim light. My entire body ached, sore from the long sleep. My intense fatigue from before seemed to be slipping away and though it hurt to, I realized I had enough strength to move. As I went to stand, I felt a tug on my arm. I looked down and noticed there was a long cord extending from my wrist all the way into the ceiling.
I tugged at the cord. “Strange,” I said to myself. “ this feels like an IV.” I looked down at my other arm, there were several pin pricks running up and down it, showing I had had blood drawn recently, quite a lot. I rubbed my temples trying to banish the fog that seemed to cloud my thinking. “ Where am I?”
My eyes continued to run up and down my body. I suddenly remembered the attack and my hand instinctively rushed up to the wound on my shoulder. To my surprise there was nothing there, no bandage, or even scar. I slumped back onto the “bed” once again swimming in my own head. “Was it all a dream? I know that it couldn’t have been real,…..but it felt real.”
Not long after this, the “door” opened. In seconds the once barren room was alive with people. Twenty or thirty men and women dressed in black and white lab coats crammed into the small space scrambling around, all trying to get a look at me. They whispered to each other, looks of surprise and amazement covered their faces.
I fidgeted uncomfortably under their scrutinizing eyes. No one addressed me, they spoke rapidly to each other as if they didn’t think I could even understand them. The noise was to much all at once. My head was already throbbing, the dull roar of this crowd just made it all that much worse. I couldn’t take it anymore. Finally, I threw my hands up and shouted, “ SHUT UP!” The room instantly feel silent. A general look of shock hung on the faces of the people around me. “ what, on earth, is going on?” I asked slowly. Panting from the mixture of anxiety and pain welling up in my chest.
My audience stood there is silence for only a moment longer then they burst. They crowded around me pushing and shoving just trying to get a look at me. They shouted one question after another. If the dull roar they had made before gave me a headache then by now it was a migraine.
What was worse was the questions didn’t make sense. They were in English sure enough, but they were about the stupidest stuff. They asked me “when I was born? What I ate? If I was sick?” Things that seemed relatively unimportant they shouted at me like it was some new incredible discovery.
I covered my ears trying to shut out the ruckus. I felt sick I couldn’t get them to stop. I didn’t know how much more I could take. Suddenly the door opened again. In walked a girl. She was different than the girls in white I had seen before. This girl was a few years older than me. She was very attractive and there was kindness in her face, but at the same time a sort of frailness.
She took one look around and became very irritated. “What are you people doing in here?!” she asked sternly to one of the men.
He scowled at her and replied, “This is an important discovery, leave us alone.”
She stood toe to toe with him not in the least bit intimidated. “ This is my patient and he is in no condition to be entertaining questions right now.” She pushed through the crowd and stood between me and them. “Now leave so I can get my work done. When he is better I am sure he will be willing to answer what ever you want.”
The man tapped his foot impatiently. “Listen here, nurse I don’t know who you think you are, but we have every right to be here.” he said poking his finger into her chest. “ So leave and let us get what we need, or else I …..”
At that moment the door opened once again. In walked the girl in white that I had seen when I first woke up. She stood in the doorway for a second assessing the situation. Everyone in the room immediately fell silent. Her eyes moved from one person to the next finally settling on the man who had been arguing with the nurse.
The man cringed under her stare, indicating that this girl no older than them held a position of some importance. “Everyone out.” she said authoritatively, not taking her eyes off the man. The response was astounding immediately all the people filled quickly out the door without a single word of complaint.
The girl in white stopped the nurse as she was exiting. “Is he stable enough to leave?” She asked looking over at me.
The nurse frowned in concern. “He appears to be, but I think he should be getting rest right now.”
The girl in white nodded. “ I understand, but I think if he is stable enough he will probably like some answers. I will bring him in for a checkup tomorrow. Will that be alright?”
The nurse nodded then took another look toward me and smiled. “I’ll leave you two alone, I hope to see you again when you are feeling better.”
I smiled weakly back at her wanting to thank her, but I was still to overwhelmed to think straight, instead I simply nodded.
The girl in white walked up to me and sat down on the bed next to me. “Are you alright?” she said. “ You must be really confused.” I only nodded “ You do speak English, right?” She asked.
“Yes.” I replied. “Where am I?”
“ In the dome.” she said as if it needed no explanation. I cocked my eyebrow in confusion. “ Oh yeah.” She said. “ you probably don’t know anything about the dome. It wasn’t here when you were last awake. Was it?”
“When I was last awake?” I inquired shaken by the eerie scene around me.
“ You’ve been in cryogenic sleep for, we believe, at least a thousand years.” She answered slowly. My mind reeled. The dreams all flooded back into my head. I felt the room spin as she explained the events of the last millennia. She told me that a terrible war had broken out, probably not long after I had been frozen. She told me about how the war had taken a horrible turn when the nuclear warheads were launched. She didn’t know who started it or who finished it, but the result was a near annihilation of civilization altogether. I knew this is what my dreams had been about, though I didn’t know how. I wanted to pass out again to shake myself and find that this was just another dream, but for all my efforts the nightmare would not end. Slowly I began to regain some semblance of composure. I forced myself to continue the discussion.
“ So was this dome built after the war then?”
“ I guess you could say that.” she responded vaguely.
“ What is it made of. I mean it doesn’t look like any material I’ve ever seen.” I said trying to get off the uncomfortable topics we had been discussing.
“ Well it’s mostly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, but there are a few other trace elements here and there.” She replied inconsequentially. I stared for a moment my mind cranked back to the science classes I had had so long ago.
“Are you telling me this dome is organic?” I exclaimed in disbelief.
“ Of course it wouldn’t be alive otherwise.” she answered calmly.
My mind reeled once again. I was standing in a living building. This was a little much to accept. “How!” I asked.
She answered me slowly probably thinking back to what she had learned as a child. “Well, after the war most of the machines were fried from the electro magnetic pulses. So a group of geneticists and biologist that had survived the war got together and genetically engineered this dome.“ After a few minutes she said. “ How about I show you around. This place is hard to describe. Your questions would be better answered by seeing everything.
I didn’t know if I wanted to learn anymore about this place, but at the same time this girl….there was something about her that I was entranced by.
“ Wait.” I said. “I still don’t know your name.
“It’s Terry.” She replied. I repeated the name over in my head. Terry, the name kind of rolled off my tongue. She tapped her foot and cocked here head to the side impatiently. “Well, what about you?”
My cheeks got red. “ Sorry. I’m David.” I said quickly.
She smiled. “Nice to meet you David.” With that she helped me remove the IV and then withdrew a small card from her pocket and slipped it into the slit next to the door. The door then opened and she lead me out into a small corridor with the same gray color and glowing bioluminescent as the room. I asked her what the card was and how it had opened the door.
“ it’s a mineral card.” She answered. “ In order to work anything in the dome doors, lifts, and so on you insert mineral cards that stimulate that organ to do whatever it is that you need.”
“ Where do you get the cards at?” I asked.
“ They are given to us at the beginning of each day.” She replied.
“What if you need more?” I solicited.
She answered quickly almost without thinking “You won’t your given the exact number you’ll need, by the dome, at the beginning of the day.”
“ How does it know how many your going to need. I mean what if there’s an emergency?” I inquired. Everything was so strange here.
She stopped for a moment. A puzzled look came over her face. “ I don’t know I have never thought about it.” She shrugged her shoulders and kept going. We then emerged from the corridor into the main area of the dome. It was huge. The dome consisted of several floors that circled around the outer wall of the dome making a series of rings. The center of the dome was completely open save a network of pathways and lifts connecting the various floors. Everything was moving. The pathways compressed and extended moving people from one end of the dome to the other. There were tubes connecting the various floors as well. It was to one of these tubes that we approached. She slid another mineral card into one of the slots by the tubes. A space opened on the tube and I could see inside. The tube was full of liquid running swiftly. It was kept inside only by a thin membrane.
“Follow me.” she said, and then proceeded to push through the membrane. The membrane closed behind her enclosing her in a sort of bubble that quickly flowed away through the tube. I closed my eyes and pressed up against the membrane. In a few seconds I was flying through what seemed to be a dry water park ride. I was moving so fast I couldn’t tell where I was going. Suddenly without warning I was thrust out of the tube and landed awkwardly on the floor.
Terry laughed. “ I probably should have told you to watch the landing.” We continued our tour through the bizarre living city. Every question I asked she had an answer for.
“ What are those things hanging from the ceiling everywhere?” I asked.
“ Villi,” she replied. “ The dome exchanges oxygen from them. “ And that Chamber over there is where the heart pumps are.”
“ heart pumps?” I said surprised. “ This dome really is just like a giant living thing. What does it eat?”
“ It is photosynthetic and chemosynthetic. The dome uses both the sun and the remnant nuclear radiation and converts it to energy. Through a similar means like plants.” She answered.
“You mentioned earlier that the dome gives you the mineral cards. Does that mean the dome is sentient?” I asked.
“ No, it just does what we tell it to, but it is almost like a giant computer it keeps track of what we need and gives it too us.” She replied. The entire experience was more than a little surreal. I kept expecting that I would just wake up or someone would say that this was all some kind of bad realty show, but … it wasn’t. I was really surprised how fast I grew to accept this new world. I guess after being asleep for so long I was just glad to be aware of anything anymore. Even if it was different from anything I had ever dreamed of.

Chapter two: A night on the town

2009-04-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

The alarm on my dresser forced me out of my blissful reprieve from reality. My eyes eased open, burning in the morning light. I forced myself from my bed and pulled myself still half asleep into the bathroom. I scowled as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Staring back at me I saw a 25 year old man who looked to be homeless. My beard and mustache that were suppose to be trimmed to trace my jaw line had long since spread to cover down my neck, and were scraggly and unkempt. My dark brown hair which I liked to have trimmed to the same length as my beard was now several inches longer my bangs hung down almost long enough to cover my eyes. My normally tan skin was slowly turning white, an annoying result of the winter climate, but what disappointed me the most was the sight of my arms. My once brawny forearms and biceps were starting to lose their tone as a result of now being out of my highschool football days and weight training for four years now. I had been so proud of myself back then....not anymore. College had ruined me. I finally removed myself from the mirror and slid into the shower. After about thirty minutes in there, I got dressed and ran out the door, already late for my first class. I hurried along through the cold morning air, slipping on the newly formed ice on the side walk. I stumbled, but regained my footing and muttering under my breath continued on my way. When I got to class I tried to sneak in to a seat in the back of the large lecture hall, but as usually my arrogant self absorbed chemistry teacher was just waiting for a chance to insult some poor student. Today, that student was me.
“So, looks like somebody woke up late today.” The professor said mockingly in his impossibly nasal voice, while adjusting his inch thick specticles to better see me. “I so glad you decided to interrupt your hangover to join us this morning.” I just scowled and took a seat. “ Well, at least your interruption was aptly timed, I was just asking the class if anyone new how many hydrogen atoms would be in the compound with this NMR spectrum?” he asked pointing to a slide on an ancient overhead projector.
I stammered hurridly trying to think back to the studies I had done the night before. “Umm… 16.” I replied weakly.
He didn’t even dignify me with a response. He simply laughed and proceeded to explain how to arrive at the correct answer. I burned in embarrassment and frustration, but none the less hurried to keep up with the scribbles he wrote on the blackboard. After the eternity that the chemistry class took, I proceeded to the rest of my classes. Though they weren’t as humiliating, they lacked none of the dullness.
After four grueling hours I was finally able to escape the prison of college. I practically sprinted from my last class of the day, pushing my way through my classmates to escape this institutionalized hell. I passed by the college welcome sign as I left the school behind me. It was carved out of stone and stood several feet high. It read “Welcome to the University of Chicago, an emblem of mans pursuit of knowledge.” I smirked as I looked back at the school, my dad had always said, “The best view of a college was from a rear view mirror.” I had never agreed with him more.
My plans for the evening first took me to my favorite restaurant The Windy City diner. It was a small family owned diner a few blocks from campus. They served the best roast beef sandwich in all of Chicago. I came here every Friday and old Aeolus, the diner owner and chef, new me by name.
As I entered the diner I looked around seeing no other guests in the small back ally place. The place was simply decorated. Personal pictures and newspaper clippings about the small restaurant coverd the otherwise plain white walls. A long bar stretched down the front of the shop facing into the kitchen, allowing customers to watch their food as it was prepared as well as converse with the host.
Aeolus stood behind the bar absently wipeing the surface in preparation for the afternoon rush. He was a large man in late sixties at least, plumped from excessivly diping into his own food supplies no doubt. He always seemed to wear the same outfit everytime I came to see him. Long suspenders holding up his casual slacks, and a plain white t-shirt underneath. Of course when he cooked he always wore an apron and dawned a nice tall chefs hat, that I often teased him about.
“Another rough week for my favorite pre-med student.” Old Aeolus said with his trade mark grin. I manage a half smile in return and replied, “ Yea. Same as always.”
He laughed his carefree laugh and walked to the counter where I had taken my seat. Leaning on his elbow he asked, “ So, let me guess you want the usual?” I just smiled and gave a nod. Old Aeolus jumped to work cooking up a storm. I couldn’t help but smile at the scene. In a flash the mouth-watering delicacy was slid before me. Aeolus and I talked as I tore into the sandwich. I laughed as he told me about his daughter, still in middle school, she had just come up with another boyfriend, the seventh in the past month. He told me about his son, who was fresh out of boot camp and headed over to the conflict in the middle east, the same one I had heard about the night before on the news. He talked about how proud he was of his boy, but even through his big smiles I could see worry in his eyes. I felt a pang of guilt, I was unhappy with my life, but compared to the things Aeolus was dealing with right now, what room did I have to complain?
The discussion lasted almost an hour, with only brief interruptions here and there as new customers came in and were greeted and served. At the end of the meal I stood up to pay, but old Aeolus smiled and said, “ Hey, how ‘bout this ones on the house?”
I gave him a quizzical look, “ No, Aeolus I can’t take this for free, heck I should be paying extra, you know that this food is under priced as it is.”
He laughed. “ Well then next week it will be double, but tonight go have fun. You work too hard.” He pushed me to the door. “ Go see a movie, on me.”
I smiled at the old man’s generosity. “ Thanks Aeolus, I’ll do that. See you next week.” Aeolus waved as I left. I walked out and down the street. The theatre was only a few blocks away. As I walked a soft rain started. I began to hurry, it was still cold out and this rain was freezing. With each passing step the rain seemed to increase. As if some mighty force didn’t see fit for me to get the movies that night. The streetlights were on by now, but the current downpour seemed to destroy what little visibility they would have brought.
To make matters worse a strong wind started to blow. It was so strong I had to brace myself to keep from being knocked over by the sudden force. I paused for a moment under an awning, considering if I ought to abandon all hope of seeing a movie that night, but I was determined. So I decided to continue.
I hurried to cross the street, but as I stepped off the curb another blast of wind hit me and made me slip on a small patch of ice. Suddenly, I heard the deafening blast of a horn. I looked up just in time to see the bright shine of chrome before everything went black…
Everything after that was a blur. To be honest I can never be sure if any of it is real or if it is just a dream. Because when your unconscious your not suppose to know what is happening. At least that was what I always believed. But none the less the things I remember were real when I woke up. The first thing I remember was the siren, it blasted so loud it would have heart my ears, but strangely enough I couldn’t really feel anything at all. The next thing was a voice I can only assume came from a doctor. He said something about a coma. The next voice came from a familiar source it was unmistakably my dad’s
He was a doctor too and obviously could tell the severity of the injuries. He asked what could be done, and the doctor said that all they could do was wait. Then I heard the tears of my friends and relatives but no voices. Only tears. The next voice was a different doctor. From what I could understand he was talking about a special procedure. It involved cryogenics and nanotechnology, but I really had no idea what was about to happen. After that it got really cold and I didn’t hear anything anymore….
The dreams were the worst. I guess you could call them nightmares, but they were never about me. They always referred to the world I had left. In the beginning they portrayed horrific scenes of war. There was death and destruction the likes of which I had never seen. I saw Aeolus's son fighting, dressed in full fatigues. I saw The brilliant blaze of gunfire coming from the barral of his weapon. Screams of pain shot out as bullets whizzed back at him, dotting his chest with small red pin prick like wounds. In my dream I wondered at the sight.... so much damage from such small wounds. Then my dream spun, there were massive explosions that shuttered through every corner of my mind. Then the dreams slowed down.

Chapter One: Philosophy Class

2009-04-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

“Do you have free will Mr. Homer?” I was asked. “ What is free will? How is it defined? If you believe that it does in fact exist how is it exercised?” It was February 22, 2025. I was sitting in an uncomfortable desk, in my senior philosophy class. This was suppose to be an easy class in the midst of my four pre-med science classes. The man interrogating me was my professor, he was a stubby little man, balding right up the middle of his head. He was the type of teacher that loved to teach rambling on and on when he got into a topic.
“ It has to exist.” I replied finally. “ I make choices every day. Where to eat, what to say, what to wear. If I am making those choices then doesn’t that mean that I’m exercising free will?” My professor simply smiled.
“You’d think that wouldn’t you.” he replied slowly and deliberately, then speeding up his face reddening with excitement as he continued, “ But what process has led you to make those “choices”? Are you not simply the sum of your experiences and genetics? If so then the choices you make are a direct result of those two factors. Furthermore, you have no control of those two factors. So couldn’t one argue that you have no control of what decisions you may choose to make.” He finished taking a deep breath attempting to regain his composure. I pondered what he said for a moment. I tried to find a loophole in his arugment but as I rolled it over in my head, I had to admit his logic seemed infallable, how can you argue against causality? I felt mildly uneasy about the conclusion that was drawn from it though. If we are just a product of the events leading up to our life, then every decision we make.... every thought we have.... are just a product of that ..... So what are we then? Windup toys just playing out prescripted actions, going through the motions of real life? “ For next class make sure you have read chapters 3 and 4. I’ll see you all next Thursday.” Our professor finished finally seeming content to let us all stew in the philosophical puzzle he had given us. As I left the room I thought more about what he had said. After a few minutes I dismissed the thoughts. What did it matter anyway. It’s not like any of it applied to the real world, or changed anything from my perspective.
I walked back to my apartment. It was freezing outside, the cold air nipped fiercely at my face. I scowled pulling my all-to-thin jacket up to help fight off the cold, kicking myself for not bringing a heavier one. I vainly tried to shut out my thoughts about the cold. I began to go over what I needed to accomplish over the course of the rest of the day. I mentally rehearsed what homework I still had left and what tests would be coming up soon. I sighed deeply, the breath formed a small cloud in the cold air before being whirled around, dissipating quickly in the wind. There was just too much to do.
Day in and day out was always the same. I went to my classes and would feverishly attempt to keep up with the torrents of notes my professors would spit out. Then I would walk back to my apartment and watch TV for an hour while I cooked something to eat, and finally I would finish the day off with a delightful three to four hours of studying worthless facts that no one really even needed to know before collapsing in bed to sleep before the next round. All in an effort to get into medical school where I would do the same thing for another four grueling years.
I finally made it to my apartment after fighting jack frost for the last three blocks. When I got in I immediately turned on the TV and threw a frozen pizza in the oven. My apartment wasn’t too bad. It was a single bedroom with a small living area attached to an even smaller kitchen. My walls and rooms were furnished in the standard college student style, a mishmash of assorted hand-me-downs that my parents and neighbors didn’t need anymore. The floors were littered with old homework assignments and text books.
I eased back into my old torn up lazy boy chair and began the joyful event of channel surfing. I flipped past the endless channels full of reality shows and soap operas, wondering which one was more fake than the other, past a few hundred ESPNs and a weather channel or two, before finally settling on a news station. I got up and checked my pizza while I half listened to the bland expressionless news caster give a report on the “big” stories of the day.
The screen showed some kind of awards ceremony going on. Three men in their mid thirties stood on a platform waving and holding up their medals all with big smiles on their faces. The news man narrated the scene. He said that these three men were being credited a Nobel Prize for their amazing research in human biology. The narration went on to describe the men’s incredible new discovery. It seemed that they had managed to isolate the genes responsible for aging.
I settled back into my chair with my pizza steaming in its plate, as I let it cool, I contemplated the story on the news. If we could figure out how to change or eliminate those genes altogether then we might be able to increase the human lifespan many times over. In fact, if a person kept themselves healthy they might go on living forever. I shook my head at this. Who would really want to live forever. I mean, if you live forever then life would never have any meaning or purpose.
I returned my attention to the TV. I saw their names scroll across the news bar at the bottom of the screen. Each name underneath its respective owner, Dr. Tyrese Leto, Dr. Richard Briton, and lastly Dr. Iago Nebu.
I watched a few minutes longer until they started going into another story about a conflict growing in the middle east. The image showed two men debating over the political significance of some new country claiming to have established nuclear capabilities. They argued over the “doomsday clock“, the supposed clock that ticked away to the nuclear apocalypse each time a new country attains nuclear status. I rolled my eyes. They were always acting like the world was on the edge of destruction, but I never believed them. The news station was just trying to get people worked up as usual. Scare people enough and they will keep watching. That was too boring for me so I resumed my channel surfing. After cycling through all the channels once or twice I found my favorite movie playing, the Matrix. It was an old film my dad had shown me. The special effects were old fashioned, but the plot was intriguing none the less. My mind wandered as the familiar scenes played across the screen. I had always loved the intricate plot lines and philosophical ideas that had come out of movies like these. The scene showed the main character Neo. He had just awoken from the virtual “dream” world that he had been raised in. The movie showed him as he struggled to accept the strange new reality set before him. I lost myself as the movie progressed. The plot of the story proceeded as a normal sci-fi movie would. Perpetual action scenes dotted with twists and turns. I sighed deeply to myself, wishing my life was more exciting than this day after day monotony.
After the movie, I cleaned my dishes and got on my computer. I was about to start my homework when I noticed my little brother’s icon flashing on my msn message bar. I decided I still had some time to talk before I tortured myself with studies for the night.
We talked for about an hour…which was probably an hour too long, but I couldn’t help myself. My brother and I had always been close. Throughout my life he was the only person I had ever really identified with. We didn’t talk about anything in particular, just different things that we had been doing and wanted to do. We joked back and forth, he always made me laugh. He was never serious. Just about everything he would say had a hint of sarcasm behind it.
Finally, I told him I had to go. Afterward, I crammed for a few hours before finally collapsing into bed sometime around midnight. Thankfully, the next day was Friday and after a few classes I would be able to get a break from this excruciating routine.

prologue Questions

2009-04-01T22:01:00.000-07:00

Who am I? What am I? Most importantly, why am I? Am I chance? Coincidence? Do I have a purpose, or am I just a pawn? No………. I’m David.
A soft rain trickled down from a nearly cloudless sky. The water collected on the tips of my hair, then slide down my cheeks like tears…or maybe, they were tears. At that moment, standing by the grave, I wasn’t sure. A soft wind blew sliding through the grass creating a wave over a sea of green. I let the wave of wind splash over me. The air felt cold on my rain soaked face. I closed my eyes and let the cold breeze whistle past my ears. I had always thought that the wind was like life, always changing, unpredictable, uncontrollable. As I stood there I began to wonder. How did I get here? To this time, this place. Why was I here thinking these thoughts, and my friend wasn’t. What led to this? I guess it started a long time ago….

Welcome to the Dome....

2009-04-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

This is my first novel. It is a sci-fi drama focused on creating likeable characters with ample plot twists. There is romance, comedy, action and suspense. I hope you enjoy my first attempt at novel writing.

I will be editing this work periodically and i will notify you if i make changes or add chapters to things that i have already written.

I apologize if the formatting for the site is still a little weird. This is my first attempt at blogging as well so I am still working to figure out all the tricks. Ill try to get it fixed up soon so that you can just move from chapter to chapter directly and have the chapter titles up instead of just dates. Please have patiences and trust that the book is better than the website looks at the moment. Thanks for reading.

For more information and other online writers go to Fiction Press.com
http://www.fictionpress.com/secure/story/story_preview.php?storyid=2661501&chapter=1

I did a major rewrite of chapter 3. If you have already read this chapter go back and reread it and let me know what you think.