Kenny exhaled a breath of relief and leaned back in the chair. His relief was short-lived as he heard the sound of metal blade being quickly pulled from a metal sheath. He closed his eyes and his heart dropped into his chest as he realized a long, shiny knife was being held to his throat.
“Damn it…” Kenny thought as he tried not to breath for fear that the blade would open an artery. He remained still, even though his mind was in a state of pure panic, “This shit can’t be happening…it’s him…it’s the guy they warned me about…the boogey man in black…”
Kenny realized that in the stillness around him, he could hear the sound of a lighter being flicked, and the sound of someone inhaling. Moments later, he smelled cigarette smoke, and heard a deep voice saying, “Thank you…that will be all. I will take it from here.”
He felt the blade as it was removed from his skin. The sensation was nerve wracking.
When Kenny removed his goggles, he realized that a white haired man, who was wearing a black business suit, with a gleaming white shirt and a finely tuned black tie, was smiling at him and smoking a cigarette.
“Kenny Matsumoto,” Van Dien said. “You were born twenty two years ago in Polynea to Hana and Macau Matsumoto. Your father was an accountant…a corrupt one at that…he cooked the books and laundered money for the Pilikoa family until he died of a heart attack five years ago. Your mother quit speaking to you once she realized you had followed in your father’s footsteps, and recently…you tried to get out of this business of hacking computers for criminals because you thought it would be neat to become a legitimate businessman…selling T-shirts was it? The good government of Ailana recently forced you to give up custody of your child because you decided to sell profanity instead of fashion, as I understand it.”
Kenny’s muscles twitched and his hands balled up into angry fists as he said, “Who are you? What do you want?”
Van Dien exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, “I’m the guy they warned you about during all those spooky campfire stories…and all I want, is for you to finish your job here…and then, when you are done…I want you to seriously consider doing a job for me. I understand you have some worries about money…well, Kenny…I can make those worries go away.”
Location: EMS Rousseau…Officers deck.
Standard Ship Time: 1500 Hours.
“How could you save your soul? Maybe you could say that you were just following orders…you were just along for the ride…you really didn’t want to do what they told you…you were coerced…you were tricked…you were forced…you were lied to…deceived…betrayed…you were, delivered unto evil.”
In the dream, the ape-faced drill sergeant was addressing them in a loud and stern manner, “We will not only teach you how to achieve the maximum power of these Battle Suits, but we will also teach you how to use these Battle Suits, to achieve the maximum power within yourselves. We will teach you to jump across canyons, off cliffs, fly through the sky and will even show you how to swim through the shit of a city sewer system in order to achieve the objective. And what is our objective? It is nothing more than the wielding of brute force to bring about the end of a war, or a situation that could potentially cause a war, by ending the enemy’s life, before he ends yours. That which does not live, cannot threaten us, and with the training you will receive here, you will learn thousands of ways in which to violently end life. You will learn to become invisible, you will learn to walk and run without being heard, learn how to move without being seen…you will learn the ways of deception in order to bring about destruction. You will learn to sneak up on your enemy and kill him, before he even realizes he is a threat to you…”
Without the medication, the memories became nightmares, which became hallucinations. The drill sergeant’s face became fuzzy and distorted, the room seemed to turn dark and fill with smoke. The voice became demonic, “Of course…at least one of you here, already knows how to end a life…you know what it means to kill out of egotistical spite, or hatred…some of you know what it means to kill for strategy…to silence a voice, that made a choice to become threatening…some people gotta learn that loose lips sink ships, and ya gotta serve somebody. Who did you serve, Harris? What did you do to prove your worth to your masters?”
In the dream, Harris remembered how the arms of his black, armored suit had been outfitted with sixteen centimeter long blades that could retract into the suit’s forearm plates. At the touch of a button, they would spring out, and act as dual swords for hand to hand combat. Soldiers on Terraxakor hunting missions rarely got to use such methods since most were trained to rely on guns and long range missiles to do their killing from a safe distance.
But for Harris and his teammates, this drop was different.
Their enemies looked completely helpless as they fled away on bare, scaly feet. The Terraxakor soldiers didn’t even have time to put their boots on and they ran directly into a dead end. His platoon’s orders were to take no prisoners and it soon became a slaughter. Harris remembered how he bounded after the lizard-like soldiers and used the rocket launchers in his boots to fly up and over them. He remembered the sensation from doing a flip in the air and landing in a battle stance right on front of the terrified enemy soldiers. Through the electronic displays in his visor, he could see their horror as he used the laser gun mounted on his right shoulder to cut the first three to ribbons.
“Die you bastard lizards die!” He remembered the thrill of seeing blood and guts being spilled by the simple work of his own hands.
“DIE!”
He launched a small rocket that was mounted on his left forearm, straight into the head of the Terraxakor soldier in the back of the group. He grabbed his pistol from his right thigh plate and shot two explosive rounds into the stomachs of the next in line. The feeling of the adrenaline rush was explosive. He holstered his pistol and looked at the last lizard standing, it growled and leapt at him. Harris delivered two solid punches with reinforced metal gloves to the alien’s midsection and let out a karate kick with hydraulically assisted, mechanical legs to the lizard’s jaw, breaking its face. It fell to its knees and that’s when Harris unsheathed the blades in his arms. The Terraxakor’s neck was like butter.
“And ya have to ask yourself…do ya like the killing? Did those who we sent into their next life have to die in the first place? But does any of that matter? Admit it boy…you like to kill…there is no escaping from what you are…a natural born killer!”
In the dream, he saw the darkness, and heard the blasts of laser fire as he ran forward; the Battle Suit was almost doing the thinking for him. He just remembered how his head hurt, and how his eyes felt as if they were melting. The voice in his earphone was saying, “You’ve fallen under heavy fire…just trust me and do as I say…run north…you’ll find a large concrete building, eight stories high…go inside, plant the bomb…and get out…we’ll have a bird waiting to pick you up and get you out of there.”
He remembered entering the building. He remembered planting the bomb, and the bodily injury he sustained when a man in a turban blasted him with an electron beam. The suit protected him from the blast, but it left a lot of internal bruises. Harris killed the man with a grenade blast and then ran. He remembered the shock of the explosion, and how he had not been far enough away when it happened. He flew through air, and tumbled for thirty meters in the sand. When he got up, his malfunctioning suit felt so heavy. He didn’t have to walk very far to see the small, burned bodies. There were hundreds of them. He felt himself chocking as everything went black.
“And soon…you’ll kill without question…do as your told…do what’s best for everybody, anytime you are asked to do so. Tell me, who did you serve, Harris? What was most terrible thing…that you have ever done…in order to prove your worth to your masters?”
In the dream, the fat Ailanian man, with the big cigar and fancy clothes, was speaking to him. His voice seemed happy as he said, “I
t’s a beautiful friendship we got going here. It’s a good symbiotic relationship, like the kind of thing ya see out there in the ocean, in those coral reefs…I’m the coral that builds the house, and you’re the algae that provides the energy, for me to keep building this pretty little empire…or something like that. At any rate, I provide the brains, and you provide the brawn…you do as I say, and everyone will benefit from it…that’s the way things outta be. But unfortunately, we live in rough waters…and there are lots of fish that want to pick away at our little home we have built…we have to protect our way of life…we have to protect each other…there is something you boys have to do for me…for all of us…” Harris remembered how the fat, Ailanian man smiled as he handed him the gun.
The gun felt cold in his hand for just a moment as its image melted into blackness. His dream changed with fluid memories about gunshots in the dark and the screams of helpless men.
Without warning, the dream changed again and Harris felt his head spinning. He felt helpless to control his thoughts. In the dream he saw his beautiful wife, Karen, and how she looked distressed.
Suddenly, he heard his wife speaking to him as if her voice was coming from a hazy fog. “Ron, I just think we should go to the hospital …for a weekend….maybe for a week.”
He remembered his voice saying, “why?”
She sounded shrill and nervous like a cat meowing around strangers, “Ron, will you please just stop talking about the past? You have to believe me when I say none of those horrible things you described ever happened! Look, I love you, Ron…but sometimes you start to talk about all this nonsense…trust me, Ron…you are NOT evil! You never have done anything wrong, you are not capable of being evil…trust me, Ron…you are simply having hallucinations…none of those things you keep trying to describe ever happened!”
In the foggy haze, he remembered how his voice had been just a little closer to anger and panic when he replied, “Do you really believe that I am not capable of evil? Well, let me show you what evil can be…” Harris felt his head hurting as he remembered how he forcefully opened the drawer, and took out a long, sharp knife as he said, “let me show you what evil is!”
The screaming was high pitched and frightening.
“RON!” A woman’s voice screamed to him from the mental fog. “RON!!”
Harris gasped as he woke up. He felt his head hurting as he looked over at Dr. Jori Wena, who had a scowl on her wrinkled face as she yelled, “RON! Wake up!”
The tranquilizers he had given her to help her sleep, had finally worn off, and it was time to get back to work. His break was now officially over.
“Yes?” He said calmly, his head still dizzy and hurting from the roller coaster ride of dreams and memories.
“I’m sick of your rudeness, your arrogance and your plain stupidity!”
Harris smirked and raised his eyebrows. “Really?” He said. He had gotten used to her mood swings. He knew that she might start acting nice as soon as her hormones switched. But right now, she was irritable.
He gave her a fake smile and said, “So, you think I’m acting rude?”
She said, “Yes, you sit there day after day and you refuse to talk to me.”
He replied in a dry tone of voice, “Well ma’am, it seemed that for a while, whenever I spoke, you felt the need to chew me out.”
As soon as Harris closed his mouth, she promptly opened hers, “oh for god’s sakes that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!” She began swearing madly at him. He simply turned away from her and started staring off into space again. He had become distracted by another series of flashbacks, that included memories of burning buildings, screaming children, and how he once watched a man get beat to death by young men armed with baseball bats. He couldn’t place faces, or names with the voices, but he knew that he had heard them before, he just didn’t know when, or where he heard them. But the voices he kept hearing, kept uttering terrifying things. Without the medicine, the horrible memories were impossible to suppress, even when he was awake.
For a few moments in the next flashing memory, Harris heard a woman sobbing, and an angry man yelling. Harris felt his guts twitch with fear and remorse as he realized he was experiencing a memory of his father beating his mother as he angrily shouted at her, “Get up off the floor Lauren! And quit crying! I didn’t hit you that hard! Get up woman! I’m sick and tired of this house being such a mess! I come home after a hard day of working for The Military, serving this great Alliance of ours, and you just sit around here drunk…all day long…watching the monitor, and letting the kid drool on himself! I’m sick of this shit Lauren! I’m sick of it!”
Harris closed his eyes and stopped breathing for a moment, as he remembered being a young boy, and how he saw his father hitting his mother across her face. He remembered how the blood looked on the tile floor.
He gasped and tried not to cry.
“Ron?”
He panted and wheezed. No matter how hard he tried, he just could not concentrate. Jori frowned and then proceeded to yell at him, “Now this is what I mean when I tell you that you’re being rude! You’re just sitting there, like a bump on a log, and ignoring me! Men just don’t get it! Men just don’t have a clue!”
Harris grabbed his aching head and tried to stop the barrage of horrible memories.
She changed her tone of voice and demeanor, and became cheerful as a new set of hormones began to build within her body, “Let’s talk about something already!”
He felt a nervous sweat pouring off his forehead and his hands shaking as he glanced over at the small table beside him. His mind was pouring out rage as he finally gave up and thought,
“Ah shit…I better not.”
He had been toying with the idea of giving her another dose of tranquilizers to shut her up so he could have some peace and quiet again. But he had noticed how the horrible memories stopped bothering him when she was awake and interacting with him. He decided to keep her awake for now, just to keep the flashbacks and unwanted memories at bay.
He looked at her and sighed, “What do you want to talk about?”
“Oh, I don’t know…we need to find something we have in common and talk about that. Aren’t we both going to Ailana?”
“Yes, and we still have a long ride ahead of us.” He regretted dumping those pills down the toilet, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
“Well then, you better stop acting like such as jackass,” she muttered.
Harris felt woozy, but he chuckled a bit. It had taken a while for him to get used to her grouchiness. But now, he didn’t mind the small talk, and decided that talking with her was better than having terrible dreams while she was passed out. Everything has a trade-off.
“Are you going to visit any friends while you’re on Ailana?” She said, trying to act civil.
“Friends?”
For a moment, Harris forgot that she was talking to him as he found himself hopelessly lost in another memory. He found himself walking through a room with dim lights and mirrors. The events in the memory must have taken place a long time ago since he noticed he had long hair as he walked past the mirrors. The other end of the room appeared to have a bar with lots of glass bottles behind it. Each bottle must have been filled with an exotic kind of liquor. In the front of the bar stood a young, Kupano man, who appeared to be smoking a cigarette. He kept a ridiculous grin on his face while he stared at him.
“Are you the new kid?” The young Ailanian asked with an almost feminine voice.
He remembered how he replied, “Yeah…your uncle sent me.”
“To do what?” The young man’s hair was nappy and wild. He was definitely Kupano, but didn’t appear to be dressed like any of the other young, Kupano men Harris had known in his life. This young man was very different.
“He told me to come here to pick something up and deliver it to him.”
“I got sent here.”
“What do you mean ya got…sent here?” The young, Kupano man laughed as his wild hair bounced on the top of his head. “Ya mean the humans in the city didn’t want you no more? Boy, you must be a real bad apple if they sent you here.”
“And what about you?” Harris remembered asking with suspicion. “You look too smart to be hanging out in a place such as this.”
“Oh, this place?” The young man asked with a girlish giggle. “This is only temporary for me. I’m going places. Ya see, I’m just working for the man…until I get my own Ailanian dream off the ground. I may not be rich yet, but I am pretty. And I got an angle…someday, you’re going to be looking at the guy everyone comes to for a good time. I’m gonna have it all, the dance clubs, the girls, the boys…the sex, drugs and rock and roll. People are gonna know my name someday. You want a piece of my action, boy? I can make sure a good looking son-of-a-bitch like you doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life delivering my uncle’s baggage around.”
Harris remembered how the young man gave a black suitcase a shove with his foot and sent it towards him.
He remembered how the young man smiled at him and said, “Looks like you better be getting to work, boy. That case ain’t gonna deliver itself. Be sure to give my uncle my regards…and tell him that I’ll be heading to Polynea tonight to look for a good time, and…be sure to tell him that he might want to reconsider my offer.”
“And what would that be?”
The young man blew him a kiss and said, “To take you with me, sugar.”
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