by Bryan Nyaude
“You dirty yowser!”
Anger surged inside me as I raised my weapon, aiming to fire at the ship. I released the safety lock and aimed quickly. My hands tingled strongly with an innate desire for vengeance. Eccentrically, I couldn’t pull the trigger at all, even when my mind told me to. What was wrong with me? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Everything felt wrapped and out of place. If it was an hour ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to fire at my enemies, but something within me had changed. What was happening to me? Had my heart been slowly changing, ever since I fell down the pit—when Peter shot me? I think it had something to do with me meeting the old, alien man. Our encounter seemed to have opened my mind to all other possibilities. Nah, maybe it was this unhinging air that was trying to unnerve me and make me lose my most lethal edge. Whatever it was, I wanted it gone, since it was making my fighting spirit weak and a liability. The ground trembled heavily as I fell backwards with my hands behind me. Fortuitously, I landed on my arms and the impact was not strong enough to break them. Breathing heavily, I tried to grab what little sanity I had left from the unending madness and got back on my feet, in anticipation of another attack. To think this was how my life would end: what a joke.
“I can’t let it end like this.”
The ship started to move swiftly, drawing closer to me. I stood firmly, placing my hand on the switch trigger. My heart pulsed greatly; all I wanted to do was end it. I felt myself slip into a raging maniac like state that threatened to destroy everything around me. I wasn’t thinking straight, everything seemed just like a blur in time.
“Look out, you fool,” my AI screamed and I quickly came back to reality.
I looked up and saw a beam of energy coming straight towards me. My eyes could keep up, but my body was too slow to react. Swiftly, the armor moved by itself, slightly evading what could have been a fatal disaster. Up to that point, I had no idea what was happening or how my suit had moved by itself. I caught up to reality and turned my gaze towards the ship. The wavelength and intensity of this laser was great and powerful. One hit and I would be vaporized instantly. This type of spatial coherence was amazing; not only could it cut through matter—it could largely disperse through a whole area. Was something like that even possible? Rather remarkable technology and worlds apart from what we had on earth. Trying to make a laser beam cover a larger area without changing its narrow collimator and spectrum was still difficult. Certain variables had to be worked out; however, it seemed they had prevailed over them. Every fiber in me told me to get away from this place as soon as possible; although, that seemed unattainable at the moment.
Soft currents of flames flew past me from the ground—everything seemed ablaze. I took my eyes back towards the alien ship and sighed slowly. Somehow, my best chance lay in luring it into a narrow space and then hitting it with every missile I had. I searched around and saw a narrow path linked between the alien trees. Perfect, I turned around and dashed towards it as fast as I could. As planned, the ship followed behind, recharging its laser cannon. I jumped past a few rocks and side turned through a few trees, staying out of sight of another laser attack. Once I was within range, I turned around and switched my weapons. I began to fire all my proton bullets, aiming for the laser beam system cannon. My plan was to weaken the structure, just enough to weaken its compressing power. Another laser was shot at me and I dropped down, ducking with my hands on my head. I felt the immense power of the laser engulf my back with so much intensity and pressure. Ten seconds later, I got up in pain and raised my javelin bazooka, ready to fire. There was a thirty second interval between each laser beam. I was going to take advantage of it. My legs locked, and my tendons tightened heavily; I lowered my breath and pulled the trigger quickly and hard. A barrage of missiles shot out of my weapon so fast I hardly saw them.
The air went black as the missiles exploded on contact; the shockwave was so strong, it pushed me hard backwards. I had aimed for the laser system, planning to disable it—just enough to force the ship to retreat back to its base. But it seemed I might have gone a little bit overboard. A loud ash of gray smoke erupted everywhere, blurring my vision. I covered my visor for a bit and listened carefully. All was silent. Harshly, a violent explosion broke the silence, making the metal clank against the fire. Something flew past me, hastening in an unknown direction. In the moment, I realized it was the ship and I quickly took out my gun. Just to be certain, I placed a tracking bullet inside it, and shot it at the ship. The bullet stuck on the ship and began making small blinking noises.
“Well, that was fun!”
I didn’t bother following the ship, since I could track it with my com link system. Safe to say, this wasn’t exactly how I had imagined my suit test flight going. But it was finally over. At last, I could say the easiest part was over: now came the hard part. I wanted to quickly go after the drone ship which had escaped me. I postulated it was going to attack the ship, but I wasn’t worried since Ali was there, and he would keep everyone safe. With my wing system damaged, I couldn’t glide there, so, instead, I started walking back.
“What a stubborn boy,” my AI went on, in a rude tone. “At least you did one thing right.”
Darn it! I didn’t have time to be dealing with this right now especially from a robot. If I could choke an AI, I think I would have done it a while back, because this one was really getting on my nerves. Looking down, on my tracking scanner, I located the alien vehicle traveling gradually in the location west of me, far from the ship. I sighed deeply and began to limp my way back to the others.
“I am coming,” I whispered as I walked. “You can bet a nickel on that.”
But could I still do it? There was still doubt in my heart that throbbed greatly. Fear shook me deeply, as I tried to get a hold of what remained of my courage. I could feel every fiber of my muscles twitching with pain and all my joints too weak for movement. Could I make it to the others in time? I bit my lip and tried to swallow, but couldn’t as my mouth was dry. I had no memory of how far I had walked as my vision was blurry. It appeared as if something was wrong with my body; possibly, my shoulder wound had reopened and I might have lost a lot of blood during my fight with those alien vehicles.
“Found you,” a familiar voice echoed out towards me, before I collapsed to the ground from exhaustion. “It took a while to track your energy signal, but oh well, good news is that I found you still alive.”
I somehow lifted my head and saw the old man; he was looking at me with such piercing eyes. “Well, it seemed your armor wasn’t as powerful as you made it seem,” I commented, with a small grin.
“Probably,” he mumbled, while helping me stand, “but like I said before, it was a prototype—far from being complete.”
“There was a ship coming your way, we have to stop it.”
“I took care of it, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“How did you do it?”
“Like I said, don’t worry about it. I destroyed the small drone ship.”
“Okay, if you say so; by the way, nice touch with the AI system. I really hated it.”
“Figured you would like it, your old AI had limited operation capabilities.”
“Yeah, it was built that way, because we can’t allow machines to have full control of all our suit systems.”
“Rather stupid if you ask me. There are tasks even you can’t perform in time.”
True! He did have an accurate point. There was a point when I saw the laser coming and could not react in time. However, thanks to the armor AI, I evaded the worst case scenario.
“Wait! What’s wrong with you?” he screamed, rushing towards me and grabbing my hands. “I think you are suffering from Neon Alpha poisoning.”
Suddenly, I felt fatigued and truly sick to my stomach. There was a pure raw taste of iron in my mouth as if blood was spewing from within me. Before I knew it, I closed my eyes and slowly fell into an unwanted sleep.
5
“Den! Get up now!”
&
nbsp; There was a voice calling out to me, but I didn’t recognize it. It was so cold and unfriendly and yet it sounded sort of familiar, like I had heard it somewhere. I opened my eyes and pierced into the unknown silence. There was nothing but darkness around me, even with my eyes wide open. Just who was calling up to me? I yearned to know who it was, and yet I also feared the unknown. I found myself saying, “Who is it?”
This oblivion of darkness was truly maddening to say the least. What kind of a dream was this? No, it was more of a nightmare than a dream.
“I am down here,” the voice growled, in a terrifying tone.
I slowly turned my gaze towards the ground in fear. I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I looked down. To my surprise, there was a small light of energy, near the bottom. It looked bright to me, well, compared to this infinite darkness. Without my approval, my body started to move directly towards it, like it was being drawn in by something. “Now what?”
I tried to regain my body movement, but nothing worked as I was drawn closer to the light. Once it was within my grasp, I felt fear beyond anything I had ever felt. Just what was I afraid of? What was this feeling that shook me deep down inside?
“I summoned you here to fulfill the deal you made with me a few centuries ago.”
What! I had no clue what it was talking about; I had not even been born that long ago! The light glowed even greater, forcing me to shield my eyes with my hands. “I have no clue what you are talking about, I don’t even know you. You must have the wrong person!”
“No, I don’t,” it screamed out to me. “You have the same genes as the man who sealed the deal with me, centuries ago. I am a symbiotic based life form and part of me was inscribed in your DNA when you were born.”
Creepy! So weird that I had stopped listening when it mentioned centuries. My body trembled boisterously with terror. But how would I tell it nicely that it had the wrong person? This dream or whatever was nothing short of outlandish. My hands ran through my thighs, looking for pockets; however, I found nothing in them. I had no guns, grenades, or javelin missiles to defend myself with against this unknown enemy.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I can easily destroy your body so quickly you won’t even recognize what happened.”
“Whoa! Take it easy, I was just searching my pockets, okay? You don’t have to threaten me up to prove your point.”
The strange light got even brighter and bigger as it illuminated the darkness away. I shielded my eyes with my hands, closing them in the process. Just great! It went from being too dark, to being too bright. Why couldn’t I just get what I asked for sometimes?
“Remember, keep your end of the bargain,” it roared and just vanished, leaving me clueless in the dark.
“Wait, what bargain? What are you talking about?”
I suddenly opened my eyes and I was back in the real world or what I viewed as reality. Just what was up with that dream? My mind couldn’t make any sense of it? I felt itchy and very tired, for some reason. There was a sagacity of heavy sweat covering my eyes and forehead. Unfortunately, I found it hard to forget my dream. It looked so real and yet it was horribly frightening at the same time.
“You are one lucky guy,” someone spoke to me.
Whoa! I was startled, causing me to move back from the position I was lying in. Apparently, I was not the only person present in the compartment. I looked up and noticed two people in the room, a few meters away from me. One was a boy, and the other was a girl. They looked at least 18 years old or so. If I had to guess, I would say they were twins. The uncanny resemblance was just too hard not to notice.
“Not a lot of people have ever survived Neon Alpha poisoning,” the girl commented, with a faint smile. She folded her arms and leaned her slender back on the wall softly.
“Cool down, sis,” the boy chuckled, sitting on the chair, next to me. “This guy looks like he’s been through hell, so let’s just leave him alone.”
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we can’t; we are all stuck in this room together until our wounds heal, so shut up!” the girl screamed, clinching her fists.
“Oh really,” the boy roared, “Do you wanna start something sis cause I have all day, and I have been waiting 18 years for this moment?”
Oh no! What was happening right now? It seemed I was caught in the middle of a family feud. I had to get out of here, but my body was still too weak to move about. I tilted my head and moved a few inches to the left, trying to get a bit further away from them.
“But, I’m glad we are thinking along the same lines, brother,” the girl replied, cracking her knuckles and moving towards her brother.
This situation was getting out of hand. Just where was Ali when you needed him? The boy jumped up in the air with his fists in front, towards his sister. I could feel the killing intent in both of their eyes, as they came out lashing at each other. Their fists connected hard like they were two enemies, like they were complete strangers to each other. This was not really happening, was it? Slowly, I paced far away—to the back wall and positioned myself with my arms in front of me. This made me somewhat glad I didn’t have a twin sibling. It was hard to believe they were related at all. I heard the roaring slam of fists hitting tendons firmly. This ticked me off so I got up and moved myself into the middle of them.
“Stop fighting, please, you are brother and sister!”
They both stopped, the girl’s fist barely missing my forehead by a few centimeters.
“Whoa, we shouldn’t be fighting like this,” the girl commented first and let her hands drop down. “This isn’t right at all.”
“Yeah, you are right, sis, this isn’t the way,” the boy smiled, patting his swollen cheek. He looked badly hurt with a small sprinkle of blood coming from his nose. His eyes simmered with rage and bloodlust. “Hand to hand combat is for babies: I have something better in mind.”
Quickly, he commented and pulled up a small portable bazooka from his clothes. Whoa! Just where had he been hiding that weapon? Briefly thereafter, I removed myself from the middle and moved towards the door. I had no intention of getting caught in the middle of an all out battle.
“That’s right, brother,” the girl laughed, drawing out a proton laser long sword. “It is time we ended this fight for good.”
Oh no, the door wouldn’t open for some reason. My heart paced rapidly like it was going to burst out of my chest. I felt a huge weight of anxiety crush me bit by bit. Were they really serious? Great, just when I had awoken from a terrible nightmare, it seemed I was being thrown back into another one. I glanced back at them, positioning my back to the door. Unexpectedly, the door opened, causing me to almost fall back. Luckily, I was able to lock my left knee firmly, helping me stay on my feet.
“I see you have met your new traveling companions,” Ali walked in with trays of food. “The girl is Dalla and the boy is Rick. To make things short, they are your new traveling companions.”
“You are joking, right?” I shook my head carelessly.
There was absolutely no way I was going to allow this to happen. These maniacs were loose screws and it seemed they could go berserk at any minute. The last thing I wanted was to have those two idiots compromising the mission. “Not going to happen, Ali.”
I glared at him intensively, trying to show him how serious I was. For some reason, my knees kept giving out. I still hadn’t made a full recovery yet. I went and sat back down by my bed lightly. All my muscles ached and caused me excruciating pain.
“Come on, Den,” the old man put the food next to my bed and sat down. “By yourself, you can’t complete this assignment. Time is running out.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes for a few seconds, lost in thought. I hated to admit it, but he was probably right. Seemed the more I stayed on this planet, the more complicated things became. The walls echoed silently, while I considered my options. I looked through the window and saw a glimpse of the sun. Honestly, on this planet, it was hard to tell whether the
re was any sense of night and day. On an interesting side note, daylight seemed to last an eternity compared to night. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being stuck here—let alone living here.
“What I want to do is still the same, I have also reason to believe that the rest of your crew is still there,” he continued, as he adjusted his weight by shifting his axis. “I recognized the symbols from the videos you recorded on your com link screen. I also know what is happening on earth, and if I’m right, I have a feeling that earth is doomed.”
Doomed! What was he talking about? I looked up and pierced into his eyes directly. He adjusted himself, balancing both feet on the floor, with one hand against the bed. He knew something and I was curious and scared. The twins set by the table, far in the corner, leaning against each other. What a bunch of bipolar fools.