by Hao Yang
“You know this is not going anywhere, right?” Lucis said seriously.
“You mean Gloria and me?”
“Yes.”
“I know. I know.” Jason said slowly. He understood even friendship with a first class species was something extremely impossible.
“You two are friends or...you know?” Erikon said as he rotated his round body.
“We are friends, but I…I don’t know.” Jason said hesitatingly.
“Man, you are in love!” Erikon said excitedly.
“Dude where that comes from?” Lucis asked in confusion.
“Jason, I need to ask you a very serious question. You can choose not to answer it.” Erikon suddenly sounded so seriously that it gave goosebumps to Jason and Lucis.
“OK.” Jason said slowly.
“Did you sleep with her? Erikon asked calmly.
Both Jason and Lucis felt like hit by an asteroid. They looked at Erikon in shock.
“Erikon, what else do you think every day?” Lucis asked.
Before Erikon could answer, Lucis and Jason both nodded their heads and said simultaneously, “Food.”
“Jason, so you didn’t.” Erikon said as he took out a small box under his mattress. He handed it to Jason and said, “This is for education purpose, about the reproduction process. I am not sure it works for Glycan, though.”
“Wow, wow, where did you get that?” Lucis asked in surprise.
“It’s a long story.” Erikon said easily.
“I don’t want to know.” Jason said as he put the small box under his mattress.
“Jason, you are not actually going to use that thing, right?” Lucis asked.
“Come on, man. I will keep it here and you are very welcome to use it.” Jason said nicely.
“But Jason, Vampire does have a point. Best case scenario is you die. The worst is you two both die. I will say you just play but not love.” Erikon said calmly.
“Don’t forget Logan and Lilisa.” Lucis said.
Jason knew that story. It happened during UWII. Logan was a human soldier in the infantry division. Lilisa was a Glycan pilot and she saved Logan’s life in the battle of Latianium. Sometime, it only took one second to know the love of life. Logan and Lilisa fell in love just like that. However, despite their efforts to escape and hide, Glycans hunted them down eventually. They killed Logan’s friends and some of Lilisa’s friends in the process. They sentenced Logan to be burned alive in the hell fire. At the final moment, Lilisa broke the security and found Logan. They both knew they couldn’t get away, so they held each other’s hand and jumped into the fire.
“You are not as good as Logan.” Lucis said gently.
“I know and it doesn’t matter how good you are.” Jason sighed
“Jason, you are far from there. You didn’t even sleep with her. Let me know if you did and we will see from there. OK?” Erikon said easily.
“That is very nice of you, indeed.” Jason said ironically.
“Alright. What game we have tonight? Ah, class of 81, second round.” Erikon said as he was checking the information on his watch.
“Oh, we will have our second round in two days!” Erikon said in surprise.
“You just learned that?” Lucis asked with a shocked look.
Jason walked away. He knew it was too late. He knew it the first time he saw Gloria.
Chapter 23
After Mark crash landed in one of the black spots on the planet, he soon learned what those black spots were. They were gases suspending 10 meters above the ground and the source of gases were tens of thousands of elephant like creatures. It smelled very bad. The face transformer couldn’t hold back the smell and by the time he walked out of the spot, he threw up everything he had in stomach.
All Mark was thinking about right now was finding a spacecraft so that he could get out of here. He noted there were three deep wells arranged in triangle shape in the distance. When he got closer, he could feel air was being sucked into those big wells. Each of them was about 50 meters in diameter. While Mark was checking how deep the wells went, he heard engine sound coming closer and closer. He hid himself in one of the wells and saw a small vessel land not far away. Two Glycans stepped out of it with guns in their hands. They were scanning the ground with some kind of equipment. Then one Glycan suddenly pointed at Mark’s direction and they ran towards him. Mark thought about jumping out of the well, but that would be like a shooting practice. He took a deep breath and dropped into the well.
After a long ride down, he hit hard on a filter structure. The Glycan suit he was wearing did help ease the impact a little. Mark stood on his feet and looked up. The exit was now looked as big as a penny. He applied Laiehe bacteria on the filter and passed through it. Then he went through some infrastructure and entered a corridor where a few Glycans walked by from time to time. He followed behind a group of Glycans and headed to the hangar. Some 10 heavily armed Glycans rushed by him. That was what he worried. They might have find the breach.
“All personals return to your posts. All personals return to your posts.” A cold voice came from the broadcast.
In the conference room, General Kalan, commander of Glycan Seventh fleet, was accompanied by General Doisgy, commander of Glycan Fourth fleet, General Caytion, mission commander on planet Agirue and Zserie, the chief scientist. They were talking about their kids before they learned about the breach. Doisgy was the father of Didian. Caytion was the uncle of Carila and Zserie was the father of Zier.
“How this thing passed your patrol fleet?” Kalan said angrily as he turned to Doisgy who had a large build, a fat body and a round face with small eyes.
“I don’t...don’t know. It might...I will find out.” Doisgy stammered and then started to hail the fleet.
“Why we didn’t see this coming from the scanner?” Kalan turned to Zserie.
“I am not sure. It could mean this is one of us. Or it appears to be.” Zserie said calmly. Just like his son Zier, Zserie was thin and had a long face.
“General Kalan, we have sealed all the exits and entrances as you requested.” Caotian said respectfully. He had a small figure, a wide face with round eyes, much shorter compared with the other three.
“Very well. Scan every room and compartment. Check everyone’s identity.” Kalan ordered.
“Right away.” Caytion said.
“I got the report from my fleet. Thirty minutes ago, the motion detector sensed something on the ground. A patrol vessel was sent to check it out. They found the footprint leading to one of the ventilation tube.” Doisgy said as he showed the location on the screen.
“And when it got in through the filter, it triggered our security system.” Caytion said.
“They also found a capsule in the middle of a black spot. It was very small. That was why it went undetected and the capsule itself had some kind of decomposition mechanism. There isn’t much left when we found it.” Doisgy said.
“You mean self-destruction?” Zserie asked.
“You can say that, but this was some kind of biological decay.” Doisgy said.
“So whoever in the capsule cannot flee the planet. Then there must be someone waiting in the space. Double the patrol in the outer space!” Kalan said.
“We should bolster the security at Hylocan eyeball stockroom, the big eyeball and the prison cell.” Zserie said.
“Those three rooms were closely monitored and heavily guarded all the time. I will send more securities there.” Caytion said.
“Keep monitoring those places but remove securities at those doors.” Kalan said.
“You want to use them as baits.” Doisgy said.
“Yes and I am more interested in catching the bigger fish.” Kalan said. He wanted to know how they found this planet.
Before the hallway and corridors cleared out, Mark pretty much tried every door he could open. But he still couldn’t find the hangar. After another 10 minutes, he entered an enormous room the size of 10 football fields, with a ceilin
g as high as 50 stories. The first and only thing caught him eyes was the gigantic eyeball sitting right in the center of the room. It had a diameter over 100 meters, its sclera white and its iris dark red. It seemed that the eyeball sensed his presence, because the blue pupil was moving within the iris to look at him. Mark couldn’t believe what he saw. While he was walking towards it, he suddenly felt a sharp pain on his head. He fell on the ground like a stone.
Chapter 24
It was the third day of the selection. Even though Gloria was only able to hear Jason’s voice for several seconds a day, she felt happy and satisfied. In her world, her parents used to be the only ones caring about her. But now it was different. She knew Jason cared about her and he was waiting for her to come back.
During the first three days, Gloria climbed over mountains, swam across rivers and stumbled through swamps. She collected fruits and caught small animals for food. She had finished four checkpoints. Those checkpoints not only verified participant’s presence in the selection, but also directed participants to the next checkpoint. There were still two checkpoints left for Gloria. The last checkpoint would determine a participant’s rank in the selection. It was also where participants boarded space vessels to leave the planet.
Gloria stopped by a female Glycan’s corpse and checked its body for anything useful. She had seen hundreds of dead Glycans, if not thousands. She also saw many injured ones, but she didn’t help anyone of them. There was no time.
“Damn it.” Gloria cursed as she didn’t find anything useful.
She slowly stood up and checked her back. The pain on her back had been slowing her down and it was getting worse. She reached back and located the pain. It was at her lower back, deep in the bone. Gloria let out a sigh. She couldn’t find any medicine or help here. She had no choice but to go on.
By the time of midnight, she reached the Fourth checkpoint, a colossal structure like a reversed pyramid. There were numerous doors at the base of the structure. Gloria could see other Glycans walking inside the structure one after another. She randomly picked a door and saw a keypad on the jamb and there were 10 different symbols which stood for 0 to 9 in Glycan’s numeral system. On the lintel there were 2, 3, 5. Gloria pressed the symbol meaning 9 on the keypad. The ground below her formed a vortex and she dropped in it. She landed in a tiny room with dimmed light. On one of the walls, there was a quantum physics question. Gloria knew this was the punishment for the wrong answer. As she was thinking about it, the room was getting darker and darker. She drew the answer on the wall and a door appeared on another wall. Gloria walked through it and found herself on a narrow bridge. Another puzzle popped up right in front of her. It showed a diagram which had several dash lines in it and it read “Which diagram results from folding along the dash lines?” There were several options. At the same time, the bridge was becoming narrower. She took a deep breath and picked an answer. It was correct and the bridge went back to its original shape. Another 20 questions came out like this and Gloria managed to get most of them right. There was a point when the bridge was just wide enough for her feet. After all those questions, Gloria quickly ran across the bridge into the next room. There she was given an exam to test her basic knowledge of Glycan history. It was a long exam. By the time she finished, she felt her brain fried. Her back was now hurting at every step she took. She shambled into next room and it was an immense greenhouse filled with flowers and plants. She stopped at a lawn and sat down. The soft green grass was so comfortable.
“I just take a break. Just a minute.” She murmured tiredly.
Just before she lay on her back, her badge flashed. She answered it and heard Jason’s voice. She couldn’t tell what he said and it only lasted less than two seconds. But his voice alone was like a stimulant. It reminded her Jason’s promise. Gloria struggled to stand up, her body trembling in pain. She continued on the path, further into the garden. After several minutes, she began to realize that the garden was actually a huge maze. She picked up her pace, searching for the exit. After an hour, she somehow returned to the same place. She got scared and started to run like crazy. It didn’t help and only made her back pain worse. She felt like somebody stabbing at her back with a knife. It hurt so much that she couldn’t run anymore. She leaned against a tree to catch her breath. Then it just came to her that maze was essentially made by one very long wall. She closed her eyes and always touched the wall with one hand. She kept walking and walking. After 2 hours, she got out of the maze. There was another exam testing the logic thinking and reasoning. All questions were basic and easy for Gloria. She was grateful that it was intelligence test not physical test. Because she could barely stand on her feet.
By the time she left the structure, it was the late afternoon of the fourth day. Now she had to use a branch as a cane to walk. Worrying she couldn’t stand up again, she didn’t even dare to sit down. Thousands of Glycans passed by her and headed to the field in the distance. It was a military training ground filled with all kinds of gears. She could see some kids climbing on the wall, running on the log and jumping over barricades. She could barely feel her feet and it took her four hours to walk just one kilometer. When she reached the field, it was already midnight. Exhausted and hungry, she was losing it.
“I will finish this. I will go back. My mom and dad are waiting for me. Jason is waiting for me.” She said to herself as she dropped the cane and stepped on a log. It was placed across a big hole which was 30 meters in diameter and ten meter deep. Gloria slowly stumbled on the log, heading to the other side. When she just reached the halfway, she felt an unbearable pain on her back as if someone axed her in half. Her brain went blank and she couldn’t feel her lower body anymore. Gloria lost her balance and fell into the hole. She crushed on her chest and passed out.
Chapter 25
Jason was in the middle of a heavy fog. Someone was crying and circling around him. He tried to catch it but his feet were so heavy that he couldn’t even make a move. Wondering why, he looked down at his feet. Everything was fine, but when he wanted to take a step, tens of hands grew out of ground and grabbed his feet. If he gave up, those hands disappeared right away. He reached down to touch those hands. They were soft and felt like someone’s hand he held before. He dug into the ground to see who those hands belonged to and the end of the arm was another hand and it held another hand tightly. He was scared at this scene. At this moment, the fog slowly cleared out. Jason found himself standing in the center of Glycan’s library. The ceiling was packed with thousands of heads.
“What is this?” Jason said to himself.
Right at this moment, all those heads turned to Jason simultaneously. They were all Gloria.
“Gloria! Gloria! What happened?” Jason shouted in panic.
Thousands of Gloria smelled at Jason with bloody tears bursting out of her eyes.
“Ah, aaaaaah!”Jason screamed. He tried to run but those hands grabbed his feet. Blood soon flooded the ground and formed an ocean. It rose quickly to his knees, waist, chest and neck. Jason stretched out his neck as far as he could.
“Ah, aah, aaaaah!” Jason screamed.
Suddenly, he felt everything was shaking as if he was in the middle of an earthquake.
Jason opened his eyes.
It was a dream.
He sat up on the bed. Erikon and Lucis were standing beside him.
“Bad dream?” Erikon asked caringly.
Jason nodded, still in shock.
“You called Gloria several times.” Lucis said.
“Yes, yes.” Jason wheezed. All of a sudden, he shot out of the bed, grasped his uniform and took out the family badge Gloria gave him. He made a call to Gloria but nobody answered it. He tried again but still got nothing.
“Something is wrong. Something is wrong.” Jason murmured.
“What is that, Man?” Lucis asked as he pointed at the badge.
“It is a communicator. Gloria gave it to me.” Jason said hastily as he walked back and forth.
&nbs
p; “You said something is wrong?” Erikon asked.
“She didn’t answer the call.” Jason said desperately.
“Maybe she was busy. You know.” Erikon said easily.
“No, No. There is something wrong. I can feel it.” Jason said quickly and he made another call. He still got nothing.
“If she is on the selection planet, they probably block the communication. What are you doing?” Lucis asked as he saw Jason putting on his uniform.
“I don’t have time to explain this. I gotta go.” Jason said quickly as he headed to the doorway.
“What? Where are you going?” Lucis said as he grabbed Jason’s arm. At the same time, Erikon jumped right in front of Jason.
“You don’t want to know. Erikon, get out of my way.” Jason said coldly.
“I am not going anywhere unless you tell me. Man, Calm down. Calm down. I...” A sharp pain on the nose stopped Erikon. Jason just punched Erikon on his nose.
“Jason, what are you doing?” Erikon yelled.
“I don’t want to get your guys in trouble. Understand?” Jason said coldly as he passed Erikon.
“You are going to planet Etitaeg, right?” Lucis asked.
“Yes.” Jason said as he hit a button to open the door.
“And how do you plan to get there?”
“I will pilot Cruiser General Klizan.” Jason said and headed out.
“Are you out of mind? Jason, listen, Jason!” Lucis shouted. But it was too late.
It was early in the morning. Jason rushed to the museum and entered the cruiser using the crystal. He quickly made his way to the bridge. When he just finished putting the crystal on the ceiling, the light on his watch was flashing. It was Sayilin. Jason answered the call.
“Jason, would you please open the door?” Sayilin asked patiently.
“What are you talking about?” Jason asked in confusion.
“The door you just used to get in the cruiser.” Sayilin said calmly.
“What?” Jason asked in shock.