they both screamed. Marcus punched his follower in the face, who recoiled as he grabbed his face. It was at that moment I saw the party popper rolling around on the floor.
“Ow! What the Hell!? Seriously! Happy birthday, did you seriously forget?” blood was quickly filling the follower's hands. “You broke my bloody nose! That’s going to take ages to fix!” Others began to come out, some in lab coats, some in the standard jean and shirt ensemble. The guy who got punched walked over to a sink and let the water rinse his hands as he clicked his nose back into place.
I noticed that even with the screams Wolf hadn’t stopped playing with the bullet, “Forgot to tell you mein bruder, Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!” I stared at him questioningly, 'Happy birthday' he mouthed in response. I nodded to convey my understanding as I looked around as the others began to walk toward Marcus, one of which was wielding a cake.
“For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow…” I let the voices leave my ears as I moved for Wolf, the other scientists had surrounded Marcus who I occasionally caught a glimpse of between the mass of people around him.
“So birthdays are a big deal around here?” Wolf looked up at the conglomeration of lab coated men and women and smiled.
“Yeah, we don’t get a lot of chances to celebrate down here. We try to make an event of something every chance we get.” He scooped up two more of the bullets and started juggling them in one hand. I admired this for a while before I heard a sound that replicated that of a train stopping as a pair of hands shot out and snatched the bullets from the air.
“What are you trying to do!? Kill us all!?” The sound I had heard came from a short, bald fat man. His nose looked remarkably like a pig’s snout and his hands had sausages instead of fingers. His voice was wheezy and high pitched, “These haven’t been fixed yet, you drop one, kaboom!”
Wolf scratched the back of his head, “Sorry, won’t happen again.” The fat man grunted and proceeded to shuffle away, mumbling under his breath.
“Who’s he?” I asked.
Wolf shrugged. “Human I guess, I don’t know all of the humans on base.”
Marcus moved through the crowd toward us, “I’m going upstairs with the others Wolf, can you show John the rest? The guns are in the range, and his car is in the garage, I made some modifications last night.”
He put his hand out which I shook, “Happy birthday, I’ll see you later.” He smiled and turned to move to the elevator with the other scientists.
Wolf tugged on my shirt, “Let’s go, you’re going to like it down here.”
I spun around and walked with him. “Guns first?”
He smiled and nodded, “The guns are pretty cool, well, not really the guns, more the munitions. Smoke, incendiary, explosive, tracer, and my personal favourite, guided; super long distance, think guided RPG with a sniper rifle, you pull the trigger then pick up this small monitor. Fire a small rocket attached to the back of the round and guide him to your target. Not a whole lot available though. Something like $150000 per bullet.” He tossed one in my direction and as soon as I caught it I could picture the damage it would do with the sheer weight of it.
I rolled it around in my hand, it was about five inches long and felt as heavy as a can of soft drink, “That’s … wow, this thing feels like it’d rip through a tank.”
Wolf smiled and shrugged, “Just about. Oh, have you got the OLHUD?” He must’ve been able to sense my feeling of immediate confusion, “Ocular Lens Heads Up Display, gives you a mini-map which has a built in sensor. Also, anyone who has one shows as green on your mini-map and your standard map. You can bring up your standard map by saying map, pretty basic really,” We started walking, he led me to another white room filled with small glass cubes, “Ah, there it is.”
Wolf picked up one of the glass cubes which had my name etched into the side. He pulled the top off and reached inside to grab two small, clear circles, “Put these in your eyes.” He extended his hand and I scooped up the lens and followed his direction. “Ok, so those will immediately bond with your body and run on your body heat, no changing batteries. They’re voice activated, so let’s get you to turn them on, say activate.”
I was still blinking them in. “Activate.” There was a flash of white before a map appeared in the bottom left hand corner of my vision. “Woah… This is amazing!”
Wolf was chuckling, “Let’s continue with the tutorial. There are two modes, both of which have the ability to switch from infra-red to low light to standard. The first is exploration or passive, in this mode your vision will have the mini-map, a compass and health monitor. Your health monitor is invisible but will start beeping if you’re in immediate danger of dying, whether from bullet wounds or radioactive exposure or anything like that. The second mode is combat or aggressive, when in this mode you will have everything from the passive mode, but you will have a reticule which will change depending on what type of weapon you’re carrying provided it’s scanned it. As well as this it will put a red arrow above any target that you’ve recently fired upon, unless they hide in cover for an extended period,” Wolf spun around, pulled out a pen and wrote something on his hand, he showed me it and clearly written on his palm was the word ‘brother’, “What did I write?”
I felt this a weird question, “Brother?” he gave me a thumbs up.
“Yep, that’s another cool feature, in-built translator, this is written in German. You look at any writing and it will translate it into English for you, or any other language, personally I use German, makes my life a little bit easier.”
Wolf began rubbing the ink off his hand, “What else, ah yes, ears,” He grabbed the glass container again and produced a small vial with a silver powder inside, “This is the LAP, Life and Audio Program. You have to inhale this nasally, lay down on the bench there.”
He gestured to an empty white bench next to me which I proceeded to lay on, Wolf walked over and uncorked the vial. “This will help us hear you, you hear us as well as that we can check your vitals. You can check ours and as an extra bonus it translates all audio. It will latch to your blood stream and pass to your brain, heart, all that. Easiest way to do that is injection, but for some reason it messes up and gets scrambled when liquefied. Now, when I say breathe in, just… do it. If you don’t, this will be quite uncomfortable.”
He brought the vial to my face, I felt myself beginning to panic, “On three, One. Two. Three!” He pushed the vial to my left nostril and I breathed in with all that I could. “There we go, all done.” I began to sit up, “I wouldn’t do that.”
I felt pain shoot through the back of my head like I’d been hit with a lightning bolt. I couldn’t help but growl in pain, “It’ll pass, in a few seconds.” It wasn’t dimming, it was the same constant pain. My eyes squeezed shut while my body was writhed and constricted, and then the pain disappeared. Literally, it didn’t fade or loosen, it just vanished, I opened my eyes and saw Wolf standing over me, watching me with concern, “You alright?”
I nodded, “It’s gone, nothing, no residual, just gone.”
Wolf smiled down at me, “What’d I tell you?” I sat up and the pain hit again, “You see that, that I wouldn’t have done John.”
After the pain subsided I waited and watched Wolf, waiting for his word, he looked down at his watch. “Ok, you should be alright to sit up now.” I cautiously began to sit up and when I felt comfortable that the pain was well and truly gone I shuffled off the desk and stood up.
“That was an experience,” I shook myself loose, “So, can we see my car now?”
Wolf nodded, “Sure, let’s go,” We turned and began walking to the elevator from where we came, “I hear he worked on this thing all night after you got back, he had everything ready, just had to fit it,” We squeezed through the crowd, “Is his car just in the lot Mark?” Wolf yelled into the air as we continued to the elevator.
“Yeah! Furthest from the entrance, keys are in the glove compartment!”
> There was no real sound to these words as we finally managed to climb inside another elevator, “Thanks! I’ll see you later, happy birthday!” The doors slid shut and I felt my stomach drop as we moved up.
Before long we were in the garage looking at my car. It had a new glossy black paint cover, a set of chrome wheels attached to beautiful white-wall tires. Chrome mix side skirts and bumpers that were millimetres from the ground snuggled the base of my monstrous vehicle. The windows were now exceptionally darker as well. My mouth dangled open, “It’s… beautiful.”
I looked over to Wolf, looking similarly impressed, “Yeah… want to have a look inside?”
I nodded feverishly, I grabbed the handle and pulled, it wouldn’t budge, I tried again, “It won’t open.”
I looked at Wolf again, “What do you mean it won’t open?”
I threw my hands in the air, “It won’t open, I think Marcus must’ve locked it.” There was a click sound from the car and the indicators flashed, I tried the handle again, “Unlock.” The door popped open when I pulled, “Oh that’s cool.”
I climbed in and felt the seats, which were noticeably softer, there was a small tablet in the middle of the console now. Wolf was climbing in next to me while I gripped the hard steering wheel, “I don’t have to give this back now do I?”
Wolf
The Mulligan Planet Page 11