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Skip was dying of curiosity, mostly about the temple ruins that he and Jake had discovered. However, over the last two days, the only people Skip had had any contact with were Sean and Doc. They helped him control his new cybernetic leg, and now, just a few days since his operation, he was able to control his new leg without even thinking about it. He was able to run, jump, and walk almost better than he had before. He was so grateful to Doc and Sean, but he was also frustrated with them as well. Every time he would ask questions about the temple ruins, Doc and Sean would just shrug their shoulders and tell him that they didn't know anything. He also got the distinct impression that they were hiding something.
He wrapped his fingers on the conference table, which actually looked like a large wooden picnic table that sat about ten people. He was growing impatient now. Where are they?
He stood up and paced around the conference room. The room was quite large. Not only did the room house the large conference table, it also had two computer terminals at the front of the room with a large viewing screen in the center. A gigantic map of Terrest hung on the wall directly in front of him. He studied the map in more detail. The map was speckled with purple, red, yellow, orange, and bright green dots. The purple dots represented Terrest's major cities. He was bored so he counted all of them. He stopped at twenty-three. The only city name he recognized was the one marked with a purple star, Talead. He studied the map a little more and deciphered that the red dots represented the Gnol cities and bases. He commenced to count them. There were sixteen in all.
From the scale of the map, Skip estimated that the red star representing the capital city of the Gnols, Chast, was about three hundred miles away from Talead. He then studied the yellow dots. There were only two of them, and they obviously represented the base he was now in and the second base Adrian spoke of before. Skip looked at the scale and discovered that the base he was now in was only about ten miles away from Talead and the temple he was so curious about.
Good, he thought. The temple isn't that far from here. I wonder if Adrian will let me study the writings in more detail.
He estimated the second yellow dot to be about four hundred miles away from Talead. Skip then studied the orange dots. Some of the dots had slashes through them. He counted them. There were fifty-one orange dots, and twenty of them had slashes through them. He looked at the key. The orange dots represented slave camps. The ones with slashes were slave camps that had been liberated and destroyed. In addition, he discovered that the four bright green dots represented farm and manufacturing bases for the rebellion's cause.
He then looked toward the back of the room. There was a sink, what looked like a refrigerator, and some refreshments. As he scanned the rest of the room, he noticed that the entire room was made of a silver metal. There wasn't a window in sight. In fact, he realized he hadn't seen a window since he had arrived at the base.
The door to the room slid open, and Adrian walked in. He was dressed in the same green fatigues and beret that Skip had seen him in two days ago. Jake followed his father. Jake looked just like his father, dressed in the same green fatigues and a similar beret. He wondered to himself why he hadn't received a new change of clothing. He was still dressed in a hospital gown and a robe.
That question was quickly answered as Jake tossed him a plastic bag containing green fatigues and a beret.
"There you go, Skip," Jake said. "We thought you had better have something on that didn't show your rear-end."
He gave Jake a sarcastic grin. "Thanks!"
Skip hurried and changed, and then sat down. Just after he sat down, six other people entered the room. Everyone was dressed the same.
Once everyone entered the room, Doc stayed at the front, discussing something with Adrian. Jake sat on Skip's right; on Skip's left was Kylee; and on Kylee's left was Scott Hauler, who had recently returned from the second base. Across the table from Skip was Sean Gibson. Sean sat between two men Skip had never met before.
"All right," said Adrian as Doc sat down next to one of the men Skip didn't recognize. "Today, I've called this meeting mostly for Jake and Skip. They have some questions that need answers, and I am going to give them positions in the military."
Skip looked questioningly at Jake.
Adrian continued. "We are also expecting our visitor to arrive shortly. Before we begin, does anyone have any questions?"
Skip raised his hand.
"Yes, Skip, go ahead."
"This is a trivial question, but my inquiring mind needs to know."
"And what does your inquiring mind need to know, Skip?"
"Well, I couldn't help but notice that this place doesn't have any windows. Why is that?"
"Actually that's part of our agenda. We need to discuss how the second base is coming along. But, to answer your question, the reason why this place doesn't have any windows is because it's completely underground. About four years before the Gnols attacked, King Xuta wanted a secret military base."
"Why did he want a military base if the entire planet was at peace?" Jake asked.
"Actually, King Xuta was worried about a few rebel groups in the south. As a result, he put Scott here," Adrian said, pointing to Scott, "in charge of constructing this secret military base. Like I said before, this base is entirely underground, about two hundred yards underground, to be precise. The entire base is made of Omutx, the same metal your leg is made out of, Skip. The base is eighteen thousand square feet; the equivalent of six large five-bedroom homes back on Earth.
"The base consists of six wings: a medical wing, an administrative and command wing; the aircraft, vehicle, and weapons wing; the training wing, a supply and storage wing; and the living quarters wing.
"We were lucky. When the Gnols attacked, the base had just been completed. Most of the military leaders were able to escape to the base, but ?" Adrian paused and a hint of emotion crept into his voice, " ? unfortunately, King Xuta was captured and tortured to death for not revealing where his military leaders had escaped."
Skip noticed an eerie silence creep into the room with the mention of King Xuta's death. It was obvious that Adrian, Doc, Sean, and Scott had all been very close to the king.
Skip looked at Kylee. Instead of grief on her face, Kylee looked angry, and her eyes looked full of revenge as she stared at the map of Terrest.
"I'm sorry. The mention of King Xuta's torture and death brings a lot of emotions to the surface." Adrian stopped and looked at Scott. "Scott, give us a report on the progress of our second base."
Scott stood and walked to the front of the room, as Adrian moved to the side, out of the way. The lights in the room dimmed, and the view screen just above Scott's head sprang to life. A three-dimensional model of a building blueprint appeared on the screen.
"If you look at that model of our second base," Scott said as he pointed to the screen with a laser pointer, "it contains all of the same wings this base does. The only difference is that the new base is thirty thousand square feet."
"Are all the wings ready for transfers?" Adrian asked.
"All of the wings are ready, except for the living area. My construction crew predicts that they will have it finished in about two months."
"Good," Adrian said.
Adrian looked at the man sitting directly across from Skip. Skip didn't recognize the man, but felt almost intimidated in his presence. The man seemed to be about 6' 3" tall with broad shoulders and extremely toned arms. He had midnight black hair that shimmered from the dim lights of the room and penetrating brown eyes. Skip quickly turned his gaze as the man noticed his stare.
"Colonel Jantear," Adrian said. "Get a team together to organize the move of the civilian population in two months."
"Yes, sir," the colonel said with a small accent.
Skip turned his attention back to Adrian and spoke before Adrian could continue. "How many people occupy this base, both civilian and military?"
"As we free more slaves, our civilia
n and military population multiplies dramatically. As we speak, we have around seven hundred plus civilians in the base. That includes women, children, and men. The military population at this base is one thousand, six hundred and two, including us. If you add you and Jake, there are over two thousand, three hundred thirty-eight people in this eighteen thousand square foot facility. So, you can see we are busting at the seams here. That's why the completion of the second base is so crucial.
"Not only do we have civilians and military personnel here, we have also established four above-ground bases that are well hidden and accommodate about two thousand civilians each. Each above-ground base is controlled by a military personnel of one hundred soldiers."
Jake raised his hand.
"Yes, Jake."
"What's your total military personnel population?"
"We have one thousand military personnel at the second base, so to date - we have three thousand two people."
Jake shook his head. "That's not much of an army."
"No, it's not. And when you compare that number to half a million soldiers in the Gnol military, you can see we're at a great disadvantage."
"Wow," said Skip.
Adrian walked back to the front of the room as Scott sat back down. "When the Gnols attacked, the population on this planet was five hundred million strong. After the attack, the population was decimated. The Gnols were relentless. Not only did they destroy the major cities, they killed men, women, and children. They enslaved the healthy men, women, and children to do their dirty work. We estimated that the population after the attacks was down to about sixty thousand people planet-wide."
"Incredible," said Jake. "Why were these aliens so ruthless? They look just like us."
"Like I told you before, the Gnols were looking for a new planet. So, what better way to get a new one than to kill off the indigenous population of the new world and enslave the rest? You see, the Gnol leader's name is Koroan Chast. Chast has such a hatred for us, mostly because he feels superior to us and thinks that humans are animals. But, little does he know, he is human too."
Now Skip was confused. "You mean their leader is human and doesn't even know it?"
Adrian gave Skip a knowing smile and said, "Doc, it's your turn."
Doc stood and walked to the front of the room. He switched the image on the view screen from the three-dimensional model of the second base to a split screen. On the left side of the screen was the image of a brain with the majority of the brain glowing in yellow. On the right side of the screen was another image of a brain with less than a third of the brain glowing in yellow.
"These are two brain scans," Doc said. "On the left ? is the brain scan of our Gnol spy who graciously volunteered for this research. On the right side ? is Adrian's brain scan. And, as you can see from the evidence, Adrian's not that bright."
Everyone in the room laughed except for Kylee.
"All joking aside," Doc continued. "This brain scan of our Gnol spy shows us that the Gnols use approximately eighty percent of their brain capacity, and we only use about ten percent." Doc paused and looked at Skip and Jake. "Let me ask you. Did both of you experience any head pain or ringing in your ears when you encountered the Gnols?"
Skip and Jake looked at one another. "As a matter of fact, we did," said Jake.
Doc smiled. "That's because the Gnols have the capability to read our minds."
"What! That's crazy," said Skip.
Doc held out his hand. "Hold on, Skip. Let me finish and you will see that it is possible."
Doc turned and pointed to the brain image on the right. "Our brains have seven primary parts: the frontal lobe, the somatosensory cortex, the central fissure, the motor cortex, the parietal lobe, and the occipital lobe. From the research that I have done on our spy friend and a few dead volunteers, I have discovered that the Gnols have the same brain as we do. It's just that they use more of it.
"We humans use almost every part of our brain. It's just that we don't use the full potential of each part. For example, when I was doing research on Adrian, I had him recall childhood memories during the scan." Doc pushed a button on the computer terminal and an image of Adrian's brain appeared alone. He pointed to the frontal lobe.
"As you can see from the scan, while Adrian was recalling childhood memories, only portions of his frontal lobe were active." Doc then pushed another button and the image of the Gnol's brain appeared. "Now, I conducted the same test on our spy. Well, you can see for yourself the difference."
Skip was astonished. He couldn't believe what he was looking at. The entire frontal lobe of the Gnol's brain was active.
Doc continued. "It was amazing. Our spy could recall almost every detail of her life. I continued to conduct similar experiments, and in every test, Adrian's brain wasn't as active as our spy's."
Jake held up his hand before Doc could continue. "Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. My dad said that Koroan Chast hated us because we were humans, but then he said Chast didn't know he was a human. From what you're telling us, it doesn't look like the Gnols are human at all."
Doc chuckled with his deep laugh. "Ah, but they are. I examined every dead Gnol that came into this place from their toenails to the last hair on their heads. They have the same organs as us, the same blood types, and the same DNA. However, their DNA contains one gene our DNA does not."
Adrian interrupted Doc before he could continue. "Doc likes to call it the god-gene."
"What?" questioned Skip.
Doc continued. "The god-gene ? It's the gene that enables them to use eighty percent of their brain capacity, gives them the ability to live longer, allows them to possess more strength, and enables their telepathic and telekinetic powers."
"In other words, Doc," Skip said, "these Gnols are, in effect, super humans."
"I wouldn't say super humans, Skip. I like to think of them as the more evolved of our species. They are, in fact ? what we can become."
"Except spiritually," echoed Kylee, who still looked angry.
Jake raised his hand again.
Doc nodded toward Jake.
"Before Kylee and her unit rescued me, I felt as if I couldn't control myself. I wanted to escape from the three Gnols that were approaching me. But for some reason, I had an uncontrollable urge to yield to the commands they were giving me in my head."
"That's exactly what you felt, Jake. Our spy had told us that some, but not all, of the Gnols have the power to not only read minds, but have the power of persuasion as well."
"A small percentage even have the ability to move things with their minds," said Adrian.
Skip shook his head. "I don't think I can be surprised anymore. I feel like I've stepped through the looking glass and walked right into a science fiction, action movie."
Everyone in the room smiled except for Kylee, who still looked like her mind was miles away.
Worlds Without End: The Mission (Book 1) Page 30