Planet Urth Boxed Set

by Jennifer Martucci

  Gabriel quickly arrived at a small clearing. In the distance, he could distinguish two figures, one was Melissa. And the other was Kevin Anderson.

  Kevin was atop her. They were struggling. A hand was raised. A slapping sound followed.

  Rage flashed through Gabriel like lightning slicing through a midnight sky. He thundered forward, fury storming within him, fueling him, until he reached the dell. Melissa was beneath Kevin. Dirt and blood streaked her fear-stricken face.

  Running as quickly as his muscles permitted him, he heard a barely audible but distinct threat issued. Through the rush of wind in his face and the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears, he saw Kevin atop Melissa, clawing at her pants and issuing a string of ugly threats. But before Kevin could complete his venomous diatribe, Gabriel, never breaking stride, burst from the shadows and launched his body, slamming himself headlong into Kevin. The force of the impact sent both of them hurling to the leaf-covered ground.

  Gabriel sprung to his feet effortlessly, unaffected by the collision. Kevin, however, slowly clambered to his feet, a look of shock and indignation plaguing his features as he saw Gabriel already standing, positioned and primed to fight.

  “You just made a big mistake, brother,” Kevin said. “I’m gonna fuck you up!” He said raising his tightly clenched fists.

  “C’mon!” Gabriel screamed with his arms outstretched, urging Kevin toward him.

  Kevin needed little provocation. He swung at Gabriel. Gabriel swiftly sidestepped the intended hit. Bowing then rising deftly, Gabriel struck a quick jab followed by a powerful uppercut that landed evenly on Kevin’s jaw. The impact of the blow knocked Kevin to the ground on his backside.

  Kevin’s facial expression quickly transformed from one of astonishment to one of utter confusion. His confusion rapidly morphed into indignation. He scrambled to his feet. Wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand, he spoke.

  “Sucker-punching bitch! Now you’re gonna pay!” Kevin exclaimed and charged at Gabriel, swinging blindly, fiercely.

  Gabriel dodged the assault and delivered an effective shot to Kevin’s abdomen. He felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction as Kevin dropped and gripped his stomach. As Kevin knelt in the dirt below, Gabriel landed another blow to his face just below his eye. Kevin tumbled into the underbrush on his side.

  Trembling with wrath, Gabriel walked over to Kevin who remained in a prone position and spoke. With every ounce of restraint that he possessed, he managed to avoid striking Kevin again and again, pummeling him until every ounce of his anger was spent. Gabriel wanted Kevin to feel fear and pain, fear and pain like he had caused Melissa.

  Swallowing the bile that filled him, Gabriel managed, “Just stay down, Kevin! This is over. I better never see you near her again,” he threatened.

  “Fuck you!” Kevin spat as he raised himself to a crouched position. From his squatted stance, Gabriel watched as Kevin reached for a pointed, shiny object sheathed on a holster at his ankle. He hurriedly tried to conceal the knife under the cuff of his shirtsleeve before staggering to his feet once again.

  Kevin lumbered toward Gabriel. Leaves and twigs littered his clothes. Blood and dirt caked his cheeks. Gabriel did not retreat from Kevin’s advance. Instead his feet remained planted, his fury-filled gaze trained on his adversary gauging and anticipating Kevin’s next move.

  As Kevin moved closer and positioned himself at arm’s length from Gabriel, he lowered his eyes to the ground and put a hand up, palm facing outward, an implication of surrender of sorts while the other lay slack at his side. Gabriel, flooded with indignation and distrustful of Kevin’s false gesture of submission, remained, readied.

  Instantaneously, Kevin lunged at Gabriel brandishing a dagger and stabbing at Gabriel.

  “I’ll kill you!” Kevin shouted as he cut through the air at Gabriel.

  Gabriel evaded having the weapon plunged into his torso. Instead the cutting edge grazed him, lacerating his forearm.

  Incensed, Gabriel seized Kevin’s hand that held the weapon and struck his face as hard as he could with his free hand. The impact drew a snapping sound and an immediate gush of blood from Kevin’s nose.

  Kevin fell to the ground. His blade lay at Gabriel’s feet.

  “Fuck!” Kevin screamed with both hands at his nose. “You broke my nose, asshole!”

  As he clambered to a standing position, he glared at Gabriel defiantly and warned, “This is not over!” before he plodded off into the surrounding woods.

  Gabriel turned, half expecting Melissa to be gone. But she remained, transfixed, sitting with her knees cradled to her chest on the leaf covered earth. Tears streaked her dirt covered face.

  Taking a deep breath to steady his insides that rattled with anger and adrenaline, he walked over to her with his palms facing her. “Melissa? Are you okay?”

  Her voice quavered, “Just get me out of here. Please.”

  Gabriel offered his hand to Melissa and she accepted it. He raised her to her feet and wrapped one arm around her waist. Together, they found their way out of the woods to the parking lot.

  “Please, just take me home Gabriel,” Melissa said softly.

  “What about Alexandra and Daniella. They’ll worry.”

  “I’ll call them from home. I just need to get away from this place,” she said tearfully.

  He did not say another word. He opened the passenger side door of his hunter-green Ford Explorer for her and helped her in, making sure to fasten her safety belt. After seating himself in the driver’s side and fastening his own seat belt, Gabriel and Melissa headed toward Blackstone Drive.

  Chapter 12

  Dr. Franklin Terzini hurled an object through the air, hard, and did not flinch as it exploded into the far wall of his work area.

  Slivers of glass ricocheted from the concrete and showered down, littering the floor of his laboratory with prismatic splinters of varying shapes and sizes. Just seconds earlier, the shards had been intact and had formed a large beaker. The flat-bottomed glass cylinder was empty at the time of its destruction but several hours ago had held a thick, opaque liquid crucial to his work.

  Pure rage had overtaken him and produced a rare, but intense, emotional outburst.

  Breathing heavily in short shallow breaths, he panted. His heart raced. Beads of sweat stippled his forehead. He bent forward and placed both hands on his knees and attempted to catch his breath.

  He had gone to the main house in search of Gabriel but found that his creation was not there. Gabriel had left, though he had not been granted permission to leave the grounds.

  Gabriel had defied him.

  Wiping his damp brow with the back of his hand, Dr. Terzini straightened slowly. As he rose, he glimpsed his image in the stainless-steel paper towel dispenser near the decontamination and sink area of his lab. He was startled by his reflection. An unfamiliar face stared back at him.

  With glasses that sat askew across the bridge of his nose, hair disheveled and a mouth contorted unnaturally, he vaguely resembled the man who commanded worldwide respect a short time ago, the genius he knew himself to be, the man who would transform humanity.

  As he gazed at himself in the reflective metal surface, a new feeling washed over him replacing the rush of anger that propelled his previous eruption: shame.

  Shame rippled and flowed throughout his entirety, relaxed the grimaced muscled around his mouth and drained the color from his cheeks. Looking at his slackened and blanched face, his reflection, though disgraced, became more familiar.

  He quickly smoothed his black hair, coaxing errant strands back to their prescribed coif shape then smoothed his dress shirt before tucking it into his trousers. Pulling back his shoulders he stood erect, with pride, composed again.

  After several deep breaths, his thoughts were righted, his emotions reined in. Once he was calmed, he began to survey the tremendous mess he had made when rashly launching a beaker at the wall.

  He had dozens more like the one he’d
smashed, identical in shape and size. He was not upset that a piece of lab apparatus had been destroyed. He was upset, however, by what had caused it. He had been goaded to the point of emotionality, a loathsome, revolting state of existence.

  His forced expressiveness was a direct result of Gabriel’s noncompliance. Gabriel had operated against ingrained conditioning that dictated he never act against Terzini.

  Yet, Gabriel disobeyed direct orders, his orders, and likely attended the bonfire. In doing so, he exhibited a sign of defect, of weakness. He was demonstrating a mark of failure. And failure was alien to Dr. Franklin Terzini; alien and unacceptable.

  The ramifications of such a catastrophic letdown implicated his work, challenged his integrity, his genius.

  He inhaled deeply through his nostrils and exhaled through his mouth to halt the onslaught of another anger and adrenaline-induced frenzy. After relaxing and narrowly avoiding a repeat of the earlier equipment wrecking incident, he began considering his choices.

  Gabriel’s apparent malfunction had provoked a destructive act. He would not allow Gabriel to rescind the significance of his work and make a mockery of him as well.

  Fortunately, he prided himself on being pragmatic. He had a contingency plan, though it was not preferred in the least. A lifetime’s worth of work had been utilized; Gabriel was the culmination of that work. An alternative creation could be formed, though he never imagined he would need to do so. That is, before Gabriel had engaged in his supposed insolent behavior. If evidence and admission corroborated Terzini’s suspicion, that if Gabriel did not have a reasonable excuse for breaking protocol and going to the bonfire, then drastic measure would need to be taken. The potential for dire circumstances existed, circumstances that would warrant the new creation’s activation. He would be forced to start from the beginning again, educating, training and preparing for the replacement’s successful integration.

  It would present a problem with his relocation. With his alleged death fresh in the Russian Mafia’s mind, moving would be a tremendous risk. Finding another house that boasted an underground shelter would be challenging as well. Both threatened exposure and, ultimately, his life.

  He would also need to dispose of Gabriel.

  But before such drastic measures were taken, he needed to be certain that a defect did exist. And if so, it was imperative that he know whether Gabriel’s malfunction was correctible. So many questions swirled about in his mind. Gabriel’s failure would be his failure. Was it possible that he was capable of making a mistake? The query seemed ridiculous, preposterous.

  If he did not receive an explanation he deemed suitable and satisfactory from Gabriel, he would have to be destroyed; a new champion would be produced to advance society to its future state of perfection.

  Chapter 13

  Arrangements had been made for Eugene to board a fishing vessel docked in the Avacha Bay, a Pacific Ocean Bay on the southwestern coast of Kamchatka Peninsula in the port city Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

  More than five hundred miles needed to be traversed to reach the Avacha Bay from the underground laboratory that burned outside Talovka, Kamchatka.

  A plane ride would have been the quickest and safest method of travel for Eugene, but driving posed the least questions.

  Instead, Eugene traveled in his rugged all-terrain vehicle. His Hummer H1 Alpha negotiated the hostile landscape with little effort. Torrents of heavy snow pelted the windshield and winds whipped and gusted up to thirty-five miles per hour throughout much of the trip.

  Unpaved roads crusted with black ice and covered in snow failed to provide sufficient traction. Eugene, responding to the inhospitable conditions, employed his superior genetic attributes, his enhanced vision, quick reflexes and instinct to guide him.

  Requiring infrequent rest stops, Eugene closed the vast distance between Talovka and the Avacha Bay which featured fierce blizzard conditions in less than ten hours. Later than originally planned, he arrived at Petropavlovsk Harbor just before midnight.

  Eugene searched for the dock where he was to meet a man named Sasha Titov, a Pacific salmon fisher headed to the rugged coastline of the Aleutian Islands. Eugene had never met Titov. Dr. Terzini had made the arrangements prior to his departure. He was to meet the mystery fisherman and his small crew at a numbered slip where the craft was moored.

  Parking his Hummer in a designated space, Eugene walked out on to the pier where half a dozen ships were birthed.

  As he strode along the jetty, the only sound he heard was his own footsteps on the sturdy structure below. All else was still and silent. Darkness enveloped the wharf, hushed it. Each ship loomed lightless, ensconced in the thick, velvety shadows. Eugene wondered whether the captain and his crew had left without him as his arrival was several hours behind schedule.

  Checking the number on the paper Terzini had given him, Eugene moved toward the corresponding slip. He was relieved to find that a ship still awaited him.

  As he looked to its bow, a burly, bearded man lumbered toward him. Cloaked by a navy woolen hat and matching parka, Eugene presumed the robust man to be Sasha Titov.

  Removing his glove and thrusting a beefy hand at Eugene, Sasha Titov moved with a pace that betrayed his heft. He spoke Russian, one of many languages Eugene was fluent in as he rapidly approached. Eugene clasped the brawny fisherman’s hand in his. Sasha Titov smiled a genuine, affable smile.

  Titov’s proximity enabled Eugene to inspect his appearance closely.

  He was surprised to see that nothing about Titov was weathered. His features were not hardened like other fisherman but, rather, softened. His plump, pink cheeks were round and gave the appearance of a perpetual smile. His abundant facial hair, all a reddish brown, curved and arched. Beneath his cheeks sat an auburn beard filled with hairs that hooked and bowed, swirling into an unexpectedly neat arrangement. The curved line of his nose ended with a bulbous formation. Bushy eyebrows curled toward vibrant blue eyes fringed by eyelashes that arched up and outward. His every attribute was rounded, merry. Eugene could not deny how the sum of his features lent him the appearance of a brunet Santa Claus.

  In keeping with his Santa Claus facial composition, Sasha Titov’s body was rounded as well. His pudgy build was barely contained by his winter coat. His belly strained and pressed against the zippered material and threatened to separate the teeth that interlocked to hold it closed.

  Pumping Eugene’s hand, Titov said, “I am so pleased to meet you. I saw headlights in the lot and figured it must be you.” Titov laughed, a deep bass timber resonated in his throat. “After all, who else would be traipsing around this place in the middle of the night?”

  “I’m sorry for holding you up. The weather was far more treacherous than I had expected. Please accept my apology,” Eugene offered, curiously held by the stranger’s rotund and jolly manifestation.

  “That’s not necessary,” Titov said pumping Eugene’s hand.

  “Thank you for being so understanding,” Eugene said as he reciprocated the enthusiastic handshake.

  “Wow, you’re a big man, and strong, too. I was told you were tall but I never guessed you would be so big,” Titov continued, smiling broadly.

  “So I’ve been told,” Eugene responded with a half-smile. It was rare for anyone to merely comment on his size. He awaited further remarks on the subject.

  “What is your name, my big friend?” Sasha inquired

  “Eugene. And you are?”

  “Sasha. Sasha Titov.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  To Eugene’s astonishment, he did not pursue the typical course of conversation concerning his appearance, or more specifically, his build. During the few instances he encountered a member of the general populace, the focus centered on his looks.

  Sasha Titov did not.

  If Titov was repelled by Eugene, or distracted by the dark sunglasses he wore at night, he did not appear as such. Instead he gave the impression of immediate acceptance, welcoming him as a shipmate. Su
ch courtesy perplexed Eugene.

  As they ambled along the length of the ship, Titov engaged Eugene in light conversation.

  “I hope our accommodations will be suitable. The cabins are a quite small,” Titov rambled.

  Eugene’s mind struggled to understand how a common human being could be interested in the comfort of another, least of all his comfort. After all, he had long-considered human beings the most selfish of creatures. Titov’s concern for his lodging implied generosity, kindness. Eugene found himself calmed by his new acquaintance’s bighearted attitude. Such calm confused him. He sought to redirect the conversation.

  “I am sure the cabins will be just fine. By the way, where is your crew, Mr. Titov?” Eugene asked. “I don’t see anyone on deck.”

  Eugene assumed that more people would be present. To his knowledge, when a ship was departing for a long journey such as the one they were embarking on, there would be a buzz about the boat-longshoremen loading it with supplies, families seeing their kin off-yet Eugene observed that no one lingered about the pier. The deck was deserted.

  “Please, call me Sasha,” Titov appealed before adding, “I told my men to get a few hours of sleep before we sail, that I would wait for you alone.”

  Eugene considered the plump and perpetually smiling man’s explanation for the deserted deck and deemed it commendable. Sasha Titov appeared to be truly concerned with the welfare of others, a fact that puzzled Eugene.

  “Again, I’m sorry for being late. I’ll apologize to your men when they wake,” Eugene found himself saying without prior thought.

  “Don’t trouble yourself. The weather is not your fault. They were happy to rest before our journey.”

  “I look forward to meeting them. How many men are there?”

  “We have one member who does most of the cooking,” Titov began. “We think of him as our chef, and then there are three other crew members. Including me, there are five members total. They’re all good men. We’re like a family.”