Kicking PotASSium
Once upon a time, in the jungles of Peru, there was a banana named Steve. He was just your average, ordinary banana that could talk. Steve felt lonely because none of the other bananas on the tree would talk to him. He went through every day of his banana-life waiting to get picked off the tree, so he could get away from the silent bananas. Every day he would see the monkeys coming to pick the bananas from the tree, but every day he wouldn't get picked. One day all the bananas on one side of the banana-cluster got picked, and it left the sun shining on Steve! He knew that if he was not picked that day he would become a mess! Luckily for him, a baby hippopotamus was walking by the tree.
“Excuse me, baby hippo? Could you please get me down from this tree?” he asked. The baby hippo looked up, screamed, and ran away because it’s mother told it not to talk to strangers. Steve was saddened by this; he could feel the sun blasting its ray’s upon him.
Then he saw a large green snake slithering on a branch next to him and called, “Mr. Snake? Could you spare a moment of your time to help me?”
“Maybe, what sssseemss to be the problem?” the snake answered.
“If I don't get off of this tree soon, I will become a disgusting mess,” Steve told the snake.
“I’m ssssorry misssster banana, but I can’t jump from thisss branch to yoursss. I don’t have any armsss. Good luck though,” replied the snake as it slithered away.
Steve didn’t know what to do, so he used his uncanny arithmetical skills to calculate how much time was left in the day. There were only a few hours left of sunlight in the day, but Steve knew he couldn’t make it that long. He could feel his insides getting mushy. Just as Steve was accepting that his fate was to become mush-in-a-peel, a gigantic, metal triangle came crashing down from the sky and not-so-gracefully landed next to his tree, causing it to fall over. The hatch opened and two mysterious figures no larger than gorillas thundered out of the ship. The way they moved and looked was oddly mechanical.
When the tree got knocked over, Steve got stuck under a branch, but he could see what was happening with the figures from the ship. The figures walked around and returned after a while. They walked over to where Steve lay nearly passed out on the ground, and proceeded to have a conversation. Steve watched as the two figures ripped up him and his tree. When one of the figures saw him watching, he got kicked in the face and passed out.
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When Steve awoke, he was inside a clear tube of indeterminable thickness. All around him he could see metal and lights flashing! Everything around him was so much more advanced than anything he had ever seen! He felt like an alien in his completely technological environment. There were beeps and buzzes the like he had never heard before! Everything was so shiny and new; he was scared. The figures were facing away from him talking. They had removed their helmets to reveal that they were large metal robots! They had big metal faces with glowing receptors for eyes. Their mouths were little speakers and had small microphones for ears.
The bigger one had round disks all over him that could be wheels and a lot of large tubes over his arms and shoulders. On his back were large tubs of sort that connected to the tubes. The slightly smaller one had lights all over his body and had tanks of a different kind on his back. There were pieces of wings on his arms, but they were not connected.
Steve could not believe what he was seeing! He wasn’t exactly sure what the figures were, but they were communicating in long tones and clicks. The figures noticed Steve looking at them in the tube and came up and began making noises at him. When Steve didn't say anything, they opened the tube and kicked him again.
“By the great leaves of the Banana God! These... things... are... violent!” Steve sputtered to himself between gasps of pain. When they stopped kicking him, they made more noises at him. Steve was confused by the noises they were making. They were just staring down at him with their metallic, glowing red eyes. Then, one of them turned to the large metal wall and pressed a glowing button. The robot began to speak into the wall and a little portion of the wall slid up and a screen appeared. The figure tapped the screen for a while and continued making sounds. The sounds continued to change and morph. As Steve listened, he wondered what they were going to do to him.
“Can you understand me now, puny yellow creature?” asked one of the robots in a deep voice.
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-who are you?” Steve asked, terrified.
“I am Wheeldust and this is Nitroflash,” said the larger of the two, the one with wheels all over him, “and we are research scouts in the Decepticon army. We have scoured your pathetic planet for anything with..... potential.”
“Potential f-f-f-for what?” Steve asked, not sure if he really wanted to know the answer.
“Potential,” said Nitroflash, “for upgrades.”
Steve was absolutely dumbfounded. He looked around him and saw other things in tubes similar to his own, all sleeping. As Steve looked around he saw a hamster, a fish, two identically ugly baby birds, and.... a toaster?! He looked closer at them; there was something off about them. Steve also noticed lots of mechanical equipment and some sort of work table far off. Steve started to grasp at ideas, but something wasn't clicking. “W-w-what're you going to upgrade me into?”
“The time for talking is over! You belong to us now!” And with that, another metal foot came crashing down, knocking Steve into unconsciousness.
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When Steve awoke, he was strapped onto the work table. There were lots of bright lights, but he could just make out the two figures, one of which was the source of all the light. From the table, Steve could get a better look at what were in the other tubes; what he saw scared him. The things in the tubes did not look alive at all, they were blocky and had a metallic shine to them. It looked as if someone made mechanical replicas of what Steve saw earlier, but then the hamster looked at him and Steve could see that the eyes were still real. In those eyes Steve could see pain and sorrow; he knew bad things were going to happen to him on this ship.
“Well well, had a nice nap, did you?” asked the one with the lights, Nitroflash.
“Wh-wh-wh-what're you going to do with me?” Steve wondered.
“Ha! Going to do? We already did it! Look at yourself!” answered Wheeldust with an evil laugh.
This comment made Steve sad; he can't move anything more than his eyes and mouth. He tried to look down at himself, but found it impossible. “Do you have a mirror or something? I can only move my eyes and mouth.”
“'Do you have a mirror or something?'” repeated Nitroflash in a high voice of mockery. Wheeldust laughed and kicked Steve again. After their laughter finally died down, they pulled a small mirror down for him. “Here, you yellow buffoon!”
Steve looked in the little mirror and at first thought everything was normal. Then he looked closer at himself and saw that there was a large cavity in the middle of his body! The cavity had a metal casing, and didn't go all the way through him. Steve was absolutely and completely mortified, but then realized that they were not done. Nitroflash had a pair of tweezers extending towards him. The tweezers were holding a tiny green spark of light. Steve tried with all his banana-might, but could not move. He wasn't really surprised by this revelation, he had never moved in his life, but he wanted to try. As the light entered his body, Steve felt a searing flash of pain and everything changed. Steve started crying out, like an infant that had just been born. The Decepticons had no time for this, and kicked him once again into unconsciousness.
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When Steve awoke, he noticed that he had a lot of bruises. Man, I have got to stop getting kicked, Steve thought to himself. But then he had a more startling realization; Steve was slowly turning into a machine! He then thought back to what he saw in the the glass tubes and it all made sense. Thats what was off about the other creatures! He could feel the power flowing through his potassium-based body and there was a steady pain in his chest. He looked down at it and could see a glowing cover over the cavity in his chest. Wait, Steve thought, I just LOOKED down! I just moved! All by myself! With this revelation, came a wave of excitement. Steve had just moved for the first time in his entire life! Thats a huge accomplishment for a banana whose only goal in life had been to get eaten! “I can move! Oh my goodness!” But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get himself up. Then he realized, he didn't have any legs so he couldn't have walked anyway.
“Yeah, I remember the first time I moved. I almost blew a circuit,” came an old grizzled voice.
“Who are you?” asked Steve. He looked around, but was unable to locate the source.
“I'm over here, you ignoramus,” said the voice. Steve looked around and finally realized the voice belonged to the toaster.
“Hi! My name is Steve and I don't have any friends. Will you be my friend?”
“Ugh, not another kid,” said the toaster, disgusted. “The name's Phil.”
“Why am I here, Phil?”
“You are here as part of the Decepticon's plot to make a new generation of Decepticons. The Decepticons always want more troops for their armies, and with their technology, they figured out how to turn biological creatures like yourself into machines like them,” Phil explained.
“But... what about you?” asked Steve.
“Do I look like a biological to you, kid? I'm a flippin' toaster! They just heavily modified me and gave me weapons.”
“Then why don't you just leave?” questioned Steve.
“Because they put a chip in me that won't allow me to strike against them. I also can't move anything other than my eyes and mouth until they press a button. As long as we have those chips, we're trapped! Now shuddup here they come, here they come!”
“But, Phil what about-”
“Prisoner! Shut your voice-box!” said Nitroflash as he opened the tube and kicked Steve multiple times. “Its chow time.” Nitroflash pushed a button on the platform the tubes were on and the flooring of the tube slid away and Steve fell down into a dark metal shaft. Steve went down, around, left, right, up, left, left again, down, through a loop, and landed roughly on the right end metal bench. Dazed, he looked around and saw the other captives sitting with him, look at him incredulously. They were in a small chamber that only had one sealed square hatch in the wall. The toaster, Phil, was sitting to his left.
“We have a few minutes before our food is prepared. Let me introduce you to the gang,” he said, gesturing at the others. “Across from you is Jack,” he said, gesturing to the fish, “he's Australian.”
“Hi Jack! My name is Steve!”
“G'day Steve,” replied Jack.
“Jack, are you a fish?”
“Last time I checked, yeah. Wondering how I'm out of my tank?” He turned his head to the side and Steve saw a tube going from one set of gils over his back onto the other set. “They hooked me up with this gismo the same time I got my upgrade. Don't understand how it works, but I'm glad to 'ave it.”
“Those two over there,” Phil interrupted, nodding in the direction of the baby birds, “are always together; they're not conjoined or nothin', they just never leave each other's side. The one on the left is Andy and the one on the right is Peter.”
“How do you tell them apart?” whispered Steve.
“Andy has the bottom half of a black circle on his forehead; Peter has the top half.”
“Pleased to-” started Andy.
“-meet you,” finished Peter.
“Uhh.... hi..” Steve managed to get out.
“And over here on my left is C.”
“Hi C! My name is Steve!” But C just turned and looked at him with his deep, black eyes. Steve couldn't stop looking at them, and was scared senseless by the look C was giving him.
“Ay, C, let 'im go,” called Jack. And C turned away, to look straight ahead at a wall.
“C doesn't say much. Hasn't said a word for as long as any of us have been here; he was the first one that got captured,” said Phil.
Suddenly the square hatch in the wall opened and six trays floated out and landed on the table in front of its intended eater. Phil naturally had two pieces of bread, whole grain, of course. Jack got a plate of disgusting-looking leeches because, according to him, they're healthier than worms. The twins each had a plate of what looked like mushed up leeches, even grosser than live ones. C got a plate of seeds and corn which he ate slowly and methodically. Steve himself got a glowing green liquid with bubbles; all eyes seemed to be on him as he evaluated just what he had in front of him. He had no idea what do with it.
“Well what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked no one in particular. But then a blue crazy straw came floating out of the hatch and landed in his drink. Steve leaned forward all that he could but still could not reach the straw. As he strained against his own body he got closer and closer to the straw, but never did quite make it. As everyone continued to watch him struggle, Jack reached across the table and pushed the drink towards Steve.
“Thank you! If I leaned any more I was gonna fall right over!” said Steve, relieved. He drank his green, bubbly liquid quite happily, despite not knowing what it was. Steve finished his drink and let out a little burp; he was suddenly exhausted. He sat back at the table while the others finished their meals. When they were all finished, the shaft from above sucked them all up, one by one, and sent them back to their tubes. Steve was already asleep by the time he got sucked up.
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Steve awoke lying face-down on the floor of his tube. “Ughh... my head... What WAS that drink?” he wondered as he pushed himself up. Just then a realization struck him. He just pushed himself up! Bananas don't have arms! Steve looked down and cried out, “Holy banana-mole! I got arms! And, what they hay? I'm not touching the ground..?” Which he wasn't Steve the banana was hovering just above the ground.
“Ya can fly, kiddo. Practice, you ain't goin' anywhere for a while,” suggested Jack.
Steve spent the next few hours flying around and doing flips and somersaults in the air and spinning and climbing with his new-found abilities.
“You were out for three days, mate,” informed Jack. “But now ya' got arms an' can fly, so 'ats good.”
“Yeah,” panted Steve, “totally worth it.” Suddenly Steve's tube lifted up, and Wheeldust appeared outside of it.
“Well well, prisoner, it seems you adjusted nicely to the second phase of the upgrade.”
“Second phase?” questioned Steve.
“DO NOT TALK BACK TO ME!” shouted Wheeldust as he kicked Steve multiple times. “I am your master! Now,” he said, as he stopped kicking Steve, “you must undergo the final phase of the upgrade.” He scooped up Steve's exhausted form and brought him to the work table where Nitroflash was waiting. He laid Steve on the table and went off somewhere else in the ship. Nitroflash fastened Steve on the table and grabbed a small buzz saw. He powered the buzz saw on and brought it up to Steve's forehead and easily sliced open a small gash. He put the saw down and picked up a tweezers; the tweezers held a little chip. He placed the chip in the little gash that he made and there was a large sparking. Nitroflash sealed up the wound he had made in Steve's head. “Now, you are just like the rest of them. You are part of our next generation of warriors!”
Steve couldn't see straight; the room was spinning. “I'm just a banana... not a fighter...” he mumbled. He was dizzy and losing his consciousness fast. The last thing he heard was Nitroflash's evil, metallic laughter.
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Steve awoke in his tube with a major headache. He remembered the operation on his head and a shiver went down his spine. He raised a hand to his head and tried to massage the pain out of his head. He then remembered what Phil said about the chips limiting what they could do and wondered why he could move. “Hey Phil, how long did it take for the chip to take effect on you?”
“The instant they implanted it. For the others it was as soon as the wound was sealed. Why?” he replied.
“Because I can still move...” whispered Steve.
“Kid, thats not possible; the Decepticons' tech is flawless. Prove it, tap the glass a few times.”
“What should I do Phil?” asked Steve as he tapped the glass.
“You can't let them know you can move, kid. I don't know why the chip didn't work on you, but you are our only ticket outta here. Just lay it low for a while, don't tell the others. Just go through the combat simulator with the rest of us until you are confident in your fighting ability. The longer we wait, the more weapons you'll have training with and, eventually, be modified with. When the time is right, you strike.”
“But, Phil, I don't know how to fight,” protested Steve, “I'm just an ordinary banana!”
“No Steve, you're special. You are our savior. Now quick, stop flying and lay down on the ground in case the see you.”
Steve did as he was told and landed on the ground as quietly as possible. He went through the combat simulator with the rest of the team and discovered that he was even worse than he had expected. As the months passed, Steve got better in the combat simulator and had gotten many weapon modifications. He learned lots of things about the others; Jack was just another fish in the sea, too many fish of the same species to guess how many were just like him. The twins were from a part of North America where the birds of their species nest; they were as common to their area as pines are to a pine tree. Phil was originally built in China and there were thousands of toasters just like him made everyday. No one was really sure where C came from, he still had not said a word. The group all knew, however, that hamsters were not uncommon in the world. It seemed that one thing they all had in common, was being just one more. Before being captured, they all thought there was nothing special about them. Anywhere they looked, they could see themselves but slightly different. They were just average, ordinary, plain things before the upgrades; now they were different.
Steve had good times with his friends and was very happy to have met them. He continued his progress in the simulators and could still move in his tube. No one knew about his plan with Phil; the Decepticons still didn't know Steve could move whenever he wanted. Steve had gotten used to living with the others on the strange ship. Then came the fateful day when Steve finally knew he was ready to take on the Decepticons.
“Phil, I'm ready to bust out of here. Tell the others to stay on their toes,” Steve whispered.
“But... Steve... most of them don't have toes,” whispered Phil back.
“Phil. Its an idiom. Just make sure they're all awake. I CAME IN LIKE A WREEEEEEEECKING BAAAAALL,” Steve started to sing.
“You! Prisoner! Cease this noise immediately!” yelled Wheeldust as he came to check on his prisoners.
“You're not the boss of me, you overgrown soup can!”
“Why you little!” exclaimed Wheeldust as he opened Steve's tube with the intent on kicking him unconscious. He opened the tube and started to kick Steve. His foot was just about to hit him when it suddenly stopped.
“Not today, Decepti-chump!” yelled Steve. He had grabbed Wheeldust's foot mid-kick and easily flipped him. Wheeldust was absolutely shocked and very surprised by what had just happened!Then Steve flew out of the tube and out of his right arm came a large quad-shooter plasma gun, shooting green, destructive bolts of plasma at Wheeldust. His left arm opened into an electro magnetic railgun. The rail gun spat large slugs into Wheeldust, startling him even more. Steve flew around him, avoiding the flailing arms. Steve noted that the wheels all over his opponent's arms and legs reflected the shots, and instead aimed his quad-shooter towards Wheeldust's face. The shots were unable to do any serious damage, but he could not see through the barrage.
Steve kept flying around and blasting at his former-master, hoping to do some kind of damage. Unfortunately, a stray shot hit a tool lying on the work table, creating a clatter. Nitroflash heard the noise and came to investigate. When he discovered battle between his captive and his friend, he immediately turned on all of his lights.
“Gah! I can't see anything!” yelled Steve, blinded. He kept shooting, but he no longer had any idea which way he was shooting. He opened his eyes and saw which way the light was coming from and he turned and flew the other way; he flew straight into one of the tubes.
“Steve, you must-” started one of the birds.
“-get to the console!” finished the other.
They meant the console that controlled the chips, it must also control the chips in them all! Unfortunately, Steve could still not see and he knew he didn't have long. “Where is it? Where is it?” he screamed.
“Its behind you-”
“-and to the left.”
Steve fumbled around until he found it. “Does anyone know how to operate this thing?” he shouted.
“There's no time! Press anything!” yelled Phil.
Steve slammed his fist down on the table, hoping to open the tubes or turn off the chips. Unfortunately for the others, the button he hit sent electrical shocks through the tubes, zapping everyone inside them.
“Gaaaaaaaah! Wrong.... button!” someone yelled.
Steve felt around, hoping there would some kind of indicator to help him locate the buttons he wanted. Shots whizzed past his him and hit the console or the tubes or the wall. Steve pressed a few more buttons as he looked back to the Decepticons. They were trying to wipe some of the green plasma off Wheeldust's face. He had tried to shoot some of his dust onto in, but that had seemed to make it worse. Nitroflash turned on one the engines on his arms to release a tongue of flame to melt the plasma; Steve had a little time before they would come for him. The first button he had hit released some sort of purple gas into his empty tube, the second poured more water onto Jack, and the third turned off all the tubes' lights. Distraught, he turned to see what happened to the Decepticons; they were slowly stalking towards him. He knew he didn't have much time, so he pushed a little blue button in the middle of the console. Nothing happened. Steve looked around, and it didn't look like anything had actually happened. Then he saw Phil tapping on his tube; Steve had hit the right button after all! Getting the tubes open was easy, he just shot at them until they cracked. He turned and saw the Decepticons rushing towards him now. He went up and tapped the each tube, and they all shattered.
“Hey Dec-scum-icons,” said Steve, “lets dance!” and he and the others rushed towards them.
In the ensuing showdown, the Decepticons fought with all their might against their creations. The former-captives fought with everything they had and then some. They had nothing to lose, they were taken from their homes and families and were changed from the inside out. The wanted nothing more than to destroy those that had turned them into the monsters they were.Ultimately the Decepticons lost the fight. They lay on ground unmoving, not dead, but not unconscious.
“Well.... what should we do with them?” Steve asked.
“I think we can-”
“-just turn them off,” suggested the twins.
“Crikey! These buggers 'ave power switches!” exclaimed Jack.
“Well I'll be,” said Phil, “I guess we just turn them off then?”
“Let Steve-
“-do the honors!” suggested the twins.
“Well....shucks,” said Steve. He reached out with one of his arms and turned off first Nitroflash, and the Wheeldust. As he turned them off, a red energy flowed into his arm up to his chest. No one was sure what was going on, but all were mystified. The energy slowly melted into the cavity in his chest that held his spark of green light.
“What color spark did they give you?” asked a deep, bass voice. The voice belonged to C the hamster. His first words for as long as he had been on the ship.
“It was green. Why?” Steve wanted to know.
“The rest of us got blue ones,” C told him. “Steve, when you got the chip implanted in your head, were you paralyzed at all?”
“Not even a little. Why? What made it react differently to me than you guys?”
“Steve, you're a banana.”
“Yeah, so? You're a hamster and he's a fish. Whats your point?”
“Steve, you have something in you that we will never have. That makes you special.”
“But... what is it?” Steve was confused.
“Potassium, Steve, you have potassium!”
C never really did talk much after that, but when he did speak, everyone listened because it had to be important. Steve's acts that day were never forgotten by his friends. They decided that they would stick together and fight Decepticons all across the universe. This group became known as the Autobots, the enemies of the Decepticons that fight for the side of good. Due to Steve's ability to absorb the sparks of the Decepticons, he was their leader. From that day on, he was known as 'Potassium Prime'.
Blood Rose
The boy awoke in a dark room; cold, and smelling of human waste. His arms and legs were all tingling. He could barely move; his limbs were rubber. With no recollection of how he got there, he tried to remember, but the only image his mind could summon was that of a rose. Dark red. It was as if his memories were just as trapped as he was. A shudder went down his spine as goose bumps rose all over his skin. He was wearing nothing more than a simple pair of dark shorts that cut off just above the knee. He tried to look at his surroundings but from his position on the floor could see only the ceiling.
Time passed. The boy did not know how long; seconds, minutes, hours, its all the same when you can’t move. Eventually he was able to use one arm to push himself upward into a sitting position. The room was dark, but not so dark that he couldn’t see. The light came from no discernible source; there were no windows or lights in the room. The only opening to the room was an old, cast iron door. He was in cell.
The cell was not large, and seemed to be made of stone but was covered in enough moss that the boy was reminded of a swamp. Monstrous cobwebs hung down from the ceiling in massive clumps, but there were no spiders in sight. Looking around the remainder of the cell he saw there was no cot, no toilet, no bucket, nothing other than him.
A low growling made the hair on the back of his neck and arms stand on end. Every muscle in him was telling him to run, but he had nowhere to go and even if there was he still didn’t have the strength to use his legs. The boy focused all of his attention on the door, expecting an animal to burst in at any moment. A stabbing pain in his chest alerted him that the sound was coming from him. The boy started to laugh at his own mistake, but the laugh soon became a cough. The sheer physical exertion was too much for the boy to take, and he was soon rendered unconscious yet again.
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This time when the boy awoke, he had regained use of his legs. He stood and stretched his stiff limbs. He still felt miserable, but he was distracted by the appearance of a plate of food. There was not much: a few strips of jerky, a piece of stiff bread, and a handful of unsalted nuts. The boy inhaled this food and then began to wonder about the appearance of the plate. The door to the cell looked rusted shut, and no amount of pulling or prying on his part yielded any results. He was contemplating trying to use the plate to wedge open the door when he heard a voice.
Turn around
Turning wildly and brandishing the tin plate as a weapon, the boy saw no one. Further inspection of the room yielded no results. He was still alone. A warm trickle on his lip forced his attention away from the voice and to his slowly-bleeding nose. Lying back on the damp stone, he squeezed the bridge of his nose in an attempt to cut off the bleeding. He stared at the cobwebs on the ceiling, contemplating trying to use one to plug his nose.
This way
The voice came again. Soft and whispery, the voice was one he had heard before but could not place. He turned his head to the left and a movement in the moss caught his attention. He reached over and yanked a handful of the moss from the wall to reveal a small tunnel, just large enough for him to crawl through.
Go
The boy was less concerned about a phantom voice than he was about escaping. The bleeding from his nose had ebbed but there was still a slow dribble down his face that he ignored. What was a little blood? The tunnel carried on for an indeterminate distance but it felt like hours passed. The boy’s knees had long since blistered on the rough, uneven rock and his back was bleeding in multiple places from scraping the top of the tunnel. The tunnel was darker than the cell had been, and he had just about given up when felt the tunnel turn and begin to slope down. It was only a few more minutes of crawling before the tunnel had opened into corridor lit by torches.
Run
The boy ignored the unknown voice, briefly wondering at it’s source. He looked back down the tunnel, but didn’t waste time thinking on it and simply chalked it up to exhaustion and dehydration. The boy took a moment to breathe and stretch once more before he looked around. The corridor was made of a nicer stone than either the cell or tunnel had been. Where the cell had been a cobbled mess and the tunnel a gritty rock that was unidentifiable in the dark, the corridor was a plain, light brown stone that was not unpleasant to the touch.
The corridor was split every fifty-some feet by another corridor running perpendicular. There was no visible ceiling, only darkness stretching above. The blood had long since stopped oozing from his nose and had formed a thick crust on his face. The boy wondered when the last time he had bathed was, unable to remember anything other than the rose. He hoped his memory would return in time.
Hurry while you can
The boy was getting tired of the voice. Where did it come from? What did it want with him? Why couldn’t he remember anything beyond a rose?
He continued walking down the corridor discontentedly until it finally came to an end, making the last intersection a T shape. In the middle of the intersection he saw something that stopped him dead in his tracks: a small pyramid of skulls. The bottom looked to be ancient but each layer looked newer the higher up he looked. The boy couldn’t tell if the skull on top was wet or just shiny, and he didn’t want to get close enough to find out. Curiously, the skulls were all facing toward one of the two branches of the intersection. The boy opted to go down the path they were not facing, not wanting their unseeing eye sockets to follow his every move.
He was walking for a few minutes when he heard a light clattering from behind him. The boy turned toward the sound and listened more closely. He heard a dry thump and then what sounded like something rolling. Clay pots or maybe a rock or—bones. One of the skulls from the pyramid rolled to stop, staring up at him. With shaking hands, the boy leaned down and picked up the skull, hating the way the texture felt on his hands. He glanced back down the corridor, not sure what he was expecting. Turning his attention back to the skull, the boy let out a yell and dropped the skull. Blood had begun to stream from the nose socket and leave a trail on the upper jaw before pooling on the floor.
You should have listened
Shaken by the unknown voice’s warning and the bloody skull, the boy turned and ran down the corridor for as long as he could. He thought he could hear someone or something chasing him, but the blood pumping through his body drowned out any outside noise. The corridor he ran down was just as plain as the main one had been and it lit by the same torches. The corridors may have been identical except that there were no branching corridors down this path.
Finally coming to a stop, the boy panted for breath. His heartbeat was a hammer to his head, pounding any coherent thought into oblivion. Blood had started to leak from his nose at some point during the run, but he was so desperate he didn’t care. Ahead of him was a staircase made out of a smooth, white stone that may have been marble.
You’re wasting time
The boy cursed loudly and panted up the stairs. Each flight consisted of twenty-five steps and then a short landing before another flight of stairs that went up in the opposite direction of the previous flight. He climbed flight after flight, struggling not to fall over from exhaustion. After what felt like fifty flights of stairs, he came upon a landing that had a small fountain.
The basin was flawlessly chiseled out of the wall. The bowl was large and incredibly smooth. The wall above the fountain was bare save for one single engraving: a rose. Fresh water ran from a small opening just below the stem of the rose and drained through an opening in the bottom of the bowl. The boy didn’t believe his luck; he stuck his head into the fountain and drank his fill.
A far-off thumping took the boy’s attention away from the fountain and to the stairs. Something was coming. The boy turned back to the fountain for one last drink and paused. A minuscule, red line was a fracture in the perfectly clear liquid. As he watched, the red expanded and soon the entire pool had turned a deep red. He touched his face and it came back red and sticky. Blood. He screamed and fell back from the fountain, scrambling away. The once-white rose had turned as red as the water.
Time is running out
The thumping had grown steadily steadily louder and the boy did not wait around long enough to find out why. He took the eerie voice as a sign to run up the stairs. Two at a time, the boy leapt up the stairs with renewed energy. His mind was reeling, had he drank blood?
Pounding up the stairs as fast as he could, the boy wanted to put as much distance as possible between him and whatever was chasing him. His exhaustion dulled his awareness and the boy tripped. His body slammed onto the flight and slid down to the landing. The boy remained on the landing while the stars cleared from his vision. When he gained his bearings, the steady thumping coming from below him was louder, this single slip had allowed his pursuit to gain ground.
The boy pulled himself up the stairs, further smearing them with his own blood. The impact of the fall had created a new geyser of blood to spurt down his face. Unable to muster enough strength to return to his feet, he pulled himself up with his arms. He went up multiple flights in this manner, his fear forcing him to continue his ascent. The thumping from fights below him was growing louder and the boy guessed that whatever was chasing him would be upon him in minutes. The boy pulled himself harder, fighting the urge to collapse. The higher the boy climbed, the thicker the blood from his nose became. It pulsed to his heartbeat and the boy knew he should be concerned about blood loss, but his sole focus was escape.
Almost there
The voice pushed the boy further and at the end of one final flight of stairs was a large chamber of deep, black stone; pure obsidian. In place of the torches that had been hung on the marble walls of the staircase, the obsidian chamber was lit by small lanterns, glowing with a ghastly white flame. The glass-like smoothness of the obsidian made walking difficult and he fell back to his knees, crawling his way into the chamber.
Looking around the chamber, the vastness surprised the boy. The room was circular in shape and almost entire empty. There were deep scratches in the stone; rough, deep cuts that left a fine grit that stuck to his fingers. In the center of the room was a stone protrusion. A perfectly round cylinder that came up to about waist height. Growing out of the center of this obsidian cylinder was a single rose. The pulled himself upright using the stone and examined the rose.
Whatever had been chasing him had almost caught up to him, the thumping had been reduced to a short, staccato clicking. The sound was increasing and the boy knew it would upon him shortly.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and mingled with the blood that had not ceased to pour out of his nose since entering the chamber. The closer the boy came to the impossible rose, the more his nose bled. It was a morbid waterfall on his face.
The clicking was on the last flight of stairs.
The boy reached out to grasp the rose.
The clicking stopped.
He hesitated and turned back toward the stairs.
Its time
The boy waited, every fiber of his being ready to explode. Fear had eroded any sense of fight he had previously commanded. There was nothing there. The boy laughed, he had made the same mistake as earlier when he mistook his stomach for a monster. Hysteria overwhelmed him, it took all of his willpower to stay on his feet. He turned back to the rose and plucked it from where it grew, ignoring the thorns cutting into his skin. Bringing the sweet-smelling flower to his face, he didn’t notice the woman standing directly in front of him.
Fool
The boy wondered why this time he heard the voice not in his head, but in his ears. This was the last thing the boy wondered.
-----------
What a waste. I had hoped he would fare better.
The woman wiped the boy’s blood from her blade and sheathed it.
Such a shame, this one was amusing.
Toeing the boy onto his back, she reached down and plucked the rose from his fingers.
Their wanton disregard for other life never ceases to amaze. Perhaps the next will be wiser.
Biting the flower from the stem, the woman savored the flavor and let the red juices pour down her throat.
His chase may have been lacking, but his taste made up for it. Quite lovely.
The woman rolled the stem between her fingers for moment before stabbing it into one of the boy’s lifeless eyes. Working deliberately, she pulled the eye out of the boy’s head and stuck the stem back where it had previously grown. The stem rejoined where it had been broken off and the eye morphed into a plain, white rose.
Time to play again.
The woman smiled as she began the long walk to the next cell.
Peot Uprising
Taking over the colony was the easy part. The Earthern Advent Initiative had left us to fend for ourselves after deeming Peot not good enough to be a fueling station. That just left us colonists and the fifty-eight remaining Overseers on our own. Overseers are supposed to be E.A.I.’s protectors, helping to defend their colonies. In reality, they were no more than a bunch of brainwashed meat-puppets left behind to keep us in line. When we took control of the colony we gave them a choice: join us or die. More chose to die than I would have liked. The few we managed to convince to join us will be helpful, since few of us have combat experience. The Overseers were supposed to teach us how to defend ourselves, but that was just another of the E.A.I.’s false promises.
We had been promised fame and fortune for our ‘bravery’ in this endeavor. What a joke. They told us we needed to be genetically altered to better survive Peot’s harsh climate. Said it would help us with the hard labors of creating a colony. It would supposedly boost our ability to generate muscle tissue while increasing the density of our bones to cope with the increased gravity here on Peot.
What they didn’t tell us was that the there was a 35% mortality rate to the gene-altering procedure, not to mention the side effects for those of us who had the misfortune to survive. Intended side effects. This entire colony was just one big science experiment. Whatever compound they used to alter our genetic makeup was designed specifically to react with the gaseous atmosphere here. They weren’t looking for adventurers, they just wanted lab rats.
Those who died during the procedure were the lucky ones. The rest of us just wish it had been us. While everyone is stronger now, there have been some terrible side effects. Some have cancer, the bad kind. We don’t have anything to cure them, we can only slow it down. Others lost some of their senses, have dangerously high heart rates, or become severely delusional. Most people just get big, purple sores all over their bodies. Its been a few months and so far they haven’t seemed to affect our health, they just itch. I’m one of these, we’re known as Specks. There is an incredibly small group who got the E.A.I.’s desired effect and more. Their bones have become impossibly strong and their skin so tough that even bullets do little more than leave faint impressions; we call them Rocks.
I think back to when I discovered the E.A.I.’s treachery; the scientist who was sent to monitor us had a little too much to drink. A simple slip of his tongue piqued my interest and I snuck into his office to do some digging. When I found out what was really going on, I told my wife and the next thing I knew the entire colony was in my backyard and there’s talk of rebellion.
The thought of Lana snaps me out of my memories and into the situation around me. Our E.A.I. supply ship, the Columbus, has entered atmosphere and is coming in for the monthly resource drop-off. Something tells me the Captain Drez will not be pleased to discover we have overthrown our E.A.I. experimenters. We’ll need to take control of that ship before a call can be sent back to Earth alerting them of our takeover.
“Sir, Columbus will touch down in approximately fifteen minutes,” my second-in-command, Cam Reyla, informed me. A young woman loyal to a fault, she’s always ready for any conflict. Cam is a lucky one, she’s a Rock. By no means the strongest among the Rocks, her bravery and intelligence distinguish her from her comrades by miles.
“Thank you, Cam. Are the Overseers in position?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Yes, sir. They’re waiting by the landing zone and are prepared for their task. When Captain Drez exits the Columbus, they are to take him to the observation building to meet with the late Doctor Kendi, but instead they will incapacitate him. Upon receiving their signal, a small team will enter the ship to take control,” she re-confirms the plan.
“Commander Frit! Commander Frit!” A pudgy, middle-aged man runs into the storehouse that serves as our command center. He looks incredibly familiar and I struggle to remember his name as he strains to catch his breath. “Something… is wrong… its not Columbus,” he manages to wheeze out.
Fighting down the tension that suddenly formed in the pit of my stomach, I step outside and look up at the ship making its way towards us. Its too far away to make out any details, it just looks like another ship to me. I re-enter the storehouse and see that Cam has produced something for the man to drink. He looks very familiar, but I can’t place him.
“I’m sorry Commander, I know I shouldn’t be here, but that ship is not Columbus,” he says.
“Who are you and why are you in here?” Cam demands, anger flashing behind her dark eyes. “This area is strictly off limits. You should be in your position, wherever that may be. If you’re jeopardizing this operation so help me, I’ll—”
“Cam, let him speak,” I cut her off.
“The ship that’s coming in, its not the Columbus, or any other supply ship for that matter. It’s the Aegis, a defender-class ship. Someone has betrayed us,” the man finishes. His formerly red face is now completely drained of color and I can feel mine starting to do the same.
“How do you know?” Cam demands.
“I was in the observation building—on the scanners—when I saw the ship’s frequency flickering. It was Columbus’s signal, but it started flickering to a different frequency completely. I looked it up in the database and that’s when I ran here,” the man pauses, tears welling in his eyes. “Sir, what do we do?”
I think for a minute as I realize where I know the man from. “How long until the ship lands, Cam?”
“Just under ten minutes, commander.”
I force confidence I do not feel into my voice and draw my gun. “I guess we’ll have to fight then. Head back to the observation building and wait there for further instruction,” I order the man. I glance over at Cam, who begins gathering supplies and readying herself for a fight.
The man starts on a slow jog across the rocky field back toward the observation building. Raising my gun, I aim carefully. Taking a deep breath to stop my body from shaking, I wait, and then pull the trigger. The crack of the gun is followed by a soft thump as the man falls to the ground; he lets out a short gasp of pain. Instantly I hear Cam swing around.
“Commander are you—why did you shoot him?” The bewilderment in her voice is clear.
“Let me explain, Cam. He—”
“He was one of us! How could you do that to one of your own even after…” Her voice trails off and when she speaks again its like cold steel. “Drop the gun, commander,” she commands me. I hear the click of her rifle’s safety being switched off as she aims the weapon at my head.
“Did you recognize that man, Cam?” I ask her, making no motion to drop my gun.
“I said drop it!” She yells.
“Listen to me, Cam, where had you seen that man before?” I ask, a lump forming in my throat. I wait for a response but get none. I slowly turn to face her, raising both of my arms to hold the gun above my head. “You have no idea, do you? That man,” I say, nodding towards the writhing body, “is Henry Wissno. Dr. Kendi’s research assistant.”
“So you shot him?” There is clear fury behind her question.
“Calm down, Cam, I didn’t kill him.”
“That doesn’t make it any better! You shot him!” She roars, her gun starting to waver.
“He isn’t one of us. He was gone when we took over the colony, no one’s seen him since. I hoped he was dead. He’s E.A.I. He’s the one who told them we took over; he has to be. Everyone else with full access to the compound is either one of us or dead.”
Understanding bloomed on her face. “So when he told you he accessed the database, you realized who he was,” Cam finally caught on. “We had better go warn the others, if that really is a defender-class ship we’re going to need a plan.”
The odds were against us, to say the least. While not new, defender-class ships packed more than enough firepower to level this entire colony given enough time. We would need a miracle to survive. There was less than ten minutes before the Aegis landed, if it didn’t come in for a strafing run to take us out first. We don’t have many options.
“Gather everyone you can find and take them to the barracks. Arm as many people as you can, I want all able fighters prepared for a shootout. Those who can’t fight need to be evacuated, take them to the caves and leave a group to defend them—Rocks, Specks, Overseers, whoever. Tell everyone else to find defendable positions throughout the colony. We’re going to take out as many of these E.A.I. grunts as we can and we might just get out of this alive.”
Cam went to do as commanded and I walk over to where Wissno lay crying in pain.
“You’re dead. You’re all dead!” He yells when he sees me approach.
“Strong words coming from the man who’s bleeding out on a field,” I tell him.
“They’re going to burn this place to the ground and you’ll watch everyone you know die. People like you think you can overcome anyone because you have ‘justice’ on your side. You volunteered for this, don’t forget that,” he spat, his face contorting in agony.
“I signed up to be a pioneer on a new world, not a test subject. The E.A.I. doesn’t care about us or you. They just want results.”
“You don’t understand just how important this research is, we’re creating a race of superhumans. You’ve seen what the Rocks can do,” he said proudly.
“At what cost? More than a third of us died during the procedure, and the rest either die not long after… or become freaks like me,” I look over at the medical center.
“Specks like you are a necessary sacrifice,” his words are losing their sting, but his impatience is growing. Seeing where I’m looking he says, “They don’t matter. Failures are nothing in comparison to the great leaps we are making in evolution.”
“Is that all they are to you? Failures? As if they had some choice in what happened to them,” I feel the anger rising through me. “She didn’t deserve this!”
“Oh boo-hoo, your wife has cancer. Get over it, Frit. Everyone dies sooner or later and your wife is no—”
My gun cuts him off. Lana didn’t deserve this. She didn’t even want to be a part of this program in the first place; she came because she knew how much it meant to me. And now she’s in a medical coma that she’ll probably never get out of, and if she does I’ll probably be dead from defending this colony anyway. As I jog towards the barracks, I contemplate turning instead toward the medical center and spending my last moments with Lana.
No. My troops need me. I will likely die today, we probably all will. Wissno was a rat, no doubt about that, but he was right about one thing. Everyone dies at some point.