EDIT: Gave it some 'spellcheckage.
Hope this is in the right place.
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READ THE FOLLOWING:
"The Source" is a book I am writing on my own time, I have no intentions to publish or sell it when it is done.
Stuff about me:
I am 14.
I play UT2004 and 2007 when it is released, Homeworld 2, EVE, and EQ2.
Stuff about book:
I hope you're not allergic to typos.
Is planned to be 17-20 chapters long.
--- or *** indicates a perspective shift/new scene/new time period/etc.
---***--- Indicates a new chapter/book segment
ALL names are currently works in progress and may be changed, especially ones that could cause copyright issues I.E. Freedomland
Chapter 1 went through "hell" for 3 reasons-
1. I edited it MANY times without paying attention, resulting in some PG's being completely lost, and 2(!!!) characters being completely erased, by accident.
2. In my mind I'd be around...book 4, right now. I have a lot planned, so the beginning was hard to put together.
3. I'm bad at remembering names, which resulted in a lot of name-changing, expect me to change a few letters in a name in later chapters
I.E. Kh'rohen = K'roen, etc.
WARNING: Story contains mild violence and language. When the story starts to kick off the violence will indefinitely increase, however I will try to stick to the same language policy, as I do not like excessive swearing.
If you read it, please gimme some thoughts, keep in mind this is a rough draft and will be overhauled.
PROGRESS: Chapter 2 is about 1/4 done and expect to see it around mid-June.
Plans:
Chapter 2: Character development, Ch. 1 got 0wned by Microsoft Word so I'm hoping Chapter 2 will be better, also, school is almost over which = more time for writing.
Chapter 3: New set of chars introduced
Enjoy (Or not)
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"Start log-file "K'omera.1", dateline December 8th 2023, West Coast time."
"I'm not sure if anyone will ever listen to this, but if you're listening to this in archives, it probably means I'm alive. If you are a human and you're listening to this, it probably means I'm dead and you're not living a very pleasant life anymore. Also, if this is the case you are most likely confused about what has recently happened, and will probably want to listen to the following." Let's see, where do I start?
The Great Ones so they were called, had descended from above and granted gifts of amazing technology, catapulting us forward in time. That's what we were told, at least. I always thought the whole religion was a lie, but advancing from a stone-age to space travel in a mere 1200 (Earth) years doesn't really seem possible in any other way. Ever since some idiot from the elder council stood up and declared we needed to go on a "crusade amongst the galaxy" to rid the galaxy from "dark forces", we've been acting as peacekeepers, helping out developing races that aren't as "fortunate" as us.
Some 100 years after the coming of the Great Ones we made our first contact with sentient life on our solar system's neighboring planet. The warlike and tribal hordes of the Voromn were originally deemed savages. That was, until a leader among them arose and studied our language enough so that he could communicate with our elder council. The many tribes united under him and adapted to the new cultural and technological advances we had provided them. For "savages" they learned quickly, forming their own language and adapting parts of ours, as well as establishing their own basic government and beliefs.
A beneficial yet, shaky, relationship was established between the Voromn and our race, the J'harimn. We borrowed things from them as well, such as several martial arts styles, primarily used for over-the-top flashy acrobatics (used to intimidate opponents during gunplay). The Voromn believed in integrating their body and mind into everything they did, generally using their own two hands to fight rather than guns or melee weapons. We also adapted their music styles, which consisted mostly of blaringly loud drums (played using your hands) and rumbling bass lines.
We were an odd looking species, and it's tough to say that about your own race with any degree of confidence. We had green skin, or "shell", as I should call it. It was soft enough to be flesh but sturdy enough to keep our posture, an exoskeleton, so to speak. I took a step back from the mirror and looked over myself, flicking a few pieces of dust off my dark purple robe. I took a big breath, and tied together the rather over-sized clip, pulling the two sides of the robe together from my right shoulder down to the left side of my waist. Our hands looked like flattened circles, with 4 small fingers, only about 3 inches long each, sticking out. Each finger started with a rigid, small cylinder of hard exoskeleton, and was followed by a softer and more flexible, triangular shaped tip.
Our feet looked much the same, except we had 3 toes in the front, and one larger supporting index in the back. I did like our sense of "fashion", which consisted mainly of light green metallic hues, and dark purple or black robes and cloaks. It was simple, but at least I didn't have a very tough decision of what to wear every day.
My head was an angled egg shape, starting small around my nose and gradually enlarging to the top of my skull. On top of that were 6 larger spikes, looked more like fins to me, that was just the masculine name for them. They blend directly into my head, and are the same color and texture as the rest of my skin. Despite this, they are softer than the rest of my skin, and shift as I move. Some parents choose to have their child's removed at birth, although my mother opted not to. The human term for them would be "hair" although these were definitely not fur. They concealed the top half of my head, right down to my large, blue eyes.
If there was anything I disliked about our appearance it was the eyes. They were small enough to be plausible, but just large enough to be awkward. They left about 2-3 inches for a very small mouth, and a skinny nose. Our noses start between our eyes and slanted straight down, if you look our species straight in the eyes you can barely make out the little wedge that is our nose.
No one could deny the eerie similarities displayed between the two races, although genetic testing revealed no actual relations between the two. Our two body-types are essentially, the same, with a small torso with long, slender legs and arms. However, unlike our our bodies, which were formed using a flexible exoskeleton, the Voromn were supported by an inner skeleton and had hands with five fingers, instead of our four. They were covered by a dark blackish-green skin that looks smooth but feels rough to the touch.
Much like us, the Voromn had egg-shaped heads, however their heads had no spikes resting on the top of them. The location and size of our eyes were almost identical, despite their eyes being a different native color. All J'harimn in recorded history have been born with dark blue eyes, it is supposedly a genetic deficiency we have. There have been multiple reports of very elderly people who's eyes eventually change color when we reach a certain age, supposedly around 150 earth-years old. In contrast, Voromn are all born with dark Grey eyes that either shift to red or a light shade of green at around age 16. Also, we inhale Oxygen in our lungs, where as the Voromn inhale Nitrogen.
Their hands and feet resembled that of a human's, albeit a bit smaller and more nimble, however their toes and fingers are very bird-like, with long claws sticking out of the ends of the final segment, which can be retracted to a degree. When a Voromn opens his mouth and screams in a terrifyingly loud yet hissing and rough voice, two large white fangs pop out in the night, and his eyes flare red like the fires of our sun, we look rather timid in comparison.
Despite our original assumptions the Voromn proved to be intelligent, strong, determined, and quick to advance. They utilized our technology well, building cities and establishing governments, law, and business very quickly. These once savage aliens were now sophisticated warriors with a need to expand and grow.
This need to expand and conquer was the first and only key difference between the two races, we embraced our past and used our gifts of technology for "good", as our council advised us to. The Voromn wanted to advance and discover new technologies and solar systems. Although this need for power was in no way "evil" at the time, our elder council blew it out of proportion, creating a political war between the two races, which eventually split the alliance in two.
Warfare plagued the once peaceful system, and eventually the two races agreed to set aside their differences long enough to find a way out of the solar system, unlocking the vast regions of space between the stars. Jump-drives on ship engines were developed, allowing faster-than-light travel across a solar system. This technology was quickly followed by jump-gates, which offered near instantaneous travel between solar systems. The first few attempts at a successful cross-system jump were utter failures, the crews were never found.
After the fourth crew had used the gate, they returned 3 weeks later by jumping back to the original solar system. They left with supplies to build a new gate, and then lock onto the original gates coordinates and jump back, effectively establishing a road between the two systems, this process of scouting out new systems became known as "bounding".
The Voromn were quick to leave, building large gates to support hundreds of cryogenic crew transports as well as large warships and carriers. Despite the war, the two races had always felt attached for the past 350 years, and their departure tore friendships and families apart. 600 years later, the innate blood feud between the Voromn and the J'harimn rages on. Unfortunately, the elder council has long-since fallen, and our race now consists of a strong military-focused government and it's sugar-coated topping, the Queen.
Miraculously, the corporations and material needs we once resented now formed the basis of our society. Although we are not corrupted, for the most part, our leadership was now influenced by many other factors than simply religion. As for the Voromn, they lived on to research technological marvels, discovering and searching for answers and truth. Their government collapsed and they resorted back to the tribal days 500 years ago, however this time, those tribes had names like "Xh'iteTech" and "D'hanaCorp".
Although our cultures are no longer that conflicting, the original hatred still remains, the Voromn angry at how hypocritical we were, and on a large-scale simply reject any offers for peace we extend to them. Of course, it doesn't help that they are a race divided, they now consist of a few big mega-corporations with several thousand smaller, private corporations. Just because one of them agrees doesn't mean the other will, and if you try to get the other to agree chances are you will lose favor of the people you originally agreed with in the first place.
Religious zealots spoke out in heart-driven speeches about how we had created this "monster" and unleashed it upon ourselves. In a way they were right. Much more, "free-form" ways of reproducing in the Voromn subculture over the past 500 years caused them to have almost decuple us in means of galaxy-wide military and corporate population! And that's not even taking civilians into account. Most of the larger corporations seemed to be highly aggressive, often employing a, "Nice solar system, we'll take it!" attitude. However most smaller private companies were actually rather placid, resulting in about 1/20th of the total Voromn population engaging in active trade with us.
Regardless of either race's past, we still had our objectives, and they still had there's. Although we now are more focused on keeping a stable economy rather than leading intergalactic crusades, we still welcome new species into our alliance, the latest of which is planned to be Humanity.
I was aboard a cruiser-class troop transport that had been orbiting Earth, keeping above North America, for 26 Earth-days now. We had originally been docked at the much larger hive (a station named for it's shape resembling an insectoid hive) that is currently hidden behind an asteroid belt to avoid giving off energy signals. Our original fascination with the planet came when initial scans revealed it had large amounts of Oxygen on it's surface. Upon closer examination, we discovered a fairly advanced society of mammals, as well as a rudimentary space station orbiting the planet. We continued to observe the planet, watching it evolve and change, however a black cloud of death began to hover over the small planet, ever watching the humans, just as we had been for 4 years.
It seemed that a Voromn corporation called "BraXon Mining" had taken up interest in some of the minerals in the planet in the past year, as well as the surrounding asteroid belts in the past few months. Original interceptions of their chat logs revealed they had hired several private mercenary corps to infiltrate and survey the human's society. We took what little we knew and pieced together their basic plan of action.
1. Infiltrate key points of government and civil law as well as the criminal underground.
2. Determine the original threat-level, which judging by their technology, is probably not very high.
3. Topple the world's governments in one swift movement, most likely in a single day or two, establishing a base of operations on the planet itself.
4. Begin mining the planet & surrounding asteroid fields, using the enslaved humans to pay off the mercenaries.
One of our informants told us that "BraXon Mining Corp" had recently held it's first IPO, which means that time was running out. We came up with a simple yet effective plan, considering how small our resources were on such short notice.
1. Identify the Voromn's key striking point, most likely a city where a very powerful figure resides in.
2. Send in a single soldier equipped with cloaking devices, disguised as a human.
3. Do whatever possible to delay the initial strike until the fleet arrives.
The most glaring flaw in our plan was disguising one of our own as a human. Our body mass is significantly lower than the average human adult, therefore the cloaking device wouldn't be able to create a human body without obvious abnormalities. The solution the the problem was to, obviously, send in a teenager. Luckily, once a J'harimn reaches the age of 10 (earth years) we are basically done growing, so the body of a young boy and elderly man look shockingly similar.
The decision was made, we were going to send in a younger man instead of the older male that was originally planned, this would allow us to more easily fit into the human's younger subculture. It turns out that the hapless fool we were sending down there towards almost certain death, was me. I suppose it might seem odd in a human's eyes to send down a mere 14 year-old, but I have been fighting since I was 3. I guess I've always wanted to do something that matters, and here's my chance.
I had been studying the humans for the better part of 2 years now. I always had a strange curiosity with them, and on the inside I always longed to live among them, in such a care-free and joyous lifestyle. For that reason I'm still trying to decide if this whole mission is my greatest fantasy, or worst nightmare.
"End log-file."
---***---
Ch.1
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Ugh. Why does it always have to be me?
It was December 8th, 2023. We were sitting in homeroom, looking over our report cards that had just been passed back. Funny really, how big of an effect one worthless piece of paper can have on someone. It would've been great to see letters like "A" or "B", but my report card contained letters of a much lower variety.
"You know I'm sure someday, we'll look back on this and laugh." Ryan said as he handed me his report card, and I handed him mine. I looked over at him quickly, goofy looking kid he was. He had ear-length brown hair that was a dark "Hershey's Chocolate" color that contrasted well with his light skin. He had a big forehead, light brown eyes and a nose that might have been a bit too big for his face. The other girls thought he was cute though, so he had that going for him.
"Ouch, that doesn't look to good." He talked quickly, covering up his heavy Boston accent that surfaced when he was tired or angry.
I looked over his quickly, seeing straight A's across the board. "Well, I wish mine was like this, it's only a matter of time until-" the intercom suddenly blares out, "Will Jessica Hasenburg please come to the office?"
I let out a frustrated sigh and gave Ryan back his report card, and he dropped mine on my desk. I guess my dad called the school early when he figured out I was getting report cards back. I had an A in art but everything else was in the C and B range, not to mention a failing grade in math. I started to get up to walk down to the office when Zach walked over to our side of the class and said something to Ryan.
Zach then turned to me and asked, "So, how did you do." I just lifted one of my eyebrows and grunted.
"That good, eh?" He said as he sat down next to Ryan and opened his report card.
After a few moments of silence Zach turned to em and said, "Look, this is your shot to get up in his face, he can't keep doing this. Zach Gonero, or "Zachy G." as a few people jokingly called him. The only black kid in our school, hell, maybe the whole town. His name was as generic as his accent, which made his voice sound a bit louder than it probably should.
"It could be a coincidence, maybe they just need to ask me a few questions about...something." I said gravely, knowing what was actually going on.
The two boys looked at each other briefly, Ryan breaking the silence, "You're right, I feel lucky today, I'll put 5 dollars on it not being your dad." He smiled at me and gave me a quick wink. I'd never understand that kid.
Sighing, I said, "I'll see you two tomorrow." I got out of my seat and walked towards the door.
"Good luck." Zach said as I walked out the door. I looked back to see him throw 5 dollars down on the desk.
***
Mayor Ben Hasenburg, If there was a shining star among overly strict and overzealous parents, it was him. I've learned to deal with him over the years, although I still hate him. Most of the time I just wish I had a mother, just to know what it felt like.
I was a normal looking girl, about 5'6", with long blond hair, easily-tanned skin, and light blue eyes. My social life suffers terribly because of my father, though. Everyone in school knew about the mayor, and to stay away from him. Nothing angered him more than someone disrespecting his daughter, and yet he treated me like a piece of jewelry, nothing but an object that must be protected, and anyone who got close to her was to be dealt with swiftly.
Unbelievable, he couldn't even wait for me to come home. How did he get my report card anyways, call the school in advance? And right before the school dance, damn. I quietly walked down the halls, nearing the main office. I couldn't figure out what to do, should I listen to Zach and finally stick up for myself? Or just take it like I always did. Either way I'm screwed. I stopped at the door to the office, I could see my dad inside, signing out on an attendance sheet. You've got to be kidding me.
Pushing open the door I ask, "Dad, what are you doing?" I already knew exactly what he was doing. He doesn't answer, he just finishes writing and hands the pen to the secretary.
"Thank you." He says in a frighteningly kind voice. I just went along with it, it's not worth trying to talk to him. He grabs my arm and pulls me out the door and into the hallway. We reach the front door and he pushes it open with his other hand, "Get in the car." He says as he points to the bright white limo.
The ride home is silent, he locked me in the back with a sound-proof glass wall between me and my father. I slide up to the window and look outside, up at the sky. It wasn't dark yet, but I looked up, wondering if anyone else was out there.
***
It was 4A.M. Kh'rohen, my personal trainer, thought it would be nice to schedule some last minute combat practice. We planned on practicing general speech and emotions, but he seemed to care more about how well I would do if things turned sour. He told me to meet him down in the testing chamber in 20 minutes, he also said he had a surprise waiting for me.
It turns out that surprise was a set of body armor, not exactly what I was expecting, but I was excited nonetheless. I slipped into the suit, which felt very tight compared to what I was used to wearing, and quickly ran into the elevator down to the main chamber. I heard a beeping noise and turned around to hear the elevator door's panel make an odd crackling noise. After a few seconds the whole panel sparked and shut off, a small stream of smoke rising upward from it.
The intercom fizzes for a second and Kh'rohen's voice sounds, "Bah, damn it. They never did get that fixed. Anyways, ready to test out that suit?"
"Give me a second to loosen up." I rolled my neck around and hopped up and down a bit. Feeling the blood start to flow I leaned forward, "Okay, ready." His voice changed into the monotone voice of an A.I., which began to count down.
10...
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
"Remember K'omera, no shooting. This is just to test the new suit."
4...
3...
"You might wanna move by the way, I prepared a little surprise for you. You look like you could use a bit of a wake up."
2...
1... Wait, huh?
The door flies open, faster than I expected, I start jogging towards the climbing wall in the center of the chamber. I look over my shoulder back at the starting room and-"Holy sh-.." The doors had been blown apart, and there was a huge wave of fire blowing towards me at 50 miles per hour. I broke into a sprint, jumping about 10 feet up onto the wall and climbed as fast as I could. A wave of heat hits my back. I pulled myself up and over the wall to the top of a large metallic block, about 200 feet across and 100 feet wide. I placed my helmet on my head, clicking the airlock shut.
The headphone on my right ear buzzes on, "Nice job." Kh'rohen says lazily, obviously taking a sip of some drink at the same time. "Damn this stuff is good..."
"That was a bit over the top." I replied, bouncing on my heels, trying to get used to the suit's strange feel.
We are a very agile race. I've never met one who can't run 35 miles per hour for 5 minutes straight, and most military personnel could flip, roll, and spin easily. Since we were usually outnumbered we were forced to use our agility to our advantage. Myself, I practiced Set'kha, a rhythmic fighting style I used for acrobatics as well as hand to hand fighting. The basic stance is to lean forward, resting on your toes, and make triangular steps and movements towards and around your target. This style of movement in general allowed me to easily maneuver around any environment. Like jumping over a car and shooting out a propane tank, causing a building to explode.
"Yes, you do have great aim." Kh'rohen rang out in my ear.
Yeah, that was a very nice mo- "What the hell?" How did he do that?
"Oh yeah, forgot to tell you, that new, "Soldier-Psyche Uplink" is in the helmet. It let's me know what you're thinking as well as seeing, pretty "cool" huh?" I was silent for a second, trying to not think of anything...
"I heard that."
"Okay, let's just go ahead and get some training programs started so I can get some rest."
The room started to shake, the metal floor turned into a glassy, reflective surface. I looked down at my reflection.
"Very nice." Kh'rohen buzzed in my ear. He must've seen the suit. He was right, I did look pretty menacing. The suit itself consisted of a skin tight "muscle suit" underneath, with several pieces of armor above it, as well as the helmet.
The main chestpiece was a simple body-casing, fitting my torso perfectly. It had a dark purple trimming around the shoulders, stretching down onto my back and the sides of my chest underneath my arms. The front was a much lighter shade of purple, with a small tribal symbol in the upper left hand corner. The light pack blended seamlessly onto my back, making me seem larger and more powerful. Concealing my shoulders were two small circular plates. My upper arm was covered with a simple dark purple cylinder of armor, leaving my elbow joint exposed slightly.
After that came my forearms, which were also covered in cylinders, except with wedge-like blades facing outward on each arm. These were forged from the strongest metals in the known universe, they could deflect bullets and made powerful weapons if you could spin fast enough. My hands were covered in dark, metal gloves, specifically designed to help me grip onto ledges and objects with low amounts of surface friction. They also hurt a lot to get hit with, I'd imagine.
The armor on my legs was very similar to my arms, a cylindrical shaped plate encased my thighs. However my calves and feet were different, my knees down to my ankles were encased in a finely crafted metal plate. The back of this plate was curved away from my legs, then subtly back again, forming a banana-like shape. The front of the boots followed the same style but in a more exaggerated form, with points that that flared out in the front, about 2 inches over my foot. My feet actually came out of the bottom of the plate, you couldn't actually see the foot, just the three toes sticking out from underneath.
The shape of the front of the boot served a tactical purpose as well, they were designed to fit each individual so he or she could lean forward, shifting their weight onto the boot's metal toe. It was generally recommended to use the boots for running long distances to keep the strain off your feet. I found the flares useful for other things like breaking through glass or wooden doors with a well-placed kick, or even using the metal toes to sprint across the top of ice.
I usually stayed barefoot, though, since I was used to running and jumping this way. If my feet were to ever need protection, such as if I was falling a great distance, the suit came with deployable foot casings. Basically just hollow, but very tough, metal spheres that would seal over your foot. These spheres could even emit magnetic charges that could allow me to walk on metal objects, their main use was re-orientating yourself on a metal surface if you happened to be floating through space, but they could also be used to hang from ceilings and walls, a useful trick I've learned.
"Alright, I'm loading up a quick program to make sure the muscle suit is functioning properly, then we'll run through a quick exercise program and you can go get some rest. Sound okay?" Kh'rohen must've seen how tired I was from waking up at 4AM.
I smiled, still tweaking a few settings on the helmet's visor I got out a muffled, "Okay, let's go."
The left side of the room rumbled, sending a visible shock-wave across the room, shifting the shape of the platform into very rough, uneven ground. The shockwaves continued to come, each time bringing a new feature into the room. After about 2 minutes I was standing on a lone patch of metal, surrounded by trees and dense foliage.
"I put a small base a quarter mile Northwest, get there and we'll run some tests."
"Okay, on the move." I said, already bounding through the thick bushes. Eventually the foliage became less dense, allowing me to run easier. After a minute or so I reached a large field, about 100 meters long. The base was on the other side, it consisted of a few bombed out buildings, each about 10 stories high, and a surrounding wall with spotlights and a few machine gun emplacements mounted on it. I quickly crossed the field, briefly running using the metal boot's before getting back on my feet. I jumped up onto the ledge of the wall and pulled myself up, the machine guns were unmanned, and as far as I could tell the base was empty.
I walked to the ledge of the wall and looked down. I heard the sickening sound of metal crunching and twisting, and out of no where a wrecked white sedan comes flying towards me.
"Catch it." Kh'rohen demands quickly. Catch it? What if the suit doesn't work? I stick out my hands and brace for the impact, the car slams into my palm, pushing me back, making my arms strain. The pain quickly fades from my arms and I can feel the car being pushed back, falling to the ground with a loud crash. I jump down from the ledge, seeing Kh'rohen in a suit of mechanical body armor, using a rather over-sized metal claw to pick up and hurl objects at me.
"Good, know we know it works. Time for some real stress tests." With that he gives me a smile and rips a fire hydrant out of the ground, sending it whipping towards me. I shift to the side and spin around, knocking it aside with my forearm. He then rushes me and slams the huge claw straight down on my head, I put my hands up and grab the claw, struggling to hold it back. The string of purple lights on my legs and arms light up, indicating that the muscle suit's power is being used. It recharges on it's own, but there is a limit to how much punishment it can take, the more force it requires, the brighter the lights get.
The suit doesn't make you invincible in hand to hand, though, it is designed to activate only when your own muscles have reached their maximum capacity, and can no longer move whatever it is your pushing or pulling. For instance, throwing a ball wouldn't activate the suit, but pushing as hard as you can up against a wall would. Only once have I been able to throw a punch hard enough to activate the suit, and I ended up hurting my shoulder badly. Even more, the suit only works once your muscles achieve a set limit, so if you are already tired and can't use your muscles to their full potential, the suit will not activate. Although, if this mechanism wasn't in place the muscle suit would literally rip you to pieces as soon as you tried to breath.
"Good, the suit is working, and the power cell seems to be taking it well, still at 97%, actually." He says cheerfully.
"Okay, now that that's over, you said I was going to do some exercising?" I asked, now that I was warmed up.
"Okay, see that big building over there?" He points over to a silver building with large wooden doors, about 15 stories high, "Go inside and take the elevator to the roof, when you reach the top, run along the edge of the buildings, jump across each one until you've passed the silver building 5 times. Also, I'll be throwing some cars and stuff at you, so pay attention." Seems easy enough.
***
"See you tomorrow."Kh'rohen gave me a quick bow, and walked off, taking a sip of the coffee he found in the research lab. He told me to bring him more when I came back from Earth, apparently he had taken a liking to it. I walked back into my room and pressed a button on the wall, my bed slid out of a small opening on the opposite side of the room. Every part of my body was aching, I just wanted to lie down.
"Sorh'ia?" I asked softly, rubbing my eyes.
"Yes sir?" She replied, the light on the wall lighting up softly.
"Wake me up at, 1:30A.M., tomorrow." I said, smiling to myself. 1:30 wasn't exactly sleeping in, but I had been on a different schedule, it was 4:50P.M. and I was going to sleep!
"Timer set, goodnight." She said kindly as I fell into the bed.
"Good night."
***
The limo finally reached the Hasenburg estate, perched on top of a hill in Uptown. The gate to the driveway creaks open, and the car slowly makes it's way up into our garage. It's a big house, or mansion, I should say. White paint, big door with pillars on either side, with vintage brown windowpanes and a large assortment of plants outside the house. We pull into the garage, and the door opposite of me is opened by my father.
"I've already called your teachers, I've got your homework for the day." He says sternly.
"Look, dad-" I tried to explain but I was interrupted.
"Get OUT, of the car, you are grounded today and tomorrow! I'll speak to you about this later.
No sense arguing, I expected to be grounded for a week, and the dance wasn't until Saturday! I could still make it. I grabbed my backpack and slide out the door, walking towards the door to the kitchen. I look back and my dad has already taken out his cellphone, probably yelling at one of his advisers about this and that. I pulled the door open, walking into the kitchen, kicking off my shoes.
"Hello Mrs. Hasenburg, you're home early." Our family's servant, Maria, says to me in her usual sweet voice.
"Hi!" I say back, forcing a smile, then walk up the stairs and down the hallway, swinging open my door. My room was huge to say the least, expanding about 30 feet away from the door, and about 20 feet wide. It was mostly unfurnished, save for some old Britney Spears posters on the wall. The end of the room had a large window with my bed underneath, at night it gave a good view of Plateau, cars buzzing about, lights everywhere.
I sighed and tossed my backpack to the left, over near my closet. I did have a computer next to the window though, which was my main window to the world. The power button on my computer didn't work, my dad must've disconnected it from downstairs. I sat on my bed and pressed my hand against the cold glass, staring out into the city. Although my dad was strict, he was usually too busy to care about me during the week, which left me to the city.
"The city..." I said softly to myself, frowning and smiling at the same time.
San Antorez, or "Black and White" one of it's many nicknames, all of which are equally dumb. The nickname doesn't come from racial population, it comes from half the city being a metropolis, full of opportunity. And the other half leaving the people to the slums, or worse. The city is built upwards into the sky, the best parts of town are the highest up, the further down you go, the rougher the streets get.
We lived smack in the middle of Uptown, the highest part of town as you could guess. Uptown is basically all parks, monuments, and huge mansions. Uptown is actually a raised platform about a mile across, surrounded on all sides by Plateau. Plateau is the normal part of the city is, well, normal. What you see in Plateau is the same as you'd see in the better part of New York or Boston.
The city's different levels were all connected by giant, concrete staircases, each around 30 meters wide and 100 or so meters long, sometimes taking a few minutes to walk down. If you wanted to get your car down a level, you had to take a long, winding tunnel. Each layer of the upper city had many smaller layers as well, most large office buildings and schools had their own raised layer of the city, and suspended tunnels connected most buildings hundreds of feet in the air as well. In some places, you could walk home without touching the ground.
The Plateau is the second largest part of San Antorez, next to Old Antorez. After that comes the rougher parts of town. Next down from Plateau is Brookstown, some gangs call it the "Frying Pan." (Once again, a dumb and campy nickname.) It got it's nickname from the scorching heat it's long, flat streets receive in the summer, you could literally cook eggs on them. Down here organized crime is common, and police presence is generally low.
To the south of Brookstown is Antorez Park . The park is a place where you don't go, period, everyone knows it is the city's gang's meeting place, where they hold fights to settle arguments, this is the worst part of New Antorez. It may seem like a bad place to live, but the upper parts of the city were very clean and orderly, with minimal traffic. Although, this was just the good half of the city. If you wanted to live here you had to deal with the Westside of town, or what used to be the Westside of town.
West of New Antorez was, you guessed it, Old Antorez. Old Antorez was about half the size of the main city, and you could see it from most buildings, including through my window. Old Antorez consisted of two main parts, the first being a very large suburban area, and the second one being roughly the size of Antorez Park. The first area is a very large and (supposedly) abandoned town, resembling Brookstown with long, straight streets, and many small buildings. From New Antorez you could see the more suburban area, with small houses and convenient stores, although behind it was a market district as well as the old nuclear reactor. Around 10 years ago the nuclear reactor had, a problem. I don't want to say it exploded, but what I do know is that it had, a problem. The government was quickly called in to contain the crisis, sealing off all exits of the town using dynamite, effectively trapping the citizens inside. The government stated that they did not want to "spread the contamination."
After a few days of hell, a young rebel in the town decided to lead a charge against the national guard unit stationed on 34th Street. Around 100 townspeople showed up, prepared to march into the main city. The soldiers were ordered to open fire, killing almost 40 people, some of them children. The angry mob ran away in fear, and since then the event has been known as "The 34th Shootings." Worsening the event, no one were allowed to touch the bodies, or even go near them for fear of radiation poisoning. All over the news were the pictures of a heaping pile of dead, bloody bodies, sprawled all over 34th Street. The city was in shock, and the press was having a field day. 34th Street earned it's name as "The Blood Road" after that day, and some rumors exist to the street itself being haunted.
Eventually Old Antorez's people gave up hope, retreating back into the town. The city was outraged, throwing rocks and glass bottles at the soldiers stationed to guard 34th Street. After a while, people went back to their daily lives, and the soldier's presence grew thinner, until only a few security cameras were stationed on 34th. To this day you can still go to 34th street and look out onto the town. The buildings have all worn down, the sun to reflects off the street and the raw concrete, leaving the whole town in a grayish yellow haze. Rumors exist to the fact that people may still live in Old Antorez, mutated by the radiation. Although they must do a damn good job of hiding it, since the town always looks empty. After this dramatic show of government cruelty, Old Antorez has forever been known as Freedomland.
South of Freedomland was a large area reserved for The Dam. After Freedomland's power-plant went awry the dam workers stationed there evacuated, leaving the entire area abandoned. If the mutants in Freedomland do actually exist, people say they hold meetings and ceremonies in The Dam, these are just rumors though. If that is true, it doesn't have as much reputation as Freedom, probably because of Aegis, the wall separating Brookstown from The Dam gives the citizens a sense of security, obscuring any and all possible views of The Dam. However it also raises questions. If the government denies the fact that anyone may still be alive in The Dam or Freedomland, why do we need a wall protecting us? In fact, why can't they just demolish the whole place? It's useless now anyways.
I sat in my room all day, drawing pictures of anything and everything, just like I always did, my dad must have forgotten. Eventually I closed my eyes and fell asleep. I awoke that night, around 2A.M. I looked out my window, and for a second, I thought I could see a small flicker of white and purple light, and just like that, it was gone.
***
WHAM! A sickening crunching noise followed by the sound of twisting metal pierced my eardrums. I almost fell off the bed, having to grab onto the sides. The initial impact shake was followed by a low rumbling noise, and I could hear sirens going off out in the hallway. About 2 minutes later Kh'rohen barged into my room and started screaming. I couldn't make out anything he said, eventually my head started to clear up.
"Aaawhahaaa?" I looked at the timer on the wall. 1:00. "I get another half an hour." I said, rolling over again.
"Oh no you don't!" Kh'rohen said, sounding oddly frantic for his usual calm and controlled psyche.
"Wha-apppened?" I said lazily, my mind still waking up.
"A damn asteroid hit us, it was deflected by the shields but it took out our cloaking array, and it will take another 2 hours to get it back up. We have to get out of here before their scanners pick us up, and to do that we need to get you off this ship ASAP!" Kh'rohen pushed the button on my bed, sliding into the wall, causing me to come flying off.
"Ok, ok! I'm up..."
***
The whole ship was a mess, we could barely make it down the hallway, people running every which way. Loud alarms were honking off, and spinning red lights were above us the entire way down.
"Why couldn't you see it coming?" I asked, shouting over the havoc and alarms.
"It came out of a dust cloud, the ship's sensors couldn't detect it! Especially since we've been running on low power for the past few weeks!" Kh'rohen shouted back.
We turned around a corner, and another, and eventually got to the docking bay. Kh'rohen shoved me inside and followed, mashing the elevator buttons like there was no tomorrow. The doors slid open and he ran out into the open bay, hopping over the railing and yelling at me to follow. I jumped down and he quickly told me to get over to the pod and started loading in my equipment.
"Kh'rohen!" I screamed, he wasn't really paying attention, just running back and forth picking up random things and tossing them to me. There was no use. I went over to the pod he had showed me 2 weeks ago and opened the door. I picked up my rifle and my backpack and placed them on a seat, then started loading all sorts of miscellaneous things onto the small racks and shelves.
Kh'rohen was running over to the pod and he saw me placing equipment on the shelves. His eyes widened and he yells, "No! No time, no time!" He picks up all of the little cluttered objects lying around and just throws them into the pod. He jumps in and slams the door behind himself then runs up to the head of the ship and slams on a button.
I grabbed his shoulders and turned him around, forcing him to look at me. "What the hell are you doing?" I ask angrily.
"I told you we had to get out of here now, we don't have time for anything else. We have to leave, now!" With that he pushes a lever forward and the pod rumbles and shoots forward, sending me and him flying backwards. Kh'rohen ran up to the front of the pod and pressed a button then yelling, "We have taken off, you're clear to go."
I walked up to the back window and saw the ship's main engines ignite, slowly moving it away from us. A voice rang out inside the small pod, "We are moving out of sensor range and attempting to decrease our signature radius, we will return to pick you up in one hour." I saw the ship burn it's engines, glowing brightly, then suddenly shut them off as well as all the lights glowing from the many windows on the ship's hull. They were using their momentum to drift away from the BraXon station.
"They can't use their jump-drive, they're far too close, the station would detect the massive energy spike easily." Kh'rohen said.
"How long until we arrive?" I asked, still watching the seemingly uninhabited capital ship drift away.
"About 20 minutes, start getting your equipment ready." With that I started to pick up the myriad objects off the ground and shoving them into my backpack, as well as slinging my rifle over my shoulder. I walked up to the front of a pod, ignoring a rather frantic looking Kh'rohen, who was pushing buttons wildly, making strange grunting noises every time a little red light popped up. I looked out the front window at the approaching planet.
The sun was currently on the other side of the sphere, shadowing us, leaving half of the world in darkness. I managed to eye our target though, a congregation of yellow lights that must've been a city. Kh'rohen sighed and leaned back, his flashing red light turning into a solid blue light. He noticed me staring at the planet, and took a good look at it himself.
"Kind of makes you think of home, doesn't it?"
It did.
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Ch. 2 - Expect to see around mid-June.
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Notes: Yharrr!!!
,DefJam101
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