Fallen World: The Complete Trilogy

by Tom Jones

  Bocchino stood up and proceeded over to the door, “I think it’s getting a bit late. We still have a lot of driving ahead of us before we can come up with what we’re gonna do next. I’ll see all of y’all tomorrow. Especially you, Jim Jones.” The cat opened the door and left after displaying a smug look towards the remaining three anthros in the room. Bocchino left the room, and Arcades looked at the door for a few seconds to see if the cat planned on returning to take anything he might have forgotten with him. After realizing that Bocchino would not be returning to the room, Arcades began to stand up from his kneeling position, and he could see that Jackie and Jason were still looking at him. Jason spoke to the fox, “Kurt, I wouldn’t take that personal if I were you, mate.” The fox replied, “I’m not taking it personally. He’s just Bobby Bocchino. I don’t really expect anything else out of him.” The wolf then thought about what Arcades was speaking about and asked the fox a question, “Kurt, did we just have a church in this room?” The fox nodded, “Yes, we sure did. A church isn’t a building or anything. It is simply a meeting between people to discuss…” Arcades paused as he squatted down to retrieve the Bible which was lying on the floor. The fox continued once he stood back up, “This library. After all, the Bible is composed of sixty-six books spanning multiple languages, authors, and time periods. It is the complete and final Word of God.” Jason asked Arcades another question, “You’ve read the whole thing for yourself, Kurt?” Arcades nodded, “Yes, and I still read it at least once everyday that I can. Of course, I couldn’t read it when we were being taken to the Foundation, but you get the idea.”

  Jackie stood up, and she held onto the towel to prevent it from falling down, “How are we going to sleep tonight? We have three people in this room and only two beds.” The fox directed his attention to Jackie’s observation, “Oh. How about you can have that bed behind me for yourself? Jason and I can share this bed.” The wolf’s ears perked up from hearing what Arcades suggested, “Is that what you want to do, Kurt?” The fox looked towards the wolf still sitting on the bed, and he presented the wolf with a question in return, “Would you be alright with doing that? I’ll leave the decision up to you.” The wolf quickly accepted the fox’s offer, “Yes, I’d be alright with doing that, Kurt.” The fox looked back up at Jackie and spoke to the vixen, “Are you satisfied with that solution?” Jackie nodded, and Arcades spoke again as he looked at both Jackie and Jason, “With that settled, we should probably get to sleep soon. We’re probably going to leave early tomorrow.” Jackie approached the bed she would be sleeping in, and she sat on top of it while still holding the towel. Arcades opened the drawer from which he retrieved the Bible from, and he placed the book back in the drawer before closing it. The fox looked down at Jason sitting on the bed, and he sat on the bed right next to the wolf. Jason looked at the fox on his left and said, “How about I get my shower next. Would you be alright waiting, mate?” Arcades nodded.

  Bocchino entered his room, and he could see that Jim was watching The Rock on the television. When the cat entered the room, Jim was currently viewing the scene where a trolley had just barreled into a yellow Ferrari F355 Spider following a chase scene involving a black Hummer HMC4. Both vehicles were considered rather new vehicles at the time, and Jim was thinking about the modern equivalent of the two vehicles. Bocchino looked at the screen, and he listened to what a civilian in the movie had to say to the main character, “Hey man. You just fucked up your Ferrari.” Before the protagonist could reply to the bystander, Jim turned the volume of the television down and looked over to the cat, “Oh, I was wondering where you went.” Bocchino walked over towards the unoccupied bed across from Jim, and he sat on it, “Kurt had something he wanted to say.” Jim was curious, “Oh, what was it?” Bocchino sat in silence for a moment, but he did reply within a reasonable timeframe, “Nothing too important.”

  Jim looked back at the screen, and he didn’t press the cat for more information regarding his encounter with Arcades, “Have you ever seen this movie?” Bocchino looked at the screen, and he listened to the audio as Jim turned the volume back up. The cat shook his head, “Nope, I don’t think so.” Jim looked towards his left to view the cat seated on the opposite bed, “No? It was directed by the same guy who made those Transformers movies in the mid 2000s.” Bocchino looked at the human and replied, “I remember I grew up when those were coming out. I only went to see one of them: The one which came out in 2011. I was only twelve years old then.” Jim nodded towards the cat, “Yeah, I was fifteen when that one came out. That director sure loves making things blow up. I dunno if you saw it, but that trolley in the last scene blew up in an impossible way.” Bocchino shrugged, “Meh. If it looks cool, then that’s probably good enough. Those robots from that Transformers movie looked fucking weird, though.” Jim noticed the water bottle Bocchino was holding, “Where’d you grab that from? I don’t remember you getting that from here.” Bocchino realized that Jim was mentioning his water bottle, “Oh, Kurt gave me this.” Jim looked back at the screen when he replied, “Oh, alright. So did I miss anything important in a meeting or something?” Bocchino shook his head, “No, Jim. He wanted to tell me something personally.” Jim replied as he continued to watch the film, and he decided that he would let Bocchino’s business stay his own business, “Alright.” The human could tell that Bocchino was rather reluctant to relay what Arcades had to tell him.

  A CDI operative zipped up a body bag after placing the charred remains of a deceased anthro in the bag. Another CDI member walked up to the body bag and said, “How many bodies have we found so far?” The human stood up before replying, “This makes five-hundred and sixty-eight, I believe. We’re getting close to the number of anthros that went ‘missing’ during the NSS’ siege on Berlin from a few weeks ago.” The other CDI member looked around, and he watched as a tan KamAZ-6350 was sitting at the ready to collect the recovered bodies. The CDI operative shook his head, “Shame we couldn’t find any survivors. They all perished in the explosion and the fire along with the humans we found here.” The other CDI member questioned, “How many humans did we find?” The first operative replied, “About one hundred and thirty. They all had uniforms which greatly resembled the NSS uniforms, but they had tan boots instead of black boots. They also wore different helmets and used different weapons.” The operative stepped aside as a couple other CDI members bent down to pick the body bag up. The first operative looked over towards a different part of the complex, “We’re not even done going through the facility. We’re still finding more anthros. I’m starting to believe that this place is where the anthros from the NSS attack winded up.”

  The CDI members dumped the body into the back of the truck, and they closed the rear to prevent people from the outside from seeing the bodies inside of the truck. One of the members climbed up to meet the driver of the truck, “It’s full! Take them away.” The driver of the truck nodded and shifted the vehicle out of park before pulling away from the site. A CDI supervisor stood by and looked at the charred ground, “Good thing this fire didn’t get too far. We don’t want the public to know about this.” The first CDI member stood up to speak with the supervisor, “At least we’re far enough away from the nearest town. It shouldn’t be a problem.” The supervisor watched as a tan BREM-K pulled some wreckage of the Su-35’s starboard wing and fuselage out from the destroyed building. The supervisor commented, “Did anybody see that aircraft crash?” The CDI operative replied, “No, sir. Only that pilot’s wingman saw the crash. We don’t know what happened.” The supervisor slowly nodded, “Uh-huh. I’ll have to go and ask him what happened. The AEW&C craft said that the blip disappeared from radar after the aircraft dodged an incoming missile.” The CDI operative replied, “Strange. We also found remains of anti-aircraft weaponry at the site. We found some mangled Stinger missiles and remains of permanent installations built into the building itself.” The supervisor looked up expecting to find a roof to look at, but the building was not too recognizable due to combin
ed damage from the aircraft crash and fire.

  The supervisor looked down towards the body bags, “Are these all dead anthros or dead humans?” The CDI member reported the findings, “All of the ones you’re looking at are anthros, sir. We’ve already taken away all of the humans we were able to recover. We’ve found over five hundred anthros so far, and we’re even finding more.” The supervisor nodded, “Yes. I believe the official number was that a total of six-hundred and two anthros were taken from Berlin during the NSS attack. Are you expecting to make that number?” The second operative replied, “We are not sure yet, sir. We are getting very close, though.” The supervisor looked around the surroundings, and he could see that CDI members were still digging through the rubble. He paid close attention to one member dragging out the remains of an anthro covered in dust and ash. The anthro was so disfigured from the fire that he was unable to determine what race the anthro was part of. All he could see was that some areas of the anthro’s fur appeared to be orange. The supervisor turned back towards the operatives he was speaking to, “Yeah, the reason why I asked is because this place is a very possible location to where they might have ended up. The investigation supposedly found the trains that the anthros were put on were not too far from here.”

  The first CDI operative expressed interest, “Didn’t intel from a place operated by a group called Omega Foundation lead us here, sir?” The supervisor nodded, “That’s right. A CDI team in America found a few places operated by the Omega Foundation. We don’t know too much of what it is supposed to be yet, but all the places that were raided featured anthros seemingly held in captivity. Also recovered were weapons which resemble a mix between a South Korean rifle, a Chinese rifle, and a former Heckler & Koch weapons project from the 90s. It looks as if it was designed to fire both rifle rounds as well as airburst projectiles.” The CDI operative remembered the weapons they found at the destroyed facility, “I believe we found some of those here, sir.” The supervisor nodded, “Yes, we believe that this place is owned by this Omega Foundation as well. A team in the US is working on figuring out what else the Foundation does. They sent us a few samples of the weapon for analysis. We’ve also received some unique devices which appeared to have been used on anthros.”

  The operative was curious, “Devices, sir? What for?” The supervisor looked at the bodies on the ground before replying, “We were sent collars, and devices that would be placed over the genitals of anthros. They also found devices that appear to be designed to be inserted into the anus of the anthro.” The operative raised his eyebrows, “Really? What is supposed to be going on at these places, sir?” The supervisor shrugged, “It’s very unclear at the moment. Most of us would brush it off as something anthros would do on a regular basis, but there’s something oddly suspicious about it: There are humans here with weapons we don’t even know about. They appear to be keeping anthros here and using these devices on them.” The operative said, “Sounds like we still have some more secrets to uncover, sir.” The supervisor nodded, “Yes, that’s all we know at the moment. Continue with the clean-up, and recover any evidence you can.” The operative replied to his supervisor, “Yes, sir.” The supervisor gave one last nod before he left the two operatives to continue with their work.

  “Gentlemen, as we all know, the Omega Foundation is no longer a secret. We have lost numerous facilities including our largest facility containing anthros, Facility Five,” Zero spoke as he addressed all of the site directors who were still alive. Zero looked around the room, but several of the seats were missing due to the site director of the respective facility being deceased. Zero looked towards Eleven, “We are no longer able to proceed with Foundation operations. It’s time to shut down Facility Eleven. We have no more need to intake any further anthros” Site Director of Facility Eleven raised his eyebrows as he heard Zero give him the order. The director said, “We’re going to demolish Facility Eleven?” Zero nodded, “Yes. We have nowhere to take the anthros from that facility. It would not be worth it to bring them all here since none of them are trained. We also just can’t just let them go. For one, they don’t deserve it. Two, they’d be sure to spread word of the Foundation further and cause even more damage for us.” Eleven nodded, “Yes, sir. I’ll activate it.” The human revealed a laptop from a backpack, and he sat it on top of the desk. The other site directors watched Eleven in silence as the human opened a program which would remotely detonate the failsafe explosives rigged within Facility Eleven to demolish the facility and kill all of the one thousand anthros still inside. The human inputted his password, and he hesitated for just a second before pressing the button which would kill one thousand anthros.

  After the deed was done, Eleven closed his laptop, and he knew that he had just sent one thousand anthros to their deaths. The human put the laptop away, zipped up the backpack, and he looked at all of the other humans looking back at him. Zero began to speak, “Well, the deed is done. Excellent.” One of the other surviving site directors had a question regarding the anthros still kept at his facility, “Sir, what about the anthros we had to leave behind? We don’t have a killswitch for them.” Zero shrugged, “They won’t make it for long. They’ll succumb to starvation and thirst within a matter of days. They’re completely helpless too, so we won’t have to worry about any of them escaping.” None of the humans had any objection to make. Zero began to explain the current plan for the Foundation, “I met with some people earlier today over the web, and they agree that we’ll need to lie low down here for a while. They gave us the go-ahead to use the XVP-1 in case anybody compromises our location. We only have one that’s operational, so we’re letting ISG Alpha-Omega take command of it in case something happens here. Nobody will be able to stop the XVP-1, though, so we shouldn’t have to worry about losing this facility.”

  Alpha 1 met with Alpha 2 in another secluded area in Facility Zero, “So, you’re going to do this?” Alpha 2 nodded, “Yeah, we don’t really have anything else to lose.” Alpha 1 asked his colleague another question, “What do you think would be the best way to leak the location of this facility?” Alpha 2 thought for a minute, “Well, we’d have to make sure to mask our location when we do. Otherwise, they’ll know that it was somebody within Facility Zero.” Alpha 1 agreed, “Of course, but where are we going to leak the location? We want as many people as possible to know where this place is.” Alpha 2 had an idea in mind, “We’d have to use the Internet, but we’ll also have to make sure to put the location everywhere we can. We should use a VPN or something at the very least.” Alpha 1 remembered that Omega did have the means to use the internet while masking the location of the sender. Alpha 1 nodded, “Good. We’ll use that. We’ll send it out later tonight.” Alpha 2 settled on the agreement, “It’s a deal, then.”

  Arcades sat in the bed next to Jason, and the fox was replaying memories of the one-sided fight he had with Bocchino. The fox took a deep breath, but he heard the wolf speak to him, “It’s nice to finally have a more decent place to sleep. Wouldn’t you say so?” Arcades agreed, “Yeah. You don’t really realize it until you’ve had it taken away from you.” The wolf tried to be optimistic, “At least we’re not chained, naked, and forced to go somewhere, right?” The fox’s eyes widened slightly, and he decided that he was going to reveal something to the wolf which he had not told him before, “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been chained up and naked.” Jason was initially confused, “Hm? What are you talking about?” Arcades restated what he said, “I’ve been chained and naked before.” The wolf did not know of any event he remembered which matched Arcades’ description, “When did this happen? I don’t remember seeing this.”

  The fox paused for a moment, and he just realized what he told the wolf. Arcades hesitated, but he finally decided to tell Jason more, “It’s not something we experienced together… Well, at least until it happened to us.” The wolf waited for Arcades to explain more. The fox slowly blinked, and then he decided he was ready to speak again, “You know how I have
that bag? You know, the one that’s full of all of those restraints?” The wolf nodded, “Of course.” Arcades hesitated again, but he said, “Sometimes I would wear those after completely stripping down naked.” Jason’s face developed from curiosity to surprise, “Really? Why?” Arcades looked down at the bedsheets which covered his body, “Well…” The fox could not come up with an answer for the wolf. Jason waited a moment for Arcades to choose his words, but he realized that the fox could not come up with anything to say. The wolf decided to pitch in and see if he could figure it out for the fox, “Does it make you excited?” Arcades initially did not understand what Jason meant by his suggestion, but when he did figure out what Jason said, he raised his head slightly before shaking it, “No, no. I’m not doing it because of that.” Jason spoke next, “Really? I couldn’t think of any other reason why someone would do that, then.” The fox replied, but he did not add anything to the conversation, “Well…” Jason could tell that Arcades was having a hard time deciding what to say, but he decided that he would just wait and see what the fox would eventually find to say. Arcades began to speak again, “Captive foxes don’t deserve to wear clothes.” Jason was somewhat surprised by Arcades’ declaration, “Who told you that, mate?” The fox closed his eyes and slowly shook his head, “Well, you were there when we were taken away.” Jason disagreed with Arcades’ logic, “Well, that doesn’t make sense. That happened after whatever you’re telling me.”