by Han Yang
I admired his moxie. It was fitting, and he had finished serving his purpose.
The immense padded foot adjusted, forcing me to leap forward to avoid being squished. My suit flared with proximity warnings that I had no choice but to ignore. I felt the shifting foot almost catch my feet mid-air.
Thud!
The pressure from the beast’s attack shot me forward and I thanked the stars I’d avoided being stomped.
I tumbled into a summersault before lunging back upright. Every second counted against a being so big. Using every bit of power from my muscles and machine, I tried to outrun a four-legged beast that was ten stories tall.
Even with my incredible sprint, the rexo’narock had no problems closing the gap. I dug a foot in, pivoting hard. I spun, deciding to try to hide under a looming frame that blotted out the sun.
Yeah…
The beast, it did the unimaginable; it hopped like a ballerina. One moment, I was under it, the next it stood in the trees, having knocked over hundreds of trunks with its mass. The jump reminded me of a cat playing with a toy and lunging to swipe from a new angle.
“How’s it going?” Jenny asked
I sighed, “You know, about as good as it gets. At least I volunteered this time, because you can’t escape this thing. The big size lures you into a false sense of slow and predictable. I’m being toyed with now.”
I was caught out in the open, facing down a monster of terrifying proportions. The eyes. Those yellow sparkling eyes didn’t exude venom or hate. I think… I think I saw curiosity.
The sniffing trunk slowly neared my armor. The narock tilted its head. Not understanding how I no longer emitted the stench of a human. It heaved out a sigh as if perplexed.
Maybe it was intelligence I saw. They designers added dolphin type memories for a lot of their creations, a truly terrible decision.
“One minute,” Darcy said.
A bit of hope flared through me because I might just be able to last sixty seconds. Maybe.
“It’s been ten minutes!” I countered.
Darcy shushed me and said, “Keep stalling, this is harder than you’ll ever know.”
This statement held a whole bunch of merit because I had no idea what she was doing. I only knew that a nostril you could drive a car into grew bigger and bigger as it neared.
A gust of air from an exhale knocked me over and I swear the immense narock laughed. Actually, it did laugh, the chest heaving matched the joy in the eyes.
“Bring it back into the open,” Darcy demanded.
I picked myself off the dirt road, stepping back cautiously. The narock inclined her head down, eyeing me angrily. She did step forward to continue her inspection.
This time, when her trunk neared, it whipped forward at an astonishing speed. I thought we were playing nice, and this completely caught me off guard.
The instant her trunk hit me, I soared back, slamming into a tree with enough force to break the trunk. The sapling burst into a thousand pieces, as did my body.
My vision swam, my suit pinged a thousand warnings about injuries, and the big beast chuckled happily. My sensors needed a second to process that I pretty much had broken every bone in my body.
I screamed out in pain, feeling incredible agony. The stars faded, the pain increased, and a massive foot readied to stomp me.
I wanted to say some witty last line. I wanted to be the remembered hero who told the enemy to choke on his bones. Instead, I choked on my own blood, unable to talk.
That foot, it was a certain doom that I couldn’t avoid as I lay there helpless. A shriek from nearby paused the descent.
A fighter jet soared under the midsection of the narock twirling between the legs. Elation filled my heart at the sight. The cavalry had arrived.
“Hang in there, baby,” Roma said, her words sweet music to my ears.
Without a doubt, I was dying. My body went into shock and my mind reeled from the sight.
A dragon half the size of the rexo’narock swooped down, hot on the trail of the fighter jet.
Somehow my brain pieced it together. Darcy pitted two beasts against each other, hitting two problems with one solution. The wyvn’narock flared its wings, preventing a crash and somehow coming to a hover.
Narocks tended to work together for the common destruction of humanity. However, that was four hundred years ago. Now they fought for territory and dominance. Darcy was betting the two beasts would kill each other.
The trunk whipped around with the rexo’narock flipping to face the flying creature with incredible agility. Before the wyvern could flee from the immense narock, the trunk whipped out, entangling the tail.
“Yes! Finally, something goes my way,” Darcy shouted in joy. “I’m coming Theo, hang in there and enjoy the show.”
I gurgled blood instead of replying. My HUD showed spiking vitals in the display and in the background - two titans battled.
The dragon type creature tried to fly away, pulling at the trunk in the hopes it’d release. When the grasp remained solid, it realized it had to fight.
At half the size of the rexo’narock, the wyvn’narock tucked in its wings and dove for the bigger beast’s eyes.
A tusk tried to bat it out of the air, failing to connect with wyvern by inches. The trunk maintained a firm grip, but the flying beast latched onto the larger narock’s face.
The wyvn’narock clawed at the closed eyelids. Deep bites ripped chunks of flesh free from the forehead. Blood flowed freely from the wounds and both creatures roared in defiance of each other.
The rexo’narock shrieked out in anguish with a trumpet of anger. With its foe inflicting incredible damage, I figured it’d let go.
Nope. The tusks veered down, and the beast performed a rhino charge into the forest. The head lined up the wyvern to take all the damage and it rammed hundred-foot tall trees that had aged hundreds of years.
Crack!
Boom!
The duo smashed into tree after tree until it became clear, only one could survive such impacts. I gasped for breath and saw that vile narock chuckle. She found so much pleasure winning that it frightened me.
The trunk flicked the dazed wyvn’narock high into the air, before angrily slamming it down.
Thud!
Whoosh!
Air pushed over the area from the violent action. I couldn’t see the flying narock die from my angle as I lay there broken and battered.
I did witness the rexo’narock rear triumphantly before crashing two paws down onto the beast who dared to enter its territory. It must have stomped its opponent a dozen times before turning its head to the sky.
From above, a blip in the cloudy sky grew in size. I didn’t understand what I witnessed at first. The blip grew and grew until I realized I saw a monument falling from above.
The rexo’narock reared up, ready for another fight. Darcy, that clever girl, she knew this is how it’d react. It saw a challenge and rose to greet it.
Except, you don’t challenge a statue and an iconic man on a horse drove through the chest of the rexo’narock before hitting something it deflected off of. I watched in glee as the stomach burst open, spilling out a statue and miles of intestines.
“She did it,” Roma said with joy.
I groaned, hating life.
“I did indeed do it. This will help immensely. The wyverns are a bane and impossible for me to catch. Thank the Creator the rexo snagged it. In time, I will have the right setup to defeat them, but for now, I needed a wee bit of help,” Darcy said with smug satisfaction.
I continued to die but my damn nanobots refused to let me. Now that the fighting ended the tortuous pain washed over me in increasing waves. I still wanted to say something witty, but the blackness consumed me instead.
49
Day on Earth 3
Dominus
“Hey sexy, here you go,” Roma said, arriving at our private room with a to-go platter from the cafeteria. I closed my morning update display, giving her m
y full attention. “Coffee, eggs, and some jam on toast.”
She slid the offering onto the table, sauntering around the table to lift my chin. We shared a tender kiss that grew heated. When her lips parted, I saw a mischievous look in her eyes, warning that I may be late for our tour of Dominus.
“Awe shucks, babe. This is wonderful, thank you,” I said, digging in.
“Today is the big day, I figured you’d want to get a good start. Especially after two days of sleeping in,” Roma said with a playful giggle after.
I pinched her bottom when she spun to take the seat across from me. She squeaked, flushing crimson.
“Theo,” she said as if I’d offended her.
“We both know you enjoy that, you minx. And sleeping in is hardly what I’d call what we’ve been up to since my recovery,” I said with a wink.
“Well, call me an early riser then. I had some nightmares and figured getting an early meal would help,” Roma said.
I huffed, careful with my next words. “The nature of these nightmares.”
“Nothing serious,” she said with a warm smile that seemed forced. “Don’t worry about me.”
Roma extended a delicate hand across the table, running her fingers over the back of my hand. I flipped to my palm, holding her delicate digits lovingly.
“I will always worry about you. As you would for me,” I said.
She kissed my knuckles affectionately.
“I appreciate that. I really should have listened to Darcy,” Roma said, letting my hand go. So worked her hair into a ponytail, the motion making her large personalities jiggle in ways that amused me. “Eyes up soldier. These ladies are getting a reduction. I can’t run with them this big.”
“I know I’m supposed to be supportive, but I’m crying on the inside. I love you just the way you are,” I replied, feeling like I nailed my wisecrack.
She giggled with a smirk. “Thanks. See, you do it every time you goof. You put me at ease when I angst. You bring out a smile when I frown. Except when you’re dying on my monitor and begging me to remember you. Such a sap.”
I set my fork down with a headshake. “Alright, out with it. You’ve been holding it in.”
“It’s the nightmare I had,” she admitted. “You dying on my monitor had a hundred percent recovery probability on my screen. It sucked to see, but I never thought I’d lose you. It goes back to the owner of this body.”
Roma disclosed who she inhabited yesterday, breaking her silence on the subject. Not that she wanted to hide the process or the information, we kinda were preoccupied with other matters. The person Darcy sent to the Trials as an implant was named Ginger.
Ginger happened to live an awful life. She wasn’t a villain, far from it actually. She was a wholesome woman who always strove to be the best she could while helping others. Except she lived in a mud cave as a prisoner and that was the nicest way to put it.
Her life became one of torment. Roma hid most of the facts, sticking to the hard truth that Ginger was broken as a human, unable to continue living. When she had entered the cryopod a month ago, she was rail thin and suicidal. No amount of time would cure her of her problems unless Darcy altered her mind.
Erasing her memories would leave her ruined in her real body; making her an imprint would give her the freedom she needed. As Ginger recovered in the Trials, she would one day be ready to return to a new body that Darcy hoped to synthetically produce.
“Why did you watch the madness she endured?” I asked, wishing the words back. Roma huffed and went to reply. I held a hand up. “I would have too. Forgive me. This is not something that is easy to accept or get over. I’m almost done eating, and we will visit Father,” I told her.
“He is a balance and a rock, his mere presence will help soothe my soul,” Roma said.
I snorted. “Don’t say that when we meet Mom. She’ll lose whatever marbles she has left.”
“It's true.”
Absolutely it was.
Father was a calm wind in stormy seas.
I glanced around the room, still in shock from all the changes. We had a bed, a real bed. A dresser held our clothes and other items. I had a desk and even a private bathroom. It simply astounded me how I no longer shared every facet of my life.
This was the dream. The dream of the future made a reality and to me, the Dominus truly was a miracle. I didn’t reside in a deluxe suite meant for the captain. I accepted a basic room designated for couples. I felt that the biggest suit should be reserved for a volunteer reward.
One of my first edicts as the new chairman of Salvation Nation was to enact the volunteer reward system. The fleet was in a dire need of labor, so applying any and all leverage for labor was helpful.
Darcy even set awake times during the Trials to six hours of ship time. Meaning people had to find something to do outside of their pods to conserve energy while repairs and upgrades were underway.
That was but one vote. A slew of votes happened from moving people, releasing manufacturing chains to start new productions, and even welcoming Aramis. The new AI was voted into the system, not automatically put into Darcy’s network.
Since he went in, I feared he died, but Darcy assured me he was okay. I couldn’t check and just had to put blind faith in the fact she was telling the truth. It didn’t really matter, though, Aramis was always going to serve Darcy in some fashion. At least that was how I saw it.
I finished my meal and stood, delivering the tray and its contents into a recycler. It was time to see Father and give him more time around Roma.
“Will telling me about your nightmares help?” I asked.
“Afraid not, but this walk will. I have seen and lived many lives, becoming numb to most tragedies. This one is pitiful, and it will take time for me to adjust. I think once a synthetic is built and this body can be returned, I’d like that,” Roma said.
“And no Natasha?” I asked.
She shook her head, extending a hand for me to hold while we walked out of the room. “I’m your lover and dare I say, wife, at least one day in the future. You met Roma. I’m Natasha, but I’m not, and she stopped living some time ago. And please, much like my parents in Snagglewood, don’t angst about this. Be happy that I’m happy.”
I twirled her in a pirouette, and she spun with glee. “I’m ecstatic for us. Us, my darling. Now, it’s a big day. Let’s take it slow,” I said, returning her to my side.
We walked down a corridor filled with healthy vegetation sprouting in abundance. The walls grew lettuce so thick you struggled to see the water behind the vegetation. Dividers for directional walking paths contained cherry tomatoes giving a rich aroma. The red grow lights from the arched ceiling illuminated the clear walls and white lighting lightened our path.
Inside the walls, fish swam in pockets of interconnected waterways that fed the plants. While Dominus was massive, no space went to waste. Everything about this ship revolved around having a purpose.
“I love it here, I truly do. This is astounding and a testament to humanity,” Roma said, batting her blue eyes. She contently sighed. “So pretty.”
“Yes, yes you are,” I told her. “I’m excited to get back to the Trials. Even more excited for the trials to become secondary to real life.”
“The boomer initiative,” Roma said with a chuckle. “If only the others understood what that meant.”
I rolled my eyes, turning us down a hall with banana trees in the middle and radishes on the wall.
“Baby boomer. Not ‘boomer’. Yes, once we have children running around, excess food to eat in real time and not through paste, we will adjust the ratios from real world to Trials. Times are changing, and I’m proud to have you at my side as they improve.”
“Well, yes. Darcy is incentivizing having children. It is only a matter of time until toddlers run these halls being yelled at to slow down,” Roma said.
I chuckled and playfully stuck a finger to my lip. “Shush… no point in riling her up. She might appear around a
corner and say it's a mandatory lock down day with no pod use. Leaving us with nothing to do, but -”
“Each other,” she burst into a fit of laughter, finishing my sentence for me.
I kissed her cheek and added, “It’s a big day for her too.”
“The prisoner exchanged with the Texas Federation. I know. I know. How are you going to handle your mother?” Roma asked with concern.
“I’m going to say goodbye and tell her goodbye. She’s a terrorist, even admitted to it openly. I really hate that the truth got out about Hope crashing,” I said.
Yesterday, the fall of Hope made the rounds through a backchannel broadcast. Darcy played defense, trying her best to soften the blow, but a lot of people learned their loved ones died, which wasn’t something you could easily swallow.
The odd thing was, her approval rating didn’t dip in the slightest, if anything it increased. She came clean, admitted everything, and even showed all our valiant efforts to save those we could. And we rescued people too, all helped her image.
I had a suspicion that Darcy made some last-minute moves of personnel. For instance, Jenny was supposed to be in the hangar but woke up on the top of the ship.
A lot of Darcy supporters mentioned they awoke in the wrong rooms or even different ships. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her to do something so devious it was repulsive. I didn’t hide the fact I hated the bad decision Darcy made. She had recently abandoned all regard to her original programming or her self-imposed rules.
It all came back to that statement Roma made just minutes ago. Children running through the halls. With recent developments, Darcy could trade those who didn’t like her for Texans. Or she could take implants in the trials, find the ones who supported her, and transfer them into hardened criminals the Texans gave up.
I guess there was a naive part of me that refused to admit she allowed the crash of Hope. I really did grow conflicted over such notions.
Was everything orchestrated, and if it was, what would I do about it?
“Theo, my son,” Father said proudly from the center of a planting row. “My son you are absolutely going to love the new Trials. They are -” he paused, his linker silencing him in a bubble. Eventually he frowned and his linker deactivated his silencer. “I lost points for that. Hogwash. I wasn’t spoiling the initial reveals.”
