Rise of the Fallen: Ascensionis

by Danny R Negron

  He puts away the tablet and replies in a low voice, “That is what all of us are going to discuss, my dear.”

  Alexandria sits next to Barbara and adds, “Finally.”

  He points his finger at her and commands, “You will be going to your room. This is not for your ears.”

  Alexandria moans in frustration and folds her arms. She feels a sharp pain on her toe and yells, “Ow!”

  The princess angrily looks under the table and realizes that it is Fluffy playing with her feet. After a brief pause, a mischievous grin appears on her face and she whispers to herself, “You'll be my ears.”

  Queen Thessalonike enters the room and everyone stands to welcome her. A minute later, Alexandria stands up as well. Before the queen even says a word to her, the princess waves goodbye and runs out of the room. Thessalonike quickly looks at Dr. Frankenstein with a concerned expression. They both know their daughter all too well and wonder why she didn't throw her typical tantrum. The queen puts the thought out of her mind and orders the royal guards to shut the door. Alexandria is outside watching the doors gradually close with eager anticipation.

  Alexandria's bedroom door slides open and she excitedly runs inside. She jumps onto her bed and opens up her laptop. The sound of numerous keystrokes are heard as she accesses her school project's main program. The Linux terminal pauses...suddenly, another window pops up showing Fluffy's point of view of Barbara's feet. She plugs in her headphones and begins listening to the conversation with a sense of accomplishment.

  Queen Thessalonike is sitting at the head of the long, majestic table with Indrid Cold standing next to her. She begins by saying in an authoritative tone, “We are gathered here to discuss a danger that may very well destroy us all. Indrid Cold has predicted a catastrophe which will cause a massive loss of life. On a global scale.”

  She looks at Dr. Frankenstein and nods. The doctor stands up and continues by adding, “Unfortunately, Indrid cannot determine the exact date of this tragedy. I will need to conduct further investigation by using my connections with Project Paperclip.”

  Henry leans forward and asks, “So you think this might be another genetic experiment, Doc?”

  Dr. Frankenstein shakes his head and replies, “I highly doubt it, Henry. This may be an opportunity to capitalize on an outbreak. I need to speak with my contact as soon as possible before I arrive at any kind of conclusion.”

  Commander Derceto is paying the utmost attention as she sits alongside the queen. Her concentration is interrupted by the strange sensation of something warm and wet on her foot. Fearful of her legs transforming, she quickly looks under the table and notices Fluffy rapidly wagging his tail. Queen Thessalonike also takes a peek and asks, “What is wrong, Derceto?”

  “It would seem that someone has been listening, my queen.”

  The queen remains silent and stares angrily at the barking puppy knowing full well who is behind this act of espionage. Princess Alexandria closes her laptop and whispers, “Shit.”

  As she removes her headphones, the room's A.I., named Anne Gee, gradually appears in the form of a hologram. Anne Gee tilts her head slightly and informs, “Your father has come to visit you.”

  The princess, ashamed with herself, buries her head in her hands and moans. Anne takes one step forward and asks, “Shall I open...?”

  Alexandria replies in an annoyed manner, “Yes!”

  The door slides open and a serious Dr. Frankenstein is staring coldly at his daughter. She looks up at him innocently and folds her hands behind her back.

  “Your actions have disappointed and embarrassed the both of us.”

  Alexandria lowers her head in shame and replies, “I'm so sorry, dad. I messed up.”

  Dr. Frankenstein walks until he is directly in front of her and hands her Fluffy. He places his palm gently on her head and says in a low tone, “It was brilliant.”

  She gazes into her father's loving eyes and grins. He then points his finger at her and adds emphatically, “But still wrong.”

  The young mermaid takes her father's hand and asks, “You're leaving again...aren't you?”

  Dr. Frankenstein nods his head in acknowledgment and replies softly, “Yes, my konfect. I will be departing tomorrow morning to speak with David.”

  After a brief pause, she asks, “Can I go with?”

  At this point, the doctor reflects on the conversation he had previously with the queen. He has been so consumed with his work that he has failed to provide his own daughter with the attention that she rightly deserves. Dr. Frankenstein sighs and replies, “I will be away for quite some time. Your mother will not allow it.”

  He makes his way toward the door. He takes one final look at Alexandria and sadly says, “I would love for you to come with me.”

  She watches him exit and tries to think of a way to convince her stubborn mother to let her go after the little stunt that she just pulled.

  The dining room doors open and Dr. Frankenstein enters. He sits down and nods at Queen Thessalonike. She slowly glances at everyone and says, “My apologies. Ludwig and his team will be departing tomorrow morning. I wish you all the best of luck and may we find the solution to this terrible crisis. For now, let us enjoy this magnificent feast. I wish to thank my beautiful creatures of the ocean for providing us sustenance.”

  Barbara curiously studies the succulent fillets of fish finely decorated with parsley on her plate. She taps Dr. Frankenstein's shoulder and, in a low tone, asks, “Can I eat this?”

  The doctor swallows his food, wipes his lips with a napkin and replies, “Of course, you can. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning, Barbara.” He takes a sip of his white wine. “If you think Atlantis is breath-taking, wait until you see our transportation.”

  He then winks at Indrid and continues eating his fish. Indrid nods at Barbara and gives her that creepy smile again. It is almost as if she is trying to be warm and friendly but failing quite miserably.

  Barbara tastes her seafood and is amazed by how it just melts in her mouth with a buttery aftertaste. She sips on her wine and then asks Dr. Frankenstein, “What's up with Indrid? How did you meet her?”

  He wipes his lips again and replies, “I'm sure you've heard about the Roswell incident from 1947. At that time, a classified program called Mogul was in fact responsible for that UFO crash. Among the ship's inhabitants was a female alien life form on the brink of dying. Military doctors, my father included, were able to save the unborn child. My father noticed that the baby had a sort of strange mixture of human and alien. It had ten fingers and ten toes...even human hair. The skin, however, was a pale white and its eyes a shiny black. The facial features resembled what people nowadays refer to as the grays. The dying mother named her Indrid and one of the doctors gave her the last name, Cold...because of her emotionless stare. The name stuck with her.”

  While Barbara is listening to this fascinating revelation, she can't help but think about all of those debates of the paranormal she had with her fellow police officers. She always fashioned herself as a skeptic and always looked for scientific explanations behind strange events. The doctor clears his throat and continues, “My father accepted to raise her as his own with the agreement that he keep her completely isolated from the public. I was born two months after that. When I was about five years old, I remember my father demanding that everyone stay away from the basement. At ten years old, the strangest thing happened one night. I felt my body starting to rise and hover above my bed. As my body floated out of my bedroom and began to drift down the stairs, I took a quick peek and saw that no one was carrying me. I closed my eyes tightly and wished that this was all just a nightmare. Soon afterwards, I felt the familiar carpeted floor and opened my eyes. To my surprise, I found myself in front of the wide open door of the basement. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to walk down the steps. I then quietly walked toward my father's laboratory until I saw what looked like a futuristic bubble. Just as I thought that nothing was inside, Indrid's
face suddenly appeared and I almost screamed. As I was running away, she said, “Do not be afraid. My name is Indrid...Cold.” We both sat there on the floor just staring at each other for the next thirty minutes.”

  Indrid Cold appears next to Dr. Frankenstein and places her hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her and asks, “Do you want to continue the story, Indrid?”

  She replies stoically, “Why ask a question that you already know the answer to, Ludwig?”

  He laughs and says to Barbara, “You see what I have to deal with? Anyway, when she became 18 years old, we had a visit from a UFO one night. We all witnessed a blinding bright light which lasted for just a few minutes. My father ran down the basement steps and saw that Indrid was gone. A year later, came reports from Point Pleasant, West Virginia of a giant moth-like creature with bright red eyes. My father was sent there and discovered that many people had also come in contact with something calling itself Indrid Cold.”

  Barbara interrupts by saying, “And later on, the Silver Bridge collapsed in 1967.”

  Dr. Frankenstein looks at Barbara surprised that she knows this information. After sipping her wine, she laughingly adds, “Most of my friends were really into conspiracy theories. They were huge fans of that Brian Gunn guy.”

  Dr. Frankenstein smiles and raises his wine glass. As he takes a sip and begins to rise to his feet, Barbara grabs him by the arm says insistently, “Oh, no you don't! You're not off the hook that easy, Doc. You are going to tell me how you two were as little kids.”

  After a moment of silence, Indrid tells the doctor, “Go on, Ludwig. Tell her.”

  Dr. Frankenstein hesitates, sits down and takes a deep breath. He looks at Barbara and says, “Fine. You need to understand that when I was at that age, it was a rather difficult time for my family. My older brother, Wolf, was autistic. As a result, the majority of my parents' time was devoted to his well-being. I did not mind this because he was, of course, my older brother whom I loved very much. My mother would spend most her time with him, while my father spent all of his time with his work attempting to cure him. This did leave me feeling lonely at times. I was extremely shy and much of my time at school was spent alone...reading books.”

  Barbara interrupts by saying, “You were a nerd?”

  Dr. Frankenstein gives her a cold stare and asks, “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  She lowers her head and softly replies, “Sorry.”

  “When I met Indrid, it was such a great feeling to have someone to share my feelings with. I would follow the same routine every night. As soon as everyone was asleep, I would go downstairs and Indrid would have the basement door open for me. We would sit there reading science fiction novels all night. I remember that Indrid was especially fond of Philip K. Dick's short story called Impostor.” Indrid looks at Dr. Frankenstein and smiles fondly at his emotional retelling of their past. He continues by adding, “Then, in 1962...something captured my attention. It was a comic book called The Incredible Hulk. The story was fascinating and tragic at the same time. It was about a physicist named Dr. Bruce Banner who was bombarded with Gamma radiation in an accident. This resulted in the creation of his alter ego....the Hulk. I found myself relating to the socially withdrawn and emotionally reserved Dr. Banner. That night, I showed Indrid the comic book with the excitement of a child on Christmas. Unfortunately, my father was awoken to the loud noise and discovered my little secret routine. He clenched my comic book in his hand and ordered me upstairs.”

  Barbara notices Dr. Frankenstein's sudden expression of resentment. She reaches out to touch his hand and squeezes it. The doctor nods to assure her that he is capable of finishing the story and continues by saying, “He looked at the cover and I saw his eyebrow rise. After flipping through several pages, he just crumpled it up into a ball.”

  He takes a sip of wine and pauses for a moment to collect himself. Indrid gently pats his shoulder and adds, “It was never the same after that.” Dr. Frankenstein chuckles and says, “Needless to say, my parents never did have a good night's sleep after that night. If it wasn't the strange phone calls, it was glassware mysteriously breaking.”

  Barbara feels moved by the touching story and cannot resist the temptation of asking Indrid, “You sensed what was going to happen in Point Pleasant. Did you get close to someone there?”

  Dr. Frankenstein touches her hand and before he even has a chance to say something, tells him, “It is fine, Ludwig.”

  Although she finds sitting next to a stranger a bit uncomfortable, Indrid finds that speaking with Barbara is surprisingly comforting and sits down on the chair beside her. Indrid folds her hands on the table and attempts to tell her story. “The year was 1966. I did not have, at that time, a complete understanding of my attraction to Point Pleasant.”

  She then says admittedly, “I am not as skilled a storyteller as Ludwig.” Indrid extends her pale skinned hand. “Let me show you.”

  Barbara hesitates for moment. Then, she takes her hand and feels her thin fingers wrap around. Her mind is immediately bombarded with a plethora of Indrid's memories. The imagery reminds her of the first time she looked into a kaleidoscope.

  It is the 15th of November, 1966. Indrid is in her moth-like form and flying just above a munitions plant somewhere in West Virginia. She notices something approaching from a distance that she knew existed because of the stories read to her by Ludwig. A car. Curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to get a closer look. Indrid flies just above the car and follows it for a few minutes. She sees that the car begins to move faster and faster so she flaps her ten-foot wings several times to keep up with it. Indrid suddenly has a vision of the car spiraling out of control and crashing...killing the passengers inside. She whispers to herself, “No. They must have seen me and are afraid. I need to stop them.”

  The car's tires screech loudly and it stops inches away from Indrid. The headlights make her huge, oval shaped red eyes glow brightly like bicycle reflectors. As she hovers in midair flapping her wings, she hears the sound of a girl screaming with tremendous fear. Indrid takes that as a cue to flap her wings faster and she disappears into the night sky shortly afterwards. Indrid descends slowly until finally landing in front of the abandoned munitions plant. As she walks toward the entrance, her body gets surrounded by a dense, black mist and she reverts to her original alien form. Indrid pulls on the rusty handle of the thick door and it makes a horrifying abrasive sound as it opens...almost as if she had twisted the arm of bear. She walks inside and pulls on the door until it closes.

  The following morning, Indrid gazes through a thin crack of the plant's decrepit wall. There are several police officers, as well as men holding cameras, scouting the nearby road. She steps back and comes to a possible conclusion. They may very well decide to investigate this place in hours, if not minutes, later. Indrid sits down and folds her arms around her knees in an attempt to come up with some sort of escape plan. What would Philip K. Dick do in this situation? A gust of wind blows a dirty, old magazine towards her right leg. She opens it and glances at every picture on each worn out page. This gives her an idea.

  The police officers open the entrance of the munitions plant and the first one to enter says, “I'm tellin' ya, Bill. It's gotta be a shitepoke.”

  Bill coughs as a result of the dust inside and replies in a raspy voice, “You mean a heron, don't you, Steve?”

  “Yeah, man. They got long legs which pretty much fits the description those kids gave us last night.”

  They both become startled by a rather disheveled looking young girl with dirty blond hair and blue eyes standing several feet away from them. She is just standing there motionless with her hands on her sides...as still as a statue. Bill says softly, “It's okay, honey. I'm officer McClain and this is officer Callahan.”

  Indrid does not reply and continues to stare at them.

  “Are you homeless?”

  She replies with a thick British accent, “No.”

  “Do you live...here
?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen anything strange last night?”

  After a long pause, Indrid replies, “No.”

  Steve pulls him aside and tells him, “She's not gonna be of any help. Look at her.”

  Bill studies her creepy unblinking stare and says, “Yeah. Goddamn hippies. Let's get out of here.”

  Indrid remains frozen stiff and watches the police officers exit the facility. She waits until the cars drive away before finally making her way outside. The sunlight makes the surrounding area look so different when compared to the darkness of night. Indrid walks until she arrives at some kind of path. Above her, she sees a sign...”Main St.”

  After an hour of walking west on WV-73, a Volkswagen Bus passes Indrid. It suddenly stops and the side door slides open. She sees a man with long brown hair and a beard poke his head out and shout, “Hey! Need a lift?”

  She looks behind her and then back at him. The hairy young man starts laughing and shouts, “Yeah, you! Come on...we'll give you a ride!”

  Indrid takes a moment to think about his offer. She really has no idea where she's going. Maybe they can take her to a city or town. The driver blows the horn which makes her run toward the vehicle. The young man takes Indrid's hand and pulls her aboard. Soon afterwards, he slides the door until it closes. She hears something quite fascinating and asks, “What is that?”

  The young man replies, “The Beatles, man. Yellow Submarine. What's your name?”