Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2

by Tide, Lawrence Herbert

  A legacy which was in danger of being lost, despite the efforts of the many engineers and technicians living inside its walls. Learning how to reuse old electronic and electric components, how to recycle everything, at least, they were able to keep everything up and running.

  And at least thousands of Terabytes of data, coming from the vanished Internet, had been saved in the memories of the net’s old web servers.

  Searching on CommGoogle with the words "Martial", "Arts", "Student", "Tradition", and a few others, she finally discovered the information she needed.

  "What? That?"

  She turned around in her bed and, lying on her back now, threw the phone back onto her table. Finally, motionless now, she watched the neat and clean ceiling of her bedroom and sighed heavily.

  I've worked very hard to earn the right to wear my black belt... I didn't imagine I would have to do even more, to be admitted at the Kenjutsu course. Well, if it's the predominant tradition in Asia, I'll do it.

  ***

  Space

  The nerve-breaking sound of the circular saw was mixed with another sound, a crystalline one.

  Once again, trying to bear with it, Johnny was trying to cut one of the dark protruding blades, which seemed to have almost sunk into the wall. The rotating saw spit impressive sparks while it rubbed the strange, glistening blade… but being unable to even scratch its surface.

  Bo and Johnny were really flabbergasted by the strange material.

  The black bag remained plugged against the wall of the Community, some of its protruding blades strongly embedded into the concrete surface, and all their last efforts to change this reality only resulted in a series of failures.

  The young colored man, who firmly held the saw in both of his hands, suddenly heard a deafening sound of shrieking metal. He felt brutal vibrations, which made the tool shake violently despite his resistance. This sent painful pulses through his arms, while he maintained his grip on the handle of the rotating saw with his gloved hands.

  He finally switched off the electric motor and silence came suddenly when he brought the saw back toward himself. He watched the rotation of the saw slow down and finally become motionless. And once again, he saw that the teeth of the circular saw had been completely wiped out. The saw looked like an irregular metallic circle now. Goggling at it, he observed little wisps of smoke coming out of the damaged border, with a red glow.

  Gosh, it's been heated to redness!

  "Damn it, that was my third saw!" Johnny shouted.

  "Wow, what kind of material is that?" Bo asked, watching too the damage caused to the saw.

  "As far as I know, it could be from outer space, made by the Martians!"

  "You're closer to the truth than you would think."

  The voice startled both and they turned around, seeing Elmer Hoffnung followed by Adams' two bodyguards. The man had said that phrase to make himself look good, but the two young men could easily see that his self-confidence was only faked.

  He frequently glanced at the edge of the woods, not far away.

  Two other guards, with their rifle-looking flame throwers, were also surveying the surroundings, but clearly couldn't reassure him.

  "Well, Professor Hoffnung," bellowed a voice coming from over their heads, "Please tell my men how to get rid of that abject growth on our wall!"

  Lifting their heads they saw the Administrator, Joshua Adams, who was looking down at them from the parapet wall.

  "I told you a thousand times that I don't have the equipment for cutting this kind of blade," the little fat man yelled at him, his head turning red with anger.

  Suddenly it was as if many roars echoed as an answer to a call, coming from a nearby bush.

  The shouts had made Elmer jump and he squeaked, "Please, let me go back inside!"

  "Not before you have…"

  "Professor Hoffnung!"

  The Administrator turned his head towards the young Asian who had just said that, interrupting him by the way. The old man scowled at him but decided for the moment to not say anything.

  "You… you here? What a good surprise!" Elmer shouted when he saw the young man, a big smile full of hope on his face.

  "You know this man, Mister Lee?" asked Adams, frowning.

  "Do I know him? For sure, at College, I learned from him, in the domain of special materials used in the space industry, and in peculiar at NASA."

  "Really?" snorted the old man, looking at them in turn, as if he was looking for a vague family relationship.

  "He wants to exclude me from the Community!" Elmer plaintively yelled at the young man, fear growing on his face.

  "What?" the young man asked, surprised, while turning his attention to Adams. "You can't leave at the door such a remarkable scientist!"

  "A useful scientist for the Community?" asked the Administrator while looking at him with a smirk, adding, "More useful than you, at least?"

  The tone of reproach was heard by the young Japanese, whose face and gaze became suddenly hard. He looked at him for many seconds and finally spat, "Perhaps."

  Adams showed a grim smile, after being surprised by the young Japanese's defiance, and murmured, "Perhaps we should welcome him inside, give him your job and your apartment, and finally throw you outside?"

  "That would be as bad a decision, in the same way as not welcoming him."

  The eye of the young Asian crossed the gaze of the old man, whose face began to grow red with anger.

  Is he going to exclude both of us?

  Having had that disturbing thought, the young man was suddenly very worried.

  A growl was suddenly heard and turning his head in the direction where the noise had come from, Elmer saw, in the shadows between nearby shrubs, two glowing red eyes appear. Sweat trickling now down his temples due to fear, the fat bearded man swallowed hard…

  But suddenly, he cheered up.

  He looked up again and asked, looking at Tony Lee, "Tony, do you have one of your laser cannons here, one which is fully operational? I remember that your specialty was in the domain of the red and infrared lasers."

  "Yes," answered the young Asian, a smile appearing on his tense face, "But in fact..."

  "In fact," Adams briskly interrupted him, adding mockingly, "His biggest lasers are weak and, worse, are a fire hazard!”

  Tony's face darkened, despite his usual efforts to seem insensitive.

  "Let's make a résumé of the situation," continued the old man, snorting, and adding, "They're just plain useless!"

  "They will be useful for cutting the blades inserted in your wall, if we use a magnifying glass."

  "Why would we have to use lasers for cutting your... blades?" asked Adams, looking skeptical.

  "Because they're the only things on Earth able to cut through this otherwise indestructible material. It's even harder than diamond."

  Elmer looked at the bag above and finally, turning his attention to the people near him, yelled at them, "Step back!"

  He then extended his right arm and grabbed firmly the big black bag, while recoiling. As he pulled his hand down the bag was suddenly torn into pieces while it was pressed downwards against the two big crystalline blades protruding from it. These two blades remained immobile, in an almost horizontal position, stuck into the wall as what remained of the bag and its contents rained toward the ground.

  "Beware!" Elmer shouted as he jumped back a step. The other blades which had been inside the bag were falling.

  Johnny and Bo jumped away just in time to avoid being pierced by some of them which, falling vertically and diagonally, sank into the ground. Others fell horizontally on the surface of the ground, the whole emitting deafening crisp sounds.

  Finally, they remained immobile, those stuck in the ground vibrating, continuing to emit a crystalline sound.

  "What the fuck is that?" yelled Bo, watching the pile of blades scattered on the dirty ground. They were now lying immobile in the dirt, but they continued to emit the crystal-like sound, as if
they continued to resonate. It was as if they had their own lives.

  Johnny goggled at the glistening blades, fascinated.

  It's as if they produce that sound continuously... Are these things alive?

  "Quick!"

  Elmer's voice shook the young colored man who quit his dreamy state. And the hypnotizing sound emitted by the blades was weakening. This helped him to again make contact with reality.

  "Quick, I said," repeated the scientist who put a hand on his shoulder. "We must wrap the blades that we can extract from the ground, and then go inside as fast as possible."

  He raised his double chin and said, indicating the two remaining blades still stuck in the wall, "These ones will take much longer to cut and to carry out, gentlemen. I assure you that they won't make your wall vulnerable, and they won't be lost, until we come back with the necessary equipment to retrieve them. We need the other samples of this special diamond-like material, which is the essential component of these blades."

  The scientist had the pleasure to see, at last, a grin spread across the Administrator's face, who had listened to him with Tony Lee next to him. The old man said, "The incredible toughness of your blades has impressed me, and Mister Lee, here, has convinced me that you'll be an asset for our Community."

  "Come back as quickly as you can," said Lee, smiling too while watching him.

  Having said that the young Asian raised his chin and his face became suddenly much more somber.

  "Get back now, they're coming!"

  This was like electric shock for Elmer who looked around.

  Dozens of living dead were approaching, emerging from behind the trees and bushes. They were able to be so discreet… but luckily, they were very slow, so, he thought they had a few minutes before their arrival.

  The scientist began immediately to help Bo who was cautiously putting the fallen blades on one big piece of bag fabric that he had laid over the ground.

  "Thank you... Boris, that's your first name, if I've understood correctly? Be careful, manipulate these blades very cautiously, if you want to avoid to be injured."

  Johnny didn't feel proud about not helping them. He decided to add to the bunch of blades on the fabric, the one blade which was in front of him. It was planted in the ground in a vertical position, and he could see that it seemed very slender. So slender, in fact, that when he approached his face and moved it slightly on one side, the blade, seen on the side, literally disappeared.

  The roars and growls increased and the young man, his heart beating hard in his chest, saw that the nearest creatures were no more than a hundred meters away, now. He hesitated a few seconds and then he tentatively reached to grab the blade.

  "No!"

  Elmer's voice startled Johnny just as his hand enclosed the blade to lift it to raise it off the ground. He yelled when the palm of his hand sank into the two sharp edges of the blade, blood immediately pouring out.

  The nearest group of zombies, which was now only a few dozen meters away, became static, looking intensely at him.

  Elmer watched them too, surprised by their immobility, and by their fascination for something.

  "My God," the fat scientist who had arrived near the young man exclaimed, looking at his hand, "I said that everyone had to be careful, while manipulating this material!"

  Elmer's angry voice, added to the fact that the living dead were now close to them, stressed Johnny, whose heart raced now. Fighting against the pain, he grit his teeth and, slowly, opening his hand, he tried to free it, and by the way, himself. But despite all his efforts, his hand was blocked, every movement becoming a torture session. His palm, split at two locations, was literally stuck in the blade.

  Elmer goggled at the wounded hand.

  "My God, it's literally encased in it. I only see one solution. Sorry, my boy," murmured Elmer.

  He took the young man's hand in his, and began to slide it up. Johnny winced with pain as the scientist helped his hand to slide towards the upper part of the blade. The sliding made the hand bleed even more...

  "They're arriving, come back inside!" shouted Tony from above them, a tone of alarm in his voice.

  Johnny looked up at him, lifting his hand higher along the blade, helped by Elmer who was concentrating on easing the movement of it in the upper direction. The blood began to flow downwards along the tapered sides, beginning to make a small red pond at his feet. Then the young black guy lowered his gaze and felt cold sweat run down his back.

  He had seen the nearest bunch of zombies running toward him. He had never seen those creatures run like that, it was as if the scent of blood excited them.

  "Motherfuckers!" shouted Johnny, and lifting harshly his hand, he forced his palm along the blade, wincing and biting on his tongue due to his suffering. In the process, the wounds on the palm of his hand opened further.

  Internally, he thanked Hiroto for the meditation courses he had given to him for pain control. Finally he brutally lifted his hand which was completely freed, and, putting it in a horizontal position, he looked at it. The two opened wounds showed some of the bones of his hand mixed with the bloody flesh of the torn palm. An impressive amount of blood was flowing down.

  Goggling at the hand, which was a scene worthy of a board of anatomy, Elmer was horrified and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fainted.

  "No!"

  Johnny's voice shook him. Looking at the young black man while avoiding looking at his bloody hand, he felt strangely light. That's when he realized that he was strongly supported by Johnny, who used his healthy hand to help him.

  "Hey, Professor," yelled Johnny, scowling at him. "This isn't the time for faltering, it's the time for running!"

  Saying that, the young man looked in a direction and Elmer followed his gaze.

  He was alarmed to see three zombies in rags almost leaping toward them. He was paralyzed by fear, horrified by the huge gaping jaw of one of them, and hypnotized by its reddish eyes.

  The ugly face of death disappeared in a wall of flames, making the scientist wince because of the intensity of the light and the intense heat he felt on his face.

  The flow of flames disappeared and, his eyes wet because of the tears provoked by the inferno, he saw that one of the guards who had accompanied them outside was using one of their strange rifle-like flame throwers.

  "It's really the moment for us to go back inside!" shouted Johnny, pulling Elmer.

  The latter felt a surge of stress when he saw that the huge double doors of the Community were closing now. Bo and other people were disappearing through the half-open doors.

  They're going to lock it and leave us outside!

  That's what a panicking interior voice murmured to Elmer.

  ***

  Experiment

  The red liquid poured from the spout of the nice teapot into a little golden cup. Both had a rather kitsch look.

  Professor Theodore Harding raised the ceramic teapot from Limoges, stopping the flow of boiling liquid, and placed it on the table.

  "Would you, too, like a cup of red tea? Perhaps some coffee?" he asked, looking Harry in the eye, who was sitting at the table in front of him.

  The muscular man looked at him with surprise and, hesitant, lowered his gaze toward the empty cup. He was holding its handle between two of his impressive fingers, making it look like a little girl's toy.

  "Well," he answered, "coffee... please."

  The scientist smiled at him and, taking a metallic coffee dispenser, he served the big black man. As the dark liquid was pouring into the cup, turning around and creating inside a kind of maelstrom, Professor Harding observed something odd.

  Harry was concentrating on the whirling liquid.

  His reddish eyes reflected in an odd way the light coming from the neon tube above them. An image of the tube was reflected in the wavelets of the liquid. Harding understood the origin of the wavelets when he observed, with a scientific spirit, that the big black hand of his guest was beginning to trem
ble. The scientist swallowed hard, sweat beginning to trickle along his right temple.

  Fear struck Theodore Harding and his heart beat hard in his chest when he saw that the cup was going to overflow, and he abruptly stopped pouring. The hot liquid was very close to dropping on Harry’s fingers, which were now trembling frenetically. The scientist feared that the slightest burn on the big man's skin would trigger a lethal reaction.

  Finally, the trembling of the giant's hand ceased, and the entirety of the boiling liquid remained inside the cup.

  Harding sighed.

  Must I continue the test? The experience? I've the impression of being sitting next to a ticking bomb!

  He shivered, but did everything he could to hide his internal feelings.

  Like dogs and wolves, they attack more easily, if they sense fear.

  He controlled his breath, which had begun to accelerate, under the watchful eye of the big man, and finally became quiet, repelling fear.

  Tentatively, he decided to continue, and added: "I love to drink that tea. Actually, it's not really red tea, in fact. It's some rooibos; a red colored infusion drunk by a lot of people, in South America."

  "Rooi…?"

  Harry stopped speaking, hesitant, trying to pronounce the name.

  The scientist observed his eyes. They seemed less red now, more pinkish. Some blown veinlets were still visible in the white of his eyes, but others had obviously recovered.

  A reassuring improvement, indeed!

  "Rooibos. It's a plant which is part of the broom family."

  "Rea... really?" answered Harry, while he continued to concentrate more of his attention on the whirling red liquid in his cup. It was now slowing down.

  Theodore couldn't help but be fascinated by the fact that his guest was beginning a real conversation with him.

  The black giant continued, "I've... never heard about it... even if I was..." He became silent, looking up the words.

  The scientist was full of hope now, opening his eyes wide, and hope literally perspiring from him. This individual, despite being in a delicate equilibrium between remaining a man or becoming a monster, was remembering that his first job had been as a horticulturist. The warmth of happiness pervading his mind instead of his usual state of cold analytics, he pushed the bowl containing many white little brick-like pieces toward the giant, and asked, "Would you like some sugar?"