Project: Wake

by M A Scrawl

  Did he really care what happened to himself? He was getting old, and didn’t really have any family to speak of. Were the clones so important that he felt he should risk his career off of them? Well, what else would he do? Confess to the government and condemn them to a life of imprisonment? Why would he do that?

  Withers sighed, turning his head again to look out of Facility C into deep space. That view was looking nicer all the time…

  -Chapter 39-

  -Clones-

  Kadir opened his eyes from the redness, and heard the explosion to his right. The van he’d been above…

  He was on the ground, his back against the cold, soft Earth. His back hurt a little, it was burnt, but not that bad. Katy was over him, looking at him nervously. “Kadir?” she asked, poking him in the cheek. Kadir looked at her, and she sighed, relieved he was alive. Kadir smiled, then threw up.

  “Goodness Kadir,” Katy said. “Thanks for staying alive! Saved me the trouble of burying ya’...”

  Kadir sat up, groaning. He eventually stood on wobbly legs. Quentin was next to him, standing, looking at him with worry.

  “You gonna be alright?” he asked, and Kadir nodded. Quentin looked far off, staring at the sunset with his robotic eyes.

  “So we’re clones,” he mumbled, still staring off into the sun. Katy nodded and sighed, tired. Now that Kadir thought about it, he was exhausted as well. Grief somehow always sucked away the energy from people without warning, as well as fighting an entire group of angry mercenaries.

  Kadir leaned against one of the trees. They were about thirty feet away from the site where the mercenaries had kidnapped them, and the battle. They were under the canopy of a rich, green tree, and Kadir hoped that Facility C couldn't see them from their Satellite.

  Kadir sighed. It had been a REALLY long day. He didn’t think anyone had ever experienced such a stressful day as he had. Using that amount of electricity as he had before, that experience was amazing! It was like The Flow WAS him, not just coursing through him.

  “Yeah, we’re clones,” Kadir said. “But we’re on Earth now, isn’t that what we wanted?”

  “Well, yeah, but…” Katy said, dropping off her sentence.

  “We’ve got each other. We’ll just keep on walking til’ we come to civilization, kay?”

  Katy nodded, standing up with new resolve. “Plus,” she added, “if we get tired, Quentin can just carry us!” Quentin grinned, and walked ahead a little, followed by Katy. Kadir lagged behind a little.

  So this is Earth, he thought, glancing around. Birds sang in the trees, and he could hear the wind rushing through the leaves. It would be night soon, but they could easily find shelter and make a fire.

  I could get used to this.

  Kadir caught up with his siblings, leaving the area of destruction behind them, and their future ahead.

  They walked on for some time, branches cracking underneath their feet. The woods were untamed, vast trees very close together, and very often Kadir and his siblings had to navigate through or around briar patches. They still had their military clothes on, with waterproof shoes and tough pants and shirt.

  Kadir led on, followed by Quentin and Katy, who looked from side to side, examining the landscape. It was very pretty, wherever they were, but they had decided not to follow the road, where they were driving. Instead, they were going to the side, and hopefully they would run into a town, or village.

  Kadir began to think about where they were headed. If he were a terrorist, he wouldn't really want to put a base near civilizations, but at the same time, not be too far out. So he was either very, very far away from people, or they were just kinda far away from people. Katy and Quentin had searched through the wreckage that Kadir had created, and found a few bars, as well as a medical pack. Quentin carried everything, his robotic spine and enhanced legs making it easy for him.

  Katy was pretty sad that they had not brought Jeffrey, the military backpack with them, but it made sense that the mercenaries wouldn't have picked it up for them as they were leaving. They did have it back in their cell, but it had been emptied of equipment and medical supplies when they were put in there. The people of Facility C did not want them messing around, or possibly escaping using the materials inside Jeffrey.

  Kadirs’ feet had started to hurt several miles back, and the sun had already passed low beneath the horizon. Kadir continued on however, looking for the best possible place to bed down for the night.

  He came to a ring of trees, filled with a few stray briars and rocks.

  "We'll stay here for the night," Kadir said, gesturing to the clearing. Quentin nodded, putting down the med-pack and clearing away briars as best as he could, trying to make the scene look natural, not human-touched. Caheel had said that the easiest way to get tracked down was by pulling or disturbing plant life.

  Katy touched the small rocks, teleporting them out of the ring. She could've easily lifted them and chucked them away, but she decided not to. Why? Kadir didn't know. He rarely knew what to expect when it came to Katy.

  Kadir began gathering wood, as Katy gathered a classic ring of stones in the middle of the circle. Kadir smiled, and threw down a pile of wood next to the ring. He started small, a few crunched up leaves, and gradually went bigger, the sticks getting larger as the pile expanded. Kadir nodded, content with his work, and looked to the sky. It was almost completely dark, and he could see a few twinkling stars in the sky. They had been so much brighter up in space, but Kadir was content to see what they looked like down on Earth.

  Kadir hurried joined by his siblings to gather more wood. Content that he had enough, he let a small spark fly from his hand and light the fire. Kadir blew on it gently, providing more electricity to get it going faster. Before long, a blazing fire was set in front of them. They each sat in a circle, night upon them. Quentin pulled out three of the seven nutrient bars and gave one to each, taking a small bite out of his.

  Silence accompanied each one of them as they stared into the fire, remembering today's events. The air was cold, but the fire made a nice ring of heat, like a blanket that kept out the chill. Kadir had never felt biting cold before, but he felt it if he stepped outside the circle. That circle of trees seemed to protect them from the wind, like a guard with a powerful gun.

  Kadir sighed, finishing his bar. "So, does anyone want to talk about anything?" Kadir asked, throwing the wrapper into the fire. Nobody said anything.

  "Look, I honestly don't know how far away we are from any kind of civilization, and we can't run on one bar a day," Kadir said, gesturing to the fire. Quentin finished his bar and threw it into the flame. "I can definitely run on one bar a day, I don't spend as much energy as you guys," Quentin said, gazing into the fire.

  "Guys," Katy said lying down on the ground and staring up into the sky, "Did you guys ever think it's possible that we were clones?"

  An awkward silence endued, the remembrance of what Tundra had told them laying upon their minds again. "No," Kadir said honestly, “I really didn't... I thought maybe that we were kidnapped or something."

  "I thought that maybe we actually belonged somewhere and were vaguely human," Katy said bitterly.

  Kadir looked up, surprised. Katy was never like this, she always was joking or laughing, cheering Kadir and Quentin up. Now it was Kadirs’ turn to cheer her up, and he wasn't sure if he could do it. They'd always relied upon Katy to make them happy, even when she got them in trouble.

  "Katy," Kadir said. She didn't answer, she still had her back to the fire.

  "Katy! We are clones. We can’t ignore this, I know. We have gone through being imprisoned our entire life, and being thrown through torment by Caheel, but look around you!” Kadir gestured widely with his hands. “We’re not on Earth because we belong somewhere, or that we’re vaguely human.”

  Kadir leaned in closer to Katy. “We’re here because we stayed together, and nothing's gonna change that, especially knowing we’re clones.”

  Silence blanketed
the camp for a short time. Then Katy turned, sitting up next to the campfire. “I just thought-” Katy burst out in tears, the moisture falling down her face without warning. She covered her face and continued sobbing.

  Kadir slid up next to Katy and hugged her silently, letting her cry out in his shoulder. Quentin came in from the side, hesitated, then hugged her with his metal arms awkwardly. They sat there for a time, all of them grieving at the discovery of the cold, hard truth.

  Katy stopped crying, and Kadir slowly let her go. She rubbed her red eyes, looking into the fire. “Your arms are really cold,” she said, than burst out laughing, triggering Kadir and Quentin's laughter. They laughed harder in that one moment than they had for a long time, harder than they had even on Facility C. Katy smiled, her eyes puffed and red from the tears, and put her eyes to the sky.

  “This is for Facility C!” Katy yelled, then warped with a red flash, reaperring 30 feet above the circle of trees where Kadir sat.

  “Phblhhh,” Katy sounded, blowing a raspberry at the sky. She fell down, giggling, and warped again, returning with a red flash next to the campfire, her hands on her hips.

  “I wonder how Tundra did it,” Quentin said as Katy sat down again, poking at the fire with a stick.

  “Did what?” Kadir asked.

  “Made us, made clones,” Quentin answered. Katy shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea how I was made.” She smiled and threw a big piece of wood into the fire, triggering a large amount of red ash to fly into the sky.

  “Imagine starting a fire like this aboard Facility C,” Katy said, following the rising ashes with her eyes. Kadir laughed, “You’d be put in the Detainment Cell for months after that!”

  “If they could catch me,” Katy said, a mischievous grin on her face. She teleported out of the ring and into the woods, where a red light outlined her silhouette in the darkness. She teleported back, illuminating the woods behind her with that same red light. Kadir smiled, letting The Flow go through his body. He stopped it and started it again aimlessly, the electricity appearing on his skin, then disappearing again.

  Kadir leaned back onto the ground, stopping The Flow. He did want to know how Tundra had done it, how he had been given these amazing powers. The curiousness inside him begged to know...but then again, after learning the truth of his origin Kadir wasn’t sure he actually wanted to find out. Maybe there was another horrible truth lurking there too.

  The fire was warm against his feet, and he settled back, closing his eyes. He didn’t care that he was a clone, not anymore. They were here, on Earth. That was enough for him.

  Kadir opened his eyes again, feeling that he’d been about to fall asleep. He was wide awake now though, and Kadir sighed, glancing at the sky. He started to pattern up the stars, linking them together to make shapes. A monkey….a tree….a bucket….

  One of the stars caught Kadirs’ eye. He leaned up, studying it closely with a curious expression, then his face lit up. He glimpsed red light at the end of the star. It was moving west, and Kadir could just barely make out the shape of a plane as it streaked across the sky, high above.

  The plane was going west, towards the sun, and it seemed low to the ground, as if it were going to land. There might be an airport to the west by the sunset, and if there was an airport, there was hopefully civilization.

  Kadir smiled. The silhouette of the plane flying far above was fairly different from that of a shuttle. The planes had wings and only two engines, while the shuttles were blocky, with four engines, one on each corner.

  Kadir stopped, hearing a noise to his right, out of the warm protection of the circle. He turned slowly, eyes wide and saw two glowing eyes appear, high off the ground. Kadir turned, wondering if he should wake his siblings. He decided against it, crouching out of the circle and sliding up against the brown bark of a tree. He pushed his head out of the tree slightly, waiting for a few terse moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  The stars and moonlight were enough to lightly illuminate the huge, hulking bear before him. Deep, guttural grunting noises resonated from the bears throat. It was tall as Kadir was, even though it was on four legs, and long brown fur encompassed the entire surface of its body. Its behind was to Kadir, but he could already see the sharp black claws, and no doubt there was a maw of sharp, white teeth.

  The thought of the word, sharp made Kadir shudder, and he was tempted to shock the bear, or turn and go back into the circle. It was eating from a bush covered in berries, and the wind was blowing in Kadirs’ face. He doubted it would catch his scent.

  He was about to turn, when a higher grunt came beneath him, closer to the ground. It took a short moment for Kadir to spot the small baby brown cub that walked around on the ground, annoying its mother.

  Kadir smiled, wondering why the bears were out in the middle of the night. Maybe for a midnight berry snack?

  The sight of those things brought Kadir into the mindset of the pure naturality of the scene, and he suddenly felt as though he were intruding onto something very, very important. He thought back to what he’d done.

  The sight of the mother bear with its baby cub again painfully reminded Kadir that he did not, and would never have any parents. He’d been created unnaturally, given powers that he’d never asked for, and then put through painful trials. He hadn’t lost anybody, but he did know pain. Several kinds of pain really. Physical abuse, imprisonment, and most recently, mental pain. Thinking about other kinds of pain he might experience in the future made his head hurt, wondering what kinds of trials awaited him next.

  He would have to lead his siblings through anything that challenged them, as they relied on them. It was a flattering position, but Kadir wasn’t sure he could fill it out. How could he help his siblings when he too was struggling?

  His entire lifetime consisted of seven weeks, in which he’s been imprisoned in a secret government Facility, been trained by an abusive soldier, had discovered superpowers, had been kidnapped by terrorists, and had also destroyed half of a Terrorist Cell. Nobody had done that even in their entire lifetimes, much less seven weeks.

  Kadir sighed, taking in all the sights and smells. The bark was rough on his hands, but he found himself grateful for the realness of it, the naturality of it.

  He was on Earth.

  He was home.

  THE END