Abduction Chronicles GENESIS: Book 1

by Peter John

    When I finally looked up, licking my lips and fingers, John Stiles enquired in a typical New York accent, “Where are you from Colonel?” He was a slender wiry-looking man, taller than average with dark thoughtful eyes. Looking at him I could see him sizing me up as us military types are wont to do. In fact, all of them gave me that impression and I could feel a deep-seated camaraderie that only exists between men and women who have fought, prevailed and bonded in the Armed Forces.

    “Please, just call me Petros, my military days are behind me,” I stated. It was a long-practiced lie because once you were a military man, your deeds followed you forever. Especially in your nightmares. It came to me then, that actually, I was no longer retired.

    Hugo Eriksson, a blonde haired, blue-eyed hulk of a man, easily two meters tall said in his clipped Nordic accent, “You may hav been retired before the abduction, but now you are very much reenlisted.”

    This brought out snickers from most of the group and a huge booming laugh from Hugo. He seemed to be a man who did things in wholes, not halves. “Are you Dutch?” he enquired. This brought out a laugh from Sarah, who then gave them the same clue I had given her.

    “Where he comes from, they call hurricanes cyclones and there is lots of gold.”

    “Eldorado?” Answered Raúl Sánchez, the only Hispanic of the group. He was a stocky shorter man, quite a lot shorter than myself. He had a solid soldier's bearing and a well-defined body, dark eyes and one of those grins that were infectious. This caused Hugo to choke and then unable to contain his mirth, bellowed out in great booming bouts of laughter. When someone puts that much effort into laughing, you can’t help but crack a smile, and from there it doesn’t take long to widen that grin until you are laughing too. I immediately felt in sync with these guys. Even Sarah’s laughter could be heard trilling amongst the bass of all us testosterone-bearing thugs. What followed was one of the best experiences I had had in a long while. It was a simple thing, chatting around a fire, small talk, but it allayed our fears. We were all victims. This simulation gave us a chance to forget about that and focus on being human. At last, I poked the big white elephant in the room.

    “So what are we doing here?” I addressed the question to Stone McGee, whom it turns out was an ex-Special Air Service operator with the rank of Major. He seemed in charge of the group. He was also the ranking officer other than myself.

    “Colonel, we are a special team gathered by the aliens. Our purpose here is to familiarize you with your new situation and bring you on board as a fully committed member. There were three other candidates, but of the five, only you two made it. From what I’ve heard from the lass over there,” he indicated Sarah with a thrust of his jaw and a tilt of his expression. His whiskers still dripping with the grease from the meal. I had to look away, the impulse to ask him to wipe his mouth strong on my mind.

    As if reading my thoughts, he used his forearm to wipe his mouth and smiled. “I have to teach you about how to access your skills, how to improve them and what you need to do to get ahead. Make no mistake, Colonel. Our situation is tenuous. It requires us to be successful. You were not chosen at random. Each member of the ASS service is someone who won’t be missed, who…”

    “The what service?” I interjected.

    “Yeh, we call ourselves ASS. For Abductee’s Special Service.” He cracked a grin through the carpet of hair on his face and continued with practiced ease, “We try to take ourselves seriously, but in training, we get to let our hair down, besides with all the riff-raff from different international services, what else could we be called?” He looked up with a mischievous twinkle as he waited for the cat-calls from all the various members. They didn’t disappoint.

    “Okay, okay, I take it back. Not everyone has the pedigree of the SAS. It is what it is. I had no part in naming it, but someone did and it has stuck, so there ye have it.” Turning back to me he continued, “You are now in a simulation we call Nico Sim. Short for Nicaragua Simulation. It’s not an exact replica of the place and has elements of Florida and most of Central America. Especially in terms of flora and fauna. But getting back to what I was saying, you won’t be missed back home, most likely you have no living relatives and you have an exemplarily military record. The aliens who have us are an ancient race, who, because of their advanced tech, have lost the physical attributes needed to adequately defend themselves or others. Instead, they train us to do that job for them. They seem to select experienced military personnel only, and inject them with nanobot tech to enhance their abilities to super soldier status. Although we have seen a few younger guys come through with various other talents like computer programming, engineering, and physics, but they don’t advance the same sorts of skills as we do, or in the same way. It all depends on how you use the skills as to how you will advance. It’s all very mumbo jumbo tech stuff, but cutting edge.” He nodded sagely at this very mundane description of our situation. I had some questions but before I could interject again Major Stone lifted his hand to stall me and continued.

    “You are most likely between level 1 and 5, although judging by the length of time you were attached to the beacon and the condition your body is in after, I assume you hit level 5 and got to select your Class. As we are all above level 50, we have been through the drill more times than we care to remember. The pain from enhancements the first time though is really quite an experience. Now, before you ask questions, I want to finish what I have to say to you.”

    “Each Class is specific for each individual. The Absinth, um, you know the aliens who have us are called the Absinth?” I nodded. He continued, “Well, in case you're wondering, it’s Hugo’s favorite alcoholic beverage. He kept asking for Absinth when they caught him, he was suffering from a hangover and wanted more hair of the dog. The aliens took him literally and thought he was calling them Absinth. Somehow the name stuck and they call themselves that now so we have something easy to remember. If you want their real name, you will have to ask your alien who controls you.”

    “How many of us are there?” I blurted the question while he took a breath.

    “Honestly, I have no idea, perhaps a few hundred, no more than a thousand on our ship, but since I reached level 50, I have been working with these ugly mugs exclusively. Sadly, we lost some people from our unit a few weeks ago, and all the mages have already been assigned to other teams. So we are here helping you newbies get acquainted hoping to snag us a mage or two to strengthen our unit.”

    “But I thought we can’t die in these Sims? What happened to your men?” I asked.

    “Well, now that’s a great question Colonel, and the truth is you can’t really die in these Sims, well you die here, but not in reality. However, you won’t always be performing in these Sims. When you reach level 40, you will go on real life missions, and at level 50, they will assign you a regular team. With the scarcity of mages, those mage classes will most likely get assigned even earlier in their progress.”

    “I see,” I replied, not really seeing at all. “Then what exactly do they mean about mages? I mean on Earth, magic is just a myth.”

    “Yeah, you will discover that to be false. The Sims you will have to overcome to get you to level 40 will make magic a critical part of your life. Are you a mage?”

    My internal reluctance to share information struck to the fore, I wasn’t sure I wanted to say too much about the skill class I had chosen, especially as I didn’t understand exactly what I had gotten myself into. None of these guys seemed to be the type who played computer games, but then you never knew. As a Prodigy, though I should be able to perform magic, in fact, I had specifically chosen it so I could. That was before his big reveal that this was much more than a Simulation to entertain the aliens. Besides, humans couldn’t perform magic; it was as simple as that. At least not in the real world.

    “Aye, I can see you are the cagey sort Colonel but don’t
worry, we are all friends here. You will change your song in time. I am a Ranger Mage, not so skilled in magic as I would like, but I have enough to get by creating shields and such. A fair bit of Druid magic and Air magic. You probably don’t believe in it yet, but you will. The Absinth have found a way to unlock the potential in certain individuals, allowing them to manipulate matter. A kind of psychic awareness and ability. It allows the gifted to manifest thought and willpower into reality. We have learned to not only manipulate matter with our minds but to develop an affinity to the different arenas of magic. We cannot teach each other, but if you have innate abilities, they will manifest during your training and access to spell books. Dinna fash yirsel.”

    Sarah, who had been sitting next to me clinging on to every word during the conversation, asked: “What was the last part?”

    McGee laughed. “Sorry lass, sometimes I slip back into Scottish. It means ‘don’t you worry’.”

    I turned to Sarah and asked, “What class did you choose?”

    Shrugging her shoulders she said, “I didn’t get to choose a class, I was only bumped up to level 3. I spent 4 of my points on Luck. I am now on 12 Luck points, then I put one point on strength and one on intelligence. So hopefully with my next training Sim, I can get to level 5. Major McGee was telling me that people usually reach level 5 after four Sims and in exceptional circumstances three Sims. He said that I could probably reach it on my next Sim because we had met up and worked together to complete this one. He said that people seldom reach this point in Nico Sim on their first try, if ever. So I got rewarded a lot of points for it.”

    I nodded. “Yeah, we saw one of those other guys trying to reach the island by swimming. He got eaten. Wasn’t pretty.”

    John chimed in, “That will be a regular occurrence in all of your training. Each death leaves a scar though. You want to avoid them as much as possible. The human psyche gets twisted if you go through too many deaths. Creating a false sense of bravado and making you forget you will be part of a team. If you die too many times, there is a good chance the Absinth will discard you as unsuitable.”

    “They do that?” I asked. “Man! These aliens sure have a lot of autonomy to fuck with us. Doesn’t it rankle you we are essentially their slaves?”

    “Better stow that talk, Colonel,” Raúl spoke from across the fire. “The Absinth don’t appreciate their pets getting rebellious. We are here to follow orders and take out the trash for the good of all species. In time, you learn that. Hooyah!”

    Sarah blurted out “Sempre Fi” as Marine personnel were wont to do, and they both grinned at each other.

    “Raúl, are you a navy puke too? Let me guess, SEAL’s?” I asked knowingly.

    “That’s right, Colonel, and in this place, I’m an Assassin. What they call a Dark Assassin and let me tell you it’s got some serious perks.” From his hand a misty dark substance streamed out all around him, enveloping him and suddenly just like that he was gone. I could see where he had been sitting just moments ago, but right before my eyes, the guy had just disappeared. It startled both Sarah and me and even more so when his voice whispered into my ear a moment later. “How do you like that?”

    Well, without thinking my reflexes kicked in. I had years of self-defense training, and my now perfect body responded. From my sitting position, I straightened to stand, then my hips thrust up and back, my hands groped for where his voice had been and I threw him judo style right over my head directly onto the firepit full of simmering coals, the remnants of the meal we had cooked, went flying in every direction. He was slightly intangible, but I had grabbed a handful of his hair while I executed the move. As he crashed down onto the burning embers, he became tangible once more. Using his hair, I dragged him off the hot coals as he screamed in pain, his mouth letting forth a stream of Latino expletives that would make a sailor blush.

    Everyone else around the fire stood up. It all happened so fast that no one did more than that.

    “Christ!” blurted Stone. Rushing forward to check on Raúl, who was howling like a madman, trying to dislodge the burning embers from his posterior. The smell of burned flesh pervaded the clearing.

    I was standing poised, ready to face anything, my adrenaline spiking through the roof. Sarah backed away from me. John, on the other side of the fire, retrieved his makeshift spear and cocked his arm for a throw. Hugo, on the other hand, reacted the least. He did have a surprised expression on his face, which then became thoughtful, and without warning turned to crinkled amusement. His hearty bellow of laughter soon followed. This broke the spell. John lowered his weapon and looking at Raúl, his lips twitched into a wry smile.

    Still amped, still full of adrenaline, I shouted, “What the fuck, man! How did you do that? Why did you do that?” Stone, began helping Raúl dislodge the burning debris still searing his rump. He brought out the gourd with the healing potion and Raúl sucked on it like it was the last drink on earth.

    Turning to me, he gasped. “Manno! You are fast! That was a good response, but did you have to throw me into the fire?”

  Charlie, who had been out on watch came storming into the clearing. His expression expecting trouble. “What the hell happened!” he blurted.

    Stone said soothingly “Don’t worry about it Charlie, our vigorous SEAL here tried to give the Colonel a scare and it ‘backfired’. Mightily!” He then roared with laughter perhaps finding more amusement in his pun than the actual event. Hugo was still gasping and spluttering with laughter, and with Stones play on words, went up for more. His face was pulsing red as he struggled to take in a breath. I thought the Norwegian was about to have a stroke.

    Charlie looked down, puzzled at Raúl’s sizzled rear. The smokey remains of his loincloth still smoldering.

    Raúl said, “Don’t ask, just know that the Colonel has got some moves.” He came over to me hand thrust out. “No hard feelings, man. I was just showing off.”

    I clasped his hand, then changed to a forearm grip. “Hooyah!” I said, and we both grinned.

    Once things had settled down again, we retook our places and Stone continued. “Well, you have seen how magic works here. We all have a fair number of tricks for our respective classes, but none of us is as powerful as a dedicated, talented mage. We really need those when we are sent up against the enemy. The enemy have all kinds of advantages, but they have little to no defense against powerful magic, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

    “So I’ve told you the why, but I haven’t told you the how yet, so let’s get to it.” Stone continued, “First I need to explain to you how to operate your character sheet and adjust your skills. Please keep in mind that innate Abilities differ from Skills.”

    “Abilities have a numerical value assigned to you specifically, based on who you were before. From this point on, you will receive skill points, depending on how much you use a skill while doing the various Sims. These accrue and are influenced by your current Abilities, and similarly they contribute to your future capabilities.”

    “You will have no guidance, hints, nor prompts other than perhaps sometimes a general objective. Sometimes you will work with others; sometimes you will work alone. Each Sim has a different flavor, a different focus. This one here, Nico Sim is all about survival. We also use Sims to practice before missions. This helps us to prepare for what we are likely to face.”

    “The system bases rewards on surviving the challenge and reaching the objective within a certain timeframe. What you do along the way all contributes to your skills and to some degree abilities. Now you have reached level five, only your skills level up and accrue to your overall level, until level 25, where you can adjust your Core Abilities again, and then again at level 40. There are other points of advancement, but none of us has reached that level yet.”

    “What Sims have you been to, or is this your first Sim like Sarah?”
>
    “Well, I was in one other before this. It was a desert and got eaten by huge bark beetles, that was not a fun experience I can tell you.”

    Stone chuckled. “Aye, those beetles definitely know how to tear a man apart. We call that Sahara Sim. That’s when magical abilities come to the fore. With magic you can levitate above the sand, or if you’ve the assassin’s skill-set, you can adjust your gait to move naturally so they don’t detect your presence. You can also be like Hugo over there, our mighty warrior. In his last outing in Sahara Sim, he found their queen and ripped her head off. At level 65, he has quite an advantage in terms of strength and power. He usually takes the brunt of enemy attacks and dishes it right back.”

    “What about modern weapons?” I asked. “Rifles, mech-suits, tanks, and so on? Don’t we get to use any of that? It seems ridiculous that we are sitting here in loincloths using rudimentary caveman weapons. We are all accomplished soldiers and we are being retrograded.”

    “Aye Laddie, don’t think like that. We have to make do with what we have so we don’t attract attention to Earth. If the aliens equip us with that type of technology, we run the risk of being noticed. We have to keep a low profile. Also, our weapons won’t function the same when not on Earth. While the bullet may fire, as it has its own oxidizer within the casing, the atmosphere it is fired into may be denser or less dense than what we are used to and accuracy will be compromised, then there are the casings and the bullet heads themselves, which will leave telltale signs of our presence. According to the Absinth, we have to remain anonymous. If we die or are captured, we must have no tech that the enemy can identify, no way to determine how advanced we are as a species. Our masters are the cagey sort, a bit like you, reluctant to share info and even more reluctant to let their underhanded schemes come to the light of day. Apparently, we are one of the few species that can use magic easily almost anywhere, and so that is what gives us the edge, and they force us to develop that edge in these Sims. Now, let’s get on with training you. What Class did you choose?”