The first thing I saw was Gabriel. His arms were wrapped around Agatha, and they were talking as if they were not in a solid metal room built to make you go insane.
“Agatha? Out of all the people in this world, in any world. Did you go with Gabriel? His skin feels like a gator.”
She looked up at Gabriel and back at me before responding.
“We have been here for weeks. It was either talk with him or stare into the corner and go nuts. So, we took the opportunity to get to know each other better. Underneath his tough warped exterior Is an interesting and genuinely good guy. Catalyst doesn’t act like you’re the good guy I had only know you a few days when you let everyone, I know, die. Thanks for the rescue, though”.
She gave me a dirty look and turned away.
James helped Agatha and Gabriel to their feet. Zadok broke the muzzle off Gabriel’s face. The group had grown quiet as we exited the room and walked down to the next floor.
“Is this the room Toni is being held in?” I asked Zadok.
He looked at the door and then back at me before responding.
“Yes, the one you call Toni and another.”
I had begun to look at Zadok. I opened my mouth to speak when James and Gabriel had already begun to force the door of the cell off the track. The door let out a loud hiss. We entered the room, and I cut the rest of the door away with Toni’s sword.
“You won’t torture me this time; I will kill you first.” Someone screamed from above us.
Toni leaped down upon us from the ceiling. He shoved his metal leg into my shoulder.
“This time I’ll kill you first, I spent days sharpening my leg to a point.”
He pushed his spike leg farther into my shoulder; blood gushed from my shoulder. Gabriel and Zadok pulled him off me, and James touched my shoulder, infusing his blood into my shoulder and coagulating the wound.
“Toni, calm down. We are your friends! Ehud is dead. We killed him. Now it’s time to go,” said Agatha.
Toni tried to keep fighting us. Gabriel spits onto the floor and melted metal. We wrapped the metal around one of Toni’s wrist and pinned him to the floor.
“We don’t have time for this; we need to keep him restrained and go before darkness rises once again.” Said Gabriel.
James grabbed Toni and slammed him back to the floor. I had to knock him unconscious.
“Hey Catalyst, who is that? “Annabelle asked.
A man emerged from the corner. He laid his hand on Toni did not say a word. So, Gabriel made him a pair of cuffs too. We continued to descend to the lower levels of the citadel, more mysteries arising with each room we explored. We entered a room with a low hanging ceiling. Beakers covered the tables, and blueprints strewn over the walls. The blueprints were plans to build a ship. Toni was coming to and muttered to himself.
“Reuben, Catalyst, Raymond,” he snapped out of the trance and reverted to sanity. “Agatha! Catalyst, James, we made out?”
I took Toni’s Sword and cut through the cuffs. I handed him back his sword and shook his hand and gave him a quick hug. He shoved me aside.
“Toni, it’s good to have you back, man,” I said.
Chapter Nine
Reuben was a man of few words. The only reason we even knew his name was because once Toni regained control of his mind, and wasn’t delusional anymore, he explained who the mysterious cellmate of his was. From what I understood, Reuben could change the state of matter of things by merely touching them. According to Toni, Reuben is so quiet that in two weeks, the most information he could get out of him was that his name is Reuben, he is only 17, and he misses his girlfriend.
Most of the crew had gone to bed for the night, Agatha and Zadok were on guard duty and made sure that the part of the citadel with the lab was locked down. Toni, Annabelle, and I tried to figure out a plan on how to use the blueprints along with the ship parts from the Orion to fix the Mach Infinity. If the parts were where we left them, that is.
We spent half the night combining ideas from various ships and utilizing the best parts of every ship. If we messed up, we would be dead and all that messed up stuff the president of the NAC and the nations of the world had done for hundreds of years. Would go unpunished. I couldn’t let that happen.
Toni waved me over to talk to me away from Agatha.
“First man, I want to say thank you for rescuing all of us. I don’t know how you did it, and I don’t know if I want To. I especially am grateful for getting my sword back. I was able to craft a new leg with that Zadok guy's help. Catalyst, I don’t know how far any of us are going to get if you and Annabelle don’t fix whatever is going on between you two. Trust me, man, throughout history, people always lose battles when they're distracted by relationships and quarrels among their lover. Fix it before it cost us a battle or worse someone’s life,” said Toni
“Toni she won’t talk to me if I force her to talk, she might never like me again, now what do you know about this Reuben guy?”
Toni ran his hand through his goatee before responding.
“Catalyst every time I try to talk about relationships or other things besides adversaries or ways to get home you ask a question to get us back on this greater mission. I know how important it is for you to get home. I don’t know why. You have no family. You are fueled by your need to be needed and to have a mission.
If we fight all the beast on this planet, all we will get out of it is that we get “home “A place that hates us and then we will get to fight more. Ehud was right. Another evil will always rise. Even if that evil spurs from those close to you.
You need to talk. When I was in my cell, I couldn’t talk. I stopped myself from talking to him. Reuben barely speaks. I talk, and he listens. Reuben’s is like the younger brother I never got to have. Without words, we are nothing. You need to start talking about more than your story,” said Toni.
Toni stopped rambling, and his eyes wandered to where Reuben laid. He stood up and grabbed the blanket that laid at Reuben's feet. Toni pulled the blanket to Reuben’s chin and sat down.
I stood shocked at everything Toni had been talking about. How he talked to fast and jumped subject's I couldn’t get a word in. Ehud had played such a small part in our lives; he had affected us so much. Toni mentally. Agatha physically. She had become so weak from having her blood drained; she could no longer use her powers. I knew I could get us home, at what cost.
James walked into the room and placed his hand on my shoulder. He shook his head.
“Man, you’re tired. You’re exhausted, and you’re letting Toni get to you. Now get some sleep. We can plan the ship tomorrow,”, said James.
I nodded and gave him a half hug. I was too tired to argue too tired to speak. I laid down and fell asleep to the familiar sound of Annabelle dragging her pen across paper.
Several hours later, I awoke to the sound of footsteps a few feet away. I peeked over the edge of the table where I was lying. I could barely see Zadok in the center of the room. He was scribbling in the same fashion as the writing on the walls.
I knew I couldn’t trust him. No wonder he did not want us to escape. No wonder he wanted to push us apart. He even succeeded at splitting up Annabelle and me. I began to stand when I saw him pull out a sketch of me. He flipped it over, and on the back was a list of my powers. He flipped through the entire stack, including every single one of my friends. Then it hit me. I realized what Toni Said was wrong. I did have many reasons for why I wanted to get home.
My friends deserve a good place to live instead of this awful place. Yes, it is going to be an uphill battle; in the end, we could be free. We have the power to stand up to the evil forces of the government and everyone else. How’s that old saying go?
“All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”
So that’s it we will do something. I must do whatever it takes to save Earth and the people. Let freewill rule the world again. Bring peace and prosperity to the people. If I fail, it will mean my he
ad and my friends and a global dystopian government that will kill anyone they want.
My focus snapped back, and I looked at Zadok again. I rose to my feet and heard the soot crackled underfoot.
“Zadok! I screamed”
“How much of this were you behind? Was it all of it? You’ve been studying us watching us. You know our powers. Maybe even our weaknesses. Is this why you didn’t want me to help you escape?”
My fist connected with the older man’s face.
I stretched my fingers, thinking of what poison to use.
Zadok stepped back with a surprised look on his face. He tapped the pen against the sketches.
“Catalyst, I know you have been through a great deal; we all have. If Toni went insane because of Ehud, then you’ve become paranoid. I told you my back-story I told you the truth. I sat in the same cell as you for weeks, watching as they tortured you. I wanted to help; I could not. Your delusions are unfounded, and they have no bases. I am looking at documents that were here before I ever stepped foot into this room. I walked in here for the first time. Agatha and I were standing guard while you and Toni were in here. Now I promise I am on your side I want to get home as much as you I’ve been here for almost a hundred years now, I am going to retire for the night, “Said Zadok.
I did not believe him, and I did not trust him. Something Toni said had hit me. He claimed he had gotten the phrase a new evil will always rise from Ehud Zadok had said it too.
I sat there awhile. I was leaning against the wall for support and thought a thousand thoughts. Then I saw Annabelle a few feet away, and I began to walk toward her to apologize and explain myself and tell her how I missed her when Toni and Zadok pushed into the room in a frenzy.
They shoved the sketches and everything else onto the floor. Toni slid a blueprint onto the table that showed a NASA logo. It depicted various fuel diagrams. Each one listed everything that we still don’t have: a fuel source, an oxidizer, fuel pumps, and a combustion chamber. I turned to Toni before I spoke, I stroked my chin as I always did when I was deep in thought.
“Toni, I don’t get what are you trying to show me? We already knew that we need a fuel source and all this other stuff that you are trying to show me?” I asked.
Toni's eyes ventured to the other side of the room, where Reuben sat staring at the wall. His eyes looked blank and meaningless.
“Catalyst before we do this, I need you to know that because I don’t think we should go back or through all this does not mean I won’t help. I care about Reuben as if he was my brother. He needs a chance that his life can be more than this planet. Even the way Earth is now will be better for him than any day here. I will do everything in my power to get us home. To get Reuben home. If nothing else, then attempting this will give him hope. I won’t go with you.” Said, Toni
I looked into Toni’s eyes, and I saw he was sincere.
“Toni, you should come with us …”
I began to say when Toni cut me off. He pointed to the drawing. At the Fuel and oxidizers.
“The simplest liquid rocket fuel is to use liquid oxygen as an oxidizer and liquid hydrogen as a fuel, It sounds easy back in the day when they used it on a recurring bases the biggest dilemma was that there is a cryogenic process in order to turn the gases into a liquid in order to put them into a tank on the spaceship. That is a luxury that we do not have, “said Toni.
The three of us sat and thought for a great length of time. Then a spark lit inside my brain. That I was not a rocket scientist, and neither was Toni or Zadok. Four more people were sleeping outside the door. They could come up with ideas as good as the other, not rocket scientist and I. James, Annabelle, Reuben, and Agatha entered the room and sat across from me. They took turns examining the diagrams as well as the terms and the faces of each other. Annabelle began to scribble in her book. She set down her pen and stepped to her feet.
“We do not have a complicated machine due to this thing that turns oxygen or hydrogen from gas to liquid; we don’t need one. Can’t the new guy change the state of matter an item is in? Who needs a glorified freezer when he can change the state of something simply by touching it,” said Annabelle?
We all looked at each other as if the idea was so simple, how could we have missed it. Then James stood up with his questions.
“Dude, is that not water? I think I remember reading about that once the problem is if you don’t have the aluminum rocket boosters, you’d need an incredibly large tank to house the ignition of the liquid fuels, “said James.
He sat down, Agatha jumped up and blurted out.
“Unless we don’t need a tank at all, hear me out if this Reuben guy can change the state of matter such as a gas to a liquid while we constantly heat it then we don’t need a tank,” said Agatha
Zadok paced the room. He wrote diagrams and formulas on the walls and the papers. Reuben looked at Toni In a way that conveyed his worry and fear of failure.
“This whole group love fest and inclusion sessions are nice; it still does not change the fact that Reuben can only change the state of matter something is in. For example, he can change a chair into a liquefied chair. He cannot break down the elements of it or combine them, said Toni. Zadok slammed his fist against the wall, and his eyes glowed goldenly; from his Amulet, he pulled out a solid black ring with a green stripe down the middle, and it was covered in spikes. Almost like the ring James wore before he got his arm cut off.
“In the year 2090, when few people had abilities or gifts or Powers my father invented this ring. It does not grant powers it merely enhances the powers you have and your ability to use them. Letting you reach your full potential. The side effects are unknown though”, said Zadok
Toni was pissed and took a swing at Zadok, he dodged, and Toni fell to the floor.
“No, we will find another way! We are not putting Reuben in danger. What if the side effect is that he dies?” Said Toni.
Zadok and Toni shoved each other and punched each other. Toni drew his bone sword and placed the blade against Zadok’s cheek. The blade was so close to his face that a patch of his beard got cut off and fell to the floor.
“No, stop! Don’t hurt him! I don’t want you guys fighting anymore. I’ll do it to give me a ring! Said Reuben. At first, we all stood there in shock because Reuben had broken his silence and we had never even heard his voice before.
Zadok tossed Rueben the ring, and he slid it onto his ring finger. The green line glowed as spikes retracted into Reuben's finger. He let out a scream and reached down and touched Annabelle’s pen. It liquefied and turned into the individual elements. The water, oxygen, pigments of the ink, carbon, and various other elements. Reuben touched the liquid again, and it turned back into a pen.
“There is hydrogen and oxygen in the air, right?” I said right as I said it Reuben had already started to convert the gas elements of the air into their liquid state.
I fell to my knees and grabbed my throat. It felt like I was suffocating, and something had ripped the air from my lungs. Reuben let go, and the pair returned to normal.
“If he cannot use the elements in the air, where can he get the hydrogen and oxygen supply from then?” asked Toni.
No one answered. We were all tired and weak from the last couple of days and the last few weeks and from trying to figure out how to get Home. Zadok left the room and returned after a few minutes. I heard a loud thud, Zadok had thrown one of the dead dinosaur men onto the desk.
“Plenty of hydrogen and oxygen in the blood of these dead beast might as well put the bodies to good use.”
Chapter Ten
The morning light bled into the room. It forced its way through cracks in the walls; it engulfed the dead bodies and reflected off their dinosaur scales.I had been taken aback at what Zadok had proposed. I looked at the dead body, one which I had killed myself. I stood up and completely covered the body with a sheet. James looked over at me and shook his head no. I stepped up to Zadok and stared into his soulless eyes. I slamme
d the palms of my hands down onto the table.
“Zadok, this is not right. This is evil and injustice, and I cannot allow it! We are supposed to be heroes. I am done being the bad guy, and I have been trying to right my wrongs. There is always another way, one that does not involve desecrating the dead,” I screamed.
Zadok approached the table and uncovered the dead man. Reuben placed a hand on the man’s forehead, and the other pointed at Zadok. Zadok threw a chunk of Flint up into the air and across his sword, which created an intense spark.
Reuben shot liquid hydrogen and oxygen at the flint until it sparked an explosive reaction and sent the flint through the wall of the citadel. An explosive BOOM rang through the room. Zadok cracked a sly smile, and he beamed with pride. The test pushed Zadok’s insistence That using the bodies was the only way to go. The test solidified how horrible the act was. I looked at the table, and all that remained of the dinosaur man’s body was a few scales and a pool of various elements.
Zadok patted Reuben's shoulder and stepped back from the table. “That Catalyst proves the necessity for using the bodies. It is perfectly justified. The bodies can either sit here and rot or they can be the power that sends us home. This does not make us evil. They are dead; they feel not, so I do not feel for them. You would have them believe that this is an atrocity.
That I am evil, I say the evil would be to force them to stay on the wasteland of a planet when there are means of escape. Let them decide; we will have a vote. Those who side with me and using the bodies standby be, and whoever wants to stay here for who knows how long looking for another can go side with Catalyst, Said Zadok.
Journey to a darker world Page 8
