The Others

[Todd_McCloud]

Morning commute through the city of Eldura was always tricky. Sunlight doused the tops of buildings, their opalescent facades glowed in the February sun only to leave long shadows in their wake as millions started their day on the streets below. It had become routine for the Vekaiyun capital, the center of the nation, where everything was expected to carry on and move forward from the war and return to some form of normalcy. The masses would work their typical day in the year with the goal to produce 1/365th of the city’s annual strength. From such people would come the hopes and dreams of the heart of Vekaiyu, if for only just one day.

But it was more than that. Within those millions of apparent drones, those slaves to their occupations, were lives and memories. Such things could never be overlooked, nor forgotten. And for those who had good memories, their work became that much easier. Yet for those who bared the burden of bad memories, no comfort could be given, as the soul is not like flesh, which heals over time. Wounds to the soul tend to fester and never heal, no matter what sort of attention is given to it. It is true, over time wounds could be covered up and almost forgotten, but it is still there, still seeping, and still sore in the heart of the one whose livelihood has been marred by deep scars.

Ikrisia placed a hand on a window as she gazed at the people below. She was high up from the ground, but not so high where she couldn’t see the people below. They walked fast, she noticed. Fast probably because it was the morning commute. Men and women went to their jobs while children and young adults went to school. She smiled slightly. She had grown accustomed to being the Vekaiyun leader. Whereas before she would no doubt comment on how they weren’t selflessly giving their lives to their state, she had to admit, she had compassion for them. It was more than wanting the nation to succeed; she wanted to see the people in the nation succeed as well. For a moment she was overcome by a feeling of brief mortality. All the times she came so close to death, it had to mean something that she was still alive. She was desensitized from that, as she was brought up to believe she was immortal. But it was impossible to ignore anymore. And that, in a way, made life precious.

“Xa Velikeste,” Ikrisia said after turning from the window that glinted with the rising sun. She approached the hospital bed where the Ikole General laid, one hand over her muzzle in thought. Finally, she stepped forward again, but this time rested her hands on her bedrail. “What do you want me to do to you?” she added monotonously.

Xa moved her eyes toward Ikrisia, her head unmoving. “I will tell you everything you want to know.”

Ikrisia waited for her to say more, but it was clear that was all she was going to speak. “Look, I don’t have time for these games. I’m sure you’ve heard Maxists officers have been hanged and are scheduled for being hanged. If you don’t want to be hanged, you’ll tell me everything you know about them. And I mean everything – files, locations, people, places, what have you. Understood?” She waited for her to nod. “Good. Now, about these plans that you spoke of to one of my sipavu commodores. What does that mean?”

“You mean from a few days ago?”

Ikrisia paused, then nodded, her patience unbending. “Yes. Explain.”

“They are plans for a low orbiting battleship. It operates under guidance with the planet’s magnetic field. But it isn’t without problems. We… haven’t perfected this method of flight. It hasn’t really been tested with such a large vehicle like that. But what makes it unique is the particle accelerator that is attached to it. The devastation it could cause… well, that also has not been totally understood either. It’s been monitored under a separate governmental project… Project Vimke… used to study the effects of particle acceleration and collision. The tests they have run show marked energy, and it’s been sort of taken over by the Vekaiyun Department of Energy.”

“Then why is this so important?”

“Because if it works, it would revolutionize our air force. Not only that, but we could sell the tech to allied nations to compete with other nations who have an overabundance of technology. It should work. But when Max died, the project was all but scrapped. It’s been divided up and what remains of it exist in only a few locations.”

“So then why is it important now?” Ikrisia asked as she bit her lip.

“Because,” Xa said as she turned to her. “It’s my biggest bargaining chip.”

“I see. If it were to be started again, how long would it take to build and test such a thing?”

“The ship is massive… milady. I’d say at least a year, probably more, but if it’s built at a safe pace, then two. That’s if our theories and materials all work.”

Ikrisia huffed out an anticlimactic sigh. “I see.”

“Unless of course we’ve stolen such tech from nearby Packilvania.”

The Vekaiyun Premier did not answer. “Nevertheless, we will need those plans pronto so we can figure out what to do with them.”

Xa looked around the room nervously. “I might not have them.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if it was a dream or not… and I’m probably going to sound insane for saying this, but when I was first committed to the hospital, something visited me and asked me for where the plans were. I told it where they are.”

“You did what?” Ikrisia grabbed Xa’s arm and dug her fingernails into it.

“It’s not what you think!” she sputtered.

“So much for a bargaining chip!”

“Wait! It wasn’t a real person, it was supernatural! It said it knew who I was and I can prove it because it knew something I haven’t told a single person!” Xa groaned at Ikrisia’s grip. “Please let me go!” She grabbed Ikrisia’s arm and squeezed hard, then released her tension once she noticed how unnatural Ikrisia’s arm felt. She looked up into the Vekaiyun Premier’s eyes, but Ikrisia loosened her grip and paused, not exactly sure what to say. “Is it… your arms, they aren’t real. Ikrisia Levinile. That’s! That’s right! Your name! The light tank accident!”

Ikrisia pulled her own arm away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re delusional.”

Xa shook her head. “No, I remember what happened. It was a campaign and there was a blast… your arms were vaporized. You were going to be left like that but for some reason they didn’t and rebuilt you new arms. Don’t you remember me? Rin? Rin Makevestre?”

“Ah,” Ikrisia said after a long pause. “You remember.”

“Yes! I do! I mean… I do. Oh, I have so much to talk about! What happened to Leyuski? How many of us are still alive? Do you… remember too? Everything? Or was it suppressed?”

“Later,” Ikrisia replied, her gaze falling. “So you’re Rin? I wondered what happened to you. I was afraid this would happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should have changed my name like you did. Why didn’t I do that? More of us will come out of the woodwork now, and it’s only a matter of time before the remaining documents to our project are found.”

“They’ll never find them,” Xa replied as she shifted in her bed. “They’re buried deep in records.”

“And what do you think we’ve been doing since I came to power?” Ikrisia flashed a stern glare at her, only to quickly calm down. “We’ve found the concentration camps. We’re finding more stuff each day.”

“But there’s so little of it left.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Ikrisia barked. “All someone has to do is know what they’re doing and know how to put the pieces together. It’s there – it doesn’t matter how hard it is to find. But it will be found. And you have to find it before they do.”

“Who’s they?”

Ikrisia paused. “Anyone else but us. Not even other project members can be trusted, because the moment someone else finds that information, they will go straight to the closest member they can find and attempt to extract information from them. That is, if one of them aren’t looking for these documents in the first place.”

Xa shook her head. “I don’t even know where to look for it.”

“You better. Your life depends on it.” Ikrisia’s gaze remained fixated on Xa, even when she turned to stare at her. “Because if you don’t find it, you no longer can be counted as an old friend. You’ll be a liability.” She paused, remembering how far back the two went for a brief moment. “I’m sorry… these are perilous times. But I’m serious, it’s important, and you know that. Vekaiyu’s not the same nation it was ten years ago – we actually have the power to change it, to make it better than what we had to go through. It’s not Max’s state, it’s our state. So… I suggest you start looking for them immediately. I’d start with Ilisto and hunt for clues there. If there are any pieces left, it’d either be there or would point to where they could be.”

Xa nodded, knowing full well of the potential dangers if such documents were to fall into the wrong hands. She sighed and looked at her hospital bed. “I will ask for a discharge –”

“It will be granted,” Ikrisia replied. “Look, you don’t need to worry about anything else. Just find what you can and get it to me as soon as possible. If you run into any danger… you know what to do.”

Xa nodded. “It’s for the best.”

“Before you begin, I want those plans too. Even if it will take a long time, I will need those plans.”

“Give me time,” Xa replied with a slight smile. “I will find them.”

[Todd_McCloud]

Iko Usavistre hadn’t received a wink of sleep over the course of the night. His eyes were bloodshot as they continued to scan over documents brought in by his connections. Specifically among his connections was his sister, a governmental worker who also managed to escape the purges brought on by Levinile’s regime. She had made acquiring pertinent to the life of the current premier her top priority. Well, top priority in addition to her other work so she wouldn’t get caught.

“God dammit,” Iko said as he slumped his shoulders, resting his head on his arms as he blinked his dry eyes. The dry sandy feeling went away after about ten seconds, enough to keep his eyes from begging for sleep for the time being. “I keep running into walls.”

A knock at his door set him into motion. Close the windows, open kkprs.exe to immediately purge his browser history and temp files, then open ssvrc.exe to immediately bring up a screensaver. It wasn’t perfect, but it was decent protection. Luckily for him the government wasn’t as all-pervasive as it was ten years ago. One thing he didn’t quite miss from Maxism.

“Come in,” he ordered monotonously.

A female vulpine walked into his office with a smile. It was Sayli, his sister, with her apparent normal cheerful self. “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Eh,” he replied.

“Just eh? Oh wow, have you even slept?” she closed the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing makes sense anymore.”

“Oh.” She pulled up a chair and sat down opposite his desk. “Yeah I keep looking too. I haven’t found much.”

“It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense!” he raked his fingers through his jet-black hair as his sister put her hands out and moved them down to instruct him to keep his voice low. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s just… how does someone exist without 18 years of their life accounted for? Especially with how freaking paranoid Max was. I mean, we’ve found stuff on the concentration camps, why not this?”

“It’s a lot easier to hide one person than millions,” Sayli replied with a smirk. “Come on. You’re driving yourself nuts over this. Take a break for a few days, then come back to it.”

“But… but how? How does this person get to become a Premier of Vekaiyu? I mean, look at her record. Or lack thereof. We’ve only been able to find one account, before she turned 18. And it’s just rudimentary bullshit: just her name in a sea of tens of thousands. That’s it. Any records of her promotions? No. Anything on her high school performance or any school? No, no. Of course not. I mean, there’s stuff about it, but no hardcopy records. It’s almost like she didn’t even exist until she turned 18. Like she was an alien who landed on a spaceship with a birth certificate in hand.”

“Maybe she changed her name?”

Iko sighed. “We’ve been over this before, Sayli. If she changed her name there would be documentation for it. Selvala changed her name, and everyone knows about that. But Ikrisia? Just a simple birth certificate. Come on, I thought we were over this before!”

“Hey, if you don’t want the help, then don’t ask for it!”

“Sorry… I’m just frustrated. How does she suddenly become a hejul general without any documented training? Again, this is Max’s regime we’re talking about - he practically documented when his generals took a piss. How did she become so lucky to be around Leyuski when he passed? And why did he even make that stipulation of him choosing a successor in that way? It’s ineffable, it’s incomprehensible.”

Sayli squinted her eyes as the sun began to peek through the slits in the blinds of the office window. “I know.”

“And she gets into Eldura University with amazing test scores. No transcript, no history. But she’s just accepted. Like that. Oh, by the way, her home town was destroyed by Max. Nice one.”

“Ilisto?”

“Yeah. I can’t find it anywhere on a recent map. I have to go back to older maps to actually find the town.” He moved his mouse to vanquish the screen saver, then clicked on a few folders on his hard drive. “See? Right here. Somewhere in The Levinasi.”

“Well maybe we could go there and see what’s up?”

He scoffed. “Good luck. It’s been made into a weapons facility as per direct order from Leyuski.”

“There’s a connection there.”

“But where though?”

Sayli grinned. “That’s the question. But I think we need to start somewhere and it’s clear the paperwork isn’t getting us anywhere. There’s a reason that town was destroyed and a reason Ikrisia, Max, and Todd’s names are all on that town.”

“Unless of course it’s a red herring and whoever wrote out that certificate just picked it because it’d be hard to disprove.”

“Well but we got to start somewhere.”

Iko nodded slowly. “Alright. Well… maybe we should pay the place a visit?”

“But do what?”

“All we need to do is go down there, do a little snooping around, and see what we find. We don’t even need to tell anyone what we’re doing.”

“What I’m doing. Let me just go. Any more people and we’ll cause a ruckus.”

“Alright, alright. Fair enough. Just let me know if you come up with anything. When are you leaving?”

“Um… I could probably leave this weekend.”

“Could you make it any sooner?”

Sayli smirked. “Anxious much? Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

Iko looked up as she stood up and walked to the door. “Thanks, Sayli.”

“Get some sleep! Don’t want to be caught sleeping on the job or Levinile will find someone to replace you!”

“Pfft, yeah. Might as well.”

[Todd_McCloud]

Ikrisia sighed as she sat on a ledge next to a fairly large window high above the Elduran streets. Her back was pressed against the side of the sill in a careless manner, and her booted feet were placed haphazardly, with one resting on the sill, the other on the floor below. She sighed as she stared out the window, watching the setting Vekaiyun sun slowly descend to allow for the winter moon to take flight and rule the heavens once more.

“It’s times like this I wish I didn’t have the past I do,” she confessed to herself as she drew from a fresh cigarette. “What if they find out? What will they say? I know what they will say. They’ll say I can’t make my own decisions, that I’m a fucking plant. Like I’m still brainwashed. Yeah, I’m a fucking plant. Yeah, let me raise armies and attack nations around here while I take your rights away, be right back. Dirp Dirp.” Ikrisia scoffed as she put out the cigarette.

In reality, she was terrified of anyone finding out. Who could understand what she had to go through? Who could know that about her and not look at her differently? Who would know what that was really like?

“If anyone says they understand, I’ll kick their ass.”

Far too much angst for a world leader. Too young and annoying. She rolled her eyes and huffed out another sigh. She then focused on her arms, looking at the skin that was grafted onto their respective wireframes as useless muscle tissue grew and twisted beneath them, hugging the skeletal frame. How gross. She rubbed the skin and could feel the perforations of the frame beneath it. It felt sandy and the skin was much more elastic than, say, her upper arms. And while they were supposed to supply her with strength, it wasn’t much, at least, it really didn’t make up for not having her real hands.

She casually rolled a bit of her cheek in between her teeth as she picked at the fingernail of her right index finger. She always wondered how they grafted the skin of her hands, how they were able to get her fingernails to grow and how they even put some kind of tubing across them to look and feel like veins across the mesh in her skin. Probably just with different skin, or even skin from another person was the cause of the fingernail growth. But it didn’t look like that. Her attention was soon swayed to the marbled sill. She ran her fingers down the smooth and cold rock, tracing the black swirls as they reached the edge. Considering what she knew about her arms already, perhaps it was better she didn’t know everything about them.

“Still is kind of amazing though, at least. I guess. Thirty years ago no one would’ve been able to make these arms.”

Grabbing the remote next to the sill, she pressed a single button on it, prompting a small stereo to play music. Some kind of traditional eastern Vekaiyun music with a guitar, violin, drums, and an accordion. Accordion? Who listened to those anymore? She was definitely out of style from her days at Shiro, where she made it well-known her love for current Vekaiyun music was unparalleled. But she didn’t feel like listening to it. This music was slow enough that it seemed to go with the mood the sun cast upon the room. Her attempts at re-assimilating herself into the ‘norms’ of Vekaiyun society were often in short bursts. A few CD’s there. A nice dress here, or maybe some jeans for casual wear. Attending a festival was easier than it was years ago, for now she knew what to expect. She read about it, of course, but actually being there is a new experience altogether. And while she had been to many of the important Vekaiyun cities, she wasn’t an expert in distinguishing one province’s culture from the next. Many told her to think of Vekaiyu as a collection of nations and not just one nation. She refused to think that way, not only because she felt that would lead to division again, but also because she knew she couldn’t keep all of them straight. That was the job of the provincial overseer. And with the Equality Party doing bad in the Kivreskov elections, it looked like she didn’t have to worry about this.

But where she didn’t need to worry in one area, piled onto other areas.

At least in the meantime she could listen to music and watch a sunset. Suddenly her phone rang. “Or not.”

“Hello?”

“Hello, I just wanted to tell you I’ve arrived near Ilisto.”

“Oh, good.”

“I plan to do some preliminary investigations tonight.”

“You don’t need to tell me what you’re doing. Just find it and let me know if you find anything else around there.”

“Okay.”

“That it?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk you you later.”

“Okay.” Ikrisia clicked her phone shut as the CD in the player reached the end of the final song. She grimaced as she continued to look outside, the buildings of Eldura now eclipsing the sun. “I should probably stop thinking about this… and not smoke or drink in the meantime.” She stretched and stood, deciding to go and find something to do for the evening.

[Todd_McCloud]

Walking up to the Ulkinabirkyo Defense Installation for Military Research, Xa Velikeste checked her uniform to ensure it was in order. She was still getting used to the new design instituted under Levinile, which although they were comfortable and looked smart, they were different. Plainer than the previous uniforms, they were a sharp black with red trim to signify she was in infantry. Only the Yskavirge patch on her left shoulder identified her position: an Ikovu Commodore, one in charge of WMD’s and biological warheads in their particular division. She was, however, without a division and her demotion was clearly imminent, but the position would still manage to fulfill a final duty: getting her into a weapons facility with ease.

It was protocol to walk up to the guard post while those concerned with security inspected her car. They would find nothing, of course – all she needed was her phone and her memory. Ilisto was barely recognizable anymore, but her mission was not to reminisce or bitch about how much the place had changed – it was to find any information regarding Project Uveshk and destroy it.

“State your business,” the guard at the post commanded. His face was wrenched slightly as if he was studying her and attempting to discern why she would arrive to the facilities at this hour.

“0071-41 Ikovu Commodore Xa Velikeste requesting clearance upon order of the Premier and Kral Commodore for routine inspection and analysis.” She removed two unmarked plastic cards from a side pocket in her uniform. The guard plucked them from her fingers, scanned them on a small receiver, and watched the green LCD light glow with each swipe. An indicator to the right of it identified the correct location, the arriver, and the superior who cleared the destination. “Your cards check out.” He looked down at her. “Why are you arriving in the evening and not the morning, milady?”

“I would like to finish my work here early. I don’t have time to be doing mindless bookkeeping and inspecting.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Do you have an identification card?”

“So many questions for a typical weapons facility guard,” Xa replied as she removed the card from the same pocket. “If I didn’t know any better I would assume your group has either had problems with security in the past or you are hiding something you shouldn’t be hiding.”

He stared at her as he grabbed the card. “Knowledge of the goings-on in this facility is outside of my perscribed duties.”

“Then it must be the former,” she replied as the card was returned to her. “We cannot have lax guards in any facility…” she looked at his nametag. “Reko Uskanibre. Especially since I’ve been informed the Premier is not afraid to replace those who should be replaced. Let’s hope this new Kral Commodore Nevikalu is more forgiving.”

The guard boiled under his collar. “Yes, milady.”

“I am empowered to explore the entire premises. Do you have any map or other documented explanation of the area?”

He reached back in a drawer and pulled out a form. “This is a map, milady. It has all buildings identified.”

“And are there any buildings nearby unidentified on this map?”

He paused to think. “No. I have been informed that the facilities have undergone renovations over the years, but everything associated with this facility is contained within the gates.”

Xa honed in on his words. “A small village was here before there was a base. I know for a fact the village was larger than the facilities are today according to the dimensions of gates on this map.”

“I am not aware of the original dimensions of the village,” he replied. “All I was told is there was an old abandoned village here and it made sense to bulldoze it rather than the surrounding forests.” He shrugged. “With all due respect, you’re the first person to ask me about it.”

“I take pride in my thoroughness. If your men are finished clearing my car, I will drive in now.”

The guard nodded. “Of course, milady. Enjoy your stay. If you require an escort it will be granted.”

“Thank you, but no. I do remember names, however, and I will not forget this interaction.”

---

“I’m about five miles out.”

“Geez sis, you must be in the middle of nowhere. It’s going to get dark soon.”

“Eh, I’m fine. Just the drive here was long as hell. I’m tired.” Sayli Usavistre smiled as she drummed a hand on the steering wheel, the other hand holding the cell phone close to her ear, her brother on the other end of the receiver. “Now I’m just passing the time. I’m debating on whether or not I should set out tonight to do some prelim snooping around.”

“Maybe try to go inside? They have gate attendants that’ll meet up with you.”

“No way,” she replied as she shook her head. She turned down the radio volume in the car and continued to stare out to the view of the road provided by the front window. “It’s too late. They’d be way too suspicious. Plus my work isn’t that urgent – only an idiot would go in right now.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Anyone come by since you’ve been there?”

“Just a car with military markings. Tinted windows, black paint, ground forces logo. You know, the getup.”

“Hmm… weird how it’d be this late at night. Something must be going on.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. Could be just delivering reports, inspection, that kind of stuff. Could also mean they’re preparing to move weapons out. Look, be careful down there. Vekaiyun weapons facilities aren’t a walk in the park. They’re built in remote locations because…”

“There you go again.”

“What?”

“Worrying too much. You always do this. You’re going to give yourself a bleeding ulcer one of these days.”

“Never mind that. But if you get in trouble, give me a call. Promise me you’ll give me a call.”

She propped the phone on her shoulder as she checked her .22 and popped out the magazine to check how many bullets were inside. “Yeah, sure. Don’t worry.”

“Alright.”

“Anyway I’m going to go now. I want to keep watching the road. I might set out later.”

“Okay, good luck.”

“Yeah, you too. And don’t spend the entire night looking at a computer screen!”

[Todd_McCloud]

“Hey… what’s up?” Ikrisia asked after she clicked her phone to pick up the call. “Why did you call?”

“No reason.” There was a long pause. “Well, I, you know, I haven’t heard from you in a… just sort of figured I’d ask how the…” Another pause followed. “I can’t remember.”

Ikrisia sighed. She had learned much about her father, how he was apparently a freedom fighter, how he had killed more people than he could probably count to, how he had turned a nation, his nation, into a veritable police state, and vaguely about how he grew up. All of them were achievements that at least took a bit of gumption and hard work. But even though he had done all that and more, it was clear still had difficulty talking to his daughter.

“Just say it,” Ikrisia interrupted monotonously. “You missed me.”

“No, that’s impossible. I only miss the dead. No one needs to miss the living because the living is never too far gone.”

“Well then why did you call?”

“I figured we could set up a meeting… you know, tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow?” She scoffed. “I can’t just drop everything for an unscheduled meeting. You know that.”

“It’s still something I would like to meet about. I’d like to go over more of the provisions of this absorption I keep hearing about from your nation’s Kivreskov.”

“Oh that. Yeah, it’s just talk now. There is still time to iron it out, or alter the deal.”

“Well I would like to nevertheless go over it, considering how important it is. It is a little concerning to hear such talks whispered in your nation’s legislature.”

“But we’ve been talking about it through email for a while now. Why the sudden request?” She paused. “You’re not thinking of abandoning it, are you? Or do you just not trust me?”

“No. I just want to discuss it in person. You know how it is. Do I have to be interrogated every damn time I want to see you?”

Ikrisia sighed. “Look, I know what’s going on. You want to see me. I get it. But don’t treat me like a freaking idiot and pretend I can’t see your intentions, alright?” She practically had the phone in front of her face. “You’re so transparent when it comes to stuff like this!”

The sputtering on the other end of the line was a clear indication that Evesuni was stopping himself from speaking his mind. “Alright. Fine. You happy? I’m forty four years old with one fucking lung. I’d like to be able to spend some time talking about this nation before I die!”

“What?” Ikrisia leaned forward in her seat. “You’re not serious, right?”

“Whether you like it or not, we cannot allow personal manners into such discussions. I’ve requested tomorrow because I figured the weekend would be freer for the both of us.”

Ikrisia rubbed her forehead in disgust. “I can’t do tomorrow. It’s never good to just schedule a meeting out of the blue like that. I’d need time to prepare.”

“It could be informal.”

“That’s not how it works!” She sighed. It was like speaking to a brick wall. “You of all people know that. Come on.”

“My schedule is a little tight too.”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes and began to bring up her holographic computer screen to determine a proper time. “How about the day after tomorrow? Sunday then. Like around 2 pm VST?”

“That time will be adequate,” he replied.

Ikrisia shook her head. He was so transparent and while he probably wasn’t oblivious to his transparency, why was it so hard to say the true intentions for the meeting. “Look, I know why you’re coming over here,” she replied in a calmer tone. “It’s okay, alright? We don’t even need to talk business. I know how you are… It’s okay. I want to see you too, okay?”

“Enough. I’ll see you in two days to discuss dealings with this absorption. Until then.”

Ikrisia waited for the phone to click. As she lowered her shoulders and set the phone down, she realized perhaps she didn’t understand her father like she thought she did. Sure he was impersonal. But maybe it was more than that. The only time he really displayed any emotion to her was when they both found out she was his daughter, but even then it was fairly minor. She had displayed plenty of emotion to him, a whirlwind of an often disgusting cacophony of yelling and occasional crying, begging him to be the person she wanted him to be. All her life she wanted parents. Now that she had one, she never felt so far apart from him. She’d watch television programs about the typical loving Vekaiyun family: the father was a hard worker who would fix things and maintain finances, the mother would work and cook, but both of them would never work so hard they’d forget their perfect little children, telling them stories or playing with them. She didn’t necessarily want that; she just wanted the affection, the care. The small things here and there that symbolically formed the words he could barely speak: I love you. She had lived with people who tried to remove emotions such as that. Now she wanted it, perhaps needed it more than ever.

Her phone vibrated, signifying she had received a text.

Ikrisia picked up the phone and after clicking a few buttons noticed it was from Xa.

— Begin quote from ____

Ikrisia you must come here quick. You’re not going to believe this! You’ve got to come now!

— End quote

Grimacing, she was a little skeptical of the message. But with not much to do Saturday and the meeting with Evesuni on Sunday, she could afford time in the morning to go over and see what she was all excited over. Then again, she wanted nothing more than to see those papers regarding her past destroyed. Sooner the better. The very thought of those going public nearly made her sick to her stomach. Plus Xa knew her limitations. She’d know she couldn’t spend too much time down there.

Ikrisia pressed a few buttons and her secretary came up, apparently busy with some kind of note keeping. Just like she should be. “Ankya, I am going to meet up with a governmental official in The Levenasi right now. Please inform me of any calls and dealings when I get back. I shouldn’t be long.”

“Yes milady. Right now?”

“Yes, right now. You know by now I don’t really sleep.”

[Todd_McCloud]

Ikrisia walked slowly as she entered a large underground room from her childhood. Was it a dream? Was it a delusion? Impossible – it was all real. Natural light still peered from the openings above, dousing the cavernous space in living luminosity. She never quite knew what exactly the light came from, but she remembered to never stray too far from the light. Even now the room gave her shivers. Armed with a flashlight, she crept slowly, shinning light onto the high vaulted ceilings, then moving over to the faces of the statues that still stood lining the tall walls flanking her left and right. She moved the light downward, along the robe of one of the emaciated figures. Just by looking at the statue’s philosophical face and the pen of bone frozen to the parchment it was writing on, one could tell that it was St. Ignes of Provinsk. The placement of the saints in the room she remembered all too well – this was nothing new. It was as if her past was a dream, and suddenly she found tangible evidence of its existence. It was horrifyingly intriguing.

She arrived at the base early in the morning. The guard working his post didn’t even ask for her clearance – he practically opened the gate for her as she drove up. And while the surroundings had changed drastically since she last visited, she knew where to go. It was difficult to find something at first, but with no one even paying attention to her, she was free to explore. She assumed after discovering one of the old entrances – well hidden over new architecture - that some of the facility was still intact. She was right, to a point. Only the underground remained. Some of it looked like it had been untouched since the revolt of the project children. Some of it, however, she didn’t quite remember. Were there new hallways? But they had a fine layer of dust over them, appearing untouched for years. Maybe she had forgotten parts of the facility as the memories faded under the folds of her mind. She strained to remember but it was all enveloped in a fog of confusion.

Still, she remembered this room well at least. It was more like an underground cathedral, to be exact, made entirely made of granite, and while saints lined the walls, the pews below formed two rows to an altar at the front where mass would be held. Daily. The routine was absolutely ingrained into her mind. She could almost hear the chanting and murmurs in her head as she cascaded down the main aisle to the altar. Standing in front of the giant stone table, she held her breath. The forbidden view was magnificent. Never before had she actually stood in this spot, and her mind swirled with memories as she gazed out to the congregation before her. McEdek, Ekvert, Nemaiya, Vivestra may God have mercy on her corrupt soul, Selenosi, and then, finally, herself. She was always seated in the second row, second from the left.

Chills ran through her body. “Oh God,” she whispered. The room was unsettling, the same vibe given at a fresh crime scene reverberating between the vaults. The feeling of being watched intensified. She felt like turning around, but instead she focused on her old seat for fear of knowing the truth. Staring intently led to tunnel vision, which led to dizziness, which led to flashbacks. Cutting their skin with some kind of thin knife, some being held down in order to complete the process. They looked to be forming some kind of design. Another flash. Now they were all chanting and rocking as something large on the alter began to raise and levitate. The room flashed once more as she remembered holding someone down while they babbled some incoherent mantra. “What the hell happened here?” she whispered.

One more scene. Someone was being purified mercilessly. The sounds and the blood she couldn’t take anymore. A way out was what they all needed most. She leaned in and, reaching for the boy to her side, she closed her eyes and kissed him. Maybe she was too young to know love. Maybe she was too sick to really understand what she was doing. But at that moment, right then and there, she wanted contact. Someone to give her comfort. Someone to make her feel real. Someone to take the pain away. Someone to listen to her screams instead of give blank stares like the other children around her always did. ”Todd,” she thought as tears welled under her eyes. She knew the penalty for unwarranted contact back then. But so did he. And he didn’t turn away. Hesitant at first, he ran his tongue across her teeth and placed his hand on hers. For five seconds, hope was theirs. Like a drop of water on the tongue of a man damned to hell, it was all the relief in the world.

She never knew why he was punished for the illegal contact and not her.

Sniveling and making pathetic whimpers, Ikrisia bent down in front of the altar and wiped her eyes. She couldn’t take the memories anymore. All the pain and sickness, the emotions and the loneliness, all culminated within her to produce one dismal, pitiful scream. The sonnet of sorrow echoed through the cavernous room and soon began to formulate words. “Why did they do this?! What was this all for?! How could they do this to children?!” She coughed as her tears continued. “To us?”

“Ikrisia? Ikrisia!”

Ikrisia looked up and then behind her. It was Xa… at least it kind of looked like her. She discarded her Vekaiyun military uniform and was now wearing a gown of white. A lantern held in her left hand brought more light upon the room.

“Wha-?”

Xa approached her slowly. When she reached the tortured soul, she extended a hand. “Come,” she said with a smile. “It’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“You’ll see. Please don’t try to run. Stand up and I’ll show you.”

[Todd_McCloud]

“Ikrisia Levinile. Number twelve. Welcome.”

Ikrisia shielded her eyes as a light switched on. She had been walking in dim lantern light with Xa up until that point. Her eyes eventually adjusted, revealing an older vulpine male sitting atop what appeared to be a judge’s podium. “Who are you? Where am I?” She turned to Xa, feeling betrayed as a look of anger shined in her eyes. She reached for the pistol in her coat.

“I’ve waited so long for this day child. You don’t know who I am because I never interacted with your group. Instead, I merely gave orders to those who did.”

“That’s impossible!” she shouted. “We killed you all. I remember doing it.”

“You killed the scientists. But scientist is a misnomer. We couldn’t trust scientists. We had to find people who could do whatever was asked of them for fear of retribution. Consequently, we combed mental institutions within Vekaiyu to look for the right type of people. I believe we called them “stable but insane”. Those people who interacted with you were probably more mentally damaged than some of your contemporaries claimed to be in all honesty.”

Ikrisia stepped forward, leaving Xa behind her. “You’re lying.”

“What do I gain by lying to you? This is it, Number Twelve. The curtain is coming down.”

“So those people we killed were only acting on orders?”

He nodded. “Drones basically, working in fear. Fear is such a powerful emotion. We gave them instructions on what to do each day, prepped them for all scenarios we could think would come up, which we later learned wasn’t enough. But they caught on fast. Really, they were the experiment that preceded yours. Had we not been able to find the right types of people for the job, there would be no you.”

“You don’t determine my existence!”

“Don’t I? Yes I didn’t create your physical body if that’s what you’re alluding to. But I created your mind.”

“You’ve created no part of me!” Ikrisia looked around the premises for a way out, but the lack of light made such a search fruitless. “I’m this close to annihilating you right now. What gave you the right to do this to us? You took me from my family you bastard!”

“If it wouldn’t have been you, it would have been someone else. Would you rather someone had taken your place?”

Ikrisia furrowed her brow. Seventeen year she spent in this institution, day in and day out being subjected to their whims and choices. There was no sense of comfort or hope within these walls of metal and plastic. “No. No I wouldn’t.” She looked up at him. “Something doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t you and your group interact with us? Cowardice?”

“We were aware of your capabilities if the experiment would have been successful. You would kill those who interacted with you. But, we also assumed you’d come back. You’d come back because you couldn’t fit into the world being what you were: a misfit. In reality, however, you were set to reach your fullest potentials. Your prognosis has already been confirmed by one of your own.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked.

“Todd Leyuski. Number Five. He was the only one among your group that was the real guinea pig, created for the purpose of seeing just how well one of you would respond to the final phase. We chose him for his strength and response to the treatment: if he didn’t make it, the experiment would have been a wash. I won’t get into too much detail but essentially…”

Ikrisia zoned out. Leyuski. Was this why he was different? Ikrisia blinked as an old memory was exhumed from deep within her subconscious. Sleeping was always an escape from the agony of daytime excursions. It was raining – the two windows in the back of the room flashed on occasion as lightning receded the darkness within the forested nothingness for a few seconds. Rain fell from the sky and onto the windows; quite similar to what was happening on Ikrisia’s face, tears rolling down her cheeks already stung from rubbing the palms of her hands against them. A day of being separated from the group to perform some kind of task… write on paper using only her mind? Was that it? Could she actually do that at one point? It didn’t matter – she didn’t do the task on that day and she was purified for her lack of skill. But crying, crying was the worst of all emotions. The ultimate display of weakness. She couldn’t control it. She was just a kid and couldn’t understand why such things were happening to her. As she reached over to dry more tears, a hand stopped her. She looked up and realized the child next to her had grabbed it. He managed to crack a smile, not out of humor, but more to try and comfort her. It worked. Somehow it worked. He had a way of doing that, of giving her hope when all seemed lost, of being that one person in her life which gave her the strength to press on.

Had he not been there then, she figured she would not be here today.

“…It was Venavle who was notified of the possibility of an inter-dimensional being. We didn’t know how he obtained such a technology, but he claimed to have invented it. We honestly didn’t know what would happen if we advanced one of you.”

“I thought we were supposed to become super soldiers,” Ikrisia retorted.

“That’s the extent of your knowledge my dear. Supersoldiers you were, but that wasn’t the main goal of the operation. I’d consider it more or less a test to see how well you all were progressing.”

“Lis died! I lost my arms! We did… horrible things to people. All for a freaking test?!”

“You are a test subject, Number Twelve. One sacrifice in a nation of hundreds of millions.”

“Look I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Ikrisia pulled her pistol from the inner pocket of her coat. She aimed at the old vulpine male but before she could shoot other lights in the room flickered on. A simple dart of the eyes was all it took for her to break concentration as curiosity got the best of her. Her heart sank.

“Behold, Number Twelve. The others.”

[Todd_McCloud]

Ikrisia lowered her gun and looked around her as lights successively turned on. Each flickering light revealed a particular figure, a person from the project. Once the lights had all turned on and reached steady state, paused to look around her. The ten surviving members of the project flanked her left and right, all dressed in the same white robe Xa had on. They all stood defiantly and proudly, making her feel inferior in light of their numbers.

“Visent Lemiah. Number Four. Politician.”

“Vanse Iliosku. Number Eight. Priest in training.”

“Lso Ekvert. Number Fourteen. Biochemist.”

Ikrisia watched as the group recited their name, number, and occupation one by one. Most of these people she hadn’t seen since that night when they had finally decided to break up and attempt to live separate lives. That night was difficult for her. Some had lives tied to the government and couldn’t totally escape. Ikrisia and Leyuski were one of them. While she wanted to stay with him, he wouldn’t let her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. A final smile was all she needed in order to realize why she needed to go her own way. She had to carver her own path, believe in herself, and use the tools she had been given.

“Visela Elestri. Number Twenty. Marine Engineer.”

The memories and the faces from her past were almost too much to take in. “But why?” she finally asked. “Why are they all here? What’s this ‘main goal’ you spoke of earlier?”

“Why do you think we called this Project Uveshk, Number Twelve?”

Ikrisia knew what the Uveshk meant. In Unonian the word translated to amen, or may it be so. But the reason for giving a project thatname had never been understood by her. She shook her head. “No.”

“You twelve survivors shall begin the final phase of treatment, which should only take roughly forty-eight hours. Once it is completed, as unusual as it may sound, you will become inter-dimensional beings, much like what Leyuski had become. Angels, if you want to put some symbolism to this new form of life.”

“But that isn’t what an angel is…” Ikrisia replied skeptically. “You’re insane to think any of this would work.” She looked around and noticed no one else was even the least bit concerned with what had just been spoken by the older vulpine male. “You’re all nuts!”

“It’s evolution,” the old vulpine replied. “Growing into something more advanced than what we were before. If they are successful, all of Vulpine kind could in time be advanced to become those beings. Imagine being able to transcend to different dimensions, different times, and different places, no longer bound to the limitations of the flesh. You wouldn’t stand in the way of evolution and the betterment of vulpine kind, would you?”

“We’re playing God here!” she shouted, hoping to get the priest-in-training’s attention, but he did not waver. “Plus we haven’t had any contact from Leyuski!”

“We have.”

“And what is it? I want to see him, hear him, and know what he has to comment!”

“You will soon enough, Number Twelve.”

“My name is Ikrisia Levinile! You’re not going to get away with this. The church will go against it. We will lose our identity as a species! This isn’t what we fought so hard for, to become lab rats in your crazy little experiments! Haven’t you caused enough pain?”

He sighed and shifted in his seat. “So predictable you are, Number Twelve. I tried to give you a chance to redeem yourself, but it is clear to me that your personality problems will continue to cause friction. Therefore, your invitation into this new experiment has been rescinded.”

Ikrisia nodded, trying to hide the fact that she wanted to bolt immediately out of the facility and call a bombing raid to flatten the entire area. “Very well,” she replied calmly. “I’ll take my leave then.”

“You’re not permitted to leave, Number Twelve. Another experiment has been saved for you. I and the other nine scientists don’t believe in putting all our eggs in one basket. We’re interested to see if the vulpine race could evolve into other outlets. Flying, space, even living under intense pressure. Unfortunately we don’t have the means to test those scenarios. Except for one.” Another light switched on, revealing a large tank of water. “Underwater.”

Ikrisia arched an eyebrow and studied the tank. It appeared to be quite large, but of course, it was just a tank. “Okay, now you’re really nuts. I can tell you the conclusion before I’d even get in there. I’ll drown.”

“As you are now. You’re going to pioneer living underwater. We have developed an apparatus that will convert water to oxygen through electrolysis while at the same time scrubbing the created air and adding in nitrogen, thus giving you a more typical breathing environment. The efficiency of the device is high and small enough to wear like a regular diving tank. You’ll be the one to test tolerance. It is unknown how long a vulpine can live underwater. The device should allow you to live indefinitely – even nutrients will be provided that can be fed into the device. But how long can you be in such an environment mentally? Emotionally? We will monitor this.”

Ikrisia’s expression only became more perplexed as the man continued to talk. Up until this point she had never been able to understand why diving was always comforting to her. She remembered swimming as a child with the other subjects during activity, but remembered that she always spent time underwater. The reason why was simple: she could be her own person. No scientists could watch her – they were watching the surface from another room, taking notes. She was free, unrestricted and totally allowed to be herself. She could hide and let her mind collect its thoughts as she tried to cling to her identity. She could release bottled up emotions and leave them to the water behind her when she surfaced. As she watched the water levels in the tank disturbed in the back by some pump, she realized that the comfort had been there for her for a very long time.

“You can’t do this,” she finally replied. “You don’t understand…” Ikrisia closed her mouth. She wasn’t willing to divulge the fact that diving had become one of her more pleasant pastimes. “I’m finished talking!” She raised her pistol and quickly fired three shots into the direction of the podium, but she couldn’t see if she hit or missed the vulpine male. Not wanting to stick around to find out, she turned around and bolted to the exit. Each step drew her closer to freedom, closer to escaping the horrible facility and back above ground, back to her new life. As soon as she reached the entrance to the hallway, she was grabbed by a group of people wearing white labcoats. She began to fight them off as clearly they were no match for her, but it was enough of a stall to allow the test subjects to latch onto her, bringing her down quickly.

“No! Get off me! Let me go, you need to let me go!” Ikrisia tried to fight them off but she could only watch as one of the scientists injected her with some kind of fluid. She continued to fight but became exponentially tired. “Listen to me,” she spoke before passing out.

[Todd_McCloud]

“Ugh. What the hell happened?”

She half-expected herself to wake up back in Eldura to another morning of the typical sights and sounds of the city below. The events from… however long she was out… were just too surreal for her to really analyze or make sense of. Were they really going to try and ‘evolve’? How? She probably should’ve paid attention to that part instead of zoning out. But none of that mattered anymore. She blinked her eyes and noticed she was in a dimly-lit metal room with a single door to her left. She was dressed in a white gown much like the others were, but she had a garment on underneath. Grimacing, she pulled the neck of the gown down to view a white torso-covering suit of neoprene with, upon feeling it, a zipper down the back. “Heh. This must be what they’re expecting me to wear.”

Ikrisia moved backwards and laid on the concrete floor. “Oh God. Is this what I was supposed to be? The biggest disappointment in Vekaiyun history? So much for trying to better my people. Now they’re going to lose themselves and I’ll be swimming in some stupid tank.” She laughed. “At least I’ll get front-row seats. You believe this? Eh? All this work, all the effort and blood and tears. For this. What the heck did all of this mean? How does it end like this?” She shut her eyes in frustration. Upon opening them, she sighed and stared at the fluorescent lights above her. “Well, at least I’ll have enough time to think about it. I think.”

Her ears perked up. There was something making a noise in the room she was in. Turning to her right, she deduced the clamor was from the shadowed area in the far corner of the room. “Hello?” She paused to see if whatever it was would answer back. Nothing. “Great. I’m going crazy now. Crazier. Probably best to lose my mind anyway.”

“Djrrrrrrr.”

She turned her head back to the right. Rather than play games with the voice in the far corner, she decided to investigate. Ikrisia rose and crawled over to the shadowed area. The unnatural growl was a little unsettling, but the inevitability of her fate removed any lack of care or concern for her own well being.

“You!”

She darted a hand out into the darkness and grabbed what felt like an emaciated furred hand. Pulling her hand back, she arched an eyebrow as another memory came back into the forefront of her mind. It was nighttime again, but this time there was no rain tapping at the window of their large bedroom. They were older too – old enough to where she had her new arms. But even with their age considered, to be caught out of their bed during sleeping hours was risking being subjected to punishment in the morning. She looked over to her right and laying next to her was Leyuski. She wasn’t afraid or nervous, but instead was comforted and calm. Even though their minds had been lacerated and abused by the treatments they underwent day in and day out, their natural instincts could not be removed. The desire to be close, to be together and comforted by someone of the opposite sex, couldn’t completely be removed. They both somehow knew those things despite any care or concern given to such feelings in teachings past. But more than that, they both seemed to know it was good.

“I know it’s you. Please. Step into the light. I don’t know how much time I have left in this room. But I want to see you before I go.”

She scooted backwards as a disturbance in the corner of the room prompted her to bend her ears back in anticipation. When the figure revealed itself, she didn’t cower in fear. Instead, she vomited. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and the unusual appearance of the figure before was too much to take all in at once. A skeleton coated with flesh and fur knelt down to where she was sitting. Through the rib cage she could see organs covered in some kind of spider webbed tissue glistening in the lighting above them. Raising her view to the face, she noted it had no eyes – just dark portals that she somehow believed could see. A tongue was not present in the mouth, and its lips looked spiny, almost as if tiny construction workers had been setting up the frame for the body part the night before. Its ears and tail resembled that of a vulpine, at least, but the skin looked uneven, like a child’s crude science fair project gone horribly wrong. It was a ghastly sight.

“Oh… Todd. What have they done to you?”

She couldn’t understand how, but she felt as if she was interacting with the figure before her. Tears began rolling down her face. It reached out and touched her hand, rubbing it much like she remembered from nights long ago where she cried herself to sleep. Suddenly she understood what had happened, almost as if the thoughts were transferred over to her by the touch alone. He had been trying to come back to their realm, but, being another entity, he couldn’t. So he began building himself. Having no knowledge or skill on reforming a terrestrial body based on the skills he had been given since the change, he couldn’t re-create his old form. This was the best he could do in one year’s time.

“I’m so sorry,” Ikrisia sobbed. “This was all my fault. All I do is make mistakes. You did everything right, Todd. I looked up to you… you were, you were, I loved you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She rubbed her eyes as her ears bent back. She was too ashamed of herself to look back at him.

“Djrrrrrrr.”

The ominous noise was enough to cause her to look up. It was hard to tell with any degree of certainty the emotions transpiring in the creature in front of her, but the body language was enough to suggest pain. Maybe not physical pain, but definitely emotional pain. “What am I doing?” she finally spoke. “You’ve always been there to comfort me, to keep me going on, to keep me on my feet and survive another day. I’ve always been so needy. Always taking. And now when you need my help, I don’t know what to do. I know you’re scared, I know you’re lonely. But I don’t know what to do!” She looked up at him, into his eyes devoid of any light. “I don’t care what you look like. You’re still you.” Closing her eyes, she leaned over and kissed him on his incomplete lips. As she pulled away she felt some of his tissue tear. “Sorry for that… too.” She looked down, then grabbed his hand and rubbed it in a familiar manner.

After some time had passed, Ikrisia’s concerns began to grow within her. Those concerns began to creep onto her face, and it became visibly clear they were bothering her. “Todd, they’re planning on sending more of us over to where you are, to make inter dimensional beings like yourself. I don’t know what to do. I know in your present shape there’s not much you can do either, but you know more about this than I do. I just figured you should know.” Ikrisia sighed. “I’m sorry. Look I won’t be joining you wherever you are. I’m kind of a part of another experiment. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but whatever happens, I won’t forget you. I just wish I could’ve done something with the time you gave me instead of… well, this.”

She continued to interact with the figure in front of her. “Yeah. If I somehow get out of this, I’ll do the best I can for our nation. You know I’m the Premier now? And I haven’t gotten the nation blown up yet!” She cracked a smile. Suddenly the door’s handle began to twist. Someone was coming in. “I guess this is where I get off.” She watched as he began to recede into the darkness. “It was nice seeing you again.”

[Todd_McCloud]

Ikrisia was led into the room she had been in earlier, which still featured a podium, lined lights, and tank of water. Flanked by two of the other test subjects, her face remained impassive as she walked barefoot on the tiled floor. The room opened up, the familiar hum of the fluorescent lights providing some kind of noise. New devices, odd devices, now lined the sides of the large room. It was hard to tell what they were for but she assumed they were probably used for their advancement into a new form of life. The whole concept was still surreal to her. Was this what they had been experimented on for? All those years to become an interdimensional being? It all didn’t make sense.

Whatever they’d become, it didn’t seem to add up. If Leyuski was enjoying himself, why would he attach himself to a malformed and disfigured body? If he could really transcend over time and dimensions, why would he choose to remain in the room she was in only minutes ago, in pain and apparently lonely? There was something missing, something that was obviously being hidden from view, hidden out of sight. But did the others know that? She half expected them to. As some of them approached said devices, a look of ecstasy was clearly visible on their faces. One even appeared to be helping a scientist set something up on the machine. And yet, despite being against such a concept, she couldn’t help to feel like she was missing out on it. Spending eighteen years of one’s life to reach a goal only to miss it in the last leg of the final lap had to be at least a little disconcerting.

At least she’d get to see how it worked.

Upon approaching the tank, she was positioned with her back against the lexan glass. Judging from glancing at the side profile she reckoned it had to be around 20 centimeters thick. What were they planning, an explosion? The apocalypse? The two other project members moved her forward and started to lift the gown off her.

“Stop it, stop it! I can do it myself.” Ikrisia removed the gown with ease, revealing her suit beneath the garment. Her compliance was impeccable. She even lifted her legs one at a time as they attached white fins to her feet, almost aiding them in their process as a scientist looked on. Where was her drive? What happened to her will to fight and stand up for something? Grimacing, she had resigned herself to the belief that the situation was hopeless. Hope. Hope? Suddenly something became clear to her. While their life experiences had been different, she and the others still spent eighteen years together. Consequently, she was aware of at least their past pitfalls and fears. She shook her head as one of them put a swim mask over her eyes, and she moved it out of the way, holding it in her hands.

“You all are making a terrible mistake,” she said as the others turned to view her. It wasn’t out of respect, however – it was more or less a halfhearted attempt at listening to the last words of one of their fallen colleagues. She had to look fairly silly given her current attire, but they nevertheless gave her the courtesy of having the floor. “When you become these beings, you will no longer be vulpine. And if we are to become different beings, why did we have to spend years protecting the vulpine race and fighting in countless battles for those people? Our people. We experienced pain and torture for their benefit, to protect and serve our kind. And now they realize we’ve become too powerful. They want to change us into different beings to regain control. Have any of you spoken to Leyuski? Seen him? They hope we fall for it because they know they went too far and we are outside of their control. Don’t you see it? You won’t be vulpine after this. You’ll become whatever they want you to become!” She watched as she began to get the attention of some of the project members in the room. “Oh sure they tell you what you have to do, expecting you to be like sheep and follow them to the slaughterhouse. Are you sheep or are you vulpine? Machines? Or do you have a brain and realize they’re only trying to control us? We fought to live free lives from these scientists, and now you want to be enslaved?”

It was clear from the vacant stares and concerned expressions of everyone in the room that no one knew what to do. Ikrisia moved her mask to her forehead, tired of holding it, and leaned on the wall of the tank. “Look at what they’re trying to do to me. They know I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to fight, so they want to separate me from the rest of you. So what’s it going to be? Let them go back to controlling your lives and freedom, or making a stand and win back your freedom once and for all?”

“This isn’t about control,” one of the scientists retorted. “This is about the advancement of the vulpine race and finishing what you all have gone through as a group. You were removed from the project due to your lack of understanding, Number Twelve.”

“Wait,” Vanse Iliosku, the priest-in-training project member spoke, “I don’t know if I believe that. And is this in-line with what the Almighty wants us to do? Are we supposed to be doing this?”

“The Almighty speaks harshly against wasting talents,” another scientist remarked as he multitasked by inputting numbers into the machine next to him. “If we have the talents and the means, isn’t it sinful to waste such things?”

“I can’t do this,” Visela Elestri said after interrupting herself to allow for the others to speak. “I can’t separate us like this.” She looked at Ikrisia. “I want us to stick together. I had to watch Lis die and-”

“I just want this nightmare to be over!” Visent Lemiah shouted. “Do it! Do it now, I’m tired of waiting!”

“I say we cut any of the others who don’t want to advance,” Lso Ekvert added. “They’ll just complicate things. I want to be the first to feel this new experience!”

“They’re trying to control us! We need to remain vulpine, like what she said!”

“I will be the first!”

“No, it is my destiny and my duty as the strongest surviving project member to be the first to advance!”

“No, we can’t do this! The Almighty will forbid it!”

A group of 2-3 scientists congregated as the group erupted into chaos, everyone trying to shout over the other. Finally, one of them waved over to a corner of the room as another scientist came moving to the front. Following behind him were a group of what appeared to be security personnel holding impressive guns.

“Enough!” a labcoat-clad vulpine shouted. “There will be no more disruptions!” He turned to one of the guards. “You there! Take those two and move them behind the tank. We’ll do this in phases – the willing first, then the rest. And as for you,” he said, looking at Ikrisia, who had stood by, watching the developments with her arms crossed against her chest, “get into that tank and not another outburst or I will order them to fire on you!”

Ikrisia watched as the soldiers moved to secure the area and establish a perimeter around the large room. She blinked as the mask was pushed back over her eyes and the breathing device – a glossy white cylinder about the size of a common diving tank – was strapped on her back. “This will never work! You’re enslaving all of-” She ceased talking when a mouthpiece was shoved into her mouth. Her gaze was cold as she looked at the others in the room. They had the capacity to change the situation, but they didn’t. Then again, so did she. As she looked out to the room in front of her, she noticed at least half a dozen weapons were pointed at her. The window had closed. She had failed.

Upon being instructed to do so, Ikrisia walked albeit clumsily up a cascade of stairs to the top of the tank. Once at the top, she maintained her glare as she leaned over the edge of top door and slid herself in. Her anger gave way to hopelessness as she viewed the grounds from behind Lexan glass. She only had a moment to watch as one of the others closed the door behind her.

[Todd_McCloud]

There wasn’t much else Ikrisia could do but watch. Despite being behind the Lexan Plexiglas, her large ears allowed her to still be privy to what was going on around her. Ikrisia turned around and put her hands against the glass. She looked at the two who sat behind the tank, trying to somehow communicate to them to find some way to get her out. If they could get her out, they’d maybe have enough strength to at least escape and maybe take another one with them. But all they did was stare back at her and glance at the security personnel standing right next to them. Just how defeated were they? It was only one guard. They could use her tank as a shield and maybe get some kind of a battle going if they overpowered the guard and took his weapon.

She sighed. Her control of her buoyancy allowed her to sink to the bottom as she twisted around to view the show in front of her. Something was happening. As she moved closer to the front by propelling herself with her fins, she could see one of them – it looked like Lso Ekvert – was going to be the first to use the device. She tried to steady her breathing and listen in on what they were doing.

“This is a marked day,” one of the scientists said as they hooked a few wires up to Lso. It was really hard to tell from her distance what the device was actually doing, but judging from the lights along the sides of it, it was definitely doing something. “We’ve waited twenty-five years for this day to be exact, longer than you all have been alive.” The pride was bubbling from the thin collar of his labcoat as a fellow fanatical scientist began inputting a series of commands into the device. “Now remember, Number 14, when you cross over, use the translator to relay your success.”

“I concur,” he replied. He was definitely eager in anticipation.

Just how was this all going to work? Ikrisia tried to focus in on the device, which seemed about as tall as he was, but the glare from her swim mask caused by the lights above made viewing anything difficult. Swimming over to the left, then up a bit, she could finally get a good picture of what was going on. The device resembled a futuristic doorframe, the sides of the frame blinking while one side has an interface for the operator to control. Straps – either Velcro, maybe metal, were attached to his wrists and ankles. It all looked like something out of an updated Frankenstein remake, but unlike the movies it was all very real.

“Now, Number 14, close your eyes and count backwards from ten.”

Ikrisia watched as the test subject began his numerical descent. A smile beamed from his face as each second drew him closer to the inevitable. Nothing could move Ikrisia from the anticipation. After all, of everyone in the room she probably knew the least about the device and its capabilities. Would he just fade and become invisible? Would he float then diffuse into the air around him? Or would he just fall limp and take on a new form altogether?

“It’s working!” he exclaimed after a brief pause. “It’s working!”

Ikrisia watched as his body appeared to be doing something. It looked as if he was fading, much like Leyuski did when he ‘passed’ after Ivalsa had been killed. She held her breath so errant bubbles wouldn’t obstruct her view. More and more he began to fade, but it was very slow. Suddenly another change looked to be transpiring. She watched and noticed his body was getting older too. Much older, at a rapid pace. Peoples’ faces went from child-like awe to fear and concern as his body began to deteriorate amidst his cries for rapture and rescue.

Ikrisia gasped and moved to the back of the tank. Body parts began to fall off him at an accelerated rate. Tail first, then ears. Fingernails followed suit, and eyes evaporated. He continued to scream, the otherworldly tones ringing in her ears. As his jaw deteriorated and fell off, something came out of his mouth. It looked white and wispy, but whatever it was caused his body to sigh and become lifeless. As one of the scientists attempted to discern what it was, the machine zapped it like a loose bolt of lightning. A puff of fire signified it was gone.

What was once a quiet room quickly became filled with pandemonium. Shouts and worried murmurs were all around.

“He deteriorated… into nothingness!” Visent Lemiah said above the confusion. “This wasn’t the procedure that you outlined to us prior to today!”

“Calm down, calm down!” one of the old scientists warned. “Obviously there is something wrong. We’ve never experienced something like this before.”

“Well, where is he?”

Two of the scientists discussing with each other were joined by a third who quickly began to heat up the conversation, waving his arms about and throwing his pen across the room. Finally, one of them turned to face the crowd. “It’s only a slight accident. He must have been transported to another dimension… we think. We’ll make a few more adjustments and be ready in a few minutes.” He smiled and clasped his hands together. “Now, which one of you would like to go next?”

No one spoke up, until Visent arched an eyebrow. “Why don’t you go first, sir? Surely if the machine is safe, you would be willing to try it out.”

“I am only but an old man,” he replied. “I haven’t the training or skills… required to… last in such a journey.”

“Last? You mean survive. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you?” He paced around one of them, a demented glare emanating from his eyes. “We’ve become guinea pigs, as Ikrisia said earlier. Too powerful to control, so you are killing us off one-by-one in the hopes of erasing a bad experiment!”

“Why would we do that?” another scientist remarked. “That’s just conspiracy talk. You all think we’re dumb enough to ruin three years of planning and twenty two years of experimentation just because we think we’ve lost control? How short-sighted! Didn’t you hear what he said? He said it was an accident. Hear that? Ac-ci-dent. That means it was unexpected.”

“Unexpected, maybe,” another one chimed in. “But purposeful. You knew what you were doing – you did this with Todd and we’ve heard him speak about the new life. You’ve had twenty-five years to prepare for this, as you said. You did this knowing full-well what would happen!”

Ikrisia furrowed her brow. Leyuski couldn’t speak. He didn’t even have a tongue. That was how they were convincing them – as long as they didn’t see what had become of Leyuski, they could easily fabricate anything about him. Would they be gullible enough to believe in such a thing? It probably was more involved than what she was making it out to be, but she wouldn’t put it past them. It still didn’t explain what happened to Lso though.

“I told you already, we’ll get the device back on-line and commence with another transition momentarily!”

Visent shook his head. “No!” he said as he punched the interface, causing the electronic workings to spark and cease operation. “You will figure out what happened to Lso and you will ensure that machine is flawless before we agree to working with it again!”

Another scientist shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that. All those codes will have to be re-inputted all over again!”

“So? Then do it! Maybe this time you will be extra careful with them!”

“Or type them in again and send another one of us to hell…”

“I’m through playing these games,” another scientist remarked. “Twenty five years of research won’t be ruined on my watch. We did this once, we can do it again! Separate them and lock them up! We’ll take them as we need them!”

The guards went into action as the others came at both them and the scientists. Test subjects mixed with security personnel as some overcame the guards rather quickly while others were gunned down by a hail of bullets. Shots rang from every vantage point and blended in with screams and shouts. Richochets of projectiles were magnified in the water. Ikrisia shut her eyes and screamed, but upon opening them she noticed that the same glass that had kept her sealed in was now shielding her from the spray. She noticed some bullets had embedded in the thick Plexiglas and she began to catch her breath. She still wanted out, though.

Upon accepting the security of the Lexan, she pressed her hands against the glass and watched. No side looked to be winning, but everyone was engaged in combat it seemed. Suddenly, something caught her attention. A figure appeared to be walking toward the center of the room. Ikrisia knew in an instant it was Leyuski. She watched intently as others began to stop what they were doing and watch. Some were horrified, while others appeared to be more confused. The scientists meanwhile looked angered. Just as one reached out for him a dull light emanated from him. A loud unearthly thud echoed in the room.

Ikrisia gasped. Everyone in front of her fell to the ground lifeless. Even Leyuski dropped to the ground. In an instant, everyone seemed to be dead.

[Todd_McCloud]

Blinking her eyes, Ikrisia woke once again after being out for an undetermined amount of time. She raised her eyebrows once she noticed bubbles were rising above her, but a quick check of her obstructed mouth brought her back to her current situation. She sighed and shut her eyes. If everyone was dead, how will she get out? Who even knew where she was down here? For the first time in a long time, she felt like crying. At first she didn’t even notice it, but once the tears rolled down to the edge of her mask she felt the moisture rest against her skin behind the plastic. The last time she cried was in front of her father, how they finally were able to know with certainty they were father and daughter. She had been worried about him prior, but she could never quite understand why he chose to hide his emotions like he did. Months later, she realized that all he wanted to do was see her more. Spend more time with her. He was even willing to comply and relinquish control over his nation, a nation he spent twenty years to rebuild, all just to be closer to her. Maybe he couldn’t quite make out his emotions but it was clear his emotions dictated his actions. He missed her. He wanted to make up for lost time using the little time he had left.

She felt sick to her stomach as she turned on her side, gazing out to the dead bodies in front of her. She was so caught up in removing her past that she completely ignored her future. Now what would happen? He’d be heartbroken if he didn’t see her again. And knowing it would break his heart broke her heart in return. How could she have been so self-centered? Yes she had been without a father for twenty-two years of her life, but he had been without his daughter. It was always too convenient for her to think about herself because her pain was so intense, but she had been ignoring his pain too.

The skin below her eyes stung from the saltiness of her tears. She tried to pull the mask up but it didn’t move. This was definitely some strange gear. She had to get out. Suddenly, she moved her finned feet below her and kicked to the top of the tank where she proceeded to bang and scratch against the top door of the tank. She wanted nothing more than to escape and get back to the surface, to escape this nightmare and go back to being the Vekaiyun Premier. But her watery tomb didn’t budge. It was too thick and too strong. Screaming once again, she tried to remove her mouthpiece but it didn’t move from her mouth. Was this some kind of sick joke?

Defeated, Ikrisia floated to the bottom of the tank. Unable to view the dead in front of her anymore, she put her back to the front of the tank and looked at the view behind her. While her eyes were blurry with tears, she noticed something was moving. Upon blinking her eyes, she realized it was the two who were kept behind the tank when the scientists separated them initially. They were alive! The same Lexan sheets that protected her must have protected them!

Quickly, she swam to the back of the tank and began pounding on the wall. Nothing would stop her from pounding – they’d have to hear her somehow. One of them sprang into action, making eye contact with her and approaching the transparent wall that separated them.

“Ikrisia!” Visela Elestri replied. “You are okay?” She watched as Ikrisia nodded, then pointed to the top of the tank where the opening was. “You want me to get you out? Oh! Yes! Hang on!” She began to climb the stairs to the top as Ikrisia swam to the door. A quick unlocking was all Visela needed to do in order to pull the door open and help Ikrisia out of the tank. Ikrisia sprang from the water like she was resting on springs.

“You okay?” Visela asked again. She watched as Ikrisia tried to talk, but then stopped and began to pull at her mouthpiece. “Hang on, hang on.” Visela pulled out a key fob and held it against Ikrisia’s mouth as the breather loosened and was removed from her mouth with ease.

“What the heck?” Ikrisia said as she coughed. “Is this all necessary?”

Visela nodded and pulled her swim mask up. “Sorry. It’s experimental after all.”

“What did they have in mind when they designed this anyway?” She moved her legs out of the water and stretched.

“I designed this,” Visela exclaimed with a hint of pride. “I didn’t do it for them, though – I did it for our kind. Think about it. If it works, divers can spend an indefinite amount of time underwater. No more drowning. No more worrying about running out of air. Everyone – not just vulpines – could benefit from this.”

“Yeah, you just can’t remove it,” Ikrisia muttered.

“Not really. See the way the breathing system works is by a continuous system of air being circulated in the tank here. If a diver were to take out their regulator, it would break that system and potentially contaminate it. Get water in there, and it doesn’t work as efficiently. So I had this system put in place, especially because knowing you you’d try to rebel and get out of it. Good thing I did or I’d have to fish out a dead person, hm?”

“I guess. Well here, get these off.” She pointed to her fins.

“I think they suit you,” she said with a laugh. Upon noticing Ikrisia wasn’t willing to put light on the subject, Visela quickly unstrapped them and removed them from her feet. “You’re not the only one concerned with progress, Ikrisia. I’ve watched your speeches and seen your work. But it’s us, the real scientists, that are moving vulpine kind forward.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“It’s just that it conveniently falls into the wrong hands. Look around us, they-“

Ikrisia grabbed her hands to get her attention. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about this later,” she said with a smile, trying not to be too much of a jerk. “Right now I want to work on getting the hell out of here and removing this place from the map once and for all.”

Visela nodded. “We will have time to remove what’s valuable here, right?”

“What’s valuable here?” Ikrisia asked as she walked down the flight of stairs back to level ground.

“Knowledge,” Visela replied, grabbing what she could then followed her down. “The things that we accomplished, that we built and created.” She smiled. “That thing on your back there is worth more to me than its weight in gold. It would be a sin of the darkest kind to just leave it and allow it to be destroyed.”

“Wait.” Ikrisia sighed. “They will find out one day, won’t they?”

“Find out what?”

“Since I’ve escaped from this place I’ve wanted to distance myself as far as possible from my time here. I’m not proud of what happened here, or what we did. People will look at this and think we’ve become mindless drones from all the treatment we’ve had. But we aren’t that. We’re free-thinking individuals who are able to discern right from wrong. They won’t see it that way though.”

“How do you know that?” she paused as she glanced at Ikrisia’s facial expression. “I know. I… just don’t know if I can remove all that work. It’s not within my credo.”

“Is the value of the work worth risking it falling into the wrong hands? Do you really want to live long enough to find out another project was started based on the results they gleaned from us?”

Visela frowned. “There’s no other way, is there?”

It pained her to give the order to remove documentation from their past. She had come here with the intentions of doing just that, but after realizing how important it was to Visela, and her for that matter, it was hard to let go. Ikrisia nodded slowly. “You can keep anything that had nothing to do with our project, if you can carry it in your hands. The rest must be destroyed.” She placed a hand on Visela’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. But we can’t keep running. We’ve got to move on and live our lives as contributing members to our nation and our race.”

“Very well. I know where the records are. Living here for a while now has kind of given me a knack for where they keep their data.”

She nodded, then looked at the downed guard to her right. “Here,” Ikrisia said as she grabbed his gun and tossed it to her. “You’ll need this. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more people lurking around here. Meet in the cathedral in one hour. I won’t wait long for you – we’re already spending too much time here as it is.”

“Well then take this,” she said, handing Ikrisia the rest of her gear from before. “I’ll need my focus in order to destroy what I must and I’ll need time to get to the data. Just keep it safe, okay?”

“Affirmative. Do as I say. And be careful – I don’t think we’re alone down here.”

“If you and Vanse can work to smoke the rest of them out, that might afford us more time.”

Ikrisia paused. She had forgotten about Vanse. Looking behind her and past the tank she could discern his figure near the bodies. As Visela disappeared down a corridor to her left, Ikrisia moved to the right of the tank and walked over to the center of the room. She watched as Vanse Iliosku walked over the bodies in the room, staring at them in apparent shock. He reminded her of a priest she’d seen in a movie, where after the battle the man of the church would pull the barely living from the fray to administer last rights in a futile attempt to put to rest the few remaining souls clinging to life. The white robe might have made it a little more believable if it were brown, though.

“They’re all dead,” he replied softly, almost as if he was afraid to disturb the dead. “I don’t believe it. We knew these people for years and… gone. Just like that. I should’ve done something to keep them from this fate. I knew better.” He looked up at Ikrisia. “I knew better and I did nothing. What does that make me?”

Ikrisia stepped over the body of Xa and put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing we could have done.”

He reached over and hugged her. Ikrisia was a bit surprised to see such emotion coming from a member of her group, but she welcomed the embrace and hugged back.

“That thing took them,” he said. “It… just killed them all… like that!”

Ikrisia didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “I know.” She pushed him away slightly. “But there’s still you. And me. And Visela. We’re not… totally gone, you know?” She watched as he nodded slightly. “There’s still good we can do outside of here. We don’t need to live thinking what could have been. If we try to rise above what just happened here, we could honor them and their sacrifice.”

Vanse grimaced, then turned his lips up to a half-smile. “I guess you’re right.”

“Come. If we’re going to keep their legacies alive, we’ve got to get out of here in one piece.”

“Very well.”

She watched as Vanse stumbled over the dead, then picked up a gun from a fallen security personnel. He motioned to which hallway he was going to enter, which prompted a nod from Ikrisia. Now it was her turn to find a suitable weapon. Once the former test subject exited the room, Ikrisia was left to her own devices. She knew she’d catch up with him later, but he was right in hiding their numbers for the time being. As she bent down to pick up a gun, something grabbed her foot. She gasped and turned around. Immediately she noticed it was Leyuski – somehow he had survived the ordeal from before, perhaps because he most likely instigated it, but again, Ikrisia wasn’t an expert on his abilities or current condition. All that mattered was he was alive.

“Todd!” she whispered as she bent down. “You’re okay? Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of here. Just… well…” Ikrisia looked around. She could probably stuff the gear in a nearby bag, then put the gun over her shoulder, then put Leyuski’s body over her back… but with how delicate his inner organs appeared to be, it would be a struggle to put things lightly. Plus could she carry that much weight over a long distance? Probably not. “Can you walk?” She waited for a response, but there was none. Just a blank stare back up at her.

She knelt down to where he lay and beamed a hopeful smile. “Come on. We’re going to get out of here, all four of us. I don’t know how we’re going to fix you, but we will. We’ll get you back, I know we will. Just hold on a little longer.” Ikrisia wiped the tears from her eyes. “Please. I don’t care what happened to you. Or what you look like. You’re still you, and that’s all I care about.”

Without pause, Ikrisia reached over and attempted to grab the being and cradle it in her arms. Upon touching it, however, she was greeted with an odd sensation. She knew he was again trying to communicate with her. The expression she had on her face quickly changed from dimmed hope to defeat. Finally, she stopped. “I can’t,” she spoke. “I can’t just… I can’t. Don’t make me do this.”

When she looked down at him, she remembered all the times she had spent with him. The way he seemed to take her pain away and replace it with hope. The way he would comfort her and break up the thunderclouds of sadness in her life. The way he made her press on when all seemed lost. The good times and the bad times. How he saved her life so many times, refusing to work until she received new arms after having her old ones vaporized by a light tank all those years ago. How he was always there. Even when he was gone, he was still there. She could feel it. She could feel his warm hands on her shoulders as she cried on sleepless nights. She could feel his heartbeat when she was in her loneliest moments. She could see his smile in her darkest hours of despair.

Now all she could see was a blurred figure, faded by the tears resting in her eyes.

Ikrisia stood on her haunches, looking into his eyes devoid of light. She swallowed hard and knew she had to do what he had asked for. There was much she never understood about him, but she knew it was what he wanted. It would bring him peace, the type of peace he had given her through the years. Hopefully in another life they’d meet up again, and finally be free together.

She grabbed his hand and rubbed it against her cheek. Then, with her free hand, she pointed the gun to his head and shot him point blank as the blast echoed in the confines around them.

[Todd_McCloud]

Ikrisia bent low as she moved through the halls. Paired with another former test subject, Vanse, they slowly passed through the winding hallways of the confines, breaking into rooms and attempting to find any still among the living. Outside of a few skirmishes here and there, their searches were generally fruitless. Just some unarmed old scientists who looked to have been a part of the project judging by their presence in the underground facility alone.

It felt good to shoot again, to hone in on one’s own skills and take out those that once oppressed her and her group. She hadn’t been in a combat situation in quite some time, and while she hated to admit it, the thrill of eliminating an enemy force directly and physically was a distant echo of her childhood. She remembered spending months on foreign soil, ordered by a voice in her helmet on where to go, who to kill, when and where the next rendezvous point was, and pretty much on any other relevant information. Initially she had no idea whose voice it was that was giving the orders, but it would change from time to time. After the first few combat operations it was clear the voice on the other end was just as lost to their identity as they were. For one, he, sometimes she, would often address them as soldiers. Initially they were told they weren’t supposed to think of themselves as soldiers, but instead more like crusaders on a mission to remove injustice. Upon witnessing the atrocities committed by them early on, however, that message was abandoned and they were instead instructed to be “brush cleaners”, sent into the thickest parts of combat to thin enemy lines and take out areas of stubborn resistance.

Ikrisia couldn’t believe she listened to their drivel for so long, believing the vulpine race was to inherit the world and that those unlike her were weak and the evil and were to perish to make room for a new society. She hoped her partner realized the fallacy in such thinking too. Judging by his recent actions, he seemed to at least understand that their upbringing was wrong to a certain degree. She looked over to him as they stood against a wall, not uttering a word, completely immersed in the seriousness of the situation at hand. Some questions would need to be saved for later.

While viewpoints could be changed, skills were harder to remove. Despite not being as sharp as they once were, Ikrisia was still blessed with the abilities she fine-tuned as a child. As she was about to give the signal to continue, she instead stopped and held up a closed fist to signify to her partner to hold his position. Someone was coming.

Moments later, footsteps could be heard.

“Report,” someone spoke.

“Nothing to report, sir,” another voice replied. “Our search of the complex hasn’t turned up anyone, just a few more dead whitecoats.”

“It’s around here somewhere.”

“What happened here anyway?”

Ikrisia moved her ears in anticipation of the answer. “That is not of our business. The first task force came in and didn’t return to the point of rendezvous. Orders were to seal the doors and move in if they didn’t come back.”

“But sir, the one room?”

“Yeah,” another voice chimed in. “You saw what was there, right? A whole lotta dead guys all around the place! Task Force One was wiped out!”

“Lower your voice! Do you want to end up like them?”

“No, but it’s all strange. The skeleton in the middle, all those door machines peppered with bullets, the tank of water. Smells of something spooky if you ask me.”

“Aye, something was in there.”

“Supposin’ it escaped and climbed out?”

“Well that could explain why one looked half-eaten… listen I don’t want to be down here longer than I have to be. This is like a bad scary movie. I just want to finish this classified stuff and go home.”

“Oh man, you know it. I just want soup. Badly. Been craving it all day.”

“Soup? That’s a weird thing to want in May.”

“So?”

“Alright, alright. Meet up back in the church-looking room in five minutes like we agreed.”

“Over and out.”

As the group made its way down the hallway, Ikrisia turned to Vanse, who couldn’t help to smile a bit back at her. “What?” she said in a whisper.

“They think you’re the monster.”

“Yeah, if only they knew… We should probably go after them though. You know, thin their numbers.”

“Of course. We can cut them off if we head back from where we came from.”

“Lead on.”

Ikrisia followed Vanse as he made his way down the hall. She made certain to ensure they were both silent as they darted past corners and stuck to the shadows cast by the dimly-lit lights. She kept her backpack, which held the gear from before inside it, relatively quiet as she shirked the last corner and swung her gun around to get it over her back.

A final corner pitted them behind the three guards. They crept silently. Once they positioned themselves behind them, Ikrisia quickly sprung into action. Not wasting time for her partner, she crept up behind the nearest one and with a quick jab struck him at the base of his neck on his left using her index and middle finger. Before the man dropped dead, Vanse moved in and quickly snapped the right-flanking man’s neck.

By now the man leading the procession had turned around, his gun drawn and ready to fire on the two intruders. As soon as he laid eyes on the Vekaiyun Premier, she swung a left hook right into the man’s temple, cracking his skull and killing him instantly.

“Ohh, I forgot,” Vanse said as he moved the dead man aside. “Your arms.”

“Yeah,” she replied, shaking her hand off a bit.

“I thought they were metal?”

“Composite yeah. At least it didn’t break the skin.”

Vanse nodded, aware of the need to leave as little evidence as they could behind, just in case. “Allow me to administer them their last rights.”

“Very well. But we need to hurry, they’re going to the cathedral, remember? We’ve got to get there before Visela does.”

[Todd_McCloud]

They were camped out in the cavernous room of pews, statues, and lighted windows from the ceiling high above them. Going over the next approach amongst each other, they began to construct a map out of the partially-filled one they were given, drawing the extra passageways and attempting to discern how they all connected together. A flashlight in the middle to provide some luminescence, the team of nine security personnel began to divide their numbers in groups of three in preparation for the next search. If they could maintain their plan and keep a steady pace, they should be able to find what they were looking for, then go home and forget about the mess behind them.

They were almost ready to start combing the compound once again when the others arrived. When the last one met with the first two former test subjects, they quickly hatched their own plan. As soon as the guard carrying the flashlight stood up and put the device in his hand, an errant bullet struck the glass, destroying the LED inside it and extinguishing the light in one fell swoop. Bullets from three guns littered the area within, creating chaos for the nine as their numbers quickly began to diminish. First five fell. Then two when they darted across spots where the light cast down from above. Then a final one when he tried to throw the three assailants off by throwing a rock across the room in the hopes of getting them to reveal their changed locations by firing at the diversion. It didn’t work; they had been trained to avoid such mistakes, and instead used their hearing to listen for the rock leaving the guard’s hand, killing him instantly.

But they had missed one. When the initial gunfire occurred, one security personnel ran backwards despite knowing his chances of survival were greatly diminished as he increased his exposure to the line of fire. After being shot twice in the back, the fatally wounded man used the last of his strength to complete the final phase of his mission. Accepting defeat, he followed his worst-case scenario orders by setting off the charges at the entrance of the cathedral room, the great blast sounding like a chorus of fallen angels as the vaulted archway immediately fell upon him. The freed weight then shifted downward, sealing in the exit completely. The eighteen-strong chorus sung their dulcet tones as the statues lining the great room sagged and bowed. Realizing their purpose was over, they fell upon each other, crashing as the chorus came to a symphonic climax of cracked marble and crushed stone. When the dust settled, the room was covered in rubble.

“Well, there goes our exit,” Ikrisia said after standing down. She set her gun down and realized she had a bullet hole passing through the composite frame of her right hand. Her eyes were focused on the hole as she reached at some loose wireframe and began to pull at it, breaking a bit of it off to clear the wound a bit. It was only a small hole, but it was substantial enough to bleed well. She was surprised to notice it didn’t really hurt.

“Here,” Visela said as she tore off some of her robe. “Tie this tight. It’ll help stop the bleeding.”

As Ikrisia grabbed the cloth, she noticed Vanse had also been injured. A shot in the calf drenched the bottom left portion of his robe in crimson blood. He leaned over on the far wall of the hallway and held his leg as he tended to his wound.

“We’re not as good as we once were,” Ikrisia admitted after a while.

“Not too bad for being rusty,” Visela replied with a slight smile.

“Rust nothing,” Vanse added. “My brain’s not made of iron.”

“If you weren’t careful enough, your skull might need an iron plate in it by now,” Ikrisia said as she put a hand on his shoulder. That prompted a smile from Vanse, who nodded back at her.

“Come. There’s another exit. It’s kind of obscure but we can make it.”

Vanse and Ikrisia began to make their way down the hall, but noticed the third former test subject wasn’t following them. Visela stepped forward into the room, looking at what she could from the light that poured in from the windows above. “It’s so weird,” she said, “isn’t it? We spent hours here. Hours each day. All of us did. It’s all gone now. I guess… I guess you don’t realize what you miss when it’s gone. When they’re gone.”

Vanse stepped up to her and extended his hand. “At least we still have each other, right?”

She lifted her gaze to his, and grabbed his hand, stepping toward him. “Yeah. Us three. There are still three of us.”

“And none of us are going anywhere,” Ikrisia chimed in. “Except maybe out of here of course. But we’ll always have each other. And… as for them… they’ll always be with us. In spirit.”

Vanse smiled. “By the power of the Almighty vested within me, I hereby do proclaim that the spirits tortured within these walls shall be free! Release them from this stoned room and guide them to… to peace,” he said, his voice beginning to quiver. “May they now know… peace.”

Ikrisia smiled, blinking a tear out of her eye. “Uveshk,” she added. “May it be so.”

“Uveshk!” Visela exclaimed.

“Uveshk,” Vanse said after a small pause.

”Uveshk!”

[Todd_McCloud]

As the group of three carefully made their way through the passageways of the underground complex, they came upon an unmarked room. With Vanse leading the way, they stepped into the relatively plain room and encountered a stationary ladder which led to a hatch. Vanse climbed up the steps slowly, then upon reaching the hatch, turned the lock so the portal would open. A few clicks later and the exit was in sight. Sunlight from above poured into the room as he looked down at the two and smiled. Freedom was theirs.

“This is it,” he said, looking down at the two who smiled back at him.

Ikrisia and Visela set their weapons down as Vanse poked his head out of the hole, who placed his weapon on the ground in front of him so he could use both his arms to pull himself out. He put his hands on the lip of the hole and began to climb out.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. Ikrisia turned to Vanse, whose body was now slouched on the ladder, his torso keeping him from falling back into the room. She wanted to say something as she watched his body began to slip, but knew for their safety they mustn’t speak. Without uttering a word, she pointed to a gun as Visela grabbed it. She then motioned her to step back, just as something pushed Vanse’s body back into the room. It fell like a rag doll down to the ground, the side of his head greased in blood. Ikrisia hung her head. While she couldn’t see one side of his face, she did notice his one eye was open, staring into the light from above.

“You there,” a voice exclaimed. “Come out. Now.”

For a moment she thought about making a stand and attempting to lure the figure above into a fight, but until he was removed they would not escape the confines. Not wanting to give Visela’s cover away, Ikrisia gave a slight nod and climbed up the stairs. She wondered what awaited her above ground. Was it a collection of soldiers? Surely they’d be able to guess it was her and would realize their error. Perhaps it was another task force of security personnel? But that didn’t make sense based on what she heard the guards speak about earlier – they probably didn’t even know this exit even existed. It could’ve been more of the older scientists. Maybe they escaped knowing there was trouble about.

When Ikrisia reached the surface, she squinted her eyes and looked around. She quickly realized it was just one person. The first scientist that she met, the one who sat at the podium and sentenced her to her supposed fate, pointed a rather impressive looking pistol at her. Dried blood had stained a portion of his white hair.

“It’s you,” he exclaimed. “Get over here!” He waited as Ikrisia stepped out of the hole, then, with his gun still drawn, reached over at the hatch and closed it. “We’ll just keep anyone else you were with down there for the time being. Drop what you’re carrying.”

Ikrisia scowled at the man and did as she was told. She knew he was the orchestrator of all that had transpired. The source of all their pain and hurt culminated into one being, the vile man before her. All the torture, all the lies, all the anger and pain - it all originated from him. Because of him, at least twenty one lives were ruined. Because of him, her and those who endured with her as helpless test subjects were robbed of their childhoods, stolen from their parents, and fed a steady diet of hate and anger. She narrowed her eyes, staring at him with unparalleled intensity.

“You failed,” she said as her fists clenched. “The experiment is over. It dies today, and will always remain buried under the rubble beneath me.”

“You were a failure then, Number Twelve, and you’re a failure now. The ultimate trouble maker. The ultimate roadblock to vulpine progress.”

“Failure. You’re entire work is a failure.”

“I am not a failure!”

“Your twenty five years of work are meaningless. Every day you failed. And you will continue to fail. Failure. Failure.”

“Say that one more time and I’ll end you right now! What you did today is destroy what I had spent my entire life working on. And you took it! You took it from me you stupid, dumb… bitch!” He wiped the spit from his mouth. “At least… at least I’ll have the pleasure of taking you out. At least I’ll get to spend the rest of my life trying to make something out of it knowing one less worthless individual is roaming the world.”

“You’re a twisted old bastard of a failure aren’t you,” Ikrisia replied as she took a step closer. “How can you live with yourself knowing you ruined so many lives?”

“What are a few dozen lives to the progress of vulpine kind, Number Twelve? That’s something you never understood. And it’s a mistake you’ll take to the grave.”

“Your failures will follow you to the grave.”

As he raised his weapon, Ikrisia lunged and tackled the man to the ground. She gripped his left hand as the two of them wrestled for control of the gun. She did anything she could to gain the upper hand. First she raked her fingers across his face, causing him to wail in pain. She then tried to force the gun on himself, turning it slowly to face him. When she almost was ready to spring the trigger and end the fight once and for all, he started to laugh deviously. A split second distraction took her eyes off the weapon and onto his hand, which latched onto her arm and began to bend it back. She immediately loosened her grip as intense pain shot up her left arm to her elbow. Ikrisia winced and then groaned through her teeth as she inhaled. She slowly regained her composure just in time to notice he had stood up and was now looking down at her.

“How… the hell did you do that?”

He smiled as he pointed the gun to her temple. “Now why would I let two of my lab monkeys get composite arms and not myself? Kneel.” He watched as she slowly knelt, her ears bent back. “Who’s the failure now? Goodbye, Number Twelve.”

Ikrisia shut her eyes. She had come this far, for what? Only to be gunned down, robbed of a future just as he had robbed her past? Maybe she should reach up and grab his gun in a last-ditch effort to save herself. Yes. Perhaps one more go would do it.

She was too late. A gunshot echoed in the forested area. Ikrisia’s head bent down as she began to fall forward, slowly beginning to bow and hit the ground. A cascade of birds, startled by the sharp crack, lifted from the trees around them and rose to the sky.
Suddenly, Ikrisia’s arms stopped herself from the plunge. Looking up, she noticed the controller had a bullet wound directly in between his eyes. Blood gushed from the injury as he fell in a heap, his lifeless body lying on the steel embankment. She turned to her left and right, wondering what had happened, then checked herself to make sure she didn’t have another hole herself.

“Ain’t nobody fucking touches my daughter.”

She looked behind her and immediately noticed Stapen Evesuni, standing about four meters from her, his handgun still raised. With her ears still bent back, she stood and ran to him. Her arms wrapped around him in an embrace as he returned the gesture with a single hand, the other holding his weapon up. He then rubbed her back as she began to sob.

Ikrisia kept crying. She didn’t know what to say to him. She didn’t know if she wanted to say anything. Just having the warmth of another person, her father, was enough for the situation at hand.

He looked at her as she looked back at him, his old and wrinkled face affixed in a peculiar stare. “Where have you been?” he asked slowly.

Ikrisia wiped her tears with the palms of her hands. “Well I was going to the base when…” suddenly she looked up at him. She had to tell him the truth. The trouble was, she didn’t know where to begin.

He shook his head. “I don’t care. I just care that you’re safe.” He looked her up and down. “What are you doing in that?”

Ikrisia noticed she was still in her suit from before. “Oh this? Well, they were going to do an experiment to see how long I could live underwater… with this special gear that allows you to…” Suddenly she stopped. She looked at him. “How did you get here?”

“Asked your secretary where you were when you didn’t show up on Sunday. She wouldn’t tell me where you were so I had to search where your phone was.”

“You had a track on my phone?”

He smiled. “Would you rather I didn’t? Anyway I came down here and didn’t find you. I stayed in my car until a local noticed me and told me there’s been weird activity going on at this base. He said he saw someone else parked off the side of the road with a bullet in her head or something like that. So I drove down and circled the area without looking too suspicious. Couple hours later I heard what sounded like an explosion so I decided to walk around and figure out what was going on. When I found this,” he added, taking out her phone, “I knew something was wrong.”

“Well, I was about ready to grab his gun and overpower him,” she replied.

“Ah bullshit,” he said with a smirk. “I remember you at that one conference. You wouldn’t have done that. Don’t have it in you.”

Ikrisia immediately nabbed his gun and pointed it at his head. Then, she laughed. “Yeah I guess you’re right.”

“I know I’m not,” he said. “I heard some of the conversation before I could get a clear shot. One day you’re going to have to tell me about this. But right now I think I’ll take you home.”

Ikrisia nodded. “Hang on, let me get the gear…” she paused and remembered Visela was still underground. She held up a finger and walked over to the hatch, turning the opener. Opening it slowly, she noticed Visela sitting with her arms folded over her knees. She looked up into the light as Ikrisia held out her hand, and she slowly got up after grabbing her bag and began to walk up the ladder, getting to the surface with relative ease. When she emerged from the hole, she wrapped her arms around Ikrisia’s neck in a hug and wept bitterly.

Looking up, Ikrisia noticed her father again bore a peculiar look on his face, almost as if he was aware he could never quite understand what had transpired in that underground hole. “This is Visela. And this is-” Ikrisia looked back at Visela, then at her father. “This is Stapen Evesuni.”

Visela nodded. “Pleased to meet you Kivo Evesuni.”

“Likewise,” he replied as he raised a hand slightly.

Ikrisia made a solemn nod. “Did you get what you could?” she whispered into her ear.

Visela nodded. “I will show them to you in time. I also… found something we should take. Our combat suits. I believe they are still useable.”

Ikrisia furrowed her brow. She was about to reply when she noticed a hand appear from the exit to the underground complex. When she noticed it came with the sleeve to a while robe, her eyes widened. “Vanse?” She turned to her father upon hearing a noise and immediately ran to him, swatting his gun out of the way. “Wait!” Watching Visela run to attend to their injured partner, Ikrisia breathed a sigh of relief. It was hard to tell, but it appeared he had been shot in the eye as he was clutching the bloodied eye socket, an exit wound still exposed on the side of his head. She looked on as Visela tended to his wounds.

[Todd_McCloud]

---

“He going to be okay?”

Ikrisia nodded to her father as she stepped out of a well-lit hospital room. She closed the door. “Yeah, aside from losing an eye and about half his hearing in the one ear. But he’s alive.”

“Ah. That’s good.”

“Yeah.” She moved over to a seat in the empty waiting room as her father followed.

“There’s a lot I don’t know about you, isn’t there?”

She nodded. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you either.”

Evesuni scratched the back of his head apprehensively. “Is it bad?”

“Yeah, it is. What about you?”

“Aye. And I’m pretty sure you’d think differently of me if you knew some of the stuff I’ve done.”

Ikrisia looked at him. “You’re my father. I’ve wanted a dad for my whole life. Well, I just wanted someone to be there for me. I knew this guy… he was my whole world once.”

He smiled. “Going to find him?” He watched as her solemn expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” He grabbed her hands. “Listen. Look in my eyes. I want to get to know you more. I’m not the healthiest horse in the stable and I don’t know how much time I’ve got left here. But I’m not going to waste it. I spent over twenty years angry at the world for what they did to my wife and my daughter.”

“Dad, stop.” she felt his hand, feeling the wrinkles and the aged veins winding underneath the patched gray fur. “I’ve not been very cognizant of your feelings lately. I don’t know what you went through or how painful your journey in life has been. But I want to get to know you too. So we should work to remedy that.” She smiled slightly. “How’s Listonia been recently?”

Evesuni rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She laughed. “I’m only kidding.”

“How’s your hand?”

Ikrisia looked down at the bandage. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She watched as he chuckled. “Politics aside, we’ll figure out how to work all this out.”

“Good.” He let go of her hands and rested his forearms on his knees. “So what are you doing today?”

Ikrisia shrugged. “I’m still catching up on the paperwork I didn’t get to when I was away. But I plan on eating a bit in between work. And I might get tired of it and decide to go for a dive later today.”

“Ah. Suppose I’d have to watch then.”

“You could always learn,” she replied.

He shook his head and put a hand on his chest. “I’ve got one lung. Trying not to overwork it.”

“Okay then,” she said as she stood up. She began to walk out of the room.

“But let me know when you’re going to go today, if you do. Maybe you could convince me to stay on the surface.”

She laughed. “May it be so.”

“You mean ‘so be it’, right?”

Ikrisia paused. “Yeah. Yeah you’re right. So be it.”

((OOC: Huzzah it’s done. Had to tie up some loose ends with some characters and hopefully this thread helped to do that. Hope those who read this enjoyed it, because it was fun to write))