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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:15:12 GMT -5
The sound of screaming hastened Kit's ascent back to the entrance, spraying water, dirt and debris as he ran towards the faint haze of light at the end of the corridor. Cold flooded his veins as he burst into the sunlight, blinded by the brilliance of the afternoon sun, the scent of fresh blood reaching through the flare of light to clog his sense of smell.
The first-aid kit dropped to the ground by his side with a thud as he lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. There was a stillness in the air that seemed to have its hold on time, a stillness that felt calming. The grass brushed softly against his shoes, swishing with an innocent rustle as he walked over to the small band of humans.
Mythic blood mingled with human blood, the ground already drinking up any indication that the bloodshed had even taken place.
To Kit, there was a certain quality about the death of a young child. He had seen soldiers, men and women die by the hundreds. Civilians taken to the slaughter. Yet, of all the deaths he had seen, the girl's death was the most tranquil, as if disbelief in her death still strung her soul to her body, that she wasn't just dead, but asleep. And the old man would call her to wake, like Jesus called Jaruis' daughter to rise.
But the man was not Jesus. There was to be no raising.
He turned to Crystal, trying to comprehend what had happened. His mouth opened, wanting to ask, and then closed silently, not able to find the words. Turning away from the group, he walked over to the stream and took off his shirt, dipping the fabric into the cool water. Small streams of blood lifted off the shirt where he had bled into it, running their course down the river as he lifted it out and wrung it.
Taking the damp cloth, he wiped away the blood and dirt from the girl's face. As he finished his final service to the girl, he caught the gaze of the young man. Pain of every imaginable kind ran through that piercing look, a pain that begged for death. Death to bring him to his daughter.
A lump that couldn't be swallowed formed in Kit's throat as he tore his eyes away from the young man. He.. he couldn't. There had been enough death today, he couldn't do what he had done many times before. Not while the girl remained unburied.
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:16:30 GMT -5
Crystal tore her eyes away from Kit, gently sponging the girl's face with his shirt, and picked up the first aid kit he had brought, quietly. There simply were no words to be said.
She hastened to the girl's father. He was older than she was by several years, with matted blonde hair and tanned skin, perhaps in his thirties. He was awake now, staring unseeing at his daughter, and she turned his head to face her, very gently, trying to assess his injuries. Bad, but not as bad as all that. The Mythic's clawed foot had sunk into his thigh; painful, and it might possibly lame him, but not mortal. The injury to the kidney, that was the problem, and that would be completely up to his own body. But yes, she could do something for this man.
He moaned a little as she worked, body convulsing at the sparing amounts of iodine and alcohol she used, and as she tied bandages firmly about his stomach and thigh, he lolled once more, dozing into a fitful sleep. Crystal hoped, fervently, that he had not seen what his daughter had done, or how she had died. With luck, they might conceal it till the news could be broken to him gently.
The old man for his part, said nothing as she tended to his more minor injuries. Some deep cuts, many bruises, several broken bones where she was forced to lever her foot against the ground in order to forcibly pull back into place. It must have hurt him, but he still said nothing. She stared at the thin mouth buried in silver beard. Perhaps he was a mute. Or perhaps, with his eyes closed below his thick brows and his skin as fragile and blemished as most old people, he was engaged in something more spiritual than mere earthly pursuits. Either way, Crystal envied him. It must be wonderful to still be able to believe. She would ask him, later on, how he still could. Belief for her had a long time ago been washed away, pushed down, by the simple need to survive. She just hadn't had time to think about it.
Drawing a tired hand across her face smeared dirt onto her clean fingers. Irritated, Crystal proceeded once more to the stream, this time splashing the clear water on her face and neck as well. It was chill, and her fingers numbed as she raised some to her lips, but the feeling of cleanliness overrode the cold.
The Mythic's body still lay there, very close to her sleeping patient. Crystal pondered absently on its reaction to cold water, even as she checked the dwindling supplies in her precious first aid kit and made her way to the last of her companions. The afternoon sun was showing its first wavers of sinking into evening.
"Come on," she urged Kit. "Let me patch you up."
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:16:44 GMT -5
Kit sat himself down on the grass next to the girl's body, dropping his soaked shirt in a crumpled heap, grateful to Crystal for tending to the young man's wounds. Perhaps when he woke, he'd find the strength to keep living again. Pain, fatigue, and hunger slowly crept back into his body as the adrenaline dissipated from his system.
"Why are you still alive?" Kit asked the old man, his hands plucking at the grass underneath them. "Why?" he asked again, turning to look at the old man. Why won't you answer me? In a world where the will to live is a scarce commodity, Kit could only wonder if it was arrogance and pride, or perhaps a higher purpose that kept the man standing. Part of him wanted to know the man's secret, part of him wanted to kill the man for knowing the secret.
He got turned away from the old man as Crystal came around to tend to the man's wounds, shifting his gaze back to the dead girl again. What was her name? How much had she been through? Seeing her gently closed eyelids gave Kit a sense of calm, knowing that she was now beyond harm from life. Kit himself believed in a God and an afterlife, it was the only thing he had left to cling on to. He didn't have a Bible, but he knew the stories, and the stories kept his mind sound. God had allowed Israel to be sacked when they had turned from Him, and Kit held to the belief that this was just like that, except on a larger scale. That was the only explanation that he could come up with.
The girl deserved a funeral, he decided, and she would get one. She didn't bring her own death upon herself. It wasn't her fault.
Kit got up and stumbled back to the stream, ignoring the dead Mythic and kneeling before it to dip his mouth into the cool water to drink. The icy liquid tasted almost sweet and loosened his tongue and throat. He had only been away from the hideout for less than a week, and yet he still missed the cold water. He could only imagine what it was like to be cooped up in the Mythic farm with no proper food, water or hygiene. The only thing that could sustain humans in there was fear.
When he had drank his fill, he finally looked at the pale skin of the dead Mythic, feeling no remorse at its death. They weren't human. They were the enemy. That Mythic had killed the girl. It had deserved to die the moment it had done so.
Crystal's voice pulled the venom out of his thoughts, and he looked to her and sat up so she could tend to his injuries, too tired to protest for Crystal to tend to herself first. There were plenty more supplies back down in the hideout, they could afford to be lavish for one evening.
"Thanks for doing all this," Kit said softly to Crystal, "you're tougher than most soldiers out there."
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:17:10 GMT -5
She looked startled, even blushed a little at his comment. "Thanks," she said softly, reaching for his discarded shirt and carefully sponging away the dirt and caked blood on Kit's head. Sitting back on her heels, she looked at him carefully. Dark hair fell over the brown eyes of her only friend still alive. A massive bruise and matted hair marked the injury the Mythic had given him back at the farm, and Crystal hoped fervently it had not cracked the skull. But if it had, they probably would be dead. She reached up with the shirt, began carefully cleaning. "Thanks for saving me, Kit."
"We have to go back in. There's nothing out here." There was no razor, either, so she was unable to shave his hair in order to get to the spot, so she dripped iodine on it and wrapped it tightly, then tended to his other incidental cuts. She herself was only minorly injured, with several painful cuts on her feet from walking barefoot through the forest. She swathed them in bandages and got back on her knees gingerly, casting many apprehensive glances at the dark entrance to their hideout. Making her way to it, she peered inside, and shuddered just a little. "Father? Reverend father?"
She raised her voice a little.
"Hey! Reverend father!"
He seemed to start with the surprise of the very old and slightly deaf, and spoke for the first time. The voice was tired, quavering, and the fight seemed to have gone out of him. Only a very little of the pride remained. "What is it, daughter?" he asked her.
Crystal walked back to him, bent and spoke kindly. She didn't know who this old man was, but it was clear he had suffered almost as much as they had. "Kit and I have to go in, Father," she explained patiently. "We have no food, no supplies. We have to go in and get some."
"Well, then go," he said a little snappishly, but with more life than he had shown for the past half hour. "Who am I to stop you? You saved us. Take your supplies from your cave."
"Will you take care of him while we're gone, Father?"
"Stephen? Stephen. Yes. Yes, of course I will."
Crystal nudged a javelin over by his side with a foot, bent and scooped up another before turning a questioning gaze to Kit and walking away to haltingly venture into the ruins of their home. She hadn't gone two feet before she stopped, shivering in sudden fear. It was so dark. So black. So terribly, horribly like the farm. Old terrors caught up to her, ran their chill fingers down her spine. "Kit?" she said in a voice that trembled and squeaked just a little. Involuntarily, her hand groped for his. "Kit, stay with me, please."
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:17:18 GMT -5
"It's all right," Kit assured Crystal as he held her hand, clasping her fingers between his, "we'll be safe." Her hand was frigid and tense. He flicked on the small pen-light that he had found in the medical bay, the thin white beam illuminating a small circular patch through the darkness. Tightening his hold on Crystal's hand, he led her down the damp corridors of their hideout. At first, the light found only rubble. Fragments of concrete that had been torn loose by the savage attack that had taken everyone that lived here.
Then, the damage became more personal. Broken cups and notepads lay scattered across the floor in pools of stale water. A teddy bear. Kit stopped as the light chanced upon a picture frame, the faces smiling through the cracked glass. The people he had worked alongside. Whom he had pledged to protect. He remembered their faces, their voices. Now only two remained, and his pledge to protect still held true.
As the corridor widened, doors to private quarters lay twisted, half-open as Mythics tore them to get at the people who had hidden themselves within. He held the pen-light in his mouth as he grabbed hold of the closest door and forced it open, the rusted hinges snapping easily, allowing the door to fall out of its post with a sharp crumple.
The contents inside the room had remained untouched, oblivious to the carnage that lay just beyond the door that kept it safe. Paper was stacked up neatly on a desk beside a table lamp, to the side of the room, a simple bed was still made, its sheets tucked in, and in the far corner, the occupant's wardrobe.
Kit flicked the switch for the table lamp on, its bulb flickering to life, casting a dim white light onto the room. A small LED indicator on the side of the lamp flashed a red thirty, counting down the minutes left in the internal battery. The contents of the wardrobe were distinctly female, something Crystal could find relief in.
As he left Crystal to browse through the wardrobe, he turned his attention back to the pile of paper on the desk.
The paper on top of the pile was filled with neat handwriting:
Dear Paul,
I'm so glad to hear that you're fine. Our research has been going well, and we've been able to pinpoint the genetic origins of the aliens. It was as you suspected. The other girls and I plan to take a day off once we're done here, perhaps travel up the river to see how the new sanctuary is faring. I'll try to visit you soon.
Love, Angeline
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:18:07 GMT -5
They passed by the medical bay and the labs, and headed into the personal quarters, several passing corridors shut out by cave-ins, but all in all still sturdy.
Crystal shuddered. The darkness was oppressive, and a long-dwelling fear of the dark had not been helped by her experiences at the farm. She tried to stay close to Kit. His hand over hers was warm and dry and somehow very comforting, and she felt very dependent on him at that moment.
The he led her into a part of the underground network that had been relatively untouched, which Crystal recognized with a slight pang as the room of one of her coworkers. Angeline had been beautiful, blonde, dark-eyed and quite completely devoted to her husband, who lived on another hideout quite a ways up north. She had last spoken to Crystal with a sly smirk of her hope of pregnancy on the next trip up.
Fervently, Crystal hoped Angeline had escaped. Or died. Either would have been a mercy.
She looked, wearily, at Kit, who was reading Angeline's papers, and shoved it to one side. At one time, she would have reproached him for reading something that might have been hypothetical, and almost certainly was personal, but as she approached her friend's washstand and wardrobe, she felt nothing but a heavy weariness.
The washstand still had clear water in it – there were toilets, of course, but they were communal, due to the necessity of keeping the outside of their hideout looking as untouched by human life as possible, and many people preferred to keep small washstands in their rooms for convenience' sake. "Please don't look, Kit," she said simply, turning her back to him. She had no doubt he would not, and weariness overcame even her modesty – no doubt he had had his fill of her already in the farm – and as she opened the jacket, she simply discarded it on the ground, hurriedly sponging her body clean of grime. The water turned a dark brown and red colour, but it was a luxury she had never thought she would have again.
Crystal tried to be as quick as she could, but a glance over her shoulder told her that Kit was absorbed in reading some of the papers, and she snatched a few more moments to browse through Angeline's clothing. It was all a little simple for her taste – heaven forbid, Angeline being gaudy – but it served, and served well.
By the time he was done, Crystal was once again dressed, with some relief, in a simple sleeveless white blouse, a pair of loose jeans tightened at the waist with a belt, and a long coat, one that matched the camouflage colours of his own unassuming clothing. Slipping shoes on her feet, she shuddered. She had felt so terribly vulnerable out there, so ashamed, wearing nothing but her shirt and his. Picking up Kit's jacket, she stepped over to him, tapped him on the shoulder. "Thank you," she said huskily, and in a rush of sudden relief and pain over the loss of her friend, whose clothing she was now unashamedly thieving, she hugged him tight for a moment.
"Do you want to wash as well?" she asked. "We can go and look, or perhaps Angeline has some of Paul's clothes here. It would do you good, Kit." Her eye fell on the paper he was reading. "What is that?"
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:18:50 GMT -5
Kit leafed through the pile of paper distractedly, placing the letter to one side. Research papers along with folders full with lab reports made up the bulk of the stack, Kit's eyes skimming each document for something he could understand. Nobody had told him that they were conducting research in the hideout, much less research on Mythics. It made sense in a twisted way though. The data collected from research could provide them with a way to kill the Mythics more efficiently, but to conduct research, they needed specimens. It wasn't that it was bad, the Mythics had done far worse, it just was an action that sounded devoid of humanity, and the thought of it shook Kit.
A warm hug stopped his scavenging and thoughts. "Crystal.." he started, before falling silent. His eyes traced the border between the irises and whites of Crystal's. What have you seen with those eyes? The dim white light accented Crystal's tired features, her normally dark blonde hair turning to a monochrome grey in the light. She looked prettier than when he first rescued her, clean and well-clothed, but between them, they knew that better days had been seen.
"It's a letter," Kit answered to her question, holding up the sheet of paper for her to read. "Crystal, what-" he started again, wanting to ask her what they had found, what sort of research had they been carrying out; but those questions could wait until they were more rested. His hand gently pried himself loose from Crystal's hug, "-you're right, I should get washed."
He left the letter in Crystal's hand as he looked into Angeline's wardrobe, finding a set of standard-issue male clothing in a bag. It looked worn, and hadn't been washed yet, but it was similar to what he was wearing, and still much cleaner. Unlike Crystal, it didn't occur to him to ask her to turn away, he shared communal showers with other soldiers before. And besides, it was nothing Crystal hadn't seen in the farm.
Moving over to the washstand, he took off his clothing and tossed them into the corner of the room and grabbed the sponge and squeezed the excess water from it before wiping the sweat, dirt and blood from his body in a methodical series of scrubs that worked from his head down to his feet.
Clean, he pulled out Paul's clothing from the bag and donned them without any fuss, his mind on what to do next.
"Do you know if there's anything in the science labs we could use?" he asked Crystal as he yanked the table lamp free from its dead cord, making for a 20-minute lantern of sorts.
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:19:27 GMT -5
She bit her lip as she read her friend's letter, overcome by Angeline's simple hopes. A thought dawned in her mind for the first time that that Kit was most likely unaware of their research. It hadn't really been a secret, but after all, she had been a scientist. Kit had been a soldier. Crystal didn't normally speak of the work she did, much like he had not told her his war stories.
There was a thump as clothing landed on the floor, and she assumed that he was done. "Kit—" she began, turning with the letter in her hand, "this letter—"
And then she choked, and spun about, and blushed furiously. Placing the letter down as calmly as she could, she busied herself with moving carefully to the corner where he had thrown his clothing, her back resolutely turned. She folded them carefully and placed them in a pile on top of hers, before running her hands through her tangled hair. Oh, for a real shower. But there was no real need to be untidy. They might need this room again.
"There might be," she answered his question, her cheeks still a little hot as she turned to him. He was dressed in something similar to what he had worn earlier, all greens and browns and tough earthy cloth, and was in the process of appropriating a table lamp. "We should see if we can get the electricity generators going again first, though. The lamp won't last long, and there are things in the labs we should be careful around."
Stepping to the door, she glanced back regretfully at Angeline's quiet, peaceful room, with the slight breezy scent of her friend. "At least the emergency lights. They're on the way anyway. Perhaps we could fix up enough quarters to live in, instead of camping outdoors."
As Crystal stepped cautiously out into the ruined corridor, feeling a little safer now that she was clean and clothed – it was ridiculous, she knew, but she did – she hefted her Mythic javelin in one hand. It was awkward, and cumbersome, but she had almost become attached to the thing. Then the darkness pressed in again, and she retreated to Kit's side once more, her hand seeking his in a tense, frightened grip.
They walked together out of Angeline's room, which returned to its silence.
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:20:07 GMT -5
"The emergency lights will have to do," he said, taking the lead with one hand in Crystal's, and the other holding the lamp out in front of them. He had already ruled out any chance of repairing the generators, neither of them had the tools or the expertise required to fix them. Illuminated by the lamp that had been taken from its habitat, the corridors revealed themselves to be a grey collection of broken odds and ends. There was a freshness that lingered after being cleaned, a freshness that helped to stave off fatigue and hunger, and it kept them going.
As they made their way back to where the labs were, Kit shoved the fact that he had no idea how to turn the emergency lights on right to the back of his mind. He wasn't even sure if the lights would work, with the generators down. But Crystal was the one who suggested the idea, and he took that to mean that she had some knowledge of how to get the lights working again. Perhaps they ran on a separate generator, like the Medical bay. It made sense, after all, they were emergency lights, and it was an emergency of sorts.
The electrical switchboard was built into the wall, its seams hidden well enough that Kit would have walked right past it if it weren't for the broken sign saying "Danger!" with the little lightning bolt.
His first attempt to open it was to do what he did best, clenching his fist hard and pounding it against where the latch would be. The cover buckled from the force of the punch, but it didn't give up its contents. Again another punch, the crushing sound of metal giving way echoing loudly through the corridors as the dent got even larger. The sides of the cover bent open slightly to reveal the hinges and latch that were holding it in place. A third punch landed square in the middle of the cover, and a hinge popped loose from the wall, dangling by a screw tucked into the cover itself. A fourth punch and the whole cover fell off to show an assortment of wires differently labeled.
Kit began to touch one of the wires when he saw a tiny red label on the corner of the cover:
To unlock latch, press firmly for five seconds and release.
Thinking twice about his technical capabilities, he turned to Crystal. "So, now what?" he asked, hiding the little red label with a hand.
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:20:37 GMT -5
Crystal sighed heavily in private amusement as Kit hefted his first punch, even as she had reached for the latch. Men!
Admittedly, she herself was no technical expert, but she knew a little about the inner workings of the electricity. Stepping closer, she squinted at the little labels and their tiny switches in the dim light of the table lamp.
It took her several minutes to locate the right switch, and she was beginning to despair of her own capability when she saw it. The emergency generators were in their own section of the board. She flipped the switches.
Nothing happened.
Crystal had just stepped away, terribly disappointed, when a faint hum sounded and the lights began to flicker.
It was very dim, of course; the backup generators were by no means meant to power the whole hideout; but it was more than sufficient. The corridor they were in was still completely in the dark, but she could see faint lights around the personal quarters and brighter ones toward the medical bay and the labs.
She gripped her javelin. "If anything's coming, it's coming now," she murmured to Kit, and waited, tensely, in the quiet light of their table lamp.
Nothing happened in that minute, and the minute after, and the minute after, and finally she straightened again, and led the way to the labs, through the wreck of their home. The lights flickered again. Crystal sighed. Perhaps it had been a mistake to make their hideouts in these cave like labyrinths. After all, this was where the Mythics were most familiar, what they had built their black glass castles to resemble. It was their home too, and perhaps mankind had made a mistake, housing their refugees in places that so soothed the aliens.
Crystal had used to wonder that if they were such a sentient species, whether there was any hope of communicating with them. Now, she had long given up hope. It wasn't as if they, mankind, humankind as they still were, had ever given up chicken.
She stepped to the twisted steel door of the labs, her hand once more tucked into Kit's, and listened for a moment. Nothing. She glanced at him, questioningly, for a short moment, and then pushed it open, dreading the rubble that she was sure to see of the place that had been so important to her.
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:20:48 GMT -5
As the lights came back on, the hideout began to feel a little more like home. Rubble still littered the floor, and there were tiny streams of water that flowed through the cracks in the ceiling and down the wall into pools, but at least the walls were familiar. As Kit followed Crystal to the labs, he wondered if the differences between Mythics and Humans boiled down to light; if the Mythic farm was properly lit, would it look like one of their homes?
A stream of white light poured out of the labs as Crystal pushed open the steel doors. Kit found himself wondering what was behind the doors, if he would find Mythic corpses suspended in giant glass tanks filled with liquid, or a half dissected Mythic, its innards filled with dust loosed from the assault on the hideout. Curious, he pushed the door open wider, stepping past Crystal.
The labs proved to be disappointing, stainless steel tables lined the walls with microscopes and stacks of culture dishes. More stacks of paper filled a wire basket, undoubtedly more reports and scientific code. Kit noticed a large machine in one corner, white plastic and metal like the rest of the lab, its function at which he could only guess. The assault had taken its toll too on the lab, broken vials lay scattered on the floor, reminiscent of the scene in the Medical Bay. A cupboard door hung loose, its top hinge broken, to reveal rows of neatly labelled bottles. What struck Kit the most about the lab though was how normal it looked. There were no large pools of blood expected from a massacre, no ripped lab coats, no pickled aliens.
As he walked past the tables, he glanced at the culture dishes and folders that managed to stay in their stacks. Most of the culture dishes were filled with a clear, jelly-like substance with one or two blue dots in the middle. Mould had gotten into several of them, forming puffy white colonies in the jelly. The folders proved to be as strange to him, labelled with generic names. Sequence 1, Lab reports 4/2 - 30/4, Sequence 2
Kit felt lost, unsure of what he was supposed to be looking for, unsure of what he was meant to be doing here.
It was at the end of the row of tables when he found something he could understand. A large metal locker lay underneath one of the tables a red "Caution!" sticker plastered on top of it. It also bore the blue striped insignia of the Human Allied Military (HAM). Opening it, he lifted out a standard issue kinetic rifle. Kit held it, feeling both bewildered and safer. The plasma rifles had been quickly replaced with the older kinetic models once it became obvious that Mythics weren't affected by plasma, but they were scarce outside the armed forces.
"Why-" Kit asked as he checked the rifle over, glancing up at Crystal as he finished the question, "-what does a team of scientists need this for? What did you do here?"
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:21:17 GMT -5
Crystal could see his bewilderment the moment they stepped through the door into the labs. It was still in surprisingly good condition, which brought a breath of relief; perhaps there hadn't been many people in the labs that day. Or perhaps they had all been female. She herself had been captured in one of the corridors.
The labs themselves were fairly extensive, with several large rooms and corridors in between. The smallest was a break room, off to one side, which contained sufficiently comfortable furniture for a quick nap, and a small aquarium.
She was leafing quickly through the stack of papers that had been left intact when Kit roused her with a question. "Hm? Oh, emergency purposes. We were expected to defend the labs if it came to it. There's another one of those in another room." She waved vaguely in its direction, before straightening and sighing. Here it was. The most recent report, written the morning of the attack, confirming all the suspicions she had had.
"We were studying the Mythics," she told him frankly, her back to him. "Not their innards or anatomy, but their history. Culture, genetics. It all bears a rather frightening resemblance to ourselves, don't you think?" She turned then, and made a face. "When I found out, my first instinct was to rush out to the chicken coops and make sure they weren't being ill treated."
Crystal folded her arms and sighed. "I don't see why or how you would really want to know. Part of the dilemma was deciding whether to tell the other people. But I expect you would."
"Mythic samples," she continued, "indicate that at some point in time, there was an immense and drastic change in their atmosphere. That must have been a long time ago. Many years. Many generations. Whatever it was, obviously, they now surround themselves with black rock, and build all their weapons from rock. They don't know textiles, they don't understand how to shape metal, and," she shuddered, "they eat each other."
"So what kind of environment must it have been? Dark, obviously. Probably underground. They must have been starved for food and water. And they react badly to the cold… so it must have been warm there."
She paused, surveyed his face. No matter. He had asked, it wasn't a secret, and he should know anyhow. "Our main problem was the question of what sort of life could ever have even begun in such an inhospitable place? So we analyzed their DNA, compared it around, made sketches of their armour." Crystal made a wry face. "You can learn a lot from armour. It's made to protect inner organs, and it can be very helpful."
How should she tell him? She bit her lip. How could she tell Kit that all this while, they had been killing their own kind? It hadn't come easy to any of them. "Well," she continued, falteringly, "we found out where they came from. There isn't… isn't any real, concrete evidence, but it all fits together."
"They're from a space colony that years ago, crash-landed on a black planet, and lost all communication with Earth." Crystal swallowed. "There are still some of the last records of that particular venture. We've lost them now – they were in Washington, before the city was destroyed. But we've reproduced them according to memory. It talks of a planet made all of black rock, and the colony's ship was malfunctioning and they were forced to land there.
"Now… well, hundreds of years later, here they are, Kit. Back with us."
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:22:03 GMT -5
Kit watched Crystal as she spoke, placing the rifle aside onto the table.
But evolution doesn't work that way! He wanted to protest, but held his silence. It's not supposed to come back to bite us in our rears. But wasn't that how it all worked? Fish became lizards, lizards became alligators, alligators went back to the water to eat fish. Humans had stopped evolving for millennia, technology becoming their one crutch which they placed their lives and hope and pride in, and when technology had failed to save them, it was only natural for the most evolved species to take the top link in the food chain. But they were stranded on a planet, how did they even get back here? Colonists can't build spacecraft. But they didn't have to. They came in spacecraft, all that they need to do was to imitate the technology. Civilisations always built their culture around their origins, it must have been a dream for them to come back to Earth.
Kit's fingers gripped the edge of the table he was leaning on, his gaze dropping to the floor as both his mind and Crystal worked to fill in the gaps. The Mythics had not come to Earth to conquer, they were just coming home. Earth would have been a legendary planet to them, passed down from the original colonists down to their children, and like chinese whispers, they built it into a utopia. And a utopia they did find. Thriving with all forms of new minerals, life.. and food.
Women and children. Kit wondered if the Mythics still retained the core family structure so central to human civilisations. It was a hard fact to take in, that he had been killing fathers, sons, mothers and daughters.
But, was it really all new to them? Humans had fought wars against other humans in the past, and had no illusion that they were another species altogether. Soldiers never talked about their enemy as anything more than an enemy. Once you allow the enemy to feel, to care, then it becomes so much harder to kill them.
He looked up at Crystal as she finished her explanation, finding in her eyes the little girl that died in front of her father, and at the same time, the young Mythic that had also died.
"Thank you for telling me," he managed to whisper, taking the rifle and slinging it over his shoulder. "But it doesn't change the fact that they killed our friends." He paused before continuing, "go fetch the other rifle, I'll wait for you here."
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Post by Crystal on Feb 6, 2009 20:22:10 GMT -5
The fish was hungry. That was beyond a doubt.
It was peeved, too. Quite decidedly peeved.
It was a smallish, but decent-sized fish, with an angry-looking mouth and rather accusing eyes, and nothing much to speak of in terms of looks or beauty – if fish can be beautiful. It was, however, extremely delicious – as many hungry scientists had often found out before by speed-cloning it in their tanks. It had a decent-sized aquarium as well, with as many plants as could have been saved from better days, and pebbles, and little castles from fairy tales. To one side was a smaller, portable aquarium, meant to transport the fish back and forth in case of emergencies. The humans, the fish decided loftily, were terribly paranoid.
Also neglectful. It really was horribly hungry, and it could only nibble at the exotic, expensive plants for so long before they all withered.
And so it was in a bad mood when the first of the humans for weeks returned and gave a little gasp upon finding it.
Crystal hadn't at all expected to find the resident pet still alive. Her little team of scientists had cheerfully named it "Fish", and done experiments on it, and eaten (delicious) clones of it, and overall babied it like a pack of biologists would who had in their hands the one hardy animal that had been brought from their former lives.
She glanced round, warily, at the room. It was the common room, the break room – a small circular cave, gently lit with blue and purple light, furnished all round the edges with comfortable couches and cushions, and one large aquarium against the wall. Below the aquarium were shelves containing supplies, and paper, and a copy of the kinetic rifle Kit had earlier found.
Without a thought, she scooped the fish from its aquarium and deposited it in the small, hardier backpack-like one, that had been made ages ago to transport it from Washington, when the Mythics first came. It lashed out at her, and Crystal realized all of a sudden that it must have been starving. Dried fish food and worms dropped in vanished in a few seconds, and she kept feeding it, little by little, until it finally appeared satiated.
Then she shouldered the fish, lofted the rifle, and went back out to find her partner, still waiting patiently. Crystal was eager to return to him - it was funny how the labs were so undisturbed, and her blood kept running cold at intervals, and her muscles involuntarily flexing and tensing with the expectation of sudden death leaping out from behind a corner. Perhaps they could come back here, if it was so untouched. Loot the old hideout. And then… she sighed. No. No, they couldn't move back in. It just wasn't safe anymore.
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Feb 6, 2009 20:22:26 GMT -5
"Genetic mutation of humans. Volume 1." Kit read off the titles of the research folders one by one. Dust had settled in a thick layer over most of them, surprisingly quickly considering how not too long ago, the place would have been kept immaculately clean. He never understood a scientist's obsession with cleanliness.
The words on the papers didn't make much sense to him, so he turned to something he did understand. The rifle he found was in terrible condition - having been unused and probably never maintained. But of course. The scientists probably just kept it there to feel safe.
When Crystal returned, she too had a rifle of her own, and looked a little more content. She also had a big backpack, and a heavy one too, judging by the way she was carrying it.
"Here, I'll help you with that if you want," he offered, looking around the lab one last time.
"We should get everyone in, it'll be safer for the night. Get a couple maps, and we'll be good to set off, first thing morning."
Darkness plunged over them, followed by a rumble of thunder rolling overhead. The generator whirred and struggled, coughing before flickering the lights back on.
"See," he smiled, "rain. That'll keep them away from us for a long while. Back in Alaska, it was either raining or snowing, and they hated it. Weren't used to it. Used to call it Mother nature's way of fighting back, she doesn't take kindly to having her forests burnt down. We'll be fine. Old mother nature'll take care of us."
He took Crystal's free hand, "between me and mother nature, nothing's going to harm you."
A blustery gust of damp air greeted them as they emerged from the ruined hideout. Kit had to shout to the old man, waving his arms in the howling wind in frantic gestures for him to get inside. The old man tucked his spear under his arm and hoisted the injured man with him.
The clouds overhead blanketed the sky. Kit ran out and carried the girl's corpse back with him, not feeling comfortable with leaving her body out there in the rain.
"Let's get everyone settled down," he told Crystal, motioning to the old man to follow them.
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