Advent, Chapter 7-Double Alliance?
Chapter 7: Double Alliance?
Location: unknown, Time: unknown
I woke to a splitting headache, saliva dripping off my chin, and a thousand needles in every limb. I didn't know which way was up or down, left or right even. I soon found out when I fell out of the bed. That was enough to jar my body and wake my mind to full consciousness.
"Fuckin'....uhhh...damn," I rubbed my arms, butt, legs to get the blood flowing again. What had happened? Oh right, I got shot with a tranq gun. I pulled up my shorts to see the reddish wound that had formed, and the dark purple skin that encircled it on my upper leg. Where was I now? Around me there were bamboo walls, along with several other indigenous species of wood. It was a roasting 107 F, which I didn't mind, as the heat energy would be converted to power for my systems. I might need that power later for an encounter with my assailin.
"Ah, you're awake I see," said a voice coming from the entrance to the room. I withdrew a knife from my pocket, holding it at the source's throat. "Whoa there! Steady! Look, I'm sorry I shot you with the tranq gun. I thought you were one of those vile saurians. You know adrenaline, makes you kind of quick to the trigger." I took my knife away from his throat and thrust it back into its sheath at my flank.
I was baffled. "Right, I know what you mean." I didn't know what he meant but my HI kicked in. Thank goodness that was working at least. "Really, it's okay."
"You're not the least bit curious as to what the devil I'm talking about?" He didn't know I was working for the saurians! Outside I still appeared human, which was good enough for him I suppose. He himself didn't appear too out of the ordinary, black hair, brown eyes, a narrow face and slim body. He wore blue jeans that sagged down to his butt; who could blame him, the heat was unbearable. "What were you doing out there in the clearing? Are you from town?"
I didn't know what to say, but I didn't want to attract suspicion from whoever this guy was. I presumed he was the guy that was fighting with S'Thkra, and by the way he fought, I was in no condition to fight him now. "Uh, no. I was dropped...In the jungle...uh, research scientist I suppose, I mean! I'm a biologist, research biologist, for the US government." I decided to milk him for information. Rubbing my head, I grunted out, "I feel like shit. Where am I again? It was something like..."
"Yeah, that stuff can take down pretty much anything you find in the rainforest. I understand, but you're smack dab in the middle of the Brazil, my friend. Not a major town around here for three-hundred miles."
Major town? Did he know about the operation? But if he did, he would have stationed himself further away. The pathogen has a spread zone of a thousand miles maximum, with a guaranteed range of five hundred. Out here, he would be killed.
I decided to play dumb, try to see what he knew. "What were you talking about before? A saur-something?"
"Oh, right. The saurians? Well, I suppose I could let you know. It would do less hurt now than if I told you later. Yes, the saurians. All you need to know about them is that they are a species, originally from this world, bent on the destruction of the human race. They launched a biological agent on us that would wipe us out a little over a day ago, spread it all over the planet, all so they can take back the planet that belonged to them before the humans invaded it."
I wonder what he knew about the pathogen. "Sure, whatever. Just what kind of disease is it, if you're such a doomsayer?"
"Glad you asked. It's not really a bacteria, but a microscopic machine that fries your nervous system once you get it. You don't have any symptoms of it, so I know you're not infected."
He knew everything about it! The pathogen, the plan, the history, surely much more too. Who was this guy? Well, if you want to know something, ask.
"Who are you?" I queried.
"That's not an easy question to answer. I don't have a name, but....Call me whatever you want to, it really doesn't matter." An awkward proposition. Bob perhaps?
Another voice replied through the open doorway, "I'd call you traitor if it were up to me!" It was Ecanius! Somehow, he had found me.
"You brutes!" the human backed towards the opposite wall. "Stay the hell away from me you godforsaken demons!" He ran towards Ecanius at full force, punching him right in his armored chest, severely denting the metal. The saurian flew back through the doorway at least ten meters, out onto the floor of the clearing outside on his back. The human took off, running out and flying off, leaving that orange contrail in his wake. It was the flyer I had pursued earlier, obviously. The dazed Ecanius, along with the two guards in his company, made no attempt at following him, and neither did I. We stepped outside and watched the tiny dot disappear over the tops of the trees, thousands of feet above our heads.
"Who was that?" I inquired while rushing to Ecanius and propping him up on his feet.
"Why didn't you kill him right there?" Ecanius flung my hand away from himself. "We could have ended it right then and there!" Ecanius ranted.
"It would be helpful if I knew what exactly I failed to end, and who the hell that guy was, before you start pointing fingers, commander!" I retorted, rather startled at his abrasive behavior.
Faltering at his faux pas, he began to speak in a calmer tone, "My apologies, sir." Ecanius gathered his composure, letting out a heaving sigh. "That, sir, was who the Christian humans call God, the Muslims Allah, He Who Shall Not Be Named, The Alpha and the Omega, you see the point."
It took a little while for the concept to settle in, but eventually I received the message. "God?! Bwhahaaaha!! Aah, haaaaa....really commander, this is not the time for jokes. That street rat? God? You had me going. God.....ha!" I laughed.
"I speak no joke nor lie, sir. That is the creator of humanity."
Ecanius' razor sharp eyes peered into mine with that distinct Saurian seriousness. "You're serious aren't you? Wow....I didn't see that coming. You're right! I should have killed him, that usurer! So, how exactly did this one, single man create an entire race?"
"Be wary of what you speak, for that was no average man. I'll give you a rough synopsis. About two million three hundred thousand years ago, right before we were about to return to our planet after our sojourn around the galactic quadrant, we detected the new life form inhabiting the planet, namely, primitive yet intelligent sapiens. We decided to back off from our return and let the life forms prosper and evolve. We didn't know how they came to be, but eventually found out.
"He came aboard one of our ships while we were stationed in Earth's orbit, and explained to us his plight. Apparently, he was an alien to this world, from the planet one orbit outside your own. He was the culmination of his race's technology, a cybernetic being much like you, who needed no food, water, fuel of any kind. He constantly walked the barren surface of the planet over and over again, until he detected a nearby planet, namely Earth. It must have been during the time when the great celestial body hit our planet, that he detected a disturbance. He would use the only spacecraft he had to visit Earth and investigate.
"Apparently, he found Earth to be of his liking. He reconstructed the animals on the planet to his liking, combining genes across species, sometimes entire phylums to create an abundance of life on the planet. But his own pet project was creating a species much like the one that inhabited his own world. And that is when he got the idea for creating mankind.
"His ideas revolved around living things, while ours are mostly focused on the well-being of the planet itself. Though we had very separate ideas at the time, we welcomed him into our society and respected his work. We had no clue as to the deadly ramifications of his work. We departed back to the far heavens to continue our exploration of the universe, and never heard of him again until fifty years ago from this time.
"We were passing close by Earth, and it was at that time that S'Thkra devised the idea of sending human replicants to the planet with the genes that the creator of man had given us. The first wave, twenty replicants, was sent just over fifty years ago. All of them failed miserably, but they had accomplished one essential task: to find out where the creator was. The results were obvious that he was nowhere near Earth, but was fleeing the solar system. I was the one who intercepted him and interrogated him, and it was at that time that we lost the only other friend we ever had except ourselves.
"He had failed in his attempts at rebuilding his race, and the humans were running rampant on the Earth, destroying what they willed for no apparent reason. Their intelligence was growing by the month, and he claimed that they listened to nobody, denied the unbelievable, and killed those who stepped outside the lines of their society. I blame him for the mess that this once-beautiful planet has become. It was his childish curiosity that fueled the human's evolution and piqued his urges to advance their society further than it was meant to go.
"Orders were sent immediately to destroy the human infestation, but our efforts were delayed. 'The Heretic,' as our people called him at the time, had escaped from our custody, and we couldn't head towards Earth until we caught the bastard and drove a sword through his traitorous heart. We gave up trying to catch him, and just headed to Earth. As a double-bonus to exterminating the infestation, we would attract the Heretic with a communication signal purposely sent into space that detailed our plan to eliminate the human race. He would die with his creations with the plague that we would let loose on the lot of them. Am I going too fast? Of course this is just a rough sketch of what really happened...," of course it was too long!
"He doesn't seem that tough. Why were you unable to kill him?"
"The Heretic was one out of a million, then two million, then a billion, and as the growth trend increased, it became harder and harder to locate him. There is nothing about him that makes him different than a normal human, save for his abilities similar to ours, which he has not utilized since he created mankind up until fifty years ago. It became a futile operation to try and locate him. Once we observed the first telescope in space, we knew our time was limited before evidence of our presence was discovered. Evading detection was easy up until the humans began using these satellites to communicate; our ship emits highly detectable amounts of low-level radiation in the form of ultraviolet light, due to its dependence on solar energy. Now we return, hoping to find him out and obliterate him."
"Wait, of course! The traitor does not suspect that I am involved in the coup, and I half expect for him to return here. It's best you leave. Be sure to make your exit well known to him, making it so that he knows you are gone. Look over there upon that table." I pointed to a peculiar pile of munitions, probably stolen meson bombs he used to break into the Vigilant. "He has to come back for those, and if you leave now, he'll half expect you to have missed them. Make haste! Let your exit be well-known to him."
With that, Ecanius silently agreed and rocketed off into parts unknown with an ear-piercing sonic boom that shook the soil violently beneath my feet for several seconds, his guards following close behind with the same effect. I hoped that the human, or whatever the hell he was, would return for his supplies. I wished a word with him that could end this dilemma, and destroy this human resistance.