Finding Atlantis - Ch6
#5 of Finding atlantis
After a great deal of suffering I have produced one more chunck of adam's story. I don't think I really like the way it turned out, but I am fed up with re-writing it, so here it is.
I awoke to the sight of my beautiful vixen drooling all over my chest, as the first rays of light caught caught my eyes. It struck me that I might not watch the sunrise like this again for a long time. We had decided that in order to get a better handle on the situation that we would relocate to Cains where we could gain access to the equipment we needed to find out exactly what the Taki were up to. Plus we would be close to the Tesseract so when we were ready to set our newly hatched plan in motion we could do so quickly.
Since Takians are a metal creature I ventured to guess that they are extremely susceptible to radiation poisoning. Metal tends to absorb radiation and that changes the properties of the metal. They will become radioactive and spread the contamination amongst themselves. Their entire force could be taken down with a simple dirty bomb. There was no need for weapons grade Plutonium, I could use the hodgepodge refuse from earth's nuclear reactors. There were thousands of tons of the stuff buried at the north pole, with less security. It was much more realistic target.
However, The others would only consider a trip to earth as a last resort, so for now we would wait and see what the enemy had up there sleeve. But then that train of thought was pushed aside. Ariana opened her eyes and smiled sleepily up at me. "Good morning beautiful." I whispered. "Mmhmm." She answered lazily. Slowly we got up and got ready for the day. After a quick grooming we left our cabin behind to find the rest of the camp buzzing with activity.
Collin was with Turk busily rounding up various cooking utensils and stashing them away in backpacks. Janis was packing away all of the camp's food and various seasonings. Athena was (I assume) out hunting for the trip. That left me and Ariana with the weapons.
Inside the small armory Ariana set me to bundling up all the extra swords and tying them to the outside of the pack that she was filling with various other items: shields, mortars, shells of all kinds, and what I assumed were bombs of various shapes and sizes, not a scrap of steal among them.
I noticed that there was a wall full of shiny energy rifles, and rocket launchers, and other metal weapons, which remained ignored. "what about all those?" I asked as I finished tying up the swords and strapping them to one of the two weapons packs.
"we cannot take them. It would give away our position carrying that much metal. Besides, they are nearly ineffective against Takian shielding." she answered simply. Once we were done Ariana shouldered one of the packs and I hoisted up the other one and followed her out into the cool morning air.
"We are ready." announced Ariana as we approached the others by the kitchen.
"Does anyone need help with anything?" I offered.
"Actually, yes." came the reply from inside. "Athena is out back butchering her deer, could one of you go help her?"
"Okay." I answered. And glanced over toward Ariana, she looked thoughtful.
"I need to talk to Turk and Corinth." She said at last. "We will meet up here when everyone is ready."
"Alright." I shrugged, and headed around the back of the kitchen. I wasn't sure what all was included in 'butchering' here, but I doubted it was much fun.
I found Athena leaning over a pile of meat, covered in blood. I expected to be grossed out by the sight of an animal being cut to pieces, but instead it kind of made me hungry. I guess it was just another side effect of being carnivorous. In fact, it smelled good, kind of sweet and salty. I walked up to Athena and asked if there was anything she needed help with.
"I am almost done, but could you help me salt the rest of the meat?" she looked up and pointed to a large bag of salt. It wasn't something I had done before so she explained it to me. "I've already cut the meat into small enough pieces, so what I want you to do is take a hand full of salt and rub it into the meat, then take a piece of hide and put a handful of salt on it and wrap the meat up with it." I watched as her nimble fingers made quick work of the process. Then it was time for me to give it a try. To my surprise it was harder than I thought to resist popping a couple of the delicious smelling red cubes into my mouth, but the work itself was fairly easy and we had it done in no time at all.
Everyone else was ready as we walked back around front. I shouldered one of the weapons packs I had helped put together earlier, and we were off. It was going to be a two day hike to Cains, even at the grueling speed we set off at. Well, it was a light jog for us, but if I had to venture a guess I would have said around ten miles per hour. We were sticking to the wooded arias, avoiding the open as much as possible. There was still a possibility of partrols in the aria, and we ran not necessarily in a group, but spread out over several hundred feet, to make us harder to detect.
Ariana was still engrossed in conversation with Corinth. About a hundred feet to my right. In the few days I had been here she had almost never left my side, now she was all but ignoring me. I was just about to start working my way over to them when Athena jumped in next to me "Adam, I was wondering if anyone had told you anything about the Taki yet." I told her that Ariana had gone over it with me.
"Yes, I know. But she did not tell you about the important things, like how they fight, what their vehicles look like, how to avoid detection, things like that." I agreed that I didn't really know much about the enemy we faced, so she drilled me for most of the day about it. By the time the sun was setting she had taught me everything I ever wanted to know about Takian tactics and then some, but I knew it might come in handy so I didn't complain.
That night we ate a quick dinner of some extremely good fried deer. (Janis, um, grazed) and afterward, I fell asleep almost immediately. Even though we didn't get winded from running, jogging all day long while toting over a hundred pounds of weaponry will still tire you out like you wouldn't believe! In fact, pretty much everyone just passed out. Except for Turk who showed immense willpower by standing watch all night. The next day was just about the same. I didn't get a chance to ask Ariana what she was planning, and she didn't seem to anxious to tell me.
As the day started to draw to a close, I caught my first glimpse of Cains. The last great stronghold of the Atlantian resistance. The buildings all had an organic feel to them, there were no hard lines or corners, no perfect shapes. Everything was painted in neutral colors. It didn't much resemble any city I had seen before. The buildings were low for the most part; there were no hundred floor sky scrapers, two to three stories was average. They were set a little farther apart than in most earth cities. The roads were wider but not paved, and much of the space between buildings was wooded, like a park. There were signs that this had once been a busy city, full of life. But now, it was nearly deserted. There were only a handful of people around and we made our way to the North side of the city quickly.
We were now jogging more slowly and closer together as a group. Eventually we came to the doors of one of the older looking buildings in the city and were immediately let in without question. As we walked through the sleek doors the atmosphere changed dramatically. It was much more like the old military lab I had once worked in. most of the surfaces were ether marble and lacquered wood, polished metal, or some indistinct, flat white material. There were armed guards everywhere, each holding a small energy rifle of some kind and a very familiar looking wooden knife at there hips. Most of them were looking at me with some surprise.
The guard who had let us in bowed his head slightly and asked us to follow him. He was a sort of husky I think. He had black and gray fur, short pointy ears and the typical husky tail. Without a word he led us through a maze of hallways, steps and through a few large lobbies before stopping at a polished metal door which slid open with a hiss.
I thought it was odd that we had been let right in to a building that was so closely guarded without some kind of inspection, but then it hit me that they were communicating through that mental... whatever they called it, and that they probably knew everything about our visit before we even set foot inside the building.
At any rate, the guard just waved us inside. As I stepped in I could tell instantly that it was some kind of laboratory. There was equipment everywhere, chunks of machinery on tables, and a large object in the corner, covered with a tarp. There was also a Calico standing in front of a computer on the far side of the room. "Hello everyone." her voice was smooth as silk and almost too perfect. Ariana returned the greeting."Hello Oracle, How are you?"
"All systems are functioning properly." Oracle responded. "I do not recognize this fox." She turned to me. "what is your name?"
"Adam Dennis." I responded. There was something a little off about this cat.
"Adam Dennis."she began. "My name is Oracle. I am an artificial intelligence system. My primary directive is to monitor planetary surveillance to predict Takinan troop movements." so it was a computer! I began looking more closely at her body, I noticed the slight fuzziness of her features, like a picture that wasn't quite in focus. It seamed to blur with her movements. I was talking to a hologram controlled by a computer!
As everyone else watched, Oracle had me walk through what looked like some kind of metal detector, or scanner, like the ones they have at airports. Apparently this was so that Oracle could make a "profile" of me for her records. Once that was done she addressed the group as a whole. "I have been translating all intercepted Takian transmissions. Messages are garbled, but indicate that that three more personnel carrier ships are expected to arrive in the next five days. I will update you when more information becomes available." then the hologram dissolved. Were were silent for a while. "That explains the recent activity spike. They are cleaning house for company."Turk finally said.
"What's that mean for us?" I asked. Temporarily ignoring my fascination with the computer that called itself Oracle.
"it means that we have to be ready when those ships land. This will double their fighting force. If they land we will not stand a chance."
"In short, we need a bomb that will blow them off the planet, literally." I sugested.
"Yes," he replied. "and while you two are on earth obtaining such a bomb, we will be busy preparing for the fight ahead."
With that Turk ushered everyone out of the room to review some of the finer details of the latest Intelligence reports and set up a defense strategy, Ariana and I were left alone to prepare for our trip to earth.
Ariana grabbed both my hands in her's and looked into my eyes."Adam, I was talking with the others and they agree that you will need full control of your abilities. Normally it would take years to learn everything you need to know. Since we are running short on time, I have offered to phase with you, if you will agree of course." she took a deep breath and continued. "A phase occurs when two people synchronize their nervous systems. All information is shared between them, senses, memories, even thoughts. You will be able to do everything I can, and vice-versa. The down side is that it is permanent, it can never be undone. Of course, you have to be willing to accept it."
I thought about this for a minute. I hadn't even been here for a week yet, and now she was asking to share minds? If it was permanent did I really want to tie myself to someone else like that? But then I realized that that was exactly what I wanted to do. Since the first time I had laid eyes on that vixen, all I had wanted to do was to be with her. I had never felt like that before. In a daze I heard myself say that I would.
She nodded her head slightly, "then we need to hurry."