Familiar Strangers

[TheRaisin]

Boy, big leap here. I must warn you: we are about to take a metaphorical journey through the right hemisphere of my brain. I dare not speculate on what my subconscience reveals through this story. Know that this is a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, and I don't have a clear idea of where it's going. If it gets a little... odd... know that this is because the creative and emotional side of my brain has beaten the analytical and logical side of my brain into submission, and then tied it up in back and took control.


I woke up gasping. I had stopped breathing. I caught my breath. And then something clicked in my subconscious mind. I began screaming. And screaming. And screaming. My vision blurred, I could feel the veins popping out of my neck. Blood pounded through my head, bringing a sharp spike of pain with each throb. Then I passed out.
I woke up again, apparently some time later. My skin felt as if it had been set on fire, then rubbed with sandpaper until the dead skin chipped off. My head throbbed. My eyes hurt. A thin trickle of blood was seeping out of my nose. What happened? I asked myself, expecting my memory to come flooding back. It didn't.
What? WHAT?! Something was wrong. Why couldn't I remember anything about what had happened to make me feel this way? For that matter, I couldn't remember anything since.... well, since I woke up. In fact, where was I? Who was I?
C'mon now, how could you not know who you are? Unless...
"Oh, God." I said out loud. Amnesia?
I ripped the cover of the bed aside and sat bolt upright. I was in some sort of hospital room, apparently. I got up, then fell against the sterile linoleum floor. Looking down at my legs, I noticed they looked thin and pale. All my muscles felt weak, and there was an aching that felt as if it was rooted deep in my bones. Standing up again, I saw that I was wearing a cheap hospital gown, kind of like a tunic. Refocusing my mind, I looked frantically around the room. No window. Blank walls. Flourescent lights. A bed. No answers there, I could be in any hospital room in any hospital in the world. There were two doors. The first one was locked. The second one led into a small bathroom.
"Let's start there," I said to myself.
Cautiously, dreading what I might see, I stepped in and looked at the mirror.
There was a sickly-looking girl standing there. Her skin looked pale and unhealthy, her limbs and frame ludicrously thin. Her hair was dark and fairly long, her eyes green.
"Hello," I said. "You must be me."
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My instincts told me I had better sit up. I did. Spying a bedpan next to me, I grabbed it and promptly vomited. The result was suspiciously and somewhat frighteningly red. Realizing what this might mean, I tipped my head forward and an even redder substance began flowing out my nose. Without thinking, I rose to my feet. My muscles felt strangely weak. My bones hurt excrutiatingly. In fact, so did my skin and stomach and head and... actually, everything. That wasn't normal. Nor was it a good sign.
Holding a hand to my nose, I searched for a box of kleenex and a sink. I didn't recognize the room I was in. Feeling lightheaded, I stumbled around and spotted a door. It was locked. I tried the one next to it. Success. In the small bathroom it led to was a box of tissues and a large stone sink. I stumbled towards them. Blowing out the blood clot from which the blood was eminating, I looked up into the mirror.
"Ah!"
I jumped back, slipping as I did so and falling into the tub. My head slammed hard against the tile wall, my vision blurred, and my mind faded out.

[Silversnow]

It's wonderful! Very emotional, which is completely wrong word, but I have a test tomorrow and my brain is dead. Soo... write more, please?

[TheRaisin]

Actually Silversnow, that's sorta what I was going for. I wanted a story that really connected with the characters, hence the change to first-person narration. I hope you like it, because it's going to start going places, and I can't guarantee that it won't get a little strange. Oh, and don't get confused by the POVs switching.

"Are the subjects active?"
"Yes, ma'am," said a scientist in a white lab coat as he turned away from the huge wall of monitors in front of him. "Both experienced minor nosebleeds and a bit of shock, but that's what we expected."
Ma'am took a closer look at the video screens. In the one on the left, a girl resembling a twig sat on the edge of a hospital bed. To the right was a screen showing an empty hospital room.
"Where is subject 291?" she asked.
"Bathroom, ma'am. He had a slightly worse nosebleed than 290," replied the scientist.
"Need I remind you that your orders are to monitor trhe subjects at all times?" she said icily.
The other scientist, dressed identically to the first, swiveled his chair to face her.
"Ma'am, you can't expect us to place cameras in the bathrooms? That would be a huge invasion of their privacy."
Ma'am scoffed. "Morals. I used to have those. They were a hindrance, so I got rid of them. I suggest you do the same. Ha, as if anything else we've done in this project has been ethical?"
Both scientists averted their gaze in shame: they needed no reminder of the atrocities they had commited. They were forever burned into their minds.
"Oh, all right," Ma'am said. "Keep your little morals. Just notify me the second there are any condition changes."
"Yes ma'am!" the scientists replied in unison, and turned back to their workstations. As he was turning, the second scientist hit a small button with his coffee mug, and the picture of the empty hospital room flicked to an identical one. Neither of them noticed.
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I sat down on the edge of the bed. Having gotten over the initial shock and fright, I began accepting my situation and tried to figure out what I could remember. Obviously, I couldn't remember anything about myself or where I was, but maybe I could remember other things. Racking my brain, I discovered I could indeed remember things I had learned, presumably in school. Math, science, history, geography, literature.... wait! Something was off here too. I knew too much about these things. I knew about things that only the most trusted person in the world would have access to. I knew things that hadn't even been released to the public.
Okay, this is a little odd. I thought. I tried languages. I knew English, obviously. But I found I was also fluent in Spanish, German, French.... pretty much all of the Latin-based European languages. But I also knew Gaelic, all sorts of Norse languages, several dialects of Japanese and Chinese, multiple African languages.... well, the list went on.
"Wow," I said pointlessly. "Maybe you were a spy or something." But I knew that wasn't it. For one thing, I couldn't have been more than fifteen. Plus, it would have taken a spy a lifetime to amass the amount of information floating around in my head. It was like someone had assembled a planet-wide datalinks system and downloaded it's contents into my brain. I jumped up, tired of trying to figure things out.
"That's it! I want some answers!" And I knew they weren't going to come to me. I needed to get out of this cell. There was nothing in the bedroom that would help me, so I checked the bathroom for something vaguely credit-card shaped. There was soap, and a sponge on a handle, and toilet paper, and a comb, and about a dozen other things you would expect to see in a bathroom, but nothing that would fit in between the door and the doorframe and wedge open the lock. Giving up, I dejectedly sat down on the toilet and looked at the mirror, wishing I knew even just a name to accompany the face that stared back at me with bright green eyes. Then it struck me: the mirror! If I could break off a piece, it might just be thin enough. Without a second thought, I pulled a drawer out of the counter, stood on the toilet to spare my bare feet, and smashed the mirror with an edge of the drawer. There was a crashing sound, and the mirror flew apart. Tip-toeing around the sharp pieces of glass, I found one that had been part of the edge. This one had one side that was flat and wouldn't hurt my hand. I grabbed it and stepped back into the short antechamber that led from my room to the door. Knowing instinctively what to do, though I had no memory of doing it, I slid the piece of glass into the space between door and doorframe and was rewarded with a satisfying click! The door swung open, and I stepped out into the world.
It was somewhat disappointing. My suspicions that I was in a hospital were confirmed: it looked exactly like a hospital hallway. But there was something off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first. Then, with a wave of fear, it hit me: there was no sound. No voices of parents visiting their sick children, no crying kids, no clatter of machinery or robotic-sounding announcements. Suddenly the blank white hallway became sinister. The place felt of death. A shivering wave of fear swept over me, the kind that might have made a lesser person run crying back into the room and pull the covers over their head. But I was determined. I wanted some answers.
Making sure I still had the razor-sharp piece of glass with me, just in case, I eased the door shut. I saw it had a number on it: 290. Nothing relevant, but it would be good to remember in case I got lost.
The hallway extended hundreds of feet to my left and right. Wary of the silence and openness of the hallway, I decided to start closer to my own room. I turned to my left and examined the door next to mine: 291. As good a place to start as any. I turned the doorknob, and surprisingly, the door opened. The fact that the doors locked from the outside put me even more on edge. I stepped in and saw that the room was identical to my own. But wait: the covers of the bed were thrown off, and a trail of blood drops led to the bathroom door. Someone had been here, and it looked as if they were still here. I knocked apprehensively on the bathroom door. No response. I tried again, a little louder this time. Still nothing. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and stepped in.
"Oh, shit!"
There was a boy slumped against the wall in the bathtub. The front of his face was covered with blood, and there was a streak of blood down the wall ending at the back of his head.
My first instinct was to run back to my room and block the door with my bed, but something stopped me. I could see that his chest was still moving shallowly up and down. He was alive! I couldn't just leave him here. He was the first person I had ever met, as far as I remembered. One side of my mind argued that it wasn't my problem, but eventually the compassionate side won out.
"You better thank me for this," I said, and bent down to lift him up.
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I woke up. There was a horrible pain throbbing at the back of my head. I slowly opened my eyes. At first all I saw was a green and white haze. Then the image resolved itself into two green eyes surrounded by a corona of pure white light.
The eyes themselves were strange. They were fierce and sharp and cold and shone with a light like the sun off a finely polished blade, yet at the same time they were sort of ethereal and intangible, and seemed to glow from within. A brief look of relief passed over them, then they returned to a kind of intense neutral look. They narrowed and moved up and down, as if piercing my skin with X-ray vision, then softened slightly.
"Am I dead?" I asked quietly.
The voice that replied was surprisingly normal and down-to-earth, if a bit tense.
"I don't think so. If this is heaven, it's kind of boring. I dunno, maybe it's purgatory. Ok, you're all right. Try and sit up."
I obeyed, and now saw the face that accompanied the eyes. It was that of a girl. She had pale skin and looked as if she had gone too long without food. Her hair was long and black and straight, but flared out slightly at the ends. The intensely narrowed eyes made her look slightly Oriental, which she might have been. The white light I had seen was a flourescent light overhead.
"Who are you? What happened?" I asked.
"Who am I? No idea. I woke up a little while ago in a hospital room with no memory of my life. As for what happened, you tell me. I just found you slumped over in a bathtub with your head smashed against the wall."
Remembering this, I reached to touch the back of my head.
"I wouldn't do that," she warned. "That's a pretty bad bump."
"So how did I get in this bed?" I asked. Then, noticing the makeshift bandage around my head, I asked, "And who did this?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Duh. I helped you. What happened, anyway?"
"I just slipped. I got startled by something I saw in-- the mirror!"
I jumped up and ran to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I was shocked to see once again a face I didn't recognize. It was pale and thin, like that of the girl, and had brown eyes. The hair was brown and long and scraggly, and matted in the back where some dried blood clung to it. A strip of towel had been wrapped around the head to stem the bleeding.
"You don't remember that face, do you? Same here," the girl said, standing in the doorway. There was a touch of empathy in her voice.
"I don't remember anything!"
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"Ma'am" walked into the monitor room again about fifteen minutes later. She glanced at the screens.
"Where is subject 290?" she asked, slightly annoyed that she wasn't being monitored.
"Bathroom, ma'am," replied one of the scientists. He had been looking at another screen when the frail girl had slipped the lock and walked out.
"What about 291? He's been in the bathroom for a long time."
The second scientist shrugged.
"Maybe he's taking a shower."
Ma'am looked at the screen on the right, and something caught her eye.
"Did he come back out at some point?" she asked.
"No ma'am," replied the scientist.
"Then how is it that the bed is made in this screen?!" she screamed at him.
Both scientists' heads jerked back towards that screen. They looked at the control panel, and under "Monitor 387", rather than the words "Room 291" in green LED they saw "Room 292".
Ma'am switched it back to Room 291, and there in the screen was Subject 291 lying in bed with Subject 290 watching over him.
"Incompetents!!!" Ma'am screamed at the two scientists. "First contact was not to be made for several days, and I was supposed to be the first person they saw! That's why we locked them in!"
She collected herself, straightened her labcoat, and tried a practice phony smile, then took off towards the Recovery Area.
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As the brown-haired boy walked back out of the bathroom with a dazed look on his face, the doorknob on the other door started to turn. I braced myself, ready for a fight.
But rather than some soldier or alien or monster coming through the door, a woman stepped through. She wore a white labcoat over a dark blue business suit. Her eyes were stern and her face was lined and tough-looking, but she gave a warm and slightly phony smile.
"Oh, hello," she said, apparently surprised.
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to hide the suspicion in my voice.
"That's not important. What's important is who you are," she said kindly. She beckoned us into the hall, and lacking any alternative, we followed.

[Fez]

very original, well done.

[TheRaisin]

Next chapter will be up soon. It's taking me a little while, 'cause I have to figure out the plot as I go. That's one trouble with starting a story on the spur of the moment. Plus the amount of homework I've had lately is comparable to the biblical flood that wiped out the world.

[TheRaisin]

Okay, I don't feel inspired per se, but I want to keep this thread fresh as possible, so here's the next chapter. BTW, this so far has been Part 1: Neogenesis.

The slapping of our bare feet and the clicking of the labcoat-clad woman's heels against the linoleum floor echoed throughout the hallway, making it seem even more sinister than before. What's-his-name was still in a daze. I decided it was time for some answers.
"Where are we anyway?"
The woman didn't bother to stop and turn when she answered. "We're in the Amnesia Ward of the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Brain Injuries and Diseases, in Oregon."
Oddly, even with my bizarrely expanded knowledge, I had never heard of the place, but the woman seemed trustworthy enough.
"Why were the doors locked from the outside?" I asked.
"We didn't want you to wander off and get lost," the woman replied. "You do have amnesia, after all."
"Speaking of which," I said, "just who am I?"
"Your name is Lyra Theophilopilus, and he is Ian Schultz," she said, motioning at the boy over her shoulder.
That name was odd.
"Greek? But..."
"Your mother was born in Hong Kong, your father in Greece. You take strongly after your mother," she said.
Well, that would explain it I thought.
"Where'd I get the green eyes then?" I asked, not that it was relevant.
"That, like so much about you, is a statistical anomaly. It's possible that somewhere back in your bloodline a person of different heritage married into your family."
Her words sounded odd.
"'Like so much about me'? What do you mean?"
The woman finally stopped and turned.
"You are no doubt wondering about your... somewhat above-average knowledge," she said.
"I was getting to that," I told her.
"You see," she continued, "when you were eight, there was an accident. A hacker had wormed their way into the Info-Grid and began releasing and forwarding information from practically every Grid-linked information center in the world, trying to clog up the system we guess. At the exact same moment, you were using a defective Grid system, and when your computer recieved the information, there was some kind of feedback. The system, which normally recieved information and orders from your brain, instead pumped information from the Grid into your brain. Ian was involved in a similar incident. You were in a coma for several days, and when you recovered we found your brain had absorbed a huge amount of data. We tried to recreate the conditions with chimpanzees, but it simply destroyed their minds. You were extremely lucky."
"Wow!" was all I could say. But the look on the woman's face told me she had more to say, and that I wasn't going to like it.
"There's... something else. You remember our first contact in 2242, don't you? Our first encounter with the Tenae race?"
"The aliens? Of course. It was the most important discovery ever. But going by the last date I remember, that was almost ten years ago. What does it have to do with me?" I had a feeling an unpleasant answer was about to come.
"Well, a little over three months ago, they turned hostile. Completely unprovoked, they began attacking cities all over the planet. They fired tremendously powerful lasers from orbit. We have been trying to defend ourselves, but we haven't yet perfected spacecraft with military applications. So far we've held them off with high-altitude missiles. But, needless to say, there have been many casualties. You lived in Los Angeles at the time, and it was among the first to be attacked. Some military patrols found both of you among the rubble, apparently knocked out instantly. The Tenae weapons were so powerful, there were only a few score survivors. As of yet, they... they haven't found any of your relatives."
"Oh." The news, which should have been terrible, somehow didn't seem to register. Not remembering my parents, I couldn't feel sad for them or miss them. It was like trying to feel sorry when an aunt you had never seen or spoken to died.
The woman turned and led us onward in silence. After a few more minutes, we entered a set of double doors.
"This is the cafeteria," said the woman. "You can rest here for a minute while I go check on some things." She walked back out into the hallway.
The moment the double doors swung shut, Ian changed. Rather than a dazed look, he looked intensely aware of everything. His eyes moved wildly around the room, then focused on something. He walked to one corner of the room, still acting dazed, then beckoned for me to follow. It was amazing: the shocked expression and stony silence had been a cover-up, which meant he didn't trust the business-like woman. Aware that something had him on edge, I walked nonchalantly over to where he stood. He pointed up towards the ceiling, and after a moment I saw what had him so suspicious. A surveilance camera was wedged inconspicuously in the corner where the ceiling met two walls, but we were now directly under it and therefore out of it's field of vision.
Geez, I thought, he must have the senses of a cat.
"We better whisper," he said.
"What's the deal?" I asked.
"That woman is lying through her teeth," he stated matter-of-factly.
"What? How do you know?" I demanded.
"I don't know. It's like I can... sense it," he said cryptically.
"You're crazy!" I said.
Before he could open his mouth to respond, the double doors swung open once more, and he reassumed his facade. We began following the black-haired woman once more, and Ian shot me a sidelong look. We came into a small circular lobby-like room. There was a desk to one side which was now empty, and there were multiple doors leading off the main room. Two white-coated scientists stood in front of two adjacent doors, as if they had been expecting us.
"We need to run a few tests to varify that you're all right," said the woman, and we were ushered into two separate doors. The room beyond was small and dark, and filled with bizzare equipment. There was a small metal slab that looked as if it were designed to be a torturing table. The scientist silently motioned for me to get on it.
The moment I lay down, dozens of little robotic monitoring apparati sprung into life. Several electrodes rose on their wires like snakes, then attached themselves to my head and body. An eel-like tube writhed onto my arm, stuck a needle in it, and began draining blood for a sample. A helmet similar to the ones used to control Info-Grid systems fit itself onto my head. I tried not to flinch as these miriad robots began latching on, but in truth I was terrified. It was like having a bunch of leeches grab onto you and start sucking blood. The scientist disappeared through a door, and I could tell he was watching me through the one-way mirror set into the wall.
This is so not an amnesia ward, I thought to myself. Ian was right. Something was going on here, and nobody was telling us what it was. After a few minutes, the tiny little robotic drones began detaching themselves from me and slinking back into little compartments and slots in the huge machines surrounding the table. Finally the scientist came back out. I stood up from the cold table, and he ushered me back out the door I had come through. He shut the door behind me, not once having said a word. Ian stood in front of the other door, shivering and rubbing a red mark on his arm. It was obvious he had had the same unnerving and intrusive experience.
The black-haired woman stood waiting for us in the lobby.
"We better get you back to your rooms," she said. "It's getting dark."
Sure enough, the flourescent lights were dimming slightly. It seemed they were set for a day-night cycle. The woman, now much less trustworthy in my eyes, led us back to our rooms. Just as he was opening the door to his room, Ian shot me a look as if to say "Be careful." I nodded slightly. There was definitely something odd going on, and I wasn't about to let my guard down.

[TheRaisin]

Ma'am scanned over the printout handed to her by a secretary, and let out a long string of curses.
"I knew it! Look at this." She showed the printout to the nearest technician. "See? The specialized brainwaves are developing too quickly. Having the two of them in contact is amplifying it. Their powers are developing too quickly and independently, and we could lose control of them."
The lab technician tapped his chin. "We could always boost the control level on the chips," he said.
Ma'am thought. "I can't risk it. In 58 percent of the tests something went wrong when we boosted the control level. If they get out of hand we can always regain control, but if they die there's no way to salvage the project. Hold off for now." She glanced at the monitors. "Whoops. Better catch our little guinea pigs before they get away."
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Ian

I watched from the ground as the gargantuan clay-brown ship moved into position. Even in orbit it was visible. An intense point of red light began to grow beneath the ship, showing that it was preparing to fire. But when it did, instead of a laser burning through the atmosphere it was a missile. It left a red-brown streak of smoke as it plummeted down and out of sight in the distance. Then a mushroom cloud rose up from the ground, reaching miles and miles into the air, rising into view behind the building-tops. Shortly after came the blast of air. Buildings flew apart like sandcastles being hit with a fire-hose. The building I stood in began to shake and sway, and the building dynamics that made it able to stand up to an earthquake ironically worsened the structural integrity in this instance. I saw the roof begin to collapse, then all was blackness.

I woke up with a shout, drenched in sweat. I tried to remember the nightmare but it was already gone, locked away in my subconscious mind. I noticed a bundle of clothes on the nightstand and looked around suspiciously, but whoever had left them was long gone. I showered and changed into the clothes, a simple pair of jeans and a bland white T-shirt, as well as a pair of sneakers I found at the foot of the bed. The door was unlocked, so I stepped out.
Well, that's some improvement, I thought.
I headed for the cafeteria we had seen the day before. Lyra was already there, dressed in similarly generic clothing. She looked up from the bowl of cereal on the table in front of her.
"Food's back there," she said, waving back towards a counter.
"I'm not hungry," I said.
"Neither am I," she replied, pushing the cereal away with a look of disgust on her face.
"Any idea what this place is?" I asked.
"No..." She paused, and when she continued there was a sharp tinge of fear in her voice. "But it scares the hell out of me."
"Same here," I said. "I'm going to take a look around."
She stood up. "I'll come with. I'm going to go crazy if I spend another minute in here."
We walked out through the double doors. By silent agreement, we turned away from the hall leading to the eerie testing room, heading in the opposite direction. There were more numbered doors, identical to ours. Turning left, we saw a change in the monotony: a hall crossing this one, with multiple small offices and corridors. The office doors we found locked, and the corridors held no special interest, but to the right, at the end of the hall, was the most promising thing I had seen since I woke up the day before: an elevator. Finally, a way out.
We made a beeline for it. When we were halfway there, the black-haired woman from the day before walked out of one of the side-corridors and stopped in the middle of the hall with a fake look of surprise on her face.
Damn, I thought. She cut us off. Must have been watching us.
"Ah, there you are," she said cheerfully. "I was just about to come get you. Shall we get started?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned and started walking the way we had come, and we followed.
"I never got your name," Lyra said.
"You can call me Miss Fletcher," she replied.
"Miss Fletcher". Even her name sounds phony, I thought.
>Tell me about it,< Lyra's voice echoed in my head.
At the exact same moment, we stopped and stared at each other.
"Is something the matter?" Miss Fletcher asked.
Lyra recovered quickly. "Um, no, nothing."
"Miss Fletcher" started walking again, and Lyra pulled me after her.
>Can you hear me?< I asked, directing the question at her in my mind.
>I think so. Either that or I really have gone mad,< came the reply.
>This keeps getting weirder and weirder,< I thought. >Are we... really communicating telepathically?<
>It would appear so.<
>Do you think it has something to do with why we're here?< I asked.
>I... I don't know. But whatever's going on, she doesn't seem to know,< she said, flicking her eyes at the woman in front of us. >And I have a feeling it would be best if we keep it that way, at least till we can get some information.<
>Good idea. Keep your eyes open. If anything seems off, we should tell each other. And.... you'd better stay on your toes.<
>You too,< she said.

[TheRaisin]

Hmm. I have no opening comments whatsoever. Oh well. More room for the story, then.

Lyra

We followed Ms. Fletcher in silence. I was at the same time nervous but exhilerated by this new discovery. I wondered how we gotten this ability to speak telepathically. I had no doubt that it was in some way related to our being in this place: what were the odds of two people getting amnesia from being knocked out in the same attack in the same place, waking up in the same hospital, and both discovering they had telepathy?
Practically infinitessimal, I thought, answering my own question. There was no way this had happened by chance, and I sincerely doubted it had happened exactly the way Ms. Fletcher told us.
She led us down the hall in the opposite direction of the elevator. We walked by the empty, locked offices and small corridors, finally taking a right into a larger hallway.
"We've determined that your minds are all right, and I expect you'll regain your memory. And your immune systems don't seem to have suffered. So now we just have to build up your muscles again. We had equipment to keep them from deteriorating completely, but you can count on a lot of muscle loss when you're comatose for three months," Ms. Fletcher said.
I looked at Ian, and he did indeed look somewhat wasted, like an antenna that might snap in the wind. I knew I looked the same way.
Ms. Fletcher shoved open a door and held it open as we walked into golden sunlight.
"Wow," Ian remarked.
"Yeah," I said simply.
We stood in a sort of exercise yard, with tall fences on three sides and the grey wall of the building behind us. The area was filled with exercise equipment, even a climbing wall complete with harnesses. The sun was just climbing over the hilly horizon, filling the sharp crystal-clear air with a soft warm light. The only clouds visible in the sky were a few pastel pink and purple tinged whisps hanging over the hills, lit from behind by the sun. The rest of the sky was a light matte blue. A lush green lawn surrounded the building. Towering pine trees rose suddenly out of the ground a few hundred yards away, reaching up over the hills and beyond into the low mountains like a green shag carpet. The air smelled damp and fresh, like fall. It appeared Ms. Fletcher had been telling the truth when she said we were in Oregon.
"Thought you might like it," she said. "Hang out here for a while. Try out some of the machines, and get your muscles back to normal. I'll be back in a while." She walked back in and shut the door behind her.
"It's... not that great," Ian said. Then, giving up the ruse, he said, "Aw, what the hell" and ran towards the climbing tower, grabbing one of the artificial rocks and hauling himself up. I picked up a bike that felt as if it were made for me, and zoomed across the area, the tires leaving tracks in the well-packed dirt.
>You know as well as I do that this is just to blind us, make us content so we don't find out something we're not supposed to,< Ian pointed out in telespeak.
>Good enough for me,< I said, and zoomed off a small dirt kicker.
We ran around for what must have been hours, trying all kinds of exercise equipment and structures that any high school gym coach would have killed for. Finally my endurance ran out, and I slumped contentedly onto a bench, laughing. Ian reached the top of the climbing tower, and struck a "Thinker" pose, his legs dangling over the edge with his chin on his hand and his brow furrowed in mock concentration.
>This is the best day I've ever had!< I exclaimed in my mind.
Ian laughed in telespeak. >That's not saying much, is it?<
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"Look at them. They're like lab rats given a piece of cheese, happy because they don't know there's anything more." Ms. Fletcher watched from the monitor room, as was her habit.
"That's what we want, isn't it?" asked one of the technicians.
"Good point. We'll keep 'em content with drugs and exercise and the chips buried in their little brains, and we'll own them. They'll do anything we want." Ms. Fletcher rubbed her hands together with a look of sick satisfaction.

[Silversnow]

Aaah, very nice. It's good that you put their names above the text. The leech-machine part was very easy to imagine happening to you, euk... Post more soon!

[TheRaisin]

Thank you Silversnow. Please, don't lose interest anybody! I'm trying to get on with the plot, but I've just gotta get it started first. Soon certain things will be revealed, the first exposition will be complete, and Lyra and Ian's sinister past will be revealed. Also, I've been making an attempt at some art, and amazingly enough I think I'm getting slightly better (I really suck at drawing). Maybe, by some stroke of luck, I'll actually get good enough eventually that I'll be able to post some and help you get a better view of some stuff. But don't hold your breath.

Ian

As the adrenaline wore off, and it's effects stopped clouding my mind, I saw what this place truly was. The fences were over twenty feet tall, and topped with curls of razor-wire, and the only side of the enclosure without a fence was the side hemmed in by the towering wall of the building behind it. There were no gates; the only way in or out was the door we had come through, which could easily be locked.
>Like a prison, isn't it?< Lyra said.
>Exactly what I was thinking,< I said. It looked exactly like a low-security prison exercise yard.
The door swung open and Ms. Fletcher stood there. Grabbing the harness rope, I quickly rappeled back down the climbing wall, and we followed her back inside.
"I don't want you to over-exert yourselves, so I think we'll call it a day," she said, leading us back to our rooms, which now felt like prison cells rather than sanctuaries. Walking in, I noticed the room had been changed dramatically. A large bookcase, as tall as me and equally long, stood against one wall, filled with books. There was also a large desk on which sat a computer and a Link system. Closing the door behind me, I randomly grabbed a book from the bookcase and sat on the bed.
>Lyra,< I thought, >pick up a book and pretend to read.< I knew they would have added the same stuff in her room.
>Good idea. It would look suspicious if we just sat and stared off into space when we teletalk.<
>This is serious. They don't want us to look around. There's something they really don't want us to find.<
>Then we have to find it,< she replied, using a kind of inverse logic.
>Damn right,< I thought back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
".... What's going on here?" Ms. Fletcher asked suspiciously.
"Nothing, ma'am," said the technician. "They're just reading."
"Please. It doesn't take one of them that long to read a page. And they're obviously focusing on something we can't see."
"Well.... I admit they don't really seem to be focusing on the books," said the tech.
"Activate sensor mode in the chips. Set parameters to linguistic thoughts," she said.
The tech tapped some keys in a flurry of flashes from his black leather gloves, shining in the flourescent light. A holo-display came up, showing two sets of thought waves. Ms. Fletcher studied them for a moment.
"The thought waves are corresponding. Run the data through an interpreter and link it to a sound modulator."
A few seconds and keystrokes later, a robotic voice began speaking.
".... need to find a way to avoid the cameras."
"If we could get ahold of a camera, we could take a snapshot and...."
Ms. Fletcher slammed a fist down on the control panel, without bothering to listen to the rest of the conversation. Then, calming herself, she switched on the commlink and set it to a special channel.
"Prisoner Detainment Unit 1 to rooms 290 and 291. Bring them to the training center."
A low, flat synthetic voice replied "Affirmative" and Ms. Fletcher closed the channel.
"Are they ready for that, ma'am?" the tech asked.
"It doesn't matter now," she said. "If they're not ready, we'll make them ready. It's too late to boost the control level on the chips if they're already using telepathy and planning on how to evade the cameras. We're doing a rush job."
The tech said nothing.
God, I hope those kids are tough, he thought, and muttered a prayer under his breath.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ian

The door swung open and smashed against the doorstop. Two black mostrosities barreled through, and before I could react they had grabbed my arms and legs and hauled me out the door. The metal they were made of had some quality that made it swallow light, so they were completely black, like the center of a black hole. Their upper bodies were built like mutant gorillas, with thin waists slightly above the two acute-triangle tread sets and huge broad shoulders. Each had two powerful arms, with three-fingered claw-like hands. A large compartment on each back gave them a hunched appearance. They had forward-slung heads with practically no neck, situated at the top of the chest between the shoulders. Where the eyes should have been was a visor that went from one edge of the head to the other, giving it a field of vision that must have been almost 360 degrees, and for mouths they had small speakers.
As I struggled I caught a glimpse of Lyra being unceremoniously dragged away in a similar fashion, twisting and kicking and fighting and spitting and cursing like a caged lion that knows it's beat but continues to fight anyway. Finally, the robots trying to capture her got annoyed, as much as a robot can get annoyed anyway. They held her down while others streamed in to help from out of my field of vision. A small thin arm appeared from the compartment on one of them with a needle attached to the end. It began to whir towards her with a horrible sense of malice.
"NO!" I shouted, and wrenched myself free. I got one step towards her before the robots recaptured me. The needle sunk sickeningly into her flesh and emptied it's contents into her blood before withdrawing. I hardly noticed the sudden prick of pain on my own arm. I was concious long enough to see Lyra pass out before the drugs reached my brain and knocked me out as well.


Hint: next part will be called "Powers That Be". It's gonna be off da heezy.

[TheRaisin]

Ian

Drifting.... falling.... silence. There was a great void in front of me, but at the far end was a golden light, beckoning me.
Come. There is no you or anyone else. You are part of something bigger and better. There are no troubles.
No... wait. There is an I. My name..... my name is.... my name is....
You have no name. There is only calm, and silence, and sleep. Simply--
Ian! My name is Ian. And I'm in a building, and I'm being captured by robots, and--
Lies. Lies your mind tells you. Here there are no lies. If you would just come forward--
No! I can't rest. Something's happening to me and... where's Lyra?
There is no--
I've got to help Lyra!
I turned away from the golden light and the enticing voice, which was now screaming at me in rage, but there was nothing it could do.
Fine. Leave. We'll meet again soon enough. I have an eternity to wait.
And suddenly I was caught up in some unseen stream, being pushed upwards, away from the golden light and back towards the other light at the opposite side of the void. Rather than being warm and golden, it was bright and stark and unnatural. I began to reconsider, but it was too late. I was thrust up, back into the real world, back into the sickening glow of the flourescent lights, back into life.

My eyes flicked open as if someone had thrown a switch. I was on an examination table of some sort, a plain gray metal slab. It was so cold it began to sting my bare hands. The room I was in had several long rows of these, each with bays of equipment and computers surrounding them. All around the walls of the room, the hulking black robots stood, silent and immobile. Ms. Fletcher blocked the door.
"Glad to see you're awake," she said.
"Where's Lyra?" I asked, wishing fervently that looks really could kill.
"My, you don't use your eyes much, do you? It's no secret." She pointed at the table next to me.
There, lying as still as stone, was Lyra. Her skin looked more unhealthy than usual, and her sleeping face was twisted into a frown.
"What did you do?!" I shouted.
"The robots just gave her a little something to calm her down. Although it seems they might have given her too much."
Looking again at Lyra, I realized she wasn't moving. My face twisted into a look of horror.
"Oh no..."
"Oh, don't worry, she's alive. We wouldn't just let her die. Of course, we can't guarantee she'll stay alive, as such. Comas can be very nasty. Sometimes people don't recover from them at all. And you know, with every month that passes the chances diminish." Her eyes narrowed. There was an unmistakable malice in her words that chilled me to my very soul.
I felt Lyra's hand. It felt unnaturally cold, but there was still a weak pulse. I began to telespeak, hoping I might be able to reach her, but as soon as I started a fierce pain jolted through my head, emanating from the base of my skull. I choked and gasped as the wind was knocked out of me, and tears of pain formed at the corners of my eyes.
"Oh, I wouldn't try that," Ms. Fletcher said with twisted delight in her voice, "we activated the safeguard in the chip at the back of your brain. Any telepathic activity, and it'll deliver a nice jolt of electricity."
"What is this place?" I asked.
"All your questions will be answered in due time. Now are you going to cooperate?"
I looked at Lyra, her face twisted in discomfort, her breathing shallow.
"I'll do whatever you want," I said. "Just help her."
Ms. Fletcher smiled. "I knew you would. That's the problem with people like you: you care too much. Find the right string to pluck, and you've got them under your control." She snapped her fingers and the machines surrounding Lyra sprang to life, monitoring her and attaching IVs.
"Follow me," she said.

[CarboN]

I'm often really choosy when it comes to stories,
and something dragged me to read this.

Your story really has "the something"!
Nice.

[TheRaisin]

I know I've been letting this thread get away from me, and for that I apologize. I've had a lot going on lately, what with the end-of-the-quarter homework rush, illness, trying to keep myself socially alive, and bizzare egg salad sandwich incidents (don't ask). But I'm really going to try to get the next chapter up this weekend. I mean it. And once I break through this barricade, if I'm lucky enough to see my muse, I can guarantee the following chapters will be good. So don't give up on this thread yet. And by the way, happy All-Hallow's Eve!

[TheRaisin]

Ian

Ms. Fletcher led me to a large plated-steel door. After she slid a card through a slot next to it, had her retinas and fingertips scanned, and provided a voice sample for a voice verification device, there was a heavy thock and a hiss of hydraulics, and the door slid open. I stepped through after her, and my first reaction was that I was outside. The floor was covered in grass, in the distance there was a stand of tall pines, and in another direction was a large patch of dirt. But as I looked around, I realized we were still inside.
The ceiling was dozens of yards up, and covered in flourescent lighting panels. The wall behind me stretched half a kilometer in either direction, and I could vaguely make out three others of the same size. It was a gigantic one square kilometer room.
The door slid shut behind me, and I snapped back to attention. Several yards away, Ms. Fletcher stepped through a small side door set in a protrusion from the grey metal wall. The door locked behind her.
Now I was alone. Even the company of Ms. Fletcher was better than none when I didn't know where I was or what was going on. I would have much preferred the hell I knew to the hell I didn't. The room was eerily quiet, like all the rooms in this place. The lack of natural sounds was disconcerting in a place made to mimic nature. After a minute, the silence was broken.
A section of the ceiling at the center of the room slid aside, almost imperceptibly from this distance. A huge shape like the carrier part of a blimp descended, it's sides covered in mirrors.
"Welcome to the training room." Ms. Fletcher's voice echoed through the room over the intercom. I realized the shape on the ceiling was an observation room: it's mirrors were one-way.
"Training? What for?" I asked, unsure if she could hear me.
"For you. You are a soldier, and this is a war."
"A war against who? And how can I be a soldier?" This didn't make sense.
"A war against the Tenae race, idiot! The aliens who infiltrated our society and now have been turning our cities to smoldering piles of glass for the last three months! You were found in the rubble of Los Angeles and we decided you would be a perfect candidate for a military project."
"Project?" I asked. I did not like where this was going.
"This is a military institute. We are funded by a secret splinter branch of the government to experiment with ways to create more advanced humans, capable of performing with more efficiency and potency than any other human. In a word, a supersoldier. Inititially we tried making stronger, faster humans, focusing on physical aspects. The results proved catastrophic. So this time, we tampered with the mind instead, to see what increased cranial activity would do. It's pretty hard to believe what we found."
"I'm listening."
"Well, you know that the most anyone ever uses of their brain is less than twenty-five percent. We electrically stimulated the seventy-five percent of the brain that isn't used, and when those neurons started firing, well, voila." She sounded extremely pleased with herself.
"So I'm the result of that? The telepathy, and the ability to tell when someone is lying?"
She chuckled annoyingly. "That's just a fraction of it. With your brain working at full capacity, we were able to download practically an entire database of knowledge into your head. In fact, you probably possess more information than any other single person on the planet. Also, you.... well, maybe now isn't the time. I wouldn't want you to get a big head."
"So what about the amnesia?" I pressed.
"No time for that. We--"
"You're dodging my questions," I said angrily.
"Damned right! You're on a need-to-know basis, and at the moment, you don't need to know. Now let's get on with this."
"Screw it! I'm not doing a damn thing until I get some answers!" This was starting to annoy me.
"I think you will," she hissed. "We wouldn't want an accident to befall Lyra, would we?" There was venom in her voice. A holoscreen slid out of the wall, showing Lyra still on the table with one of the black robots hunched over her. Several small arms extended from the back compartment, holding syringes, small blades, and a twisted variety of other devices that looked like they had been designed by a madman for the sole purpose of killing while inflicting the most amount of pain.
"You're sick," I spat.
"No, I'm just very willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want. And if that includes--"
"No! I don't want to hear it. I'll do what you want." I had no choice.
"Good boy. And remember, I hold the key to Lyra's future. If you don't behave, I could simply push a large red button here and.... well, I'll spare you the details. Now for your first training mission..."
A small portion of the wall extended itself and slid aside, and a large rack full of weaponry slid out. It was covered in weaponry, from small knives to state-of-the-art laser weaponry.
"On that rack is an automatic assault rifle and clips of ammo. Take the rifle apart, clean it, reassemble it, and load it. You may proceed."
I looked at the weapon uncertainly. I had no memory of using one, but if I really had all that knowledge...
I picked up the gun and willed myself to obey. Suddenly my hands were flying in a flurry of activity, with hardly any prompting. I somehow knew exactly what I was doing. Within a matter of seconds I finished by slamming the clip into place.
"Yes! It would appear your information recall is working splendidly. Your next mission..."
A small plastic target popped up from the ground several yards away.
"...destroy that target."
I lifted the gun to my shoulder, steadied it, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. The industrial plastic flew apart in splinters with a loud crack.
"You gave me live amunition?! I thought they were blanks! What kind of person would give a kid an assault rifle with live ammo?!"
"From this point on, you are no longer a kid," Ms. Fletcher said. "Like it or not, you are a soldier. Now calm down. There's much more training to do."


Kind of crappy, I know. I know exactly what I want to write later on, but I'm having trouble working through the present chapters. Oh well, there you are. Next one will be in a couple of days.

[Abe's son]

...your going to write more...right? ...please say yes.

[TheRaisin]

Yes, oh son of Abe, I am going to write more. Much more. Mwu-hahahahahaaaa! Now, my evil laugh of the day complete, I shall proceed with the next chapter.

Ian

The next two hours were excrutiating. From the control room, Ms. Fletcher issued one order after another. I ran about the square kilometer of terrain, blasting a target here, locating a weapon cache there. I realized how detailed the environment was, from the thick pine-needle covering in the grove to the shallow creek, to the foxholes and trenches pockmarking the dirt area. But I had little time to think about anything besides the next set of orders, the position of the well-laid booby-traps all around me, and the pain screaming through my nerves from my weakened and atrophied muscles. My arms and legs felt like guitar strings stretched nearly to the point of snapping. But I knew there would be no rest, only another dire warning if I stopped. As long as Ms. Fletcher had her robots' weapons trained on Lyra, she held the cards.
"Last mission for today," she said on the intercom. "You've picked up basic field techniques very quickly, but now let's see how you fare in simulated combat."
One of the ground panels uprooted itself and slid aside, revealing real dirt and grass roots packed on top of a fine metal mesh. From the space underneath rose a rack on which a bizzare suit was lain out. It was made of some high-impact synthetic fabric, like the now woefully out-of-date kevlar. There were small flexible sensor panels covering it from the boots up. There was an army helmet outfitted in a similar fashion.
"Put it on."
I did so, finding it remarkably light and comfortable. It had obviously been tailored for me.
"Now meet your opponent."
Another floor panel slid aside, and a grey pillar rose slowly. On it was a version of one of the black guard robots, this one sleeker and thinner. The back compartment opened, and three thick arms emerged, each holding a small laser.
"This model was specially designed as a training partner. It is sleeker, faster, more agile, and much more intelligent. As you no doubt noticed, each of it's secondary arms is outfitted with a small pulse laser. The beams from these lasers, when received by the sensors on your suit, cause the suit to send an electrical shock to an isolated area of your body. I think this calls for a demonstration. Training Unit 01, fire a three-second burst at the target's right foot."
One of the robot's arms whirred into position and fired a short succession of laser bursts. The reaction was instantaneous: an unbearable searing spasm of pain roared through my foot. The pain lasted only as long as the laser touched the sensor, but by the time the beam stopped I was already crouching, gasping for breath.
"How long do you plan to keep sending electrical currents through my body?!" I shouted.
"Suck it up. Now, I will give you a two-minute head start. I recommend taking advantage of it. Begin."
I stood up and ran for the dirt area, hoping to lose the robot in the hills and trenches. I had put several hills between myself and the robot when Ms. Fletcher's voice echoed through the room:
"Time's up."
Within a matter of seconds I heard a furious whirring, accompanied by a churning and spattering sound. Suddenly the robot flew off the crest of the hill behind me, the treads flinging dirt several feet behind it. I fired a volley of bullets at it, but they pinged off harmlessly, leaving only small scratches and dents. Seeing that the bullets had almost no effect, I stood completely still as the robot approached me. Without warning it lifted all three lasers and shot several bursts. I dodged most of them, but one caught my left upper arm.
"Gaahhck!" I clenched my teeth, trying to fight through the pain. Lasers still raised, the robot rushed at me. At the last possible second, I took a step back and dropped neatly into the trench behind me. The robot flew overhead a split second later, spattering the top of my helmet with dirt. I twisted and sprung up, yelling and firing. The robot was already in mid-turn, with it's right flank turned to me. The bullets had slightly more effect on it's flank, but still not enough to slow it down. However, one wild shot hit one of the lasers, which exploded in a flash of light and a spray of glass and flaming gas. The robot turned it's forward-slung head and looked briefly at the twisted stub of crackling live wires at the end of it's arm, then turned on me with an air of anger and malicious intent.
I took off running along the trench, but now rather than protecting me it trapped me. The robot followed close behind, firing nonstop. A blast hit me in the back, and I somersaulted briefly in the dirt before springing back up in one fluid motion. I took off again, fueled by the fear that this robot would not relent in it's painful attack.
A small step-ladder was set against the trench wall ahead. I used it like a launching board to launch myself up and over the wall of the trench, not once ceasing the movement of my legs. The robot continued to blast away, but then it stopped. I turned to see what had caused this momentary cease-fire.
The two remaining lasers were glowing red-hot. The robot stood patiently, waiting for them to cool down.
I'm not going to give it the chance, I thought. I fired a sustained burst of ballista from the gun, the recoil causing it to spray wildly. Despite the wild aim, it worked. One of the lasers, already close to exploding, was hit and erupted like a pressure bomb. The explosion blackened the robot's side and face. A shard of metal clipped the one remaining laser, and it started to spin like an out-of-control top, firing constantly. Several of the beams hit my chest and head before the robot switched it off. A crack had appeared in it, through which heated helium blasted.
"There," I said. "It's disaabled."
"Not yet, it isn't," Ms. Fletcher said.
The smaller secondary arms detached themselves, and lay sparking and smoldering and spewing gases on the dirt. The robot now flexed it's bulky main arms.
"You've got to be kidding me!" I said.
"There are no jokes in this business," she said.
The robot advanced. I started running once again, but I was beginning to tire from the constant dashing. There was no way I could outrun this thing, even in my best shape. Suddenly a booby-trap sprang up in front of me: a small electric fence. I leaped over it as it rose, clearing it by centimeters. The robot simply drove through it, crushing it to the ground. I had avoided that one, but I was getting careless in my dogged state.
Suddenly there was a high-pitched whirring sound behind me, like a wire rapidly being extended. I turned just in time to see one of the long three-fingered hands flying towards me. It had somehow been launched from the wrist, tethered to the robot by a thick cord. I ducked, and it knocked hard against my helmet, sending me sprawling on the grass. The robot passed by me, then circled back. It slowed down and began rumbling and clanking towards me. I squeezed the trigger of the assault rifle, but it made only a hollow clinking sound. Having believed I had won, I had carelessly neglected to switch clips after destroying the lasers. Now there was no time to reload. I stood up and faced the robot. I instinctively ducked again, and it brought it's hands together where my arms had just been.
Wedging the gun under it's tread array, I pushed on it with all my weight. Slowly, incredulously, almost comically, the robot tipped over backwards. It landed with a heavy thud, crushing the small back compartment. Now having the advantage, I quickly reloaded. As it ponderously struggled it's way up, I brought the gun to it's head and emptied the entire clip practically at point-blank range. The metal shielding of the robot face gradually dented in, finally rupturing and allowing the bullets to slice through the wiring and the central computer. The robot finally collapsed. I stood over it, panting.
"Now it's disarmed," Ms. Fletcher said jovially.

[TheRaisin]

Ian

I followed Ms. Fletcher in silence, anxious to make sure the robots hadn't done anything to Lyra. I shuddered, trying to suppress thoughts about what they could have done to her while she slept. A place where someone would even allude to killing a person while they were in a coma was obviously twisted to a very dangerous degree, not to mention the experiments. Thinking about the abilities Ms. Fletcher had hinted at, something struck me.
"That robot's reaction time couldn't have been slower than mine," I said.
Ms. Fletcher scoffed. "Of course not. What kind of state-of-the-art robot couldn't react faster than a human?"
"Then how did I dodge it when it tried to grab me?" I asked.
"Take a wild guess."
I already knew the answer, although it was hard to believe. "I couldn't have dodged it unless I started moving before it did. Which means I somehow knew what it was going to do before it did it."
A smug and knowing smile crept across her face like a serpent.
"Precognition. Useful, isn't it? It is, of course, limited to the immediate future, and is somewhat more instinctual and less controllable than we had hoped, but it proves invaluable in combat."
I felt a strong urge to tackle her, but I restrained it. "You're really serious, aren't you? You're going to make us into soldiers. But how can you do that legally?"
"Who says it's legal? Our branch of the government is secret even to the rest of the government. We can do anything we want."
I could feel my face contorting with barely controlled rage.
"You can't keep us here, even with your little control chips. You know we could escape eventually."
She spun around and pulled a gun from the inside of her labcoat, which she leveled at my head.
"Enough screwing around, kid. You have two choices: fight or die. Now I'll be honest with you: I like you, and that kid in a coma. You have spunk. You remind me of myself, in fact. But I have no problem with spattering the inside of your head all over this hall."
I could feel my mind start to focus energy, directing all my thought at her. My brain tried to make my legs move me toward her to grab the gun and twist it around at her face. But I knew I was beaten: slowly the anger subsided, replaced by a feeling of defeat. I shrugged slightly, and my fists, which I had subconsciously clenched, lowered and relaxed.
"Good," she said. "Your emotions blind you, but even a dumb animal knows enough to keep itself alive."
I followed in silence once again, wishing I could shoot laser beams from my eyes.
----------------------------------------------------
Lyra

Blackness. Silence. Complete sensory deprevation. Though I could feel nothing, I sensed I was drifting. Time was meaningless, but still it felt like an eternity that I stayed in this unnatural darkness. Then, slowly, it began to dissapear. Swirls of blue-black smoke and fog began to roll across my field of view. The feeling of lazy drifting suddenly changed to a feeling of purposeful movement. Behind the fog I saw faint light. Voices began to echo around me.
"....wake up. Don't try to.... eyes..."
The voices combined into one, but still I heard it as if at a great distance. Then the clouds slowly cleared, and it was as if a veil was lifted from my mind. The voice was now clear and firm, and sounded familiar.
"Don't try to telespeak. Open your eyes."
Without any bidding from my mind, the darkness swept away. My eyes opened, staring directly into the harsh fluorescent light above. I was suddenly aware of my own being, my body and muscles and synapses. There were small noises all around me, like a room full of printers and scanners. I experimentally tried moving my head. It felt heavy, but it seemed to function. I noticed small pinpoints of pain on my skin. Turning my head to look at my left arm, I saw a plethora of small.... what were they? My mind took a moment to sort out the data flowing in through my blurry eyes. Suddenly it registered what they were.
--------------------------------------------------
Ian

I stood with bated breath as Lyra slowly floated to consciousness. She looked at her arm, where the leech-like machines performed their myriad enigmatic duties. After a moment, a look of horror swept across her face. A strangled cry arose from her throat, and she struggled into an upright position, tearing off machines left and right. They squirmed and emmitted horrible screeching and malicious whirring noises. Most wriggled out of her hands and retreated into their sockets, but a few were torn out and lay twisting and sparking on the floor, leaving black electrical marks and tiny pools of oil on the linoleum. The rest retreated before they could be grabbed.
When her skin was free of the robots, Lyra drew herself into a defensive ball and sat shakily rubbing her arms, her eyes still wide with shock and fright. Slowly they moved around, scanning the room for anything familiar. Finally they fixed on my own eyes. Gradually her shivering subsided.
"Ian?"
----------------------------------------------
Lyra

The cold of the metal table bit into my hands as I listened to Ian's account of what was happening. When he finished, Ms. Fletcher slunk out of the shadows around the edges of the room.
"Now that she is up-to-date on the situation, it is time for her training."
Ian looked stunned. "You expect her to train? She just woke up!"
"C'mon, it doesn't sound that bad," I said. "I can do it."
I slid off the table, and immediately my legs gave out. I stumbled a few paces, and Ian moved forward to help.
"I'm fine," I lied as I stood up straight. The truth was, my legs felt like gelatin. I walked to the door, hoping the slight wobble of my knees didn't give me away.
"See? No problem. Just try and keep me away from that robot!" I wished I felt as confident as I sounded.
"Well... okay," Ian said awkwardly. "I'll wait in the cafeteria."
Ms. Fletcher led me down the hall.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ian

The large digital clock in the cafeteria said 3:05 when I entered. I bypassed the food once again, and sat down on one of the long benches. An hour passed slowly. I tried some of the porridge-like gruel from the large heating containers, but found it tasteless and with a consistency that reminded me unpleasantly of luke-warm vomit. I didn't have much of an appetite anyway. Another half-hour ticked away. My eyelids began to droop heavily. I had held off exhaustion for hours, but now it came crashing down on me. My head slumped forward onto the table, and I fell asleep.

The sound of the double-doors swinging open woke me up. I looked quickly at the clock. It read 9:23. I had been asleep for more than six hours! I had only trained for less than three. I turned my attention to Lyra, who was stumbling through the double-doors. Her face and arms were bruised and sliced, streaked with dirt. The cheap sneakers they had provided were almost completely worn through, and the legs of her jeans were torn. Her eyes looked distant and dazed and bloodshot. I leapt up as she approached.
"What happened?!" I asked.
She simply stood there, swaying slightly. Without warning her knees buckled and she toppled forward. I grabbed her by the arm, and had to half drag her to a bench. Although she was extremely light, she was dead weight: her whole body had gone limp.
"What happened?" I repeated.
Her reply was raspy, as if she had gone for days without water.
"Training... so many traps... blades..."
I put one arm over my shoulders and dragged her out the doors. Ms. Fletcher stood smugly leaning against the wall outside.
"What did you do?!"
Her smile was malevolent when she answered. "Well, you already told her about the traps and the missions. I had to make things a bit more challenging."
I wanted to punch her square in the jaw, but I was painfully aware of Lyra's limp body. She seemed to be teetering on the brink of unconsciousness.
"I'll deal with you later," I said.
She laughed. "Oh, yes, you'll 'deal with me'. Just remember, boy, I pull the strings around here. I have the power, and I can use it against you."
I dragged Lyra back to her room. Her toes swept against the floor the entire way. Finally I reached her bed, where I dumped her somewhat unceremoniously. I looked closely at her to make sure she was still breathing. As I closed the door behind me, I called back:
"If you can hear me, I recommend wedging a chair under the doorknob."
I closed the door quietly and entered my own room.

[TheRaisin]

Ian

When the door caved in in a shower of splinters, I was ready. Before the last pieces had hit the floor, I had rolled off the bed and dropped into a crouching position. The black robot rushed in, its treads crushing the scattered pieces of plastic that had been the chair wedged under the doorknob. I leapt up from my crouching position. As the robot advanced, I put one foot in front of the small base on which the treads were mounted and, reaching back over its hulking shoulder, grabbed one of the back-mounted secondary arms. This movement had sent us both reeling backwards, so I stood with my one free foot still on the robot while I used the other to push away from the doorframe, launching the two of us back the other way. The arm wrenched and bent, but it was just stong enough to work: I pulled with all my strength, then moved to the side just in time as the massive thing crashed forward, crushing the face-plate with its own weight. The momentum carried it forward into the wall, where it left a sizzling spider-web-crack crater five feet across. I paused only long enough to make sure it wasn't going to get up again. In short, it wasn't.
I rushed out into the hall, crashing into another robot.
Stupid! They always work in teams!
Fortunately, the robot was sent crashing lightly into the wall, stunning it long enough for me to escape. I was still a few strides away from Lyra's door when it exploded outward, hanging precariously on one hinge. Another robot screeched out on its side, shooting up sparks as its metal body scraped across the linoleum tiles. Nearly crushed but still fighting, it feebly raised its one remaining arm, a heavy primary one. A cheap plastic chair flew through the air from the doorway and crashed against the arm, throwing the aim wild as the fist launched itself just as in training. It ended up punching a deep hole in the ceiling. A chunk of plaster fell and hit its head, sending it spinning around on its broken and loose swivel. Finally the light behind the visor flickered out, and the head clunked gracelessly to the floor.
Lyra walked out of her room, shoving the door aside, which broke off its remaining hinge and slammed against the ground. Her jaw was set with anger, her teeth clenched. The cuts on her face and limbs were still fresh and bleeding profusely. Her shifting green eyes were now burning with rage, seeming to glow like green lasers. She stood in the doorway for a moment, surveying the broken robot, then coolly and wordlessly gave it the finger.
Ms. Fletcher rounded the corner a few yards off.
"Ah, excellent work. You left one standing though."
I turned, remembering the third robot. It was simply standing there against the wall. Lyra wrenched an arm off the broken robot, and began bashing the remaining one with it. After a few whacks the faceplate fell off, revealing the circuitry beneath. Lyra shoved the arm deep into the mess of wires and processors, and the robot shut down.
"Good. You've passed this test."
Lyra sat on the ruined mechanical beast.
"Great," she said, massaging a bruised knee. "Can I go back to bed now?"

[Silversnow]

Beating up a robot, the best way for handling stress. That chapter made me feel all nice. Now continue on.

[TheRaisin]

Nyeah hya hahahahaahahahaaa, oh, whew, *gasp*! I laughed when I saw that post, Silversnow. Now I feel all nice. Thank you for that.

Lyra

No rest for the weary: we were ordered to report to the cafeteria, as usual. So it was with stiff joints, a headache, and a nasty disposition that, fifteen minutes and three boxes of bandages later, I shoved open the doors to the gloomy little commisary. From his usual seat at the farthest table, Ian studied me closely as I approached. His staring did nothing to lighten my mood.
"What are you staring at?" I growled as I took a seat opposite him.
"Those cuts-- are they still bleeding?"
I peeled back a bandage on my arm.
"See for yourself," I said.
Ian winced at the sight of it.
"That's horrible! What happened, anyway? When I asked you before you just sort of mumbled."
I sighed. Just thinking about it made the cuts burn, but he was entitled to an explanation.
"Well, the missions themselves were basically the same as you described them. The difference was, there were about ten times as many traps, and they were about ten times worse. Every two steps, a big circular saw on an arm would pop out of the ground and take a swing at me. Every time I turned around, there was a stun gun pointing in my face." I tried hard to keep my voice from breaking, remembering the pain and terror of the previous day. "When I finally got to the last mission, there were five robots instead of one. Needless to say, I didn't have much success against them."
There was an awkward silence for a few moments.
"I wonder why those cuts keep bleeding," Ian said, changing the subject.
"An anti-coagulating agent on the blades, probably," I said, glad to change the focus of the conversation. "Or microscopic teeth on the edges."
From the direction of the door came a small cough. Ian stood up, a purposeful look on his face.
"Ian, don't. It doesn't matter, let it go."
Ian looked me directly in the eyes, and said, "She could have killed you. It would have mattered then. It would have mattered a lot. It's time to have a talk."
He walked angrily to the double-doors, pushed them open, and stepped outside. I sighed.
"Jeez, he doesn't let things go."
-------------------------------------------
Ian

"My, you do have good hearing. Must be a side-effect of the experiments we hadn't discovered."
Ms. Fletcher had been waiting outside the cafeteria, and did not seem at all surprised when I stepped into the hall, brandishing my fists meaningfully.
"What are you playing at?" I asked. "You know we're no use to you dead, so why have you tried to kill us every chance you get? Why?!"
"Because I know you can survive," she replied coolly. "I'll push you as hard as I can to a point just below that at which you'll die. I'll push you to make you stronger. And once you are strong enough, you will turn the tide of the war. You will be our weapons against the Tenae."
"We're your weapons against the Tenae? Two kids?"
She scoffed. "You think you're the only two? There are thousands of you. You are the only two from this installation."
My mind reeled. This couldn't be true. "There are other installations?" I asked in horror.
She grinned a horrible, evil grin. "Naive little child. Did you think we could build an army with just one lab? No, there are hundreds, worldwide! And when the Tenae are defeated, we will rise to power. Of course, you will be rewarded handsomely for your services, once our empire stretches from pole..." She placed a long, claw-like fingernail at the bottom of my jugular vein on my neck. I was momentarily petrified. I felt like a mouse helpless in the coils of a cobra. "... to pole." She sickeningly drew the long sharp claw up the length of my neck, the very edge knicking my skin. I came out of my trance, smacking her hand away. I clasped my other hand to my neck, where a slow trickle of blood had begun to form.
"Go back in there and eat. You'll need your strength today. It could be most disastrous if you were to fall and have some sort of accident while training."
I stood shivering for a moment. I was deathly cold, not just in body, but in spirit. For a moment, it had been as if I could see into the very pit of her soul, and what I had seen there frightened me more than anything else I had encountered in the few days since I had woken up, lacking any memory: nothing. Not a shred of compassion, not a spark of human kindness, just a freezing emptiness. She was as inhuman as the robots she commanded. I bolted through the double-doors, seeking the warmth of Lyra's spirit.

[TheRaisin]

Lyra

Ian burst back into the cafeteria. His face was a mask of terror, and there was a wild panic in his eyes like that of an animal being hunted. I leaped out of my seat.
"What happened? What did-- are you bleeding?"
Ian sat on the uncomfortable bench. Gradually his frantic panting subsided.
"I just-- I... This place is just getting to me, is all."
Gee, that explains it, I thought.
"Uh-huh. So why is your neck bleeding?"
He shuddered, and an ill look washed over his face.
"I'd really rather not talk about it."
I said nothing, but gave him a steely look.
He sighed. "She cut me. With her fingernail. I just froze. I just couldn't move." He shuddered again, and his pale face took on a greenish tinge. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"That's because you haven't had any solid food in three months." I slid a bowl of the porridge-like stuff towards him.
"Thanks," he said. "But I'm not really hungry."
I could tell something more was bothering him.
"Ian, what's the problem? You're not telling me everything."
"It's just this place," he said, scanning the sterile room with a look of disgust. "And that... thing out there."
Suddenly the look of desperation and fear returned.
"Lyra... she's going to kill us."
I scoffed. "What reason would she have for that?"
"She doesn't need one. She's... empty. She has no remorse or feelings. If she wanted to, she could just press a button right now and fry our brains.."
"That's insane," I said.
He looked hurt and angry.
"Was I insane not to trust her? Was I insane when I said she was lying about why we're here?"
I couldn't argue with that. He had certainly been perceptive about Ms. Fletcher's treachery, and the underlying malignancy of this place. He had seen the cameras in the cafeteria, and evaded them well. It seemed like he could sense things before I could.
"Okay, you don't believe me? Just try this. Just try to see for yourself what's as plain as day to me, and then tell me I'm insane."
I scowled at him. "Fine, what do I do?"
"First, close your eyes."
"How am I supposed to see something with my eyes closed?"
He sighed. Obviously I was wearing him out. "It's a metaphor! Just do it!"
"Okay."
I closed my eyes.
"Now what?"
He took a deep breath. "Now, let your mind drift. Tune everything out. Tune out all your senses. Empty your mind of all thoughts."
I tried to do as he said. Eventually I became aware only of my own mind. The experience was odd, but I wasn't thinking about that.
"Good. Now that you've blocked everything out, tune yourself in. Don't use your senses, use your own mind. Extend yourself outside your own body, and let everything in."
Slowly, I felt myself drift. Eventually, I realized in some subconscious part of my mind that I was completely out of my own body. For a moment, everything was still. I waited. And finally, it struck me like a freight train.
I could sense everything around me. I was intensely aware of the tiny camera in the corner, and I could feel the electrical current running through it. I had a feeling that if I had focused long enough, I could have traced it back to the room where the cameras were monitored.
So that's how he did it.
But there was no time to focus on that. I could sense the small fly about to land in the porridgey stuff on the table in front of me. I could feel the countless vibrations of countless machines humming in the floor and ceiling and walls. I could detect Ian's satisfaction at knowing I could detect his satisfaction. Each piece of information was like a sharp point of light. All taken together, they filled my mind like a sky full of stars, and for a moment I got just the slightest hint of an idea of a glimpse of what it would mean to be truly omnipresent. But even as I rejoiced at this discovery, a deeper undertone began to emerge. Some intangible energy lay beneath the atoms that made up the physical representation of this building, and as I turned my attention toward it, I became horrified at what it was.
Death. Fear. Suffering. I could feel it all around me. Every particle of matter in the material that created this building was charged, it seemed, with human emotion. I could feel a thousand deaths, a thousand cries, a thousand different instances of incredible pain played over and over again for all eternity. It was interwoven with the very fabric of the place. Every piece of it screamed at me in a cacophony of pain, until it felt as if my mind would snap. At the last moment, just when I thought I would lose my mind, something jolted me back into my body: a human voice, too loud to ignore, screaming a single word.
"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

I opened my eyes. I was on my back, looking up at Ian. My eyes stung with tears. The back of my head stung and ached horribly.
"I'm sorry!", he said, his voice tense and worried. "I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have let you do that! You weren't ready!"
I slowly sat up, rubbing my head. I saw I was on the floor, several feet from the bench I had been on.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Exactly what I said. You moved outside your own body. You opened up your mind to everything. But there's more out there than one mind can take. I should have told you how to tune things out. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
"It's okay," I lied. "I'm fine. I got jolted back to my body just in time. But... who was that screaming?"
"Lyra... that was you."
----------------------------------------------
Ian

Her lips quivered slightly, then she gave in completely. She collapsed against me, sobbing.
"It-- it was-- horrible!"
"I know. I know."
"What-- what was it?!"
"It doesn't matter. Don't think about it."
She pulled back so her face was level with mine. She looked me directly in the eyes.
"What was it, Ian?"
I tried to think of how to describe what it was I felt when I meditated the way Lyra just had. I could come up with only one word.
"Ghosts. The remnant energy of the human spirit, imprinted on matter. It only happens when something so dramatic happens to a person that their thoughts and feelings kind of... stick to the matter around them."
"What could be that horrible? And affect that many people?"
"I really don't know, Lyra. I don't know exactly what has happened in this building, and I'm not sure I want to know, but I know what it's caused. Pain, fear, death. And in such large numbers for so long that it's left this place diseased. Look around at the size of this room. Look at the hundreds of doors. We're not the only two they experimented on, Lyra. We're just the two that survived. And..."
"What is it?" she asked. "Don't try to hide it: you know I'll get you to tell me."
"It's too hard to think about," I said.
"Tell me!"
I sighed, knowing she could wheedle it out of me eventually. "Ms. Fletcher said there are other installations like this. She said they were building an army."
Lyra looked dizzy.
"This is too much..."
"Don't think about it now," I said, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face.
"Not just that," she said. "The... ghosts. It was like--"
"I know. I could feel it too."
She looked confused.
"I think people send out thoughts and feelings all the time, not just the ones that people percieve as ghosts. And I think whatever they did to our brains lets us percieve those, at least the stronger ones. And I have to say, that was pretty strong."
"So you were feeling what I felt."
"Basically."
"And... is that how it feels to you too?" she asked tentatively.
"No. When I do it... it's a thousand times worse."
I grabbed the edge of the table and levered myself up. I offered a hand to Lyra, which she gratefully took. I hauled her up off the cold tile floor.
"Are you okay now?" I asked.
"Yeah. Thanks."
"You were right about eating. We should both probably have something in our stomachs other than liquid nutrients."
"Okay, but you'd better get another bowl," she said, pointing to the fly drowning in the porridge.
I smiled, and headed to the counter where a large cauldron of the stuff still steamed.

[TheRaisin]

Please reply! You don't even have to like it! You can tell me it's a bunch of oversentimental bullcrap and that I have no talent, but reply anyway! Just let me know someone has actually taken the time to read this!!

Lyra

Ms. Fletcher entered after a few minutes, and stood silently at the door. Ian leaned over the table.
"I think we'd better stick together as much as possible," he said. "We stand a better chance of surviving her little 'surprises' we work together."
I nodded silently, and gestured over my shoulder.
"Let's go," I said.
As we walked in silence toward the training room, I tried to focus on the tile pattern in the floor in an attempt to tune out the assault on my mind that swirled from every room. But now that I had felt the energy, experienced the sensation of letting my mind blend with my surroundings, there was no way to shake it off. The dark sunglasses and earmuffs I had worn had been suddenly ripped off, and now it was all I could do to keep from being blinded and deafened by the amount of data bouncing around, streaming from the walls and into my brain.
I suddenly felt a sort of cold satisfaction, and realized it came from Ms. Fletcher.
I guess it would be better to tune in to a living being than a ghost, I thought. So the rest of the way, I tuned in to Ian's sense of alertness and caution, and Ms. Fletcher's impatience and disdain at all the people and things around her that were so inferior to herself. In other words, everything.
When we reached the heavy steel door to the training room, a balding, meek-looking scientist and an escort of four black robots were waiting there.
"Lyra, Dr. Simms will take you to an alternate training room for your session today," Ms. Fletcher said.
Neither of us moved or spoke.
"Ahem."
The robots wheeled forward a few inches. We both took a step closer together, standing in a loose fighting stance.
"We train together," Ian said.
The robots advanced a few more inches. I smiled with what I hoped was a brave smile. With a great deal more bravado than I actually felt, I drew a severed robotic finger from my pocket that I had saved from that morning and tossed it casually at the robots' treads. They stopped and stared down at it. If ever a robot could show fear, these four did. A certain cold intelligence lurked behind the dim red visors, and it was obvious that whatever self-preservation protocols these robots had must have been doing some logical thinking, because the robots stopped and lowered their massive forearms slightly.
"Very well," Ms. Fletcher said, a slight bit of amusement seeping into her voice. "You will train together. You are dismissed, Dr. Simms."
The balding man had been standing nervously behind the robots during this whole encounter. When he was dismissed, he let out a great sigh of relief. He edged anxiously around us, then took off down the hall. Ms. Fletcher went through the battery of tests, as per usual, and the door finally hissed open. She ordered the robots to guard the door, then stepped through into the dark room. I took a deep breath and followed.
------------------------------------
Ian

We waited momentarily as the room whirred to life. The lights flicked on with a heavy slamming sound. The weapons rack slid out of the wall like last time, and we both armed ourselves heavily. We donned the heavy suits and helmets, and waited. Ms. Fletcher's voice reverberated through the room as the intercom crackled on.
"Your mission is simple: destroy your opponents using anything and everything at your disposal. Let's see you get through this one!" She cackled crazily.
Rather than one floor panel sliding aside, a whole row suddenly lifted and moved to the side. The familiar steel pedestals rose from the basement, and there were ten of them, a sleek training robot on each.
"Begin," Ms. Fletcher said.
I instinctively ducked as a volley of laser pulses zapped over my head.
"Go for the lasers on their secondary arms. When those are gone, try and get them on their backs," I said.
"I know. My training wasn't a total failure."
A laser burst hit my shoulder.
"Yowch!"
Now I was fueled by anger.
"Let's take them down!"
Lyra grinned crazily. She leapt up, whooping, and fired a long burst at the line of robots.
"Go!!!"
I rolled out of my hiding position and sprang into a mad dash. After gaining some distance, I turned and backtread, firing at the robots in an attempt to get their attention. They broke formation and the hunt truly began.
---------------------------------------------
Lyra

I drew a few robots into the hilly dirt area. For several minutes I ran from hill to hill, occasionally dropping into a foxhole, constantly sniping. Then, suddenly, the tables turned: I popped over the top of a hill, firing in the direction in which a robot had been just a moment ago. There was nothing there. Suddenly four robots attacked from four different directions, lasers blasting full-force. I took several hits, ducked, rolled away, and shook off the pain before taking off again. With an assault rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other, I was able to force a gap between two of the robots. I sprinted for a trench, firing blindly over my shoulder. I could feel two of the robots getting closer: my sixth sense told me exactly where they were. I ran full-tilt at the trench, ready to drop in the moment I reached it. Just as my toes reached the edge, a voice inside my head shouted NO! and I tripped, flew over the trench, and crashed hard into the dirt on the other side.
The robots had been expecting me to drop into the trench: they fell in, and suddenly there was a deafening, gut-rumbling boom. Dirt was blasted up from the trench floor. I crawled to the edge. Looking in, I saw a large hole had been blasted out of the trench floor, and the robots lay battered and dented in a heap.
A concussion mine, I thought.
Seizing the opportunity, I emptied a full clip into the robots, reloaded, and took off as soon as I was sure they were dead, lasers from the following two robots already burning past my head.
"Two down," I panted, "eight to go."

[Silversnow]

Yes, I see that now. Of course it never happened, sorry, my mistake. You can put that big pointy thing down now .

[TheRaisin]

Well, that's quite all right. Everyone makes mistakes, eh? Wink wink, nudge nudge, natch natch, under y' hat, tip o' the nose, say no more, say no more!

[TheRaisin]

All right! I'm all fired up! I have so much raw energy right now, I'm gonna type a whole chapter! That's how hyper I am!

Ian

Six of the robots went after me. I stayed just out of effective laser range, but tried to stay close enough to keep them on my tail, drawing them away from Lyra. That didn't prove too hard.
When they saw I meant business, the robots underwent some sort of transformation: their slim, round midsections extended, then their upper bodies dropped until they were almost parallel to the ground. Their smooth black heads, already somewhat sleeker than those of their hulking body-guard counterparts, extended on long telescoping necks. From a distance, I couldn't make out all the details, but it was obvious they were doing... something. I stood behind a large artificial boulder and watched, awe-struck. The secondary arms retreated into their compartment, then re-emerged with a variety of tools attached. In a quick flurry of movement, they re-arranged the parts in the tread configuration, and attached several small black objects. Finally, the three fingers on the large forearms extended and bent at the middle, and the blunt tips were replaced by sharp claws.
Now the robots looked like mechanical raptors, sleeker than ever and designed to hunt and kill. Their treads spun in the wet grass, and they took off at three times their usual speed.
"Jeez!"
I ran for the opposite side of the enclosure, still not sure exactly how I was going to deal with the robots.
Better decide fast, I thought. They were already within laser range. A blast whooshed past a few yards away, diffusing harmlessly and warming the grass slightly. Apparently, they were less accurate in hunting mode. This didn't comfort me much: I would have much preferred the searing lasers to a physical confrontation with one of the sleek hunters.
Wait a minute, why am I wearing this suit in the first place? I'll just take it off!
I stopped behind a small shrub and removed the heavy high-density suit. At least now I didn't have to worry about the lasers. Suddenly the robots stopped and straightened slightly, as if they were receiving a signal. Ms. Fletcher's voice came booming over the intercom.
"Aha, I see you're trying to cheat by removing your suit, Ian. Well, if you won't play by the rules, I'll just have to change them a little."
One of the robots levelled a laser at me. There was a flash, and suddenly my arm felt as if it were on fire. I dropped to my knees, clutching my left arm. It was burnt and red, and pain shot through my body when I touched it.
"You see how lucky you are to have a damage synthesis suit? The only alternative is doing you actual harm with actual lasers, and that gets a little unpleasant, doesn't it?"
I gasped in pain. The skin on my forearm was seared and cauterized.
"All right, I'll use the suit," I said in a voice strained with pain.
"Oh, it's too late for that," she said. "Since you insist on not abiding by the rules, you'll have to be punished."
"You can't be serious."
"I don't make jokes," she said in an icy tone. "Now run!"
I leapt to my feet and ran for the stream that bisected the huge enclosure. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that two extra lasers had extended from the forearms of the deadly machines. Beams blazed past me, no longer harmless, burning the air as they went, and finally leaving small blackened craters in the grass. A small rocket booster folded out of a compartment on each of the robots, and they took off at superspeed, with long blue-white flames trailing after them.
------------------------------------------
Lyra

I stopped and listened to Ms. Fletcher's side of the conversation that I knew was taking place between her and Ian. Obviously, I could only hear what she said, but I could tell it was bad. I started heading in the direction Ian had gone off in, but I didn't get two steps before the two robots still pursuing me came tearing over the hills on either side of me, blasting me relentlessly with the low-power lasers. I took several hits, biting my tongue as my jaw involuntarily clenched. My muscles spasmed, and I fell flat on my face. I rolled to the side, barely avoiding a barrage of laser blasts, then sprang up and fired as one of the robots sped by. A bullet hit the back of it's tread array, and there was a small explosion of bolts and bits of metal. The robot tilted crazily onto one tread, then crashed hard into the dirt, leaving a trench several feet long. Leaving it for dead, I turned my attention to the other one. Before I could get a shot in, it launched one of it's fists, hitting me square in the chest. I was flung backwards, landing hard on my back. I used the momentum to roll backwards into a crouching position, and blasted away at the thin metal cable connecting the three-fingered fist to the forearm. The cable snapped, and the fist rolled away into a foxhole. I was about to finish the robot off, when a pair of powerful metal arms grabbed me from behind. Calling up a hand-to-hand combat course from the large database of fighting techniques in my mind, I flipped myself backwards and onto the back of the robot. I aimed my assault rifle straight down at it's head, but one of it's secondary arms knocked me off before I could squeeze the trigger. I scrambled back a yard or so on my hands and feet, and saw that the robot had detached it's damaged tread array, revealing a long, sinuous tail-like thing that telescoped out of it's midsection. It now looked like a mad engineer's version of a chimera. I tugged a grenade from my belt and lobbed it at the robot. The nanoprocessor attached to it told it that this was an enemy, and it clung to the robot with a small claw. I dove into a nearby foxhole and covered my ears. A satisfyingly loud blast shook the ground, and I peeked over the edge of the foxhole. One robot had been totally blown apart, reduced to several square yards of burning scrap. The other lay a few feet away, it's arms twisted and it's body scorched and battered by shrapnel. I fired once into the faceplate, and it clicked off. I oriented myself again, and set off at a run towards the center of the enclosure.
----------------------------------------
Ian

I reached the creek just as the robots caught up with me. I dropped behind a boulder, and they sped over me, their rockets boiling the water as they landed in the creek. They switched off the rockets and began advancing slowly. I fired continuously at them, but they easily dodged most of the bullets. Remembering that I had several grenades, I hurled one at them. One caught it lightly between two fingers. It tried to throw it back at me, but some device on the grenade had glued it firmly the robot's metal hand. It simply stared at it helplessly for a moment, then it detonated, neatly blasting the robot's upper body off, leaving a smoking pair of treads. The others continued their advance. They were to close for grenades now: if I used one, I would blow myself up as well.
This is it, I thought. I'm dead.
The robots coolly levelled their lasers at me. Just as they were about to fire, a stream of bullets from somewhere just above me tore through the armor of the robot farthest to the right. In seconds, it's metal carapace had been completely shredded. One of it's laser tubes exploded, and it tipped over backwards into the stream, short-circuiting in a flash of electricity. I looked up, and there was Lyra, standing triumphantly atop the boulder. She offered a hand, and pulled me up.
"What happened to your arm?" she asked.
The robots redirected their lasers towards her. I tackled her off the boulder just in time: when I looked back, the top of it had been melted and blasted away.
"Son of a-- I thought they were just using low-power lasers!" she said.
"Well, the rules have changed," I said. "C'mon, we've gotta move!"
The robots rounded either side of the boulder, lasers blasting. I lobbed another grenade, but I instantly saw it would not do any damage: the robots were already moving out of the way. Lyra suddenly whipped out a pistol and took careful aim, tracking the tiny target. Just as it reached the top of it's arc, she fired, detonating it directly above the robots. They were knocked to the ground by the blast.
"Nice shot," I said.
"It's not over yet," she said.
The robots were already righting themselves.
"Any ideas?" she asked as the laser fire resumed.
"Here's one: run!"
We ran past the boulder and followed the stream. One robot, having gotten up more quickly than the other three, was right on our heels. I dodged to the right just as it made a grab at me, and it continued on, directly into a trap. A trio of blades sprang up from the ground, slicing it into several pieces. Once the robot was destroyed, I sent a few bullets into the robotic arms holding the blades to ensure that we would not have to deal with them again. Then I pried several large sheets of metal away from the robot's wiring.
"I've got an idea," I said.
Holding one sheet to my side like a shield, I ran parallel to the stream with the other sheet held loosely near my feet in my left hand. When I had gained enough speed, I leapt into the small brook, bringing the metal sheet under my feet just as I hit the water. Carried by momentum, the stream, and the incline of the area, I skidded along faster than I could have run, the metal gliding smoothly along the round rocks of the stream bed. Lyra followed my example, and we were soon gliding swiftly towards our destination.
"What's the plan?" Lyra asked.
"The stream empties out into a pool, right next to the pine grove. It's a good defensive position, so we'll hold there and hopefully destroy the last seven robots."
"That's last three," Lyra said. "I did a little guerilla fighting, and I managed to take four out."
"Then our job is that much easier," I said. I pushed off a small boulder sticking up out of the water and gained some extra speed. I just hoped Ms. Fletcher didn't have any more sadistic tricks up her sleeve.

Sheesh, glad that's over. I've had to leave my computer on for three days to finish this chapter. I think it'll actually be okay. I hope. Maybe. I really hope it's okay! I just can't take the rejection!!! Just kidding.

[TheRaisin]

Okay, I know it's been a long time since my last post. Sorry? I have good ideas, but fitting them into words is tough. So much knowledge is lost in the transfer from ideas to language. I think that if people had some other way of communicating, sending each other thoughts instead of sound, the world would be a much smarter and better place. Hey, what do you know, that's exactly what they do in the story! Hmm... now why did I use the word "they" instead of saying "our two heroes" or "Ian and Lyra"? Could it be that I'm trying to imply that there will be more of these amazingly gifted people as the plot further unfolds? Perhaps....

Ian

We waited for what felt like hours at the edge of the pine grove, near the spot where the stream emptied in a small cascade into the pool. The unnatural silence made the sound of the stream seem maddeningly loud. Finally, I stood up from my crouching position behind a fallen log.
"We have to do something!" I said, pacing in a circle.
Lyra dropped from her hiding place in the lower branches of a tall pine.
"But this is the best defensive position. We'll have a better chance if we wait for them to come to us."
"They won't come to us," I said. "They're too damn smart. They know we'll tire out eventually and get careless, whereas they can never get bored or tired or hungry. Then, when we're weak and tired, they'll pounce. We have to go to them."
"But now they're using real weapons. You're already burned."
"If you keep your suit on, it should shield you from most of the heat. We'll be fine."
Lyra bit her lip distractedly. She thought for a moment.
"Okay," she said. "But I feel bad about having armor when you don't. If you get hit, we pull back."
"Deal," I said. "Okay, on three we come out shooting. Ready?"
She flicked off the safety on her assault rifle. "Ready."
"Three!"
-----------------------------------
Lyra

I somersaulted through the thick barrier of undergrowth separating the pine grove from the stream, and fired blindly in a wide arc. The three robots on the opposite bank dodged them like so many spitballs. Ian stood behind me and hurled his last grenade over my head. A robot batted it away with a tree branch. The target recognition mechanism didn't recognize the wooden cudgel as an enemy, and it was knocked into the pool several yards away, sending up a jet of water as it detonated. I slid down into the streambed, and tossed my remaining grenade as hard as possible at the opposite streambank. It wedged itself deep into the mud several feet below the hunter-killers' treads, and they ignored it.
Exactly as planned, I thought with satisfaction. They were good hunters, but they didn't have much common sense. I scrambled back up the streambank, several laser blasts boiling the mud to either side of me, and dove back through the thick foliage. We both ducked down behind a small berm.
The air was rent with a sound like a book slamming shut, magnified a thousand-fold. Bits of dirt and grass roots rained down over the wall of leaves. We pushed through once more, and I surveyed with pride the damage my well-placed grenade had done. An entire section of the streambank had collapsed down into the stream, taking with it one of the three robots. It struggled and twisted, trying to get up, but it was buried by several hundred pounds of mud and dirt. The other two had been flung back a few yards, and were just beginning to push themselves up. I trained the point of my gun on the robot that was trapped in the dirt, and Ian trained his on one of the robots in the grass. We opened fire simultaneously, and decimated the robots in seconds. The other one, with one arm hanging by a few cables, turned and fled, moving away from us at an angle.
"You go straight after it, I'll take the streambed and try to cut it off," Ian said.
He took off at a forty-five degree angle to the robot's route of escape, and I began crossing the stream, hoping I could get to the other side before the robot escaped from view in the shrub-ridden boulder field opposite the pine grove. Halfway across the rocky streambed, something caught my ankle. I tripped and fell, throwing out my arms to cushion my fall. In doing so, I threw the gun from my hands.
I hit the rocks hard. Lifting myself up onto my hands and knees, I twisted to see what clung to my ankle. It was the robot I thought I had killed. One arm had reached out and grabbed me. I reached for where my gun had landed, but it had already skidded away over the miniature waterfall, carried by the swiftening current. The battered robot tightened it's grip on my ankle, and I could feel my bones and tendons straining under the crushing pressure. I let out an involuntary cry of pain.
Both Ian and the fleeing robot stopped and turned.
"This robot's still working! Help me!"
Ian ran hard, his footfalls sending up splashes of water. The robot sped toward me as well, moving many times Ian's speed, it's damaged and exposed wires still sparking.
What the hell is it doing? Suddenly I realized it's intent.
"Hurry!!" I shouted, pulling a long blade from my belt. I stabbed frantically at the wrist of the robot holding me, trying to sever it's hand.
Ian must have realized the speeding robot's kamikaze plan as well, for he quickened his pace.
I looked between Ian and the robot, noting the robot's distance from me relative to Ian's, and their relative speeds.
"Oh, no. No, no no no!"
I jabbed furiously at my captor's arm, each second bringing the robot closer to the stream. Finally, the knife punctured the tough silksteel armor, and the three-fingered hand released my foot. But it was too late. I turned and tried to run, but the waist-high water near the pool tugged and dragged at my legs. The robot reached the slight berm at the edge of the stream and launched into the air.
For a moment, time slowed down. I watched in despair as the robot dropped toward the water. Then, just as it's treads broke the surface of the water, Ian barreled into me, tackling us both out of the water and onto the bank. Time sped up again. I scrambled desperately up onto dry ground, and turned to watch as electricity coursed out of the robot into the water, turning the stream into a cloud of steam-- the same way my blood would have boiled if I had been in the stream when the robot's damaged cables touched the water. Arms and body flailed sickeningly as it short circuited. An image of my own body jerking and blistering that way flashed briefly through my mind, and my stomach heaved. I supressed the sudden, violent urge to vomit. Finally, the robot's hull dropped lifelessly into the stream, battery acid and hydraulic fluids trailing away in the current.
I realized I had stopped breathing. I let out a long, pent-up breath and pushed back wet strands of hair from my face. Looking to my left, I saw that Ian lay spread-eagled on his back, his chest heaving and his eyes closed.
I swallowed hard, bringing moisture back to my dry throat.
"You okay?" I asked breathlessly.
"Peachy-keen," he gasped, his voice flat. "You?"
"Fine. Although... I wouldn't have been if you had been a second late."
"I know," he said.
"That robot couldn't have stopped. It was hell-bent on killing me. I could... feel it."
"Yes, I know," he replied.
"Ok," I said, nodding, "I believe you now."
"Good."
We lay there for several minutes recovering. Finally I shakily stood up.
"Okay, the robots have been destroyed. Satisfied?" I directed my question at the control room clinging to the high ceiling, though I knew there must have been microphones everywhere.
"Yes, very much so," came the response, slightly crackly over the speaker system. "You would make great soldiers." There was not an erg of levity or amusement in her voice, which frightened me even more than the sadistic pleasure that usually pervaded her tone of voice.
There was a long moment of silence.
"What do you mean, we would make great soldiers?" Ian asked quietly.
"You've both displayed amazing resilience, spirit, and strength of mind and body," came the reply. "You have all the qualities of a perfect fighting machine for our army, except the most essential one: obedience. I have no doubt that if I put you two in a line of soldiers and gave you both guns, you would first kill me, then anyone who tried to kill you, then anyone you could find that was somehow linked to this experiment. It pains me to waste such potential, but you have forced my hand. I can't let you live."
Everywhere around us, floor panels tilted upward at forty-five degree angles, forming large doorways into the basement below. Hunter-killers in their basic forms and guards began pouring out of these doorways, forming a dense circle around us. In the distance, I could see more spilling out of doorways in the floor and walls, spreading out like water from a knocked-over bottle.
"What's the plan this time?" I asked. Their numbers were so incomprehensibly vast, the instinctual terror I should have been feeling didn't even register in my mind or voice.
"Plan?" Ian's shoulders slumped. He tore the ammo sash off his shoulder and flung it savagely into the stream, weapons and all. "I don't have a plan! No plan could possibly help us! There are too many of them. Face the facts."
"So we just give up without a fight?"
"What else can we do?" he asked.
I scanned the horde of robotic soldiers. Their black silksteel armor gleamed like polished obsidian, while their dark red visors seemed to swallow up light.
"Nothing," I said. I lay down my weapons and amunition, and tore off the damage synthesis suit, revealing the cuts on my arms that still bled from the previous day. It was almost a relief to not have to fight. How easy it was to just give up and let things happen. "Nothing at all."
Lights flashed behind the robots' visors as they all received a signal, then their circle tightened around us and we were swallowed up by the tide of black.

[TheRaisin]

Ian

We were shoved and prodded and dragged into the pine grove. At the center was a small clearing, ringed by fallen logs. In nature it might have looked like a campsite. Here, in this artificial hell, it looked like a place for human sacrifice. We were pushed into the center of the circle, then all but two robots drew back to the edge of the clearing. The two that remained, large guards that stood menacingly behind us, were presumably our executors. There was a momentary lull. The robots stood at attention.
A tiny, caterpillar-like robot scuttled into the clearing. It's foot-long body was composed of four plate-like segments: a long, blunt head with a swept-back, spike-like crest, followed by two interlocking plates identical to the back of the head, and finally a long, stiff tail that jutted out parallel to the ground. The bizarre and ingenious shape of it's body, with each plate locking into the one in front of it, made it aerodynamic, sleek, and would deflect nearly any frontal attack. Coincidentally, it made the tiny robotic creature look like a spiky caterpillar, or a small wolverine-like predator with it's hackles raised.
The construct moved on six long wire-frame legs, each one quadruple-jointed like an insect's legs. At the end of each leg were three equally thin claws, which spread out and dug into the ground to stabilize it as it moved. The whole thing was made of the same dark, reflective metal, like specular hematite. It reflected its surroundings in crystal clarity, but direct light didn't glare off it like on silver or steel. This made it nearly invisible to the naked eye, even when it was only a few feet away. It was definitely designed for spying.
As it approached, the top section of it's head raised up with a hydraulic whirring sound on a small, pivoting arm. A camera lense extended out from a compartment in this section of the head.
"Excellent," Ms. Fletcher said. "Now I can watch closely. Any last requests?"
"Just one," Lyra said. "Don't kill us?"
"No. What about you?" The camera turned to me.
"Let Lyra go. She hasn't done anything, I'm the one who tried to escape."
Lyra spoke up.
"No, I convinced Ian into trying to fight back and escape. You should kill me."
"This is a moot point," Ms. Fletcher said, "as you are both going to die."
I gulped.
"If you're really going to slag us both," I said, "could you do me first?" I didn't want to have to watch someone else dying-- especially this girl who had, in the two days since I had awoken from my coma and met her, saved my life at least twice.
"A reasonable request," Ms. Fletcher said.
I sighed, partially in relief, and partially in resignation.
"Kill the girl!... slowly."
"What?!" I shouted.
Before either of us could move, the fingers of the guard behind her extended out like snakes and coiled around her wrists and ankles. I tried to rush the robot, but my own executioner bound my limbs in a similar fashion.
Lyra's executioner lifted her into the air as if she were to be crucified, her arms held out straight to either side. From the robot's back compartment, a secondary arm extended. Attached to it was a hyperdermic needle, filled with a dark reddish-black poison. Lyra twisted her head to see the needle. Her eyes widened in terror. She looked straight at me. Her jaw was set in defiance, and her breath was calm, but her eyes betrayed her.
They said, "I don't want to die."
I struggled and strained as the needle moved closer and closer to her neck. It wouldn't just knock her out this time. I twisted and clawed and bit at the robot, but there was nothing I could do.
Frustration welled up within me, and quickly turned to rage.
There's nothing I can do!
The thought repeated itself over and over in my mind as Lyra's death moved ever closer. I realized that the rage was not just my own: I could feel the "ghosts" feeding their anger into me, an anger that could never die, for neither could they. I had not tried to tap into it-- they had forced themselves into my mind.
My vision grew blurry as hot tears welled up in the corners of my eyes.
Just when I thought my mind would burst, a voice sprang up from some primal corner of my mind:
Let the ghosts in.
I did, and suddenly I could feel the presence of other minds in my brain. They were tattered, incomplete remnants, but they held power. I felt the control chip begin to spark as it read my brainwaves, sending pain shooting out from the base of my skull and into my brain, then down through my whole body. But I couldn't stop-- the ghosts had gotten a hold over me, and I became a spectator in my own mind. They were trying to do something, but they were too far gone from normal human minds to tell me what it was.
A red cloud enveloped my field of vision, through which I could just barely make out Lyra, the robots, and the pine grove. The pain in my skull was becoming excrutiating. My mind started to drift, but something pulled it back. The ghosts, as far apart as they were from humans, were conscious, and they wanted me to see something.
The pain had become unbearable. Finally, just when I thought the pain would kill me, I felt the pain-inducing part of the control chip break and short-circuit-- it had burned itself out.
I heard my voice, as if through a thick fog, ring out in a victorious shout. The robots' heads all swiveled in unison to watch me. The hyperdermic needle paused a hair's breadth away from Lyra's neck.
I turned my head towards the robot holding Lyra. The air between us began to ripple and distort. The robot shivered and vibrated violently, as if falling apart inside. Then a muscle in my face twitched, and the robot simply crumpled into a ball and crashed to the ground. A seven-foot-tall robot just folded up to the size of a basketball.
Lyra was flung into the air as her captor was crushed, and then everything went black.
-----------------------------------------
Lyra

I flew up into the air, tumbling head-over-heels. For a moment I was weightless, then I plummeted back toward the bed of pine needles covering the ground. I stuck my feet straight down, ready to duck and roll as I hit the ground to absorb the force of the impact. But several feet above the ground, I simply stopped. I hung ridiculously there in space above the pine needle carpet. I looked at Ian, and I could tell he was doing it somehow.
His would-be executioner was crumpled up behind him like half-completed origami, as was mine. His arm was outstretched toward me, fingers splayed. His face was expressionless, and his eyes were red and clouded with blood leaking from burst vessels-- it looked like someone else was inhabiting his body.
Slowly, he lowered his hand, and I sank to the ground.
For a long moment, there was complete silence. Finally it was broken by Ms. Fletcher's voice.
"Well done, Ian," she said. Her voice was shaky and quiet, as if she, the indomitable robot I had thought her to be, was actually scared. "You have discovered your true weapon, telekinesis, faster than any other subject before you. You are the only one to ever burn out the control chip."
Ian nodded. "Your attempt to kill this girl, and the cruelty with which you did it, angered him. That anger gave him power enough to ignore the pain your device induced, and therefore he bested it."
I listened in stunned silence.
"A mistake I shall not make again." She paused. "Who... am I speaking to?"
"You know little about your own weapon," Ian-- or whoever was speaking through him-- said. "The weapon you give your soldiers comes only partially from their own minds. You give them not power, but the knowledge and ability to tap into a power that exists totally independently of them. The power comes from the traces of human minds that have long since been destroyed, but left imprints of themselves on their surroundings."
He turned his head slightly toward me and winked.
So Ian was right, I thought. But how did he know?
"We are those imprints, those remnants. You might call us.... ghosts."
Ms. Fletcher's voice was now quaking audibly: she was terrified by the thought that human minds could linger, and more importantly, remember.
"If you are what you say you are," she said, "then tell me who subject 372 was."
The ghosts thought for a moment. When they responded, Ian's voice sounded different once again.
"Evan R. Patterson. I lived in Manhattan when the Tenae attacked. Your organization's patrols scooped me up out of the rubble because I had all the right statistics for one of your soldiers, and left my brother and sister and mom and dad to die. Oh, yes, I remember you well. You told me my family had been rescued and treated for "mild injuries", and that I could see them as soon as I was completely well. Then you forced me into the training room, and told me that if I didn't work for you, you'd kill my family. One of your blade traps cut my arm off, and I slowly died in a pool of my own blood. I lingered for quite a while. I remember you standing over me, saying what a waste it was that I had been killed on my first training mission. I was still alive for that. You didn't even bother to check my pulse. You just ordered some robots in to clean up my body. I was sixteen."
"... It doesn't matter what you are," Ms. Fletcher said after a long silence. "You can't do anything to me without a living body and brain. And I don't intend to let you keep those ones."
The robots at the edge of the clearing received a signal, and slowly began advancing.
"You'd better get down," the ghosts said, once again using their voice that suggested more than one speaking at the same time.
I dropped to the ground and covered my head, leaving a small space between my arms so I could see what was happening.
Ian's body didn't even move at all as a rippling wave of distortion spread out from him in rings. It washed over the gleaming wall of robots. Whenever one was touched, it shook and shivered before simply shutting down and slumping forward. In a few seconds, the whole army had been deactivated, and they stood smoking slightly. Ian's head turned toward the control room. He blinked, and the room exploded instantly, raining smoking debris down on the grass.
Finally, except for the sounds of burning pyre and running water, all was silent.
I could feel a shift in Ian's mind. The red in his eyes receded slightly, and his body slumped. He dropped onto his knees, swaying as if he might fall flat on his face.
I had no time to think about what had just happened. I grabbed Ian's wrist and hauled him up. He seemed unconscious: his feet dragged across the pine needles as I ran for the exit to the training room, nearly a kilometer away.
As we crossed the stream, I noticed that Ian's ammo belt had gotten snagged on an upthrust rock. I fished it out and grabbed the assault rifle, and shoved several clips into my pockets.
After a minute or so of dragging him along, he began to run of his own accord, but though his feet moved, he still looked vacant and unconscious. As we ran, I couldn't help but wonder exactly what had transpired. But there would be time to find out later. The first order of business was staying alive.

[Silversnow]

Time for Ms. Fletcher to go get an excorsist, huh?

[TheRaisin]

Time for Ms. Fletcher to go get an excorsist, huh?

Only for whatever demon is in her. The term "ghost" is a misnomer: they are not ghosts in the traditional sense. It is simply a poor analogy used to define a previously unkown phenomenon. They are what the human mind has subconsciously left behind, like snapshots from particular moments in their life. A new imprint is created for every especially traumatic moment, and one, of course, for their death. These imprints are not complete replicas of the minds they were created by, only shards, and are therefore on a somewhat lower level on consciousness... most of the time. But in large numbers, they can temporarily create a sort of hive mind and, with a suitable host, communicate with humans.
"Ghost" energy can potentially be tapped into, but only by an extremely strong mind. This is why only the subjects of these secret experiments, Lyra and Ian being among them, can use the energy: their minds have, in a sense, been expanded. With a living mind acting as a node for these energies, like a psychic lightning rod, ghost energy can be directed to manipulate matter, heighten the senses of the host, carry thoughts and messages from one host to another, or even manipulate other minds to some extent. The control chips implanted in Ian and Lyra's skulls are designed to detect the brainwaves specific to this kind of psychic activity, and deliver a small, painful jolt of electricity that disrupts the victim's thoughts and renders them incapable of using their powers through the pain. But this pain is not enough to kill or incapacitate the victim, which is why the chip failed in Ian's case-- the proper anger-inducing stimulus (i.e., Lyra's encroaching doom), coupled with an already tempestuous temper, will, and nature, was enough to allow Ian to break through the pain. In short, he overcame the pain by an act of sheer will. The pain-inducing component of the chip was forced to overcompensate, drawing more and more power from it's energy source until it's circuitry was no longer able to bear the strain, and it burned itself out.
Questions? Comments? Please feel free to post them. That concludes my very long but sorely needed explanation. Now go, run and find your dictionaries!

Oh yeah, BTW, Silversnow: THANK YOU! I thought no one would ever reply again.

[TheRaisin]

Just taking a tiiiny bit longer to put the next chapter together than espected. Fear not, though! It will be excellent and L33T in it's coming! Look to your monitors, and wait for a sign! Or, if Silversnow is the only one still reading, then look to your monitor. No "s". Or, if no one is reading anymore, then... start reading. Right now. And shame on you for not doing it sooner. You've gone and lowered my self esteem by not replying. You think it's easy? Well let me tell you, it idn't! I!... yeah. Okay. To recap: new chapter soon. Disregard all previous reprimands.