Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Seven Hells Of Tyler Caine ❯ Good Morning Starshine ( Chapter 1 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: TheVulpineHero1 
first chappy
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 07.02.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 478 | Status: Work In Progress
first chappy
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 07.02.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 478 | Status: Work In Progress
and welcome. I’m new to the original fiction ‘circuit’, but some of you will recognise me (hopefully) as a writer of several other fanfics. This is probably going to be a very important fic to me, because it will test my ability to work with completely new environments and situations, which isn’t possible in a fic with other series in it. But, either way, I hope to bring my writing to a larger audience amongst those who read original fiction.
Oh, and by the way: All characters, ideas, scenarios etc. belong to me. It feels so good to say that! I might let people use them if they ask me nicely enough, though^.^
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The Seven Hells Of Tyler Caine
Chapter One: Good Morning Starshine
-------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
“What?” Mira cried, the sounds of battle drowning out her high pitched voice.
“We need to get out of here! NOW!” called back her commander, who, by some small miracle, had heard her.
“But why? We’ve got them on the…ROPES!” she shouted, side-stepping a bullet wreathed in energy. It hit the ground, leaving yet another crater in the war-torn battlefield.
“I don’t know! Speccy thinks that some sort of…HOLY HELL!” the commander shouted, his voice suddenly struck with awe.
In the sky above them, a muddy, greenish blur had appeared. In all honesty, it was as if a four-year-old had scribbled on the sky with a dirty crayon. The air filled with a strange, unearthly ringing that cracked the armour of the soldiers. It reverberated within them, filling each and every hardened warrior to the bone.
“Evacuate! NOW! WE DON’T HAVE ANY TIME!” the commander shouted.
Mira turned and ran, tripping over twisted, knarled, ashen branches that seemed to want to help her to her doom. Turning back to check the status of her other troops, she gasped. A rip- a visible, plausible rip- had appeared in the sky. For all the world, it was as if the sky was made of nothing more than paper. Her feet lost all will to move as she stood in astonishment. Then, her battle hardened instincts coming in to play, she got into a defensive stance. Then, without warning, there was a huge impact. The whole battlefield became a mudslide, as tons of earth was displaced by a huge explosion. The earth rose as a huge wave, rushing towards her at incredible speed. Before it reached her, a jet of flame burst through it. It was a blue flame. Even as she was burning, her flesh being eaten away by the fames, she remembered the ghost stories her grand-papa had told her. Looking down, she saw her clothes burning. White hot pain seared her senses, leaving her completely defenceless. The, a blue flash engulfed her vision, and all dissolved in flames.
“You’re kidding me. Are you sure about that, Specs?” Mira said, her fork pausing on the way to her mouth. The steaming forkful of curry-rice dropped off the fork, and onto her clean uniform. She swore, pulling out her handkerchief to mop it up.
“Yup. Amazin’, ain’t it? Even happens in the virtual reality simulators these days. The lad’s in the infirmary now. We just found him lyin’ there outside the pod. I plan to visit him, but that kid probably won’t wake up for years, whereas this food’ll go cold in five minutes.” the scientist said across the table. His pristine white lab coat was a rarity in the cafeteria, a place where table manners were as rare as diamonds.
“Tch. I still don’t see why you have to make those things so damn realistic. Who told you it was a good idea to simulate pain?” Mira moaned, pouting her pretty lips. It was unusual for a soldier to be as pretty as her, and some of the female officers were getting jealous. Her back hair fell to her shoulders in perfect waves, shimmering as she walked. Her button nose was cute and blemish free. Her eyes shone with an optimistic yet sarcastic sparkle. She looked out of place in the dreary life of a military organisation.
“Hello? This is Commander O’ Leray speaking. Mira Bracken and Dr. Pense, get your collective butts to the infirmary ASAP. That is all.” cracked a curt voice from the P.A.
“Geez. Must be that jettisoned kid…Oh well. Better not keep the commander waiting, eh? I still remember what happened the last time we kept him waiting. It’s not so bad for you, because you’re always late. But me…” the doctor trailed off, pushing his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. Although he was the base’s foremost doctor, his casual manner had earned him many friends among the soldiers, who had affectionately nicknamed him ‘Speccy’. He and Mira had been firm friends ever since she had arrived three months before.
“Well, let’s just say that our collective butts had better get moving, as the Commander would oh-so-elegantly put it.” the doctor said, a roguish smile on his face.
Fifteen minutes and sixty-three corridors later, it was fair to say that the unlucky twosome were well and truly lost. The sprawling base had more twists and turns that a Russian chess game.
“Right. So it says on the signs that we have to go through the Barracks, make a right turn at the Weapons Dept., double back to the Strategy Planning Room then go past Lost n’ Found, and THEN we get to the infirmary. Wow, I’d hate to think what would happen if someone was actually dying.” Mira said, mopping sweat from her brow.
“I do wish they’d check the suggestions box once in a while. I keep telling them to paint frescoes on the walls, but they won’t. It might be a waste of money, but at least the soldiers who get lost will have something to look at.” commented the doctor.
“Yeah, but then they’d have to make an investigation into the deaths of missing artists. It won’t look too good when they drag a couple of corpses out of the corridors, will it?” Mira laughed.
“Yes. This base truly is built like a labyrinth…” the doctor replied thoughtfully.
“PENSE! BRACKEN! YOU’D BETTER HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON FOR BEING FIFTEEN MINUTES LATE!” came a roar from the end of the corridor.
“Oh, dear. And here comes the minotaur…” the doctor added.
“Minotaur? What’s that?” Mira asked, completely and utterly ignoring the fact that the commander was bearing down on them at an average speed of eighty knots.
“Oh, you didn’t know? It’s something from the jettisoned’s world…Combination of a man and a bull. Most unpleasant. Apparently a rather useless king used to feed it humans. I’m pretty glad I live here, after hearing that one.” the doctor said.
“You two! Get your asses into that infirmary NOW!” the commander shouted, spraying little droplets of spit all over the doctor’s lab coat.
“We’ve been looking for the infirmary for FIFTEEN minutes now! Where is the damn place?” Mira shouted back, without much thought.
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO THE FRONT DESK, BRACKEN!” the commander yelled.
“Oh, right.” Mira said sheepishly, seeing the receptionist waving at her.
“Right. Now that Private Bracken and Doctor Pense are finally here, we can begin this meeting.” Leray said, walking the length of the infirmary as he spoke. He was a tall man, with a wrinkled face and many war wounds. His polished boots made a pleasing squeaking sound as he paced the tiled infirmary floor.
“As you may well know, we recently had an incident of ‘jettisoneering’. As no doubt you know, this is the first incident of the jettison phenomena in this base, and the first ever instance of the phenomena in a Virtual Reality simulator.” the commander went on.
“Yes, we all know. I’m assuming that you didn’t bring us here to discuss the same things I keep hearing over the water cooler?” Speccy said sarcastically.
“Doctor Pense, if you weren’t the best scientist that this burnt out husk of a military base could afford on it’s pocket money budget, I’d fire you on the spot.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I sincerely regret being so good at my job.”
“Can we get back to business?” came a new voice. It belonged to a young man, probably no older than Mira, who was sitting in what was very probably the most comfortable chair in the infirmary.
“Anyway, the base scientists have been devising theories into how the hell it happened. A waste of time, in my opinion. We’d be better off if they’d make us some new weapons rather than buggering about with ridiculous theories about the laws of space and time and rot like that. Still, you always get the half assed scientists wasting away valuable time on nonsense like this.” the commander went on.
“I never actually wanted this job. I wanted to become a landscape gardener, but my dear old daddy didn’t want me to be pruning bushes for the rest of my life.” the doctor said conversationally.
Mira snickered. It was common knowledge that Commander Leray and Doctor Pense lived to make each other look stupid. She remembered an incident that had become base legend: an incident in which Doctor Pense had rigged up the P.A to the Commander’s shower and turned on the switch- just in time to let the base hear an uplifting rendition of ‘Good Morning Starshine’. Almost as legendary was the Commander’s response, whereupon he had put pepper spay in the Doctor’s soup. The resulting food-fight went down in base history.
Evidently, though, the young man sitting in the chair wasn’t from the base. He was wearing a different uniform, clearly didn’t know Pense and Leray’s turbulent relationship, and, worst of all, was drinking hot chocolate. He dribbled slightly as he drank, and then looked at Mira and smiled, hot chocolate running down his chin.
“Well, regardless of the doctor’s bush-pruning tendencies, I did assemble you for a reason. Private Bracken, Doctor Pense, I would like you to meet Officer Bradford. He’s an expert on containing the jettisoned.” the commander went on.
“Contain them? Isn’t that a little severe? After all, our tests show that they’re human beings- just like us. We have no idea where they come from, but they don’t seem all that dangerous. Just so long as you don’t get in the way of the landing.” the doctor joked.
“Not so. We did more tests. More advanced tests. They are human, true, but they’re very different from us. Their DNA, their cells, their bodies…All different. The main difference is that they have no ability to maintain a fixed shape.” Bradford explained in a smug voice- far too smug for Mira’s liking.
“What? No fixed shape? They don’t seem like jelly globs to me. In fact, they seem to be human shaped. Of course, I could be wrong, Professor Bradford.” the doctor said sarcastically.
“Ha-ha. Laugh it up, you glorified chemist. Those ‘humans’ aren’t human shaped for long. They’re far more adaptable than we are. Adaptable to a terrifying degree. If they were shot, for instance, within a day their bodies would have changed to withstand gun fire. If they went into a heated environment, their bodies would immediately change to withstand it.” the officer explained.
“What, so these guys are like the next evolution of humans? That’s amazing!” Mira exclaimed.
“I guess you could call them that. The problem is, adaptation takes generations to be put in place. For good reason. For example, you go into an artic wasteland. You almost freeze to death, then fall asleep. When you wake up the next morning, you’ve changed. You can no longer walk on two legs. You’ve expanded to twice your previous size and weight. You’re grown thick, white fur that camouflages you against the snow. You have huge, sharp claws to grip the ice. Your mind, senses and instincts are super-honed. You haven’t eaten any vegetables or fruit for a day, because there’s none available, and your body has made you into an exclusive carnivore. You’re scared, so you run, killing animals to feed yourself. Eventually, you get to a forest. Because of your thick fur, you overheat and pass out. When you awake, things have changed again. You’re now smaller- around the size of a monkey. Except that your fur is green for camouflage. And all that meat you ate before is now poisoning you, because your body is now adapted to eat insects. How long does it take you to go crazy?” the soldier explained darkly.
“Well, if there’s no coffee, I go crazy anyway.” the doctor laughed.
“Specs! Don’t you see what this means? If someone were to try and manipulate those capabilities, they could make some sort of ultimate soldier!” Mira gasped.
“Yes. They’d be unstoppable. A creature immune to gunfire, gas, technology, pain and disease…We humans would very quickly become endangered.” the commander mused.
“Exactly. Which is why we need to contain them. Up until now, no jettisoned human has ever remembered the circumstances before or surrounding their arrival in our world. All we know is that for the first few days, they’re perfectly harmless. when that little honeymoon period ends, we shoot. “ Bradford said, smiling unpleasantly.
“Yeah, I have a question. Why do we call them jettisoned?” Mira asked.
“Because they’re thrown from their world to ours.” Pense said, carefully inspecting one of the plants in the infirmary.
“Well…At any rate, we have to use the few days before the kid goes crazy to try and learn about the phenomena. Let’s go see him.” Leray said, walking through a door further into the infirmary. Bradford followed, walking in a cocky little way that Mira suspected he wouldn’t walk in if he didn’t have a gun. She walked over to Pense, who was no fiddling with the stem of one of the plants.
“Hmm. You really were serious about that gardening thing, huh?” Mira asked.
“Yup. I just love eliminating weeds from my garden…” the doctor said ominously, walking through the door. Mira followed.
The room was darkened, for some reason that was completely unknown to Mira. She would have asked the doctor, but felt that he would just come out with some complicated medical dictation involving voodoo priests or something of that nature.
“Tell me, why are the lights out in this room?” Bradford asked.
“Because the Commander uses all his money to buy rainbow-coloured swimming trunks, so the base has no electricity.” Pense said in response.
Ignoring the chatter, the commander walked up to a small bed, upon which lay a small boy, covered, in part, by a small quilt.
“This is the kid? Seems like a piece of cake. One bullet, and the job’s done.” Bradford smirked unpleasantly.
“Hey, can I name him?” Mira asked.
“ What? Mira, you surprise me sometimes. He’s a human being, and we can’t just-”
“Tyler! I wanna call him Tyler, after my lil’ bro!” Mira went on.
“Listen, the kid’ll be dead in a few days. It isn’t worth getting-”
“Tyler…Tyler Caine. That has a nice ring to it…” Mira mused, completely ignoring Bradford and Pense’s protests.
“Look, Private. If it all boils down to a combat situation…”
“Oh, I know! He can bunk with me! After all, there’s two bunk beds in my dorm, and I’m the only one sleeping there…” Mira blithered on.
“Tch! Fine! Enough already! When the kid wakes up, he bunks with you!” the commander submitted, mopping his brow.
“Hmm. And I think it would be a good idea if Bradford bunked with you as well, Mira.” Pense added.
“What? Me, sleep in the same room as that narcissist? You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Mira exclaimed.
“Looks like I’ll be around for a couple of days, sweetpea. You’d better get used to me. Don’t worry, though. A lot of girls are put off by my rugged good looks…” Bradford smirked.
“EWWW! GET THIS GUY AWAY FROM ME, OR SO HELP ME I’LL…” Mira shrieked.
“Come on. At least get to know me first…” Bradford said, grabbing Mira’s arm. A few seconds later, a loud smacking sound rang out, and Bradford was left with a large pink mark on his left cheek.
The group walked out of the patient’s room back into the lobby of the infirmary. Mira was walking extremely fast. Bracken followed, slightly dazed.
“So, Pense. I may not like you particularly, but what is your professional opinion on this case?” the commander asked.
However, he got no reply. Pense seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Stepping out of the lobby door, Leray was about to shout him. Then, without warning, a loud crack was heard. Mira looked to see the commander’s clean uniform splattered in red paint. The paint seemed to have come from a small canister that was attached to a plant near the infirmary door. The cannoster also seemed to double as a radio, because it had started playing a recording of ‘Good Morning Starshine’. Knowing the culprit, Mira burst out laughing and walked out of the infirmary door to congratulate Pense on a job well done.
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Short chapter this time, although my starting chapters usually are. Please R&R. Goodbye!
Oh, and by the way: All characters, ideas, scenarios etc. belong to me. It feels so good to say that! I might let people use them if they ask me nicely enough, though^.^
-------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
The Seven Hells Of Tyler Caine
Chapter One: Good Morning Starshine
-------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
“What?” Mira cried, the sounds of battle drowning out her high pitched voice.
“We need to get out of here! NOW!” called back her commander, who, by some small miracle, had heard her.
“But why? We’ve got them on the…ROPES!” she shouted, side-stepping a bullet wreathed in energy. It hit the ground, leaving yet another crater in the war-torn battlefield.
“I don’t know! Speccy thinks that some sort of…HOLY HELL!” the commander shouted, his voice suddenly struck with awe.
In the sky above them, a muddy, greenish blur had appeared. In all honesty, it was as if a four-year-old had scribbled on the sky with a dirty crayon. The air filled with a strange, unearthly ringing that cracked the armour of the soldiers. It reverberated within them, filling each and every hardened warrior to the bone.
“Evacuate! NOW! WE DON’T HAVE ANY TIME!” the commander shouted.
Mira turned and ran, tripping over twisted, knarled, ashen branches that seemed to want to help her to her doom. Turning back to check the status of her other troops, she gasped. A rip- a visible, plausible rip- had appeared in the sky. For all the world, it was as if the sky was made of nothing more than paper. Her feet lost all will to move as she stood in astonishment. Then, her battle hardened instincts coming in to play, she got into a defensive stance. Then, without warning, there was a huge impact. The whole battlefield became a mudslide, as tons of earth was displaced by a huge explosion. The earth rose as a huge wave, rushing towards her at incredible speed. Before it reached her, a jet of flame burst through it. It was a blue flame. Even as she was burning, her flesh being eaten away by the fames, she remembered the ghost stories her grand-papa had told her. Looking down, she saw her clothes burning. White hot pain seared her senses, leaving her completely defenceless. The, a blue flash engulfed her vision, and all dissolved in flames.
“You’re kidding me. Are you sure about that, Specs?” Mira said, her fork pausing on the way to her mouth. The steaming forkful of curry-rice dropped off the fork, and onto her clean uniform. She swore, pulling out her handkerchief to mop it up.
“Yup. Amazin’, ain’t it? Even happens in the virtual reality simulators these days. The lad’s in the infirmary now. We just found him lyin’ there outside the pod. I plan to visit him, but that kid probably won’t wake up for years, whereas this food’ll go cold in five minutes.” the scientist said across the table. His pristine white lab coat was a rarity in the cafeteria, a place where table manners were as rare as diamonds.
“Tch. I still don’t see why you have to make those things so damn realistic. Who told you it was a good idea to simulate pain?” Mira moaned, pouting her pretty lips. It was unusual for a soldier to be as pretty as her, and some of the female officers were getting jealous. Her back hair fell to her shoulders in perfect waves, shimmering as she walked. Her button nose was cute and blemish free. Her eyes shone with an optimistic yet sarcastic sparkle. She looked out of place in the dreary life of a military organisation.
“Hello? This is Commander O’ Leray speaking. Mira Bracken and Dr. Pense, get your collective butts to the infirmary ASAP. That is all.” cracked a curt voice from the P.A.
“Geez. Must be that jettisoned kid…Oh well. Better not keep the commander waiting, eh? I still remember what happened the last time we kept him waiting. It’s not so bad for you, because you’re always late. But me…” the doctor trailed off, pushing his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. Although he was the base’s foremost doctor, his casual manner had earned him many friends among the soldiers, who had affectionately nicknamed him ‘Speccy’. He and Mira had been firm friends ever since she had arrived three months before.
“Well, let’s just say that our collective butts had better get moving, as the Commander would oh-so-elegantly put it.” the doctor said, a roguish smile on his face.
Fifteen minutes and sixty-three corridors later, it was fair to say that the unlucky twosome were well and truly lost. The sprawling base had more twists and turns that a Russian chess game.
“Right. So it says on the signs that we have to go through the Barracks, make a right turn at the Weapons Dept., double back to the Strategy Planning Room then go past Lost n’ Found, and THEN we get to the infirmary. Wow, I’d hate to think what would happen if someone was actually dying.” Mira said, mopping sweat from her brow.
“I do wish they’d check the suggestions box once in a while. I keep telling them to paint frescoes on the walls, but they won’t. It might be a waste of money, but at least the soldiers who get lost will have something to look at.” commented the doctor.
“Yeah, but then they’d have to make an investigation into the deaths of missing artists. It won’t look too good when they drag a couple of corpses out of the corridors, will it?” Mira laughed.
“Yes. This base truly is built like a labyrinth…” the doctor replied thoughtfully.
“PENSE! BRACKEN! YOU’D BETTER HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON FOR BEING FIFTEEN MINUTES LATE!” came a roar from the end of the corridor.
“Oh, dear. And here comes the minotaur…” the doctor added.
“Minotaur? What’s that?” Mira asked, completely and utterly ignoring the fact that the commander was bearing down on them at an average speed of eighty knots.
“Oh, you didn’t know? It’s something from the jettisoned’s world…Combination of a man and a bull. Most unpleasant. Apparently a rather useless king used to feed it humans. I’m pretty glad I live here, after hearing that one.” the doctor said.
“You two! Get your asses into that infirmary NOW!” the commander shouted, spraying little droplets of spit all over the doctor’s lab coat.
“We’ve been looking for the infirmary for FIFTEEN minutes now! Where is the damn place?” Mira shouted back, without much thought.
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO THE FRONT DESK, BRACKEN!” the commander yelled.
“Oh, right.” Mira said sheepishly, seeing the receptionist waving at her.
“Right. Now that Private Bracken and Doctor Pense are finally here, we can begin this meeting.” Leray said, walking the length of the infirmary as he spoke. He was a tall man, with a wrinkled face and many war wounds. His polished boots made a pleasing squeaking sound as he paced the tiled infirmary floor.
“As you may well know, we recently had an incident of ‘jettisoneering’. As no doubt you know, this is the first incident of the jettison phenomena in this base, and the first ever instance of the phenomena in a Virtual Reality simulator.” the commander went on.
“Yes, we all know. I’m assuming that you didn’t bring us here to discuss the same things I keep hearing over the water cooler?” Speccy said sarcastically.
“Doctor Pense, if you weren’t the best scientist that this burnt out husk of a military base could afford on it’s pocket money budget, I’d fire you on the spot.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I sincerely regret being so good at my job.”
“Can we get back to business?” came a new voice. It belonged to a young man, probably no older than Mira, who was sitting in what was very probably the most comfortable chair in the infirmary.
“Anyway, the base scientists have been devising theories into how the hell it happened. A waste of time, in my opinion. We’d be better off if they’d make us some new weapons rather than buggering about with ridiculous theories about the laws of space and time and rot like that. Still, you always get the half assed scientists wasting away valuable time on nonsense like this.” the commander went on.
“I never actually wanted this job. I wanted to become a landscape gardener, but my dear old daddy didn’t want me to be pruning bushes for the rest of my life.” the doctor said conversationally.
Mira snickered. It was common knowledge that Commander Leray and Doctor Pense lived to make each other look stupid. She remembered an incident that had become base legend: an incident in which Doctor Pense had rigged up the P.A to the Commander’s shower and turned on the switch- just in time to let the base hear an uplifting rendition of ‘Good Morning Starshine’. Almost as legendary was the Commander’s response, whereupon he had put pepper spay in the Doctor’s soup. The resulting food-fight went down in base history.
Evidently, though, the young man sitting in the chair wasn’t from the base. He was wearing a different uniform, clearly didn’t know Pense and Leray’s turbulent relationship, and, worst of all, was drinking hot chocolate. He dribbled slightly as he drank, and then looked at Mira and smiled, hot chocolate running down his chin.
“Well, regardless of the doctor’s bush-pruning tendencies, I did assemble you for a reason. Private Bracken, Doctor Pense, I would like you to meet Officer Bradford. He’s an expert on containing the jettisoned.” the commander went on.
“Contain them? Isn’t that a little severe? After all, our tests show that they’re human beings- just like us. We have no idea where they come from, but they don’t seem all that dangerous. Just so long as you don’t get in the way of the landing.” the doctor joked.
“Not so. We did more tests. More advanced tests. They are human, true, but they’re very different from us. Their DNA, their cells, their bodies…All different. The main difference is that they have no ability to maintain a fixed shape.” Bradford explained in a smug voice- far too smug for Mira’s liking.
“What? No fixed shape? They don’t seem like jelly globs to me. In fact, they seem to be human shaped. Of course, I could be wrong, Professor Bradford.” the doctor said sarcastically.
“Ha-ha. Laugh it up, you glorified chemist. Those ‘humans’ aren’t human shaped for long. They’re far more adaptable than we are. Adaptable to a terrifying degree. If they were shot, for instance, within a day their bodies would have changed to withstand gun fire. If they went into a heated environment, their bodies would immediately change to withstand it.” the officer explained.
“What, so these guys are like the next evolution of humans? That’s amazing!” Mira exclaimed.
“I guess you could call them that. The problem is, adaptation takes generations to be put in place. For good reason. For example, you go into an artic wasteland. You almost freeze to death, then fall asleep. When you wake up the next morning, you’ve changed. You can no longer walk on two legs. You’ve expanded to twice your previous size and weight. You’re grown thick, white fur that camouflages you against the snow. You have huge, sharp claws to grip the ice. Your mind, senses and instincts are super-honed. You haven’t eaten any vegetables or fruit for a day, because there’s none available, and your body has made you into an exclusive carnivore. You’re scared, so you run, killing animals to feed yourself. Eventually, you get to a forest. Because of your thick fur, you overheat and pass out. When you awake, things have changed again. You’re now smaller- around the size of a monkey. Except that your fur is green for camouflage. And all that meat you ate before is now poisoning you, because your body is now adapted to eat insects. How long does it take you to go crazy?” the soldier explained darkly.
“Well, if there’s no coffee, I go crazy anyway.” the doctor laughed.
“Specs! Don’t you see what this means? If someone were to try and manipulate those capabilities, they could make some sort of ultimate soldier!” Mira gasped.
“Yes. They’d be unstoppable. A creature immune to gunfire, gas, technology, pain and disease…We humans would very quickly become endangered.” the commander mused.
“Exactly. Which is why we need to contain them. Up until now, no jettisoned human has ever remembered the circumstances before or surrounding their arrival in our world. All we know is that for the first few days, they’re perfectly harmless. when that little honeymoon period ends, we shoot. “ Bradford said, smiling unpleasantly.
“Yeah, I have a question. Why do we call them jettisoned?” Mira asked.
“Because they’re thrown from their world to ours.” Pense said, carefully inspecting one of the plants in the infirmary.
“Well…At any rate, we have to use the few days before the kid goes crazy to try and learn about the phenomena. Let’s go see him.” Leray said, walking through a door further into the infirmary. Bradford followed, walking in a cocky little way that Mira suspected he wouldn’t walk in if he didn’t have a gun. She walked over to Pense, who was no fiddling with the stem of one of the plants.
“Hmm. You really were serious about that gardening thing, huh?” Mira asked.
“Yup. I just love eliminating weeds from my garden…” the doctor said ominously, walking through the door. Mira followed.
The room was darkened, for some reason that was completely unknown to Mira. She would have asked the doctor, but felt that he would just come out with some complicated medical dictation involving voodoo priests or something of that nature.
“Tell me, why are the lights out in this room?” Bradford asked.
“Because the Commander uses all his money to buy rainbow-coloured swimming trunks, so the base has no electricity.” Pense said in response.
Ignoring the chatter, the commander walked up to a small bed, upon which lay a small boy, covered, in part, by a small quilt.
“This is the kid? Seems like a piece of cake. One bullet, and the job’s done.” Bradford smirked unpleasantly.
“Hey, can I name him?” Mira asked.
“ What? Mira, you surprise me sometimes. He’s a human being, and we can’t just-”
“Tyler! I wanna call him Tyler, after my lil’ bro!” Mira went on.
“Listen, the kid’ll be dead in a few days. It isn’t worth getting-”
“Tyler…Tyler Caine. That has a nice ring to it…” Mira mused, completely ignoring Bradford and Pense’s protests.
“Look, Private. If it all boils down to a combat situation…”
“Oh, I know! He can bunk with me! After all, there’s two bunk beds in my dorm, and I’m the only one sleeping there…” Mira blithered on.
“Tch! Fine! Enough already! When the kid wakes up, he bunks with you!” the commander submitted, mopping his brow.
“Hmm. And I think it would be a good idea if Bradford bunked with you as well, Mira.” Pense added.
“What? Me, sleep in the same room as that narcissist? You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Mira exclaimed.
“Looks like I’ll be around for a couple of days, sweetpea. You’d better get used to me. Don’t worry, though. A lot of girls are put off by my rugged good looks…” Bradford smirked.
“EWWW! GET THIS GUY AWAY FROM ME, OR SO HELP ME I’LL…” Mira shrieked.
“Come on. At least get to know me first…” Bradford said, grabbing Mira’s arm. A few seconds later, a loud smacking sound rang out, and Bradford was left with a large pink mark on his left cheek.
The group walked out of the patient’s room back into the lobby of the infirmary. Mira was walking extremely fast. Bracken followed, slightly dazed.
“So, Pense. I may not like you particularly, but what is your professional opinion on this case?” the commander asked.
However, he got no reply. Pense seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Stepping out of the lobby door, Leray was about to shout him. Then, without warning, a loud crack was heard. Mira looked to see the commander’s clean uniform splattered in red paint. The paint seemed to have come from a small canister that was attached to a plant near the infirmary door. The cannoster also seemed to double as a radio, because it had started playing a recording of ‘Good Morning Starshine’. Knowing the culprit, Mira burst out laughing and walked out of the infirmary door to congratulate Pense on a job well done.
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Short chapter this time, although my starting chapters usually are. Please R&R. Goodbye!