Through the Darkness
By Bardothren
Chapter 1: Chihiro de Arkus
Chihiro stared down the scope of her father's sniper rifle. Her brown shirt and skirt were rumpled beneath her, and her white shoes were smeared with grass stains. A few feet in front of her, the land abruptly stopped, forming a rocky cliff face. Below her was a grassy field sparsely shaded by a few trees. Sacks of flour hung from branches and swayed in the wind. Her own black hair whipped around in the wind, slipping into her ears and making her want to smooth it out. Instead, she pressed her cheek closer to the rifle, until all she felt was the pressure of the metal against her jaw. Her father, Arkus, sat on a box to her left, watching her progress and offering quips of advice.
"Don't have your face so close to the gun," her father said. His long, purple hair flowed in the wind, and his light green eyes gazed at the dangling sacks. He touched the ring around his eye and said, "You don't want your face to go numb."
"Yes dad." She moved the scope so the cloth sack she was aiming for fell in the center of the crosshairs. Then she closed her eyes and felt the wind whipping her hair. After a slight shift to the left, she pressed her finger against the trigger. As she fired the gun, the wind died. The rifle cracked as it spat out a steel bullet, and her ears rang from the retort. The bullet flew wide of the sack and buried itself in the trunk of the tree.
"You have to be more patient, Chihiro," he said. "Sniping is all about patience. There are some shots I've waited hours before taking."
"Yeah, but dad, how am I supposed to know what the wind's going to do?"
"Use your ears. Listen to the sound of the trees rustling, and you'll know what the wind will do seconds ahead of time."
Chihiro set the sniper down and stood up. She clenched her paws and said, "That's easy for you to say dad. You don't have hair whipping around your ears."
Arkus frowned, ran a hand over his ears, and stood. "I think it's time for a snack."
He opened the box he was sitting on and took out sandwiches wrapped in cloth. Chihiro took hers, a glob of tauros beef and cheri berries wedged between two firm, nutty pieces of bread. She took a bite and savored the spices sizzling on her tongue.
"Do we have any of those oran berries left?" she asked.
Arkus dug around the basket and pulled out two bottles of water and more sandwiches. "No, that's all that's in there. I guess we'll have to get more."
Once they finished the sandwiches and drank the water, they wrapped up the box and lay back on the long, springy grass. Chihiro turned towards her father and asked, "Did your father teach you how to shoot?"
"No, he didn't," Arkus said as he stared at the clouds.
"Your mom then? What was she like?"
"I never knew either of my parents."
"Oh." Chihiro frowned and turned away. She reached out and stroked the long, sleek barrel of the rifle. "Then who taught you?"
A gust of wind rustled the grass between them. Arkus looked down at his long, trimmed red claws and scraped them against each other.
"Nolan did. He was my master."
Chihiro looked at him, brow furrowed with thought. Part of her warned against probing further. After a moment, she asked, "What was he like?"
"Stubborn, stern, and impossibly patient."
"What kind of pokemon was he? Was he like me?"
Arkus placed a hand over his eyes. "No, um, he wasn't. He was… a grovyle." He sat up and looked at the trees. Their branches creaked and groaned as the wind tossed them around.
Chihiro sat up and tapped him on the shoulder. He flinched and sat up.
"Dad, are you okay?"
"Oh, yes, I'm fine. Just spacing out." His brow furrowed, then a smile lit up his face and he turned towards her. "Do you want to know how I got this ring around my eye?"
"Wait, you mean that wasn't always there?"
"Oh no. I got this when I was about your age. It was in the middle of a hunting expedition. I found a pack of tauros and decided to take one. So, I set up my rifle on the other side of a field and shot one."
Chihiro leaned closer and asked, "Then what happened?"
Arkus smiled and threw open his arms. "They came running at me, snorting and roaring as they tore up the field. In a panic, my hands fumbled with the gun and I shot a second one in the leg. I shot a third in the jaw, but the fourth one got so close to me all I could do was shoot it dead center in the horns. That didn't kill it, but it made it throw up its head, and it passed right over me, its hoof stamping an inch from my ear." Arkus swung his fist through the air next to his head. "As it was running over me, I shot it in the stomach, and it fell on me, pressing the scope of my rifle into my eye and making this ring."
"So that's how it happened? Why did your fur turn white?"
Arkus touched the ring and said, "I don't know. It just happened."
"How did you get out from under the tauros?"
Arkus looked up at the sky. The sun was beginning to graze the treetops, and the wind carried the faintest hint of nightfall.
"We should get back. You have school tomorrow, after all."
"Are you sure? I hardly did any shooting."
Arkus grinned and tossed his hair over his shoulder. "I thought you didn't like target practice. Also, is school going well?"
Chihiro looked down at her feet and said, "Yes dad, school's great."
"Good. Just remember to tell me if anything happens."
From the grassy cliff, it would have been a day's walk back to the city, but Arkus filled his claws with dark power and sliced a hole through the air, opening up into their living room. Chihiro stepped through first, and then Arkus sealed the hole as he passed through.
They stepped out behind a large wooden table that sat in the center of the living room. On one side was a long leather couch, and on the other, a large wood-paneled television with a six inch screen and two dials. The television crackled and hissed as a black and white image of a reporter recounted the evening news.
Alicia stood in the kitchen, flipping croquettes in a frying pan. When Chihiro bumped against the table, she set the pan down and turned towards them.
"How was target practice Chihiro?"
"Fine mom. Hey, did you know how dad got that ring around his eye?"
"Yes sweetie. Why, did he tell you?"
"He did." Chihiro placed her hands on her hips and said, "And I told you not to call me sweetie anymore. That's a little girl name."
"Alright Chihiro. The croquettes are just about done, so if you're still hungry, they'll be waiting." She plucked them out of the pan onto a ceramic plate and placed it on the kitchen counter. Chihiro tried grabbing one, but the heat made her drop it.
"Chihiro, what have I told you about patience?" Arkus asked as she sucked on her burnt fingers.
"But I'm hungry now and they smell so good." She took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water. Then she plucked a croquette and dropped it in the glass, splashing around water and cursing at her burnt fingers. After a few seconds, she took out the croquette, placed it in her mouth, and drank all the water.
"Aw man, the breading's soggy," she complained after she swallowed.
"Like I said: patience."
"Jeez dad, it's always patience this and patient that. For someone who loves to talk about patience, you hardly have any."
"Of course I'm patient." Arkus slid his claws across the counter and said, "I've been waiting twelve years for you to learn some patience."
"Whatever." Chihiro walked into her room, closed the door, and pulled a book out from under her bed. As she flipped to the bookmark, she heard her mother say, "I think we should talk."
"One of those talks?" Arkus asked. Chihiro could imagine him looking at her door as he said, "Into the bedroom then."
Chihiro waited for the sound of the bedroom door closing. Then she peeked underneath her door, parting the carpet so she could see down the hall. Once she was sure the hallway was empty, she opened the door a crack at a time, glancing at the walls and ceiling. She tiptoed down the hallway and pressed her ear against the side of the door.
A faint crackling sound came from the barrier built into the bedroom's walls. She glanced at the door before closing her eyes and making her thoughts fall silent. She focused on her breathing, each rush of air passing through her lungs. Her heartbeat slowed to a soft, gentle rhythm, and her ears tingled with a viscous heat like warm honey.
"It's going to happen any day now, so you might as well tell her now," Alicia said. "It'll scare her if she doesn't know."
"It'll still scare her once we tell her. We should give her more time."
"We don't have much time," Alicia snapped. "My engagement band reacts to her presence more and more. There are times it feels like it'll burn my fur."
"Yes, but she's far off from using the Aura. She has very little talent in listening to the world around her, and if she can't listen, then she can't feel it."
Chihiro pressed her ear closer to the door and smiled. She finally had the reason her father was having her practice sniping.
"Are you sure about that? She can have sensitive hearing when she wants to."
She heard one of them stand up from the bed, and she ran back to her room in a panic. She gently closed the door and returned to her book, listening out the door. She heard one of them walk down the hall and stop in front of her room before going back. A minute later, both parents left the room. Alicia went to the store, and Arkus told her good night before leaving for City Hall.
Once she heard the elevator ding in the hallway, Chihiro closed her door and sat cross-legged on her bed. She set the book on her lap and closed her eyes.
"Come on, just like dad does," she told herself. "Patience. Listen."
She felt a warm, vibrant sensation gathering in her ears, and she reached for it. She held her hand over her book and willed it to float. Nothing happened, and though she tried making the warmth flow through her body, or around her, turning to ice or burning her nerves, she couldn't make the book move. She growled and threw the book across the room. Then she pulled the covers over herself and fell asleep.
Chapter 2: Research Agent Beta-Five (RAB5)
The Beta Complex of Sinex's Laboratories held numerous genetic experiments, most of them frozen in the lab's labyrinthine cryo chambers. Other rooms were given over to spectroscopic equipment and computers programmed for genetic analysis. Research agents worked tended the machines at all hours and monitored their output. Five rooms housed current genetic projects, including the new research proceeding on specimens collected from the Delta Incident. The µ Project was one such endeavor and had already undergone several iterations, from the aborted 1.3 to the mentally insane, self-destructive 1.8. However, for the second series of tests, they had stitched together the messy, multi-branched DNA into a single strand, and the result was a stable life-form, project µ2.0.
Beta-Five monitored the genetic sampling of project µ2.0 as it was subjected to high-intensity UV radiation. Despite the bombardment of photons, the subject's genome remained stable.
"Thymine dimerization is not occurring," he reported. "No anomalies detected in 2.0's genetic structure."
"Alright then, shut it off," Beta Director Lammers ordered. The tall, gaunt man wore a pristine gray lab coat. His long black hair flowed around his ears, and his thin, bony hands were jammed into his pockets.
Beta-Five, like all the other agents, had every trace of hair surgically removed. He wore a plain white lab coat with his number and station plastered on the front and back. His black lab boots squeaked on the hard metal floor anytime he turned, and his pockets clattered and bulged with all the equipment crammed inside of them. However, he also had a birthmark under his left eye, a blotchy red triangle that pointed towards his jaw line. He liked to imagine it looked like the Sinex Phoenix, but none of the agents agreed with him.
"Get 2.0 cleaned off, feed it, and administer the intelligence tests. Then take another MRI and blood sample. I'll have Beta-Eight help you."
"Yes sir," Beta-Five said with a salute. He grabbed the water and acetone solutions off a shelf, took a clean set of towels out of a bin, balanced a clipboard on top of his arms, and entered µ2.0's chamber. The room had a bed, a thin wooden table, and two stools. On one wall was a bookshelf, crammed with Dr. Seuss children's books, grade school textbooks, and a copy of Tolkien's The Hobbit. Another shelf held a book of mazes, a Rubik's cube, and other puzzles.
Once Beta-Five entered the room, µ2.0 stood up from the bed. It held its thin, muscular, purple arms out to the sides and waited for the wash. Beta-Five dipped one towel in the acetone and scrubbed its body, taking care not to get any liquid in its large, bulbous purple eyes or the membranous ears at the sides of its head. Once he finished scrubbing its long, dark, fleshy tail, Beta-Five cleaned its hairless skin a second time with a towel of water and then dried it off, rubbing gently at the delicate skin around its collarbone and shins.
µ2.0 sat down at the table once it was clean, awaiting the next portion of its daily routine. Beta-Five took the Rubik's cube off his shelf, tucked it into his lab coat, turned his back on the test subject, and twisted it until the colors were jumbled up. He took a stopwatch out of his pocket as he set the cube on the table. Once µ2.0 picked it up, he started the stopwatch. The project's three stubby fingers probed the surface of the cube, rotating it as its bulbous eyes scanned the pattern of colors. Then, with a rapid series of hand movements, it solved the cube. Beta-Five wrote the final time of 47.8 seconds on his clipboard and returned the cube to the shelf.
The remaining tests went by swiftly, and each time, µ2.0 surpassed its previous scores by a slim margin. Once he was finished, Beta-Eight walked in, carrying a long syringe.
"Have you finished with the cleaning?" he asked.
"Everything is ready," Beta-Five answered. "It's a blood sample and an MRI today."
At the sight of the syringe, µ2.0 held out its arm and looked away. Beta-Eight plunged the needle in, and µ2.0 winced as its thin, blue blood was drawn. Beta-Five rubbed disinfectant around the needle's entry point and wrapped it in gauze.
They led µ2.0 out of its chamber to the MRI room down the hall. It lay down on the bed and sat still as the image was taken. Beta-Five cycled through µ2.0's brain, a structure like a shriveled apple covered in bumps, and compared it to the previous month's image.
"No signs of deterioration or hemorrhaging," Beta-Five reported as he turned the machine off. "Looks just like last month's."
"Good," Beta-Eight said. "Dinner's about ready, so you better hurry if you want it hot."
Beta-Eight left the room, leaving Beta-Five with the project. He escorted it back to its room, but when he turned to leave, it tugged on his lab coat and pulled a book from the shelf.
Beta-Five pondered the situation. He didn't have orders to read to project µ2.0 today. Furthermore, if he took the time to read, he would likely miss out on the pot roast. He walked towards the door, but then he thought of the orders to keep the project psychologically healthy. The Director would be furious if it committed suicide like 1.8. He shuddered as he thought of the creature smacking its own head against a wall until its brains seeped out of the cracks in its skull.
He turned around and took the book from µ2.0's hands. It was Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches. He sat down on the bed, and it sat next to him, craning over his shoulder as it looked at the words as he read.
"But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches would brag 'We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.' With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and snort 'We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!' And whenever they met some, when they were out walking, they'd hike right on past them without even talking."
Once he was finished, Beta-Five returned the book to the shelf and ran down the hallways to the communal cafeteria. He raced to the food trays, but he was too late. All that remained of the pot roasts was some drippings in the pan. With a sigh of resignation, Beta-Five took some cold broiled mushrooms, soggy steamed broccoli, and lumpy mashed potatoes, dumping a generous portion of drippings over each.
As he sat down at a table, he was joined by Research Agent Alpha-Fourteen. She set her tray down next to him and handed him a small plate of pot roast.
"I knew you were going to be late when Beta-Eight returned without you, so I saved you some pot roast," she said. Though she looked like any other agent, he could recognize her by her clear, blue eyes.
"Thanks," he said. "I had an unexpected delay with the project."
"Ah, Project µ2.0. How is it doing?"
"Very well. The Director's pleased with the results. And the Alpha Project?"
"We finished testing it today, but not ready for use yet. Its capture field has a range of ten meters, and it can be distorted by gamma radiation, so we can't use it outside the lab. Still, we think it should only take twelve years before it's ready for practical application."
"Congratulations. Your Director must be very happy."
"On the contrary. He keeps griping about how we shouldn't have used the research results on the metal alloy Delta made. But without it, we would have never finished the project."
"I can't believe how quickly the project progressed."
"Me either, but that alloy was the one piece we were missing. I just wish the Director would stop complaining about it."
After that, they ate their dinner in silence. Though the food was tasty, Beta-Five kept wishing it was warm. The fat in the pot-roast was chewy, the drippings coating everything had solidified into a fatty gel, and the other food was as tantalizing as a cup of water.
Once Beta-Five was finished, he said good-night to Alpha-Fourteen, put the tray on the washing rack, and returned to the labs. µ2.0 was asleep, with cranial electrodes planted around the base of its neck. He took a look at the scans and found it in a mild resting state, its mind flickering with neural activity. He cycled through the cardio data, examining the blood composition and checking for nutritional deficiencies.
After Beta-Five submitted the daily report, he went four floors up the sleek, silent elevator and returned to his cubicle, at the far end of the hall. His room had a bed suspended from the ceiling, a desk and laptop beneath that, a metal chair, a dresser, a multifunctional kitchen unit, and a laundry chute.
Beta-Five disrobed, crammed his clothes into a plastic capsule, and placed it into the chute. It soared up with a popping sound, and then a minute later, the capsule fell into the receptacle with a muffled clink. He opened the capsule, and the smell of lilacs drifted from the washed fabric.
Once Beta-Five folded and put his clothes in the dresser, he turned to the kitchen unit and swiped his finger across its display. He cycled through his options and selected a pizza pocket. The metal box whirred and dinged, opening a slot in its midsection. On a thin metal plate was a steaming pizza pocket, dripping with cheeses and pepperoni cubes. Beta-Five pressed another button, and another door swept open, revealing a bottle of Sprecher's root beer, the top freshly snapped open and a honey-laden fog wafting from the top.
After his snack, Beta-Five dumped the dishes into the kitchen unit's sink, opened his laptop, and surfed through Sinex's internet, opening the public files on the Alpha Project. Though the abstract didn't explore any details, the premise behind the technology was the application of matter condensation, previously exploited for teleportation, to condense the wavefunction of massless particles into a constrained system, storing the energy for indefinite periods of time. Staring at the grid work of lines and circuits flowing through the spherical container, Beta-Five could hardly believe that the salvation of humanity sat in front of him on a computer screen.
Beta-Five browsed through the network's news feed, and the cultural section caught his eye. Yet another debate began over including the Pokemon anime and franchise from the old society in the cultural archives. He read further and saw that the Conglomerate yet again rejected the proposal, due to the destructive nature of the material.
Once he finished browsing through Gamma's latest breakthrough on catalytic synthesis of heterocycles, Beta-Five powered down his laptop, climbed onto his bed, and stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep.