Chapter 2: The Peoples
I woke up moaning to the harsh sunlight. There a blew a harsh wind carrying sand that blinded me. The heat of the area had already left me with a dry pair of lips and a hoarse throat.
"Owww," I muttered to myself. My head hurt, I must have hit my head hard upon landing. I looked around me.
There was a dessert as vast as the eye could see. A black figure sat in the distance, I couldn't tell what it was.
I was sitting in what seemed to be one giant space pod. The glass dome had simply popped off and sat in the sand beside me. Computers with flips, dials, and switches sat above my lap.
I looked up, the sky was a deep color of purple and the sky was setting.
I had a bad feeling about the night time. That dark figure was probably my best bet.
I pulled myself out of the seat and decided to check my arm band. The arm band was a multi-tasking apparatus used for anything and everything. It held Pokeballs. I can hack into devices. It was a pokedex. it was a person's best friend, well next to Pokemon. The time read 7:00 P.M
I had no way of making it the dark figure in time before night. Sleeping out here waan't going to be much fun either. I may as well stay awake and walk blindly.
I looked down at myself. I was wearing cargo jeans, a pair of sneakers, a simple white shirt, and a pair of goggles was stuck to my belt.
I started to walk towards the dark figure.
Time past and the only thing that proved that I was making progress was the time that past and the dark figure that moved closer. It was around night time when I made it. My skin parched, my fingers dry like a vaporeon who hadn't seen water in days. The dark figure resembled a large fort. It had dark red doors and it had even darker walls.
"Hello? I croaked.
Nothing answered. I hit the door with all I had. No answer. I decided to wait for now. I sat on the sand and rested my legs.
The night was stunningly cold. The air reminded as dry as ever, but this time it was simply cold.
I decided to explore.
I walked around the building and found out that it was in the shape of an octagon or something like that.
At each corner there stood a tall tower, made from the same black wall.
There was another door, this time painted green. I slammed on it with both fists. I looked around and I found out that there was a large button with a sign over it that read, 'door bell - press'.
I hit the button.
I stood there for a whole minute before I pressed it again. This time the door cracked open.
A man wearing dark clothes appeared. A Shedinja was on his right shoulder. In the dark of the night I couldn't really see his face or what he was wearing.
"Hello there. "He looked at my feet and scanned all the way up to my face. "Who are you?"
"I'm 08. Please call me simply Eight." I said. "I'm a man that just woke cryogenic deep space sleep. Looking for a place to stay for now."
"You're how old?" asked the man.
"What year is it?" I asked.
"2100." he answered.
"115 years old, that would make me."
"Why should we believe you?"
"Dunno. What is this place anyway."
"This is like a fortified town. You stay here you gotta work. Whether it be fending the bandits off, or fending the Wilds off. You work, you stay, you eat."
"Any positions available?" I asked.
"Well we have a need for a mechanic, a soldier, a capturer, a doctor-"
"I can play doctor." I said.
"Good we're fresh out." Said the man. "My name is John, John Armel. It will be a pleasure working with you eight."
"Yes it will be a pleasure." I agreed. He stuck out a rugged hand. Dry and scaly, like mine, but unlike mine it was callused.
He opened the door wider and said," We're going to have to get you identified at my office. You're going to need an ID if you're going to want to enter and leave as you please. Sorry, bandit percautions."
"I don't mind at all." I muttered.
"Oh and you have to register your pokemon. You have some right?" asked the man.
I shook my head.
"What? How did you survive out here?"
"If I told you, you would doubt me heavily."
"Try me."
"I was put into a cyro sleep out in space. Just now I crashed back on earth."
"For real?"
"Yeah my pod's out in yonder. Hours from here, I was walking the whole day."
"Yeah I can see why people would doubt you." John said quietly. "Are you being sarcastic?"
"Not at all sir." I said being as serious as possible.
"Good, but I'm going to have to put that fact down. After all you know that's pretty doubtable."
I nodded if someone told me that a few years ago I would've agreed. Well technically if someone told me a hundred or so years ago. How about I leave it at when I was younger I would've agreed with John.
John took my hand and lead me into the darkness behind the door. He let my hand go and I could hear him stumble around for a while. Things that sounded like sheets of paper falling.
"Oh gash darn it!" I could hear John say in the darkness.
The lights flashed on, making wince back and hit the wall behind me. My head landed with a great thud.
In the light appeared a desk surrounded by columns of papers.
It should've been impossible to find a specific sheet of paper in that stack, but there was John who simply inspected a stack of papers and took out a sheet.
He leaned his head down and started scribbling on it with a pen. He put down my name, a number, and a job. He handed me the paper and said," Best of luck. Go down the door behind me and talk to the town's dorm manager. He'll tell you where you could stay, and tomorrow off to work. Understood?"
I gave him a quick nod.
"Great then. You'll start off as an assistant of the doctor, to prove you're ready. Go ahead."
I walked towards the door behind him, or what used to be a door before. There was no door knob, so all I had to do was push it. The paint was gone and the door splintered.
Behind the door let a set of stairs, formed from iron beams. It looked like a set of school bleachers, almost like if the stairs could immediately retract.
We walked up the stairs and we ended up at a room that had a door leading right and on the other side a door leading to the right.
"We are at the moment in a section in the wall. The wall is designed to keep people out honestly. I think you already noticed but the stairs back there could easily lock down and turn into a wall to keep the bandit out!"
"Wait you guys have bandit raids that often?" I asked.
"Yeah, but it's generally one or two alone coming to the walls then retreating. Recently they haven't attacked though. I wonder what's going on?" he said. "Not that I'm really worried about them."
He lead me towards the door to the right that lead to a set of stairs leading downward. At the end of the stairs was a hall with a series of working lights. White doors created an infinitely going pattern down the hall.
"Don't worry, not every door leads to a patient." He said. "In fact most of them are empty. What we need is a man that can heal both Pokemon and humans!"
"You got it!" I said to him.
"Oh yeah, another thing there's been a recent theft of anesthesia. If you catch whoever is stealing the drugs, notify us immediately! Tomorrow morning you will be coming here and I will show you the lead Doctor! Doc Zed is his name. Now to your quarters."
We moved back up the stairs and this time we went to the right door. The door on the right lead outside into the town. The town was completely makeshift, every building was formed out of slices of steel, and chunks of wood. It was a miracle that the wind didn't blow the building down like a building made of cards.
Tom walked down the main street with me in tow. Eventually we turned from the main street into a dark alleyway, the moonlight made my surroundings just barely visible. To the right was a door with a keyhole.
Tom put a key in my hand and said," Go ahead!"
I carefully put the key in the keyhole and turned. The door swung open. A hall was now visible. There were lights on the ceiling. The hall was colored a sky blue, but it felt depressing with clods of dirt every dew inches. White tiles were embedded every few inches, but they did nothing to raise the mood. Every few yards, there was a door, that possibly lead to the people's room. Some doors were made of steel, and other out of wood. Though in every single one of them there was a number such as '101,102,103.'
John handed me another key. The key was engraved with three numbers. '208'
We traversed down the hall down to where there was a set of stairs. The set of stairs spiraled upwards on the right and downwards on the left. We went up a level and my room was down a few steps, then to my immediate right was a room with a door that was partially rusted from the top right.
I put my keyhole in the doorknob when I read that the door number was 208. I pushed it open, and I found an empty room. It was like a dorm room, except there was no closet. All I saw was a single mattress with no sheet in the corner of the room. A single room stood tall holding the steel ceiling and floor apart. A window was embedded in the far wall from where I was standing. It presented a dark sky, the moon hidden by the pollution.
"For now, until tomorrow, this room will remain empty. Just give us some time, alright?" asked John.
"Alright," I said. I entered, and he said, "Good night."
"Good night," I said without turning around. I fell to my mattress sideways and nearly bruised my shoulder from the hardness.
But I still fell asleep.
The next morning was rough. I could feel my hair, stiff with sand and sweat. My skin was almost shiny with sweat but my mouth was dry and rough. It felt like it was going to peel. The room had almost become a microwave. Heat bounced off the surfaces of the walls, ceiling, and floor.
I hadn't eaten since, however many years ago I thought to myself. And I hadn't drank anything for that much longer.
I tried to stand up, but like if I were ill, my legs were stiff and denied my body movement, meanwhile I was dying in this room. I squinted my eyes and with a groan I stood up. I nearly fell straight over. Using my fall's momentum and some quick shuffling in my feet, I made it to the door and opened it. I walked out into the hall and was surprised by how much cooler it was out here. True, it was still blood boiling downright hot, but it was cooler than in my room. With some luck I made it downstairs and walked back towards the section of the wall where John and I had left from.
I looked at my armband, the battery was down to 80%. It was best if I shut it off for now. I looked at the time, it read 7:00 A.M. Not many people were out in the streets, but whoever was gave me a strange glare. With fear in my heart, I ran to the wall. After a few minutes I was back in the room which lead to the infirmary, and that was where John was waiting for me.
"Early child are you?" asked John sipping a cup of coffee. Simply relaxing in a standing position leaning against a wall.
I nodded tired.
"You're probably starving right?" said John.
"Course." I said, the words cut at my throat because my throat was just that dry.
"Alright, come with me." We walked to a nearby building. John nearly had to hold me by my hand to stop me from falling over. He would make sure I was alright every few minutes, had weariness embedded itself on my face like most of the townsfolk?
We entered a building with a red sign, that was fashioned from a simply pieces of metal and red letters painted on them, Edibles. The building was shaped like another dome.
On the other side of the metallic door was a breathtaking aroma of coffee. I didn't know if that meant this place was just that good, or I was just that hungry. Seats were lined up around a bar on the right. Around it were tables crowded by couches. Some sheets of papers were laid out on the table.
"Let's take a seat." Said John, sitting at a nearby table.
I sat opposite of him. I held myself up by using my arms as support on the table.
After a few seconds a male waiter came up to us. He was dressed in tan robes and trousers covered in sand. A white apron was tied to him.
"May I take your orders?" asked the waiter.
"Yeah, get me a coffee." Said John. "Well you can go and check the menu, you know?" John said as I had no clue what he was talking about.
I looked down at the menu and saw a random menu. It had a list of curries, to broths, to breads, to simply pancakes.
"Can I have 2 pancakes and water?" I asked.
"Nice joked kid," said John, before the Waiter could attempt to give me a strange look. "Get him some milk."
"Will that be all?" asked the waiter.
"Yeah," said John.
The waiter walked to the back and went through a set of doors.
"Kid, do you really not know what's going on?" asked John.
"I'm afraid so. I've been in cryogenically sleep forever. And my earlier life, was that of a machine, I was a science experiment in a way," I said.
"Right." Said John. "So does that mean I have to explain everything to you?"
"Please do so," I said, ashamed that I hadn't known what was happening. "
"You know up to the point of the disease right?"
I gave him a nod.
"Alright, water is pretty hard to come by out here. Whatever pure water we have, we give it to the miltanks. That way we get our nutrition too. Food is based on the planting system. Luckily, we were able to create a way to make the plants immune to being corrupted, but you know, if the dirty water we use on them is used on us, we catch the disease."
"Alright, thanks."
"Any other questions?"
"What about the economy?"
"The economy in this town is different from the rest of the world. The rest of the world uses Bottle caps. Inside here, we support a credit card system for everything. A massive computer sits in the center of the town. All cash registers are connected to it. Each week everyone is given a certain amount of money, equal to the importance of their job. Eventually even you will have to pay for rent."
"Rent?"
"You know like each month you pay for living in a house."
"Oh alright."
We sat silently waiting for my meal.
"So what's your past like?"
"I'd honestly rather not talk about." I said simply, even at the mention of that topic my appetite dropped.
"Here you go sirs," said the waiter, as he suddenly appeared.
He gave John a cup of coffee and he put down a plate of steaming pancakes on a cracked plate. He gave me clean silver ware. From a pocket attached to his apron he took out a bottle of milk and put it on my table. There was some cheese on the pancaked instead of syrup. I guess that meant in this year, there were no such things as Maple Trees?
"Enjoy," said the waiter.
"Thanks," I said.
The breakfast was eaten in silence and we returned to the room in The Wall.
When we entered there was another person there. She happened to be a girl, about my age I think. She stood silently, her eyes was a simply gaze as the two of us entered. She seemed to be completely emotionless. Her eyes were a matter of fact a bright red, a scarlet red. Her mouth was also without emotion, no smile, no frown, nothing.
Her skin was tan and her hair was a bright blue, as though she were trying to camouflage with the sky. Over the trousers that everyone had some attachment to she wore a white doctor's uniform that fell down all the way to the boots at the end of her trousers. An excessively long belt held them up. The belt was looped around her waist about 10 times and on one end there was a hook, the other was a simply metal loop. She wore a white tank top that went well with the uniform.
"Oh right! Luna meet Eight." Said John. "Eight this is Luna, you'll be her assistant."
"Hello there, it will be a pleasure working with you," I said with a smile.
A silent gaze melted down my smile like a laser through metal.
"What is our work schedule today, John?" said Luna.
"Let me get you the schedule from my office." Said John.
"Who will be my partner? You said you'd let me have a Pokemon." I asked excitedly to John.
"I will give you someone, once we figure out if you're capable of working. Which reminds me you need a card." Said John. "In which I already made."
He took out his wallet and pulled out a white card no bigger than a business card. It was actually made of plastic and had a number 397 and a bar code.
"I suggest you keep that in your arm band when you get the chance." John said. John walked down the stairs to his office.
I looked at Luna and she glared back at me.
The tension in the room seemed to make the heat rise.
"You have beautiful eyes." I said, finding her red scarlet eyes flashy, but yet attractive. Just something to break the ice, not that I had interests.
Then after a few seconds Luna replied with," Any attempt at flirting with me will be frowned upon."
I shifted lightly," I didn't mean to flirt, just something to break the tension. After all we'll most likely be working together."
"Then your compliment is well taken. Thank you," she said robotically.
She gave me a reprimanding glare like if she were my teacher.
Alright, she officially scares me.
Alright another life line, not like she's going to strangle me for attempting to start a conversation.
"So, why is the infirmary in the wall instead of in the center?" I asked.
"The infirmary is located in the wall due to quick access for injured guards and their Pokemon. There is, however, an infirmary located in the center for the citizens of this town. Though the infirmary located in the wall is also for the common use of citizens."
"Is there anybody in the infirmary now?" I asked.
"Three Pokemon sit idly in their rooms currently. Do you have any other questions?" she asked.
"No, but thank you." I said.
Another painful minute past before the ice broke once more. "Eight, who are you?"
"What?"
"Who are you?"
"I am Eight, Eight I am?"
She frowned lightly," I am confused."
"I'm me." I said.
"What defined 'me'?" She asked. "There is more to a human or any life form then their name."
"Well, I'm Eight. I was an experiment, still a work in progress. However anymore information I don't want to reveal." I said, wow she was talking.
"I do not understand this self-conscious. It is to your advantage to know that I have minimal emotion." Said Luna. "I am also curious of the human idea, the human concept, the human psychology. What defines soul? What defines life? What separates us from single cellular bacterium?"
I thought about it, why is she asking some robot sounding questions? If she starts asking me to join her and become part of some robotic unit, I don't care. I'm going to run. I sighed and answered," I'm no psychologist or wise guru or anything like that. But I think what makes us human is our world. Each of us unique. Each of us with something to offer. Each of us have a world that overlaps. Don't take my word for it though."
"I am, confused," said Luna.
I sighed and said, "Well the questions are hard to answer. The best answer lies deep within your soul, or so said my father."
Good job mention something about your past. Idiot, I thought to myself.
Then luckily the door opened and I didn't feel so alone.
"Sorry, I took a while. Anyhow take this." Said John giving me a white sheet of paper. "You may have to go to the center later. Also were you communicating with Luna?"
"Yeah, why?" I asked.
"Thanks."
"I'm so confused."
"Luna has a psychology error. To be as simple as possible, she has very little will of her own. She learned how to be a doctor, but otherwise life and death don't scare her."
I frowned, alright she just went up on my spook factor.
And so I made my way into town, slowly inch by inch, I became part of the scenery rather than something everyone gazed at.
*A month later*
{Setsuna Damius: Someone get me more coffee as I write this in one in the morning. Ah, good morning everyone. Yeah somebody asked me to write this, and well why not continue this. It's finally headed into Summer and maybe this time I'll have some free time, (stare at parents). Anyway that also means that right now I'm cramming for the finals. Writing something outside of school is going to be tough. But I'm going to try to hurry up little by little. (Sheesh the school has me writing on my phone in an app called Jotterpad X).