Chapter 7: Amendment

We were in the dark and dusty lobby where I found the shiny, silver flashlight. Though that chicken leg I had eaten was somewhat decent, I was still hungry. It was a small leg now that I think back to it. I wasn't just a little hungry. I was starving. My stomach was awakened and angry and the only thing that would calm it down was a nice breakfast. That's all I could think about; breakfast. A good breakfast in my opinion is warm, buttery biscuits smothered in steaming, hot, white gravy and a side of the crispiest, crunchiest bacon imaginable. But due to the fact that I was in a small village at the time and with almost nothing, then my premonition was this; I was going to eat stale bread with an appetizer of dirt.

Emmet was leading the way and he was three meters from the door. He stopped and turned around to ask "Before we head out, do you want breakfast?"

"No," I replied in assumed disgust, "I'll be fine. But thanks anyway." He became concerned.

"You sure? We'll be gone for quite some time." Thinking about it for a second, I thought, at least disgusting food is better than none at all.

"…Sure. I guess I could use the energy." I agreed with the least bit of enthusiasm.

"Well, all right then. Besides, if you said no, that wouldn't stop me," he said with a laugh. I made a faint smile, but it quickly faded away as we started out to the village streets.

Frailnight was thriving with people as small as it was. It felt kind of nice. When I was following Dr. Matlock along the dusty, gravel streets, I didn't feel death in my presence. I felt safe there. Though the village was tiny, poor, and under reconstruction from the Creeper attacks, children were kicking and playing with a small, dusty, rubber ball. The parents were watching their children through the windows of their homes, smiling as their children had fun. Farmers were working in small patches of land with almost no concerns at all while growing carrots, wheat, potatoes, and other fine agricultural products. If it was safe enough for these people, then it was safe enough for me.

Emmet continued to walk, but his head twisted around. "Hey, Daniels. Are you paying attention?" Emmet asked as we strayed into what looked like a farmers market.

"Yeah," I answered to reassure him. His head resumed to its original position, facing forward and tilted up a bit looking at the bright, blue sky. He stopped and I continued until I was on his left side. Then, we continued through what appeared to be a farmers' market.

The market was really interesting. People of all ages were at the market, mostly for food supplies. The place was made up of mostly small, wooden stands where salesmen and saleswomen were offering deals for fruits like watermelon, apples, and vegetables, along with other fruits. There were some people offering other things, but I didn't pay attention to all them. All I could pay attention to was the food.

The sun was shining bright that morning. The citizens in the market were all shopping for supplies, food, clothes, and even animals. Small, wooden fences containing sheep, pigs, and chickens were aligned in the last row of the well-organized market. That's at least what I saw.

"Welcome to the Frailnight Farmers' Market. It doesn't look like there's much under these hanging, leather tarps, but we have the fifth largest farmers' market in America."

"The fifth? But this village is so small," I politely argued.

"That may be so," he counter-argued, "but Frailnight stands proud of its resources. Remember, we're in the future. There are things you need to know."

"Like what?" I asked with a motive to learn.

"There are, actually, three things you need to know if you are going to survive in this world," he said in an informal tone.

"I'm listening," I said. We proceeded toward several fruit and vegetable stands in the shadows of the tarps blocking the sun.

"First of all, you must know that anything you considered in the year 2014 as trash, garbage, or junk, is very likely to be called a valuable today in the year 7043."

"Really now? Like what?" I tested Dr. Matlock.

"Well… hmm… table scraps!" He exclaimed.

"What!? I remember watching apocalypse movies where things like dog-food were delicacies. But you're telling me that we're like that now?" I asked disgusted. Emmet turned to a small, wooden rack filled with apples of all kinds. He grabbed a Granny Smith and rotated it in the air with his fingers.

"Not quite, but you're close. Nobody wastes anything anymore. You won't meet a soul in the world who will tell you that they feed table scraps to their dogs and cats. Any substance that can be consumed is pretty valuable. Not as valuable as gold or anything, but valuable." He pulled out a small, leather satchel from a large and hidden pocket within his dark brown trench coat. He fluffed and expanded the bag and dropped several Granny Smiths inside with a small 'thump' sound. A couple of Honeycrisps were also added to the scientist's food inventory. There was some old dude behind a fruit stand. I didn't see what he looked like, but I saw his wrinkly arms reach out when Dr. Matlock handed him something for the apples. I didn't see what he handed him, but we just moved on.

"Anyway," Dr. Matlock continued, "the second thing you must know is that Frailnight has a small amount of laws. However, it's not the amount of laws that count. It's the quality and the abilities of our laws." I paused and thought about that for a second. The quality? What's that supposed to mean? He turned to greet a blonde saleswoman with long, wavy hair. She was wearing a surprisingly clean, blue apron and was offering discounts on bread.

"Hi, Caroline," Emmet greeted with a friendly smile. The woman smiled back.

"Hey, Doc! There's my favorite customer," she said with glee.

"I'll take two loaves of your finest bread," he said flirtingly, leaning against the counter of her bread stand. I have to admit; Emmet had a good taste for women. Yeah. I was paying attention. Weren't you?

"Ok, but my FINEST bread still has about two more minutes," she said with much emphasis on the word 'finest.'

"Oh, what's two minutes going to kill?" he asked Caroline with all lack of worry.

"Great," she said happily. "Oh, and normally I charge for two emeralds, but for you, I can make it one!" She then winked at him with her big, blue eyes.

"Fine by me," he accepted. Caroline twirled around to a small furnace with stone racks on the inside. I know I said the food would probably be disgusting, but the smell was like heaven when she opened up the bottom door. But I was wondering why the price of the bread wasn't in dollars. It wasn't in euros, pesos, nor Monopoly money or anything. She said emeralds.

Emmet was in a trance, starring at Caroline as she prepared our meal. But I wanted him to finish his little thing about the three things I had to know and blah, blah, blah. So, I snapped my fingers in front of him to wake him up from his daydream. "Hey, Doc. What do you mean by the quality and abilities of the laws?"

"…Oh, I'm sorry!" he apologized. "Oh, what I mean by that is… um… oh, I'm referring to a specific law. We have a law we call the 'Eye for an Eye' law."

"Alright," I said while nodding my head.

"In other words, you can only commit the same crime against the person who committed that same crime against you. If someone tried to kill you, then you could hunt that person down and kill them. If someone steals from you, then you can steal back from that thief."

"Ok, I think we're done with that one. Next rule please," I rushed. I didn't mean to be rude, but I was SO hungry.

"Hey, hey, no need to rush! We'll be eating in no time!" He turned back to Caroline who was almost done with the bread, but he was still talking to me. "The third thing you must know is that you should never be outside at night. Once the sun starts to set, you better get shelter and quick!" My eyes were widened and frightened.

"Must I ask why?" I warily asked.

"You basically already have," he said quieting his voice to a much softer level. "Do you remember the Creepers that chased you in your dream?" he said turning his head back to me.

"I wish I didn't, but yeah."

"That's why," he bluntly, but quietly said. He stepped closer to me as if to tell me a secret. "At night, every night, and all night, stay inside. Close and lock all the doors, close all the windows, and shut the blinds. Let nothing, and I mean nothing, inside." That last rule scared the living hell out of me.

"H-how many more Creepers are there?" I questioned with unease.

"Too many, and growing," he answered, scanning his surroundings. "…But this is no place to talk about these things. Let's allow everyone else to enjoy a pleasant morning." Then, I remembered what my old friend, Gammal, told me. He said that Creepers only appear at night. But I didn't ask why… yet. I decided to wait for a while. Caroline handed Emmet two hot loaves of bread wrapped in a special, brown paper. Then, believe it or not, he handed the young saleswoman a glistening, bright, green, gem; an emerald! That must've been what he gave to the old man selling apples. But why emeralds? I expected gems to be less common and rarer than anything, yet, that was America's currency? Emeralds?

We continued to shop for at least another four minutes before leaving the farmers' market. Then, we finally left Frailnight and started south.

Along the way, Dr. Matlock and I were eating our delicious breakfast that included sweet, juicy apples and warm, toasty bread. That bread was the best bread I'd ever eaten! Every bite I took, the bread would make a 'crunch' sound and crumbs would pepper around my mouth and stick there whenever I took large, juicy bites from the sweet, sugary, Honeycrisp apples. Also, Emmet had a medium-sized flask filled with ice-cold water. It was as cold as the ice from the freezer we were going to fix. Oddly enough, I mean that in a good way. I'm not too good with similes.

We traveled through a large grassland for about an hour and a half. My stomach was full and satisfied, not to mention the last three Granny Smiths still in the leather satchel. But my brain's appetite for knowledge was still growing and I needed to satisfy it next. I handed Emmet the food satchel to put in his inner trench coat pocket.

"Oh, thank you," he said politely. We continued to walk longer and longer. The silence was solidifying, so I broke it before it could.

"Hey, Dr. M," I said obtaining Emmet's attention.

"What?" he asked with a muddled expression.

"I was just wonder-"

"No," he briefly interrupted, "I mean that name. What did you call me?"

"Oh, that. I just thought I could give you a nickname. That's ok with you, right?" He thought about the name 'Dr. M' for a second.

"Ok. I can live with that, Steve," he agreed. But what was that? Steve?

"Listen, I'm fine with a nickname, but don't call me Steve." I rejected.

"I'm sorry," Dr. M apologized. "I just thought that we were giving each other nicknames. I didn't think that you wanted me to call you Dr. Steven R. Daniels or DC-67."

"Well, just don't call me Steve. Anything but Steve. It's such a cliché name like Mike, Bob, or Tim. It just sounds too simple to me, I guess," I explained with abhorrence for such a name as 'Steve.'

"Ok then. How about… the Stevester?" I stopped in my tracks and looked at him with annoyed eyes.

"…You aren't very good with nicknames, are you?"

"I was just trying," he said. "…Um… how about Big S, or the Stevemeister?"

"Just stop!" I commanded in pure annoyance. Silence overcame sound, once again. Also, just talking about nicknames made me completely forget what I was going to ask him.

Several hours had past and I was tired from walking. The water from Dr. M's flask didn't seem to help against the bright, hot sun in the sky. Finally, the scientist pointed to the hill that I escaped from. The dirt pillars were still lined up in the strange pattern that they were in when I ran from the facility. But we were at an angle that let me see the pillars from above. They were arranged in perfect rows and made a square shape. There had to be at least 100 of them formed in many rows and columns.

"I remember these things, but what are they?" I amusingly quizzed. He didn't give me a straight answer.

"Oh, don't worry about those. That's just another experiment I'm working on." Still entangled with unanswered questions, I just continued the rest of the path to the containment facility.

We arrived at what was left of the entrance. But the doctor seemed to freak out a little more than I had hoped for.

"What the hell is this!?" he yelled while jumping up and down in a frantic panic. He placed both of his hands on his bald head and kept freaking out. I didn't know whether I should've told him to calm down or to shoot at his shiny, bald head with a cue. But then I had figured out why he was so panicky; when I told him that Creepers chased me, I meant in my dream. I didn't mention the Creeper that escaped from the cage.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you about that," I informed with humility. He ran inside toward the wooden door, jerked it open, and stared at the empty cage repeating to himself, "No, no, no, no, no!" Emmet furiously examined all around the empty cage with his trench coat swinging to each side of his body like a pendulum. He looked at me angrily and reminded "I thought you said they chased you in your dream!"

"I wasn't lying," I humbly admitted. "They did. It's just that this particular Creeper was actually chasing me in the real world, and I'm sorry it blew up your containment thingy or whatever." Dr. M calmed down just a tad bit, but I could tell he wasn't happy. He hastily kicked the rusty cage. Then, he fast-walked his way over to the cryogenic freezer to fix what he came to fix. The colossal machine looked like a giant coffee maker with metal pipes attached to the back-end. Dr. M examined the freezer in a more relaxed manner after taking two deep breaths. He apparently had some anger management issues, but I think he was trying hard to overcome them.

"Alright," he said panting, "It's not the freezer that's broken."

"Then what's the problem, Dr. M?" I really liked calling him that. I don't know why, but it easily amuses me still to this day.

"The power circuit's just cut off. I know how to fix it, but it might take me about four hours to do."

"Four hours?" I repeated, but as a question.

"Yeah, give or take two hours." He kneeled down to a red power cord and motioned with his hand that he wanted me to see it.

"What? What is it?"

"You wanted to see where I get electrical power from. Right?" I shook my head 'yes'. "Well, you're gonna see something that is neither alternating current, nor direct." My mind was so muddled with thoughts of what he was talking about.

"What kind of current is neither?" I interrogated with utter disbelief. Dr. M pulled a small, black switch blade from his coat pocket and slit the wire in half.

"This current is," he claimed as a glowing, sandy, red substance poured out of the thick wire. Red sand? He's joking, I thought.

"I discovered this. I call it redstone current," he stated. "You see, direct current only travels in one direction while alternating current constantly changes direction. But redstone current is different. It can travel in all directions through its conductor at the same time!" He let some of the redstone sand pour into his right hand. "The best part about this redstone is that the electrical power it emits is infinite!"

"Infinite? You're bluffing," I said in bafflement.

"Am I? Hold it in your hand and see what happens." I held out both hands and the glowing sand poured from his to mine. All of a sudden, every hair on my head stuck out like needles in a ball of yarn.

"Whoa!" I yelled as the electric force flowed through my body. It didn't hurt, but I could feel it running through me and I heard a quiet buzzing in my ears. I let the sand pour back into Dr. M's hands and he placed the small, electric heap on the stone ground. Then, my hair fell back into place. That was awesome, I thought to myself.

"Well, I need to fix the wire. Somewhere inside, there's a redstone clump breaking the circuit. I need to remove it, but I have to find it first."

"I'll leave you alone then," I told him. He started working on it.

Hours had passed. For some reason, the doctor couldn't find the clump of redstone he was looking for. I had a feeling that we were going to be there for a while. I was just sitting in front of the gaping hole where the entrance of the facility used to be. I was bored to death with nothing to do but to look at the ground I sat on. I didn't turn around, but I reinitiated a new conversation.

"Hey, Loverboy?" I called Dr. M.

"Oh, and you say I'm bad with nicknames?" he sarcastically tested me.

"I know you were flirting with the baker at the market this morning."

"Of course I was," he confessed with no hesitation as he searched for the redstone clump.

"Do you have a little crush on her, Doc?" I asked teasingly with a smile.

"No, I just like getting my bread for a discount every once in a while." He laughed and continued, "Haha, yeah I do like Caroline. Her laugh, her smile-"

"-Her bread," I interrupted as a joke. "Speaking of which, what's with emeralds?"

"Emeralds? That's the world's currency," he answered in a monotone voice. I turned my head to him.

"Yeah, but why emeralds?"

"It's not just emeralds," he explained, "it's mostly emeralds, but people pay with other valuables like gold, iron, leather, coal, and very rarely, diamonds."

"Have you ever seen anyone pay with diamonds?" He tried to remember, but he failed to.

"No, not that I can recall. But, yeah. Most of the money we spend is in emeralds. Years ago, men would travel deep into coal mines to just mine for coal to heat up the homes of villages. But one miner found hundreds of billions of gems of every kind all hidden in one big pocket. Most of the gems were emeralds and Americans didn't use dollar bills anymore because the concept of paper money just faded away overtime."

"Wow. Talk about deep history." That was meant to be a pun about the coal mining, but Emmet didn't laugh. He just continued to sort through the long wires to find the redstone clump he mentioned.

Ten minutes past by like the wind through the tall, green grass of the fields in front of me. The fresh air kept me company while Dr. M was fixing the circuit. "Ah, I found it," he happily exclaimed. He jammed his knife into the wire and dug out the clump of red, grainy rock. He revolved the dark red rock in his hand like the apple at the farmers' market. "The water from the freezer must've leaked inside of the wiring. The redstone clumped up like kitty litter, blocking the circuit."

"Water?" I asked puzzled. "But water is one of the best electrical conductors. That makes no sense!"

"Yes, but redstone is different. For some unknown reason, water actually reacts with the redstone to create an insulator. I don't know why, but it just does. But I got the clump out. All I have to do is duct tape the wire and we can leave." He pulled out a role of silver tape from his coat. He must've had everything in that coat.

"Hey," he began, "is it darker in here than before, or is it just me?" I looked outside and saw something unfortunate.

"Oh. Emmet, are you aware that it's night time?" I questioned as he turned around rapidly. The duct tape in his hand dropped to the ground, rolling away from him as if to escape the night.

"We need to hide, now!"

"But night time just started! We have enough time. Let's just hide in that room with the cage."

"We won't be hiding because the thing that just past behind you knows where we are!" Emmet alerted as a Creeper began to charge towards us.