In Defense of Humanity
We finally find out why the humans have been doing what they have been doing and we finally start the crazy race to the finish. Thanks for your patience. Enjoy.
The group of scientists had arrived and had been talking heatedly with each other. One of the scientists stepped forward… he recognizes the name from the name tag… Dr. Kenneth Luxor.
Luxor: angrily "What have you done! Do you have any idea what forces you are messing with… you could destroy everything for miles!"
Mia: waving at him with a big smile on her face "Ken! So good to see you again. Where have you been hiding for the past two years. Oh wait… I believe right here."
Luxor: looking a bit startled and squinting a bit staring at Mia "Kinsey… that you? Well that explains why you haven't blown this place up. But what the hell are you doing mixed up in all this?"
Mia: looking amused "Well I am just a bit perturbed and insulted I was not invited to this little party you guys have been having without me. You realize if I had been here instead, you wouldn't have needed all those 'associates' of yours and could have saved a bundle on your budget."
Luxor: "Mia, I had recommend you for the project. But they said they couldn't clear you. I don't know why. Something about undesirable associations."
Mia: thoughtfully "Ah… I can see that… well be that as it may. I am quite impressed with the setup you have here. But I imagine my compatriots have some questions for you."
Everyone looks to The Colonel who looks at Drew
Col: "It's your party son. Time to unwrap some presents."
Drew: speaking to the scientists with an accusing tone "Well I suppose the first and foremost question is. Why have you been taking intelligent evolved sentient beings and putting them through constant torture, mutilation and dismemberment? Why have you not actually talked to these intelligent beings and treated them with the respect and esteem they deserve? Is this how we treat our first contact with extraterrestrial intelligent beings?"
Judy: whispering to Drew "Extraterrestrial?"
Drew: whispering to Judy "It just means anything beyond our Earth"
Judy: looking a bit concerned "In most all your movies with extraterrestrials, things seem to rarely end well for either party."
Drew: whispering to Judy "Those are just movies not reality. Well I hope not our reality."
Luxor: looking at Drew and Judy "Ah, I understand you have been speaking to the rebels. We had talked to one briefly. He claimed to not be a rebel and was not oppressing our allies on the other side just as they had said he would. He did not know how he got here and refused to admit he was a terrorist for the enemy group."
Judy: speaking angrily "Who told you he was a terrorist? Who are you allied with? We are not rebels… I have never heard of any rebel groups on Zootopia. He was telling you the truth. I was tracking all these animals who had been... kidnapped… I believe your word is… there were five or six I believe innocent citizens who had been abducted from the homes and off the street with no trace. I am a detective in ZPD and was searching for these citizens when I was abducted as well, and found myself locked in a small cage, naked and collared so I could not speak. I believe you have been working with some kind of rogue group from my world who has been plotting against the citizens of Zootopia and is preparing to inflict appalling harm against its people." Judy indicates the caches of weapons around the room.
Drew notices Judy is holding her bag close and fingering something inside it and hears a click. Uh oh, her utility belt. He is afraid she is going to attack the scientists so he moves next to her and touches her arm in the bag and whispers, "Let's try and get some answers first." She nods at him.
Luxor: annoyed "Little rabbit… you are eloquent, I will give you that. Far more so that the other of your kind that we spoke to earlier. We interrogated him further, but could not get any more useful information out of him. What you describe sounds quite preposterous as we have been dealing with the people who run the power for your city. They have provided us a great deal of data supporting what we call He-3 as well as providing quite a large supply of He-3 and specifications on the most efficient use of this material in the power plants of your world. Their knowledge in this area is impressive and indisputable as their scientists were able to answer all our questions immediately. And finally, you claim to be a Detective so I am assuming you are in law enforcement of some sort?" Judy nods her head "Well I rest my case right there… absolutely preposterous."
Drew sees that Judy is about to explode so he tries to diffuse the situation and gets behind her and wraps his arms over her in a hug to try and calm her. He can tell she is still steamed but has calmed a bit. He sends some calming and comforting thoughts to her.
Drew: "Dr. Luxor, it may very well be that the people with whom you have been in contact work at this power plant for Zootopia. I am not disputing that. But that does not mean that they are the rightful representatives of Zootopia. They could still be a rogue group with malicious plans for the innocent citizens of Judy's world. And also before you disparage her for being a police officer, would you not give her the courtesy of the same test as you applied to these power plant scientists? How about asking her pertinent questions to test her knowledge of law enforcement. She has demonstrated this knowledge to me on numerous occasions."
Drew: "But I guess my main question that needs to be answered is... why? Why have you done this?"
Luxor: in an insulted haughty tone "I don't need to justify myself to you. You are what…" Looking at Drew next to the communications equipment. "a communications tech… or computer tech… why should I bother justifying myself to you or your rebel friend?"
Colonel: pointing a gun in the scientists general direction "Oh lets just say it would be in your best interests to answer his, or the young lady's" (indicating Judy) "… questions truthfully and completely… and respectfully."
Luxor: sighs "Very well. We have negotiated an accord to save our planet and the human race from self destruction."
Luxor sees he got the attention of everyone with that statement and gets a satisfied smirk on his face.
"We had been experimenting for several years at this absolute location on Earth" pointing at the yellow platform "There was a lot of evidence of some temporal weakness at this point. Apparently according to the Zootopians we talked to at the power plant, there had been an accident there around twenty-five years ago where there was a rupture in the containment vessel of the reaction chamber and some storage containers. Anyway, they lost containment and a huge burst of energy was released all at once at that point. They had damaged the power plant significantly, but the radiation was non-lethal; however the explosive power of such an energy concussive blast is lethal to anything within its range. Scientists there believed that this caused a temporal weakness at that point which seems to have created a pathway between dimensions. Now the weakness was just that. There was no way to send things through at that point but with proper focused energy sources and a negative energy generator such a hole could be opened temporarily at that point.
What we had detected at that weakness was a cache of Helium 3. We built a matrix to store massive amounts of energy, think of it like an array of say a million batteries… and would charge them all up until we had a large enough stored charge and we attempted to open the rift to collect the He-3 cache. Well we succeeded in opening up this portal and were able to collect the He-3, but with a terrible efficiency quotient and captured only 30% of the He-3 and lost the rest to the rift or the atmosphere. But evidence indicated the strong possibility of other things in that location. So we built a small reactor using the He-3 captured and used the energy to help build a better charging source for the matrix. We did testing for a long time. And then when the rift was open we were surprised to pick up communication coming from the open rift.
After a good bit of research we figured out how to transmit and receive information that could pass through the rift. It was then that we discovered the Zootopians, and we had discussed what had happened with the rift in the past. We apologized about the mishap with the He-3 capture as we had no idea that we were merely picking up He-3 stored at their facility. We told these beings we needed higher quantities of He-3 so that we could then build several reactors so we could power them for huge amounts of energy in order to actually transfer matter between the dimensions. So we built three huge reactors and used the He-3 we had previously captured to initially power the reactors for several attempts at transferring matter. We then tried several tests in conjunction with many objects until we felt comfortable with sending a small container of He-3. The test was successful and everything worked perfectly. So we were shipped three large containers of about 1.17 tonnes each of He-3 to be dedicated to these reactors for transferring matter.
We however had obligations to our Zootopian allies. They had told us of their problems with a rebel faction that were terrorizing their people and oppressing them. We offered to help them as we had a strong trading relationship and had cooperation between both sides for many years. We agreed to provide them assault rifles, pistols, explosives and ammunition as well as technology. Recently they wanted us to determine if we could develop anything to affect the savage behavior of these rebels. Apparently they had been developing plans to attempt sending test subjects for quite a while. They had spent years developing the technology to transfer organic beings safely between dimensions and had already developed the organic transfer pods. Using these pods, they provided us with six rebels over several days. They sent them through with a special device which repressed speech."
Drew: "Was the true nature of these beings known to the people researching them and experimenting on them?"
Luxor: "Their true nature was only known by a few high level administrators, government officials handling the negotiation and the eight of us of course. It would have been difficult for the people doing experimentation on these subjects if they knew the truth about them. The research obtained from them was vital to aiding our allies. You see, with the research we could develop a means to disable the rebel species' population without having to kill them. We also developed a means for them to spread the serum to massive numbers at one time. We were providing them a non-lethal method of dealing with factions of their population so that they could gain back control of parts of Zootopia they had lost from this rebel incursion especially many additional power plants. With these power plants they had agreed to supply us with a great deal more of this He-3."
Drew: "To what end… how does obtaining all this additional He-3 save our planet?"
Luxor: annoyed "I was getting to that. Currently the Earth was being destroyed by the use of massive amounts of fossil fuels. With the rise of enormous industrial nations such as China and India this use had increased several fold and pollution levels, carbon levels and chemicals such as sulfur dioxide were continuing to rise to dangerous levels. In addition massive methane pockets in the ocean were being released as a by product of these emissions compounding the problem even more. We were poisoning ourselves and poisoning our planet. But the cost was much greater as nations would use any method to obtain more of the fuels, and wars and conflicts around the globe were a result. Governments such as ours would support certain countries which were receptive to providing more of these fuels and other governments would do the same supporting other sides. The result was the world was bankrolling wars and suffering and death in these regions. The resulting anger of these peoples led to a backlash against the world with terrorism becoming rampant across the globe. The incessant demand to obtain and use more and more of these fuels was leading to climax which would ultimately mean the destruction of humanity as their fuels became more scarce and the conflict more intense. We would either destroy ourselves through the destruction of our planet or we would destroy ourselves through the resulting global conflicts which could easily result in a nuclear Armageddon."
Drew: "Well a lot of that is true, but some sounds a bit alarmist. But regardless how could the He-3 obtained save the planet."
Luxor: "Unfortunately things that may be considered alarmist are not accepted until it is far too late to avoid the disaster that results. The world was heading toward self-destruction and a global conflict which was the result of greater and greater demand for these dwindling resources. The pollution and poisoning of the Earth would continue to rise until the effects were irreversible and the atmosphere would become unable to sustain life. So a plan was formed in secret, as our government was aware of our potential to obtain large enough amounts of this material which could replace the need for the use of these fossil fuels. We could take this material, the He-3, and adapt it to our countries needs and eventually remove the need to use any fossil fuels altogether once devices were adapted and mandated to run on the completely clean generated electricity with no detrimental effects on the environment."
Luxor: "But adapting our country to only run on clean generated electricity and other clean renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro and countless others in development only solved a minor part of the global problem. Unless other countries of the world followed suit the result would still be the same but only take longer. So we offered the world a solution. These countries would build He-3 reactors around the globe and we would provide them the He-3 obtained from Zootopia in exchange for the reduction in fossil fuel use corresponding to the energy output obtained from this He-3. Our Zootopian friends had provided us a great deal of research on the most efficient use for generating the maximum possible output and the resulting generators would be as efficient as possible thanks to the numerous decades of research done by Zootopian scientists. Thus we would provide a free energy source to the world so that they would gradually eliminate the use of fossil fuels altogether and use the clean energy provided. "
Luxor: "The final coup de grace was the boon of this fuel to use in space exploration. This fuel could provide a massive power source with only a small footprint allowing space exploration vehicles unheard of speeds. Humanity could finally freely explore the solar system resulting in colonization of other worlds and the discovery and mining of numerous substances in short supply on earth such as He-3 itself. Other substances include gold, iridium, silver, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium and tungsten for transport back to Earth to replenish dwindling supplies. Other substances such as iron, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickle, aluminum and titanium could be used for the construction of more and more space exploration vehicles constructing them in space rather than the need to send them from Earth. They could obtain water and oxygen to sustain astronauts; as well as hydrogen, ammonia, and oxygen for use as additional rocket propellant. Thus exploration in space would be self sustaining and not require any Earth resources, but instead would act as a conduit to replenish immensely needed resources."
Luxor: "In other words, our partnership with the Zootopians would halt the current path of eminent destruction both humanity and the world was facing, and instead usher in a new dawn of hope and prosperity for the human race."
There was a stunned silence in the room as everyone took in this new information.
It was Judy who first spoke up.
Judy: "But you could have done it a different way without the abduction, experimentation and torture of innocent intelligent beings. You could have done it without the massive death, bloodshed or even worse things these weapons you have provided will do to our peaceful Zootopia. The suffering you will bring to our land with your actions is reprehensible and unnecessary. I am sure our people would have negotiated with you for a peaceful solution. The real Zootopians are peaceful giving people who would accept humans as fellow mammals and work to build a partnership that would help both our peoples to flourish."
Luxor: "We could not take the chance. We had an opportunity and we took it. We were dealing with your people as far as we knew. We may still be doing that, how do we know we are not?"
Judy: defiantly "Because my people would not have sent innocent citizens as sacrifices. My people would not demand weapons. My people would not want genetic experiments done on them."
Luxor: "I am sorry little rabbit-like creature, but I don't know your people. The beings we have been dealing with said they were fighting a war, and that your kind had enslaved them, persecuted them and plotted against them. That they were fighting for their identity and survival. Everyone thinks their side is the right side. They said they needed help and in exchange for that help they would provide us the material to help save our planet and our species. Regardless of the truth of your words my conscience is clean…"
Judy was stunned… she stood there with her mouth open.
Drew stood behind and put his arms down over her chest holding her and stared in stunned silence as well.
It was at that point they heard an explosion from outside the front entrance. The Colonel immediately listened on his earpiece.
Col: with a raised voice "Well looks like we have party crashers. We have a breach in the outer perimeter and incoming enemy combatants using lethal force. I believe this is your queue to do whatever it is that you wanted to do here. Good luck my gray long eared friend. I hope you can stop this destruction coming to your land. We will hold them off as long as we can!"
Mia: yelling at Drew and Judy "You have to go NOW!"
Judy and Drew grabbed their bags and ran to the yellow platform in the middle. The scientists recoiled in terror backing up to a side of the room away from the fight near the entrance. Gunfire could be heard coming from the entry followed by several explosions and shouting.
Drew saw one of the agents from Team C run in covered in blood and yelling to fall back into a defensive position. The remaining team members from teams B and C sprinted through the doorway. As soon as they were past, members of Team A detonated a large explosion at the entrance causing the entire ceiling to collapse blocking the entrance. However one member of team B was shot several times in the back with blood and pieces of flesh exploding from his front. He collapsed in a heap dead.
Drew was helping to prepare Judy to enter the pod.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see some of the scientists removing what looked to be a pistol of some kind and loading it, then moving forward. Another scientist had picked up the fallen rifle from the dead team member and was moving toward the platform aiming at Drew and Judy.
Luxor yelled above the din,"DO NOT KILL THE TEST SUBJECT!"
The scientist with the assault rifle stopped, and the other scientist with the pistol ran forward aiming at Drew and Judy.
The Colonel and remaining team members were focused on the front entrance as yelling and explosions were heard coming from the other side.
The Colonel ran partially towards Drew.
Col: yelling at Drew "IF YOU STAY HERE YOU WILL DIE!"
Col: yelling "GO with her… Help her…"
Drew: yelling to Mia "Can a human go with her?"
Mia: yelling back "I am not sure. Nothing organic that large has been sent through. But I think if I used this special energy reserve I believe there may be enough power!"
Drew: yelling to Mia "What about you? You will die."
Mia: yelling back "We can't all go. Besides they won't harm me… I am an unarmed scientist… I will be fine… Go… help your friend. It will take a couple minutes to make the energy modifications. Hurry!"
Suddenly Judy shouts, "Owwww!" As she is hit by the scientist firing his pistol. He had fired several shots and had manually reloaded several times. Apparently he got lucky this time.
Drew: turning to the sound of Judy's voice behind him "Judy!"
Judy: falling to the ground "Oh… I don't feel so good."
When Judy had yelled the Colonel had turned from the commotion at the front and noticed the scientist with pistol and fired at him hitting him in the shoulder knocking him back several feet. The scientist fell to the ground. He then aimed toward the other scientist with the assault rifle and fired a shot which glanced off the rifle. The scientist dropped the rifle and ran screaming back to the corner where the other scientists were hunched down covering their heads.
More explosions and gunfire came from the entrance as apparently they had cleared a small opening and were firing through it. The Colonel and the other team members were firing suppressing fire back through the opening.
Drew picked Judy up off the ground. She was not dead but only unconscious thankfully. He removed the dart from her side and angrily threw it to the ground shattered it. He quickly removed her clothing and placed her into the seat of the pod. He tossed her clothing, bag and utility belt into the plastic container for holding non-organics. He quickly closed the lid on the pod and saw it start to fill with the silicon gel engulfing Judy's small form until nothing could be seen but the amber gel inside.
A bullet bounced off the pod as Drew instinctively dropped down on the floor. He heard it whizz by in another direction. He got up and examined the pod. It appeared to be unharmed.
Drew moved behind the second pod ducking for cover. He quickly removed his clothing and tossed it and his bag into it's non-organic receptacle and waited behind the pod wincing as occasional bullets bounced off everything around him.
Drew thought at that moment I didn't think the day could get any stranger, but here I am standing here buck naked behind a pod dodging bullets. I didn't see that one coming when I woke up.
Mia: yelling loud "30 SECONDS…"
Drew heard bullets whizzing around him. He heard screams and heard an explosion from the front. He sees several large black assault rifles with red laser points moving through the breach and then heard several shots and sees the heads of two other team members explode and their bodies drop to the floor.
The Colonel is back at the communications computer around the corner from the entrance and he tosses a grenade and fires his rifle at the breaching soldiers drawing their fire.
Colonel: yelling to the right at Drew while firing at the soldiers "GOOD LUCK SON…"
Mia: screaming "NOW!"
Drew leapt into the cocoon and shut the top. He began to feel the gel fill the pod around him. The last thing he saw was a large explosion right near where the Colonel was standing as pieces of the communication station rain downed everywhere. A bullet bounced off his pod. Then all he sees is an amber glow. He feels the platform under him vibrating and he hears the wumpa wumpa sound surrounding him, but it is very muffled like it is far away. He can hear crackling sounds as if there is massive energy in the very air around him and the vibration becomes more and more intense and then…
Nothing… his mind sees only blackness… then colors… all the colors of the visible spectrum shooting from in front of him in long lines passing by him on all sides. As they pass, he senses intelligence… somehow… then he feels like all the cells in his body have been ripped apart at once hanging suspended from each other… then all of a sudden all the cells slam back together like a door being slammed at full strength. He feels himself moving faster and faster through a hallway of light and senses beings of some kind behind the light…
A strange thought comes into his head… a thought that makes him smile for some reason… I wonder if this is the reason all the beings who have traveled through this portal have been unconscious… I guess Mia should have thought about that before…
He now realizes he is delusional… his mind can't make sense of what is happening… his neurons are firing bringing up jumbled images from his past... hoping something will make some sense… but it does not. The world is upside down. Up is down. Black is white. The world he knows no longer exists. He no longer exists. Cold blackness envelopes him… peaceful nothingness embraces him… he is no more.
