Chapter 3
A/N: Thank you for taking the time to read my story – a branch off of the Ender Universe. It's very rewarding to have the come back. To Speaker for the Dead3, I admit, its been a few years since I last read your namesake, 'Speaker for the Dead', but as I recall, Ender was travelling in space time so that Earth time was different. Thousands of Earth years had passed, despite him only being something around 30. So a millenium is still before the time that the Pequininoos were found. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!
Hunter sat in the infirmary. The pristine walls closed in on him like a weight on his chest. It felt confining - he'd never had a problem with small closed in spaces before. He didn't understand, he almost didn't want to understand. Nothing was making sense to him at the moment - his reactions, his thoughts. My mind is not my own...those words whirled in his mind over and over again. I am not myself.
"I am the hunter and you are the prey," he murmured those words quietly, how could he ever forget those words? They would be burned into his memory forever, and certainly everyone else's who was near enough to hear. They certainly weren't the words that he would have spoken. It was a joke on himself, or was it? He felt that it had more to do than just with his name.
"Hunter Correlli. What am I do with you?"
Hunter shrugged and stared at his tightly clenched hands in his lap.
"First of all, perhaps you can tell me what that fight was all about."
He kept his eyes lowered, he wasn't ready to face anybody yet.
"Not ready to talk eh?"
A slight smirk touched Hunter's lips, he almost expected her to add, '...well we have ways of making you talk..." He shook his head. He just wanted to be alone right now. It would be better that way, let him sort through his own mind before releasing answers he didn't even know at the time.
"Hunter."
He didn't respond.
"Look at me Hunter."
Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze to meet the woman's. She was elderly, but one would have to take a closer look to see just how old. Although her face was a mask of indiscernible thoughts, her eyes still were warm, the look she bestowed him almost fond – perhaps the look a grandmother would give a small child; not that he would ever know that look.
But there was more to that look, it was tinged with fear, tainted with distrust, pity...
"Don't you dare pity me."
The woman lifted a brow inquiringly and flipped open a metallic folder and read off a sheet of paper, "Eight years old and abused by his given-father, given-mother is dead. Life-parents unaware..." She looked up at Hunter and sighed, "You are in a sad position Hunter. You have no one, and no one apparently wants you. It'd be in the best interest to fit in here as much as you can. There's nothing for you down there."
Hunter's eyes let nothing of his inner thoughts out, but his mind was in turmoil. Given-father and mother? What the hell did that mean, and life-parents? The plural? The only parents he had ever known were very much aware of him, and he had only one now, his mother was dead. Killed in a freak accident. But life-parents? She was looking at him intently and he had to sift through his thoughts to remember what she'd asked him. Ah yes. Will he try to fit in? "That is why I came – to fit in."
She nodded and snapped the folder shut, "Excellent." Standing she opened the door and held it open, waiting for him to walk through. But Hunter didn't walk through, something was troubling him. A memory was just at the edge of his mind, something of great importance. Seven years ago...something important.
"Hunter," the voice whispered over the baby boy's blond locks of hair and he gurgled happily up into the loving face of his mother. She smiled back down at him.
Another voice, deeper, called his attention forward, "Hunter, look over here." It was a man – his father, standing behind a set up camera. The man made a goofy face that made Hunter chortle happily and another voice to giggle. Hunter looked down and saw a boy with darker hair, holding onto Hunter's chubby hand – a brother, there was no doubt about it. The man's voice called again, "Hunter, look at the camera."
Hunter gave a gummy smile and waved his free hand about. A flash, a blindness and then...nothing. Camera's didn't do that. Desperate voices called out; screams, crying, darkness...then a sound came and through speakers came the demand that father come with them. Military. Hunter could see the emblems being reflected in the brief flashes of light. His father was part of the air force.
A man dashed out of the chopper and over to where the small family stood, "Captain Carl Bracken, sir, the new IBS project – protesters are rioting, somehow made a power surge in the fusion reactors. Whole country is out and parts of Canada as well."
Father glanced at his family then to the man and nodded, dashing off to get his gear, the man who spoke to father, took hold of mother's arm and escorted her to the chopper, "This way ma'am, don't want anyone getting hurt."
Hunter's eyes, even the dimness, could make out the fear in his mother's face, but he was too young to comprehend its meaning. "Where are you taking us?"
"We'll be taking you to the center, with any luck, the generators will have been started and you and your sons will be comfortable." They ducked their heads and were lifted through the open hatch of the helicopter. Hunter's brother was crying, Hunter made not a sound. He didn't understand, there was so much fear, but he didn't understand it, it was just an emotion that he couldn't understand.
Hunter opened his eyes, a fretful face peered down at him then away, then back down at him. The woman, an unfamiliar one at that, bit her lip and glanced warily around once again. Hunter gurgled and waved his arms at her. She smiled, albeit nervously. Scooping him up, Hunter got a look around the room they were in. He could see his mother, she was sitting down with his brother, holding him, weeping with tears streaming down her face. The woman holding Hunter turned and he could no longer see his mother.
"Take him, Judith, if you can ensure he'll be safe, take him."
Hunter felt the woman nod, "I'm sorry I cannot take you and your son as well, there isn't enough room. But your son will be safe where I take him. I'll take care of him."
A large boom overhead shook the underground center, causing the lights to flicker. The woman looked around her anxiously, then back to his mother.
His mother was sobbing, holding her terrified son. She sighed, regaining her composure and answered shakily, "Yes. Tell your brother, Howard, that Carl and I will be forever in his debt."
The woman holding him, shushed Hunter's mother and replied, "Howard told me long ago that he owed Carl – something that happened in the army long ago. He considers this to be paying his debt. I just wish there was more room on his chopper."
"Thank you." After a moment, his mother added quietly, "You know how vital his survival is – he's the key."
"You mean to our survival."
"To our survival," his mother agreed. Another boom above and this time, the lights stayed out.
Judith was a good mother, to Hunter, she was the only mother he would remember, for it was she who raised him as her own and taught him despite the countries on the verge of war. Howard had dropped them off at Judith's home in Australia and had made for his own property's leaving his sister to fend for his friend's son. For now, Australia was one of the safest places for them – one of the neutral countries. But even that didn't last long, the country, as all others were, was eventually dragged into the politics and troubles of war and once again, Judith and Hunter were on the run, this time running to the remote place that Howard called home.
Howard was an ex-military man. One who didn't have any medals of honour to wear, but an excess of tales to tell of his bravery, of course there were none who could argue him. It was obvious to anyone who saw the brother and sister together that there was no love between them, they often broke into fights that lasted deep into the night that usually ended with Howard storming out of the house and into the woods. They may have worried about the care of Hunter, but they cast their concerns aside for the boy – there was plenty of love and care lavished on Hunter by Judith. Howard, on the other hand, just tolerated the boy. But despite his indifference to Hunter, he still took the young boy out on long walks through the woods. Nobody knew where they went or why Howard took him, but he did.
It was also obvious that Howard's toleration didn't spread to his sister. For it was on one of these walks through the woods that the cabin they had lived in exploded; a propane leak was the explanation – Judith had been inside the cabin. Hunter was three at the time.
By the time that Hunter was four, the world was the world was balancing on a truce made by the warring countries – they still hadn't broken into an outright war with one another, just probes against the other. With the momentary peace, families came out of hiding and returned to the cities where they could once again enjoy the luxuries of city-life, but there was always the underlying fear that the truce would be broken and the warring countries would break into a full world war.
With the liquor stores so handy now, Howard lost little time in losing himself in his drink, and this was often how little Hunter found him when he returned from school – it was a habit that Howard never broke.
"The entire ship is waiting for us, Hunter. We can't make the jump to light speed until we are safely secured." The woman peered quizzically down at Hunter through her glasses, something that one didn't see very often. Operations could fix any persons vision till it was perfect or beyond.
"They can wait."
Rather sarcastically, she laughed, "Just for you?"
He ignored her question and asked, "What happened to my life- parents?"
The woman didn't hide her shock as she sat down in her seat once again and flipped open her folder, scanning through papers there, she read over a few of them. "What do you know of them?"
Hunter looked down to his clasped hands and took a deep breath, this seemed almost too easy. He was asking and they were simply going to answer. "My father was part of the military. I had a brother, he was older than me. My mother, I don't remember much of her...I can still hear her voice."
"Any names?"
Hunter frowned and looked up, "Carl, my life-parent, he was a friend of my dad's..." he paused, swallowed and corrected himself, "I mean, he was a friend to the man I've always known as my dad. Howard was Judith's sister, it was she who took me to safety." He neglected to say the reason. It was still too strange that such a memory would come back to him so clearly. Perhaps it was only a dream.
"Ah, Captain Carl Bracken."
No dream.
"Your life-parents are fine."
Hunter waited for the woman to say more. But she merely pulled out a pen and began to write in her folder. "Is that it? Won't you tell me anything else?"
She looked up and pushed her glasses up her nose, "Hunter, it is apparent to me that you already have a greater idea of who your family is than we expected. I don't think there is any other need to tell you more." She uncrossed her legs and once again stood. Walking over to a computer she voice commanded some files be brought up. All this, Hunter watched with keen eyes, hoping that she'd reveal more.
Glancing over her shoulder, the woman asked, "What else do you remember?"
Going through his flashback, Hunter picked through it and described it to her. Perhaps if he revealed something about what he knew, then she'd do the same for him. Legs dangling off the table, Hunter appeared to be a boy recounting a story he had read or something of the like. And it was that, a story, but...the woman's frown deepened, but this was no story he'd read. Nor was it a story that had ever been recorded. In fact, very few knew of it – for it was a story that a child of not even one had remembered.
Hunter lifted his brows, waiting, hoping for an answer, but no answer came forth and none was offered. He waited until the seconds seemed like hours.
"Hunter," hope flared in his heart, "it's time you got to the seating base room," and sank like lead in water.
No, no more answers here. He frowned to show his dislike at being dismissed like this, but slid off the table and said nothing. This wouldn't be the last he'd see of her. He'd make sure of it – she had answers that he wanted. This was no longer a place where he could blend in and hide from Howard, this was now a place where he could find answers.
"He knows."
"How much?"
"He knows about you."
"How?"
"I don't know. But he knows his worth. That he's a key in this game we're playing."
"You think of this as a game?"
"Survival is a game."
A/N: Thank you for taking the time to read my story – a branch off of the Ender Universe. It's very rewarding to have the come back. To Speaker for the Dead3, I admit, its been a few years since I last read your namesake, 'Speaker for the Dead', but as I recall, Ender was travelling in space time so that Earth time was different. Thousands of Earth years had passed, despite him only being something around 30. So a millenium is still before the time that the Pequininoos were found. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!
Hunter sat in the infirmary. The pristine walls closed in on him like a weight on his chest. It felt confining - he'd never had a problem with small closed in spaces before. He didn't understand, he almost didn't want to understand. Nothing was making sense to him at the moment - his reactions, his thoughts. My mind is not my own...those words whirled in his mind over and over again. I am not myself.
"I am the hunter and you are the prey," he murmured those words quietly, how could he ever forget those words? They would be burned into his memory forever, and certainly everyone else's who was near enough to hear. They certainly weren't the words that he would have spoken. It was a joke on himself, or was it? He felt that it had more to do than just with his name.
"Hunter Correlli. What am I do with you?"
Hunter shrugged and stared at his tightly clenched hands in his lap.
"First of all, perhaps you can tell me what that fight was all about."
He kept his eyes lowered, he wasn't ready to face anybody yet.
"Not ready to talk eh?"
A slight smirk touched Hunter's lips, he almost expected her to add, '...well we have ways of making you talk..." He shook his head. He just wanted to be alone right now. It would be better that way, let him sort through his own mind before releasing answers he didn't even know at the time.
"Hunter."
He didn't respond.
"Look at me Hunter."
Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze to meet the woman's. She was elderly, but one would have to take a closer look to see just how old. Although her face was a mask of indiscernible thoughts, her eyes still were warm, the look she bestowed him almost fond – perhaps the look a grandmother would give a small child; not that he would ever know that look.
But there was more to that look, it was tinged with fear, tainted with distrust, pity...
"Don't you dare pity me."
The woman lifted a brow inquiringly and flipped open a metallic folder and read off a sheet of paper, "Eight years old and abused by his given-father, given-mother is dead. Life-parents unaware..." She looked up at Hunter and sighed, "You are in a sad position Hunter. You have no one, and no one apparently wants you. It'd be in the best interest to fit in here as much as you can. There's nothing for you down there."
Hunter's eyes let nothing of his inner thoughts out, but his mind was in turmoil. Given-father and mother? What the hell did that mean, and life-parents? The plural? The only parents he had ever known were very much aware of him, and he had only one now, his mother was dead. Killed in a freak accident. But life-parents? She was looking at him intently and he had to sift through his thoughts to remember what she'd asked him. Ah yes. Will he try to fit in? "That is why I came – to fit in."
She nodded and snapped the folder shut, "Excellent." Standing she opened the door and held it open, waiting for him to walk through. But Hunter didn't walk through, something was troubling him. A memory was just at the edge of his mind, something of great importance. Seven years ago...something important.
"Hunter," the voice whispered over the baby boy's blond locks of hair and he gurgled happily up into the loving face of his mother. She smiled back down at him.
Another voice, deeper, called his attention forward, "Hunter, look over here." It was a man – his father, standing behind a set up camera. The man made a goofy face that made Hunter chortle happily and another voice to giggle. Hunter looked down and saw a boy with darker hair, holding onto Hunter's chubby hand – a brother, there was no doubt about it. The man's voice called again, "Hunter, look at the camera."
Hunter gave a gummy smile and waved his free hand about. A flash, a blindness and then...nothing. Camera's didn't do that. Desperate voices called out; screams, crying, darkness...then a sound came and through speakers came the demand that father come with them. Military. Hunter could see the emblems being reflected in the brief flashes of light. His father was part of the air force.
A man dashed out of the chopper and over to where the small family stood, "Captain Carl Bracken, sir, the new IBS project – protesters are rioting, somehow made a power surge in the fusion reactors. Whole country is out and parts of Canada as well."
Father glanced at his family then to the man and nodded, dashing off to get his gear, the man who spoke to father, took hold of mother's arm and escorted her to the chopper, "This way ma'am, don't want anyone getting hurt."
Hunter's eyes, even the dimness, could make out the fear in his mother's face, but he was too young to comprehend its meaning. "Where are you taking us?"
"We'll be taking you to the center, with any luck, the generators will have been started and you and your sons will be comfortable." They ducked their heads and were lifted through the open hatch of the helicopter. Hunter's brother was crying, Hunter made not a sound. He didn't understand, there was so much fear, but he didn't understand it, it was just an emotion that he couldn't understand.
Hunter opened his eyes, a fretful face peered down at him then away, then back down at him. The woman, an unfamiliar one at that, bit her lip and glanced warily around once again. Hunter gurgled and waved his arms at her. She smiled, albeit nervously. Scooping him up, Hunter got a look around the room they were in. He could see his mother, she was sitting down with his brother, holding him, weeping with tears streaming down her face. The woman holding Hunter turned and he could no longer see his mother.
"Take him, Judith, if you can ensure he'll be safe, take him."
Hunter felt the woman nod, "I'm sorry I cannot take you and your son as well, there isn't enough room. But your son will be safe where I take him. I'll take care of him."
A large boom overhead shook the underground center, causing the lights to flicker. The woman looked around her anxiously, then back to his mother.
His mother was sobbing, holding her terrified son. She sighed, regaining her composure and answered shakily, "Yes. Tell your brother, Howard, that Carl and I will be forever in his debt."
The woman holding him, shushed Hunter's mother and replied, "Howard told me long ago that he owed Carl – something that happened in the army long ago. He considers this to be paying his debt. I just wish there was more room on his chopper."
"Thank you." After a moment, his mother added quietly, "You know how vital his survival is – he's the key."
"You mean to our survival."
"To our survival," his mother agreed. Another boom above and this time, the lights stayed out.
Judith was a good mother, to Hunter, she was the only mother he would remember, for it was she who raised him as her own and taught him despite the countries on the verge of war. Howard had dropped them off at Judith's home in Australia and had made for his own property's leaving his sister to fend for his friend's son. For now, Australia was one of the safest places for them – one of the neutral countries. But even that didn't last long, the country, as all others were, was eventually dragged into the politics and troubles of war and once again, Judith and Hunter were on the run, this time running to the remote place that Howard called home.
Howard was an ex-military man. One who didn't have any medals of honour to wear, but an excess of tales to tell of his bravery, of course there were none who could argue him. It was obvious to anyone who saw the brother and sister together that there was no love between them, they often broke into fights that lasted deep into the night that usually ended with Howard storming out of the house and into the woods. They may have worried about the care of Hunter, but they cast their concerns aside for the boy – there was plenty of love and care lavished on Hunter by Judith. Howard, on the other hand, just tolerated the boy. But despite his indifference to Hunter, he still took the young boy out on long walks through the woods. Nobody knew where they went or why Howard took him, but he did.
It was also obvious that Howard's toleration didn't spread to his sister. For it was on one of these walks through the woods that the cabin they had lived in exploded; a propane leak was the explanation – Judith had been inside the cabin. Hunter was three at the time.
By the time that Hunter was four, the world was the world was balancing on a truce made by the warring countries – they still hadn't broken into an outright war with one another, just probes against the other. With the momentary peace, families came out of hiding and returned to the cities where they could once again enjoy the luxuries of city-life, but there was always the underlying fear that the truce would be broken and the warring countries would break into a full world war.
With the liquor stores so handy now, Howard lost little time in losing himself in his drink, and this was often how little Hunter found him when he returned from school – it was a habit that Howard never broke.
"The entire ship is waiting for us, Hunter. We can't make the jump to light speed until we are safely secured." The woman peered quizzically down at Hunter through her glasses, something that one didn't see very often. Operations could fix any persons vision till it was perfect or beyond.
"They can wait."
Rather sarcastically, she laughed, "Just for you?"
He ignored her question and asked, "What happened to my life- parents?"
The woman didn't hide her shock as she sat down in her seat once again and flipped open her folder, scanning through papers there, she read over a few of them. "What do you know of them?"
Hunter looked down to his clasped hands and took a deep breath, this seemed almost too easy. He was asking and they were simply going to answer. "My father was part of the military. I had a brother, he was older than me. My mother, I don't remember much of her...I can still hear her voice."
"Any names?"
Hunter frowned and looked up, "Carl, my life-parent, he was a friend of my dad's..." he paused, swallowed and corrected himself, "I mean, he was a friend to the man I've always known as my dad. Howard was Judith's sister, it was she who took me to safety." He neglected to say the reason. It was still too strange that such a memory would come back to him so clearly. Perhaps it was only a dream.
"Ah, Captain Carl Bracken."
No dream.
"Your life-parents are fine."
Hunter waited for the woman to say more. But she merely pulled out a pen and began to write in her folder. "Is that it? Won't you tell me anything else?"
She looked up and pushed her glasses up her nose, "Hunter, it is apparent to me that you already have a greater idea of who your family is than we expected. I don't think there is any other need to tell you more." She uncrossed her legs and once again stood. Walking over to a computer she voice commanded some files be brought up. All this, Hunter watched with keen eyes, hoping that she'd reveal more.
Glancing over her shoulder, the woman asked, "What else do you remember?"
Going through his flashback, Hunter picked through it and described it to her. Perhaps if he revealed something about what he knew, then she'd do the same for him. Legs dangling off the table, Hunter appeared to be a boy recounting a story he had read or something of the like. And it was that, a story, but...the woman's frown deepened, but this was no story he'd read. Nor was it a story that had ever been recorded. In fact, very few knew of it – for it was a story that a child of not even one had remembered.
Hunter lifted his brows, waiting, hoping for an answer, but no answer came forth and none was offered. He waited until the seconds seemed like hours.
"Hunter," hope flared in his heart, "it's time you got to the seating base room," and sank like lead in water.
No, no more answers here. He frowned to show his dislike at being dismissed like this, but slid off the table and said nothing. This wouldn't be the last he'd see of her. He'd make sure of it – she had answers that he wanted. This was no longer a place where he could blend in and hide from Howard, this was now a place where he could find answers.
"He knows."
"How much?"
"He knows about you."
"How?"
"I don't know. But he knows his worth. That he's a key in this game we're playing."
"You think of this as a game?"
"Survival is a game."