A/N, Hey! We're back! With the story everyone loves to hate. I have done some research into what people like in their fan fics, and it turns out this story breaks every rule out there. People hate POV's, OC main characters, and deviating too far from the original characters persona. It's also been brought to my attention that this story takes too long to get to the original character, I.E. Anna. So why bother bringing it back out? Well…, I made a promise to do so, and I have some stuff in the can. This will come out in dribs and drabs, or whenever I feel like it. Part 2 is not done, so it may be a while before it draws to a close. For my three or four worldwide readers of this story, I thank you for your continued support.
And now for Part 2 of;
The Children of the Sun.
"Michael, Michael! Wake up! It's OK, you're here with me, Anna!"
"Wha,... Where am I?!" I was again ripped out of the world in which I currently existed.
"Michael, you're alright, you're safe with me." I was something of a mess, still breathing heavy, and bathed in sweat. This dream I remember vividly, as if it wasn't a dream at all. I looked in her face, and cupped it in my hands, my now giant hands. I stared straight into those big, beautiful eyes, then I hugged her so tight I was starting to crush her.
"Michael, I... can't... breathe!"
"I'm so sorry, I thought I lost you."
"You were having a nightmare, was it about The Trial?"
"No, something much worse, I had my old life back, I was back in Nebraska. You were just a piece of cardboard that I threw away in the trash."
"That sounds terrible, and you threw me away?"
"I did it here, and it was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life, there was a heavy price to pay for it too."
"It was just a dream, Michael. I wouldn't worry too much if I were you."
"No Anna, this wasn't a dream. This was a vision. It had meaning. We can't go back. We can't go back to that kind of existence ever again. All that work, and worry, and running around in circles to enriched some wealthy douchebag I'll never know. The ugliness of that world is just unbearable. The plain dingy walls, junk everywhere, mud, the strip malls, an army of people starring down at little screens, wallowing in ugliness. I don't mean their looks, but the way they feel is ugly, and it ends up on their faces. In that world I just swam in it. I was swimming in ugliness."
"The madness must be stopped. I have been charged with this crusade..., me. One day I'll be king, and I'm going to insure the human race never lives in that wretchedness ever again. I've been handed this power and I'm going to use it."
"Now you're starting to sound like a king, and the man I want for my husband."
"My first order of business is going to be to get rid of that ridiculous castle."
"What?!, but I had a lot of plans for that place!"
"Yes, and you can make plans for what I have in mind. We have a deal, and I will honor it. We need a campus, we will still need a much larger place, and it will need to have an air of authority. But I want it to have the look and feel of a college. A large main building, surrounded by smaller out buildings, a mall with a tree lined reflecting pool; I want beauty, not fucking guard towers and walls. Do we have architects here, Anna?"
"Yes, I've spoken with a few, and a French gentleman designed the castle."
"Olaf!"
"Yes, your Highness."
"Olaf, I want totally new designs for a campus style domicile for our headquarters, and recycle that dreadful castle. Contact all the architects we have on board, tell them they have two weeks to come up with a proposal, and have them stop by here for a visit, as I'll be giving them my vision of what I want, Anna here will be coordinating all decor."
"By your…."
"Olaf, will you please can that Battlestar shit? 'OK, Michael' will suffice for now."
"I'm glad your back, Michael."
"It's good to be back, Olaf."
And now it's time to set the design for the future, the one where humans finally decide to act like grownups.
It turned into a lazy day. There was this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I just couldn't shake. I remember feeling that way when I left the theater after a powerful movie. I was living in that fantasy, then the movie was over and reality slapped me in the face. The funny thing is, this 'reality' more closely resembles those movies, than that pitiful reality I lived in in Nebraska. I think today will be a big chocolate chip cookie day...
The next day I was out on the veranda at the crack of dawn, enjoying a cup of tea and the typical morning air. The Princess was at her usual for this time of the morning, sawing logs.
Ya' know that feeling after you have a car wreck? Imagine that feeling every waking minute, every day, for decades on end. That's what my former life was. Now it's starting to creep back. I was really comfortable with the idea of Anna squirting out babies for a half century while I kicked back and watched the new world go by.
That was my job, baby maker. Now look what I've done, a king. How did I manage this? Was this the Masters plan all along? Is this the reason I got the Anna I did?
We needed a direction, someone to set us on the path of the future. Free from the lust for power, material goods, profits, and the control of others.
Those are the things that thrust the world into such a dark place, but it's in our nature. Evolution had a purpose, to weed out the weak, and make sure the species survived. It was a hard and cruel way to do business, but it worked. The bad news-however- was that survival of the fittest is no longer needed. Evolution on Earth had reached its pinnacle in us, or so we thought.
Yet we are still those snarling beasts, stomping on each other to climb to the top, but the top of what? A big pile of one's and zero's on a hard drive somewhere? To make people you feel are beneath you beg and scrape for the right to exist? There just has to be more to life than this.
What were the Masters on earth so afraid of? They controlled us thru our minds, made us believe we had to buy their crap, see their doctors, invest our hard earned money with them. Just so they could steal it all back.
The chains of debt. They were no different than those made of iron, and nobody even noticed. I must change all that. My vision had a purpose, it had divine providence. I do feel different after this last trip to the 'Tube'. They have changed the way I think, maybe. Or is it this new body that has given me confidence, and will it last? If I fall apart now, it'll spell the end. This is where the anxiety is starting to come back. There's a lot of pressure here to get this right.
I decided Princess Anna and I need to make a bicycle tour of the Habitat and meet every single couple in it. We're still going to take a few days off- I need a break- and I want for Anna and me to get thoroughly reacquainted. She's a different person now and growing very rapidly, maybe a little too rapid. The "Evil Queen" was pretty scary, and I'm always going to have that image in the back of my mind.
This existence is very fragile, any number of things could destroy it, and it's Anna's and my responsibility to make sure an entire civilization survives and flourishes.
No pressure there.
Anna had crawled out of bed and joined me on the veranda. I thought I was seeing things; her hair had gone back to its strawberry blonde.
"What's with the hair? I thought you dyed it."
"That wasn't dye, check this out!" She disappeared for a second into the bathroom and came back with a wand in her hand.
"So what would you like, how about platinum blonde?" She turned a dial on the wand and then passed it over her head, she looked like Elsa.
"Or maybe brunette?"
"Not really you."
"OK, what about blue?" When she did this, I swear I turned white. It was her, the Blue Haired Girl from my dream.
"What's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
"I just did."
"Something you're not telling me?"
"Several years ago I had a dream that I was looking in a mirror and the reflection I saw looks exactly as you do now. I awoke in a pool of sweat and I couldn't get back to sleep. I had a conversation with Olaf about this and he said the buried personality that girl represents is what they made you from. As it turns out, all humans suffer from multiple personality syndrome, we've just got good at burying them deep into our subconscious."
"Has she reappeared, I mean, in another dream or otherwise?"
"No, well..., I don't think so; I'm not sure, really. I try not to think about it." The bad news is trying or not, I think about it all the time now.
"Oh..., I can see how that could be disturbing, I'll change it back." The look on her face showed her discomfort, and she wanted to change the subject.
"So what's on today's agenda?"
"I figured you'd want to go on a horse hunt."
"Stellar idea!, it's been a long time since we did that."
"But now we have a tactical advantage."
"What's that?"
"Bicycles, we'll be able to cover more ground that way."
"Guess those were a good idea."
"I'm also going to decree as King that everyone gets one. We need to be able to get around this joint."
"As Queen I'll agree." Some of things I'd do might seem socialist, and crammed down people's throats, the very things I despised on Earth. But things were different here, and doing things very differently is just the way it's going to have to be.
So we set out to the meadow where the horses were known to frequent. We also brought another secret weapon..., Olaf. He could fly up and scan for them. Originally when we went out, we wanted to be alone, but this is starting to take on some urgency. Anna is desperate for one of these creatures.
Olaf got himself some altitude and Eyeballs tracked him, while we sped off on our machines. Olaf led us right to a pack of them; there must have been twenty in the fold.
When we got close, most of them bolted, except for one. He was all black and the biggest of the herd, I assume he was the alpha male, as he had the balls to confront us. Anna got off her bike and gently set it on the ground, never loosing eye contact with him.
"Be careful Anna, he looks pretty big." I whispered.
"I know what I'm doing." OK, Ms. Know-it-all. She took off her backpack and got out a rope that already had a noose in it. She coiled it and slung it over her shoulder so she would have both hands free. As she approached him, she did the strangest thing I've ever seen her do, and she's done some crazy shit.
She took both of her hands and stuck them into her armpits and rubbed them around for a second. Then she got real close to him and cupped her hands in front of her. With a deep breath she blew across her hands and into the horses face…, and a strange calm came across him. Anna took the rope off her shoulder and put the loop around his neck, he never even flinched.
"See?! I told you I knew what I was doing!" As she led the horse to Olaf and me, my jaw made a clunk sound as it hit the ground. Anna was a horse whisperer.
Before she got too close I whispered to Olaf; "We are going to have to have one of those long conversations again, Olaf."
"I take it you find this disturbing?"
"That about sums it up."
"I'm taking Kjekk up to the stable; do you want to joint me?" Ha! She used the storybook name for him, shocking. But now it looks like the recycling job on the castle will have to wait.
"Na, you can take him by yourself. It'll give you two a chance to get acquainted."
"Rats!, what about my bike?"
"I will arrange transport for it to the castle, Princess Anna" said Olaf.
'Thanks, O." I don't know why she was worried about such a trivial thing. If somebody took it, they'd just be doing us a favor.
Off she trotted with him, her new best friend. But the way she did it was deeply disturbing. She was a pheromonic creature, an effect that's only supposed to work within the same species. Could she influence me that way? And that constant lavender scent…, was that somehow connected? While she's busy with Kjekk, I'm gonna' grill Olaf.
Somebody has a lot of explaining to do...