Chapter 34

Jason

New Roommate

Jason looks at his device to verify the time, he is supposed to be meeting his new roommate and the time shows that neither the resident of the room or new roommate have come at the scheduled time. He is not sure if he is happy or unhappy, this is a hall where officers rooms are located. By officers they are not Youth Corp officers. These really are trained officers, who feel they have earned the right to these rooms. Jason nods to an officer who passes by giving him a questioning look. Why would he be moved to this hall, what reason could Diana have and how different could he and an artist be? Seriously, what could they possibly have in common? Lastly the hall is for officers and to his knowledge the artist is not an officer either. Living here is going to be strange as he watches yet another officer walking by who looks sternly at him before continuing on with his walk down to his room.

A minute later another officer walks up to him. "You are one of the individuals that will be taking over my room?"

"Yes, I appear to be the first one to meet you. May I come in anyway?"

The officer appears to be about fifteen years older than himself, Jason knows though if this officer is leaving this hall of officer's rooms then he must be rising in the ranks and not due to demotion. The officer nods and opens the door, but just as they are about to enter another individual walks up to them. Jason is almost shocked at how thin he is.

The overly thin individual doesn't smile or look happy as he speaks. "Hi, I am Alex. I am to meet my new roommate. Guess you are him."

The officer shows them around and they ask a few questions. He appears to be smoothing his hair and seems uncomfortable. Finally he says, "Unless you have further questions I have to finish a report. Sorry maybe you could discuss your personal questions with each other some place else."

"Come on, Jason," Alex says smiling. "We'll go to my room and discuss our move." He nods to the officer, "I mean your room now."

They all laugh including the officer and Alex takes Jason to his room. They talk about the move and which side of the room will be their side and where Alex should put his artistic equipment.

"Come on in." Alex smiles as he motions for Jason to enter, "Gonna be rough giving this up."

Jason's jaw literally drops. "What the. . ." He simply drops down in the chair Alex has pointed to. "I am moving to a larger room, but your downsizing. I mean really downsizing. Why are they doing this to you?" His eyes move around the room taking in the artwork, the small kitchen area and large sitting room. He shakes his head, "This is going to be rough on you. You can't take all of this with you. Look you have two small cages of rodents to choose from for your dinner. You know all of this, right?"

Alex sits, "I know. It's okay." Where he is sitting is across from a painting he has been working on. For him it is likely a perfect view of the work he has been doing.

Jason brings a hand to his forehead. "There has to be a reason they are putting us together." He stares a moment at Alex and it comes to him. "Is your work involved with Diana?"

"In a way I suppose you could say that," Alex has an almost business-like tone to his voice. "I take it you work closely with Diana."

"Yes, very much so. Your work I take it is...hum, how do I put this. Few people know."

"Yes, I place the visuals in the Youth Corp meetings and provide them for other things as well. Not really a big deal." Alex is rubbing his chin nervously, "I mean that I am supposed to provide the emotional stimulation for. . ." He groans, "Hard to explain."

Jason smiles and holds up a hand for a moment. "No, need to explain. For myself, I work in Diana's lab. How did you become involved in all of this. From what I am seeing you appear active in your artistic work."

"Ah, and there we have it. Yes, I am an artist. Why am I here, I ask myself that every day. I was an artist putting on a show so that I would have the financial ability to continue my passion. I would tell this story and place what I felt were the appropriate visual. Each time I did a show I would note people's reactions. I would change the visual to get people to respond the way I thought they should. Just so happen there was someone watching, apparently looking for. . ." Alex looks up and shrugs, "Long story short, I was roped into this and here I am."

Jason not only could hear the pain in Alex's voice, but in his face. "I am sorry, it sounds like you truly didn't want to be here. Why this large room though. Was it needed for your work? I mean this is truly a great room."

Alex thrusts out his lower jaw, "They didn't want me around people for some reason. Can you believe that. They treated me like I was some tool that would be tainted if I was around people. Problem was this room became a prison." He then smiles, "They let me begin to make friends. The greatest thing ever and yes..." Alex shrugs, "My friendships caused me the loss of this room and I don't care." Suddenly he is laughing, "You aren't going to believe my weird friends. Odd programmer, know it all Youth Leader and his various weird friends, even a trooper. Don't mind at all losing this room if it means keeping all the weird things happening around me now." He laughs loudly with a large grin gracing his face, "Doing our own thing." Once Alex regains his composure he looks at Jason, "Since we are going to be roommates anyway. Ah, what is your thing. Working for Diana you said."

"Oh, ah," Jason gives Alex an uncertain smile showing a lot of teeth. "Er, lets say I wasn't supposed to work with Diana. I was a doctor in training. I was to do my; shall we say my hands-on work." He shifts in his chair uncomfortably.

Alex intervenes, leaning across to Jason. "It's okay. We all have a story and sometimes they are not the story we wanted. Remember I thought my life was to be devoted to my passion. Poverty was fine if I did what I wanted. I have seen so many demonstrations against the Regime and people being killed even when they were not part of these demonstrations. There is an officer on this ship that I saw kill someone in one of those demonstrations. I will never forget, yet here I am working hard for the very thing I am not sure of. Oh, and if you want to inform on me, go ahead. They know already or at least I think they do. I have never been the most committed individual on this ship, certainly not a Youth Leader."

Jason is uncomfortable and gives a stiff pearly smile. "I, I, I don't know what to say. I won't say anything, but your bravery to speak out to your true feelings that you aren't a true supporter is amazing to me. I am a supporter sort of, kind of; I just go with the flow I guess." Suddenly he realizes he has been holding his breath. "I just said too much."

"No, not at all. We are going to be roommates, lets go into this less fearful of each other." Alex sits up straight in his chair again, "How did you become involved with Diana. Can you say?"

"Sure, ah kind of a story. I just wanted to be a doctor, but I am pretty good in the lab so to speak. I would assist others and one of them was this goofball who thought he was a god or something. Just a jerk. He was Diana's assistant in the lab and really full of himself. This guy must have been six foot eight. I swear he was huge and just about as fat. One guy you would never want to fall on you." They both laugh for a moment, "I know that was awful of me to say that." He chuckles again. "Anyway, he is doing some stuff in the training lab and drops something. A few of us kept telling him to pick it up or one of us would slip and fall if we stepped on it. As you said, long story short; the guy stepped on it and hit his head on the corner of the counter. Should not have been that bad, but somehow he hit it just right, looked like someone bashed him in his head and as I said, a really big guy. He went into a comma, died a few days later."

"Because you were good in the lab you were selected?" Alex appears confused.

"There was someone else on another ship who was supposed to be the one if something happened to the first assistant. However, before she was able to finish what she was doing on the other ship, I was asked to fill in. When the new assistant came Diana apparently found she liked my work better, for whatever reason. Didn't make sense to me since all of my training was to be a doctor."

"But you had some training as a chemist." Alex asks still looking confused.

"No, that is what is so stupid about this. I guess I am good at it, but really not my thing. I enjoyed assisting others and I became knowledgeable so to speak. I guess my training to be a doctor actually made an impression on Diana. I wasn't even allowed to say no. It was here you are; you assist Diana. Everyone acted like it was the best thing that could ever happen to me. I lost my dream. I am allowed to continue my studies, but I never have the time to do so. So far behind now." Jason shakes his head sadly, "I guess all I can say is unless magic happens I will never be a doctor. Or at least not until we go back home."

"Yeah, I understand we are doing this for our people. Just seems like it could be done differently. We are not the only ones who have lost our dreams. Remember I was telling you about my weird new friends. Well even the Youth Leaders, the very ones you would think would be all about the Regime want different lives. One wants to be a farmer or a priest, another wants to do volunteer work for our people, another wants to work to improve the mountain forests. That trooper was sure he was going to be a farmer." Alex sighs, "You can hear the sadness when they speak of what they want to do with their lives, not what they are forced to do. Yet they have committed themselves in hopes of improving the lives of family and friends at home."

"Yes, I agree. Wish things could be different is all." Jason turns his head, "You are playing some music, is that human?"

"Yeah, my friend the programmer and his Youth Leader roommate, they listen to music all of the time. You know the Youth Corp are on the ground all of the time. I swear this guy is secretly listening to music all day. His favorite is something called, House of the Rising Sun; he is always wanting Kelly to play it. Anyway when he likes something he tells my friend Kelly. Kelly looks it up and shares it with me as well. Hope you like music." Alex begins nodding his head to the music and clicks a keypad on a table next to him, the music turns up a bit louder.

"What is that? Funny sound, not used to hearing Earth music."

"Stayin' Alive, I think it is disco music and don't ask what is disco 'cause I don't know." Alex smiles and begins signing along for a bit. Then he turns the volume down again, "Have you ever wondered why the water on our world is disappearing so quickly. I mean, when you think about it, it seems like it is going away faster than it should. Not a chemist like you," He smiles and winks to Jason due to his saying he is not a chemist. Then he bites his lip and frowns as he speaks. "Just seems to be disappearing unusually quick and I don't think it has to do with someone hoarding the water supply either."

Jason finds himself frowning, this reminds him of one of the visuals he saw this morning. One of the drawings on a wall in Siviley, the drawing depicted what were small lines above; people running, grass growing and a tree with leaves. The drawing right next to it showed the same depiction except, the small lines had lines through them, the people seemed to be crawling, no grass and the tree had no leaves. It was like the people of long ago knew the water would disappear. That is not possible, how could they know. He shivers, how could even the ancients if there were ancients read the future. Unless, the ancients were the ones causing the distress on his world, but why?

"You okay?" Alex is giving him an odd look, "Thought I lost you for a moment."

"Sorry, I was just thinking of stuff." He starts chuckling, "Sounds like I am going to get to hear a lot of music. Just Earth or is there more?"

"Oh, we listen to old music as well," Alex turns his head about. "Ah, we listen to underground music from home as well."

Jason shrugs, "Gonna be interesting being your roommate. I will miss hearing some of the medical stuff, but this is definitely going to be interesting."

Alex is nodding his head to the music, "What medical stuff is new exciting to you besides Diana's lab stuff."

"Just stuff. One of the things that is being setup is if someone loses a limb; say a leg. Well, that leg will be grown and attached. Some new things are being done to speed up the process of growth so it doesn't take as long before it can be attached." The lyrics from the song catch his attention. Shilo, when I was young, I used to call your name, when no one else would come, Shilo you always came and we'd play. "Like that song. Makes you wish you could visit your childhood again. Moments free of this." Jason closes his eyes for a moment and continues to listen to the song. "Have to admit I would love to hear some underground music from home as well. Makes me feel like I am well; being a bad, bad boy."

"Yeah, there is an underground song about the mountain people. You know their clan swords were made from actual meteorites and power crystals so old they are almost black." Alex grin sheepishly, then he suddenly frowns. "Of course, the song also includes them handing their swords over to the government at the time."

Jason can't even fathom what it would have been like for the mountain people to end the way they had lived for more than a thousand years. When you consider it, the Whipelli probably had the most stable government which included humans as well. Everything must end apparently. An overwhelming sadness feels like it is taking over and he finds himself shivering. "I guess life is not always fair."

Alex is looking at his hands not looking up. "No, it is not. Like I said before, I have seen someone killed in a protest and he wasn't even a protester. Life isn't fair for sure."

"Yeah, people die or are killed for what seems like no reason." Jason nods, "I guess we just have to keep moving on with our own life."

Neither speak for some time and then Alex gets up and shows Jason some of his art work. Alex then walks to his small kitchen and pulls out a bottle, holding it up to Jason he asks, "Like some juice?"

"Sure," Jason walks over and takes the glass offered to him. He can't get the ancients out of his head, "You have heard the stories of the ancients have you not?"

Alex laughs and a silly grin graces his face. "Sure who hasn't heard of that, it's what the humans call the fairy tale." He takes a sip from his glass, "You don't mind if we speak in Depol do you?"

"Well we are supposed to speak in our designated Earth language, but must admit; yeah lets really relax for a minute." They return to the chairs they had been sitting in before. "I never believed in the ancients, but today. . . " Jason bites his lip for a moment. "I was going to do my medical studies today, but instead I did some research. Got me to thinking of how we started out as Dahax, but then we branched off to become Ibrea, Depol and Whipelli. Mainly though, Ibrea and us; Depol. You know the Dahax didn't just live in the vast jungle. No, their population was expanding, they were moving out and settling. I mean it was slow, but it was already happening. Then suddenly, two movements of their people left at the same time. I don't mean traveled a few hundred miles, but we believe they migrated at least a thousand miles away from their original home. Then for some reason, I mean some weird reason; we began to change from each other. You know become a different subspecies. From there we continued to evolve. There really wasn't any reason for that. I mean no reason. The Dahax have done little to evolve from who they were from then to now." He then gestures dramatically with his hands, "It's like small changes occur within our people and even the Ibrea." Another dramatic gesture, "Then look at the Whipelli. We believe their gene keeps them evolving. Slowly yes, but they do. I know it is due to their ever changing environment. With our environment changing so dramatically how will a Whipelli look a thousand years from now? Why, I mean how is that possible?" Jason rolls his eyes, "Guess I went way over on that. Sorry."

"No, your fine. I loved hearing all of this. Things you don't think about." Alex leans forward looking very serious, first he takes a sip from his glass. He appears quite passionate, "You know there was also a water people once. You know how we call our people; jungle, desert, flat lands and mountain. We had water people, they evolved to live mostly in the water, maybe they were to evolve to live only in the water." His eyes seem to almost glow as he speaks, "You know humans used to have mermaids. They called their water people, mermaids. Do you think if there really were ancients that maybe they pushed out the Dahax to become the water people?" He leans forward with a questioning look to Jason.

With a hard shake of his head and a stiff tone he addresses what Alex has said. "No, they didn't live in the water. As for Earth they did not have mermaids, they turned out to be some sea mammal. The water people as you said did not exist for long. We know very little of them, they may have been great swimmers." Jason shrugs. "Sorry, they may have been evolving, but we don't actually know that they were." He pauses rubbing his forehead for a moment. "We think their crests were not stiff, but little is known except for what few artifacts were found. The Dahax, I guess they depicted them as monsters. They came about earlier and were gone before the Depol and Ibrea came to be."

"Oh, of course," Alex agrees solemnly. He drums his fingers on his knee for a minute. Then he smirks, "You know I am just an artist. I guess I loved the idea of humans and our people having water people or mermaids. Except there sure is a lot of similarity between our people and humans."

"Actually, I am loving our conversation." Jason says for this has been an interesting conversation between them; one he never thought would occur. However, he can't leave the thought of the ancients behind. The visual of a Dahax standing on his world, then what in his mind was a human standing on this planet. What though was the other planet that was beneath their planets, or was it something else. This image in his mind depicted humans and his people working together. Was something going to occur so this would happen. Or did the Great One already know and was intervening to keep this from happening, because he knew this event would happen soon. Then again was it possible that if there were ancients that this was just the first step in his people joining the humans on some venture.

"You okay Jason?"

He laughs, for he has become lost in his own private thoughts. Maybe he has become too focused on the fantasy of the ancients. He hates what is happening at home, protesters found and executed. The Great Leader wanting the binal organ of a Whipelli, one that can't happen. For some reason the Whipelli DNA refuses to be manipulated with Depol or Dahax, they have become to far removed genetically and are a species very much their own. Their evolution has made it impossible for this to happen. The thoughts of that poor human girl Brenda and Diana's relentless pursuit of her goal had injured Brenda's mind. Now Diana's goal is to find another human girl that had the same kind of open gene and manipulate a Whipelli gene. Yeah, here comes the human slash Whipelli mixed with Depol and a touch of Dahax. He shakes his head, "Life is just way too weird. You know what I mean?"

Alex rubs his eyes before he answers, "For sure, I know I am living the weird dream." He then stands, "Want some more juice or some water?"

"No, I am fine. Have you ever wondered why our people and it matters not if Depol or Dahax or Whipelli. You, yourself said that there is a lot of similarity between our people and humans. We really are a lot alike physically, mentally, emotionally and other things. Human saying..." Jason stares at the ceiling for a moment before continuing. "The human saying is another brother from another mother. In this case another brother from another world. Why are we so, so, so alike even though they are mammals and we are not. Take the hair off a human, paint their skin green and give them eyes like ours and they would be another sirian species on our world." He shakes his head and snorts, he sounds more like he is murmuring. "We may be killing our brother."

Alex looks stunned, "Wow! That is deep. I mean that is one. . ." He places the glasses on the counter and turns, "You are gonna be one awesome roommate."

"You know we both have other things to do before this evening is over. Let us move on from this very weird conversation and listen to some music. We really need to finish discussing our move to the new room." They do just that and after awhile wrap up their conversation. They both stand and with a grin Jason says, "Going to enjoy being your roommate Alex."

"I will admit it, I was nervous." Alex smiles and extends his hand. "But not now, you're okay." They shake hands and say good-night.

Walking down the hall it comes to him that one of the first things Alex had said when they entered his room was, doing our own thing, this is the second time he has heard this. Maybe it is fate saying it is time for him to do something which he wishes to do. To somehow find a way to leave the path he is currently taking on, Diana's dark path. Maybe, that song he heard as he was leaving Alex's room is right on. Feeling Stronger Every Day, yeah feeling stronger every day. Doing my own thing. He smiles and finds himself humming what little he remembers of, Feeling Stronger Every Day. I do believe I am feeling stronger every day. I do believe I am feeling stronger every day. I do believe I am feeling stronger every day. He all but skips down the hall.