"Hello one and all of FanFiction! I bring you another part of To Hell and Back! Please enjoy as well as review, follow, and favorite for more THaB faster.
Arc 2 Pt 6: Traversing the Labyrinth
Isaac entered the next room, immediately noticing a pacer. Isaac looked around the room to see if he had everything he needed. Pebbles. Isaac mentally went down the checklist. Pitfall. All of the things he needed to get rid of a pacer. "Perfect!" he whispered as he picked up a rock and threw it at the wall behind the pit. When the rock bounced of the wall and into the pit, the pacer investigated. Stepping over the edge and disappearing, the next door opened and Isaac proceeded.
In this room: a gaper, a pit, a plan. Isaac walks over to the front of the pit. "Hey, Mr. Gaper!" The gaper moans and runs towards Isaac, and he sidestepped and clotheslined the zombie. The pacer lands on the other side of the pit, hanging in by most of its back, fingers grasping the edge. Isaac frowned and forms an ember, shooting it at the gapers face. The gaper's face cringes as the ember makes contact right on the nose, its arms fly towards its face leaving its legs hanging clinging. "Are you that stubborn?" Isaac spits out and walks to the other side, kicking the legs of the gaper off the edge. He was satisfied when he heard no further resistance. "Next."
This had continued for an hour or so, when Isaac eventually realized something. Wait a minute...it has been an hour and I have only gone straight, where is this taking me? He looked back to where he came from; he saw all of the rooms he had conquered, all in one straight line. Eventually his eyes had passed so many rooms that it all started to fade into a grey haze. "That far?" Isaac stated in disbelief, and continued to clear rooms at a slow pace as he let his mind roam.
So where exactly am I? Am I in a medieval arena, used for people's entertainment? How were all of these monsters kept down here? Don't they escape? His mind wandered until he got to the more interesting questions. What's waiting for me on the other side? Life? Friends? Days that are just…normal? Isaac stopped in his tracks just before he was going to enter the next room. "Normal?" he stated as he tilted his head, almost unfamiliar with the word. He lets the thought settle, but bursts out laughing. "HA! Like I'll ever get a normal day, ever!" He continued in his thoughts. Sure, there are some days that I would want nothing more than to be a normal child. He paused and lifted his hand, Then again, being weird has its perks, he thought as an ember danced on his fingertips before falling back into his hand.
-=In a place far, far away=-
Cain stood before a doorway, determination evident in his wide smile, ready for whatever the world has to throw at him, with a backpack upon his shoulders. As he steps into the next room, he sees one door on the other side of the room, and...a headless corpse. In fright he recoils a few feet back before observing the body more closely; bleeding where the base of the neck should be and the rest of the body unaltered. What the… Cain is able to think before the corpse emits a deep groan and attempts to get to its feet. "AH! ZOMBIE!" Cain blurts out and starts repeatedly kicking the corpse. Eventually he stops assaulting the body and leaves it to twitch. After he steps away from the corpse, he hears the doors opening. He apprehensively walks towards the next room, but is stopped by the sound of a wooden chest falling from the ceiling. He turns to it, unsure of its purpose and opens it slowly.
A miniature bomb the size of his hand sits suspiciously in the middle. "Thank goodness." He attempts to pick up the bomb, but finds it to be heavier than a ball of pure metal. The bomb rumbles and expands to be larger than his own body, and a small screen displayed the number 10, then started to count down, a fuse magically lit itself on top of the bomb. "What!? Oh hell no!" Cain screamed in horror as he fled, he was able to run through the next three rooms before the blast shook the ground and annihilated that part of the complex.
-=…elsewhere…=-
Isaac was clearing rooms like average, except he would try new tactics every once in a while to use the things he had to advantage, when he sensed something. He stopped, hearing a voice, and, while not actually audible, it manifested in his mind no less. He heard a few jumbled words shouted very distantly followed by panicked screaming. His thoughts were interrupted when the faintest light shone from down the very extensive hallway, and suddenly the ground beneath him shook rather violently. A second later a thunderous shockwave, brought a light draft to Isaac's skin. While he was astonished, he was also intrigued by the happening and thought to himself. A monster could not have done that, but…so that means… A wide smile spread across his face. He started clearing rooms as hastily as he could without tiring himself, and headed in that direction.
-=Cain…=-
Cain lay face first on the ground, a few cuts scattered across his skin. "How pleasant," he spat out sarcastically, muffled by the dirt.
After a few seconds of lying there, he lazily brought his arms to the ground and pushed himself up to his knees, the ringing in his ears stopping after a few seconds. As his mind cleared of the ringing, he thought, I need to move. That explosion was huge, so somebody, or rather something, will be bound to arrive and investigate.
He went into the next room and looked around. While he knew his time was short, he sat down and mapped every possible detail of the room he could observe with his senses: plain, one other doorway, compacted dirt floor, and a bomb in the corner, avoid that… He got up and stood still, looking for out of place features. His eyes widened. Wait a minute…
He rubbed his hand on his forehead and stuck it in the air, an otherwise undetectable draft blew away from the wall on his right, running through all of the information he had in his mind; he knew that a draft meant a hole, now he needed to test how big the hole was. He picked up a hefty rock and bashed it against the wall, the thud sounded several times lighter and lighter every time it echoed. An entire room!? he thought in surprise. A strategy came to him. Aha, everything has a purpose. He went over to the bomb and hefted it over to the wall. Next step, clear the area. He entered the next room and was happy when he saw there was nothing in the room, just another doorway. He rushed back into the room and pushed the bomb against the wall. The final step repeated itself in his mind. Ignition and detonation. The bomb had a fuse, but Cain saw a flaw in his plan; there was nothing to light it with.
He felt dismayed. No! I have gotten this far, I can't quit now. But what am I going to do!? It's not like I have the time to search for something in the backpack! He hung his head and shut his eyes. No plan he ever made had failed before. He always had proper training and experience, but nothing prepared him for this. He sat down again when suddenly a red light came from nowhere in his left eye, and he opened them. He saw lines of text falling from the top of his vision in his mechanical eye, and became confused. Is it broken? The falling lines of text disappeared and was replaced by two lines of console like text that read, "Source of ignition - Laser?" and in fine print read "Yes or No."
Taken aback by the eye's sudden 'request' but needing to finish his plan to escape whatever might be coming, he thought, Yes! Please! The light inside of his left eye went green. "Confirmed," a voice said in his ear. Cain, starting to freak out a little, thought, What the hell is going on here? "In due time. that will be answered," the voice sounded in his ear, "but for now, you need a source of ignition. Do not close your left eyelid or it might burn. Please wait as the laser is calibrated."
Cain thought he was going crazy, but for the sake of whatever sanity and chance he had left, he just went with the swing of things. The vision in his left eye went dark as the eye transformed itself from the inside to prepare the laser. Moments later a small red flash followed by many little dots flying around on a wall had shown Cain was not crazy. The little red dots started to form a solid circle of bright light on the wall. The voice chimed in, "Laser grid calibrated! Stare at the point of ignition as if you are using both eyes. Focusing laser grid…"
After the voice finished, Cain noticed the circle becoming more brilliant as it compacted itself into a small beam. Cain stared at the tip of the fuse and almost immediately the fuse started burning, Cain's thoughts transferred into the eye, and the laser stopped. He ran into the other room while the eye reverted to giving Cain sight. Another explosion rang in his ears and he ran into the room to find a hole in the wall small enough for him to crawl through and cracks all around it. "Sweet!" Cain stated and crawled through.
He was greeted with fresh cool air and large mushrooms in each of the room's four corners. Before he did anything else he took what rubble he could find and put it at the entrance of the room, blocking it off. He rested on a mushroom that was much like a bed. After all that happened, the only thing that he wanted to do was know more about what just happened back there. Hoping to be a little less confused he tried conversing, instead of silent thinking. "Can you hear me?" Cain said softly. The voice replied in what Cain perceived to be a feminine voice. "Yes."
Cain waited before asking more. "So what exactly are you? Do you have a name?" It was a second before the voice replied, "Do you want the long version, or the short version?" Cain laughed. "The long version, actually." The voice finally gave Cain the 'long version' of her name. "I am a Semi Integral Extrasensory Relay Application, otherwise known as Siera." Cain understood a little of what her name meant, but not entirely."So you are important to what, the eye itself? Important to me? And what about the extrasensory relay part?" Siera took a second to process all of the information, then replied, "Well, I am important to the eye and you. I am here to advise you on the use of its functions and I determine when it is necessary to give you advice on uses. Such as when you needed the laser. In general, I am a personal assistant." Cain nodded and asked, "Makes sense, but what about extrasensory relay?" Siera was quick to return "I am also here to give you information that you cannot perceive or register well with your own senses such as exact temperature, time, place, and a variety of other environmental variables. So yes, extrasensory relay; Your second mind, your third eye, your sixth sense, etc."
Cain nodded in understanding, and asked one more important question. "You also seem kind of…humorous, what is that about?" Siera replied like protocol, "Ah, yes! I was built to be of assistance in any way possible that is within my programming, so my programmers made me kinda like how a human mind thinks, because normally computers are not understanding of the human mind and its thoughts. they only perceive patterns built in to their reaction system." Siera paused. "Well, actually…" Cain, wondering what she was going to say, asked, "What's wrong?" Siera finally replied, "It's… kinda creepy, are you sure you want to know?" Cain responded "It's okay, at this rate, I am used to creepy." Siera was surprised "Really? You look rather young to know-" Cain interrupted with a sigh. "Siera, who do you think put you in here?" he said as he pointed to the mechanical eye so the camera inside could register. "Not to mention the fact that I was not sedated. I may be crazy, but I put it in myself. It went against an innumerable amount of normal things a human would do. But I was desperate enough to do it almost without hesitation. I think I can handle a gruesome truth every now and then." He finally finished.
Siera was surprised, but she continued as requested. "Well, when my programmers made me, they were having trouble trying to get me adaptable to other types of minds, so they did some research and found the only way to get me to be as adaptable as possible to other human minds was to assimilate me to the human brain, so a small group of 10 people were selected out of a large test group to have me copy. The 10 people were 2 infants, 2 children, 2 teenagers, 2 adults, and 2 elderly, each of opposite gender. They were put in large tubes and had sensors and hardware put in them that many hundreds of computers; monitored, studied, maintained, and kept alive. A single supercomputer compiled, and processed information that eventually led to me. To my records, all are still alive, in fact some are free to live outside the complex in the real world." She finished.
Cain just lay there with all of the new information, his mind blown, mouth hanging open just slightly. Siera replied slowly, "I know it is a lot to take in, but don't ask too many questions. You may ruin some of the surprises." Cain finally brought some words to his mouth and he smiled "life... just got… a hell of a lot more interesting…"
Several hours had passed, but, without Siera, Cain wouldn't know how long. Cain asked small questions ever since he found out about the massive archive he has literally in sight. He grew tired and was going to have to sleep soon enough. "Are you going to stay up much longer?" Siera asked in a bored tone. Cain replied, "Yes, but I have a few questions." Siera sighed but returned, "Yes?" Cain asked tiredly, "How long will you be with me?" Siera retorted, "As long as you are alive." Cain continued. "Will you die? You know, battery wise." Siera laughed lightly. "No. Long story short, I recharge overnight and the lasers use superconductors, so hardly any battery is used. Why?" Cain smiled and closed his eyes. "Because I still need answers to hundreds of questions," he yawned tiredly and went to sleep.
On the inside, only Cain knew his sleep would be filled with more than just rest.
Man, that took forever, to write. (And edit, lol!) For now we are DONE! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, review, favorite, and follow if you did! Next chapter should be out sometime in the next week.
Until next time.
- R-015, - SF
PS give serene a round of applause, this took a good hour for serene to edit, and my product was not that pretty, trust me, my product would not make for good fluent reading