The Box (excerpts)

Excerpt 1

Killalot paved his way through masses of encroaching vorkins, pushing past enemy blades, dodging and weaving through waves of fire, and shooting down all resistance. The medical bay was now in sight; the location was confirmed, and Killalot rushed inside, covering his back, releasing a grenade in the general direction of his pursuers, and finally, finding himself trapped inside, with a bewildered medic, and a slightly recovered patient.

Killalot removed the extra padding from his suit that was scorched by intense pulsar waves, heat beams and random scarring. They were now useless; he discarded them, allowed for a quick breather, and stopped.

It was only now that he noticed another in the room.

Dunham’s gun was pointed straight at the Colonel’s head. “Oh, my apologies sir. I didn’t know if it was you.” Dunham’s electro sensors had picked up the Colonel’s implant signature, and he quickly identified his FPU comrade.

“Well, may I do the honours?” Dunham asked, bringing the pistol around in contact with Sue’s head. “Hartick gave us direct orders to kill the insurgents on site.”

“I don’t remember Hartick ever giving that order. Are you sure?” Killalot managed to say between breaths.

“Yeah. Here’s the document, if you want to see it”

Sure enough, it was right there, as Dunham had explained.

“Very well” Killalot said. “If that is what Har”

Killalot was cut off by an audible moan, coming from the patient. Sue was coming round, and in between modes of consciousness and sleep, strange dreams prompted physical reactions. “No!” she screamed.

Killalot looked in her direction. Staring straight down at her. Cerebellum monitors picked up an alert, a chemical compound emanating from the recesses of his brain. Killalot’s visual HuD signalled the intrusion; his brain had released a cognitive function, and, in doing so, had tried to once again establish a regulated flow of emotion. Killalot halted Dunham for a moment; time for some minor tweaking. Killalot recognised the intrusion source, an unquarantined memory had flashed randomly within his mind, stimulated by some sort of present input. He dealt with it immediately, by injecting himself with a small dose of Thrylaliptamine, and the error faded.

Killalot was about to resume with the execution, when suddenly, another scream. “Please, Donny, no more!”

Now it was strong. A huge surge, and an image, no, now a memory, only brief, but nevertheless a memory, came to mind.

“Donny! Remember the roses!”

Powerful now, intoxicating, reaching into the recesses of his mind, it was all coming back now, a resurgence of life; his senses reacted to it, and the memory was now so dominant, it was dangerous to the Colonel’s very cognitive function. It was overriding his system.

He could now see faces, faces associated with thoughts and memories; and even feelings.

“Do you not remember Donny, mother said ‘there’s always another job, but never hang on to a fools hope?’ Donny, the rose was lovely!”

Sue’s speech was slurred and meaningless; but to the Colonel, the absence of sentence structure did not in any way deter the effect of the words partitioned onto his human mind. His head jolted back, cowering under waves of intrusive mind alterfication; sensing the imminent danger, he held back a tiny cry, as a part of him beckoned to scream ‘enough!’

By now Dunham’s sensor’s had picked up the cause of concern.

“Sir, you have a breach, you will need to quarantine it, immediately”

“I realise that, private” Killalot managed to whisper, in a soft, pain-filled murmur.

Dunham’s HuD alerted him no more; it had now decided to eliminate the outbreak.

“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t have this happening”

The Colonel moved so quick. He had witnessed more outbreaks in his time than probably any other alive, and he had taken part in countless quarantine measures, having to execute whole squads of promising, young warriors who had not managed to keep themselves in check. One such execution now flashed back into mind; a young, eager soldier, now just graduated into the FPU ranks, had fallen in love with a young attractive member of his staff, and the two had tried to make a desperate run out to the great oak tree out the back of the compound, where they would probably, most innocently, embrace each other with their love. Killalot had found them both by the oak tree, and had not wasted a moment in culling the outbreak. Both members were killed instantly; they probably didn’t even know before they had died.

Dunham’s speed too, was quick, he was an efficient soldier, and as he whipped his gun around into position, Killalot ducked, flicking his large machete around and, after making contact with Dunham’s heart, he rushed the injured soldier, pinned him to the ground, grabbed his airway, and squeezed tight. Dunham, when his life was but about to leave him, managed to push the bulky secondary Colonel from his body, and, seeing Sue now fully conscious and trying to make an escape, he rushed after her, caught her, and prepared to make the kill. Sue screamed. Her eyes had just enough time to see Killalot’s steely visor, and, as she thought all was lost, Killalot rose from his seated position, grabbing the fallen pistol from behind him, and quickly dispersed of his adversary, with one, quick, precise shot to the head. Dunham’s HuD broke offline, and all, for him, went blank.

Sue rushed into the arms of her hero. He embraced her, only as he had no other choice, while his thoughts, now partly non-sensically emotionally driven, were at the moment elsewhere.

“Medic,” he summoned. “We’re leaving.”

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Excerpt 2

Meanwhile, in the crew manifest, David was busy explaining to Sue how he had lost Andy during the escape. Sue found it hard to believe that the secondary Colonel was responsible for the death of her husband, and she immediately doubted such accusations.

“Dave. If you were there to see it”

“I know, it might seem all a little vague at the moment, but Sue please, I, I heard the shot”

“Why did you run?”

David sighed, holding his head in his hands, and finally, pulling his face upright. The shame of abandoning his best friend was overwhelming, not to mention the pain of the loss itself.

“He pushed me away. There was nothing I could do.”

Sue comforted him, grabbing his hand and softly stroking it.

“Dave, how long have we known each other? I gotta trust you Dave. I know you would have tried, but, maybe you were wrong about Killalot. In the heat of the moment, isn’t it possible”

David interrupted her.

“Sue, I heard the shot.” David paused, shaking his head in grief.

Silence followed, as neither of them was prepared to speak; each was wary of the other’s judgement. Rather than engaging in hot debate, the matter was disregarded, and Sue, turning her head to see Killalot enter the room, passed him a short smile from over her shoulder. Her face did not reveal her apprehension in doing so, and Killalot was seemingly oblivious to her concerns.

She would speak to him on the matter, soon, but just not now. She had to work up the courage to approach him with such a question, and at the moment, she was not inclined to do so.

She turned back to David, once again consoling him with her warm embrace. David’s eyes were fixated solely downwards, so as to prevent any so called “eye contact” with his adversary; the very man whom had supposedly killed his best friend, now standing in the very room he was currently occupying. David was not a rash man, and, unlike Gallager, was not planning any hostilities. The past was to be forgotten, and to be let go.

Unfortunately for David, Killalot had a different agenda. The secondary Colonel had finally decided to inform him of his intended plans, upon touching down on Dor’e Mialo.

Killalot pulled up a chair beside the two, and sat down. With no hesitation, and avoiding any sort of small talk, Killalot cut to the chase.

“When we reach the planet, I am taking you back aboard the Hue. If you have any objections, well, too bad. But I will follow through on my proscribed duties. Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, I must take you into custody. I have my orders.”

“Your orders from who? Hartick? He left you for dead, Killalot!”

“It is not in my jurisdiction to judge the actions of my superior. If you have a problem, take it up with him”

“You’re a pawn, Killalot. You destroy your own self-worth for the mere purpose of being ‘used’. Why?”

Killalot shrugged in reply.

“If you take us back there the Colonel will kill us. How does that make you feel?”

Killalot shrugged again. “I have my orders. Barter with Hartick, not me.”

Sue stared at him pleadingly, mouth agape, wide eyed and distraught.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I have to.”

David looked him straight in the face now. “Look at her. I mean, really look at her. In the eyes. You take her back, and she is dead. Gone. You might as well put a bullet through her head right now. Do you want this to happen? There must have been some reason as to why you killed that soldier back there”

Killalot, frustrated, and slightly enraged, whipped out his pistol, the barrel in direct contact with David’s head. “Enough,” he demanded.

Sue launched herself at Killalot, releasing the pistol from his grip as he desperately struggled to ensure that the trigger was not pulled. In a blur of motion, Killalot had managed to break free of Sue’s grasp, pushing her back against the chair, but, unfortunately, as the struggled ensued, David had retrieved the weapon. Looking back up, the FPU soldier was stunned to see his adversary, not pointing the gun at him, but oddly enough, positioned directly in line with Sue.

“I’m not dumb, Killalot. You would’ve stopped me had I tried to kill you. I offer an alternative situation”

Killalot was dumbfounded.

“You’re insane. What do you hope to achieve?” Killalot cackled, smirking behind the cover of his helmet.

“Say goodbye to her, Colonel”

Sue screamed in distress, David now pinning her to the ground.

“Donny! Don’t let go, please Donny! Donny, I’m slipping! Donny!”

The memory surged to life, as if the very moment itself was now made manifest, and reality itself passed away to all but a shadow. The memory, the feelings, the emotions, it all whirred to life, the pain of loss- the image so real now, so unavoidable that in the very moment itself, he almost mistook it for reality. Feelings that had been suppressed for so long, overdoses of Thrylaliptamine and self-suppression; living in such a dormant state, it was like awakening to a world beyond, the cold, hard truth of reality.

“Noooooooo!” Killalot screamed, tossing his rifle aside, as he plunged headfirst towards Sue. Reality and memory overlapped, the two events forming to become one in his mind, and suddenly, he found himself back to that fateful day, re-living the same events; a second chance.

Oblivious to David’s presence, Killalot stormed forward, grabbing Sue by the wrist and leading her outside the ship. Sue had just enough time to grab a mask before she was pushed into full flight. Killalot did not stop, running as fast as his legs would take him; running from his memories, from danger, from himself, from Hartick, from reality- running from it all. He would run until he felt no more, until the spirit transcended and no longer experienced the woes of the body and soul, until all that was left of him was, in essence, a state of sleeply death.

Finally Killalot collapsed, and Sue, now almost vomiting from the fast motions inflicted upon her already battered body, fell with him. They had found an old abandoned facility, supplying secure oxygen, yet the presence of helium added greatly to the noxious euphoria.

“You’re safe now” Killalot pleasingly assured, and smiling intently, stroked her hair, so beautiful and precious as it was. Once again the two companions entered their alternate reality, slipping away from true experience, into a world conjured by their disturbances and inflictions, a world of happiness, reflection, and escape. A world parallel to the phenomenon of each other’s minds, a world, of dream.

“Donny,” Sue uttered. “It’s me, Claire. I’m here. You saved me. I didn’t die- you did. You died inside, and you forgot about me- but I didn’t forget about you. You’re back Donny. Donny, I love you, Donny…..”

Sue, in her surreal state, removed Killalot’s helmet, and placed it gently on the ground. She could see his face now; it was scarred with agony, wrought by time, and changed, so changed from how it used to be, how Claire remembered it. His neck was coiled with wire, a metal plate against his forehead; he had changed, oh how he had changed, a reflection of the years lost.

Sue embraced him, her lips touching his, and she kissed him lightly, and he, in turn, returned the favour.

Killalot’s helmet now lay dormant, no longer able to calculate the readings of Killalot’s current state. The last reading taken before removal remained imprinted upon the screen.

Col protocol Article….. server…… searching….. done.

Match not found…. Error/ Re-writing. Identify/Re-classify?

Oxygen levels: stable. Ambient levels stabilizing.

pH levels: stable

Blood pressure levels: stable

Glucose levels: stable. Enhancing agent detected.

Reading Cerebrum…. Please wait….

1 error found. FPU match Killalot not verified. WARNING override.

Emotional activity evident ( ) past critical.

Non FPU wearer identified. Killalot identified?end error. Error….. error.

Malfunction node (end)/.