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AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you check my website link below, I have a full color drawing of Jordan in the gif image so that you can see how I visualize his appearance. You'll also find a link to a blog post I wrote on Kolin and killsuits embedded about halfway down the page. This blog post includes a sexy full color drawing of Kolin modeling in his armor. :) I drew both the pictures of Jordan and Kolin myself.
"Wraith" uses the main characters featured in the science-fiction novel "Slipstream", but is its own story that I will post in its entirety on Nifty. Both of these tales are based on the events established in the short story, "The Insanity of Zero." If you like Jordan, Kathy, and Kolin, please consider giving "Slipstream" a read.
If you are a reviewer for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fictionwise, or would just like to talk about my stories on your blog, please contact me for a complimentary e-copy of "Slipstream" in .pdf format.
Here is my author information:
Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html
Email: kavrik@hotmail.com
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Chapter Thirteen
"What the fuck is this?" Kathy asked.
Jordan couldn't answer her question. He had no idea.
"Ignore it," he said, trying to look away from the horror. "Look there." He gestured at a door across the room. "Do you see that? It leads to the pool area. Let's take that and get out of here."
She checked to make sure he was ready then walked into the room. Jordan followed close behind. They crossed quickly, and Jordan wrinkled his nose at the assault of rotten flesh on his sense of smell.
"It'll be over soon, buddy," he whispered to Kolin.
The Brit had turned his face into Jordan's chest, eyes closed. Jordan thought Kolin might be exhausted. He didn't think anything in the room could actually frighten his friend. But, he had no idea what Kolin had witnessed in a lifetime of survival on Avalon. Oddly, the boy in Jordan couldn't help but stare at the awful things with a mix of revulsion and curiosity.
He almost wanted to touch one of them.
His mind wandered...is this what blood breeding entails?
Ashley had said, "Death isn't something to fear considering what you may have to go through to get there."
Once they reached the door, Kathy swung it open to the pool room. Jordan took one last look behind him, and his excellent vision picked out a label near some blinking lights on one of the machines. It read, "World Research Institute for Human Evolution." The address read "East St. Louis, Illinois."
Human evolution? Jordan thought. Is that eugenics?
The nearly Olympic-sized swimming pool beyond had been drained of water. Now it served as a kind of prison with chain link walls set into the concrete surrounding the edge of the pool. Being held here in this fenced off area stood hundreds of undead corpses. They gnawed, gnashed, and clawed at the fence. Some of them sloughed off swaths of bloody, putrid skin.
Kathy turned on her heel and vomited at Jordan's feet. "I can't do this," she stated.
Jordan waited for her stomach to stop churning, although his own started giving him a wild ride. He could taste bile in his mouth. "We have to go on, Kat," he said. "There's another exit over there and some stairs. They're behind the fence. They can't get at us."
Kathy stood and placed her back against the cool tile of the wall. The zombies in the pit area formed by the vacant pool started to moan intelligibly and pull at the links with rotten fingers.
"All right, just give me a second." Kathy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and composed herself. Then she gripped the Colt .44 tightly and walked into the room. They made a bee-line for the door opposite where they'd just entered from--a glass portal flanked by fake indoor plants with the letters "Swimming Pool" spelled out in white decals on the other side. Beyond it, they found a flight of stairs that ascended into the gloom.
She stepped forward, opened the door, and held it ajar with her toe so that Jordan could step through with Kolin. She turned on her flashlight. Then they climbed one flight of stairs and saw another door with a sign to the left. It read "Parking Garage." The flight of stairs continued upward but Kathy stopped at this door and looked at him to see if he had any ideas.
"It's worth a look," Jordan offered. "There're humans here, and some of them have vehicles. We could always come back and keep going up."
She grasped the handle, pulled it open, and stared out into the darkness. She flicked her flashlight about, and Jordan could make out hundreds of cars, some of them destroyed, but others in almost pristine condition.
He heard voices...more like whispers because of distance. They were probably echoes carried down from other levels of this concrete complex. Kathy shone her light to the right, and it fell upon an almost new yellow Hummer. One of the doors was half closed, and a skeleton lay on the concrete, half-in, half-out of the vehicle. Dried blood splattered the driver's side window.
"I think I have something," she said. He followed her over to the corpse which she pulled loose from the cab.
Jordan spotted a car battery with this year's date stamped on it lying on the ground.
"It looks like this guy was trying to get this Hummer going and got ambushed and killed. Here's a new battery that he was going to install."
Kathy bent down and searched the coat and pulled loose some keys. One of them belonged to the H3. Jordan smiled and opened the back door and pushed Kolin inside and then scrambled in next to him. His sister got into the driver's seat, inserted the keys, and confirmed the battery was dead.
"I'll be right back," she said.
Kathy popped the hood and changed out the battery. Then she got back inside and turned the ignition again. This time, the interior dashboard lit up, and she grinned happily.
"We can't go now," she told him. Jordan looked at her with a questioning gaze. "Trust me on this, Jordy. We'll wait till sunrise, catch some Zs, and then when all of those things have gone to bed, we'll drive out of here."
Jordan knew she was right. If they left now, they'd be in serious trouble. "Hand me the light," he stated. "I want to see what we have in here as far as equipment goes."
She passed him the flashlight over the seat, and he took inventory, saying everything aloud as he found it. "We have one jack, spare tire, a cooler-" he paused abruptly to pop the top off of it. "Containing one completely decomposed something in a bag," he stated, handing it to her to throw on the ground outside, "And a six pack of cola-labeled this year." He pulled the top on one and took a sip. "It tastes like Coke."
Kathy rolled up her window, shut the door, and then locked them in. "We'd best be cautious and try to keep our voices low. That, and we should get some sleep-we've been going on empty for two days now little brother. Give me one of those colas," she stated. "Please."
Jordan reached into the cooler, grabbed one, took the top off for her, and passed it across the seat. It was room temperature, but as he'd said, it still tasted refreshing. Then he grabbed his and gently patted Kolin's cheeks, waking him. "Have a drink of this," he said, offering him some. Kolin tilted his head back and swallowed the cola as Jordan held the can to his lips. Even dirty like this, Jordan thought Kolin so beautiful. It made his heart flutter to just watch him.
"Mmm this tastes so good," Kathy stated. "I think it's the sugar, really?"
"Yeah."
"Wow," she said, looking at the two of them. "He's really thirsty."
Jordan raised his eyebrows in affirmation and tipped the can further as Kolin drained its contents so that more flowed into his mouth. After it was half gone, Jordan stuck it in a drink holder and started looking under seats. "Add one emergency blanket and... ta-da- one First-Aid kit."
He looked at Kolin's face which seemed to get some color in it when he mentioned that. The Brit's eyes fixated on the First-Aid kit, and Jordan snapped it open. "We have gauze, large bandages, rubbing alcohol, swabs, and...hello..." He held a bottle up to the light. "Pain meds. I'd wish for one of those new med kits that Kolin had with the liquid bandages but this'll do in a pinch. I wonder what killed the guy that was going to take this Hummer?"
"I was thinking that too. He's been dead several months at least."
He measured out four of the 250 mg pills and handed them to Kolin who managed to weakly pop them into his mouth. Jordan held the drink to his lips again and Kolin swallowed them down. "That may do something for the pain," he paused, fingering the rusted metal collar. "This damned thing is like an inch wide."
For the first time since they'd rescued him, Kolin managed a weak smile.
Jordan reached into the First-Aid kit and took out the bottle of rubbing alcohol. "Kolin, I'm going to try and clean the wound by letting some of this run down your neck and maybe get to the skin behind the collar. It's going to hurt like hell."
The color seemed to drain from the young Brit's face, and he shook his head and mouthed the word, No. Despite not being able to produce sound, his protestation was most emphatic.
"I'm going to insist. You've been cut and as far as I can tell, the bleeding has stopped but I'm concerned with infection."
"Why would she cut his throat like that?" Kathy asked, "And not kill him. I don't understand."
Kolin started mouthing words that both of them could barely discern. Reading lips was not a skill that either of them practiced. "My cybernetic implant--I enhance things with my voice. She knew I could mind control her if she allowed me to speak."
Jordan stared at Kathy with amazement. "That's really cool."
Kolin listened to Jordan, eyes partially open, but sheer exhaustion plagued him. When he'd reclined, Jordan unscrewed the cap to the rubbing alcohol and poured a small amount down his chin so that it flowed under the metal collar. Kolin's eyes shot open, and he also tried to sit up. In reaction, Jordan scrambled on top of him, pressing his arms down into the seat with his knees.
"Shh...be brave, Kolin. It's painful I know but it's cleaning the wound."
Kolin's eyes teared up, and he looked up at Jordan mouthing, "It burns. Make it stop, please."
"Shh. Wait. The burn will subside."
Kolin stopped squirming and just lay still.
After about a minute, Jordan moved off of him and wiped Kolin's face with the edge of the blanket. The Brit looked at him and squeezed his hand, breathing easier. In the driver's seat, Kathy closed her eyes and fell into an almost instantaneous slumber. Jordan reclined, and let the smell of leather interior waft over him.
With both Kolin and Kathy quietly resting, Jordan rolled to one side and spotted a satchel in the back of the seat in front of him. He removed it. Inside he found a lab journal, decorated with a seal matching that on the equipment from the blood breeding lab. He ran his finger over the embossed gold insignia and mumbled, "the World Research Institute for Human Evolution." In another pouch, he found a magnetic security badge.
Jordan realized the Hummer's owner had been a scientist. There were only a few papers here, the guy's personal notes.
"I am in stage 976 of the Genesis Project, but have been unable to reproduce the results of our only successful experiment. So many monsters have resulted from our failure to produce another Adam. The monsters require human males to procreate, and it's getting harder to find them out here as the men and boys die having their reproductive organs removed. As yet, none of the human females they have impregnated lived through childbirth. And their offspring have all been sterile...a small blessing. If only we had sperm from our Adam, then Zero might be happy at last. And I'd get to stop dealing with the monsters."
Jordan flipped the page to another entry. "The larvae once introduced into the mouth of a human host are able to mind-control them. But this mind-control results in a terrible craving for human flesh. I've had to isolate the subjects in a holding pen for the safety of my staff who work part-time with the monsters. They want an army that they can control to attack the cities, but once the hunger sets in, they become little more than voracious animals. Furthermore, if the body dies, the worm still seems to be able to control the corpse long after animation should cease. The only way to put the things down is a shot to the brain stem where the larva wraps itself around the spinal cord and sends messages along nerve fibers to the muscles of the body."
Jordan turned to another entry and continued reading.
"The monsters report that our Adam has returned to the Waste. After almost seventy years, our research might at last be salvaged. I've instructed them to freeze him for storage. I will surgically extract his testes and take them back to the lab. The monsters can have the rest of him to do with as they please. He has polluted himself with a mechanical implant. We cannot have this in our new Eden. With his perfect sperm we should be able to grow another Adam. Then I and my team shall cleanse this world with the weapon. Eve was completed long ago, and is in a deep sleep awaiting the children he shall bestow upon her womb. Just like our Adam, she is genetically perfect. Those who inherit Avalon in the new age shall have the best chance at survival in a world free of disease, ugliness, and monsters.
"Perhaps they shall even be gods. That is what Zero directs us to do from the machine in the main chamber. He calls it a manifest destiny to right a mistake that should never have happened. Who am I to dispute the word of God? Only there are so few of us left to follow Zero's orders now. Who will take over for me should the monsters kill me? They certainly will, if they understand that Zero wants to destroy them.
"The rumors say that our Adam has taken to calling himself Kolin. There is so much irony in this. Just as Zero has gone insane and now calls himself Wraith, so it is with his only successful creation. Even in eugenics, the apple does not fall far from the tree. I can't wait to see Kolin again. The result of ten years of genetic manipulation from billions of human gene samples, our Adam has no corporeal flaws. He is a physically perfect male and has supposedly kept himself from aging beyond his early twenties through the use of liquid life.
"Good. I want to see it just once before I turn him over to the monsters. We set our Adam free in the world to learn about love. But he never returned to the lab. I want to ask him, 'Do you know what love is?' Somehow, I think the old Zero may have been right. That before we cleanse the world, our Adam should know love so that this plays a part in the creation of the next.
"But there's so little time left.
"Daily there are new monsters that appear in the Waste. It's the stuff of nightmares, and the very crust of the earth has become seeded with silvery webs carrying information back to some unknown source. I can only suspect that the Shadow is behind it somehow, sending forth glass spiders to weave webs through the brains of the dead, joining the world in some universal dream for which there is no awakening.
"Once our replacement Adam has been grown from a genetically perfect egg kept frozen in our laboratory, we shall destroy all the others in their vats to keep what we did here in this Age, secret. Adam shall be placed within the spaceship with Eve to survive the cleansing. He shall also be injected with formula 111, the notes for which are in the computer back at the lab. He will need this to survive in Eden."
Jordan looked for other papers, but found no more.
He put the notes and the satchel away, unsure of what to think about the words he had read. He stared at Kolin's fine and peaceful face. He had unblemished, perfect features, a narrow nose, and a mouth he wanted desperately to taste.
Kolin does look perfect, Jordan realized. His heart ached just a little bit. The thought of Kolin mating with a girl made him jealous, but if Kolin did not feel the same way about him, Jordan would learn to live with that ache. He blinked in the darkness and tried to comprehend that the man at his side had been engineered, created by some kind of mad god...a machine of such omnipotence that it could both save and destroy a world.
Z.E.R.O.
Kolin had called it once by name. It stood for Zion Electronic Ruling Operator, and it had gone insane.
Jordan felt himself slipping under but before he went completely unconscious, he tugged Kolin into lying lengthwise with him, and Jordan covered both of their bodies with the blanket he'd found. Then he fell asleep feeling warm and safe for the first time in several days.
Kolin woke up briefly in the night to snuggle tighter with Jordan's sleeping body.
Gently, he kissed Jordan and mouthed the words, "I love you."
Then the Brit returned to sleep, head resting against Jordan's so that his breath fluttered the teen's blond bangs.
Chapter Fourteen will be posted sometime mid-week. There's only a few more chapters left in this novella. As you can see, there's a lot we don't know about Kolin. I hope you are enjoying it. And just as an F.Y.I., these are all details I just didn't have room to explore in "Slipstream."