Chapter 1 - Termination of MarsH2-3(1) - Cookie
A boy sat in a sterile room on top of a white stool around a light blue tinted glass table. His feet kicked under the table as he doodled on the floating hologram that was being projected from a blue band a few centimeters thick around his wrist. Across the glass table, a largely built man with grey hair sat hunched over while watching the child.
The boy looked up, “When’s cookie time?”
The man smiled as he rubbed his hand over his smooth head, “After you finish the work.”
The child pouted as he wiped the drool that was trailing down the side of his mouth, “Fine!”
The man made a faint smile as the boy finished solving a part of the differential equation. The sides of the equation gradually revealed themselves as the two vectors were solved. The man reminisced about the moment he received the child four years ago. It was a momentous occasion for a day. And then, so what? The same routine he had held for decades continued.
The boy looked across the table and turned the panel for the man to see, “One cookie?”
A low hum droned on in the background as the sharp thuds of a small mechanical clock ticked away. He pointed at the equation, “It’s solved, see?”
The man laughed, “You must solve for the eigenvalues too. What’s the point of knowing the vectors if you don’t know how many?”
The boy grumbled as he quickly calculated the eigenvalues. The man stood up and walked over to a shelf. Inside were six square paper packages. The man took out a knife from his belt and slashed the top open revealing two cookies that glowed a slight blue. On the discarded packaging, the words Ether Cookies were written in large block letters.
The paper tray slid out of the packaging. He swiftly slid the knife back into his belt and produced a small flame with a snap of his hand and burned up the packaging. A faint orange light flashed in his eyes before returning to a muddy brown. He placed the tray on the table and pulled his stool next to the boy.
The boy looked up, “I did it! See?”
The man smiled as he slid the tray in front of the boy, “Good job. Take a little break.”
The boy’s eyes lit up as he stared expectantly at the man, “Really?”
The man sighed as he looked into the eyes of an excited child. What would his life be like if he still had his children. He mentally scolded himself, he had them but let them go. As he watched the young boy he wondered to himself how he lost something so precious. Had he given up? He felt his nails digging into his palms as he turned towards the boy as he ate the cookies.
The boy chomped on the cookie and looked up at the man, “Wuaut’s wong?” (What’s wrong)
The man quickly came back to his senses, “What would you like to learn about?”
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“A battle! A big one!”
The man pointed to the table, “Clean up the crumbs first.”
As the boy scooped up some of the glowing crumbs, the man muttered under his breath, “Where’d it all go wrong?”
The boy looked up, “Huh?”
He frowned, “I’m alright.”
He refocused himself back to reality and brought up a panel for the current news. He sighed as he scrolled through a page of blindingly colorful advertisements that all looked the exact same.
His eyes hurt from staring at the flashing neon lights fly by his face and he groaned and squeezed his eyes.
The panel landed on a large recording of a man talking with a raging fire behind him. The report greeted the viewers and turned around, “As you can see, we are currently watching one of our empire’s mega foundries being razed to the ground. A terrorist attack from minutes ago saw two frigate sized civilian transportation vessels drop onto this foundry.”
The man’s eyes widened as he saw the walls of the outer containment building collapse. The report continued, “This magnesium foundry is the only stable source of magnesium for the empire. An ongoing investigation has been initiated for his incident.”
The man sat back in his chair and muttered, “Again?”
The boy looked over at the man, “Can I go play?”
The man nodded and the boy left to go to his bedroom. The man stared out the window at the vast habitat. The mansion was located parallel to the ring meaning the windows looked down upon the curvature of the spinning ring that was the habitat.
He looked up and saw the artificial sky and the large fission reactor that was the lifeline of millions. He reached out his hand to cover the bright spot that was blinding him. A thought crossed his mind, “What if someone stole the sun?”
He shook his head at the idea and stood up to look out the large window. He saw people running around on the streets. Just as children had been doing for thousands of years prior. People rushing to catch the trolly, others flying through the transit tubes to get to work on time. The man looked down at his wrinkled hands. The callouses and scars ached to be in the fresh air.
The man wondered how many more years he would need to live like this. He looked at the news again. On the headlines were the words: Today Marks The 1450th Year Since Mercury’s Purge.
The man’s eyes glazed over as he read the headlines, and he staggered into his chair. He looked at the first line of the article, “On 7002, Gaius on the mothership class vessel ‘Punisher’ fired a bolt of highly concentrated ether at mercury which turned the surface inside out.”
The picture in the article showed an animated image of a blue wave slowly covering Mercury. The man’s hands shook as he continued scrolling through the article.
The man stared at the panel with tired eyes. As he read, his face became lifeless and lethargic. The final sentence of the article shook him as he read it, “And some infested have escaped.”
The man stared at the panel in horror as he reread the last sentence. He looked out the window to see a sickly green and grey dot crash through the artificial sky sending large fragments raining into the metropolis. Repair bots quickly caught the fragments and sealed the hole as if nothing had never happened. The man rubbed his eyes as he looked at the grey ball and froze in place.
A green panel popped up as a hologram flashed. A voice spoke, “Xenos sighted in MarsH2-3.”
The man breathed in, “Not again.”
In a dark alleyway, a small flesh like sphere rolled out of a lab with a caterpillar like grey mass attached to it. The caterpillar slowly consumed the sphere and excreted 3 smaller spheres. The spheres quickly rooted themselves into the ground using wood-like roots. A small green rose like structure grew out of the top of the spheres.
Seconds later, a humanoid figure stepped out of the flower. The caterpillar split into parts and melted into the back of each of the figures. Veins formed between the spheres as they collected light. Over time, the entire alley became one large fleshy mass.
A security officer shined a light down the alleyway, “Is anyone there?”
“Yes”
“Are you alright? I heard a sound.”
“Sound. All. Right.”
“I’m walking i- GAH… UGH!“