Chapter 10
1770 Words
As Walker explained the whole situation to the woman I started looking around. I started to see how she was using this place as a front for something. She had tabs on different people. They were all numbered, one through 8.
“Boy how many glyphs are there?” I asked on a hunch.
“Besides this one, seven.” Walker said.
“Hmm…” I said.
“What’s up?” Walker asked.
“Why are you keep tabs on these eight characters?” I asked the woman.
“They were all part of the take down of Hunraken.” The woman said.
“And you’ve been keeping track of them?” I said suspiciously.
“I had to, Hunraken is an extremely powerful man,” the woman said.
“How powerful?” I asked.
“Remember how I told you about the Iron Hand?” Walker said.
“Yes,” I said sounding a bit worried.
“Hunraken was above them.” Walker said.
“You didn’t bother to tell me this?” I said.
“It wasn’t necessary at the time,” Walker said.
“Now it is I take it,” I said.
“Nobody had seen Hunraken at all since he got banished.” Walker said.
“What the hell did he get banished for?” I asked.
I realized I had never asked this up to this point.
“Illegally experimenting on people, in the now defunct Project that is called Project Rho.” The woman said. I stared at her for a moment. I felt that I had heard of that project somehow, before. I just could not tell how.
“Where is he from?” the woman asked Walker.
“Very far from here,” Walker answered.
“No wonder he looks so lost,” the woman said.
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “What is this thing called Project Rho?”
“It happened on Rho about 40 years ago,” the woman said.
“So, you mean to tell me that there was some crazy project happening on that damn moon?” I asked Walker.
“We came from Rho,” Walker said to the woman’s puzzled look. “There is two Project Rho’s that happened. The first happened a long time ago when my father was in his teens, and his father Alastair was the King of Saffar.”
“And Norman Hunraken was in charge of that?” I asked.
“Nobody knew that,” the woman said. “Not until later at least.”
“Okay, now you are going to have to explain what you mean by that.” I said.
“Fine, since I was there, I can tell you a lot.” The woman said.
“You? How old are you?” I asked.
“I think I was constructed about 80 years ago.” The woman said.
I thought that was a weird way she would describe her being born, but Fakirs would say weird things, so I didn’t think much about it.
“Project Rho was started by Norman Hunraken about 100 years ago, and before you ask yes Fakirs can live that long.” Walker said.
“Let me say the rest prince.” The woman said taking over the story.
Eighty years ago, a young Norman Hunraken, was an up and coming Genetic and Automatic Engineer, whatever the hell that meant. He was a world renown genius. During the time the regime of the Golordia Prime had met with the Fakir kingdom to discuss possible coalitions.
The talks broke down, mostly because of instigation from Norman Hunraken. This apparently was not known at the time that he was the one who caused the breakdown of the talks, but now that he was discovered as the reason behind it many agree he was a terrifyingly intelligent, capable of manipulating many different things.
“But the primate said he could not have pulled this off on his own,” I had interjected at this point. Walker looked like he was thinking about that for a second.
“That’s true,” Walker said.
“What is he talking about?” Sammie asked.
I decided to name her such in my mind, since Walker called her this. The name fit her, she did indeed seem like a Sammie.
“Lord Hanuman suggested that Hunraken was not smart enough to pull off what is going on, on his own.” Walker said.
“Lord Hanuman,” Sammie said nodding as if she knew exactly what he meant.
Sammie continued her tail. She was one of eight constructions. Whatever the hell that meant, it essentially meant that there were seven others like her. The oldest was man named Oscar Noir Emerald, apparently named ONE. The youngest one was named Esmeralda Isabel Gloria Hernandez Teal, apparently named EIGHT.
“What is with the numbers?” I interjected, seeing how Sammie’s name was also an Acronym which apparently spelled SIX.
“I’ll get to that in a moment,” She said.
Sammie was, of course, apparently the sixth one constructed whatever the hell that meant. Sammie’s purpose was to provide services for Norman Hunraken. Apparently during his defunct project, the creepy scientist needed help. At first, Sammie did not know that what she was doing was helping the insane madman experiment with women and children.
“How did you not know that?” I asked.
“Hunraken is very clever,” Sammie said.
“Say what you will about him, but you should have noticed it way earlier, oh look another kid…oh woah where did he go? Oh, look a woman…oh…we did what on her?!” I said stating what I thought was the obvious.
“I saw it happening but I couldn’t do anything about it at first,” Sammie said.
“Why not?” I asked snorting.
“Because I couldn’t,” Sammie said.
“I figure it being pretty easy, oh look whacky scientist injecting that kid with god knows what let me bash his skull in with a chair.” I said.
“Hunter!” Walker said.
“What boy? I am speaking the truth,” I shrugged.
“Maybe I should have done that,” Sammie said after a long pause. “But at that time, I did not have that ability. I was not given ability to make up my own mind about things like EIGHT was.” I had no idea what she meant by that but decided to let her continue with her story.
Per her, EIGHT was constructed about 60 years ago, whatever that meant, and her task was to infiltrate these rebels that were called GABE. An acronym for Golordians Against the Black Empire, this was led by one named Marx Browne. EIGHT ended up defecting and helping GABE.
GABE was beginning to turn the tides of war when all of the sudden about 40 years ago Hunraken staged an alien invasion.
“What do you mean he staged an Alien invasion?” Walker said.
Sammie explained what that meant, GABE had apparently started to gain ground. They were revolutionizing and overthrowing the suppressive regime of Jason Black, and the Fakirs who had signed this treaty that was jokingly called the Declaration of FreeDOOM.
“I had heard of that,” Walker said. “But this was way before I was born.”
Sammie continued this story and GABE discovered the existence of the second iteration of Project Rho. This came in the form of a young girl who appeared named Alexis Rose. She had appeared mid the invasion, where she apparently didn’t know who she was and how she got there. She apparently chased the supposed invaders away by summoning.
“LIGHTNING?!” I said shocked.
I looked over at Sammie as if I was trying to figure out if she was pulling my leg. She looked unemotional, and she looked like she was stating nothing but facts.
“When was this?” I said.
“About 40 years ago,” Sammie said.
I started to churn ideas in my head. This girl, Alexis Rose apparently had appeared out of nowhere. In the middle of an Alien invasion.
“Where those things invading, in silver suits?” I asked.
“No, they were giant insects, everyone thought it was the Zhiran who came back.” Sammie said. “That did not make sense, especially after all these eons of not being seen.”
“The Zhiran?” I asked and remembered what my father had said about him seeing a giant insect thing he called a Zhiran all those years ago.
“How come we didn’t see remnants of this war on Rho?” Walker asked.
“It was 40 years ago,” Sammie said.
I started to churn ideas again. 40 years ago, my planet was invaded by that race of lizard things inside of those silver suit things, Lacia D’Opidium produced lightning out of her hands and hit the pack leader of those creatures straight on. Lacia and I looked for the Amulet that Lacia thought the creature was after. She then told me to use it on her. So, I did.
Then forty years ago on Rho, a young girl appears out of nowhere and uses Lightning to chase away these Zhiran things? I immediately started to conclude one thing. Lacia, as a spirit had arrived on Rho 40 years ago. She came in the form of that young girl named Alexis Rose, as Alexis she chased away this alleged invading force.
“But you said that Hunraken was behind all of this?” Walker said.
“Yes,” Sammie said.
Sammie went to explain the entire invasion was a ploy by Norman Hunraken and the Fakirs. They had found, apparently, something called DNA that belonged to the Zhiran. Hunraken then started his second iteration of Project Rho, one which used the Golordians as guinea pigs and he transformed many of the peoples of Golordia into these horrendous insect-like creatures.
Once he had enough of these creatures made, he staged this invasion. The purpose? To disrupt GABE from really overthrowing the regime. However, at that point things started to fall apart for Norman Hunraken. Sammie and the rest of her assembly, as she called them, started to become self-aware and decided to turn against Norman. EIGHT had been the instigator, because she had joined GABE the others started seeing how they could easily do the same.
Sammie then turned all the documents she had about Norman’s involvements with both the original Project Rho and then the second Project Rho which had culminated in the creation of those creatures that he staged to invade the planet.
I tried to wrap my mind about everything.
“What kind of sick twisted individual are we dealing with?” I asked. “Experimenting with people is one thing but staging an entire invasion with things he created?”
“And yet Hanuman, said he is not smart enough to pull something off like what is happening now by himself.” Walker said.
“That has me worried,” Sammie said. “What is happening?”
It was our time to tell her what was going on. From our adventure to find the Mask of Damus only to find out that Walker’s eldest brother Xavier had already gotten it about two years ago. To us appearing on this world and learning from Montezuma of the appearance of Hunraken and others he had called the Storm Bringers in the male camp, specifically to find Xavier. And finally, to the male camp being frozen solid and Hunaman suggesting finding those who worked with Hunraken to find out what he is up to.
“The male city is frozen solid you say?” Sammie said.
“Yes, completely,” I said, and I noticed she looked white. “You know what caused that don’t you?”
“Yes,” Sammie said and almost in a shaking voice she said, “The Rrr…ed Dawn…”
- Writer
