THE BABYLONIAN

Chapter 4: Tandum

I woke up feeling a bit dizzy. The platform on which I was on was shaking, and I could see the sky – dark yet the clouds tinted by a vanilla color. I saw a flock of about a dozen birds flying, and I kept looking at them until they moved out of my vision. I sat up; I was on the back of a large truck, and there were two people beside me: one was the girl I was saving when the beast was coming at me, the other was a grim man in combat gear who was holding a big gun in his hands. The girl was sleeping with her head on the railing and the man was staring at me.

I looked straight ahead and saw that the sun had almost risen above the horizon. We were moving along a mudded road, with green grasses growing thick on both sides and rocky cliffs towering high. Some of the gigantic rocks had inclined pointy ends that were projecting out above us; some of the parts even looked unnatural as if they were carved. There were huge caves and holes on the rocks, that seemed to go deep inside, from which gigantic birds – or some sort of flying creatures – were flying out as the sunlight was beginning to fall on them. But what surprised me more was that it all felt very real: I no longer felt that there were googles on my face, or that I was sitting inside a stimulation room, with data being transmitted into my brain. It was like I had been reincarnated as Zero.

I stood up, pulling myself up using the railing, to look ahead. We were at the tail of a convoy of trucks and tanks carrying military equipments; and on the back of one truck, that was bigger than the others, there was mounded a large equipment which was about fifty feet high and had a cylindrical blaster like structure on top. That particular truck was in the middle of the convoy, and apparently all the others were for protection.

‘Where are we heading?’, I asked turning to the man who was sitting beside me.

‘Don’t you want to know what happened to the basilisk first, boy? You were out before it happened’, said he, rubbing his shaved head.

‘You mean the large dragon? Did you kill it?’

‘Large?’, he said with a mocking laughter, ‘that was one of the small ones.’

‘You mean…’

I broke off as soon as I heard it – a high pitched shrill. A shadow was suddenly cast upon us as something large covered the sun: one of the flying creatures had stooped down below towards us and was now in front of us with its wings stretched wide. It, once again giving out that deep shrill, advanced towards us. I had no weapon with me, so I backed down and stood pressing myself against the railing.

Up close, the creature didn’t look like a bird at all. It had teeth inside its pointy mouth and its wings were of some kind of membrane. It resembled a Pterodactyls but I could tell that it was a completely different species from anything I’ve heard about.

The girl had also woken up hearing the creatures shrill an was now leaning against me. The man raised his weapon and fired. It only took him just one shot to bust a hole through its abdomen; and it was down. It fell into the mud, and rolled – splashing mud on us. With a sign of relief, I sat down: watching its motionless body. The girl sat down beside me.

‘The Minovaes don’t usually attack us. We even have some as pets in Tandum.’, said the mad.

‘Tandum? Is that your base.’ I asked.

He didn’t answer. He began to dismantle the charges and reload his gun; whistling a tune that sounded familiar.

‘Who are you?’, asked the girl who had been staring at me.

‘I’m… Zero. I found you yesterday, when I was looking for a clue to get to Opium. Tell me, what do you know about it.’

'I don’t remember anything, not even my name. All I know is that they told me they found me with you.’ Said the girl.

I stood up to see where we were going, when the convoy started to turn. We were heading down as if into a valley. The sky began to be cut off by the projections of the cliffs, that projected alternately from each side. After going for a few hundred meters, it was like we were inside a tunnel. It was a bit dark and I could see lights blinking on the sides. After a while it became completely dark.

All the vehicles suddenly stopped. I stood up and look ahead to see what was happening. I heard the sound of someone talking and a light seemed to flash on the farthest end showing me a large metallic door; but it was too dark to see anything clearly.

Then I heard the sound of the vehicles starting, and there was a rumbling sound as the door opened downwards. When the door began to open, light coming from inside lit the passage; the walls of the tunnel no longer looked like rocks, but rather like the interior of a battleship because there were numerous sensors and guns mounted on it. As we got closer I saw that there was a huge height between the path below and the entrance, and the door needed to be opened to act as a bridge for the vehicles to climb up to the entrance.

I was astonished by what I saw inside. The whole interior of the place was vast and looked like there was an entire civilization living inside; there was even a huge lake inside around which many plants and trees were growing. There were huge holes on the roof, that looked like caves I had seen outside, through which the sunlight entered. There were many tower like metal structures rising from the ground at regular intervals, and tents were build onto the walls that towered hundreds of feet high.

As soon as the truck stopped, I jumped out. A man who was in the large truck came towards me, and, addressing the man who was in the truck with me, he said:

‘Winston, Do you think we should tell Red? He sure won’t be too happy about it.’

‘Nah, I say we wait’, said Winston, and he added in a whisper, ‘let’s just keep it between us, huh!’

The other guy nodded and walked away, giving me a look of distrust. I turned and started walking away.

‘Not so fast boy’, said Winston, and he signed me to follow him. He lead me into a building, which was on the farthest end of the platform, and into which everyone else was heading.

I was asked to take off my clothes and to head into a long washing chamber; I was told that it was a mandatory process in order to get rid of any contingents that we possibly could’ve been exposed to. Winston went ahead of me and I followed him in. At first a there was a sudden flush of hot water coming from all sides. I looked down and saw the mud and dirt water dripping to the floor, and flowing away. It was followed by a spray of foam, which was in turn followed by a flush of cold water; and finally there was a blow of hot air. All this time I had the feeling of walking through a car wash.

I was given a new set of clothes and as I exited I saw Winston waiting for me, and he asked me to follow him. He lead me to a building on a raised platform, near one of the tower like structures. There we met a man who had a metal arm.

‘Red, we’ve successfully tested the Verge, and was able to take down a basilisk that wasn’t so small', said Winston. Glancing at me, he added: ‘this is the kid I found from a town near a the nest. He might be of use to us.’

‘Hmmhm… Let him join the third squadron, we could use more men there', said Red in an indifferent manner. ‘Is that all?’

Winston nodded and we walked out.

‘Is he the leader?’, I asked when we got down.

‘You sure do ask a lot of questions boy', said Winston laughing. He called a boy who was walking a little far off. As soon as he heard Winston, he came running.

‘Take him to the third squadron, will ya boy?’, asked Winston to the boy. The boy gladly agreed and we both started walking.

I wondered where the girl was; I hadn’t seen her since I arrived. The place was so huge that I had no idea where to look. I remember Zyan telling me that the clue was in the building. So the girl had to know something. Even if she really couldn’t remember, if I sticked around, I might be able to get something out of her. I knew that I had to get to Opium, wherever or whatever that was; because that the only way I could uncover the secrets of the game: by playing the game like they want me to. We were walking by the lake and I was reflecting on these things when I herd the shrill I had heard before.

I looked up, and saw that one of the creatures I saw that same morning was depending down through one of the holes above. It flew down and landed near the water. I was a bit perplexed by the sight of it.

‘Don’t worry they’re friendly', said the boy. ‘I heard that one attacked one of your trucks. I think that’s because they don’t like the sound of the vehicles – that’s the only time they attack us.’

As the boy was saying this more of them came down and started drinking from the lake. ‘If you raise them since they hatch, you can even train them to ride', said the boy.

‘What’s your name boy?’, I asked.

‘Will, what’s yours?’

‘Zero.’

‘So you’re new here, huh. Where are you coming from?’

‘It’s far away. You wouldn’t know', I said. To change the subject, I asked: ‘what are the towers for?’

‘Oh, they are part of the security system. They exert a kind of electromagnetic shield around the place which blocks and tamper which any radio waves; thus covering us from any of Opium's surveillance drones. But sometimes some stray in and we destroy them. To avoid any search parties from being send here, we use the towers to replicate the destroyed drones signal and transmit it to some far off place.’

I noticed that there was an obvious flaw in the system – the RF shield also prevented any signal from being transmitted outside unless it was temporarily taken down. So it made communication with the outside world very difficult and risky. It also meant that if any detector happened to be honing in on the particular frequency of transmission, it could trace the it back to its source and jeopardize the whole system. If Opium was as good as I thought, I knew that they would’ve figured this place out long ago. But why hadn’t they?

‘What do you know about Opium, Will?’, I asked him after a while.

‘I don’t know much about it; but they had been here long, long time', said Will. ‘Red says that they were the ones who made the monsters. They have been conducting experiments for many years.’

Noticing that there were some people coming in our way, Will added in a whisper, ‘anyway, they wouldn’t want me talking about it.’

‘Who’s “they”? ‘

‘Red', said Will. Then he pointed to his left: ‘that’s the third squadron.’

‘I guess I’ll see you then', I said turning to walk away.

‘Zero. Will you come here tonight’, shouted Will, pointing to a wooden dock that extended into the lake. ‘I want to show you something.’

‘Okay, I will, Will', I said trying to smile.

I walked towards the place the kid showed me. It was towards the furthest end of a wall, and it had a large opening above it – which was for the helicopters to take off. There were more than a dozen jets and half a dozen helicopters that were on a raised platform that overlooked a vast area of the place. I climbed up the platform: it had a runway that stretched for about a hundred meters, there were few buildings that seemed to house artillery, and from the sound of shooting I could tell that there were also combat training inside.

As I walked past the jets, I saw that there were men working on it with welding machines and the welding sparks were falling down like rain. I was looking at the sparks when I heard someone shout at me from behind.