Alien at Home

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Rhysis

Rhysis

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Erik's eyes hurt so bad he couldn't stand the thought of opening them, but he had to. His mind was reeling with confusion. He was in a strange place, and couldn't remember how he'd gotten here. True this wasn't the first time he'd woken up wondering where he was, but this was so different.

He tried to sit up, but his muscles refused to obey his commands. Everything was stiff. He heard a dull humm and felt the stale air as it rushed in to his cryogenic sleep chamber when the cover was automatically lifted.

With a great amount of will power, he forced his arms and legs to move and sat up again. Peering into the thick darkness, he rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he tried to recall something, anything that would give him a clue.

Suddenly, as a light flickered on beside him and his eyes fell on the chamber next to his, he saw the symbol of the medical lab and it all came rushing back to him.

Erik had been the victim of a crime. Or rather, he'd been the unwilling participant, forced to take part in a string of minor burglaries that was used as a distraction for a drug ring moving an unforetold quantity of product through Ayenee Capital City. But the police were alerted of the distraction and arrested everyone involved, including the three drug lords and the dirty cops. That was the bust that had kept Ayenee drug free ever since.

Erik, having been on the lower end of the totem pole for people who were to be prosecuted for the conspiracy, was given a choice. He could spend the rest of his life in the maximum security prison the rest of the drug ring was going to be sent to, or he could take part in a series of high-risk medical experiments that would, ultimately, never allow him to re-enter society. He opted for the experiments. Cryogenics were the new wave at the time, and Dr. Roe had been positive that it would work. Erik watched as the doctor set the timer for five days, then entered the chamber, and tried to breathe normally.

So, Erik concluded that he'd been asleep for seven days. But then where was Dr. Roe? And why was the only light in the room coming from other cryogenic chambers, none of which were open, and only a few of which actually appeared to have power? Erik decided he would have to find Dr. Roe first, and after that he could worry about what would happen to him next.
 
Something was different. He could just feel it. Something had changed. He checked the traps on the entrance and found they were all intact and unsprung. Then he went back to his den and plugged in his monitor. It was old but it still worked. He manually switched between the cameras he'd riggered up by unplugging one and plugging in the next. After three his jaw almost hit the floor. The tube room had definately changed.

He did not pause for breath, he rummaged through his pocket for the chain with the key on it and then went to his chest and opened it. All of his prized possesions were in there, including his pistol. Older than him by a long way and purely mechanical. That was the way to go with these things, the tube room had an EM shield, not everything else did and anything else with electrics could and would break in even a small event.

With pistol loaded and in hand he locked the chest and headed for the tube room.
 
Far off to the left of the room, in the next to last silver cryo chamber, the light blinked a steady green. This meant that its occupant was still in deep freeze mode, the only sound emitting from this tube was the low steady hum of the electrical current that kept the machine going.

If one should approach the cryo tube’s window and brush the thick layer of dust from the glass, one would be able to see the sleep frozen face of a female who appeared to be in her late teens, early twenties. Long dark hair curled to frame a slightly oval face, her skin was a light pale blue due to the body temperature, and the facial expression frozen in place was one of shock and horror combined.
 
Erik slowly forced his legs and arms to cooperate and slid out of the sleep chamber and onto the floor. He nearly fell as he hit. Not only had the floor been farther down than he guessed, but the impact was a lot to take on legs that had been immobile for the past five centuries. After steadying himself against the chamber, he looked around. It took him a second to realize that, upon contact with the pressure sensative plates on the floor, the old flourescent lights had turned on, and were gradually growing brighter. At the same time, the ventilation cranked on and he got a chill. Remembering he'd been made to remove all his clothing before getting in the cryogenic tube, he looked around the room for something to cover up with, and was not disappointed when he found a few large pieces of a type of cloth he didn't recognize. They were actually towels, though unrecognizable as such, as the material they were made out of hadn't been invented until nearly two-hundred years after he'd entered his sleep.

After covering himself, he began to look around the room at the other occupants. After sweeping off the dust from a chamber without power, and nearly puking as a result of the horrible scene on the other side, he decided to only check ones with power. None of them interested him all that much. They looked bored, and a little embarassed at being nude, much like he remembered being at the time of entering his extended sleep. That changed when he got to the last tube with power. Upon seeing the horror-stricken face, he hit a series of buttons he'd been shown just before being put down, and seemed to recall by pure instinct, which would begin the process of awakening the sleeper from their frozen state.
 
The cryo tubes light flashed from green to red, the tube its self gave a faint shudder as the power geared up. The temperature inside the tube rose at a steady rate, tell the body with ins skin went from a pale blue to a slightly flush pink. The doors turn lock clicked into the unlock position and a swoosh of air escaped as the door slowly swung open.

Once open the full figure of the female could be seen. She was about 5’3” and dressed in what would pass as surgical scrubs, though they seemed to be torn at the collar bone and the pants waist band was hugging her hips instead of her small waste. One small hand was bunched into a fist had a piece of torn white material bunched up in it, the other hand was raised up as if to fend off something, perhaps the closing of the cryo door.

Her lips parted and she drew in a ragged breath, exhaling with a coughing fit that hunched her shoulders inward. Pale blue eyes opened, they felt dry and unfocused. Her mind was foggy and for the moment she hadn’t a clue as to who she was or where she was, she just knew she was feeling weak and her head felt like the day after New Years Eve. She managed to slowly bring the empty hand to her head and with a dry throat moaned out…
“What ha..happened..?
 
Erik looked around the room, and recalled all the people he'd seen from the other chambers. All had been willing participants. Or at least as willing as he'd been, himself. None had that look of terror. Nor were they still clothed, because the cryo-tube only worked on organic material. Inorganic substances would still age and decay. With the knowledge of this in his mind, Erik attempted to respond.

"Near as I can tell, you were put into a stasis chamber and frozen in cryogenic sleep. I woke you up. You okay?"
 
Ok, was she ok? This question ran through her mind for a few minutes as she tried to remember what had happened. In the mean time she attempted to step out of the chamber on unwilling legs, nearly tumbling out and into the man that stood before her, she managed to catch herself before falling face first into him by grabbing the cryo’s door handle. Her body felt awful and the material of her scrubs felt like crumbling paper, each small movement made it flake off in pieces that fluttered to the floor.

By the time she managed to stand upright on her own feet on the floor beside him, the scrubs where nothing more then flakes clinging here and there to her small form. Brushing strands of hair from her view she took a moment to gaze at the towel clad man before her. Bits and pieces of what had befallen her now filled her thoughts and a silent sob of horror choked off her voice, so she nodded in reply to his question.

The full impact of the situation hit her rather hard and for a second she thought she might even faint, but she had never been a weak person and even now faced with the unknown she was not one to give in. So on unsteady legs she made her way to what was left of a desk and sat upon its flat top, swallowing several times she cleared what felt like cotton from her throat and looked up at him again. This time when she spoke her voice was a bit clearer and a whole lot steadier.

“I’m alright…I’ll be alright. I’m just in shock from the awakening”

She paused and looked around the room, it looked far older then she remembered it to be, things falling apart and layers of dirt built up over what looked like several hundred years.

“Do you know what happened here?...It looks like a bomb went off….And where is that little prick of a doctor…”
The last words said with pure anger in both her tone and facial expression.
 
The tube room was behind not one, but three heavy security doors. He'd only gone in once and that was difficult. He'd just needed to rig the camera up so he could make sure none of the ghouls got out of their bottles. He was shaking by the time he got the first door open and by the time the third swung open, sending up a cloud of dust he was just about ready to shoot the pair of them and lock the doors once more.

Coughing through the dust he stepped into the tube room just as the girl asked where the doctor is.. "Doctor you want ghouls? No doctors here, not for a long long time. Now why don't you get back in your ghost bottles before things get a bit nasty."

Before them stood an albino with long hair tied back, half-starved and shaking in clothes that looked to be held togther with patches and poor quality stitching. His gun was old, not as old as they, but certainly an antique by the looks of it.
 
He looked around the room to investigate what the woman had pointed out. He'd been so occupied with looking through the tubes that he hadn't really noticed the condition of the room. Of course, the room he'd been put to sleep in was not the same as the one he awoke in, so he had little grounds for comparison. He was about ready to go to the wall to retrieve another towel so the woman may cover herself when the security door creaked open with a strain from the newcomer.

Erik had experienced his share of run-ins with gun-wielding wackos in the weeks before his capture and trial. Having a gun pointed at him didn't frighten him, and certainly not by someone as frail as this figure that stood before him. It looked like whatever strength the albino would have had was used up opening the doors. Combined with the coughing from no more than simple dust wafting through the air, any apprehension Erik would have had vanished. At the very least, Erik had one advantage. Waking up from the sleep may have been hard at first, but recovery didn't take long, and Dr. Roe had made sure he was in good physical shape before beginning the experiment. The unsteady hand and weak form of the adversary before them now filled Erik with confidence. Still, he didn't want to force a confrontation if it wasn't necessary, so he put his hands up slowly and spoke in a calming tone, already convinced the man was insane given how he spoke of the doctors and "ghouls".

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, friend. If what you say is true, and there are no doctors here, then I would assume that means there is also nobody here who both knows how to reset these machines and has the necessary chemicals to restart the process." He casually moved in the direction of the man, putting himself between the woman and the stranger at a gradual pace. "Besides, I think you may have been misinformed about us. We are human. My name is Erik Renshaw. I am part of a scientific and medical experiment Dr Roe is conducting. Do you know where we might find him?"
 
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"Look behind you." The albino responded whilst gesturing with his gun and leaned against the wall. He was thin, but he did still have strength, you had to in order to have survived it all.

"One of your ghoul chums has that name on his bottle, though he doesn't look quite so healthy as you pair." He started to calm. When he first found the tubes he'd still been half mad from it, but these two didn't look quite as threatening now he came face to face with them, might even be human.
 
Now she was really confused, the entrance of the albino may have shocked her, but his words sent her mind spiraling. Ghouls? No doctors? And the condition of this room and its occupants…. Something had gone horribly wrong! She knew it had looked bad when she confronted the doctor about his experiments and the fight that ensued had ended in her being stuffed into one of the vacate cryo tubes. But the conversation now and the looks of the new comer had her fearful of what lay outside these walls.

She moved slowly towards the broken cabinet that held a few more towels like the one the man who awoken her was wearing. She tied these around her as the two men spoke; she then moved to cryo tube the albino indicated as holding the doctor and read the tag aloud. She uttered a low curse, something about the doctor being the spawn of a devil and getting less then he deserved before striking out with her foot to kick the tube. The tube rocked and tipped over to hit the tube beside it, but lucky did not open to spew out the remnants of the doctor.

She then gathered her nerves and turned to face to the two men just as the last words where spoken between them. Her voice came out steady, but her face was showing the shock she felt.

“We are human…The Doctor however is a different story….I’m January…Airy for short.”
She looked at the gun in the mans hand then back to his face. One hand rose up to motion around the room.
“ What happened here…Or should I ask…When did this happen? “
 
Erik turned his head to see the image of the doctor before January knocked over his tube. He was definately dead, probably the result of an incorrectly mixed batch of the chemicals. Erik knew quite a bit about the cryogenic process since his last memory before waking up was Dr. Roe jabbering on for two hours about it. The chemical mixture had to be just right or the cryogenic process would freeze the body incorrectly. It could freeze too slowly and kill the person, not freeze them at all but knock them out, have a lethal dose of one of a dozen different toxins, or many other horrible results. Erik remembered thinking it didn't really seem worth it if all those risks were involved.

Erik weighed the fact that the remains of the doctor were, well, remains. It looked like he'd aged naturally before dying. Erik didn't remember that being one of the possible results the doctor mentioned, which meant Erik had been asleep at least long enough for the man to live several more years. -Five days, huh?- Erik thought to himself. Then he looked to the newcomer after January spoke. "And more importantly, when is it now?"
 
"Six years since the gods fell from the sky, give or take." The man grinned now. He was fairly confident that they were actually human, and as a result highly vulnerable to bullets.

"When should it be?" He asked.
 
“Six years since the Gods fell from the sky? “

Her face showed her puzzlement at his words.

“What Gods? And how did they fall from the sky? Ok, this is all to confusing…I need to sit back down…”

Her faced looked paler by the second as she made her way back to the desk top and sat down upon it once more. She eyed the gun for a fraction of a second and figured if he was going to shot her for sitting down at least it would be a short fall to the ground. Besides, with the way she felt right now it was sit or fall anyways.

“Uh, sorry but if you told us your name, I missed it…”
 
Erik weighed what he knew about the cryogenic process with the fact that the doctor had obviously aged quite a bit before attempting to freeze himself. It was a terrible estimate, but given the level of decomposition, he figured it had to be at least a hundred years since he'd been frozen, himself. This man's strange reference to the time only solidified that thought. He also knew it was a rough guess at best, and he felt the need to figure out more accurately how long he'd been down.

"All right, then. We need to find a historian, or someone else who would have a good knowledge of the past, or someone who would know where to find them." Unfortunately, Erik didn't know that historians had grown increasingly rare since the takeover, but they were around, if you knew who to ask.
 
"Historian?" The man laughed "You've still not explained why you were in those tubes. Try doing that before I let you leave this room." He gestured with his gun again.
 
She realized she still held a piece of crumbling white cloth in her clenched hand as he asked for the explanation. She figured Erik must have been one of the *volunteers” recruited from either the military or from a jail cell, but it wasn’t her place to speak for another so instead she raised her hand, opened her fingers and let the crumbling cloth flutter from her fingers, you could hear the anger and horror in her tone as she spoke.

“The Doctor is the reason I was in one of those tubes, he and I had a fight over his planned experiments upon cryo patients. He had all kinds of things he wanted to try on those in the frozen sleep, such as keeping their bodies asleep but awakening their minds, wait a few months then awaken them to see if …Or rather how long it would take for the human mind to snap. I threatened to go to the medical board…In the mist of this argument he stuck me with something, the room got fuzzy and I tried to fight him off me but he dragged me to an empty tube and shoved me in… “

She eyed the albino, his posture and unfriendly tone was starting to cause her more uneasiness and a twinge of anger. Who the hell was he and what right did he have to act like they had done something wrong. He wouldn’t even answer a simple question of his name, yet he wanted explanations from them. This was definitely not a give and take conversation so far. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked over to Erik, awaiting his answer to the pale gun totting mans question.
 
Erik's expression and tone changed drastically as he spoke, now confident he was being confronted by a man of less than average intelligence. He pointed to the tubes. "Do you even know what those are? I told you I was part of a medical and scientific experiment. Those are cryogenic tubes, meant to freeze someone alive so quickly that they can be revived later on without negative effects on the occupant. That was the experiment. It was unproven technology. Dr. Roe was trying to show that he'd perfected the formula and environment necessary to do it, and it obviously worked." Of course, Erik and January wouldn't know that the chemicals they were injected with had actually done quite a bit to their bodies. One reason the balance of ingredients had to be perfect was because it altered several things within the human bodies. Being locked in subarctic temperatures for such a long time and then having warming agent injected into various points of the body would kill anyone with a regular body. Recovery and healing rates had to be increased substantially in order to have anyone survive such an ordeal, which was why the awakening process had such a short-term effect.

Erik took a couple steps closer, still not intimidated by the gun or by the man holding it. "Now if you don't intend to be of any assistance that's fine, but I have things I need to find out, and someone who won't even reveal his name is going to be of little help to me in that department." He looked over to January. "Are you coming or do you intend to wait here with this..." Erik looked on the man in disgust, knowing he was going to be pushing a button. "thing?"
 
"Who the f~#k do you think you're talking to? I don't give a s#[t what you claim some mad scientist did to you a thousand years ago. You ever want to see daylight again you answer my questions until I'm convinced you're safe to be let into the rest of my home." The man practically growled and brought the gun to bear. He jabbed its barrel hard at Erik's sternum with more force than perhaps his appearance would have left anyone not from this time to suspect. Those who survived Ayenee's greatest change are a much hardier stock than those from 500 years earlier. He might look underfed be he was not some frail invalid.
 
This was getting out of hand! The frustration and anger where building and it showed.

“Christ on a Cracker! What the hell is wrong with you?!? Pointing a gun and demanding answers with out a single bit of curtisy. We haven’t done sh*t to you, except answer your questions while you ignore ours!”

She moved from the desk as she spoke tell she was nearly beside the two men. Having had enough of this macho crap she shoved one finger into the shoulder of the albino and spoke in a low but oddly calm voice.

“Listen buddy, this may be your home but we where frozen here first, so ease up on the attitude….Lets try a little give and take…We answered your questions so far, so how about lowering the gun and answering a few of ours before someone dies for no damned reason, other then stupidity!!”
 
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