POCKETT

Wow, three in one month...

So anyway, details as events warrant: POCKETT is now live! at the following site: http://pockett.comicgenesis.com/ It's technically been up for a week now, but I wanted to make sure at least two comics were up before posting. So go and check it out! Updates Wednesday.

And as for the picture above: That is the unpainted version of my Cobra Commander custom. The painted version is available on Figurerealm.com. Check it out today!

Hrothmeir out.

Wow...

Okay, this doesn't happen very often-- two updates in one month. Wow! And I got a new background layout, one which shows the video I put up last time which... appears... to be blank... but oh well, let's move on then.
Big news! Long time readers (I know you're out there!) will remember the Duke custom I put up in April '09. Well... He's back! Almost completely repainted, and better than ever, you can find pictures here: http://figurerealm.com/viewcustomfigure.php?FID=22419
Look around and have fun!
Oh, as for the image at top: That is a partial mesh for a character of the forthcoming Pockett! Get ready!

Teh Snake Eyes!

Okay, long time, no update! First off, a welcome to any new viewers from Hiss Tank! As promised, here's the exclusive Snake Eyes picture I promised! For this custom, I took my photos outside, and the first couple had some issues with overexposure. Well, I thought they looked rather interesting, so I kept one, and here it is...

As for other updates... Um... Oh, yes, the missions trip! It went very well; we went down to a small town outside of Antlers, Oklahoma, which itself is a small town, and got into deliverance and other freaky stuff with the locals. What I didn't expect was all the deliverance I got. To quote Larry the Cucumber: "I laughed, I cried; it moved me, Bob." We went into rejection issues, and did a little prayer thing which is fairly common in my church, where we ask God to show us memories of where our hurts come from. Yes, it sounds weird; bear with me. Anyhoo, I've done that before, and it's never worked. Not once. Needless to say, I didn't expect it to work. o I closed my eyes and asked God to show me the origins of REJECTION (the night's topic) in my life and BAM! (r.i.p., Billy Mays) I had a memory of me in an incubator in the ICU in my birth hospital. Trippy, yes? Well, I won't go into too much further detail (ask if you want to know more!) but I got a bunch of deliverance, and am getting much closer to God. WooT! Also, we went to Paris for lunch and the second day, and got lost for about two hours. Fun!

Other updates, Other updates... Oh! Yes, my little tutorial of DOOM! Almost done on that! I've finished modeling, texturing, rigging, et. all. I still haven't done lip syncing, nor do I have enough facial keyes for full animation, but I do have a DEMO VIDEO! This is based on a slightly older version of Sperry; the yawning... thingy... was done before his lower body was rigged, and before I had any mouth keyes; the walk cycle is... adequate, but I'm not happy with the arms. I plan to reanimate the walk-cycle later. And yes, It's a bit pixely; not sure why. I ran it through Avid, so that may be the problem... UPDATE: VIDEO DOES NOT WORK ON BLOG! PLEASE GO TO: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll94/Hrothmeir/?action=view¤t=SperryDemo.mp4

And last but not least, my Duke is almost done! Long time readers (no, that's a lie... there are none...) will remember the Duke figure I posted well over a year ago. Well, he's back, and better than ever, almost entirely repainted and looking swell! Be prepared for pictures soon. Last but not least, the book. Oh, the book... I've been working on it, really I have. What I'm doing this time is going through and fleshing out the synopsis a bit at a time, so I actual know what's going on before I add dialogue, which was a big problem with the last draft: I just started writing with only a general goal in mind, so it could get quite long and meandering. But no more!

Ooooh, wait, one last thing: POCKETT!!! Soon, very soon, I will be launching POCKETT, my first webcomic! more details as events warrant!

E.H.U.D.: The Entire Book In One Big Flumph...

Okay, as promised, the new E.H.U.D. Super Synopsis! The entire book, laid out in one easy refernce sheet, so I actually know what the heck is happening as I write! Please note, there are spoilers ahead, so read with caution. Also, there may be a few vaugenesses and internal inconsistencies but hey, I wrote this for me, not you, so just deal with it.

Now for teh updates... I'm going on a missions trip today! Woot! More when I get back.

And of course the picture above is a continuation of that super tutorial I mentioned: THe modeling is done! Yay!!!!!

As always, please comment. Kthnxbye...

E.H.U.D.
Prelude to Apocalypse
By Hez Bennetts


30 Years From Now

Part I: Resurrection


Chapter 1

John Donalson awakens in a hospital. He’s not sure how he got there, because the last thing he remembers is going to sleep. But his body is withered and his family, who are there when he awakens, are much older. A councilor comes in and explains that he was injured in a car accident with a military officer, their identities were switched, and he has been in Walter Reed, in a coma, for the last ten years. After coming out a bit from the coma, they found out his true identity, and contacted his family. All the while, he hears a strange humming noise around him.
While recuperating and learning about the last decade’s events (controversial president, war), he is visited by the Secretary of Defense and a general. They apologize for the interruption in John’s life and promise to make reparations in the form of a paid apartment at Sky Crest Towers and a job at Cohen & Associates, a premier architecture firm. Sometime after they leave, John’s brother, Reggie, visits from Philadelphia with his daughter, Rachel. John tries to get to know her, but she’s distant. After a few more days, John is ready, with doctor’s orders to exercise more, to head to his knew home in Philadelphia. Just as they are heading to the car, an explosion rocks them, but the hospital staff tells them not to worry.


Chapter 2

In the White House, the president is heading to his daily staff meeting. He gets a little lost due to the internal changes to the white House, but eventually makes it to the cabinet room. There, he asks his press secretary about the explosion felt earlier in the day. The PS says that it was a gas main blowing in the Metro, the sign of an aging system that needs to be replaced. The president sends him out to spread the word on this, then asks his secretary of defense the same question. The secretary says that it was a member of a top secret government super-soldier operation that killed herself in explosive self-defense. The president is concerned by this, as the soldiers were not supposed to be active yet. He sends the SecDef to talk to the head general about this.
The secDef goes to the Pentagon, gets slightly lost, and is interrupted by a phone call from his wife. He is late to his son’s music recital. He says he’s busy, and heads off once more into the maze. He finds the general who reveals that the self-destruction of the super-soldier, while not specifically known about, was anticipated, and that the soldiers will discover what happens to them and likely rebel. He says it is all a plan to bring about lasting world peace. The SecDef is horrified at this, and says he will take this info to the president, but the general, Mistlethwakey, promises the SecDef, Edgar, that if keeps helps him in his plan to subvert the program, and bring about world peace, within three months the president, Edgar’s uncle, will be dead, and Edgar will be president. Edgar is wary about this, but promises to keep silent for three months.


Chapter 3

Now in Philadelphia, Reggie takes John to Sky Crest, gets him settled in, and takes him to their parent’s house for Sabbath dinner. While there, Rachel’s boyfriend shows up, and Reggie gets mad. During conversation, John finds out that he had a fiancé, Lucy, but can’t remember anything about her. Intrigued by this, he resolves to call her as soon as he is healthy enough to drive on his own. In a few days, after exercising a lot to build up his desiccated body at the apartment gym, he calls her, she is stunned that he is alive, and invites him to her house. At her house, they talk, and it is obvious that she still loves him, but he has no feelings for her, as he doesn’t know her. Oddly enough, he keeps getting flashes of a woman at the edge of his awareness.
In the middle of their conversation, a man arrives, revealed to be Lucy’s new fiancée, Shaun. He is mistrustful of John, And John soon leaves, parting by saying that he won’t interfere in their lives, and he’s sorry he has. Unbeknownst to him, Shaun tells Lucy his misgivings about John, and asks that she not try to contact him again. Lucy is confused by all this, and doesn’t know if she should stick with Shaun or go back to John…


Chapter 4

As John is feeling ambulatory, John goes to work at Cohen and associates. He meets with his old college roommate, Walter Schmendrik, who’s an architect there. Walter shows him around, then sets him up with his first project, working on a museum. Before getting started, John decides to familiarize himself with Cohen, and looks through files of old projects. One is a military bunker near Tulsa. A bit weird. Next he finds Sky Crest, and finds out that an electrician died in his apartment, and that before that the electrician was involved in a freak accident in a sub basement. John plays around with the Sky Crest building files a bit, then gets to work. Later that day, he goes into the sub basement and looks around, and is caught in a freak electrical storm, where he experiences a vision of a man getting caught in a beam of light and becoming a monster. Then the vision shifts to him and a woman in a weird dark plain, and then a man, calling himself Allen, coming to them and offering them world peace, but then John becoming overwhelmed by horde of stomping behemoths. He comes out of this vision and finds himself in his apartment, groggy and confused.


Chapter 5

Edgar is at home with his wife, Amanda, getting ready to attend a white house banquet. Their son is not happy about being abandoned for the night, and Edgar snaps at him. Amanda is not happy about this, and begins questioning her marriage.
When they get to the banquet, Edgar is approached by Mistlethwakey, and they talk for a while. Edgar says he wants no part of the plan, and that he’s going to rat out Mistlethwakey, but Mistlethwakey tells him it’s too late. At that point a homeless man, Merv, unnoticed by the guests, enters the White House, makes a brief speech about how he’s the result of an illegal government experiment, and proceeds to unleash psychic powers upon all present, in an attempt to kill the president. Traditional security attempts to stop Merv are useless. After a brief consultation between Edgar, the president, and Mistlethwakey, three plans are created: Starve him out of his powers, bring in heavier artillery, or use Scramblers to neutralize his powers. The president knows that if he uses the scramblers, there will be questions of his compliance with Merv’s accusations, but he has no choice. Merv is killed, and Edgar leaves the White House to find his wife in an emergency clinic on the lawn. She wants to go home and see their son immediately, but Edgar is called to an emergency cabinet meeting. Having to decide between work and family, he chooses to go to the meeting, and Amanda is forced to go home alone.
In the cabinet meeting, the president is more than a bit disturbed and angry at Mistlethwakey, who sidesteps the issue by pointing out how unstable the E.H.U.D.s are. While they’re still working on damage control, it is revealed that Merv sent detailed information on his accusations to several important people, and that copies of official documents are included therein. The president is now on the verge of Impeachment. Edgar considers reveling Mistlethwakey right then and there, but decides to do nothing.


Chapter 6

John is at his office, continuing work on the Hemmermim building project. As he works, he wonders if there are any updates on the shocking assassination attempt that happened the previous night. When he is done with the project, he checks for updates, but there are none. So he opens the Sky Crest file, which he has been playing around with and built part of a city. Walter comes in and comments on the city, then says that the White House has made a statement. They go online and see the statement and the accompanying video, then discuss the implications of it. The statement mentions that the scramblers were a previously unused sonic weapon design, that they thought could incapacitate Merv. Its lunch time, so John decides to go out.
Outside the building, he is accosted by a bag lady, Cyd, who claims to know him, and who claims they were both E.H.U.D.s. This is interrupted by the arrival of another woman, Naomi, who was the wife of the officer who died in John’s accident, and she thought John was her husband for the ten years of his coma. They talk, and decide to go out for lunch.
While eating, they are joined by Lucy and Shaun. Naomi and Shaun seem to know each other, and are both mistrustful. While they eat, they hear a news report, anchored by new anchorwoman Maria Tumpuelo, about a violent riot in the capitol brought on by Merv’s accusations. Men in armor are brought in to stop the rioters, and John thinks they look familiar. Shaun explains they are soldiers wearing E.H.U.D. armor, anti-terrorism troops, stationed in every major city, and that he is one for Philadelphia. Naomi excuses herself and leaves, and Shaun gets a phone call from the hud head in Philly, leaving John and Lucy alone. Lucy confides that she still loves John, kisses him, and leaves. Unbeknownst to them, Shaun sees this.


Chapter 7

A few weeks later, John goes to have dinner at his parent’s house. He talks about running into a demonstration in the streets of Philly, and his family discuss the impeachment process and all of the bad things going on: riots, protests, Latterndale being impeached. Also, the Vice President has resigned, and Terstein is pushing for governmental overhaul; if the administration does nothing to account for the actions involved in the E.H.U.D. scandal, he and several other senators will pull out, and urge their constituents and militia to fight the Union. And of course, there is the fact that the president has the scramblers. John gets to know Rachel, and realizes she is interested in politics. Reggie brings up belief that John may be an E.H.U.D. After an argument, John leaves.


Chapter 8

The president is in the white House, having just finished consultation with his advisors. He’s going to bed when suddenly Mistlethwakey arrives, telling him he has information regarding the issues with the E.H.U.D. program. The president stays to listen, and Mistlethwakey shoots him, then walks out without anyone noticing or caring.
The next day, Edgar is at his son’s music recital, and is not liking it. Then, a motorcade arrives, and takes him away just as his son is about to perform. He is taken to a hidden location in Maryland, and is sworn into office as the new president, because others are disqualified, dead, resigned, or otherwise incapable of assuming the office.
Edgar realizes that it has been exactly three months since his first meeting with Mistlethwakey. Then Mistlethwakey arrives, claiming that Edgar called him and set him up as interim Secretary of Defense. He suggests that Edgar be open and honest with the American people about the E.H.U.D. situation, but the other cabinet members are nervous about this, as they were all involved in the program. Mistlethwakey then reveals that the Vice President came forward with more details on the program, and lists of personnel involved, which didn’t list the cabinet members. Edgar decides to come forward with the information, and prepares a speech.


Chapter 9

John and his coworkers are having lunch in the break room and discussing the impact Merv and The E.H.U.D.s will have on the economy. At the same time, one of them, an intern, believes that the huds are a sign of the apocalypse.
They are interrupted by a news report about an emergency speech from the president. Edgar comes on, explains who he is, what’s going on, and then goes into details of E.H.U.D. plot: fifty civilians, made to disappear in such a way that no one would come looking for them but that they could come back, were genetically modified and trained as soldiers, then somehow had their memories of the event released and were released into the world. They would also have a compulsion to join the military at some point, at which time their latent abilities would be discovered, and they would use their abilities for American supremacy, all with no ties back to the government in terms of experimentation. Edgar promises that if the E.H.U.D.s come forward, or are identified in some way, they would be taken into protective custody, but would be allowed freedom and would not be prisoners. If you suspect an E.H.U.D., please call.
After this speech, D.C. correspondent Maria Tumpuelo reveals that she is an E.H.U.D., that she killed the last president, and she urges everyone to rise up against the government. Soldiers then come and arrest her.
Some of John’s coworkers suspect him of being an E.H.U.D., but he denies this.


Chapter 10

Edgar’s handlers want to take him someplace secret, but he insists on the White House. They compromise by settling on Camp Eglon, a semi-secret facility in southern Pennsylvania. He and his family are taken there, and despite the chaos in the country and his uncle’s (Maybe second cousin’s) death, he celebrates.
Later that night, he gets to thinking, suspects he may be being used by Mistlethwakey, and goes walking. He notices that no one seems to be moving, everyone is frozen, and he sees a strange light coming from one room. He investigates, and finds a ghost light, and a room filled with ghosts. Mistlethwakey is there, and he does something to Edgar, who begins to hear a buzzing sound, and is attacked by the ghosts. He then bursts into flame, and in the morning is found by his wife and security, naked and new, younger and stronger. The staff Physician, Dr. Frease, is called in, and he declares Edgar to be physically around twenty-five ish. Amanda is very concerned about all of this, but Edgar blows it off, and Amanda begins to plan a divorce, thinking to only stay until the next election.


Chapter 11

John is back for another Saturday night dinner with his family. They discuss more politics, and about how the E.H.U.D.s are affecting society. Rachel talks about the post-ehud government she created for school, and they all point out issues with it. Dinner is interrupted by Lucy calling and telling John she is concerned For Shaun’s safety, as he’s a law officer. John tries to comfort her, but eventually gives up.


Part II: Entropy


Chapter 12

John is working out in the Sky Crest fitness center, as he is want to do, and Mistlethwakey shows up. John finds out that not only does Mistlethwakey live in Sky Crest, he owns it. As they jog on treadmills, they get to know each other better, and strike up a friendship. The next day, this continues, and Mistlethwakey shares his Roaring Mouse hypothesis. As they talk about the possibility of an internal war, precipitated by Terstein, John mentions Rachel’s government plan. Mistlethwakey finds it interesting, and says that they can discuss it more when he returns from Washington next week; he has important business there. But, he says, he will be back for Thanksgiving, as he always spends major holidays at home, as a memento to his dead wife.


Chapter 13

Mistlethwakey is in Washington, going deep inside the Pentagon, apparently on business from the president. He eventually arrives at a special, Scrambler lined cell containing Maria. She is slightly out of her mind, but she sees Mistlethwakey. He tells her that he wants Edgar dead, and that he will release her, equip her, and tell her the president’s location, as long as she will kill him. Maria is of course distrustful, but Mistlethwakey convinces her that this is part of his master-plan to become president. She promises to kill him as she knows that he was the head of the E.H.U.D. program, and in fact remembers him from her time there, but he convinces her to wait until the president is dead. He then heads back to Philadelphia, taking her with him. As in the white house, no one seems to notice.
The next day, thanksgiving, at Camp Eglon, the president and his wife are having a fight. Amanda wants their son, Ethan, to join them for dinner, but Edgar insists that this is a state dinner, and that Ethan isn’t welcome. Amanda finally explodes and says that she wants a divorce. Edgar tells her that he never really loved her and that he only married her for political gain. He also says that if she leaves him now, he will use every power at his disposal to make sure she never sees Ethan again. Amanda Agrees to stay, but only if Edgar explain why he hasn’t learned to love her over the years. He agrees.
Later, as they are having dinner, he rises to give a toast, and suddenly starts to choke. This goes on for about two minutes, as no effort to clear his airways seems to work. Finally, Edgar gives some kind of push, which sends a literal tremor through the room and clears his airway. He starts yelling that Maria is there, somewhere, and to find her. As security heads out on the hunt, he jumps up and gives pursuit, eventually finding Maria and killing her with his bare bands.
The guests are suitably shocked by this, and security insists that the first family be moved to an even more secure location in Oklahoma. Amanda refuses to go, and in a show of decency, Edgar allows Ethan to stay with Amanda. He also tells her why he despises her: that she will die for a cause, but that he will kill for a cause. He then leaves via helicopter, and Mistlethwakey, via phone, says that Amanda and son can stay in Sky Crest.


Chapter 14

John is on the treadmill yet again, wondering why Mistlethwakey isn’t there. He suspects it may have something to do with the rumors that Maria has somehow escaped. His cell rings, and he finds a message forwarded from his home system from the front desk, saying there is a young woman there to see him. He goes downstairs and finds Rachel, who wants to talk with him.
They return to his home, and she informs him that her boyfriend, Wayne, has gotten her pregnant. Wayne wants an abortion, but Rachel isn’t so sure about that and turns to her uncle for advice. He suggests they speak to her father, but she becomes distressed, and reveals that she’s been having problems at home and doesn’t really trust her father. After some discussion, John agrees to let her stay the night, and in the morning, he’ll take her home and help her explain the situation to Reggie.
While he’s sleeping that night, John has a vision of nuclear fire descending from the sky and engulfing them all. The woman from his earlier dreams, and the man called Allen, arrive and tell him that he must take Rachel to a safe place, to where the president is in Oklahoma. John argues that the president is in Pennsylvania, but the ghosts are unmoved. When John wakes up in the morning, he is suitably disturbed, not just by the dream, but by the looming threat of violence from Terstein and also the ‘hud riots that have broken out. He offers Rachel five thousand dollars and a ticket to wherever she wants to go. She’s intrigued by the offer, but would rather face her father than the unknown.
They reach Rachel’s house, and speak to Reggie, is quite upset at Rachel’s nightly absence. When he finds out she is pregnant, he kicks her out of the house, and she gets mad at John and runs away. The two ghosts continue to reprimand John for failing to save Rachel.


Chapter 15

Later that day, Rachel goes to her mother’s house, but her mother’s drunk boyfriend answers the door, and Rachel leaves. She then goes to her best friend’s house and stays the night. She tells her friend about John’s offer, and her friend suggests she takes it. Rachel is about to head out early the next morning to head to Sky Crest and ask for a second chance when Wayne arrives and tries to win her back. Rachel almost goes with him, but then decides that she needs to get away from him, and continues with her plan.
When she gets to Sky Crest, Mistlethwakey stops her in the foyer. She of course recognizes him from television, and she speaks to him. He tells her that he will give her ten thousand dollars and a ticket to Tulsa, but she has to work to start a primitive version of the civilization she mentioned previously. Rachel thinks he’s a bit on the crazy side, but Mistlethwakey tells her that the world is about to end and that her civilization can survive. She still doesn’t believe him, so he tells her that as a sign, within a week Terstein’s promised civil war will start, and that John will be held responsible.
Rachel is still a little unsure, but decides to take the money and run.


Chapter 16

John is at work, having finished the design of his modified Sky Crest/tower/huge city of doom. Just as he finishes, Lucy calls him and talks for a bit. Near the end of the conversation, she indicates that they should go and meet somewhere, but John ends the relationship. He tells her that he has no memory of her, that in his mind she never existed and that in her mind he should still be dead, so she should stick with Shaun and leave him be.
After the call, John goes to talk with Walter. Walter is having car trouble, and wonders if John can give him a ride home, as most public transportation services have ceased running due to the current crisis. John agrees, and they head out together. In John’s car, they are starting down the street, when Cyd the bag lady jumps on his car, ranting crazy rants. John gets out and tries to talk her down, but she keeps ranting. Finally, in a fit of anger, John causes Cyd to fly backwards off the hood of the car, without touching her. John is suitably disturbed by this, forces Walter out of the car, and drives home alone.
When he gets home, he naps, and is wakened from the nap by the arrival of a squad of federal agents, led by erstwhile 3rd draft hero Frank Norgent. They explain to John that they suspect him of being an E.H.U.D., and if he proves to be so, they are going to transport him to a relocation camp in Minnesota, or somewhere nice. To test him, they have a small device, which they turn on. John hears a horrible, painful vibrator thing, which causes him to cringe, and interrupts the constant humming he always hears around him. This proves he is an E.H.U.D., and he is given twenty minutes to pack a few belongings, and then is escorted to the helicopter pad on the far end of the roof of the attached mall (I really need to get drawings of all this…)


Chapter 17

Once John reaches the chopper, he recognizes Shaun in hud armor and suddenly has a bunch of memories flood in. The humming around him gets stronger, and he runs. The soldiers turn on scramblers, but are two late. John begins running through Philadelphia, trying to get away from the perusing huds and choppers. He discovers he can run at speeds up to sixty MPH, can leap incredible distances, and can even refocus his eyes so he doesn’t need glasses, although he keeps them for safety reasons. As he runs, he has a flashback of running in a dark room, of a woman who is beaten if he doesn’t run fast enough; he is beaten if she isn’t fast enough, etc. He also gets flashes of training and military tactics. At some point, he crashes into a Starbucks, quickly downs some energy, and sprints off to attack his pursuers directly. He manages to kill several and crashes a chopper into a building. At this point, he comes in range of the scramblers and is rendered powerless. He is being taken into custody by Shaun, when he gets another flashback of the man called Allen telling him there are ways to bypass the scramblers. At this point, the helicopter is burning, and the roof begins to cave.
John suddenly manifests powers again, despite the scramblers, and kills most of the huds, sparing Shaun. Unfortunately, he is weakening from the lack of usable calories, and can’t escape when the roof collapses further.
While John and Shaun are falling down inside the burning building, John unleashes everything he has at Shaun, and finds himself inside Shaun’s mind. He looks around at some memories, and wonders if it would be possible to take over Shaun’s body. He is just about to when he realizes he would have no powers. He pulls his mind back, but faints. Just as he is about to slip into the inferno, some unseen force levitates him and Shaun away…


Chapter 18

The president is in his bunker in Oklahoma when he gets word that there has been an outbreak of E.H.U.D. activity in Philadelphia, and that Terstein, seeing that the administration has done nothing to address the E.H.U.D. program, has declared war on the United states. Unfortunately, international opinion sides with Terstein. Mistlethwakey, via video conference, urges the president to declare martial law in Philadelphia, using the Mall at Sky Crest as a headquarters. Reluctantly, the president agrees, and then orders that Terstein be arrested and the country locked down.


Chapter 19

Rachel is in Tulsa. She’s managed to rent a room with a woman named Abigail and has convinced her that at least Terstein will start off a series of riots, and that the ten thousand dollars should be used to purchase supplies. Abigail and Rachel are going on another supply run when war is declared, and there is a run on the store. Violence breaks out over the lack of supplies, and the two women return home. Rachel then goes door to door around the block, and convinces several people to join her in stockpiling their goods, weapons, and other resources. A few of the houses on either side of Abigail’s join, and Rachel convinces her followers to all move in together in this fortifiable position. Later that night, a group of drunken men go around shooting, looting, and generally causing a disturbance. Police fail to respond, so Rachel’s little militia steps in and forces peace.


Part III: E.H.U.D.


Chapter 19

John wakes up in a residential room, unsure of where he is, lacking nearly all body mass and being fairly well crisped. He fades in and out of consciousness, flashing back on waking up in a big room filled with naked people, and the fear he felt there. He wakes up again as someone feeds him, but he doesn’t have his glasses, and can’t summon the energy to focus his eyes. Cue flashback of being starved, and then of being fed a little. As this flashback continues, he sees the man who identified himself as Allen sitting in the huge room, talking to and comforting a group of people. John decides that he can help out, and goes to sit with a group of people and comfort them. Among the group is the woman he’s been having visions of: Suzanne. John wakes up again and sees Suzanne there. He asks if she is alive; she tells him no, and says that he knows how she died. He then has another flashback, this time of being strapped in a chair facing her, each of them with a button that will kill the other. John finally breaks and kills her. He wakes up crying… Also in his flashbacks are Naomi, Merv, Maria, Cyd, and Edgar’s Dr. Frease.


Chapter 20

Lucy is visiting a hospital, in which Shaun, heavily burned and guarded, lies dying. He has asked to see her and, despite the dangers of going outside, she has come to fulfil his request. When they are alone, he reveals that he was a part of the E.H.U.D. program, one of the guards, and that he knew John. He also reveals that while on leave from the program, he came to Philadelphia for the express purpose of finding Lucy, just to torment John. However, once he met her, he began to fall in love with her, and decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. To this end, he asks the overseers to erase any memory of Lucy from John’s mind, which they do, explaining why John doesn’t remember her. Shaun asks Lucy for forgiveness for this.
As a response, Lucy gags Shaun, pulls him onto the floor where he is unable to call for a nurse, and locks the door. She then retrieves a used syringe from the biohazard can, and injects a full load of air into her carotid artery, and dies in front of Shaun, who is powerless to respond.


Chapter 21

Back in his room, John is still hallucinating. He sees his body, how frail it is, remembers when it first began to be like this, when he, and the rest of the E.H.U.D.s were being trained by an older man, also with psychic powers, in how to levitate things, reach inside people, manipulate their bodies, control their minds. He remembered Allen discovering the possibility of Telekinesis, spreading amongst the E.H.U.D.s the idea of the Q-bomb doctrine. Then he goes back further, remembering how they became E.H.U.D.s, sitting in a medical room, strapped to beds, after having killed their partners, being infected with a transformative virus. He comes out of the flashback a little, hears a dog barking somewhere, remembers training with dogs, learning advanced healing by being torn apart and having to heal themselves. (insert flashback here). This then leads to combat training memories, and then to the suit, and all it entailed…


Chapter 22

This time, John wakes up a little more lucidly, and hears news reports on TV talking about the war. It seems gang warfare has erupted in LA, students at Berkeley have become violent, gang warfare in south Texas is going badly, various militias all over the country have seized small towns, and the national guard is out in force to keep everyone in check. John then remembers his own time in war, fighting in Gaza and the West bank, various memories and brief descriptions of battles then follow. Eventually, the Huds are recalled from the war and brought back to their main base, where Allen declare that it is time to strike back and become the Q-bomb. However, General Mistlethwakey, the project overseer who has just arrive to decommission the huds for home use, has been monitoring them, is aware of their plans, and kills Allen as way of enforcing his will. The huds still fight back, but are subdued with no further casualties. Something else happens, but John can’t remember what…


Chapter 23

John finally wakes up fully. He finds that he is in a house somewhere on the western edge of Philadelphia, with Naomi, Cyd, and others from his flashback time. It turns out that Naomi has known about her hudness almost from the beginning, even before she met with John, and that Cyd was sent to keep an eye on him and to try to coax out his memories. They didn’t want to force John’s memories, to avoid the kind of situation that just happened: John causing a civil war. It turns out that since they have had their memories returned, the E.H.U.D.s have been trying to find each other and figure out what to do. Two of them, Merv and Maria, decided to ignore the group and go terrorist, killing off political targets. Most of the other E.H.U.D.s want to go forth with the Q-bomb doctrine, but they are evenly split on how to go about doing it. One group, led by Naomi, wants to take down the Government and enforce their will on America and the world at large. Another group, led by a hud named Talan, want to present themselves to the world as an independent entity, belonging to, and helping no country, just being an all around, impartial deterrent to war. Neither side believes they have enough people (about ten each) to go on their own. They want John to be the tie breaker, as he was closest to Allen, their visionary, and they believe he understood the ideas behind the doctrine best. John ponders the situation and comes to a compromise: they will quietly present themselves to the government, weed out corruption (starting with Mistlethwakey), end the war, and then present themselves to the world, with a docile America as proof of what they can do. They agree to send a contingent, led by John, to camp Eglon to settle the matter.


Chapter 24

The president is in his bunker in Tulsa, speaking via teleconference with Mistlethwakey. Edgar informs Bob that may have to skip his traditional trip back to Sky Crest for Christmas because something important has come up. The strategic missile defense network has a strange virus, something the likes of which the techies have never seen before. Ed orders that the system is to be shut down immediately and that all active missiles be taken out of commission. In addition, he wants this to remain secret. And there are other problems: due to American instability, Mexico is massing forces in southern Texas, Canada has sealed its border, and the U.N. is threatening to send in peacekeeping troops. The next item they discuss is the presence of a growing commune on the western edge of town which has not only resisted attacks from looters and gangs and drunken rednecks, but has also helped stabilize the region and keep fighting to a minimum. Edgar thinks it might be a good idea to embrace this sort of Community, and convince people all over the country to adopt this, especially in riotous areas, in exchange for lowered troop levels. This would give the communities the illusion of control, step down government hostilities, strengthen people’s trust in the government, halt the spread of war, and prove to outside observers that not only can America control itself, it is also able to fundamentally change in the quest for peace. This shift from big government to strong community groups would also please Terstein’s followers, who want a change in America. Edgar decides to call the leader of the Commune.
Cut to Rachel, in consultation with representatives of a group of about fifty people who want join her Social Unit. She turns them down, saying they already have about a hundred and fifty people, but suggests these new people start an SU of their own, and extends aid and materials to do so. The representatives leave pleased. Rachel goes out to do her share of gardening work, but is interrupted by a call from the president. Although Edgar is shocked to find that Rachel is John’s niece, he still goes ahead with his plan to recruit her and get her to head the new program to bring change, and to go, with FEMA help, to different cities to start SUs. Rachel is uncertain about this, but their conversation is interrupted by Mistlethwakey, who informs the president that John has just arrived at Camp Eglon.


Chapter 25

John and the Huds arrive at Camp Eglon, to find… Mistlethwakey, and the president via video screen. They present their argument: if the president agrees to turn over Mistlethwakey and any others involved in the program, the huds will not only forgive Edgar’s part in it (he was secdef, after all), they will also help him get the country under control, and bring about world peace. Seeing that he has the SUs, and now the E.H.U.D.s going for him, Edgar realizes he could end the war, become extremely popular, and go down as a great hero. He quickly agrees. However, Mistlethwakey then revels that the president is an E.H.U.D. The huds don’t care, and Ed is still ready to betray M, when Mistlethwakey reveals that he is an E.H.U.D., and, much like John, is able to bypass the scramblers. John then has a final flashback, the end of his time as an E.H.U.D., Mistlethwakey defeating him as he is holed up in a medical wing, and then of Mistlethwakey wiping everyone’s memories. John decides that now is the time to retreat and regroup, leaving the president under M’s sway. M then informs the president that it is time for him to take his leave for Christmas. (This is around December 20th or so.)


Part IV: Apocalypse


Chapter 26

Back at their safe house, the Huds decide to stick to John’s plan, but to go in and take over Mistlethwakey first. John realizes that he could put his mind inside M’s just as he was planning to do with Shaun at one point, and still have powers. This would also give them another inside man in the White House (Dr. Frease being the first). He informs them that M always vacations at home. They decide to strike the next day, but they need supplies first. John sends one group to go to the local National Guard occupation zone and steal some armor, another to go and get some scramblers, and then he and Cyd go to Cohen and Associates to get detailed plans to Sky Crest. While there, John prints off a copy of his tower plans. They quickly study the plans, and find that the access point from the Central Maintenance Core to M’s apartment has been sealed off. (I’ll get a map or diagram, I swear…) Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but John’s plan requires going powerless, so they have to adjust the plan and go in through the front door. As they leave, Walter manages to see them, and informs John that Lucy is dead (He knew Lucy from when he was John’s roommate.) John is even more resolved to kill Mistlethwakey. Back at the safe house, they make final preparations.


Chapter 27

That night, a group of E.H.U.D.s, led by John, go to Sky Crest. While the infiltration team… infiltrates… the rest stay outside in armor, trying to keep prying eyes away. Inside, John has some people secure the building’s security measures. This whole time, several scramblers, pulsing at multiple frequencies to make sure that M can’t sense them or bypass them, are placed around the tower and taken with John as he goes up the elevator to M’s apartment at the top. John is unarmored, so he will be able to kill his body once the mind switch is made. He gets to the apartment, with a few minutes to spare before the scramblers are set to shut off and then reactivate, allowing him to swap minds. But he is ambushed by Mistlethwakey, who seems to know all about the plan. It is then that Mistlethwakey reveals his true identity: Allen leader of the E.H.U.D.s, and a natural born hud who planned the whole program. He also reveals that he knows what John is doing there, and that he has no choice but to kill John and then pretend to be John, to convince the others that John has succeeded. John wants to know why, and Mistlethwakey shows him a vision (which the reader’s can’t see) of his motives. John accepts this, and when the scramblers deactivate and reactivate, he lets Mistlethwakey shoot him, sending him crashing out the window to the building far below (again, I need a diagram). Mistlethwakey then calls Naomi and impersonates John, but informs her that something more important than the Q-bomb doctrine has come up.


Chapter 28

Mistlethwakey calls for an emergency shutdown of the scramblers and a mental meeting. He informs everyone of the virus that has infected the missile system, and that he has ignored the president’s orders, thus leaving the U.S.’s nuclear arsenals in the hands of… himself. Also, using his powers, he has gone in person and introduced the virus into the secure networks of every nuclear power on earth. The missiles will all launch in approximately twelve hours; there is nothing they can do. Some of the Huds are suspicious of this, but they can sense what feels like John in Mistlethwakey’s mind, and can see M’s own memories of all of this, so they believe him. It is decided, based partially on practicality and partially on M’s pre-existing plans (which seem to have predicted everything the huds have done up to this point) that they will wait until a few holiday shoppers come to the mall (diagram) and then barricade them, and many supplies, inside, while using their powers to divert the nuclear forces that are about to rain down upon them. They quickly go out, in armor, to requisition and steal supplies, including food, water, literature, and large, breedable dogs. Don’t ask; sequel.
Mistlethwakey and a few other huds stay behind to prepare things at Sky Crest, and M goes to find Amanda Latterndale, whom he believes will be able to get everyone organized. He also calls Washington and convinces Eli Rosencrantz, secretary of the press and associated media, to send out a camera crew for a press conference.
Soon, the supply bearing huds bring their truck-fulls of supplies back to the mall, and Amanda manages to convince the now trapped shoppers and Sky Crest residents to load food and prepare for the worst. Meanwhile, Mistlethwakey goes on air for a live, emergency press conference.


Chapter 29

Back in the bunker, the president is on the phone with the Russian prime minister. It would seem that a flight of missiles spontaneously launched, aimed for major western hemisphere cities and geological cites. The prime minister swears it is an accident, that the system was infected with some kind of virus, and Edgar admits that his own system had a virus. It is then that American missles launch, headed for eastern hemisphere targets. Meanwhile, French, Pakistani, Chinese, North Korean, Israeli, and every other type of Missile (including a few secret Canadian ones!) launch. Edgar is stunned and horrified, realizing that Mistlethwakey must have ignored his orders.
One of his aids then enters and informs him that Mistlethwakey is making a statement. They turn on the TV and Mistlethwakey explains that he was the mastermind behind the E.H.U.D. experiment and now the imminent nuclear assault. He tells the people of America, and the world, that he is very sorry. He also tells them of several places that the missiles will not hit, including the central United States, the South Eastern edge of the mediterranian sea, Central Africa, and the Asian Steppes. He then signs off, saying that he leaves the world in the president’s hands, and that if ever tyranny arises, the E.H.U.D.s will be there to protect the world.
Dr. Frease then arrives, and informs the president that he was given post-hypnotic orders that if ever Mistlethwakey were to give a speech like this, he was to send the president down to the subbasement. The president goes, as the world is minutes away from destruction, and finds a hidden genetics lab. As he enters, a computer turns on with a video of Mistlethwakey. He informs Edgar that this was all part of his plan, what he spoke to Edgar about when Edgar first agreed to three months of silence. He then tells Edgar that he should go about with his plan to use Rachel’s government, but that the final results will not happen until after his life time. In order to bypass that, then, he has trained Dr. Frease in the science of cloning, and set up this lab to produce clones of Edgar, which he can psychically transfer his mind into as he nears death. He suggests that Edgar find a new wife to be the womb for these clones. He then tells Edgar that Edgar is now the de facto ruler of humanity, and wishes him the best.
The video ends, and Edgar weeps.



To be continued in Sheol: Place of the Dead

Happy Memorial Day...

No, its not really memorial day... But for me it is. Today, forty three years ago, my grandfather died while serving in Vietnam. Above is his report of casualty.

Other than that, a few quick updates. I have some new customs online, at figurerealm.com and hisstank.com, both under the name Hrothmeir. Also, I've started REALLY re-writing the book, going through and putting in a detailed synopsis of the entire plot. When its done, I'll put it up here. So, that's all. Please comment, and goodbye for now...

Too Little, Too Late...

Okay, so I missed a few things... The one year anniversary, Passover, April fools... Oh, well...

Okay, book update. I'm re-writing (again) starting from the flash back this time, trying to get the mood, and continuity, right. And that's about it. hen I'm done with the flashback and move on to the beginning of the book again, I'll do updates.

In other news, I'm almost done with a few custom action-figures, and hope to have pictures up shortly. And speaking of pictures...

Here are some long overdue photos of me in Israel, July '08. I'm not sure what order Blogger will put them in, so I'll just describe them. The highway with the minaret overlooking it is in Jerusalem, looking to the old city. The people walking are natives and tourists entering the old city in the Armenian quarter, Jaffa Gate. The ocean is the view from the roof of Hotel Gilgal, Tel-Aviv, looking at the Mediterranean. Me with sunglasses is the same rooftop, with hair pulled up to look like forelocks. Me at night is standing in front of the temple. Woot. And yes, that part of chapter three is inspired by my actual experiences.

And now for one final picture: I think the it's now defunct, but 'Infinity on Thirty Credits a Day,' brought to you from the makers of 'Irregular Webcomic' is a freelance web comic, where content is provided by member submission and vote. Follow the link to see my part in the grand space opera, and click around to see if you can find the character designs I based my work on. Infinity on 30 Credits a Day - Comic

So long, and please comment!

The End...

Okay, this is the end... No, not the exciting conclusion (that hasn't been written in draft three yet) nor the final few written chapters I promised. I am sad to announce that those final few chapters are now discontinued. More than likely, they will never, ever see the light of day. Except... Except for this one little snippet I leave, this one final bit of the book. This is a little bit of chapter 26, an in depth explanation of the E.H.U.D. suit and the way it works.

So, why is this the end? Well, as I said in my last update, I believe I have found the central idea of the book, thematically speaking. So, I have taken that idea and crafted it into a short story that encapsulates the whole of the book, thematically speaking, into eleven pages. Yes, I've read it. Yes, I think, unlike the rest of the book, it is actually quite good. No, you can't read it; it's too personal. But what I'm going to do is write draft four now, using this story as a guide, to make what I hope will be the almost-finished version of the book (spllnig grammar need check, last) So, I leave now; physics class is starting. So long!



Chapter 26

Five minutes after Wendelferce’s announced meeting time, John joined his group in a small, brightly-lit dressing room, walled with lockers and floored with a thick spongy material.
“Looks like nature boy finally decided to get with the program.” Wendelferce gestured for John to sit with the rest of his group on a thin bench, ignoring the fact that John was already headed towards them. Once John was seated, Wendelferce walked towards one large locker and pulled out a thick black one-piece suit. he turned it around, showing off its patches of thick quilting, and then tossed it to Allen. “Okay, if each of you will please look in the lockers behind you,” he paused while Vince, Naomi, and John stood and began rooting through lockers, “you will all find one of these suits. Once you have one, put it on.”
John pulled one out and looked at it. The front was slit to allow entry, and had both zippers and buttons to keep it closed. He examined the ends of the legs and the arms, but found that rather than openings, the suit was closed off by thin socks and gloves. He easily slid inside the suit, found to his surprise that it seemed to be an exact fit for him, and closed it up. Next to him, Vince, Naomi, and Allen had gotten their suits on as well. When all four were done, they returned to their seats on the bench and stared up at Wendelferce.
Wendelferce stared back at them, smiling, and carrying a heavy-looking club. “The suits that you are wearing are the underlying layer of the most advanced piece of defensive technology ever created. The Enhanced Human Ultimate Defender is not only proven to effectively protect soldiers against most small arms fire, it has also been proven to protect its wearer from large calibers, traditional armor-piercing rounds, weight loads in excess of half a ton, and high yield explosives. The Defender is the first major piece of hardware that the E.H.U.D. program has developed that will be released in a public manner. While you all remain locked away in this hole, every man woman and child in America will know what a Defender looks like, and will feel totally at ease around anyone wearing one.”
John looked down at the padding that encased his body. It was thick and warm, but it certainly didn’t seem capable of protecting him from a child with a BB gun, much less an armor piercing round.
Almost as if he were the one capable of reading minds, Wendelferce sprang forward and brought his club down on John’s collarbone with bone-crushing force. Other than some mild pressure and the shifting of the fabric on John’s shoulder, he didn’t feel anything.
Was that supposed to hurt?
A snarl passed over Wendelferce’s face, but he was able to suppress any emotions he felt. “As you all felt, this layer, the primary cushioning layer, was able to absorb almost all of the impact of that blow. The main part of the layer is a standard Gortex weave, able to withstand some good wear and tear, with fiber-mesh quilting on the inside. But through the middle of the layer you have packets of a special gel, normally fairly sloshy, which turns tremendously solid when force is applied to it. So when the club his Johnny-boy here, it hit a brick wall, which faded out to gel, blocking and absorbing most of the force, with little impact on the man inside.”
Again he suddenly lunged, this time hitting John in the stomach, the thigh, the crotch, the shoulder. Again, nothing.
Wendelferce circled behind his charges, reached into the lockers, and handed out four skull-caps, each of the same material as the body-suit. “You’ll want these in combat, of course. And yes, there are masks that can be attached to those, but they’re currently attached to the insides of the main helmets.”
He approached another set of lockers and produced from one a complicated tangle of nylon straps and rubber tubing. After a few quick shakes, the tangle unfolded into a complicated harness, with large rubber bags attached where joints and primary muscles would be located on a person, with the tubing connecting all of the bags and criss-crossing the gaps between the harness straps.
“This is the next layer of the suit: the pneumatic sinus system.” As with the last layer of the suit, he tossed the harness to Allen and gestured for the others to get their own. While they struggled to put on their harnesses, he continued to explain the new layer. “In addition to providing protection, the Defender augments your physical abilities. The pneumatic sinus system works with the body’s own movement to pump fluid and build up pressure, which can be stored and released in the normal patterns of moving. For instance, if you bend your knee, you move the fluids in such a way that they are sucked and stored in the bladders on the back of the thigh. When you straighten the knee, an opposite suction is created in the frontal pouch, the fluid is released, and it changes position, providing a significant blast of power to the wearer’s simple, muscle-powered action. In addition to the purely mechanical suction power, the system is equipped with motion sensors that will also create suction and change the internal pressure based on perceived moves, so you don’t have to force movements; the suit works with you. C’mon, hurry, we don’t have all day!”
The E.H.U.D.s didn’t respond. They continued to put on the suits, trying to unravel the twisted material, find the right holes for their limbs, get the suits cinched in place. Finally they gave up and slipped into Wendelferce’s mind. Within a few seconds, they had a two-week training course on the suit, and were able to get it on, tightened, and attached to the inner suit.
“About time. Now take a couple minutes to get used to the movement on those.”
Naomi was the first to respond to the order. She crouched as Wendelferce had been trained to do, and felt the harness building up pressure in her thighs and buttocks. She stood slightly, and the fluid instantly shot around to bladders on the front of her thighs, forcing her legs straight and launching her into a six-foot vertical leap. She made no sound, but her companions could feel her surprise and terror as she came crashing down onto the padded floor.
“See, that’s using the pneumatics as a baseline human; if you also brought in some telekinetic forces, there’s no telling what you’d be able to do.”
Naomi smiled maddeningly and jumped into the air again, sailed towards the ceiling, brought up her arms, bounced off at an angle, flipped, twirled—
The others quickly stepped aside.
As Naomi continued her acrobatic display, Vince looked over the pumping systems on his suit, then glanced up at Wendelferce. “Does the mechanical system work, even if the electronics are offline?”
“In theory. The electronics are just supposed to be there as an additional supplement.”
Vince nodded and slowly moved his arms experimentally, watching as bladders inflated on his shoulders, and then abruptly emptied as his arms swiftly lowered, hitting his thighs with a loud smack. He raised one arm fractionally—it jerked up and his shoulder twisted awkwardly. John had to quickly close his mind to avoid feeling the pain that flooded through Vince.
Allen walked forward and helped to hold back the arm as Vince tried to lower it without further pain.
This isn’t working… we have the minds of being trained with this, but not the bodies…
Naomi stopped bouncing, Vince stopped struggling, and John opened his mind as they all felt Allen focusing on his body, on the muscles that were most affected by the pneumatic system, tweaking them, burning off some parts and rebuilding others, smoothing and altering his muscles until they were like Wendelferce’s, adapted to the shape of the harness, the forces of the suit. Once he was done with himself, Allen turned his mind to Vince’s body and began to reshape it. After only a few seconds, Vince stepped away and carefully raised his injured arm, feeling it rise in time to the patterns of the pneumatics, giving just the right amount of pull to counter the forces of the fluid’s movement, yet not enough to trigger the electronic system’s opposite reaction. Vince smiled, and then went sprawling as something rammed into his back.
From the resulting tangle of limbs, Naomi pulled herself away from Vince and playfully jumped backwards. This is fun! This almost makes all the pain worth it! With these… with these nothing can stop us!
Vince was on his feet in an instant, resting his weight on one leg, extending the other, letting the pneumatics straighten his knee, catch Naomi in the ribs, send her flying. She smashed into a set of lockers, rolled onto the floor, shot herself into the air with a powerful flick of her arm. She righted, got her legs under her, launched at Vince. He grabbed onto her arms as she shot past, jumped up and back, twisted so that his feet hit the ceiling and bounced off, finishing his flip and landing with his knees embedded in Naomi’s back.
This is wonderful! Naomi radiated joy through the room, but John felt that it was aimed specifically at Wendelferce. With these, we can kill you so much easier!
Allen shot Naomi a disapproving glare, but she purposefully ignored him.
Wendelferce sighed heavily and rounded on Naomi. “So, you’re still planning on killing me. You think that since finally got out of that rotten little hole you were in before, you can suddenly make good on your escape.” He shot out a booted heel and caught Naomi squarely in the jaw, then pulled the boot back for another blow. Naomi tried to jerk away, but Vince was still pinning her to the ground.
“You just don’t get, it do you?!” Wendelferce roared. “None of you do! Mistlethwakey has been planning this whole thing out for years! He’s left nothing to chance! The only reason you’re out of the hole and up here is because we know that we can handle you! And if you want to test yourself, go right ahead, we’re ready to shoot you down!” He dropped to one knee and grabbed Naomi’s face, twisting it so she looked up at him. “One way or another, you will all follow Mistlethwakey’s plan. You can either make it unpleasant for everybody, or you can just get with the program and learn the skills we’re trying to teach you. Is that understood?”
Before Naomi had a chance to respond, Allen stepped forward and placed a hand on Wendelferce’s shoulder. “That’s enough.”
Wendelferce glared up at Allen; John was sure that the pistol was about to make another appearance. But to his surprise, Wendelferce merely shrugged away from Allen’s touch, stood, and walked towards the door that led out of the room. “If you want to know how the rest of the suit works,” he said as he left, “figure the **** thing out for yourselves.”



No one moved for almost a minute, and then Vince climbed off of Naomi. “I… I’m sorry…” he mumbled.
Naomi grunted, her chin stopped bleeding, and skin covered the wound.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Allen said.
“Do what? Tell him we’re going to kill him?”
“Antagonize him. It’s cruel.”
Naomi tried to speak, but only expressed a blast of intense anger. When she was finally calm enough to find her voice, she yelled, “What they’re doing is cruel! Don’t you think that ******* deserves to sweat a little compared to what we’ve gone through?”
“If your roles were reversed, do you think he’d see it as you see it now?”
“****, yes!”
Allen sadly shook his head. “That’s exactly right. And we don’t want to be like him.”
“Maybe you don’t but—“
“Why did you kill your partner?”
“What the **** does that have to do with—“
“Why?”
Naomi took a deep breath and considered. Beside her, John and Vince paced a little and then sat on the bench. “I killed my partner,” Naomi answered, “because it’s better for her to be dead than to be what we are… to do what we have to do.”
“Wendelferce would have killed his partner, if he had had one. But he would have done it out of some misguided survival instinct, or for the sheer **** of it.”
John felt a sudden pang of guilt. Despite all of his internal struggle, all of his rationalizing, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had killed Suzanne merely because he was to afraid to die.
“The difference between you and Wendelferce,” Allen continued, “is that his motivation is self, while yours is others. He fears for himself, and he knows that, if we really tried, we could kill him, and he would lose that self. So if you prey on his deepest fear, who are you pleasing?”
Naomi didn’t answer.
“And who are you hurting?”
“Others…” she muttered.
“Exactly. You lose your motivation, you lose the little distinction that makes you a victim and him a tormentor. You become him.”
“But he has to know that we’re coming for—“
Allen raised a hand. “He knows. If you listen, you find that that’s almost all he thinks about. We don’t need to rub it in. All we need to do is bide our time.”
“And what do we do while we bide?”
Allen shrugged. “Prepare ourselves.” He gestured to two unopened sets of lockers in the room, and as one the four of them moved to investigate.
One set of lockers contained large plates of grey armor, heavy and rough, with straps on the edges and a few large magnets on the underside. Allen thought that these should be left alone for now, so John and Vince opened the other lockers and found suits similar to the first layer, but thicker and heavier, with short straps and clasps hanging from them. The suits were passed around, put on, tested. They were filled with the same gel as the under-layer, but were reinforced with stiff pads of heavy fabric. Despite this, there was little interference with movement, and the pneumatic system still worked exceptionally well.
Once they were fully dressed and the suits adjusted to fit properly, they returned to the armor plates. Vince and John spent several minutes trying to put them on, and found that attaching them to the suit was relatively easy, but finding the right order was difficult. They finally gave up and looked out through the complex until they found Wendelferce’s mind.
Soon they were back at their task, matching up the pieces against Wendelferce’s memory of them and attaching them to the proper points on the suit. When they had managed to get John completely encased in the armor save for his head, Naomi and Allen came forward and together they all got the armor on.
Then John went back to the lockers. At the top of each one was a small shelf, and on the shelf was a helmet: grey and lifeless, yet curiously human, with mournful eyes and a thick nasal ridge above a vent of some sort shaped, oddly enough, like a grossly oversized toothbrush mustache. John reached up, carefully pulled one down, and looked at it more closely.
It seemed to look back at him, to see into his eyes, behind his eyes, to know him…
A hand rested on John’s shoulder. “This is the face history will remember us by,” Allen said.
John didn’t respond. Reluctantly, he turned the helmet so that the eyes left him, ad he looked inside the helmet. There was padding all around, mostly on the facial portion, like Wendelferce had said. John tried to pull the helmet over his head, but it was too tight. He searched the outside of the helmet and found a series of gaskets which, when opened, allowed the faceplate of the helmet to disconnect and pull out on two strips of fabric. He tried to pull it on again, and this time the helmet slipped on easily. The gaskets couldn’t be easily resealed however, so John reached out with his mind and forced them closed. There was a sharp pop of pressure change, and John was sealed into the helmet.
Now he stared out through those empty eyes, seeing the world around him highlighted with artificial colors, with floating blocks of text labeling things, with a thin crosshairs floating in the center of his vision. No, not quite the center… the crosshairs wasn’t stationary; there had to be controls for it somewhere.
There weren’t any external electronics on the armor, there were no protrusion on the insides of the gloves, no movement seemed to initiate a change in the crosshairs. John experimentally extended his tongue and found a series of pressure-sensitive switches and rotational mushrooms in front of his mouth. The crosshairs moved, the whole view shifted, zoomed in and out, the text moved around wildly. John sighed, focused on the controls, felt them moving… Good, that was better.
Don’t bother touching the helmet controls…
The others put on their helmets, looked around at each other.
I don’t really like the way this looks…
Who cares about looks; if Wendelferce is right, we can do anything now…
We could do anything before…
Yes, but with these on, the scramblers have no power over us…
John blinked as the import of the thought fully dawned on him. Without their powers, they were exceptionally well-trained soldiers, but the scrambler also caused other effects in them, from bouts of pain to simple stupor; all there training was worthless then. But if they were armored like this…
As soon as everyone’s suited up, we can attack… Do it now! Vince, and especially Naomi, exuded a fierce anticipation.
John looked at Allen. Allen looked back, making no response of any kind. Again, he was insisting that the decision was John’s to make.
No… no attack, not yet… A year ago, we couldn’t make the escape, because we didn’t have these… who knows what new toys we may get in the coming years? If we wait, we get more from them…
There was a grudging acceptance from Vince, but Naomi refused to be swayed.
Besides, Mistlethwakey has had years to plan this… he knows what advantages we get from the suits; he would not give us the suits if he thought we could win; isn’t that right?
The question was aimed to Naomi, who even know was faltering… But John was staring at Allen, standing passively in his armor. Allen, who seemed to have everything planned out for the E.H.U.D.s, who trained and led them, who had gained their trust… their hearts…
Allen, who always reminded them that Mistlethwakey had planned out everything perfectly…

The End is Nigh...

Wow... Well, I've made it through most of my book, and all I have to say is... Wow. I mean, it's bad. Weird plot holes, scenes that go on forever, characters constantly speaking in cryptic, apocalyptic phrases... Wow, just wow... But hey, reading through this has given me several ideas, and pushed me in knew directions for draft four. But enough about that.

For your reading pleasure, I humbly present chapter 25 of draft III. Picking up with from the weird, cryptic, utterly incomprehensible ending of chapter 24, this one (SPOILER!) tells the story of John's first kill. Like many other things at this part of the story, it was created from whole cloth in draft III. You see, as I was working, I realized that I had to explain how ninety nine normal people where transformed into super killing machines (Lemlin was already a soldier). I had to figure that actually killing someone has to be mentally difficult; seriously, in a world with seven billion people in it, how many of them are serial killers? So I was faced with the problem of getting the Huds to draw first blood, to get them on to that slippery slope. Initially, I was going to have some nonsense about training them together with dogs, and then having them kill the dogs, but that was just a bit too long and convoluted for me. So I settled on the version as it currently stands. And the reason why they use lasers, rather than just shooting the people, is that it would be stupid to give the Huds at this point; they could turn on the guards (which would teach them to kill, but be too costly), or on themselves, to get out of killing innocent victims (see previous parenthetical aside.) So... I think it works; I'll find out after I read chapter 25 for myself. And, if this version stands in draft IV, expect to see Suzanne haunting John with the little boy earlier on.

Before I sign off and leave you to read, allow me to present something I whipped up in blender: the results of the uber tutorial I mentioned a few posts back. This is probably about five hours of work, and I'm only about a quarter of the way through the tutorial. Dang.

Anyhoo, on with the show...

And don't forget to comment!

Chapter 25

The next morning was different from the 1,825 that had come before it. There was no wake up call; John was able to let his natural cycles dictate how long he slept. When he woke up and looked around, there was no Udarian; the tiny room seemed magnificently large without the enemy sleeping in it. It was a good start to what John wished could be a normal day. He closed his eyes and pulled the covers up over his head; maybe if he spent the day like this, it would remain this way, and he wouldn’t have to do what the guards would make him do.
Eventually, however, John’s body betrayed him. After an hour of trying to fall back to sleep, he got up and marched angrily to the bathroom. When he emerged, the door of his barracks was open, and Wendelferce stood there, the dangerous smile on his face.
“Donalson! So glad you’re awake!”
“I won’t do it,” John replied.
The smile turned into a sarcastic pout. “Oh, it’s not as bad as you think. I might not have fully understood the orders; you can’t trust everything you read in my mind. Maybe it won’t actually happen.”
“The others had the same orders you did, and we all saw them.”
Wendelferce shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want to go through with it, I could always shoot you again.”
“That might be preferable.”
“Yeah, well, it really doesn’t matter, because Mistlethwakey has called everyone to meet in the great hall. He says that if everyone isn’t there in five minutes, then everybody dies.”
John sat down on the bed. “I’ll take that offer.”
“By everyone, I mean the hostages, too.”
John swung his legs onto the bed and lay down.
“Its simple, really. Either you cooperate and only a hundred people die, or you resist and two hundred die. What’ll it be?”
Only twenty six should have to die, John thought. Only twenty six and we’re all free. Is it time? Do I step up and make the decision, like Allen said? It was tempting to tell the E.H.U.D.s that now was the time, their chance to rise up and kill… But they couldn’t kill. The guards had proven that yesterday; the E.H.U.D.s had the upper hand, but they couldn’t kill the guards.
And today the guards would force them to be killers, one way or another.
With a sigh, John stood up and walked towards the door. “I won’t do it,” he repeated as he pushed past Wendelferce.
Wendelferce replied with a grin.


Once all of the E.H.U.D.s were gathered in the main room, clustered in their groups of four and standing in front of their guards, Mistlethwakey strode into the room. He looked around at the E.H.U.D.s, and then, to everyone’s surprise, actually smiled, an unguarded display of genuine pleasure.
“You… all… did… excellently yesterday,” he said slowly. “It was a beautiful thing to see you all reacting to an opportunity like that, taking advantage of your enemies’ weakness and defeating them. You’ve been trained well.”
He continued to stand for several more seconds, beaming with pride. Then, with the suddenness it had come, the smile disappeared. “Unfortunately, you made one mistake. It was a mistake I knew you’d make, and I’m quite pleased that it was made. However, it’s a mistake I don’t want repeated, a bad habit that I have to train out of you. In short, you couldn’t kill your guards. And a soldier who refuses to kill, well…” he gestured weakly with one hand.
“Of course, I can understand how you could find yourself unable to take a human life yesterday. You have to understand, killing is a deeply difficult and personal thing. It is a decision between a man and himself to make an irrevocable decision, one that will completely alter the world in some small way. You can casually kill an insect, maybe even a mammal, for you hunters out there. But it’s hard to kill a human. Because while you’re debating with yourself on weather or not to make that world-altering decision, the person you intend to kill is capable of making that same decision about you. It’s a rather disturbing experience. And most people aren’t able to make a final choice. There, indecision tends to be deadly.”
He broke of his speech and began pacing. “But we are capable of making the choice,” he said, his voice growing almost frantic, his arms gesturing expansively towards the guards. “Believe me, if we had wanted you dead yesterday, you would have been dead.”
He made a complete circuit around the room, making eye contact with each of the E.H.U.D.s as he did so. When he returned to his starting point, he spoke again, his voice subdued. “If faced with the choice, you can’t be week. To ensure that you make the right decision, I’ve devised a little exercise. When this meeting is over, each of you will return to your rooms; there you will find a partner. This partner was rescued from the federal penal system, given a rationalization for why they are here, and fitted with a small device attached to their hearts. You will be locked inside your barracks with your partner and a small laser projector. When the sensors rigged to your partner’s heart detect the light of the laser, your partner will go into cardiac arrest, and you will have officially made your first kill.”
Mistlethwakey paused and watched mutely as his audience, as one, sat on the ground, folded their arms, and filled his mind with thoughts of rebellion.
The smile returned to his face. “You see, you don’t really have a choice. If you refuse to kill your partners, the scramblers will be activated, you will all be killed and your partners will get to stay here and go through the same hell you’ve all gone through. So before you decide to be noble, think on this: is it kinder to let them live, forced to become E.H.U.D.s, or to kill them and let them be free.”
The E.H.U.D.s made no reply.
“You don’t have to decide now; return to your barracks, make friends with your partner, and then decide.”
He turned to leave, then turned back and held up one finger. “One last thing; there will be no communication between you. You don’t know this yet, but each of your barracks is built with micro scramblers in the walls which, while not powerful enough to disrupt your thought patterns and render you helpless, are more than powerful enough to cut off any errant thoughts floating through the air.”
Once more Mistlethwakey turned and left the great room. The guards remained where they still stood, and the E.H.U.D.s conversed between themselves.
We can’t do it; I’d rather die than become a murdered!
Don’t you think that’s how they’ll feel after five years of training?
No, no, no, no, no…
I won’t do it…
Attack! If we strike now, all as one, we can kill them before they turn on—
The whole point is not to kill!
Knock them out, whatever!
No… All other thoughts fell silent as Allen made his presence felt. If you all could go back five years, with what you knew now, and were given the choice to shoot your younger self, or allow them to go through this what would you do?
There was silence.
As one, the E.H.U.D.s stood and returned to their barracks.


When John reached his room, he looked inside and saw the woman he was supposed to kill, sitting on Udarian’s bed. She was young, no older than he was, blond, and incredibly frail looking, with a withered body and a seamed face.
She heard him enter the room and looked up at him, her eyes taking some time to properly focus. “Oh, I… uh, I didn’t realize there’d be mixed-sex rooms…” she trailed off and blinked a few times.
John was taken aback. She seemed so… so human. Here, there were only those like him and then the guards, the grouped prey and the predators. Even when the new guards came, they were merely more of the same. But this woman was different.
He felt his resolve weakening; he couldn’t kill her. She was just an innocent, in the wrong place at the wrong time; she didn’t deserve death. On the other hand, she didn’t deserve to be an E.H.U.D.
“Um, hello?”
Allen had made it clear; the only humane thing to do would be to kill these hostages. John wished he had had someone to kill him before he had gone through the program.
“Are… are you okay?”
John blinked and realized he was standing in the room, the door closed behind him, and the woman staring up at him apprehensively. He looked down into her eyes, just staring at her for a moment…
No. No, no, no, no, no. Allen had made it clear; but he couldn’t do it, couldn’t take the choice from them. John, Allen, Naomi, Sarah, Cyd, all the others: they had been E.H.U.D.s, knew what it was like, and were now ready to embrace death if faced with it. They felt it would be right to freely grant death to these hostages. But these hostages hadn’t gone through it, hadn’t gotten the experience to make an informed decision on their own. If they chose death when faced with it, fine, but he wouldn’t kill them now and take away their chance, no matter how small, of escape, of a better life. John would sooner die than stoop to the level of a common murderer.
“You’re, uh, you’re kind of creeping me out…”
He couldn’t kill her…
John took a few steps backwards, bumped into his bed, and sat down. If he wasn’t going to kill this woman, what was he going to do here? He glanced at the door, but knew that it would be locked; once Mistlethwakey got them together in the rooms, he wouldn’t allow E.H.U.D. and hostage to escape. He looked back to the woman. She was dressed, like he was, in a white shirt, shorts, and sneakers. Despite her nervousness, she seemed fine with being here.
He wondered briefly if he should tell her what was going on, that she was going to be replacing him in this weird little prison, but then decided to find out what lies she had been told to get her here, play along with them for a while, and then ease her into the knowledge that she needed.
While the woman continued to stare at him, John reached out and dipped briefly into her mind. Her thoughts were sluggish, confused… he lingered for a moment, pulled out a few facts, and then spoke.
“Um, hello, Suzanne, my name is John. I’m, um, I’m recovering, like you are, but I’m here to serve as a counselor.”
Suzanne didn’t immediately respond, but her body language told John that she was far more relaxed. “Oh, I thought that maybe you were my roommate.”
“No, I’m just… Uh, I’ve been here for five years now, and the head guys thought it might help you to talk with a long-timer like me.” John tried to smile, but he felt guilty deceiving her like this. He wanted to scream, to tell her to run, but it was to late now. He shifted slightly, and felt something metallic hit his hand. He looked down and saw that a small metal tube had fallen into the depression that he made.
The laser projector.
“So… uh, what are we going to talk about?” Suzanne asked.
John shrugged. “Anything, really, anything that’ll help with your recovery. Why don’t you start by telling my why you’re here?”
“Oh, it’s not really a good thing…”
John felt a small pang of panic, fearing she might not talk with him. He was ready to die; all he wanted before he went was to talk wit this woman, to hear some little bit of life from the outside world… to justify his decision… to make it easier to let this woman live… to find an excuse to survive, to maybe kill her…
No, no, no, no, no, no, no… She deserved a chance. John wouldn’t become a monster—
“Well, I-I guess if it helps with my recovery; I mean, this is the first thing you do at AA, right?”
John nodded.
“Um, well, okay…” Suzanne leaned back against the wall and, in fits and starts, but growing steadily more confident, told her life’s story.
She had been introduced to marijuana in fifth grade by a boy trying to dispose of his stash before school security had discovered it. Although she didn’t particularly approve of the concept of smoking, Suzanne had enjoyed her first high, and over the next several years had tried other drugs, some legal, some not, and had ended up in a juvenile detention facility after robbing a pawn shop to pay for her habit. At age eighteen she had been released, and had fully intended to clean up her life. But she had gone back to old friends and old habits, and within six months had been caught crossing state lines with twenty-five thousand dollars worth of crystal meth. She was sentenced to fifteen years in a federal penitentiary on charges of drug trafficking. After another six months, she gave birth to a pair of twins, who were quickly taken and placed in foster care.
“And that was really all for a while,” she concluded. “It was just prison for a few years; really boring stuff.”
John sat on his bed and stared at the far wall. When Suzanne had begun talking, he had had doubts, had wondered if maybe sparing her were the right decision. After all, she had had a chance to do something with her life, and then had gone right back to drugs when she got her second chance. Didn’t John deserve to live more than she did? But then she had had her twins… John didn’t have children. If he died, there would be no one to mourn him but the last generation, and they already thought of him as dead. Suzanne, though, once she was released from this place, or somehow managed to escape, she could return to her children, try again to make a better life.
John felt a rush of pride. He wasn’t only refusing to kill her so that his conscience would remain free of murder; he was choosing to sacrifice himself so that her twins could, some day, have a mother.
After a few moments of silence, John decided to press Suzanne for more information; he wanted to know more about the woman for whom he would die. “How’d you get here,” he pointed to the floor, “when you were in prison?”
“Probably the same way you did. Oh, I’m not implying that you’re a criminal or anything, I just thought—“
“No, no it’s okay. No, I’m, uh… I’m from kind of a rich family and they paid for me to be here…”
“Oh, well, um… They called me in for a parole meeting, and there was this old guy there, named Missile-something, I forget. He was really nice. He told me that there was this kind of experimental rehab program going on, and if I volunteered for it, then I could get early release and even get custody of the twins when I’m done, no questions asked!”
It took John several seconds For John to process what she said. Mistlethwakey, she had definitely said something about him; he had gotten her into this mess. But nice? Mistlethwakey wasn’t nice; he was a heartless monster. There was something strange happening—
Her twins. She said that when she was out of this rehab program, she’d get custody of her twins. John could feel his heart sinking. Letting her stay alive, leaving her with the hope of escape and reunion, that was what was keeping her alive in John’s eyes. But she already believed she would see her children, thought it would only be a matter of a few short years, getting her life cleaned up…
He couldn’t let her live, couldn’t let her find out that she would spend the next fifteen years waiting for a false promise to be fulfilled…
John gently fingered the laser…
“Are you okay?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah. So, um, is there anything else you want to talk about? It’s good to talk, find out about each other, get to understand each other. It’ll help with your recovery!” John tried to smile. He had to stall, had to keep her alive, had to make a decision—
The next few hours were spent simply talking. John told Suzanne a little about himself; she told him about her family. He talked about his hobbies, she talked about her favorite movies, her childhood pets, his favorite sports teams, religion, ice cream, politics, anything and everything.
Finally she yawned and leaned back on the bed. “Wow, um, do you know what time it is?”
“No. They don’t believe in clocks around here; there’s no way to know what time it is. It helps to, uh, break use habits. You know, using at a certain time or—“
“Okay, yeah. So, um, do you know what time is lights out around here?”
“You… you can go to sleep whenever you want. I’ll, uh, I’ll just stay here and, and…”
Suzanne was already reclining on the bed. Before John could even finish his sentence, she was asleep.
She looked peaceful while she slept; there was no prison, no E.H.U.D. program, no twins. Just her. John reached down and impulsively picked up the laser projector. He tossed it absentmindedly from hand to hand and stared at Suzanne. What would be better… what choice to make…
He could always tell her the truth, wake her up and tell her that she could either die here, as herself, or live on as a subject, become twisted, lose whatever humanity she had.
Just like me, just like me… Will I hold onto my humanity? This is my test, right here… kill or be killed… be me…
John leaned against the wall and watched Suzanne for what felt like hours, endlessly debating with himself. What if he was the only person to make the kill? What if he was the only one left in the new batch of E.H.U.D.s?
That wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen. Lemlin had a daughter, didn’t he? And he was already a soldier in Afghanistan. If anyone could kill, he could. He would do it, would survive to get back to his daughter.
He would kill to protect what was his.
But what about me? What do I have? What would I kill for? What could I kill for? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…
John tossed the projector up in the air and caught it. If I can’t kill her, I die. If I can’t kill for something, I have to die for something. For what, for what, for what, for what…
The bed made no sound as John stood, the floor no sound as he walked, Suzanne no sound as he pulled back the shirt near her shoulder, saw a little plastic square glued to her chest. In the middle of the square was a little metallic dot; every time Suzanne breathed it sparkled a different color as the light on it changed. It refracted a brief burst of red light, settled, and remained still.
John stumbled away from the bed where Suzanne lay. He hit the door, felt around until his hand closed around the handle, turned it. He walked down the empty hall, his legs shaking. He didn’t see anyone; maybe there was no one there, or maybe he couldn’t see beyond Suzanne, beyond the peace on her face, the hope for the twins…
When he got to the central room, John realized he was not alone. There, sitting along the wall, was Allen, a somber expression on his face.
The world became fuzzy as tears filled John’s eyes. “You *******,” he muttered.
Allen dropped his gaze.
John walked into the room, stumbled to a wall, slumped to the ground, pulled himself into a ball, cried.
All he could do was cry. He had done it, had sold himself to Mistlethwakey, had made himself an E.H.U.D. in soul as well as body.
Eventually, he fell asleep…
Woke up hours later, screaming “Suzanne!”
He blinked, looked around; there were six others in the room now, all lying on the ground or sitting along the walls… all crying, weeping, letting it all out… they faded…
John woke again, dreams of Suzanne fleeing in the light of open eyes. Over thirty E.H.U.D.s now. John opened his mind, felt the whole of the pain and grief, felt the lives of those now lost; their names, their crimes, the lies they were told, the truths, the choices, the indignation… the death…
After what felt like days, all but one of them had committed themselves. They all sat, not talking, not eating, not moving, living a mental existence, losing themselves in each other’s minds, caught up in their own self-loathing. They tried to rationalize it; they didn’t really do it, all they had done was shine a light. If the partner, the victim, had happened t die, what of it? It wasn’t their fault, wasn’t their fault…
Eventually, one final person stumbled into the room, her feet slapping loudly against the cold concrete. As one, they absorbed her mind into their own; Cyd, Cyd the proud, Cyd the fierce, Cyd, always ready for a fight.
Cyd had held out, had refused to kill longer than the others, had retained her humanity the longest.
She joined the group, lay down, slept. The group tired, the group slept…
As one the group awoke screaming, a hundred still faces flashing through their minds, a hundred names lost, a hundred voices silenced…
Later, more footsteps. The guards, two at a time, carrying bodies through the room, in through one door, out through the other. Mistlethwakey, striding in, beaming at his charges.
“Good job. I have to say, I’m proud of you. I didn’t believe that all of you could do this.” He suddenly clapped his hands. “But break’s over; God knows you’ve had enough of a pity party. Training continues!”
He left, the guards came in. The E.H.U.D.s were divided, sent off to different parts of the complex. John followed Allen, followed Naomi, Vince, Wendelferce.
Wendelferce glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Saw your partner, Donalson. ****, she looked nice. You have a good time with her?”
John ignored him. There was nothing he could do, not yet. He had to wait, had to wait, had to wait…


They trained.
They became more than what they were, but also less. They learned to harness their thoughts, to function perfectly as a single unit, to know the layout of a whole maze by seeing through other’s eyes. They learned the layout of their bodies, how the cells lived, worked died. At various times the guards would beat them, injure them, leave them to heal themselves. Eventually, the guards couldn’t do enough to them, so they were given over to packs of starving dogs, ripped and torn, forced to kill and heal…
As the first year of this training went on, they pulled in on themselves, living in each other’s minds, losing their selves, burying their guilt and shame in the single mass of simmering rage that was the E.H.U.D. Whatever the guards did to one of them, they could not hurt the E.H.U.D. Whatever test they gave it, the E.H.U.D. succeeded.
The year ended, the old guards returned. The first day back, the guards gathered the E.H.U.D. in the main room and drugged it. It awoke in a new place, another concrete room. It was alone, it explored. It found a vast empty structure, much more elaborate than its home, its birthplace. Here there were vast kitchens, vehicle bays, libraries, workshops, training rooms. And finally, at the end of one long, dull hallway… an open door.
A small part of the E.H.U.D., a tall thin male with glasses, found itself outside, exploring this new place. There were trees everywhere, vines and bushes between them, dead leaves on the ground, steep hills and, far beyond, at the edge of sight, mountains.
As one being, the E.H.U.D. wept. At long last, they had escaped their prison, had found the outside… only to realize that they were merely in another prison.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
The member of the E.H.U.D., the man… John… turned and saw two guards, Udarian and Wendelferce, leaning against a tree. They were both unarmed, defenseless, easy prey—
No, not time…can’t kill them… they still have power, power Mistlethwakey would use…
Wendelferce pushed away from the tree and approached John. “So, what’s it feel like to be out here, huh? You thinking of running? Maybe you can get back to Philly, maybe find what’s-her-name.”
No, can’t go, can’t leave—
A pistol appeared, as if from nowhere, and Wendelferce blasted open John’s kneecap. “Don’t you ever do that in my head again, do you understand?” he hissed.
John looked into Wendelferce’s eyes for a moment as his ligaments tightened, the patella was pulled back into place, and the skin grew over the wound. Slowly, he nodded.
“Good.” He looked at John for a moment, then moved closer, yelling. “The rest of you in there? The one’s in my group? I know you can here me! I want you to meet me in fifteen minutes! See me there!” He stepped around John and walked back into the new structure.
John glanced up at Udarian, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me; I’m just here for security. Mistlethwakey tells them what to do now.”
John’s mind floated behind him, touched Wendelferce, found where he was going, where his squad was supposed to meet him.
Somewhere else, far in the bowels of the structure, three nodes of the E.H.U.D. moved off to rendezvous with their task master.
Soon, other nodes were meeting with the guards, were being gathered to points near Wendelferce’s destination.
All to meet in fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes…
John, and by extension the E.H.U.D., felt a thrill of excitement. Fifteen minutes to be outside, to explore, to feel the joys of the sun on the skin.
Ignoring the presence of Udarian, John quickly stripped off his clothes and glasses and stood, legs spread and arms extended, beneath the sun. he tilted his head back, looked up into the bubble of fire that burned the earth, felt his eyes contract, strain, start to burn. Proteins from elsewhere in the body were broken down, converted to energy. Even some of the sun’s own energy was used. The energy was moved, manipulated, formed into matter in the burned pupil. As the pupil warped and reformed, other colors could be seen in the blinding white of the sun; brilliant greens; sharp, precise blues; disturbing, unearthly violets.
Ten minutes gone… Time’s now, meet now… can’t be late…
With great reluctance, the E.H.U.D. turned its attention to other matters, relaxed, broke up into twenty five smaller beings.
John, still standing under the sun, closed his eyes and felt around through the layer of rotting leaves for his clothes. He found them, put them on, walked back to the structure, back to the new place of enslavement.
It was tempting to run, to escape into the great wilderness…
But then another would be found, someone to take his place, to make the full compliment of one hundred. John had already made his sacrifice, had killed Suzanne and condemned himself to a life here, under Mistlethwakey’s rule, selling his soul piece by piece so other’s wouldn’t have to. He couldn’t escape; this was his place now.
But you can escape… you decide the time…
It was strange to feel a voice coming from one identifiable person, to know that the voice was meant only for one person.
No, Allen, no… I can’t decide… I won’t decide… I made the same choice everyone else did; I put myself back here… I can’t lead… but even if I could, now is not the time… It’ll never be the time…