Origins Unknown Read online

  “And… and what’s that?” I say rather short of breath and with even less strength.

  And with that question, the neatly-dressed man draws out an expandable baton from his belt and moving swiftly, strikes me with it on the chest, the back of my left leg and the back of my head with fast and furious blows.

  The man turns me onto my back and says with a final sentence – “Any prisoner who attempts to escape will face my wrath,” just before hitting me in the face with the baton again, rendering me unconscious…

  3

  WEIRDLAND

  I awaken groggily, being dragged by my arms somewhere. I look up and see that two guards are dragging me by a rod that links my cuffs together. There are no other guards about the place as far as I can see and there is a deathly silence about the prison, as I can hear no noise coming from the cells in the distance. From the sounds I am able to hear coming from the guards, it looks to me as if they are both deep in conversation.

  “Why does it have to happen, Number 7?’’

  The first guard, who just spoke, gun holstered to his side, is short, fat and stumpy. He has a raspy voice. He is dragging the rod with me attached using great leverage on his hunched back and legs and doing the job with much strain and difficulty. Despite his staggering, he is questioning the second guard, stopping at times to take short gasps of breath.

  ‘‘What do you mean by that, Number 8?’’ replies the second guard, who has a slower tone of voice. He is much taller and clearly stronger than the first guard as he is walking with ease and a straight back.

  ‘‘Well, Number 7, what I mean is that they are first caught—”

  “Yeah, go on.’’

  ‘‘Then they are tortured, much like our friend here has been—’’

  ‘‘Yeah…?’’

  ‘‘… And then they are let go? It doesn’t make any sense to me, all this effort spent in capturing and keeping them locked up if we’ve just got to do it all over again.’’

  ‘‘Well, maybe, it is training for us, isn’t it? I mean target practice so the Commander can root out the best soldiers or something, you know?’’

  ‘‘Yeah but wouldn’t it just be easier to kill them and be done with it? We do have other duties to attend to, ones which can be better spent time on and which will be best suited for us to focus on.’’

  “Number 7?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Number 8?’’

  ‘‘If it all made sense to us, we would be the ones calling the shots around here, wouldn’t we? Not just officers in a lowly position, doing jobs like the one we are doing right now.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I know, Number 8, but—’’

  ‘‘Shh, Number 7, we are just about near the clearing…’’

  The near darkness of the prison we have just travelled through has come to a stop now as light begins to creep in. I hear the sounds of opening metal doors coming from the direction we are travelling in. Increased light invades the corners of my eyes.

  I… I think we are going outside!

  Suddenly, Numbers 7 and 8 drop the rod from their hands, dropping me onto the floor. With me on my back on the ground, Number 7 turns around and crouches down to drag a thin, oblong-shaped device towards my handcuffs and the rod. Number 8, on the other hand, is standing above me, the barrel of a large gun pointed towards my cranium.

  The rod detaches itself from the cuffs, leaving them intact around my wrists.

  “To your feet, come on now, we haven’t got all day,’’ shouts Number 8, aiming his gun away from my head. He continues holding it with a steady hand on the trigger, ever ready to press it, if it came to that.

  “Yeah… what he said!’’ shouts Number 7, pushing me and pulling me to attention, including a slap to the back of my head.

  Numbers 7 and 8 drag me to my feet and stand me in front of them now so that one of them can point a gun at my head and another to my back.

  Peering ahead, I see the internal metal doors of the prison ascending, with a sign above them displaying the word ‘Exit’. As we approach the doors, a pair of guards posted at them attempt to open the external doors as well, which they do once Numbers 7 and 8 give them the appropriate security clearance code.

  The doors begin to rise quickly. The heat and sand from the outside strikes me at once, rendering me unable to see properly. But once the dust settles, I look upon the most extraordinary sight possible.

  No, it isn’t the fact that I am not the only one being led outside. Thousands upon thousands of prisoners or more are also present as far as I can see, being gathered by guards and escorted from all areas of the prison to the outside grounds.

  No.

  It is the appearance of the sun and the sky.

  ‘‘Oh my, the nus looks really beautiful in the kys today!’’ Number 7 mentions to Number 8.

  ‘‘You’re not wrong, Number 7. But quit it. We need to push him on forwards.’’

  ‘‘Right. Come on you, move it or lose it.’’

  I get nudged with Number 7’s gun in my back to move forward, which I do but without taking my eyes of the…nus and the kys, as they call them here.

  Wow. This is crazy. This isn’t what I expected at all.

  The nus has the oddest tinge of green within and around it and the kys envelops it in a shade of purple. The ground itself is covered in a dark shade of orange, not quite unlike sand at all nor the feel of it.

  The prisoners are now being gathered into groups by the remaining guards and much like myself, are being shepherded quite forcefully by them.

  “Hey, watch it, sucker!”

  I begin to observe the one particularly large cuffed inmate that I had just heard in the distance. He is around seven foot in height and I see him bickering with a whiny guard over something trivial. His guard starts abusing him and attacking him with a Taser. As far as I can make out, the prisoner had been doing everything that was expected of him up until this point.

  “Hey man, if you come at me with that thing again, I’ll…”

  “You’ll what, huh?” sneers the guard. “You’ve got no power here while you’re in my yard so just keep on moving and keep your big mouth shut.”

  “You’ll get yours, man, I’m telling you, you’ll all get yours,” warns the prisoner to the guard, as he writhes on the ground in pain.

  A helicopter then approaches out of the kys and lands in front of us all within the clearing, stunning the rest of us into silence.

  As the doors to the chopper open, the Commander descends from it with a few armed guards in tow, prompting a “Commander, Sir!” shout from all the guards simultaneously. The Commander now presses a button on the podium in front of him to activate all the speakers on the external parameters of the prison and then looks out at all of us, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Listen up, all of you illegal aliens. I am the Commander and I am your Warden. As you are probably aware by now, the prison that you are departing is a state-of-the-art penitentiary, my facility, in which you are all unfortunate guests under my watch. To escape from here will render you lifeless unless…”

  The Commander fidgets slightly while stood at the podium, looking around at us all with his steely gaze. He sighs, shakes his head and continues.

  “… Unless it is authorised by me and me alone. So basically put: my house, my rules. However, I have gathered you all here today and now for the next step. This.”

  The Commander points to the kys and just at that second, a very large screen pops into existence high above our heads. An image then appears onscreen… of a rather beautiful-looking woman dressed in an embroidered gold gown, wearing a diamond-studded crown atop her head. To the left of her on the same screen, I notice a council of cloaked individuals watching everything the woman does. All of the prisoners, including myself, gasp at the sight of this strange phenomenon.

  “I am Princess Nam-E. Welcome. You have all been gathered here today by the Commander to participate in an opportunity. A chance that favours the luckiest amongst you b
ut bestows upon particular individuals the briefest means of… freedom.

  “All the prisoners I see standing in front of me on this day carry a very fatal disease, one which if a cure is not found as soon as possible, can leave fine, upstanding individuals like yourselves within death’s cold grasp. You have just three days to find it, three days of existence only to save yourself.”

  I can’t believe this is real…

  I’ve only got three days to live.

  “Your ONLY chance of survival is passing through a golden Door marked with the word ‘Preb’ on top of it.”

  “In order to find this Door, you’ll all receive instructions NOW.”

  AARGH!

  I close my eyes in response to the excruciating pain that enters my head, doubling over in the process onto the ground as I press down hard onto my forehead with both my hands. The pain leaves as quickly as it enters, as I open my eyes again. I shake my head to try to get rid of that unwanted moment. As I am forced to my feet by my captors once more, I notice the rest of the prisoners have just suffered the same fateful process as me, as I expected.

  Somehow, we are all linked to our fate, the same fate.

  The Princess continues.

  “Close your eyes and you’ll see the path of survival.”

  With an unwillingness to fully comply with her demands but with Numbers 7 and 8’s guns pointing and grinding into my spine and head, I begrudgingly close my eyes.

  Instantly, I am struck with a vision of this strange, dystopian world of which I am now a part. An image of a blueprint appears inside my head with five dots engraved on it that lay separately on different countries upon this… map. Every so often, I can sense the dots move just a fraction or across the map rapidly, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly what their realistic locations are at any given point.

  “On the map in front of you lies the three-dimensional utopian rectangular world on which you now reside, known to many as Raeth. It is a world where the past, present and the future have blended into one singular event – this one. Its indigenous species are called the Reds. They are considered harmless unless provoked and are to be left alone.

  “The dots on the map signify small coloured crystals in the shape of letters as big as your hand. These are called Gems. Your objective is simply to collect all five of the Gems and use them to help you find the Door, or Preb if you like. But… be careful not to underestimate Raeth for danger lurks in every direction. As for anything else you experience here on Raeth, those things are best left for you to find out for yourselves.

  “Remember the cure is the Door. I wish each of you the best of luck.”

  With that, the Princess, the Council and the screen disappear from sight.

  The Commander growls at us all while on the podium. He comes closer to those in front of him, eyeing us in the face while walking in front of us, his arms still clasped behind his back as he walks along this first row of prisoners, me being one of them.

  “There. A noble gesture by the Princess for you all. But don’t get your hopes up.”

  The Commander is nearing where I am stood, making me feel anxious that he is approaching me, as well as silently encouraging him so that I can have an attempt at retribution for what he did to me in the prison.

  “You have one chance and one chance only to escape with my hesitant permission…”

  The Commander is in front of me now, full of anger and with gritted teeth, staring me straight in the eyes.

  “… Because WHEN, not if I catch you, you’ll wish you hadn’t set eyes on me to begin with.”

  PING! The locks on our cuffs open and begin to loosen, sliding off our wrists completely. Free and full of anger, I punch the Commander squarely on his jaw in the moment this happens as he becomes distracted with the notion that all jailed occupants are now free. He falls to the ground as I look around at the entire prison populace fighting in various ways with their respective jailers.

  The Commander crawls towards his helicopter and a few of his guards close at hand help him to his feet. Looking around some more, I notice the prisoner who I had heard having an argument with his guard a little earlier is now bearing down on this particular guard. The guard, slightly unnerved by the prisoner’s height and new-found freedom, smirks at the prisoner to mask his fear of him and silently reaches for his pistol.

  “So, man, no hard feelings, right?”

  The prisoner’s left hand begins to expand and turns into a flesh-coloured mace. He plants it into the guard’s face just before the guard can reach the trigger of his pistol, killing him instantly.

  “No hard feelings.”

  Whoa.

  Everyone around me is fighting hard and not just regular hand-to-hand combat: some prisoners are using a combination of physical combat and powers as demonstrated by the prisoner I saw kill his guard moments ago.

  Since when and how do we have powers?

  It seems to me that this ability, this strength from within seems to grow stronger and wilder as more concentration is given to it, especially at times of great emotional turmoil. After possibly hours, days, months or even years of being captive, the anger of it is now being used to punish their punishers and judging by the look of things and by what I have just done to the Commander, this is entirely feasible.

  Stop it. This is your chance to flee.

  I stop thinking and I run.

  I just run.

  I run straight for an electrical fence blocking the entire prison from the outside world. Other prisoners try to climb it and are experiencing a rather nasty shock from the electricity now coursing through their bodies. I look on as I approach the fence and see other, cleverer prisoners try to melt, freeze and break through the fence with their new-found powers as well as trying an assortment of different ways to try to escape. I hope to do the same as the others, but not knowing how, I close my eyes and hope my strength will be enough to break through it.

  Whoosh!

  I open my eyes after a few seconds. I am in mid-air and am jumping over the fence, not sure at what moment I bent my knees to jump or if I could jump over something so high. I land forcefully on the ground, roll over and then pick myself up onto my feet once more.

  I resume my running again. I can’t believe it as I realise that I am free from the prison at last…

  4

  A RUN IN THE DESERT

  The Commander looks around. Chaos is ensuing with more than half of the prisoners escaping or having escaped. Most of his guards are injured quite badly, several dead. Many of the prisoners that haven’t been able to escape are currently being put down or are being recaptured once more. A fair number of them, however, are being restrained by his remaining guards.

  One particular prisoner is being very forcefully beaten by the guards, who have thrown chains around his neck and are trying to get him to kneel on the ground using tasers. The prisoner looks very bulked up with expandable muscle and seems not to experience much pain from the attacks from the guards. Instead he roars and attacks them in desperation to escape, a last-ditch effort but without much luck. He continues in this fashion, tossing them about here and there with such force, as well as decapitating a few of them at the same time.

  Sighing deeply, the Commander suddenly lunges towards him, trips him up using the chains around his neck and grabs a shotgun from one of his guards. The Commander chokes the prisoner, enacting a plan that would either force the prisoner to die of asphyxiation or to power down his body, changing it back to its usual proportions. As the prisoner falls at his feet, unwilling to change his body back to normal but screaming in pain, the Commander shoots him in the skull with the shotgun repeatedly until the screaming stops forever.

  “Numbers 67 to 72!”

  The Commander beckons to his colleagues while attending to the bump on his lip. Injured but ready to oblige, Numbers 67 to 72 all approach the Commander. They simultaneously answer the Commander in the same fashion.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “D
ig out the hover racers, capture all prisoners, detain them dead or alive but under any circumstances, bring me the prisoner designated as Max alive! Number 72, you are in charge of your troop, do not fail me!”

  The guards nod in unison and run off into the prison, heading straight for the hover racers.

  The Commander turns his attention away from them and places a finger on a device in his left ear.

  “Number 9!”

  “Yes, Commander?”

  “You are my eyes and ears on this perimeter breach. Give the orders to fan out all the guards globally just as we practised. Send Team Alpha to the Western Quadrants and Team Beta to the Eastern Provinces. Extreme prejudice is to be executed upon all prisoners. This has now turned into a search and destroy mission.

  “Also, have the guards finish mining the ore of the Omon and utilise whatever resources we have in our possession from it to transfer it into weaponry.”

  “What kinds are needed, Sir?”

  “Bullets and laser photon energy for the hover racers.”

  “And what about prisoner SPEC786?”

  “Who?”

  “Max, Sir?”

  “He is the exception to the rule – when found; bring him in with brute force. Got that?”

  “Why is he the exception, Sir?”

  “He is the only one who attempted to escape while still inside the prison. There is something about him that I just don’t like, can’t quite put my finger on. Add to the fact that he just caught me off guard for the first time ever, he is going to pay for that one.”

  “Yes Sir, over and out.”

  Number 9 gets to work by using the options on his control panel. First, he sends out a message to all the guards to reaffirm the Commander’s orders for them, which they receive through the interlocking system positioned within the earpiece of their headgear. Then he gradually responds to a number of disturbance issues intercepted from guards already on the mission, providing the support needed in terms of back-up.

  After issuing the order, the remaining guards not out on the hunt yet finish arming themselves to the teeth, now fanning out as expected into teams aboard kyscopters, armoured heliplanes and fast-tracking hover racers.