Chapter Thirty-Five
Travis reveled in causing his parents pain,
but it was only a fraction of what he'd endured at the hands of the DMRC. And
he would have continued punishing them had Josh not intervened when he did. The
moment he saw Josh, Travis's rage bloomed anew.
He'd lashed out at Josh, fully intending
to maim if not kill him. But he paused when Josh screamed out. Sure, he was
well past furious, but part of Travis still loved Josh. He went to comfort him
when agents from the DMRC arrived and opened fire on him. He'd never forget the
searing pain as their bullets tore through him.
Vision darkening around the edges, head
spinning and woozy, he tried Popping to Grams'. Instead, Travis found himself
in a desert filled with pueblo caves, the arid wind blowing against his face as
he swayed on his feet. Spotting a sign, he learned he was in The Mesa Verde
National Park.
What am I doing here?
"The answers you seek can be found north of
here," boomed a new voice in his head.
Who are you?
"I'm the power of your body, and in time,
you'll meet the power of your mind and spirit. You must master each of us."
How do I know I'm not going crazy? Travis sucked in a
breath, wincing as pain radiated up his arms and chest.
"Time grows short, young one. If you are to
survive, then do exactly as I say."
Body, as he dubbed the voice, guided Travis
through the process of removing the bullets via telekinesis by first focusing
on the pain. Then, Body had him visualize the bullets and shoot them out of
himself.
"I can't do this," he said through gritted
teeth, fighting back the pain and losing.
"Yes, you can!"
Biting the inside of his cheek, Travis dug
down deep. With a loud scream, he expelled the bullets and passed out. When he
came to, night had fallen.
Where to now? he asked Body,
wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm. It guided him to a group of
pueblo caves a mile north of where he'd passed out, and when he arrived, a
bright white light surrounded him, lifting him upward.
When it passed, he was in a massive cave
filled with technology he'd never seen before.
"Welcome home," Body said.
He fainted.
***
Blinking, his vision cleared, revealing two
entities above him; they were talking in a language that sounded like a blend
of Japanese, Mandarin, and birdsong. They had flamingo limbs, ostrich necks,
and peregrine claws on their outstretched hands.
Their luminescent eyes--the smaller one had
purple, while the other had amber--popped against their obsidian-black skin.
Travis backed away, summoning a fireball in each hand.
Their lipless mouths formed into something
akin to a smile, showing off their serpentine fangs.
"Another step, and I'll deep-fry ya."
They looked at him, their almond-shaped eyes
reminding him of an eagle's. The larger one spoke in the weird language, and
when Travis didn't react, it waved him over to a machine.
He stiffened, drawing back his arms.
"Wait! Maybe we should do like my mans says and follow him," Prometheus said.
One, how do we know we can trust them? Two,
how do you know that's a male?
"I mean, they could have murked
us while we was passed out, right?"
True. But I still don't trust them.
"I feel ya. But
don't you think it's highly sus we was led all the
ways here just to be killed?"
That remains to be seen.
"Whadda
we got to lose?"
Our viscera and genitalia.
"Boy, you play too much."
Okay. But if we wake up in an ice-filled tub
missing a kidney, it's on you.
Travis stood in front of the machine it
pointed at and examined it. It had a console with a square panel and what
looked like a microphone. He touched the panel, and the cave came alive with
action. Machines beeped and whirled, lights flashed . . . and then, dead
silence.
He stood in awe at the sight before him,
wondering if he'd stumbled upon a clandestine military base, when
indecipherable symbols ran across the monitors lining the walls of the cave. He
struggled to comprehend how such a massive compound could exist without people
discovering it and how it fit in the mountainside when it was several times
wider than the mountain itself.
The creatures approached, speaking rapidly,
but he couldn't understand them and made to attack.
"Hold up. Maybe you should go Professor X on
them before making with the violence?"
His frustrated expression must have told them
he didn't understand them, for they stopped speaking and burst into
tears.
The smaller one approached, placed its
hand on his face, and uttered a series of chirps. Travis flinched away.
What are you? he asked it.
It paused and then looked up at him, its eyes
boring into him. "Ta (|tah|) Bi (|bee|) Tanna (|Tahn| |nah| ) wo(|whoa|) Baha (|bah| |ha|)."
I don't understand.
It let out a forlorn cry, and the image
of a woman cradling a baby flashed into Travis's mind.
You're my mother?
"Ahi(|ah|' |he| )!
Baha." She pointed to the taller one. "Tochi (|toe| |chee|')."
He followed her seven-fingered
hand. Father?
She nodded.
This isn't happening. I must be having a
psychotic break or something.
"Freak out later, dip shit.
I wanna hear what else she gots
to say."
You're enjoying this, aren't you?
"Like a crackhead sparking up after three
days."
He pointed to himself. "Travis."
She shook her and warbled.
He pointed at her. "You?"
"Ta Bi Luscinia (|Looh|'
|sigh| |knee| |uh|)."
"You're name's Luscinia?"
She nodded, pointing to herself, and then to
the machine next to him. Grabbing the microphone-like device, she said, "Na
(|nah| ) wo Esu ( |a|' |sue|
)."
He took the device from her and said, "Hi,"
causing the monitor attached to the machine to turn on and flash a checkmark.
The taller creature came over and pantomimed
writing, then pointed to his throat.
"Okay." He recited the English alphabet, then,
after conferring with Luscinia, added pronunciations for each consonant and vowel
combination.
He pointed at the taller one. "What's his
name?"
"Co'laf (|koh|' |loff|)," he said in a deep
voice.
Luscinia pointed to the microphone, and for
the next few hours, Travis, in a daze, helped them create a translation
dictionary. The process involved their showing pictures of items and his naming
them in English. Several times he didn't know what an item was, or they didn't
have a word for it in their language, so they had to rely on telepathy to show
each other what they meant.
At the end of the process, they had a
rudimentary understanding of each other's language. He learned their language
was called Na'iva (|Nah| |ee|
|vuh|), which meant `speak to the wind.' Travis,
being the tone-def misfit he was, couldn't produce the notes necessary to speak
traditional Na'iva, so instead, they taught him Na'el (|nah|' |el|), rock voice,
a dialect of Na'iva that wasn't tonal.
Travis dove into learning their language.
Anything to keep his mind off this being real. He would have continued in this
illusion had his stomach not growled. "Got anything to eat?" At their confused
looks, he corrected, "Sorry. Urebatnomo (|ooh| |ray|
|bot|' |noh| |moh) ka (|kah|)?"
Luscinia showed him to a machine at the edge
of the cave. She explained it was a molecular printer that could create almost
anything with the right program. She keyed in a few commands, and while he
waited for it to finish, Travis asked her about the cave's power source.
According to her, everything was powered by a set of solar-powered fusion generators.
"So, this cave has been here this whole time?"
She nodded. "Waiting for you . . . we have
been."
"Isn't that a little stupid? I mean, what if
someone discovered this place before me?"
Her face scrunched up in confusion, so he
repeated what he said telepathically.
"The cave is invisible to all except those of
our lineage."
In other words, it has biometric security? Then that means I'm. . .
The molecular printer beeped before he had a
chance to complete his thought. It extruded sohan
(|soh|' |hän|) `seed soup,' an oatmeal-like paste
into a bowl along with an aquamarine liquid called miqua
(|me| |kwa|) or `life and energy' into a cube-shaped
pottery cup.
He sipped the sohan,
more like gruel, and downed the liquid, which was flavorless. Soon after, he felt
sleepy and nodded off.
***
An alarm woke him. He was in a machine, the
door disjointed from its hinges, Luscinia looking at him concerned.
"You drugged me!"
Springing from the machine, he grabbed her by
the throat and tossed her aside, readying an energy lash when Co'laf blocked his path.
"She harm no mean.
Back our son we want."
"Explain."
And so he did.
Luscinia and Co'laf
were aliens called Torins (|tore| |inns|), which
meant `flame people' or `energy people,' from a now-destroyed planet named Aves
(|eh|' |vis|). Torins were living stars, energy
beings that had evolved from creatures similar to the
birds on Earth. Luscinia was an intergalactically-renowned scientist and
inventor, and she'd created the devices that built the cave and spared their
lives.
"What happened?"
Rather than tell him, Co'laf
showed him using telepathy.
***
Torins had been celebrating
something. Travis's birth. Then other aliens that looked like giant cats
attacked, killing many, and set off a machine that created a series of supermassive
black holes that wiped out Aves and most of its galaxy.
Luscinia and Co'laf
transferred their minds into computers, becoming the corporeal holograms before
him, while their son was . . . bonded with Travis.
When the vision ended, Travis had a ton of
questions. "What was that machine you put me in?"
"Defuse you from our son it was to," Luscinia
began, "but malfunctioned the technology did, merging your
. . . DNA. Permanently fused are you."
"Nope. Not real. Not real," he repeated, his
chest heaving as he hyperventilated. The edges of his vision darkened, and the
room spun. "This isn't happening," he screamed.
Aliens weren't real. None of this was. He was
crazy; he had to be. This was all some hallucination, and any second now, he'd
wake up in a psych ward.
Travis clung to this thought because
otherwise, he'd have to face the truth that the pillars upon which he'd built
his life were a lie. Energy arced off him as his breathing sped up until he
passed out.
Author's Note: Is Travis crazy, or are aliens
real? Next chapter, Pro takes center stage and gets to know his "parents" more.
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