Lives Of The Unknown Book 1: The Legend of Andrew Lockeford (17 page)

Andrew and the hupac woke up the next
morning to the sound of raindrops hitting the ground several times
per second. It was raining heavily enough that just stepping
outside would instantly drench somebody. They still had leftover
food from yesterday, so they wouldn’t have to step outside of the
cave much. As for water, they would drink from the nearby puddles;
with all of the vaccinations and genetic modifications in their
bodies, they became so physically tolerant that trying to get sick
would be more difficult than trying to stay healthy.

“So, while we’re in here until the
rain lets up, wanna hear a story?” said Andrew.

The hupac looked at him drowsily for a
couple seconds, then let out a grunt of indifference as it laid its
head onto its front paws.

“Okay, so this one time when I was on
Earth, my home planet, I was climbing this mountain with some dogs
of mine. Dogs are animals, kind of like you, standing on four paws
with fearsome teeth, and humans normally controlled dogs. The dogs
seemed to be fine with it, though, since we fed them, protected
them, and gave them love. Anyway, when we got to the summit, we
could see for dozens of miles—it was unbelievable. I swear I could
even see the curvature of the Earth, just a little bit. The dogs
seemed to enjoy the sight, and I bet even you would
have.”

The hupac smirked, stretching its
mouth to one side of its face but not the other.

“Everything was just
so clear and green and natural….and….I wish it was like that
everywhere. You don’t worry about that—you’ve got a huge island,
reserved just to yourself. But for my species, and I guess for all
intel-beings—is that what they’re called? I think it is. Anyway, me
and every other intelligent being on the plan—” Andrew paused,
recalling that this was Ku-an Doel, not Earth. “Uh, in the
universe, is turning everything to waste, it looks like. I mean, my
species is millions of years outdated from everyone else in the
universe, and even
we
are capable of destroying our own planet!”

The hupac perked up. It only knew the
world from the few miles it had spanned, but it didn’t deny the
idea that the planet of Ku-an Doel was immensely bigger than that.
To this animal, there was no way of destroying such a big place,
other than possibly the force of nature.

“Well, I don’t expect you to know what
I’m talking about.” The hupac nodded. “But I can always teach you
what I know.”

Andrew didn’t know how to put all of
his ideas into perspective for this creature, but in time he told
them well. He talked about the planet Earth itself, the climates
that the hupac could’ve lived in, the animals that resembled the
hupac—specifically the leopard and the wolf—and finally how humans
made their mark on the world. He talked about all of humans’ events
through time, from the cave-men, then to the Romans, then further
to the Dark Ages, and finally to various events between World War
One and the year 2016. He concluded saying how annoyed he was with
how individual people cared more about themselves than about
everyone else, about anything else.

The hupac itself was a very selfish
creature. Andrew expected more interest from an animal that could
understand English. The hupac just laid there with its eyes either
partially opened or fully closed, not sitting up with full
attention towards Andrew. Although, maybe it was interested and it
just didn’t show.

“Are you comfortable? Not just here,
but in general? Do you have all that you want?”

The hupac didn’t know how to respond.
It wanted to say something like, “I don’t know,” but it didn’t have
a larynx to speak elaborately with, nor could it even shrug its
shoulders.

Andrew could tell that the hupac
couldn’t say “good” or “bad.”

“If you don’t know, just put your paw
onto my hand,” he said as he put forth his hand. The hupac looked
forward and put his paw onto his hand, creating some kind of social
bond between themselves.

“I guess there’s always something to
want, huh? And yet at the same time, even I’m comfortable just
sitting here in a cave, watching the rain, having enough food and
water for the both of us.”

Both of them were sitting down,
looking outside, waiting for the rain to stop so they could
continue on with their journey.

Then, everything changed instantly.
Andrew briefly realized that there was a flashing light enveloping
him for two seconds before instantly finding himself in Anzem and
Shul’s laboratory.

With the laboratory near sea level, and the hupac a
few thousand feet higher, Andrew instantly felt the difference in
the atmospheric pressure as he vomited on the floor.

“Ah, no, seriously?” said Anzem. “Just get your
fluids out
now
, because we
need to tell you something important.”

As the vomit disintegrated on the floor, Andrew said,
“What? Do I have to go back to Juvir already?”

“No, it’s different. The Selentors have come here to
Ku-an Doel.”

Chapter 17

After three months of contact with dirt, bugs, and
other unsanitary things, Andrew had been sent to the sterilization
room. This was different from the bathroom he had been in after his
genetic procedures, mostly because chemicals were being sprayed out
from every wall onto every part of his body. He came out smelling
heavily like a fabric freshener.

As he stepped out, Shul quickly shaved off the
human’s beard while saying, “I know, we could’ve told you the news
before sterilizing you, but are you aware of how foul you were?
Priorities!”

“Why are those guys here?” said
Andrew.

“The Selentors, you mean?”

“Yeah. Who else?”

“They say they’ve come to talk about
the treaty. It probably involves you.”

“They know I’m here?”

“I don’t know. But it’s best to keep
you here until they leave.”

A silence filled the room for a few
seconds, then Andrew said, “Can I bring Hupac in here?”

Meanwhile, at the AOIB headquarters, Juvir stood in
front of the entrance to meet the Selentors. The other members
stayed in the conference room, waiting to see why the Selentors
were really at Ku-an Doel.

“Wait, what? The alpha hupac? No! That
animal would just make trouble while it’s here! Probably try to
kill us, too—”

“He’s not just some beast! I’ve lived
with him for three months, and I know he understands
speech!”

“Just because it can
understand language,” said Anzem, shortly after entering the room,
“doesn’t mean it will cooperate; and it
especially
doesn’t mean that it will
be friendly to everyone it encounters.”

“Well, maybe I could—”

An abrupt ringing sound came from a
screen nearby Shul, who developed an expression of shock as he
looked at the problem.

“It’s a Selentor, and he wants to
speak to us!”

Andrew and Anzem both looked at Shul,
then to the screen.

The Selentors entered to meet the
AOIB, with Commander Fall leading them. Every one of them only had
a black suit on, showing that they were not planning to fight. Some
had regular eyes, others had black eyes.

“Greetings, Commander Fall. We’ll talk
in the conference room.” said Juvir.

“As you wish.”

———

“It looks like it’s got something in it’s hand,
like….a dead animal from the island.”

Andrew’s heart pumped harder at the sound of this—he
needed to know what it was. He looked onto the screen and saw a
Selentor facing straight into the camera, holding a hupac by the
legs in its right hand. The alien was the kind with black eyes and
dark muscles. “THAT SON OF A BITCH,” Andrew said between his teeth
as he grimaced.

“Calm yourself,” said Anzem, “I’ll
figure out what this guy wants.” He pressed a button and said, “Who
are you and what’s your business here?”

“I’m just here for your help,” it
said. Andrew felt as though he recognized the voice. However, this
Selentor’s physique seemed a bit too large for him to remember who
exactly it was. It couldn’t have been the commander. “As you know,
my kind has come to the planet for some political business. I was
sent here to talk to you fellows, but on the way I noticed how hurt
this animal was and I was hoping you guys would attend to its
wounds. I suppose someone like you knew about the animals on this
island, and how to deal with their injuries?”

Juvir noticed that the sound of their
footsteps were off—they sounded harder and heavier than those of
organic beings.

The AOIB vice president sat down in
his chair in the conference room, but the Selentors remained
standing. Some of them stood standing outside of the
room.

“Well then, what have you come here to
discuss with us?” said Juvir.

“We have tracked down the path of a
forbidden being to this planet,” said Fall, “and we are curious
whether you may be hiding it or not.”

“We sent it away a long time ago, the
moment we discovered that it was a forbidden species.”

“So you have seen it,
then?”

“Yes, but
what
I’m
curious
about….is why you are tracking down a forbidden
species.”

“Fucking lies,”
Andrew muttered. He moved straight in front of the screen and
shouted, “
Bullshit, ‘you found him hurt!’
YOU DID THAT!!!
”

“Is it any different that it needs
medical attention?”

Anzem had shoved Andrew away from the screen with an
expression of fury. “You aren’t allowed to speak to him! This is a
delicate matter—let me handle this! I’ve already got this under
control, anyway!”

During this quick aversion, the Selentor whispered
into something on its left wrist: “The human is indeed here.”
Moments later, a beam shot down upon him, giving him an armored
suit along with some futuristic weapon. He dumped the hupac onto
the ground.

Fall had picked up the lone Selentor’s signal from a
device implanted in his head, undetectable to Juvir.

“I’ve just got word that the human
is
here,” said Fall, “and my mission
here is complete.”

“WHAT?!”

“I can just tell you everything here and now, since
it’s evident that we both broke the treaty.”

“Why the hell couldn’t you just teleport him into a
prison or something?!?”

“Because he has rights!”

“And I
don’t?!?
”

Anzem had leaned towards Andrew’s face, curled his
tongue so that the tip pressed onto the back of his upper teeth,
and was about to utter something. In this same instant, Shul was
appalled enough to about to intervene. However, what stopped both
events was the destruction of a wall, and the Selentor barged in.
Anzem had just faced towards the sound, then the Selentor shot his
weapon and hit the scientist directly in the head. His head was
vaporized clean off, with a spark or two coming out from his neck.
He fell onto the ground.

As Andrew could see by his severed neck, Anzem was an
android—just like Lee—and he had just been shot in front of the
human’s eyes. His face turned pale from pure fear and
astonishment.

“We had been harboring humans for centuries now, but
this particular human has been the only one who has managed to land
into the safety of your hands. Normally they just die trying to
escape the ship.” Fall had a smirk on his face for a moment, but it
had faded shortly afterwards to an expression much more serious.
“It’s time we took back our most important subject.”

“OH YHN,
ANZEM!!!
” screamed Shul.

The Selentor aimed directly for Shul’s heart.
Andrew’s right arm was in the path, and when the vaporizer fired,
away the lower part of the arm went. The vaporizing beam had
reached Shul’s torso, but it had only penetrated halfway through
his body. Even so, with the mass of metallic and electric
components exposed, it was evident that Shul was robotic as well,
and both he and Andrew could feel pain.

“AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!!!
”

Regaining his composure after a matter of seconds,
Andrew leapt towards the Selentor in a boiling rage, only to hit
him as though he hit a brick wall. The Selentor retaliated by
slamming its fist right into Andrew’s head, making a cracking sound
as he hit the wall.

“And just for the record, you should keep closer
control of your own subjects.”

Juvir pulled out a vaporizer and shot Fall four
times, revealing all of the circuitry within—
a fake,
he thought. All of the other Selentors
behind him had suddenly shut off and fell down, each of them
beeping.

“Take cover!”

Each and every robotic Selentor exploded, causing
chunks of debris to fly at frightening speeds in various
directions. A few of the AOIB members had been hit, but no severe
injuries had been taken. The walls of the building had been
damaged, and the nearby teleporters had been altogether
destroyed.