Ctrl Alt Dlt : Prologue

Prologue


Karry’s hands were typing faster than he ever thought would be possible when he seemed to awaken from a trance. He blinked and looked around. None of his surroundings made any sense; he was sitting in a metal room, with no door, that looked more like a large janitor’s closet than anything else. The room was empty, save a computer and a light. The room was about six feet square and six top to bottom. Karry knew he would be incapable of standing strait, for the low ceiling. The room was large enough not to feel suffocated, but small enough to be able to inspect the room without moving. There was a single florescent light in the exact center of the room, about one foot to his left, and three feet from both the floor and the ceiling. But the light didn’t give off quite as much illumination as the computer. Even still, with both the light and the computer, the lighting was barley sufficient enough to examine the room in detail. But something was wrong with the light, and the computer, for that matter. There was no noise in the room. Absolutely none, no hum from the computer no buzz from the light bulb, and no noise from outside the room. Assuming of course, that there was an “outside the room.” The most unsettling thing, though, was that as he looked at the dim light, he saw that there was no cord connecting the hanging lamp to the ceiling. The little light appeared to be suspended in mid air.
But the computer in front of him was so much more advanced than was possible, that once he saw it he couldn’t take his eyes off it, not even to examine a floating, silent light bulb. It was completely spherical with its screen right above it in a 3d-hologram format. It, too, was suspended in the air. About two feet higher then Karry’s lap when he was sitting. Which, he realized, he was. The screen or image was flashing up codes and numbers that, though he recognized them, somehow, he had never seen. The figures were hopelessly contorted and mangled and as he watched the numbers he noticed his hands were still moving at that insane speed and he stopped them. His hands were in gloves and he noted the keyboard was somehow connected to the gloves, as it was always right below them. He took one of the gloves off and the coloring of the keyboard flickered, and was gone. It was like a coloring book picture that hadn’t been touched; the lines were all that was left. A hologram, Karry thought. But he was skeptical that the keyboard even could be a hologram projected by the gloves. Such technology just wasn’t this advanced yet. Just to check that it really was a hologram, he reached out his bare hand to touch the keyboard. Suddenly there was the noise of a gunfight, screams and shouts, orders being issued and some were closer than others.
“Chigin!” he jumped as a deep sharp voice came from the darkness perfect silence around him with both the voice and the sounds of gunfire in the distance. He knew no Chigin, but he knew that it had been directed at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” There was somebody in a doorway that hadn’t been there before. As he looked closer he saw the walls were broken into segments, and each segment, he supposed, had the ability to spring open. “You know what would happen if bare skin were to touch that!” The strong male voice sounded angry. “Well what are you waiting for? Put that Glove back on and start programming! Go, Go, Go! They got C’gotoryn and her charge Fuytr. So you’ve got to pick up the pace to finish your stuff and still have time enough to finish his stuff, too.” His voice was hard but oddly emotional.
For some reason the news about Fuytr was upsetting, it was the strangest thing, and as he thought about the name he realized it wasn’t his true name, but a codename. What did that thought mean? His name? How could he know that Fuytr was a man? As he thought about the name an image came to his mind of a tan man with jet black hair, smaller than average, yet, with very clever green eyes. With that image came a name, James. But more disturbing than the odd unwarranted feelings and the vivid image of a man named James was that, though the stranger in the doorway was speaking in a language like nothing he had ever heard, or believed possible to comprehend, yet he understood it as well as he understood English. He knew it was the same bizarre language as the one he was typing minutes ago
Karry turned his head and looked in every direction, looking for escape from this lunatic. As he turned, Karry felt something in his pocket. At the same moment as he felt it something made a squealing sound of protest, like a rusty wheel being turned for the first time in a year. He tensed immediately after he heard it. He waited a few more seconds and turned suddenly to the stranger; the squeak was as sudden as his movement. What is that squealing? He thought, suddenly scared.
The stranger took a step forward. He felt for his pocket and felt nothing. He was confused, and then his hand fell into his suit. He was amazed! His suit was like an enzyme. As he looked at his emerging wrist and noticed that it was all electric blue. The man moved again and Karry pulled out his… gun? He prepared to use it, but something, probably his training, told him to hear out this stranger’s story first. Still, he checked to turn the safety off, it wasn’t there at all.
“Who are you?” asked Karry in a suspicious tone, his words sounding volatile in the deranged language flying from his mouth.
“Have you lost it? It’s me, Hary. Now get to work!” The man seemed half-worried and half-angry, as though he thought Karry was joking, but afraid that he might be sincere.
“Who?” Karry was getting interested now, but was not going to let his guard down. He wasn’t stupid.
The man looked scared and started speaking in rapid English, “Hary. You know H-A-R-Y, short for Harold, pronounced Hair-ee. Family joke since we were nine.” The man was obviously half way to hysteria and clearly worried for Karry’s own sanity, and something of a dark pain was on the back of his voice. Karry didn’t know what this stranger’s story really was but he was getting out of here. He pointed the pistol straight at the top of the mans sternum. The man was covered with a dark green enzyme, but Kerry was reasonably sure that, if his hand could get through his, a bullet would go through this lunatic’s. If he missed by a little, he would hit his jugular and if he didn’t, he would take out his spine. But he wouldn’t miss and the man seemed to know it just as well as he did. The man froze just as he entered the radius of the computers weak light with a look of utter shock on his face. His very familiar face. The door behind him closed, blocking out the superior light source, sending the face into even sharper relief. Karry stopped breathing.
It was his Father.
“Dad?” he asked, this must be a dream. But he still steadied his pistol again; just in case, feeling around he noticed there was no trigger. No trigger and no safety? What kind of gun was this? Karry thought. The man looked extremely shocked to see the weapon pointed at him.
“That’s it, I’m declaring you fried.” The man pulled a… a… something from his belt (bright white mercury, he thought) and acted as though he would speak into it, but something banged on the wall were the man appeared. The man (his Father?) dropped the… the… liquidy lightish thing and pulled a huge shell, which looked like a larger version of Karry’s single hand gun, off of his back, and ran to the door. Without warning or movement he rapidly fired light through the wall. As the light-orbs hit the wall, the wall warped itself around them and then sprung back to normal just before the next one hit. Incomprehensibly, the light left no marks. Wordlessly the man, who could only look like his father because his real father would never have done anything like that, touched the door with his index finger and that section disappeared from the wall.
He stuck his head out the door, “Got ‘em.” He said simply. He started to turn back. There was a shout, a cry really, as another man, with another weapon Karry didn’t recognize, ran to the mouth of the door.
“DIE YOU BASTARD!”
Suddenly his Fathers body was enveloped in a blinding crystal light that burst forth from his eyes and open mouth. He turned and filled the man full of light. The light-orbs turned red and burrowed into flesh as they hit the new man. The light suddenly vanished from around his Father, but its effect did not leave with it. The man was writhing in his standing position like a snake out of its pot. When he spoke, it was in English, though the strain in his voice muffled the words. “F-F-Fin-Finish u-up, pee-wee, unguh, huh. I can pur-pro-tect you fr-om, from them,” he spoke the word with contempt, “but I d-d-d-dnugh,” he vomited all over the floor, “don’t think I have the, ungg, discipline required to re-e-e-e-tain either my memory or, or, or,” his words started to come more rapidly, “my sanity, th-th-therefor I cannot. Protect… you. From. MYSELF.” As he finished talking his body started to change. He screamed and moaned, but in his eyes was peace, finality, and a glimpse of eternity and resolve that chilled Kerry to his marrow. His hands were turning into claws and the back of his shirt was ripped off as fleshy wings started to emerge from his back. As his skin was turning purple he said, “Adapt and remember.” And he jumped backwards through the doorway, which became a solid wall instantly afterward, and trapped his father on the other side, with him helpless but to watch.
Karry didn’t understand anything any more, so he didn’t argue when his instincts forced him back to the computer. Karry sat, typing at insane speeds, remembering the look of those familiar eyes, on that familiar face, until the grief forced him awake.