Ageless

GraveDiggers discover a thriving community. Why isn’t it like the rest of Xenom?

Ageless

A Fiction Short Story

Written By

SpaceFaction

     “Do you see what I see?” Devoona asks the other nine GraveDiggers standing around her, looking down at a large community with some white snow-covered mountains below them.

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     The other nine GraveDiggers look at their leader of this expedition. “Of course, we see what you see. It’s a large community that’s still a community,” says Pactom, who is standing right next to Devoona.

     “That’s not what I mean,” says Devoona while staring at the large community below their narrow mountain edge. “I mean what you just said. Why is this community still on Xenom when the rest of the planet is death?”

     “I can think of only one way to find out why this community is still alive on Xenom,” says Chrishanea, who is standing on the other side of Devoona. “We need to get down there and find out why.”

     The ten GraveDiggers start walking down the narrow mountain edge in a single file toward the community below them. “We are GraveDiggers. That’s what we do; we find out why. Usually, we are looking at what is left of a planet, but this community is different because they are still among the living.”

#

     “I can’t stop thinking about this community,” says Devoona. She is now in front of this group of GraveDiggers, who are almost to this community. “It’s not just that this community is still on Xenom, but the way it looks. It doesn’t look like it has changed in several thousand years.”

     “Maybe it’s because of the mountains surrounding this community,” says the Second Leader of this Expedition, Pactom, who is walking right behind Devoona. “I have also been wondering about this.”

     The other eight GraveDiggers voice the same thing in one way or another. “I have also been wondering about the white snow in this community,” continues Pactom. “Before the disaster that almost destroyed our planet, the snow was a bluish gray. Why is this snow white? Is it because of the reason why this community is still here?”

     Suddenly, the face and body of Devoona flatten slightly when she walks into an invisible dome of some kind. The other nine GraveDiggers walk into the GraveDigger in front of them. These GraveDiggers fall to the ground below them while Devoona slides down this invisible dome, squeaking. “I think I know why this community is still here.”

#

     “What’s happening?” The leader of this community, Kiye, asks as she is running into a room with an alarm shrieking and red flashing lights echoing throughout that room. She is right behind another Xenom, Robtan, who takes a seat behind a large monitor. “We haven’t had any Mutant Humans trying to get in here in over a hundred years.”

     Robtan starts tapping at the Control Panel under this large monitor. The first few taps turn off the alarm and the flashing lights. After a few more taps, Robtan stops his tapping. He looks up at the image of the GraveDiggers on this monitor as Kiye steps up behind him.

     “Who are they?” Kiye asks. “They don’t look like Mutant Humans. They’re talking to each other. Can we hear what they are talking about?”

     “I can try to hear them, but I don’t think I can do it.” Robtan starts tapping again. “After all, we haven’t been monitoring these monitors in almost fifty years.”

     Robtan stops tapping when the image of these Xenoms grows to almost fill the monitor. “The only way we may be able to hear them is to get so close to them we can do it.”

#

     “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” Kiye asks after the ten GraveDiggers are escorted into that room and placed in two cells by the Law Enforcer next to them. The five men go into one cell, and the five females are placed in the other cell.

     “I have been asking you that ever since we were allowed in this community,” answered Devoona. “Not the what are you doing here part, but the who you are part.”

     One of the Law Enforcers taps a red switch between the two cells. Nothing appears to have happened, but when one of the males tries to leave his cell, he’s knocked back by an electrical discharge. “I’m the one who will be asking my questions.”

     “Right now, I want to know who you are,” continues Kiye. “I also what you are doing here.”

     Devoona looks at her other GraveDiggers. They either nod their heads once or they nod their heads ‘yes.’ “My name is Devoona, and I’m the leader of these GraveDiggers.” She points at each of her GraveDiggers as she names them. “As for why we’re here, we’re here because this community isn’t like the rest of Xenom.”

#

     “For the last eight thousand years, we have welcomed visitors to our community,” says Kiye while she is taking Devoona and her GraveDiggers on a tour around her community. “We used to have about a million visitors here every year.”

     “About five thousand years ago, we started getting the criminal element coming here. Within around fifty years, if a criminal came there, they were safe in Criminal Haven.”

     Kiye stops walking to look at the GraveDiggers. “We had to do something. After we forced the criminals to leave here, sometimes very violently, we created this Protective Shield to protect our community.”

     “We still got around a million visitors a year for another three thousand years.” Kiye started walking again. “Only, we had to let them in before they could visit us.”

     “About four thousand years ago, we started losing those visitors yearly. We always thought it was because of our Protective Shield.”

     This time, it’s Devoona who stops walking to look at Kiye. “It’s not your Protective Shield. About four thousand years ago, a scientist tried to become ageless. Instead of becoming ageless by himself, Stactus has made everyone on Xenom ageless. Stactus also almost destroyed us.”

###

     “I can’t believe what you have been telling me about Xenom,” says Kiye. They are in a different part of this community, but they are still talking to each other. “Are we the only community still here on Xenom?”

     “You are the only one we have seen so far,” answers Devoona. “Of course, we have only checked out about half of Xenom. There could be others like yours, but I don’t think there are. I think you are the only one because of your Protective Shield.”

     Kiye stops walking and looks at Devoona. “We thought it may be something like that. As I said, about four thousand years ago, we started losing visitors. Within about three thousand years, we weren’t getting any visitors. We wanted to know why. So, it was decided we would send several groups out to find out why. They never returned.”

     “Soon after that, the Mutant Humans started coming here. For about eight months, these Mutant Humans tried to get in here. Then, suddenly, they stopped trying to do it. We never found out why, but we didn’t try. All we cared about was that they were no longer doing it.”

#

     “Why aren’t you and the other GraveDiggers Mutant Humans?” Kiye asks. “Did someone find a cure for this Ageless problem? Is that why the Mutant Humans suddenly stopped trying to get in here?”

     Devoona stops walking down the hallway next to Kiye, who also stops, as well as the other nine GraveDiggers. “Unfortunately, no cure has been found. Another scientist thought they had a cure, but instead of curing Xenom, they created the mutants and the way Xenom looks today.”

     “That doesn’t answer all my questions. Why aren’t you and the other GraveDiggers Mutant Humans?” Kiye asked.

     “It’s because we weren’t on Xenom when Wialoni thought she found a cure for our ageless problem. Xenom already had an overpopulation problem when we all became ageless. We had to do something. The only two choices we thought we had were finding another planet we could colonize or creating some Orbitals surrounding Xenom.”

     Kiye started walking again. Devoona and the other nine GraveDiggers have no choice but to start walking. “We tried finding another planet to colonize first, but that couldn’t be done because of our ageless problem. Anyone who tried to leave their spaceship started aging rapidly soon after doing it.”

#

     “We didn’t know if we could solve our overpopulation problem with Orbitals, but we had to try something. Besides, it was the only other thing we could think of to do,” says Devoona as Kiye and her Law Enforcers were putting them back in their cells.

     “That is where we have been living ever since then,” continues Devoona. “At least two billion of us survived in these Orbitals.”

     Kiye and her Law Enforcers are about to leave that room when she stops and turns around toward Devoona. “Who decided who should live in those Orbitals?”

     “It was our Extreme Leader at the time, Yiumg,” answers Devoona. “Yiumg decided only the rich and the wealthy would live there. Of course, they needed some poor, and people like us, but are only about a million of us. The rest of them were among the rich and wealthy.”

     After Kiye and her ten Law Enforcers leave that room, Devoona and her GraveDiggers start looking for any listening or observation devices. Devoona and her GraveDiggers don’t see or find any. “What’s going to happen to us now?” Several of her GraveDiggers ask one way or another.

#

     “I have been thinking about this ever since Kiye put us in here,” says Devoona softly so that no one else can hear them. “Why are we here?”

     Chrishanea almost whispers when she answers Devoona. “I have also been thinking about this, and I don’t know what we can do about it, but we need to do something.”

     “There is nothing we can do right now,” says Devoona softly. “We will do something, though. I just don’t know what that something is yet.”

     “I have also been thinking about this, and I think I know what we need to do,” says Pactom somewhat softly. “We need to find out why Kiye has done this to us.”

     Devoona gets up and goes to the edge of her cell. She makes sure she doesn’t get an electrical discharge. “Tell me why you have done this to us.”

     A few minutes later, Kiye enters that room surrounded by six Law Enforcers. “So, you want me to tell you why you are here. It’s because this community doesn’t believe what you have been telling us. Until you tell us why you are really here, you aren’t leaving here.”

#

     “See, I told you that you wouldn’t believe it if you saw that we haven’t been lying to you.” Devoona and her GraveDiggers have their hands behind their backs. They don’t appear to be shackled in any way, but they sure do act like that is what has happened to them.

     By each GraveDigger, there are two Law Enforcers, one on each side of nine of them. Only Devoona has one because Kiye is on the other side of her. They have just left a dead Wooded Area. The shocked look on their faces says Kiye and her Law Enforcers can’t believe what they are seeing.

     Kiye and her Law Enforcers slowly look around them. Everywhere they look, they see death. Slowly, they start looking up when they hear something that sounds like a large electrical discharge, about a hundred times louder than their cells. They can’t see them too well, but they can see about twenty Orbital above them.

     “Is the rest of Xenom as dead as it is on this part of it?” Kiye asks soon after she and her Law Enforcers start looking around Xenom again.

     “Unfortunately, it’s a lot worse in some parts,” answers Devoona. “It’s even worse in other parts.

Word Count = 1,970