《Space Explorers (Dropped)》


 Chapter 0 Prolog

    The year is 2115. War and famine are gone from Earth thanks to modern technology, robotics, and legislation. The Moon and Mars have been colonized, but as of yet no one has been able to leave the solar system because we lack the technology to travel in space between solar systems safely and efficiently. Some self-sustaining, near light speed craft have launched to explore the galaxy but all have come back due to creatures we call Void Entities.


    Void Entities act like wild animals and they live in the dark regions between solar systems. Void Entities come in all shapes, sizes, and colors but none of them can get close to a solar system or they will disintegrate. The disintegration factor is very comforting to all human life in our solar system because we would be over run and destroyed if they did not react that way. Another interesting feature of Void Entities and the hardest thing to combat is that they seem to have what most would classify as super natural powers and magic.


    Research teams have tried various different things to either find ways around the Void Entities, copy the effects of a star to protect the ships from attack, and have developed weapons to try and fight thru the Void Entities but so far no ship has been able to breach the territory of the Void Entities and make it into a new solar system.


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    The newest initiative developed to solve the problem of the Void Entities was created by the genius researcher Ming Su Woo. Ming Su Woo thought to use all of humanity as a force to solve the Void Entity issue instead of only a handful of super smart researchers. Thus the game Space Explorers was born using a super AI and the newest virtual reality equipment and programming. The game was designed to have no limits and even incorporates the newest discovery of Mana and Magic into the game.


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 Chapter 1 Life from Death

    Chapter 1 Life from Death


    In the living room of a small apartment in Cleveland, Ohio a young man of medium height and build is sitting watching a Halo broadcast. The young man¡¯s grey blue eyes are dull and vacant like all life has left them. His wavy long black hair is messy and oily. The young man would be called attractive by most people normally, just not today.


    Today is the worst day of his eighteen year old life. Why? Because he just received his test results back from the college admissions board and he had failed the entrance requirements by only three points! That is why he is so lifeless and lost. For everyone knows you only get one chance to pass the admissions test, and if you don¡¯t you become a ward of the social system permanently. This may seem extreme but there are only so many people needed to work and only the best and brightest can earn the right to work.


    Graduating from college would have moved the young man up on the social ladder of life. He would have no longer been considered a ward of the system. Instead he would have been considered a productive member of society. Productive members of society are given better housing and more resources to live with. However, because he missed three measly more questions than acceptable on a test. He would now and forever be stuck unemployed and living in a shoe box apartment. The idea of being socially accepted and having more material things in life was appealing to the young man and he would have accepted them graciously. These things however we¡¯re not what drove this young man to spend endless hours studying and honing his knowledge. What motivated him is his dream/obsession of going into space and working on the latest space ships and technology.


    This young man¡¯s dream/obsession is so great that some have said his dream is borderline obsessive. Why his friends would say this to him he could not understand. To him he only has a few star charts, planetariums, and model space craft decorating his apartment. To everyone else he lives in a cluttered apartment with so many models and maps of the stars that they wonder once they walk into his living space if they have not been teleported into the vastness of space. The only grounding influence in the apartment is a pile of broken electrical parts and pieces from space junk yards. He even has a vintage shower curtain in the bathroom that has all the best ships from twentieth century video games hanging prominently over the back wall of his dry shower system.


    To this young man his life was over. He was forgetting the convenient fact that even if he didn¡¯t go to college he would still never want for anything in his life. He would always have a full stomach and he would never have to work for any of it. But because he could not have his one


    dream/obsession life was over for him. He was just starting to wonder when the mortician would be showing up to size him for his funeral suite and if any girls would cry at his funeral when a loud beeping sound from the Halo projector interrupted his musings.


    Female Droid News Caster ¡°We hate to interrupt you regularly scheduled program. We have just received word from the Space Exploration Institute that they have a priority message for all citizens. We will now switch to the feed from the Institute to hear what they have to say.¡±


    A new Halo image then pops up with an older Asia gentleman on the left side of the image he looks to be around sixty years old and very short. Standing next to the old Asia guy is a young Caucasian woman with blond hair and green eyes. They are both standing behind a podium with the seal of the Space Exploration Institute on it. The seal is round with Latin words on the outside of the seal and in the middle of the seal there is a space ship in flight and behind the ship it looks like the star filled sky of outer space.


    After a few seconds the old Asian guy began to talk. He was talking in Japanese but the Halo system translated and projected his voice in English. ¡°Thank you all for your time. I am going to make this quick so that you can get back to watching your shows. My name is Ming Su Woo. I am a developer here at the Space Exploration Institute and I would like your co-operation and help with a system that will be released to the public in six months.¡±


    Ming stopped, took a drink out of a bottle then continued his address. ¡°This system is a virtual reality system designed for full emersion. This game is rated for 18+ users only. The setting will be what we believe is in our Milky Way galaxy. This is a space exploration and development simulation game. The time difference is set to one hour real life to six hours game time. The game has no limits so anything you dream up can become a part of the game. The game will have plenty of quests. Stats will be like a standard VRMMORPG with strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, and constitution as base stats with other stats which can be unlocked during game play. Group play is encouraged but not expected. The games end goal is to challenge virtual representations of real Void Entities and be able to leave our galaxy and get to the next galaxy. This is the same situation as what we currently are in just on a larger scale. The only playable race is human. Magic is an available system to play in the game. However, any user who wishes to have magic must survive the Mana injection procedure that has just been developed from our study of Void Entities. The winner or winners of this game will have the option of either having their ship or ships constructed and the right to challenge the Void Entities in real life. Or they can receive a working position here at the Space Exploration Institute and all the privileges of a working person.¡±


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    During the broadcast life in the young man¡¯s eyes started to return and when the prize was revealed a new look was born in that young man¡¯s eyes. They were burning with passion and hope. Life for him was not over. Life was just beginning. Blaze felt reborn and he made a vow that he would defiantly win out against the Void Entities and he would get his own ship to play around with.


    The broadcast was still not over and the young lady next to Mister Ming then began to speak. ¡°Hello. My name is Catherine Hale and I am the person who developed the Mana injection. Animal trials will be completed in the next three months. Human trials will start after that. People who receive the injection can possibly develop the ability to either cast spells or be able to have supernatural powers.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®who cares about special powers and magic let Mr. Ming talk about his game some more! I need information!¡¯


    Blaze¡¯s thought seemed to be disregarded by fate because Catherine continued to speak. ¡°The results are varied so far and in the worst case scenarios some animal test subjects have disintegrated like the Void Entities do when in a solar system. I have changed the formula to prevent this and we have not lost any other subjects since the formula was changed.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®Who would be crazy enough to risk disintegration for super powers?¡¯


    ¡°The adjustment processes after injection is one month long and seems to be very painful. Only healthy screened individuals will be allowed to participate in the study. Also, all participants will be monitored by a droid for a minimum of four years in real life.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®You not only risk death but will have no privacy for the next four years of your life just to gain some mystic power! That is a horrible deal! God, just let Mr. Ming talk more about his game I am defiantly not becoming some lab rat!¡¯


    Mr. Ming begins to speak again. ¡°I will just make one suggestion and a statement before I conclude this briefing. I would seriously think about receiving a Mana injection if you are serious about winning Space Explorers. Void Entities live in deep space and this is their power we have converted to our own use. So it is safe to assume that having this power could seriously provide you an edge during the game. The AI which governs the game has all available data on Void Entities and is also going to be used to help new Mana injection subjects get use to and understand their new found powers. That concludes this public announcement have a wonderful day.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®Well super powers seem awesome so I should give it a shot. I should also hit the gym and maybe even go to a dojo for some training. That should help with my physical fitness making me a better candidate for the injection. I should also refresh myself on ship design and piloting. I have a lot to do and only six months to do it in so I better get started. Hum, I need a shower first though.¡¯


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 Chapter 2 Preparations

    Chapter 2 Preparations


    After Blaze finished his shower he went Virtual and began to browse the net. His search was focused on looking up physical training facilities and a dojo for him to join. His search for a gym took only a few minutes to find a well rated gym that he could join. His search for a dojo however took a lot longer because he never knew that he could gain culture points for studying in a dojo.


    Blaze thought ¡®Martial arts are considered a cultural medium? Being considered a cultural medium must have saved the job from being effected by the global work draw backs. Wow! Most dojos even have a human teacher. I have never had a real human teach me anything. I can even gain usable culture points for every rank I gain in a form. Now I won¡¯t have to continue painting to get my needed culture points. Lucky!¡¯


    Culture points are an expendable commodity that can be used for upgrades to living quarters and for things considered non-necessary for living. This system is how Blaze has acquired most of the decorations in his apartment. This system was implemented to drive non-essential personal into bettering themselves, human culture, and to ensure that humanity did not forget about their past.


    Blaze decided to join a dojo called ¡°The Lone Marine¡± after an in-depth search of local dojos. The deciding factor for Blaze to choose this dojo was the fact that the dojo is taught by a retired space marine. Blaze thought ¡®He has been in outer space so should have the needed experience to give me a better shot at survival in the game.¡¯


    The dojo did raise some alarms in Blaze¡¯s mind though. Because the amount of gained culture points per each rank were astronomically higher than the normal dojo. The gain of culture points is ranked by the amount of work and hardship the normal person would have to overcome in order to progress. This dojo¡¯s points per rank were ten times the amount of other dojos. That means the training at this dojo was ten times harder compared to other dojos. Even the reviews for the dojo said as much. Most people quit the first day and nick named the dojo ¡°Hell¡¯s Kitchen¡±. Most reviewers are quoted as saying ¡°Do not join this dojo unless you wish to be eaten alive by a demon.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®I have never really trained before so this might be a bit more than I can handle. No! I will succeed at this dojo no matter what I have to catch up with the guys who are already fit and trained. This program should help me close the gap just a little. So I have to succeed! I only have three months till I need to go and get my Mana injection. I have to train as hard as I can till then.¡¯


    With his path decided Blaze logged off from the net, set his alarm, and crawled into bed. Early tomorrow he planned to join his chosen dojo and take his first steps along his new path to the stars and space ship ownership.


    The next day at 6 AM sharp Blaze arrived at The Lone Marine dojo to begin his training. The dojo was designed on one side to look like a modern gym building with plenty of windows and a practice shooting range and on the other side it was designed to look like an ancient Japanese dojo that had many weird machines for training setup out in front of the building under an overhang. The contrasting architecture of the building and the weird machines in the court yard caused Blaze to have to look twice at everything. While he was looking at everything his jaw had dropped unconsciously causing him to look like one of those comical anime characters that just had their soul leave their body after a shocking experience.


    Standing at the side door to the modern section of the dojo is a short red headed common looking girl. Her age looks to be the same as the young man standing at the front gate of the dojo doing a comedy skit of losing his soul. The boy¡¯s expression then cleared but he then started to have robotic jerky head motions. Mixed with his facial expression of going from horror to acceptance and back again was very comical. She was laughing on the inside and was wondering ¡®How much longer can he last before he runs off with his tail tucked between his legs? He looks good and seems to be funny. I hope he recovers. It might be fun to have him join the dojo.¡¯


    The girl did not notice the side door she was standing at open allowing a tall built older gentleman with white hair who was wearing a workout uniform exit beside her. The old quietly said to his granddaughter ¡°What do you think Mandy. Will he run or try and join us here at the dojo?¡±


    Mandy said ¡°I hope he makes it. He looks nice and he is funny. I think it could be fun to have him around.¡±


    Mandy¡¯s grandpa looked at her sternly for a second. Then softened his gaze for his only surviving


    family member and said ¡°You know I can¡¯t go easy on him.¡± Then motions to Blaze and says ¡°If he is having that kind of reaction to just seeing the beginning training grounds I doubt he will even step foot into the court yard.¡±


    Mandy replied ¡°I know grandpa but I still hope he does succeed. It is boring around here without anyone to train with or talk to that is my own age.¡±


    Mandy¡¯s Grandpa was just about to respond that she should go out with some friends for


    socializing when he noticed the slightest change in the atmosphere around the young man at the gate. A feeling of determination was beginning to radiate from the young man. The young man abruptly stopped looking around and focused his eyes on the veteran marine. When their eyes meet the old marine saw determination and a burning passion. That passion almost eclipsed the old marines own aura and he thought ¡®This kid is interesting let¡¯s see if his determination is as strong as it seems to be.¡¯


    Mandy¡¯s Grandpa quietly said ¡°Mandy please get the basic course ready. It looks like that young man will be coming in after all.¡±


    Mandy hesitated a second because she had not seen or felt the change coming from the young man at the gate. She missed the change because she was looking at her Grandpa while talking and not the young man. Once she regained her sense she looked over and the young man was defiantly walking their way. She smiled and skipped a little to get the basic course ready extra quick before the young handsome man lost his nerve to train here.


    Blaze saw the red headed girl skip off towards the training area and misunderstood the situation and began to think ¡®If she is a pupil and can survive using the crazy training machines that resemble torcher machines from the middle ages then I should be just fine.¡¯ Blaze continued on his path to the older man wearing a work out uniform and when he was within arm¡¯s reach he stuck out his hand and introduced himself


    Blaze ¡°Hello sir my name is Blaze Archlight. Are you the owner and teacher of this dojo?¡±


    Grandpa shook Blaze¡¯s hand and said ¡°Yes I am the owner and master here. My name is Grant Smith. How can I help you?¡±


    Blaze ¡°I have come to train at your dojo if you would have me? I plan on playing the new game Space Explorers to help me realize my dreams and thought that it would be a good idea to train in self-defense and fighting skills while I wait. I only have three months I can dedicate to combat training right now because I have to get other things prepared for the game.¡±


    Grant thought ¡®In all my 85 years I have never heard such a crazy reason for wanting to train. Most people want to learn because they are being bullied or want to bully someone else. Heck if the kid was being bullied I might have even gone easy on him. But this kid actually wants to train because of a game. Well as long as he is not going to hurt others I have to train him no matter the reason. I would lose my cultural license if I didn¡¯t. I am defiantly not going to make this easy on him though.¡¯


    Grant smiled like a devil that just made a contract for a new soul and said ¡°Certainly I can help you train. We practice Krav Maga, Judo, marine one handed style laser sword fighting, and for small firearms training. We also have a shooting range and obstacle course. Training is open from 6 AM till 4 PM. What styles would you like to try?¡±


    Blaze seeing the diabolical smile of a devil almost ran away but then he hardened his resolve and answered ¡°I will do them all. I will need to be as prepared as I can be for the game.¡±


    Grant hearing the response from Blaze thought ¡®Well it seems you might be looking down on my dojo. Alright, you want the full course instead of the basic I can defiantly accommodate you with that. I will be free to relax by lunch then.¡¯


    Grant yelled over to Mandy and said ¡°Change of plans this young man needs to get strong quick so instead of the basic course we will be going with the full course. Please see to setting it up for us Mandy please.¡±


    Mandy hearing the new directions knew what the full course meant and looked down and simply responded with a ¡°Hai¡±


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    A young man¡¯s screams could be heard coming from the dojo a short time later. Simple phrases like ¡°I am going to die!¡± and ¡°Urgh!¡± accompanied with soft thuds were common place. However, when lunch time came and went new sounds were heard and new phrases of ¡°Stop shooting at me!¡± and even oddly enough ¡°A freaking missile launcher are you serious!¡±. These new shouts were accompanied with even louder booms and bangs.


    The sounds coming from the dojo continued for weeks on end. Till three months later a young man was seen leaving the dojo compound. He looked beat up and his cloths were torn. But his eyes said it all. He had the eyes of a predator now and his movements are far more graceful and refined than the time when he walked into the dojo compound.


    Blaze was limping and hurt. However, Blaze¡¯s thoughts are far removed from his pain ¡®That old devil man decided to lock me up inside that crazy dojo for THREE months. He said it was for training purposes. However, I know that crazy fool was just trying to make me be more motivated for my rank up tests because I would need the points for my move to The Space Exploration Institute branch in Columbus. Luckily I passed his crazy rank up tests though and I can now move on to my second major preparation objective. If I had failed and been held back because of that old geezers medaling I would have taken that missile launcher he loved to torment me with and would have blasted more than powder rounds at him. I only have a day left now to move all my stuff and sign up at the Institute to be in the first round trials.¡¯


    Blaze moved thru the streets of Cleveland like a man chased by the hounds of hell and made it home in a record time for him even with his limping. At the door to his apartment he scanned in and went onto the net and ordered housing and a droid moving service to come pick up his things. He also planned his trip to Columbus while he was logged in. He planned to take the Tram from Cleveland to Columbus. The trip would only take fifteen minutes and the Institute was only another five minute walk from the Tram so with delays and early morning congestion taken into account he should be able to be at the Institute with more than an hour before the first clinical trials began hopefully giving him a spot at the beginning of the line for the trial.


    Blaze thought ¡®To bad I don¡¯t have more culture points because if I did then I wouldn¡¯t have to move. But transportation costs too many points and I have to undergo a physical checkup once a week after my injection so the easiest solution is to just move closer to the Institute for my checkups.¡¯ Blaze logged out of the net, set his alarm, and passed out in a bed he had not slept on in over three months.


    The next morning Blaze arrived at the institute according to his schedule to find a large sea of humanity in the courtyard of the branch office. Though there was a line indicator for Mana Injection trials only a few people seemed to be standing in the line. Blaze moved through the masses and walked straight into line. Blaze knew why everyone was sitting back and not in line. So he was not confused when a few people gasped at him joining the line.


    Blaze thought ¡®Yes I know! Historically speaking it is better to wait and not be in the first test line of an experiment. But I have already survived that hell training and I will not back down from this either. I will move on and continue to get stronger and better all for my goals.¡¯


    The wait was short the line started moving thirty minutes early because we needed to be scanned and receive a checkup so that the researchers could have a baseline understanding of our health. Another requirement for being a Mana Injection candidate was to send your whole medical history data to the Institute. After all the candidates were scanned and checked only thirty people remained out of fifty.


    Blaze and the rest of the candidates after their checkups are then sent into a large observation room with beds. A male doctor then tells the candidates that the survivors will be staying here in confinement for one week after we receive our injections for public safety concerns. If nothing abnormal shows up in scans a week from now then we will be free to go on and continue to live our lives with our droid maid/observer companion. He then had thirty Halo screens float up in front of each candidate with a list on it. The list seemed to have over a hundred different possible powers that were associated with a formula number.


    The male doctor then said ¡°Choose which formula you would like to be injected with. The description field shows what type of powers manifested in our animal test subjects and it might be the same for you.¡±


    Blaze read through the whole list of possible powers and refined down his choices to three separate formulas that might give him an advantage in the game. He automatically removed any super powers from his list because Mr. Ming in his address said magic powers would be beneficial for the game not super powers.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>


    Formula # 1133 High chance of magic spell use. Subjects disintegrated 15% of the time.


    Formula # 1252 Mana energy manipulation powers in most cases. Subject disintegration rate of 15%


    Formula # 1686 High chance of spell usage and mana manipulation in all surviving subjects. Disintegration rate is 50%


    </td></tr></tbody></table>


    Blaze decided to try out Formula # 1686 it had the largest documented gains. Of course it also came with the largest risk but he was felling lucky today. Once he sent his formula request via Halo selection to the male doctor Blaze was lead to an empty room with only a chair in it. A female lab tech was holding onto a power injector visibly shaking. On the floor in the room was a medium pile of ashes. Blaze knew what her shaking and the pile of ashes meant but still strolled up to the lab tech and stuck out his arm.


    Blaze then looked at the nice looking female lab tech and said ¡°Don¡¯t worry everything will be ok. We chose to be here and to take this chance.¡±


    The lab tech in a daze said ¡°They have all just turned into ashes. Every single one I have injected.¡±


    Blaze ¡°Then I will be the first to survive. Go on.¡±


    The lab tech blinked a few times and took a few deep breaths then went to a shuttered window in the wall and grabbed a blue vial out with the numbers 1686 and the name of Blaze Archlight on the tube. She asked Blaze ¡°Is this your formula number and name?¡±


    Blaze simply answered ¡°Yes.¡±


    The lab tech took another calming breath then whispered ¡°Don¡¯t you dare die on me.¡± As she spoke she pulled back on the trigger to the injector and the blue vial quickly emptied into Blaze¡¯s arm.


    Blaze felt extremely hot as soon as the vial became empty. His vision began to dim as well. Blaze instinctively knew that if he passed out and gave into the heat then he would die. This was just like the first days with that crazy old devil man. If Blaze passed out during his training he would find himself in situations where he could only wish for death. Blaze learned to maintain conciseness even if he was being hit with high quality Taser rounds.


    While Blaze was fighting to stay alive with his conciseness just hanging on by a thread his body began to collapse. Blaze fought against collapsing but he lost that fight and the lab tech had to catch Blaze before he hit the ground. She then began to yell for help. Blaze felt like he has been fighting against this heat for an eternity when he felt something new through the pain and heat. What he felt were strong hands grabbing onto him and carrying him somewhere else. Blaze used this physical contact to help ground himself to life. Blaze then felt himself being lowered into what felt like a bed. Mercifully the heat and pain left his body soon after he was placed in bed. Exhausted from this new near death experience Blaze fell asleep quickly once he felt he was safe.


    ***************************************************************************************************


    AN: I am trying to figure out the tables and links for moving between chapters. Also this will be the last chapter for a few more days because I have real life things to attend with. I think I should be able to post another chapter by Thursday night. I hope you enjoy the chapter and would appreciate any feed back on my current project.


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 Chapter 3 Awakening

    Chapter 3 Awakening part 1


    Blaze groggily began to stir and wake up after his brush with death. When he opened his eyes he felt a shooting pain causing him to blink and winch from the pain. Blinking helped to relieve the pain so he continued to do that while trying to focus and fix his vision. Once the pain stopped Blaze noticed that his vision was wrong. It looked like he was looking thru a kaleidoscope instead of his normally clear vision. Blaze moved his right hand in front of his face only to see twelve hands and weird colors all over his hand.


    Blaze once again closed his eyes because he didn¡¯t understand what had happened. Thinking back he remembered taking the Mana injection and reasoned that this weird vision is either a side effect of the injection or his vision had been permanently damaged. This realization made Blaze feel really scared at first but he calmed down very quickly. Blaze noticed his abnormal calming and thought that this might also be a side effect of the injection.


    Blaze wanting help and information remembered being placed on a bed and reasoned that he was probably placed back in the observation dorm while he was fighting for survival so he called out ¡°Hello. Is anyone there I am having trouble seeing and I need some help.¡±


    A shy female voice responded from nearby and to his right ¡°I will call for one of the doctors. I am happy that you have woken up.¡±


    Blaze wanted to look at the girl he was talking to so he once again opened his eyes and tried to focus around where he heard the shy girl¡¯s voice come from. He once again saw twelve separate images but he tried to focus mentally on only one image so he could understand what the person he was looking at was like.


    When he focused on only one image his vision became clearer but he doubted what he saw because the girl laying in a bed on the other side of the room had cat like ears and green cat like eyes. Not to mention he saw what looked like pulsing veins of different colors on the girl¡¯s skin.


    Blaze closed his eyes once again and said ¡°I appreciate your help. Do we have call buttons on our beds or something to call the doctors if we need help?¡±


    The shy girl¡¯s response was just a simple ¡°Yes. It is on the side rail. It¡¯s the big red button.¡±


    Blaze heard footsteps coming in his direction then a male voice that blaze recognized as belonging to the male doctor who gave out the list of possible formulas out earlier said ¡°What seems to be the problem Miss Johnson?¡±


    The shy girl responded ¡°Please just call me Kate, Doctor Sebast. The guy over there is the one who needs help.¡±


    Doctor Sebast moved over to Blaze¡¯s bed and lifted up a chart and started to read it quickly while saying ¡°Mr. Arclight what seems to be the problem?¡±


    Blaze decided to be polite and said ¡°Doctor Sebast please just call me Blaze.¡± After a few seconds pause with no reply he continued ¡°I am having a hard time seeing.¡±


    Doctor Sebast replied ¡°Ok. I can have a look at that for you but I hope you realize your body has been changed due to the alien Mana being injected. Just like all the other test subjects you have undergone a physical mutation and it is at the cellular level so we believe it to be permanent.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®This guy is blunt. No wonder he is just a researcher and not a real doctor his bed side manner is horrible.¡¯


    Doctor Sebast finished speaking ¡°I am going to need you to open your eyes so I can examine them.¡±


    Blaze complied and opened his eyes to have the doctor scan them with a hand held device. After a few beeps a robotic voice came from the scanner ¡°Subjects optics and nerve endings have mutated 98%. Please wait processing data now, data processing completed. Test subject Blaze has new vision nerves and optics made up of a tubular optic lens with a high amount of rhodopsinthe and chorine. Test subject is believed to have low light vision, heat vision, and extreme magnification capability of the eye. Other unknown nerve clusters and optic structures detected unable to provide positive analysis of those systems with current data. Recommend further analysis of mutation.¡±


    Doctor Sebast started talking a few seconds after the scanner finished its report ¡°So there you have it Mr. Arclight. That is why you are having trouble with your vision it seems you will just have to learn to use your new eyes for you to be able to see. Do you have any other questions?¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®I know the scanner didn¡¯t say I was blind and that I must have some supper great vision, but how can I be expected to just learn all of a sudden how to see again with new alien eyes. I was not expecting to have any physical changes done to my body. That is another reason why I went with a magic only formula. This could be a really big set back to my plans. I better find out if anything else is different.¡¯


    Blaze responded to Doctor Sebast¡¯s question with a hesitant ¡°Have I physically changed in any other ways?¡±


    Doctor Sebast responded with a frustrated sigh and said ¡°Your ears, facial structure, and body have all been altered some. I can have an orderly bring over a mirror if you would like. It would also be better for you to see it for yourself.¡±


    Blaze asked ¡°How is a mirror going to help when I can barely see correctly?¡±


    Sebast ¡°Look at Ms. Johnson and tell me what you can see.¡±


    Blaze once again opened his eyes and focused on looking at the shy girl Kate. This time when he focused he just saw an outline of a body in different shades of pastel colors. Blaze reasoned that this must be the heat vision that the scanner talked about and closed his eyes then opened them again and tried to focus on a different image of Kate.


    This image looked normal but showed Kate as still having cat ears and eyes. Blaze noticed that in this image Kate did not have the weird pulsing multicolored veins on her skin. Maintaining focus on that image from his eyes he slowly turned his head to look around at his surroundings.


    The open bay with beds was just how he remembered it. Single twin beds lined up in rows with a dresser and cabinet separating them. Curtains are hanging from the ceiling that could be closed for privacy. Basically it was your normal hospital like setup. Then he looked at Doctor Sebast and confirmed that he looked just like he remembered with blond hair and blue eyes and a scar on his upper lip.


    So that would mean the girl in the bed really did have the eyes and ears of a cat. However, Blaze had to make sure so he answered Doctor Sebast¡¯s question with a hesitant ¡°Kate is a cute girl around my age with the eyes and ears of a cat?¡±


    Doctor Sebast ¡°Correct Mr. Archlight. I will send an orderly over with a mirror for you. Now, please do not call for me again unless it is life threating. I have to finish my report and observations before 5 PM if I do not want to work over again tonight. Please press the blue button for normal problems and that will call over the orderly.¡± With that said Doctor Sebast turned around and power walked back to a door on the far wall.


    Blaze just shrugged off the doctor¡¯s rude behavior. He had greater things to deal with right now. He first uncovered his body and started a visual examination of his body. The changes to his external body were not as complex as his eyes. His arms, legs, and muscles all seemed to work correctly which he was seriously grateful for. The only thing that had seemed to change was his skin is now grey instead of tan. Blaze thought he might have also grown a few inches but he wouldn¡¯t know for certain about that until he underwent a full body scan again.


    Blaze planned to check out the more private areas of his body after the orderly arrived with the mirror. He also reasoned that the orderly could help him to the bathroom in the event that he could not walk after his changes. The cute lab tech was the one who brought Blaze his mirror not a male orderly like he hoped for.


    Blaze thought ¡®Well, she did help hold me up when I was fighting that unbearable heat. She might be able to help me to the door of the bathroom if I need assistance. I would still hate to ask her though. I will try to walk on my own first.¡¯


    Once the lab tech saw Blaze she rushed over like a star struck fan. Shoving the mirror in Blaze¡¯s face she shouted ¡°I have brought a mirror for you sir. My name is Melinda. Will you please MARRY ME!¡±


    Blaze was struck dumb by the lab tech Melinda¡¯s actions. A girl he just met just proposed to him. He has had girlfriends before and has gained experience with female behavior. This was not normal though. Yes, he knew he was alright looking maybe a six out of ten for most girls. But her reaction was like he was a ten out of ten with super model like looks. Then he backed his face up a little so that he could actually see his reflection and the face staring back at him was the answer to Melinda¡¯s sudden confession. Blaze no longer looked human. He looked more like a fantasy elf character. Blaze now has purple eyes, long flowing silver hair, two medium sized elf like ears, and a cute cherub like kissable face.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Blaze thoughts were completely blown away. Between the confession and his new face it was too much for his mind to handle and like a computer going through a memory overload his thoughts were ¡®error, error, error cannot compute. Performing hard restart on reasoning functions please stand by.¡¯


    After a few minutes of staring at himself in the mirror his brain finally seemed to come to terms with his new physical existence and began to work again. The first thing he noticed was the whispering over by Kate¡¯s bed. When he looked over at Kate¡¯s bed he saw Melinda crying on Kate¡¯s shoulder and Kate patting Melinda¡¯s back saying soothing words like ¡°It will be ok¡± and ¡°You will find someone better¡±. Blaze was an idiot about something¡¯s but not about a woman¡¯s feelings so he collected his thoughts and prepared himself to answer Melinda¡¯s confession seriously.


    Blaze coughed first to get the girls attention then said in a very sincere voice ¡°I am sorry for not answering your confession. I was just shocked that a cute lady like you would confess to me. My answer is no for now, but that doesn¡¯t mean that I wouldn¡¯t like to get to know you better.¡±


    Melinda beamed a beautiful smile at Blaze and said ¡°Yes, it is too soon for a wedding but is it ok for us to go out on a date? You did say that you would like to get to know me better after all.¡±


    Blaze felt like a trapped rat in a maze and thought ¡®I think I have been had. This girl is even more devious than that red head at my dojo. She most likely played this whole scenario out in her head just to wiggle a date out of me. God the pain I went thru because of that red head. I am going to have to up my vigilance and watch my words even more closely now so this doesn¡¯t happen again.¡¯


    Blaze smiled and laid on the charm ¡°Certainly though it will be some time before I can take you on a proper date. I will be stuck in here for at least a week for public safety. Once I am released I have a few things that I will have to take care of then I should be free for a small outing.¡±


    Melinda clapped with glee and ran off. Blaze thought ¡®Yeah, crises averted¡¯. Then he saw the scowl on Kate¡¯s face and just had to ask ¡°Did I do something to upset you as well Kate?¡±


    Kate looked directly into Blaze¡¯s eyes and said ¡°If you stand her up or don¡¯t make good on the date promise I will not forgive you.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®How did she know that was my plan? Ahh, who cares I will never see her or Melinda again anyways. I just have to keep good relations till I get out of the institute then I can be on my way and not have to worry about it.¡¯


    Kate then said ¡°Just so you know. You have been asleep for two days and missed an announcement from the institute. All Mana recipients will be moved to an island close to Hawaii. They also said this was for observation because we all mutated more than they expected. So it should not be a problem for you and Melinda¡¯s date because she will be one of the observers.¡±


    Blaze thought ¡®Urgh, fine you win. I will go on ONE date with her and that¡¯s it. I have other things I have to do though so even if I like her and have fun on the date I can¡¯t go on a second. Is that acceptable?¡¯


    Kate just smiled and began to talk about events Blaze had missed over the two days he was asleep. Apparently Kate was the first person to receive the Mana injection here in Columbus and the first to wake up. Columbus branch office had the third highest survivor rate with five out of thirty injection recipients surviving the first hour. Two of the five survivors became completely animal like and it is assumed that they have lost the ability of higher thought, reasoning, and speech.


    Then Kate began to explain why she chose to have the injection. Apparently it was because she had a terminally ill sister and the Mana injection she had chosen has a side effect that could cure or counter her sister¡¯s illness. Kate was planning on waiting till the third or fourth trial round like a lot of other people but her sister had taken a turn for the worst so she worked a deal with the institute. The deal was for Kate to participate in the initial trials and if she survived then the injection would also be given to her sister Eve. Eve would be receiving her injection today and if everything went good should be joining Kate here at Columbus branch before we are all shipped off to Hawaii.


    Blaze lost interest in what Kate was saying after her background story. He still wanted to go to the bathroom to ensure nothing else was different with his body but he just couldn¡¯t break into Kate¡¯s one sided conversation to excuse himself. Blaze thought that Kate was shy at first but now he had a completely different opinion of her. Blaze was not one to remain idle so he decided to familiarize himself with his new eyes while he was being subjected to Kate¡¯s ramblings.


    Blaze first stopped focusing so that he could go back to the area he at first called his kaleidoscope vision. Blaze thought at first that this was his new vision but him being able to focus on a single image made him doubt that theory. If Blaze¡¯s new theory was correct then he is right now seeing images from twelve separate optic nerves in his eyes. One for each type of vision he now has. Now the question is how to get rid of the other images all together so that he would see thru only one nerve at a time.


    Blaze thought thru the issue ¡®Focusing only helps a little and doesn¡¯t seem right. Maybe I have some new muscles behind my eyes that I can use to pinch the nerves closed. Ok if I do have muscles behind my eyes now how can I make them work? A baby learns their muscles through trial and error then once they get old enough and have practiced enough it just becomes natural. I doubt my situation is like a baby¡¯s though because my mutation was caused by an alien animal and the transformations I have seen so far all have animalistic qualities to them. So how does an animal learn their muscles? By instinct I would assume. Ok I guess it is time to become one with my inner animal.¡¯


    Blaze closed his eyes and started to try and meditate. This was his first time meditating so he was certain that he wasn¡¯t doing it right. Then he imaged that he was a snake. As a snake he has horrible vision and it gets even worse once night falls. The snake is starving it hasn¡¯t eaten a meal in days. It can hear prey but does know where to strike. The snake needs to use its infrared vision to sense heat to find its prey. When the snake switches to using its infrared vision Blaze opens his eyes and does the same thing. For the first time since Blaze woke up he was only seeing things from one perspective no other images were intruding on his sight. Granted it was not his normal vision but it was still liberating to know that his theory was right. Now all he needed to do was practice.


    Blaze in his elation forgot that he was supposed to be listening to Kate. However, Kate didn¡¯t care that Blaze had stopped paying attention to her because she had gotten what she wanted. What she wanted was to learn more about this enigmatic man and reading his mind should have been the quickest way to go about it. However, he was able to block her scans somehow. Kate noticed threw the time she has spent near him that she could read his thoughts when he was agitated or upset. So she was talking continuously like most men hate to try and get a reaction out of him. It did work though he just shut her out and went into a daze. Once Blaze¡¯s thoughts were occupied with figuring out his strange eye sight Kate noticed she had complete access to his surface thoughts. Kate decided to observe Blaze and his thoughts to see if he could adapt to his new eyes. She was a silent passenger in his mind threw the whole process. Kate was over joyed for Blaze when he figured out his new eyes. Kate and the other survivor Trask have been trying to get used to their new bodies and appendages for the past two days with very little success. Kate had figured out she could read minds a little while after she woke up. However she still had to figure out how her ears and tail worked. Especially her blasted tail the dang thing seemed to have a mind of its own.


    ************************************************************************************************************************


    AN: Look forward to Part 2


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 Chapter 3 Awakening Part 2

    Chapter 3 Awakening Part 2


    Blaze spent roughly three hours practicing with his new vision and had managed in that time to make the switch between three separate vision types. Blaze was extremely happy when he finally was able to see like he used to. Blaze also categorized his vision types so that he could train and understand them better.


    Blaze named what he recognized as his old vision as Standard. He was going to name it light vision because a human¡¯s vision is dependent on light and the mental image he has to have to use that nerve cluster is thinking about the sun, but he decided to go with Standard because it simply was the only vision a human has. Blaze didn¡¯t harbor any doubts that he was still one hundred percent human but he wanted something to remind him of his old self so he went with naming his light vision Standard.


    One of the two new vision types he categorized as Infravision which is just a compound word he made up for Infrared vision. Blaze was also able to shorten his Infravision trigger to just thinking about seeing heat. He got the idea from his switch to his Standard vision.


    The last and most vexing vision type for Blaze to categorize and use was what he called Mana vision. Blaze was able to use this vision when he thought about the supernatural acts of Void Entities. Blaze knew that the supernatural and Mana was discovered by scientist observing Void Entities and he also knew that he should have gained this vision from the formula description, but that was all he knew about Mana so he could not shorten his switch for this vision type.


    Mana vision was weird to Blaze all he could see was colored blobs everywhere except for when he looked at Kate and himself. When looking at Kate he could see her outline and pulsing veins of color from a single central ball of light in her chest. Even though Blaze tried to use the mirror left by Melinda to see what he looked like in his new Mana vision nothing was reflected. All he saw was a blob of color where the mirror was. Blaze filed that information away in his mind and then examined as much of his body as he could. He had the same color veins in his body but his were larger and more numerous than Kate¡¯s he also had five shiny balls of light in his body not just one like Kate.


    With his practice finished Blaze felt the need to go to the bathroom. He was a little over full from all the fluids that were being pumped into him by the IV attached to his arm. Blaze carefully got up grabbed the rolling IV stand and began to take his first steps in his mutated body. Blaze was very concerned that he might have some weakness or muscle motor issues but he did not. If anything he felt even more in tune with his body. Blaze sighed in relief and walked to the bathroom.


    A high pitched scream from Kate saying ¡°What the $%#@¡± was heard throughout the west wing of the institute a short while later. A blushing Kate was left with a new image and perspective on the world when she mentally ejected herself from Blaze¡¯s thoughts.


    When Blaze was on his way back from the bathroom Melinda, a male orderly, and a monster like reptilian creature walked into the observation wing pushing a food cart. Blaze seeing the monster like creature began to go into a defensive crouch. However, before Blaze moved very far he caught sight of Melinda shaking her head ever so slightly. So he stopped dead and tried to assess the situation.


    Blaze thought ¡®Have we been invaded by scaled monsters in the two days I was asleep? Kate didn¡¯t mention anything about it! So I doubt that is the assumption to make. Kate did say that five people had survived the injection and that two of them had become animals. Is this one of the injection recipients? Are they trying to train it or something? Why is he pushing a food cart?¡¯


    While Blaze was thinking the scaled offered its claw like hand then began to speak in a very hesitant snake like scratchy voice ¡°Hello, my name isssh Trashsk. I am a sssurvivor asss well. You are Blazse. Nice to finally meet you¡±


    Blaze almost had another mental breakdown but he stopped that from happening by relying on his upbringing of always being polite and robotically shook hands while saying ¡°Hello, Trashsk it is nice to meet you as well.¡±


    The creature Blaze called Trashsk shook its head and pointed at a sticker name tag on his button up shirt. The tag said in small red letters My Name Is then written in black marker was the name Trask. Blaze caught on quickly but hesitated for a second in replying so that he could take in the appearance of Trask without it being obvious. Blaze was a firm believer in ¡°It is not polite to stare.¡±


    Trask appeared to be around seven foot tall with patchy green scales, slatted yellow eyes, razor sharp teeth, a snake like tongue, and nubby horns growing out of his fore head. Also Trask has double jointed legs like a quadrupedal animal would have and a crocodile like tail coming out of his customized stretchy blue pants. Blaze noticed that Trask had soft hands while they shook so assumed that he did not have scales everywhere.


    Blaze finished with his quick inspection said ¡°Oh, I am sorry about saying your name wrong. I must have heard you wrong. Your name is Trask right?¡±


    Trask nodded and said ¡°You right. That my name. Apologizze about ssspeach but wordsss are hard to sssay now. I try to avoid wordsss that make me hissss.¡±


    Blaze now understood and sympathized with Trask. I mean it took him three hours just to see right and Trask had obviously changed more than him. Blaze wanting to be nice and to cover up for his initial reaction said ¡°I think you are having problems because of your tongue. Try and fold your tongue on top of itself inside your mouth. But you will want to make it fold out in a way to make your tongue thicker.¡±


    Trask thought about it for a second then opened his mouth and started to move around his snake like tongue around. He succeeded in folding his tongue over by using the roof of his mouth to curl his tongue over top of itself.


    Trask said ¡°This feels weird.¡± It came out right and it only sounded a little like he was talking with food in his mouth but it was a whole lot less creepy than his previous way of speaking. Trask smiled hearing the improvement and said ¡°Better, I don¡¯t know why I didn¡¯t think of that¡±


    Trask, a smiling Melinda, an exasperated orderly and Blaze all began to walk as a group back to Kate¡¯s and Blaze¡¯s sleeping area. While walking back Blaze asked Trask ¡°Where are you staying I woke up across from Kate and none of the other beds seem to be in use.¡±


    Trask flinched and said ¡°I have to sleep in Sal¡¯s room. I have to use a heating blanket to stay warm at night and his room is the only place with a plug in for it. I almost went into a coma the first night because my body temperature dropped too much. The scanners caught my body temperature dropping but didn¡¯t alarm until my life was in danger.¡±


    Blaze was shocked and mad about the blatant act of neglect. Blaze¡¯s emotions must have shown on his face because Trask calmed him down by saying ¡°Don¡¯t be upset. The computer knew about my snake like conversion so it didn¡¯t know if it should sound the alarm. A snake is cold blooded so a drop in body temperature would just result normally in me being sleepy. However, I am still warm blooded. My body temperature can drop more than normal before I am in danger but my brain functions became erratic at eighty five degrees. This blue jumper I am wearing is almost like a space suite and it helps keep me warm during the day while I am up and about.¡±


    Blaze said ¡°So you are still warm blooded but have a problem with body heat regulation now because of your mutation. Have you tried out seeing how hot you can get before your body starts to react negatively?¡±


    Blaze and group arrived at Kate¡¯s and Blaze¡¯s sleeping area. The orderly, Sal started to open up compartments on the cart and pull out food. Melinda went to Blaze¡¯s area and opened a cupboard that had a rolling tray inside and set it up so that Blaze could eat while sitting in his bed. This setup was very turn of the century. Blaze thought that if he didn¡¯t see the new tech like the monitoring scanners or Halo units that he had traveled back in time. Blaze went to his bed and sat down.


    Remembering the IV in his arm Blaze asked Melinda ¡°When can I have this taken out of my arm?¡±


    Melinda smiled at Blaze and said ¡°After we all eat. The scanners say your body was extremely dehydrated for a normal human. So we did a simple saline drip to rehydrate you. Some concerns were raised because of your new physiology. The scanners recommended that we not use anything more advanced. Also the food is going to be bland and tasteless for a while we have already taken some blood and are running tests to see if anything seems poisonous to your new metabolism.¡±


    Blaze was happy that as injection recipients they were not being neglected. After hearing Trask¡¯s experience he was concerned that he would have to figure things out the hard way. Like Trask had.


    Curious Blaze asked Melinda ¡°What do the scanners say about my new body?¡±


    Melinda replied ¡°Doctor Sebast has locked all your data in the scanners so I cannot access them. He does plan on sitting down with each injection recipient individually to discuss their mutations before the end of the week. He does however give recommendations based on the scans for your overall health and wellbeing.¡±


    Blaze asked ¡°Why did he lock our data?¡±


    Melinda shook her head and said ¡°I didn¡¯t say everyone¡¯s data was locked. I said YOUR data was locked.¡±


    Blaze a little annoyed now said ¡°Why did he lock MY data?¡±


    Melinda shrugged and said ¡°He was mumbling something about unstable Mitochondrial DNA and I also heard him say you had fifty diploid chromosomes with forty eight being autosomal and the last two were you normal human sex chromosomes of XY for a male. So my guess is he wants more data because he thinks your mutation is still unstable.¡±


    Blaze tried processing what Melinda said but the highest class of medical science he had taken was the basic Biology class he needed to graduate and he only got a ¡°73%¡± in that class. The only part he understood was that his mutation looked unstable.


    Blaze let Melinda and Sal finish setting up the dinner trays and looked over to Kate¡¯s bed, where Trask was now sitting next to Kate and asked the both of them ¡°Do you guys know your DNA information and whatever Melinda said?¡±


    Trask didn¡¯t mind giving out his information to Blaze. Blaze had already helped him after all so why not return the favor ¡°Doctor Sebast has already talked with me. He didn¡¯t say anything about my DNA, I assume it has changed and must be stable. What he did tell me was that I have mutated forty two percent. My mutation will have made me stronger than all regular humans, my scales are made out of Titanite, and my speed should be above average. All of the injection recipients with my formula number turned into reptiles like me and that I have over five hundred siblings now.¡±


    Kate was less willing to give out personal information but said ¡°My DNA is stable. I and my sister are the only two to have taken that formula. My sister came out just like me and you already know about my power.¡±


    Blaze didn¡¯t find any of that information useful but said ¡°Thanks¡± when they finished sharing. Blaze withdrew inside his mind to try and puzzle out his situation with the little information that he had.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.After finishing dinner Trask approached Blaze who had barely eaten his bland food and said ¡°I saw your reaction earlier and was wondering if you have received any type of martial arts training?¡±


    Blaze came back to reality and replied ¡°Yeah some. I was at a dojo for three months before I came to get the injection and I am sorry for my initial reaction.¡±


    Trask said ¡°No worries man. I was just hoping that we could work out together tomorrow. I got the ok from Doc Sebast for us to use the outside courtyard area to work out in.¡±


    Blaze ¡°Sure. Sounds like fun. What time do you want to go work out?¡±


    Trask ¡°How about; before breakfast, say around six? That way we can get in about a two hour work out and still be able to shower before breakfast.¡±


    Blaze ¡°That¡¯s fine with me. I will set the Halo alarm in my little cubical like sleeping area here and meet you outside.¡±


    Trask ¡°Alright, I am going to turn in. See you in the morning.¡±


    Blaze said good night to everyone and asked Melinda to close the certain to his room. Then he worked for a little while with his vision trying to refine it some more and to also figure out what the other nerve clusters were for but didn¡¯t make any more headway with it. Frustrated and tired Blaze finally called it a night.


    In the morning Blaze and Trask did an hour of muscle strengthening and stretching. During that time Blaze and Trask talked about their lives before the injection. Blaze talked about his dream and Trask told Blaze about his own likes. Trask¡¯s hobbies are to play video games and read fiction novels. His dream is to become a super hero. Basically Trask is your typical fantasy fanatic. Blaze and Trask had fun talking and decided to start out together when Space Explorers was released.


    Then they spared for the last hour. Thankfully Trask never has had any training nor has he ever been in a fight. If he had received any training before sparing with Blaze, Blaze would have been a wet smear on the grass in the court yard. Trask is supper fast and supper strong. To top it all off today was the first time Trask had ever worked out in his life and he managed to crack a wall with a punch. Blaze shuddered to think if someone with some real training and previous strength would be like after receiving his mutation.


    Blaze and Trask stopped sparing at eight o¡¯clock like planned and went and took a shower. Blaze, Kate, Trask, Melinda, and Sal all had breakfast together. Then Melinda and Sal left to gather reports for Doc Sebast. When breakfast was over Blaze started to train with his vision again and Kate and Trask played some Halo games till lunch. Then everyone ate together again and shared some light conversation.


    After lunch Melinda and Sal took some blood and did more in depth scans on Blaze, Kate, and Trask which didn¡¯t take too long. Then Sal started cleaning inside the observation room while Melinda took her samples and went back to work with Doc Sebast. The rest of the time till dinner Blaze spent either playing games with Kate and Trask or researching technical information on ships or theories about magic and Mana manipulation. Blaze wanted to try out some of the theories but he was told by Melinda that he was not to use magic or Mana till he gets to Molokai.


    Everyone ate dinner together and talked about their day. After an epic game of Halo ball everyone went to bed. Blaze was not tired though so he stayed up late researching possible vision types in the hopes that he would find something useful. He tried x-ray vision, heat vision, and freeze vision. He did have some luck with Telescopic vision. He could use his Telescopic sight in all three vision types so he never gave this vision a name he just classified it as ability not a vision type.


    Nothing changed until Kate¡¯s sister Eve showed up with Doctor Sebast two days later. Kate and Eve had a big reunion with big hugs and way too much crying. It was cute watching two cat eared girls hug and cry together. Blaze rained in more immoral thoughts about the siblings and observed Eve.


    Eve is close to five foot tall, with yellow eyes, blond hair, and her cat ears and tail are grey compared to her sister¡¯s calico look. Blaze is guarded around Eve. Eve received the same injection as Kate so she might have the same mind reading ability. Blaze never said anything to Kate but he knew when she was trying to get into his mind and he seemed to be able to block her some but he was not sure that it worked. Kate was very secretive about her Telepathic abilities it didn¡¯t seem like anyone else but Blaze knew what she could do.


    Doctor Sebast was the one who brought Eve into the observation wing but Doctor Sebast being the cold hearted man he is ignored the reunion and walked straight up to Blaze and said ¡°I need to explain a few things about your mutation before you leave in the morning. Please follow me to my office.¡±


    Blaze not surprised with the Doctor¡¯s rough behavior but not going to be pushed around and be rude himself simply replied ¡°I am sorry you will have to wait. A friend of mine is reuniting with her sister right now and I would like to great her myself.¡±


    Doctor Sebast narrowed his eyes and said ¡°I only have twenty minutes set aside to explain your mutation. Come to my office now or don¡¯t it does not matter to me. You will not be able to access my office again after the twenty minute time elapses.¡±


    Once Doc Sebast finished talking he walked off like a king to his office. Blaze had tried to get into Doctor Sebast¡¯s office to speak with him a couple of times since he woke up only to be shut out by security. Blaze knew he could steal his scanner results because the office was only protected by a simple biometric scanner plate but without a professional interpreting the data for him it would be useless. So Blaze just waited patiently for his promised appointment.


    Blaze just sighed and looked up to watch and wait for his turn to introduce himself. Blaze wanted his results but not enough to be rude. Plus the way the Doc was acting needed to be corrected as well. He was not a king or better than anyone else here so needed to be put in his place. However, before he could start making any plans for the doctor¡¯s re-education Eve and Kate walked up to him.


    Kate introduced Eve to Blaze. Blaze introduced himself as well. The three talked for a few very uncomfortable minutes about nothing interesting. Then Blaze excused himself by explaining he had an appointment with the doctor. Blaze was originally not going to go at all to see the doctor because of his attitude but Eve¡¯s actions changed his mind. Blaze changed his mind because Eve hid behind her sister and said only a few words since her introduction. The atmosphere was very uncomfortable to say the least. Thus Blaze excused himself to lighten the atmosphere.


    When Blaze entered the doctor¡¯s office Doctor Sebast smiled maliciously like he had won and said ¡°You wasted ten minutes of my time so you have no time to ask questions. I will talk you will listen.¡±


    Doctor Sebast waited to see if he would receive any more back talk from Blaze. Blaze just waited patiently like Doctor Sebast had said nothing at all. When the doctor didn¡¯t receive any response he smiled and said ¡°Good boy, now that that is out of the way. You my unlucky lab rat have what we call an unstable mutation.¡± Blaze thought ¡®That is how the doctor see¡¯s us as lab rats. I guessed he doesn¡¯t just have bad bed side manners. This guy is an elitist or purist. Well I have a surprise for him.¡¯


    Doctor Sebast oblivious to Blaze¡¯s thoughts went into very complex detail about Blaze¡¯s medical scan results. This is not how things were supposed to happen a doctor is supposed to interpret the data to the patient. Doctor Sebast was not interpreting he was just reading the complex scans verbatim and he was throwing in rude and hateful statements where ever he could. Blaze stopped paying attention to the hateful doctor and scanned the room for things he would need to pull of his plans for later tonight. Happy with what he saw available in the office. Blaze turned around and walked out the door before the doctor even finished speaking. No need to worry about being rude to people like him.


    Later that night Blaze bypassed the security to the doctor¡¯s office with ease and collected everything he needed. Blaze got all the scanner data concerning himself, Kate, Trask, and Eve and placed that information on one data crystal. Then Blaze accessed the scanner recordings of the doctor¡¯s interactions and actions while at work and placed them all on another data crystal.


    Blaze was both ecstatic and upset with what he found. Blaze had enough evidence with just the recordings to have the doctor placed in jail for a long time. Trask really didn¡¯t almost die from a computer error! The doctor had tried to kill him. Blaze had the recording of him altering the system warnings along with the access logs to prove his guilt. Sal was the one who saved Trask. No warning alarm ever went off! Blaze also got audio feeds of the doctor giving out classified and personal information to a group calling themselves the Tempio di Puro. Blaze wanted to look deeper into the recordings but time was running short for the rest of his plan.


    Blaze uploaded the second crystal to the net via a few randomizers and proxies so he could not be tracked. Then he used a voice scrambler freeware he knew about with an audio line only connection to call every major broad casting company and explained his find to them along with a link to his evidence. Then he called the authorities and provided them with a link to the data as well. Once he finished with releasing the evidence he cleaned up only the logs of his activities and deleted the scanner records of him being in the office. He then altered the scanner records to show he was sleeping in his bed out in the observation wing and that the office scanners had no one entering or exiting the office since Doctor Sebast left earlier that evening.


    With a happy smile and two data crystals hidden in his shoe Blaze skipped back to bed and feel asleep. Of course no normal person would have been able to hack the institute¡¯s security or scanner database because the institute¡¯s security is considered one of the best ever developed. This caused the doctor to relax his own safe guards thinking he was safe. Luckily Blaze was not normal and he had developed his hacking skills from a young age. Just to be able to see the classified specifications on ships that he just had to know about.


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    AN: This is the real end I had for chapter 3. I hope you liked it. I did listen to your requests and will not be cutting the training on Molokai. Next release will be in a few days.


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 Chapter 4 Terror and Trust (Part 1)

    Chapter 4 Terror and Trust


    The next morning everyone gathered at the entrance to the observation wing with what luggage they had brought. Kate had on a white t-shirt with short shorts and her tail went through a hole cut in the fabric. Kate only has a simple black duffel bag at her feet. Trask was wearing multiple layers. He had on his newly arrived customized stretchy black climate control suite and over that he was wearing custom tailored wide leg blue jean pants with a button up black shirt. Trask had more luggage than Kate because he had to get a whole new wardrobe. He had three huge suite cases on wheels strapped together.


    Eve was wearing a white one piece dress with a yellow straw ladies hat. You could not see her tail or ears because she hid them underneath her clothes. She only had a bag for toiletries because her luggage was already at Molokai. Blaze was wearing his normal attire of loose blue jean pants and a plain t-shirt. Blaze also had a black duffel bag like Kate¡¯s sitting at his feet his just had embroidery on it of a space ship. Melinda was also with the group waiting. She was wearing a cute and very feminine business suite. She had her hair pulled back into a pony tail and was only carrying a simple hand bag.


    The group of Blaze, Kate, Eve, Trask, and Melinda were waiting on Doctor Sebast¡¯s arrival so they could receive instructions on their departure. However, Doctor Sebast never came into work. Instead a team of Investigator droids showed up ten minutes before Doctor Sebast should have arrived. The droid investigation team was made up of four Investigator droids and six Bio-interface droids. Everyone but Blaze was concerned at the meaning behind the team of investigator droids. Blaze just watched as the specialized blue uniformed droids went about collecting forensic data and as the Bio-interface droids headed in his little groups direction.


    Blaze knew that a team would show up after he released the information about Doctor Sebast. Blaze¡¯s original plan was not to get the authorities involved. At most he just wanted Doctor Sebast to be reprimanded for his unprofessional behavior. However, once he saw the footage of attempted murder he knew he had to report it and now that an investigation team has been sent he was fairly certain his late night illegal activities would not go unnoticed. Blaze reconciled with his doubts last night so was ready for whatever punishment he might receive for hacking the institute¡¯s computer system.


    Investigator droids look like stream lined metallic stick men with four arms and one central red rectangular eye. The red rectangular eye has an advanced scanner suite that has been the cause of the drop in the crime rate of the twenty second century to less than one percent. Two of the four arms are designed for combat. The combat arms are armored and also contain light weight built in weaponry. The other two arms look like your standard human like droid arm but are packed with evidence and data collecting modules. Blaze was fascinated when a thin metal probe extended from the index finger on one of the investigator droids. Blaze watched as the droid stuck the thin metal device into one of the access points on a scanner.


    Bio-interface droids look like snowmen with a screen for a face. They have no arms and move around on wheels built into the bottom of their body. The purpose of a Bio-interface droid is to be a fact finding droid with a built in lie detector. They ask all the questions in an investigation and are also used in political negotiations between Mars, the Moon, and Earth.


    One of the Bio-interface droids rolled up to Blaze and asked in a sweat mechanical voice, ¡°You are Blaze Archlight correct?¡±


    Blaze nodded and said, ¡°Yes.¡±


    Droid asked, ¡°Do you know what happened last night?¡±


    Blaze replied, ¡°Yes, I remember¡±


    Blaze was being honest and vague on purpose. Blaze had heard that you should never lie to a Bio-interface droid because it will pick up on it instantly. The only way to try and fool the droid is by being completely honest and extremely vague in your answers.


    Droid asked, ¡°Can you give me an account of what happened last night then?¡±


    Blaze shrugged and said, ¡°The same stuff basically as the last three days since I woke up. I trained and hung out with my friends. Why?¡±


    The Droid replied and asked, ¡°Just answer my questions please. Did anything else happen last night?¡±


    Blaze replied, ¡°Yes, my friend Kate her sister Eve joined us here at the institute.¡±


    Droid asked, ¡°Did you notice anyone around that you have never seen before?¡±


    Blaze replied, ¡°No¡±


    Droid asked, ¡°Have you ever spoken with Doctor Sebast?¡±


    Blaze sighed and replied, ¡°Yes, he talked to me yesterday about my mutation and he was one of the first people I spoke to after I woke up after injection. We didn¡¯t talk other than those two occasions.¡±


    Droid asked, ¡°Did the doctor seem hostile to you?¡±


    Blaze nodded and replied, ¡°Yes he called me a lot of derogatory names and did not read me my results correctly.¡±


    Droid asked, ¡°Did his actions upset you?¡±


    Blaze frustrated replied in a strained voice, ¡°Of course they did, I planned on submitting a complaint about him today to the institute.¡±


    Droid asked, ¡°Did you kill Doctor Sebast?¡±


    Blaze surprised raised his voice and replied, ¡°What? NO!¡±


    Droid said, ¡°Truth verified. Thank you for your cooperation.¡±


    The Bio-interface droid then rolled off to join the other waiting droids. Blaze got off lucky, if the focus of the investigation was on who hacked the institutes computers he would have been done for. What Blaze was told to try would not work on a Bio-interface droid. They always ask directly about the object of their investigation. With a question that can be answered with only a ¡°Yes¡± or a ¡°No¡± evasion would not work. The other questions Bio droids ask is used to adjust their systems to the person they are questioning.


    Blaze missed the implications of the Bio droids direct question because his thoughts were on other matters ¡®Someone must have killed Doctor Sebast either last night or this morning. The only suspects Blaze could think of, was either Tempio di Puro or someone he upset with his bigotry. Blaze decided to leave the murder investigation to the professionals but he definitely is going to find out more information about Tempio di Puro once he gets to Molokai. They might have killed the Doctor to ensure his silence and if they have killed once they would be willing to kill again.¡¯


    After the droid investigation team left the observation wing. Melinda received a call on her personal H.A.L.O device. Her notification sound was the popular boy band ¡°Tear¡¯s Fable¡± hit single. Melinda¡¯s H.A.L.O device was an older bracelet style model. It was cute though it had a silver metallic band with a green heart shaped crystal. The H.A.L.O screen that popped up had the caller¡¯s name as Director Timmons.


    Melinda took a few breaths to calm her nerves and said, ¡°Accept call.¡± The Holo-projection coming from the H.A.L.O device showed an older man of about sixty years sitting in an executive chair. Melinda smiled and said, ¡°Hello Director.¡±


    Director Timmons smiled back and said, ¡°Hello Melinda, I see you are not too worked up over Doctor Sebast¡¯s untimely demise.¡±


    Melinda sighed and said, ¡°Director you know I hated that man. He is the reason I asked to be transferred to work as an observer at Molokai.¡±


    Director Timmons sighed as well and replied, ¡°Yes, I agree he was a hard person to work with. Best not to talk ill of the dead though. I was just calling to say we received the clearance from the investigation team for you to come to the Molokai facility. A shuttle will be coming in fifteen minutes to pick everyone up and take you to the Slip Stream terminal.¡±


    Melinda said, ¡°We will be ready for pick up in fifteen minutes Director. We will see you when we arrive.¡±


    Director Timmons said, ¡°I look forward to seeing you again Melinda and I look forward to meeting the people in your group as well. Let them know there will be a video from me and Director Hale inside a packet address to each of them on the shuttle bus.¡±


    Melinda replied, ¡°I will let them know. Is there anything else director?¡±


    Director Timmons said, ¡°No that is all.¡±


    Melinda and Director Timmons ended the call. Melinda looked at everyone and said, ¡°Well, you heard everything. Doctor Sebast is dead. Does anyone need or want counseling? I can set up a counselor to be there to talk once we get to Molokai.¡±


    Blaze noticed that Eve was gently crying. Kate was hugging Eve consoling her and Trask looks visibly concerned for Eve by his fidgeting. Blaze was upset himself just not about the Doctor¡¯s death.


    Blaze thought, ¡®What in the world is going on? No one seems to know about what the Doctor has done. Is somebody trying to cover this up?¡¯


    Blaze was not going to let the attempted murder and information he had gained about the Tempio di Puro be covered up. Blaze wanted to make sure that the information he released was just not being forgotten in the wake of the Doctor¡¯s murder.


    Blaze walked over to his sleeping area for some privacy and used the H.A.L.O device near his bed to search the Net. He found several news feeds concerning the Doctor¡¯s death. A murder in the year 2115 is BIG news because only a few hundred people are murdered worldwide every year.


    Apparently, the Doctor¡¯s body was found by his maid droid at three this morning. His body was torn apart. A fuel bomb was also found at his residence but nothing about the information he released was shown on the news feeds. Blaze knew it was a horrible idea to check the data upload he did so decided to just inform the people around him directly about what he knew.


    Blaze called over everyone and to ensure their attention he spoke gravely and said, ¡°I have something I want you to watch and I think you will want to see it before we leave.¡±


    Blaze only had enough time left before the shuttle arrived to show the evidence he had of attempted murder. He then quickly summarized the other information he had found about the doctor revealing personal medical information to the group Tempio di Puro. Blaze ended with saying, ¡°I released this information to the media and authorities last night before the Doctor was killed. None of the news feeds say anything about my release. I am concerned that we are in danger and should be extra careful once we leave the institute.¡±


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    The group was very quiet while they processed what Blaze had shown them. Kate was the first to finish processing and began to ask a question but was interrupted by Blaze shaking his head and tilting it toward the door of the observation wing where a huge droid with a shofars hat on was gathering their luggage.


    Blaze whispered to Kate, ¡°That does not look like a shofar model droid. I doubt it could even fit in the shuttle bus let alone drive it.¡±


    Kate eyed the droid with suspicion and whispered back, ¡°What do we do?¡±


    Blaze shrugged and whispered, ¡°Just stay behind me and watch my back. We don¡¯t know for certain that the droid is hostile. Let Trask, Melinda, and Eve know our suspicions as well. I will keep an eye on the droid.¡±


    Blaze watched as the droid arranged the luggage in a pyramid. It didn¡¯t take any of the luggage from the room though. When it was done arranging the luggage the droid turned around with two laser pistols extended from its arms. Blaze seeing the weapons screamed ¡°Down now!¡± while finding cover behind some lockers.


    Just as he made cover Blaze saw the droid open fire. Laser fire ripped through the atmosphere and everywhere one of the blue bolts touched created a one inch hole. Kate had tackled Eve and Melinda down saving the three of them from being hit. Trask though was not so lucky. He had a hole in his stomach that was bleeding badly.


    Blaze wanting to pull Trask to safety darted from cover only to see the droid maybe five feet away and the Laser barrel was pointed right at him. Blaze thought ¡®How did the droid get so close so fast.¡¯


    That was the only time he had to think before he saw the barrel light up. Blaze¡¯s subconscious mind reacted to the danger and released a wave of Mana to protect himself. The Mana wave caused the Laser Bolt to expend its energy before hitting Blaze but the bolts energy still burned his skin. The Mana wave continued and pushed the droid back towards Trask.


    Trask saw the droid use a thruster blast to propel itself towards everyone. After he was shot Trask was in a lot of pain but he didn¡¯t want to see his friends get hurt either. Trask saw Blaze break from cover to rescue him but he jumped at the wrong time and right into the droids path. Trask began to get up and fight thru the pain. He knew he wouldn¡¯t make it in time to help Blaze but he would die defending the girls. Then he felt a spike of power come from Blaze and when he looked over the droid was now flying backwards towards him. Trask groaned from the pain and used his arms as a platform and double horse kicked the droid in the back with all the power in his body.


    A huge crash that sounds like an old time car accident was herd throughout the observation wing. Then several other small crashes were heard. One was due to the droid slamming into a closet and caving in the doors. Then the closet toppled over with another loud crash. The girls saw everything happen so far and Kate decided to attack the droid while it was face down inside the closet. Kate sprung from her position like a cat pouncing on its prey. While Kate was mid leap she saw two foot prints that dented in the battle droids back armor and focused on the damaged armor with her attacks. She began to tear into the exposed back of the droid with her claws extended. Kate succeeded in slicing up the back armor plates of the droid with two or three attacks but before she could go in for the droids circuitry it used the thrusters mounted into its back to throw Kate against the ceiling.


    Another loud crunch was heard from Kate hitting the ceiling then another dull thump when she came back down. Eve had been afraid watching the battle but when she saw her sister get thrown she attacked the droid in a rage. Eve saw the exposed internal circuits in the back of the droid and lunged for them once the thrusters shut off. Eve succeeded in pushing her clawed hand into the battle droid and pulled it back out as fast as she could. Metal parts, wires, hydraulic fluid, and sparks began flying away from the droid. It looked like a cute teenager in a sun hat standing on top of a droid disemboweling it because Eve didn¡¯t stop pulling out parts until her rage was spent.


    Melinda is a lab technician but her goal in life was to become a doctor. Melinda rushed around the battle field while Eve was still destroying the droid. She went to Trask first because he was shot and she feared he would bleed out. When she got to Trask she found him half-awake with a half inch hole in his stomach. New skin was rapidly growing and closing his wound. The lasers energy had cauterized the wound so very little new blood was being lost while his body regenerated. She wanted to do something for him but it would seem his body was healing him better than she could. Melinda treated him for shock by elevating his feet above his heart using a mattress and some pillows.


    Melinda then went and checked on Blaze. He was unconscious and not responding to her attempts to wake him. He was breathing and had a strong pulse the only external damage she found on Blaze was some third degree burns around his chest. He looked stable to her so she just flipped him on his side in case he vomited.


    Melinda then went to Kate. Eve was done ripping the droid apart and got to Kate¡¯s side a little before Melinda did. Eve was about to move Kate but Melinda stopped her with a shout, ¡°Don¡¯t move Kate. She has had blunt force trauma and may be bleeding internally or have spinal damage. I need you to go into the Doctor¡¯s office and get a hand held scanner from the rack.¡±


    Eve jumped up and ran for the door to the Doctor¡¯s office. The doors scanner plate would not let Eve in. She didn¡¯t have the strength to kick in the door so she desperately began to claw at the metal door. She had cut a large hole in the door with her claws and she would have gotten inside the office after a few more minutes but Melinda came running up behind her and passed her hand over the scanner plate and the door clicked open. Melinda said ¡°Sorry forgot you didn¡¯t have access.¡±


    Both Melinda and Eve rushed into the office. Melinda said, ¡°Grab a scanner then prop the door open and get back to your sister. I am going to grab a few supplies just in case we need them.¡± While Melinda was talking she opened a locked cabinet she scanned into and grabbed a first aid kit and defibrillator. Eve had propped open the door with the doctors chair causing Melinda to have to jump over it to get out of the office. Eve was crying while standing over her sister with the hand held scanner she moaned, ¡°How do you make this thing work?¡±


    Melinda took the scanner and turned it on then set the main settings to full body scan and then handed it back to Eve and said, ¡°Press the red button and a red line will project showing what you are scanning. I want you to slowly scan your sister from head to toe.¡± While Eve was using the scanner Melinda started to pull out different items from the first aid kit. When she was setting up the scanner began its report.


    Robotic female voice, ¡°Patient status is stable, Minor damage to internal ear, Minor bruising to the back of the head, two cracked ribs, and a broken leg. Recommend setting the right leg first. Patient recovery is above human standard. Leg will need to be broken in three days if not set before then.¡±


    Hearing the scanner results Melinda was relived. She turned Kate over carefully and extended her right leg fully then felt along the bone till she found the break. She had Eve hold the upper portion of the leg then she took the lower portion and then pulled and moved the bone back into place.


    Melinda said, ¡°Eve please scan your sisters right leg again.¡± Eve complied and the scanner said, ¡°Patient status is stable, leg is now aligned for proper healing.¡±


    Melinda spent some more time working on Kate. She first splinted Kate¡¯s broken leg then gave her an injection for the pain. Melinda took the scanner from Eve who stayed by Kate¡¯s side holding her hand.


    Melinda went back to check on Trask. Melinda did a full body scan and the results were not as encouraging. Trask had massive internal damage. His skin was fully healed and the bleeding had stopped but the scanner said he should be dead from the trauma and internal damage. After three more passes of the scanner a recommendation was finally given. Trask just needed rest and fluids. The scanner also recommended that he be feed uncooked raw meat and administer a one milliliter injection of sixty percent tungsten and forty percent iron to replace lost metal contents in Trask¡¯s body.


    Melinda then went and scanned Blaze¡¯s body. The scanner reported Blaze as being in a coma and the cause was unknown. The scanner recommended his burns be cleaned and dressed to prevent infection. She used a scalpel to remove the dead flesh which was hard with his grey skin. Once the dead skin was removed Blaze started bleeding. Melinda then cleaned around his open wounds and applied new skin patches. She then scanned him again and the new report showed his recovery rate only being slightly higher than a human¡¯s but that he was stable and no further actions were necessary.


    Melinda took a breath and thought, ¡®I know I should call someone. But too many weird things are happening and I don¡¯t know who to trust. The noise alone should have alerted security. Someone should have come to check in on us. The scanners in the room should have also reported the laser fire but Doctor Sebast could have turned that off with his access to the scanners.¡¯ Melinda sighed and walked back to Eve and asked, ¡°Can you help me get everyone into a bed?¡±


    Melinda and Eve pushed some beds together and created a wall out of closets just in case they were attacked again. Then they put Kate, Blaze, and Trask into the beds they prepared and sat down next to each other exhausted.


    **********************************************************************************************************************


    AN: Just had to leave in on a cliff hanger. Part two of this chapter will be released in another couple of days. Let me know what you think. To mush detail? Not enough? Fight scene good or bad?


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 Chapter 4 Terror and Trust (Part 2)

    Chapter 4 Terror and Trust (Part 2)


    Blaze awoke to the feeling of his body being moved and sunlight on his skin. Blaze felt extremely weak. Wanting to know what was happening Blaze opened his eyes and looked around. He was on a stretcher being carried out of the main doors of the institute by droids towards a waiting shuttle bus. Kate was being princess carried next to his stretcher by another droid and had a splint on her leg made of broken boards and cut up sheets. Kate was awake and scowling at the droid carrying her. Trask was passed out in a stretcher being carried by two more droids in front of Blaze¡¯s stretcher. Melinda and Eve were talking and walking next to Trask¡¯s stretcher with a group of medical personnel.


    Blaze croaked out, ¡°What is going on?¡±


    Kate looked over to Blaze and smiled, ¡°We didn¡¯t think you would be waking up anytime soon. We are officially being transported to Molokai now.¡±


    Blaze croaked out once again, ¡°More details. Tell me everything you know.¡±


    Kate had a sheepish look on her face seeing how tired Blaze looked and berated herself internally for making him talk more than was necessary. ¡°You have been asleep for six hours. The Tempio di Puro attacked ten branch offices of the institute. They released a statement to the public claiming credit for the attacks. They also said attacks would continue until all current mutants were destroyed and human experimentation was stopped.¡±


    Kate frowned and stopped talking for a second then continued, ¡°They attacked with drones not droids. The one we fought was being remotely controlled. Apparently, if we had fought a real droid its reactions would have been quicker and we would most likely be dead. The drone we fought neutralized or trapped everyone in the building using the internal security of the institute and sleeping gas. Its objective was to kill us and not kill any regular humans.¡±


    Blaze feeling a little better asked in a rough voice, ¡°Drone?¡±


    Kate nodded and said, ¡°Yeah apparently they also don¡¯t like droid technology. They said droids were also another attempt on playing god. I watched the news feed after I woke up. The leader had his face covered by a white mask you would see at the theater. The mask also had a symbol of a human inside some circles in gold relief on the forehead area of the mask. The guy seemed like a dick with his condescending speech. He also spoke in Italian. The news feed suggested that the Tempio di Puro has to be based in Italy because of the name of the organization and the leader speaking in Italian.¡±


    The group had arrived at the shuttle which looked like a silver school bus. Glass like solar panels and an electric motor ensure clean and effective mass ground transportation that utilizes the road infrastructure of the twentieth century. However, the roads of the twenty second century are quite a bit different. Roads are now a standard four lanes and the roads are made of black and silver solar filament that keeps the road warm in the winter and collects solar power that is distributed to nearby residents.


    The droids carrying Trask stopped before loading Trask into the back of the shuttle. The medical personnel that were talking with Melinda were trying to get an IV setup for Trask but it seemed like they were having difficulties. Blaze could not hear what was being said so he pointed at Trask and said, ¡°How bad?¡±


    Kate replied, ¡°We all are fine according to the scanners. Trask took the most damage. He is stable now thanks to his lizard like regenerative powers. The medics are just worried because his body is using up a lot of his internal resources to heal. They want to get some fluids and injections into him before we leave.¡±


    Blaze still felt exhausted and thought it would be good to go back to sleep. Kate began talking again in a sulking voice before he fell asleep, ¡°Eve is different now. Before if I was hurt she would not leave my side but now she is paying more attention to what the medics are doing than me.¡±


    Kate cleared her throat and continued talking, ¡°Do you think we were wrong for taking the injection? Do you think we are playing at being god?¡± The last question came out as almost a whisper making Blaze have to strain to hear it.


    Blaze replied to Kate¡¯s inner doubts with as steady a voice as his weak body would allow and said, ¡°We had a choice and we took it, nothing more nothing less. Was the choice right for you? Only you can decide that, but I think you did it for the right reason. Your sister would agree with me I am sure. Are we playing at being god? It could be seen that way, but I am not playing at becoming a god and the only persons actions I can control is my own. I don¡¯t think you want to become a god either.¡±


    Blaze was completely drained after that short speech and passed out once again. Kate felt Blaze¡¯s thoughts slip back into oblivion. His thoughts were completely unguarded while he was awake and she felt his intellect, pain, drive, and determination. She liked his straight forward attitude and his compassion for his friends. However, she picked up on something while he made his short speech she didn¡¯t expect. He liked her as a woman. He had his feelings for her locked down so deep that she wondered if he even realized it. Kate was intrigued and somewhat upset that she made him promise a date to Melinda.


    The medics finished setting up Trask¡¯s IV. They then started injecting some vitamins into his IV and let the droids load him into the back of the shuttle. Eve finished watching how they got his IV in and went back to Kate and said, ¡°Let¡¯s sit in the front. Trask is ok now. Any change in Blaze? I hope he is just worn out from whatever it is he did.¡±


    Kate shook her head and smiled towards Blaze, ¡°He woke up for the short walk to the shuttle. He seems fine. No I think I will sit in the back and watch Blaze.¡± Kate realized how that sounded and said, ¡°I mean I will stay with them in case they might need something.¡±


    Eve looked back and forth between Kate and the sleeping Blaze. The look Eve was seeing from Kate towards Blaze was warm and tender. Having a good guess what that meant Eve giggled, ¡°Sure. Let¡¯s sit in the back but remember you said Melinda has a crush on him as well.¡±


    Kate frowned ground her teeth and said, ¡°I know and I even made him accept a date with her.¡±


    Eve giggled some more and said, ¡°You usually are mistrustful of the cute ones. He can block our ¡°Hearing¡± so what happened that made you more interested in him?¡±


    Kate realized she slipped up again and might as well come clean, ¡°I can ¡°Hear¡± him a little sometimes when he is confused but this time I could ¡°Hear¡± everything. He is really a good guy and he has feelings towards me.¡±


    Eve was happy for her sister but also shocked, ¡°You mean the ¡°Space Cadet¡± has thoughts other than outer space and star ships?¡± Space Cadet is the nick name that Kate gave Blaze behind his back and she wanted to kick herself for giving him such a horrible nick name.


    Kate nodded but didn¡¯t say anything else. Blaze was loaded next to Trask and the droid holding Kate went around to the front passenger side sliding door and up into the vehicle. Kate directed the droid to move down the aisles to the back and place her in the last seat closest to Blaze. Eve sat in the seat next to Kate and started in on some small talk.


    Melinda joined them at the back of the shuttle and handed a package to both Kate and Eve. Inside the package was the latest model personnel H.A.L.O device crystals. H.A.L.O crystals don¡¯t need a setting like Melinda¡¯s bracelet to work. Settings are used to give more functionality to the crystal. It also personalizes and makes it easier to keep track of or wear.


    Melinda said, ¡°There are also crystals for Blaze and Trask. These are the packages that Director Timmons talked about in his call. I scanned them and nothing seems wrong with them but I don¡¯t know who should be trusted in the institute anymore. They have already attacked ten branch offices and killed all the injection recipients in eight of them. There was only one survivor at the Cairo branch. The Tempio di Puro must have agents inside the institute.¡±


    Kate said, ¡°How many were killed and what are the authorities doing now?¡±


    Melinda activated her H.A.L.O device and launched a news feed while saying, ¡°I know that seventeen injection recipients were killed in the attacks. We survived along with the one in Cairo so that totals to six survivors. I am not an injection recipient so that would mean only five injection recipients survived the attacks. Taking into account that only ten out of the over eight thousand branches on earth that participated in the Mana injection were attacked my guess would be that over ten thousand injection recipients are still alive.¡±


    Melinda stopped talking to read some news flashes and summarized the news flash by saying, ¡°The Mars Republic and Moon Federation are refusing to send their injection recipients to Earth. They are saying that the Earthen Alliance has been too lax in security and that they will not subject their citizens to terrorist attacks. Our government is protesting the actions of the other governments stating that security is rounding up the terrorists as we speak and that Mars and the Moon are only trying to use this incident as a way to withhold vital research candidates.¡±


    Kate¡¯s ears pulled back because she was upset and said, ¡°They say research candidates like we are some lab rats and a tradable commodity.¡±


    Melinda closed her H.A.L.O screen and with wet eyes on the verge of crying said, ¡°I hate the way this is all happening. The institute asked people to try out the injection as an experiment but you guys still are people and deserve to be treated as such.¡± Melinda could not hold back her tears any longer and cried into her hands.


    Eve moved over and hugged Melinda to her and asked, ¡°So are we going to accept the crystals or leave them?¡±


    Kate replied, ¡°Melinda scanned them so they are not a hazard to or health. We might as well accept them for now. I wish I still had my old H.A.L.O though.¡±


    Eve said, ¡°Yeah I miss my old H.A.L.O as well. Can¡¯t do much about it though, H.A.L.O¡¯s only work for the person who¡¯s genetic makeup is registered to the crystal and we have changed too much for our old ones to work. Didn¡¯t the director say a message was in the packages? Should we use them now to view his message?¡±


    Kate replied, ¡°I think we should wait to watch the message until we are on the flight to Molokai. We should wake Blaze before we do because he has more technical knowledge than us so he would know how to ensure we are not making a big mistake using them. How long is the trip going to be?¡±


    Melinda raised her head out of her hands and with a tear streaked face quietly replied, ¡°We are scheduled for a direct private flight on an outer atmospheric Slip Stream Liner. We should arrive at Molokai in two hours. How can Blaze help us he is still in a coma?¡±


    Kate, ¡°He woke up while you guys were working on Trask¡¯s IV. He talked and seemed normal. He was just tired. We should be able to get him to wake up again if we just let him rest until we are in the air.¡±


    Melinda¡¯s mood brightened a little with hearing the news that Blaze had woke up. She feared that whatever he did had put him in a permanent coma. With one less fear Melinda began to get a hold on her emotions that have been swelling in her heart since the attack.


    The shuttle pulled to a stop outside the Slip Stream terminal. The round building had a lot of windows and metal support structures. A large long check in counter and a security check point were the first things seen inside this huge building. Melinda exited the shuttle after cleaning up her face and walked up to the counter and talked with the droid receptionist behind the counter. Melinda¡¯s H.A.L.O crystal was scanned to verify her identity and virtual tickets were downloaded in one swipe of the droids hand.


    While Melinda was checking the group in, other droids went to the shuttle and unloaded the luggage and carried Trask and Blaze into the terminal. Kate turned down another droid carrying her and had Eve help her into the terminal.


    The party of two droids carrying luggage, four droids carrying the stretchers, Blaze, Trask, Eve, Kate, and Melinda all processed through the security check point quickly. They then walked another ten minutes to the private terminal loading dock for Slip Stream flights. The walk was quiet and uncomfortable for the group. Because, everywhere the group went people stopped what they were doing and stared.


    Kate and Eve was the most affected by the atmosphere in the terminal. They had decided to ¡°Listen closely¡± for hostile thoughts with Blaze and Trask being unconscious they had to fill the roles of lookouts and protectors for the party. The thoughts they were ¡°Hearing¡± ranged from pity to vulgar but no one seemed hostile. Of course their ¡°Hearing¡± did not work on mechanical things so they could still be attacked by droids or drones without having advance notice.


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    No new attacks happened and they boarded the private flight for Molokai. Once the party was buckled in and their luggage was stored the droids left and the pressurized door shut on the model XR-765 Slip Stream Liner. The Model XR-765 Slip Stream Liner looks like an airplane modeled arrow head with dark blue pulsing energy lines leading back to the engines. The ship is painted a light silvery blue. The XR-765 started to taxi out onto the run away and was in flight as soon as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) computer fired the engines.


    Once the flight leveled out and the ¡°Fasten Your Seat Belt¡± sign blinked off the girls started moving around the passenger cabin. Kate, Eve, and Melinda moved to the seat Blaze was sleeping in and started to wake him. While hearing a male AI voice say, ¡°Thank you ladies and gentlemen for flying Excelsior Private Liners I am your AI navigation computer Mark. We are currently flying at forty five miles up and traveling at seventy five hundred miles per hour. Our estimated arrival time is in forty minutes. The weather at Molokai is currently eighty four degrees with thirty three percent humidity. I hope you enjoy your flight.¡±


    Blaze was shaken awake by Melinda and he saw Kate and Eve hovering nearby. His broken short nap made it so he didn¡¯t feel in danger of passing out again. However, his body was tired like he had just finished running a marathon.


    Melinda, ¡°Blaze we need your help. We got H.A.L.O crystals in a package from the institute but do not know if we should use them. They are supposed to have a message in them for us from Doctor Hale and Director Timmons.¡±


    Blaze recalled the H.A.L.O conversation with Director Timmons and remembered the part about a package for each of them. Thinking about the potential hazards of receiving an unknown H.A.L.O device and how he could view the message safely he formulized a simple plan. Blaze said, ¡°I need my bag and I need Melinda to give me administrative access to her H.A.L.O¡±


    Eve went and retrieved Blaze¡¯s bag from the overhead compartment while Melinda opened her H.A.L.O and gave the verbal command for Blaze to have administrative access. Blaze gave some advanced verbal commands once he was given access to Melinda¡¯s H.A.L.O and had a virtual keyboard and monitor with base coding information appear in front of him and he began to change the programing in his terminal window.  Once Eve returned with his bag he had her get his old H.A.L.O out.


    Blaze¡¯s H.A.L.O setting is a heavily customized gauntlet design with hundreds of smaller H.A.L.O module crystals, flattened circuits, and five separate full H.A.L.O crystals installed. The five main H.A.L.O crystals are located one on the back of the hand, one at the wrist, and three on the knuckles of the setting. One open slot is available on the pinky knuckle.


    When Eve handed Blaze his old H.A.L.O she asked, ¡°What can you do with your old H.A.L.O? It is locked to your DNA right?¡±


    Blaze answered absentmindedly while his fingers were a blur on the virtual keyboard, ¡°Yeah my H.A.L.O is locked like normal. I am just going to change the lockout to my new DNA pattern.¡±


    Eve never knew that it was possible to unlock an H.A.L.O from a DNA pattern but after Blaze hacked into the scanners at the institute she figured he could do it. She asked for clarification, ¡°Um, how are you going to input your new pattern when we don¡¯t know it? Melinda has a scanner but that can only take scans for treatment they don¡¯t have a copy of your DNA profile¡±


    Blaze took off his left shoe and dumped out two data crystals. He grabbed the crystal he remembered held all the test results and data from their week in the institute and plugged it into the open pinky slot of his gantlet. He placed the other crystal back into his shoe but left his shoe off. Then he went back to modifying code on Melinda¡¯s H.A.L.O device and said, ¡°Remember I hacked into the institute and got the evidence against Doctor Sebast. While I was hacked in I also downloaded all of our medical data to this crystal as a backup.¡±


    Kate grabbed Blaze by his shirt and got right in his face and said, ¡°You have a copy of our medical data? Did you look at it? That¡¯s personal information you know!¡±


    Blaze was confused and said, ¡°No. I didn¡¯t look. I just copied the folder. Why?¡±


    Kate realized how close she was and blushed. Kate backed away from Blaze quickly letting go of his shirt and said, ¡°Good. You will give a copy to each of us without looking at it as soon as we get some data crystals. It is an invasion of a girl¡¯s privacy to have data like that.¡±


    Blaze still was confused about Kate¡¯s reaction but it is what he planned on doing anyways so just left it alone and got back to finalizing the adjustments he was making to Melinda¡¯s H.A.L.O.


    Kate said under her breath after she was sure Blaze was occupied again said so only Melinda, and Eve could hear, ¡°The dunce has data that says EVERYTHING about our bodies and he is acting confused as to why I am upset.¡±


    Melinda and Eve nodded together in understanding and Melinda added, ¡°Yeah, and it is insulting in a way that he does not even seem curious as to what it might say. I mean come on at least look at my three sizes.¡±


    Eve giggled and Kate blushed because of Melinda¡¯s forward comment. Before the three could say anymore Blaze said, ¡°Done! Where is the crystal for me?¡±


    Melinda got into her hand bag and pulled out Blaze¡¯s crystal and asked while handing him the crystal, ¡°What exactly did you do to my H.A.L.O?¡±


    Blaze pulled out the data crystal and inserted the new H.A.L.O crystal and said, ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything to your H.A.L.O. I just used it as a terminal to access the back door on my old H.A.L.O so I could update my new DNA profile into it using the data crystal. Now I am just going to use my data port to scan the crystal and localize the imbedded message. If the message is clean then I will play it.¡±


    Blaze pulled on his gauntlet H.A.L.O device and activated it. Once he activated it screens began to pop up with his every hand movement. Blaze was done with his scan after a few minutes and said, ¡°It is a good thing you did not active the crystals. This crystal has a location dump program installed that would give our coordinates away during flight. Making it simple for the Tempio di Puro to target our flight and shot it down. The messages are clean I am going to play them now.¡±


    A hollo-projection of the blond haired green eyed young Doctor Hale seated at a desk. In the background behind Doctor Hale the group saw the red planet scape of Mars colony. ¡°I would first like to apologize for the extreme mutations you the recipients of the Mana Injection have had to endure.¡±


    Doctor Hale bowed her head down in apology and kept it that way for a whole minute before she raised her head and began to speak again, ¡°The simulations and animal experimentation showed only a slight possibility of this happening in clinical trials. We are currently working towards correcting the mutation factor but due to the nature of the injection formula and the major changes in DNA structure hopes of reverting current recipients to their previous genetic makeup are non-existent. Also due to the extreme nature of the mutations that have occurred all current injection recipients fall into the newly discovered alien species category and no longer citizens. The Mars Republic is lobbing to reinstate citizen ship to injection recipients. I am also receiving reports that the Moon Federation is also taking steps to protect injection recipient¡¯s rights.¡±


    Doctor Hale sighed and said, ¡°I have received no word from the Earth Alliance about protecting injection recipient¡¯s rights. Taking into account the attacks this morning from the Tempio di Puro and the Alliance¡¯s inaction to secure injection recipient¡¯s rights I would recommend that all injection recipients leave Earth and seek shelter with either the Republic or Federation.¡±


    The H.A.L.O message just cut off after that and the other message began to play. The new image showed a smiling Director Timmons at a desk with a concrete background, ¡°Hello injection recipient I would like for you to disregard Doctor Hale¡¯s message because her information is out of date and you should rest assured that The Alliance is taking steps to secure rights for you and should have them finalized by the time you arrive here at Molokai. I look forward to meeting you when you arrive.¡± Then scenes of different facilities at the Molokai site began to play like an introduction film to a resort.


    Blaze frowned and thought, ¡®Doctor Hales message looked like it was overwritten buy junk from Director Timmons. I am guessing that he could not delete the message section that was already received by the crystal. So he instead high jacked the signal and created a short welcome speech and inserted that infomercial to cover up the rest of her message.¡¯


    Blaze thought furiously he really did not want to have to deal with all this political and hate based junk. He has a mental schedule for preparation to the game and he is falling behind. He should be practicing his Mana use right now not dealing with this. The Federation and Republic both seemed like better options for him, Kate, Eve, and Trask. Blaze doubted that once they landed in Molokai everything would be as great as the cheesy infomercial proclaimed it to be. But how could he even get to either government to ask for asylum?


    Kate was watching Blaze¡¯s reactions and was trying to figure out what he was thinking. She did not trust anyone right now but the people in her group. She was looking at Blaze because he seemed the most capable due to his previous exploits. He had found incriminating evidence and released it only for the information to be hidden. Then he warned every one of his suspicions and right after that we were attacked and only survived because of his quick actions. Now he has warned us that a tracking feature was added to the crystals given to us by the institute and found a way around that. Normally, she would be suspicious of him because he seemed too capable. But she had gotten a good look inside his head and knew that everything Blaze has done has just been a series of luck, hacking, and guesswork. Add in Doctor Hale¡¯s warning and Kate was truly concerned about what they should do and was looking to Blaze to see if he could come up with a plan.


    Eve on the other hand was frightened by everything that has been happening. She has kept it together so far on sheer determination. Once healed by the injection Eve thought she could once again live her life and have fun with friends. But now people are trying to kill her just because she was different. Eve was hopping for someone to come up with an idea to protect her and Kate.


    Melinda has a mixture of different emotions swirling around in her. She thinks Blaze, Kate, Eve, and Trask do not deserve extremists targeting them just because they are different now. She also feels betrayed because it is obvious that more than one person in the institute is helping the Tempio di Puro. Melinda also feels determined to fix this situation and to help in whatever way she can to protect her friends.


    Blaze broke the silence, ¡°I have an insane idea. It has maybe a fifty percent chance of working and failure will mean death.¡±


    Kate smiled to show her support and said, ¡°Well I am glad you have an idea. The only options I thought we had are go to Molokai and be killed or be turned into lab rats. What¡¯s your idea?¡±


    Blaze blurted out, ¡°Let¡¯s hijack the flight and fly to the moon!¡±


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    AN: Sorry for slow release. Real life is not giving me much chance to write.  Don''t worry I will continue to post more chapters and feed the penguin nation as fast as my life will allow. Please review and provide comments. I did not have a chance to polish this part of the chapter. Look forward to some action in the next chapter :)

 Dropped

    Due to life I am stopping this story. It has been to long since I wrote anything for this story and I cant even remember where I was going with it. I might eventually clean it up and re-release this story but for now I am dropping it. I also have another story wanting to be written in my head so I might post it. It all depends on if my life can calm down a bit so that I can actually write.