Boris was running fast towards me and screaming my name at the top of his lungs. How did he find me this far away from the compounds near the old city? I kept a hard grip on the street light as he approached me. I wasn’t very fond of Boris. He had brown, extremely tall, 6 feet 5 inches, dark blue eyes that looked black at times, and he wore a silver long necklace with a bird at the end that he claims was his mother’s. He is a Red. He is from that compound that is responsible with overall defence and material improvements of our world. What I couldn’t stand was his self-proclaimed physical superiority over everyone. Moreover, sometimes late night, he used his physical power to break random objects and deserted old front door entrances in the Triangle compound. It was for fun, as his clouded mind kept justifying. It was very childish in my opinion.
He came closer, stopped to breathe and glistening sweat tickled down from his forehead. I waited for him to catch his breath. Being a foot shorter than him, I had to look up and stare at his eyes for a few seconds. He then looked at the floor and back at me and said, “Professor Ellen Lynn disappeared. General John Myr is looking for you everywhere.”
Ellen, a delicate small brown-haired woman with large brown eyes, 48, with no children, was also the commander in chief of Project Merge. Something I had to watch over and protect with my life as long as I was told to do so. Project Merge started twelve years ago as a secret defence tool that can’t be seen by just anyone, or anything that is not directly involved with it. I said with a puzzled look on my face, “How? That’s impossible. What do you mean?”
Boris, still breathing heavily said, “That’s what General John told me. And he is friggen mad that his tamed hair seemed wild on the screen. The defence force was called for. I think they arrived by now and ...”
I interrupted him and asked, “How did he know that?”
Although John was the general of Intelligence and he seemed to know everything in our small world and watched the hidden cameras in his waking hours, he could not see past the Project Merge corridor and interior room that housed it. It was not permitted by those not directly involved with it. Ellen’s disappearance, or proclaiming she is, is a little mystifying and only an assumption by John.
Boris eyed me with a sharp look of disgust and said, “You are wasting time by asking me what I will never know. Just go now to the Intelligence compound and shut up!”
He had a controlling demeanour about him and a stern commanding voice that scared me at times. I assumed that’s why no girl in our small 1989 citizen count world can stand him or want to be his future wife.
I let go of the street light and started running back. Boris, with his strength and superior physique, tried to catch up with me, yet, I am faster than him.
As I approached the compound, Boris caught up now and stood next to me. He said, “Damn your fast. Why did you stop? Just key in the code and let’s go in.”
The door to the compound is platinum steel that is twelve feet high and eight feet wide. There is a panel on the side where I can tap the code and a finger print image is used to identify me as accessible to the Intelligence compound. After step one is completed, I placed my hand in the bottom of the panel in a little hole, and a beam of light shined and flickered three times to identify a living me by my blood structure, its flow, and level of authority.
The screen on the panel changed and my face appeared.
Lina Ard, 30
BD: 12-31-2280 AD
Intelligence Colonel
Merge Defence V
Level of Authority V
Boris with a small grin of his face said, “It seems secure, but our compound, Red, is more secure than that.” The door started opening and I eyed him disgustedly and said, “Who wants to go to your filthy compound?” He wasn’t amused and grabbed my shoulder and said with a deep serious voice, “You may seem intelligent, but a smart mouth that needs constant authority and discipline.”
I grabbed his arm and shoved it off of me. “You are absurd,” I said quietly and ran to the main doors where I tapped in another key code to enter. I ran through the hallways, Boris behind me, and I climbed a flight of stairs. I ran again, turned left, and then I heard a low scream.
As I approached the door to the machine authorized only room, I took out my gun, and a woman kneeling on the floor with her head down kept looking at her hands and screaming loudly, “No!” I came closer, and I saw blood on her hands. At that instinct, I pointed the gun at her and I said, “Where did this blood come from?” Boris held his gun pointing at her and started walking slowly to my right. I knelt down near the woman and told her to raise her head. She was Dana.
I saw tears gushing down her face, and she kept saying with a loud aching voice, “No! No!”
I didn’t know why Dana was in the control room, since she hardly ever comes up here and visits this place for any reason. She is always in the lab downstairs, finding an ingenious solution to some problem by analyzing numerous old books on her screen or gathering random information, and trying to apply her assumptions by experimenting on a small controlled group of people. I asked her, “Stop Dana. Where did this blood come from?”
She had bright green eyes with a brown thick line surrounding them. Her eyes seemed deep and had a magical aura to them that I could not explain, and I saw my own reflection in them. She looked stunned and pointed on her right side. She wore a lab coat that was two sizes bigger than her, and I saw a spot of blood and pulled her coat to the side. She kept saying, “No! No!” Then she sighed, looking at the floor and slowly said, “Help her.”
I said frantically, “Who?” Boris stepped closer to Dana and examined her wound. “It’s a knife wound,” he said in disbelief. “Who still uses a knife? So primitive.” I looked at him and said, “It’s not the time to discuss old weaponry and their usage. They kill people, that’s their intention!” Dana gasped and looked at Boris and pleaded to him with broken tone of words, “Help … her…. Please.” Boris pursed his lips and grabbed Dana, lifted her and started walking towards the door. “Where can we bandage her so she won’t bleed to death?” he said with a steady tone to his voice.
Red compound may seem rough and unorthodox compared to us, with a group of citizens who only know what’s it’s like to fight and defend, but they also know how to heal the wounded. They are the doctors, the fighters, the healers of our world. They are self-sufficient on their own and can solve any immediate problem they face without any question.
I sprinted to a door down the hall and told Boris to follow me. We walked a few steps to another door, I opened it, and a group of scientists sat on their stools mesmerized in their experiments. Robots, I label them as intelligent life-less machines, were conducting an experiment too on the left side of the room. I didn’t have time to have Boris perform any lifesaving procedure, and I needed him to help me find Ellen. I said with an authoritative voice, “We need help now!” A scientist on my right lifted his head and his eyes widened. I wasn’t sure if he was taken aback by our arrival, or just by Boris’s tall stature and physique. The doctor said, “What? What’s going on?” Boris looked at him and said, “We need antiseptic, gauzes and bandages. She is wounded.”
More scientists stood up, and frantically hurried and opened drawers and glass containers. The scientist said, “Put her on the chair. We will help her.” Boris walked to the chair, kneeled down and slowly placed Dana on the chair. I kept my gun held up and said to Boris, “Who is she talking about? Who do we help? We need to find John.”
Boris eyed me and his eyes were raging mad, then he calmed down, nodded and started walking towards the door. I looked at Dana and her eyes were closing. I touched her shoulders and asked, “Who do we help?” She closed her eyes and one of the scientists said, “We have to take her to the ward on the other side of the building.” Boris then said, “Lina, we have to go find General John.” I nodded and wiped a little tear from my eye. Although I was trained to be physically and mentally ready for any situation, my heart felt like it was breaking into pieces and I wanted to go in a corner and cry. I couldn’t handle seeing an innocent civilian suffer like that.
Boris stared at me and I said, “What?” He looked at me with concern and he hesitated for a few seconds and said, “Let’s go.”