Chapter 40: Experiences

It was now a few eventful weeks later, and Steve was suddenly sitting in a conference room with the current leaders of humanity.

How did it get to this? His situations never ceased to surprise.

The helicopter had taken him and Drake to a walled city built to protect humans from all sorts of calamities, where, now, the last of the species was safely holed up. He had to settle into a completely new social and physical environment and register himself at the city Register, where, thankfully, documents weren’t mandatory. He was Steve Smith, just your ordinary college student. He didn’t know about any colleges near Beil or Cyll, so he decided being as ambiguous as possible in every field was for the best.

Drake had been hospitalized in a coma due to a concussion. Meanwhile, Steve got to know Drake’s father, Bill, who had survived due to being the chief architect of the city’s Walls. There was something enigmatic to Steve about Drake’s family. With the escape pod’s landing site being close to Drake’s hometown, him surviving and ending up in Rencia, and his father somehow receiving the contract to oversee the construction of the Walls of the last safe place on the planet, it seemed as if destiny had something in store for the two.

Steve listened to a recovered Drake’s lucid recount of the events of the Night of the Apocalypse, surprised by his observation of details.

“Steve, do you want to explain what happened from there?”

Steve, put into the spotlight suddenly, was mortified and signaled Drake to continue without involving him. Not only was it impossible for him to talk to humanity’s greatest Authorities, but he also didn’t want to spill anything accidentally.

He was being careful not to be caught as an alien. However, in case things went awry, he did take some precautions and was still thinking of plans. For one, he chose his home at the edge of the city, so that if word got out somehow, and humans wanted to torture him for information, he could escape the city. Being tortured was a serious concern to him, and he knew humans would do it. They’d certainly want to know about the virus and how to stop the Mayhems, however, Steve only held part of that information, and wasn’t sure whether providing it was a good idea.

* * *

Steve traveled up in the elevator. The four walls were mostly plexiglass, glass having become more expensive in the past century due to the rising cost of sand, and one could see the hallways on each floor as they went up. It was surprising how a city that was rushed in being built was far more technologically advanced than Cadonif’s home planet.

Reaching the rooftop, he sat and looked up at the night sky. Despite the light pollution and debris in space, a few stars could be seen. Steve closed his eyes and imagined his home being among them. He wondered what would await him if he ever were to find a way off the planet.

He shook his head and decided to forget about it. He should no longer think about his home. He was stuck on Earth, and that was what mattered now.

“What do I do on this planet?” he sighed.

There was nothing there for him—no one he knew, no future, nowhere to go…

He remembered Drake calling him a friend. He smiled.

“Well, at least I got some company and safety.”

Safety in mind, he wondered about PVC. Surely, they would try to destroy Rencia. Dropping a chunk of rock from space was enough to finish the job. It wasn’t safe to stay, but Steve doubted he could survive outside the Walls, at least alone.

“Maybe I should have stayed in Cyll,” he groaned.

A thought came to him—what if Tocarris couldn’t take action.

It was only her and the guards on the spaceship—no one to stop her. If she had planned for this, she would have executed it by now. Perhaps she was waiting for something.

“In the meanwhile, if humanity finds a way to defend themselves against or defeat the Mayhems and spread out, then PVC’s attack would be ineffective,” Cadonif murmured to himself.

He was knowledgeable in the virus, so he could help humanity in their research. The question was: did he want to?

“If I don’t help them, they may become extinct. If I do, they may go back to their bad habits… But at the same time, it would be safer for me…”

* * *

“Now that we’ve studied the digestive system of Mayhems and discovered their stomach acids, thanks to the efforts of Joanne’s group, what is our next idea?” Dr. Jillian Lazzie conversed with her team.

“Actually, I seem to have made a discovery,” a research assistant started.

“Ah, Catherine. What did your team of microbiologists find?”

“At first, we thought we’d observe the mutations in Mayhems on the cellular level, but what we found was astonishing. Their DNA was altered, as we’ve hypothesized, however, it seemed oddly specific which genes were modified. It almost feels like they were chosen purposely… Anyway, the culprit seems to be a completely new virus we discovered in their bodies.”

“What!?!”

The scientists at the table started whispering. Lazzie listened attentively.

“It’s true. We ran it through our database. There isn’t any previously known virus even remotely similar to it.”

“If it’s a virus, that would explain why animals mutate upon contact…! Then the Mist…! Then, adding that boy’s explanation of what transpired in Beil, we can infer that it may truly be from space…!” Lazzie excitedly stroked her chin. “Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. First, we need to put all our manpower into studying this virus.

“Everyone here, whether it’s your field or not, must work on this.

“Joanne, search human bodies for the presence of this virus…” Lazzie started handing out assignments.

After the meeting, Catherine met up with a research assistant that had joined recently.

“Hi, Steve. Thanks for letting me take credit for that.”

“No problem.”

“Are you sure you’re fine not getting recognition?”

“It’s fine.” Steve gazed into the distance seriously. “It’s better if fewer people know who actually made the discovery.

“They wouldn’t believe a student like me.”

“No, I think—”

“Besides, getting all the attention isn’t for me. I’m a shy person, you see.

“I have a few more ideas, and I’ll let you know when I need to test them.”

“S-sure…” Catherine watched Steve leave. “Strange man…”

Thus, the race began. Would humanity find a way to de-mutate the Mayhems first, or would PVC destroy them before they could?

* * *

While Steve was busy, time passed by quickly, and before he knew it, he was at his second Smummr.

He’d panicked just two weeks ago when he heard deep rumbling noises shaking the Earth. He thought for sure that PVC had begun its annihilation of the remnants of the world, but he learned that it was actually only a fifty-storey-tall mutant Gorilla and its army of zoo animals trying to demolish the Walls and eat everyone within. PVC wouldn’t be so elaborate with its plan. Fortunately, Drake blew the behemoth up somehow.

“…we can, for now, assume that very intelligent or evolved animals, like humans, and animals with very little intellect, like insects, either don’t mutate or mutate less frequently.”

P-lease, Cadonif cringed. Humans aren’t evolved at all! Your physical strength, lack of any extraordinary abilities, and immune systems are laughable. You guys think you’re the center of the Universe; that you’re special. You think that’s why you don’t mutate. You have no idea.

When it eventually came to his turn to talk at the table, he was naturally nervous. He had something radical to propose to the Authorities, but he knew it was too important to overlook.

Don’t forget why you’re doing this; he gave himself courage. Never look back with regret.

“The night of the Apocalypse, a meteorite fell to Earth and caused this whole catastrophe by spreading the Mist…” he began.

The President tried to cut him off once, and, as Steve continued his speech, he noticed some angry faces. As expected, he was fueling tensions between the two factions in the government.

He’d been spending a lot of time in the library reading about human culture and civilization, particularly that of the region he was in. Incidentally, he’d come to know about the satellite Radar stations in the country. He realized that those stations must have had some data on the PVC base ship orbiting Earth or at least the meteorite.

“We can speculate about why we didn’t foresee and plan for this meteorite, but I think a better idea would be to access the computer in the SORS nearest to Beil…”

If humans could access the data, with a bit of direction, they could ‘discover’ the aliens that launched the ‘meteorite’ with the Blucteryhem.

After proposing his plan, there were many objections to it with excuses. He knew the real motivation behind the protest was different, but he could only pitch the idea and hope it had enough support from one side.

Surprisingly, it did, by the President’s party at that, despite his efforts to abate the fight by receding. Although their intentions were probably to publicly expose Zachary’s faction’s SORS’s incompetence, leading to the unannounced arrival of the Mist, the soldiers’ absence would be to their disadvantage.

* * *

Anticipating the discovery of aliens by humans in the near future, Cadonif realized he needed more measures in case he was caught by them. Humans were a serious potential danger.

He’d been working in the team researching the virus, headed, coincidentally, by the woman whose DNA had been taken as a sample in the mutation ring. Settling into his new work life, Steve began working on a modified, convert-all Blucteryhem. Working hard with the limited knowledge he had on Genetic Engineering, he was able to create a new strand of the virus by converting the part of the DNA that was responsible for the condition for mutation, based on the species of animal, into non-coding, junk DNA. He was able to, thus, carefully craft a fluid that could convert any animal, himself included, into a Mayhem, albeit it wasn’t tested yet, so it could have some kinks.

The plan was that after he would escape the city and leave the Walls, he would inject the ‘Potent’ Blucteryhem and mutate. The mutant form would wander off somewhere. Once humans developed a cure that could convert Mayhems back into animals and spread it across the world, he would revert to himself someplace away.

He was worried about how Drake and the others would feel upon learning the truth. He didn’t want them to feel bad, but to move on, so he’d started a diary in which he spoke about his experiences on Earth. It was exaggerated to make him sound bad, but for the most part, he tried to maintain his true thoughts and secrets. This had also proven beneficial for Cadonif’s mental health, having some place to shove all the things he couldn’t tell others about. He had been worried about traumatizing Drake, but he had a resilient mind and severing emotional connections was for the best in the long term.

This was the best solution Cadonif could come up with if the worst came to be, for suicide was too difficult to do: he was a coward who feared death.

* * *

“Surprise!” Drake and a few others sprang out from behind walls and furniture and shouted.

Cadonif, thinking his alien identity had been exposed and he was being surrounded by enemies, went into a panic.

After understanding the situation was far less dire: “Uh… Why are all these people here?”

“We came here to throw a surprise party for your birthday!” explained Drake.

It took a moment for it to click in Steve’s mind. “My birthday?”

“Yup. You told me before that it was today, so I gathered all your friends and we prepared this for you.”

Steve remembered. “Oh, right! It is my birthday! I was so busy with work, I forgot all about it.”

In reality, Cadonif had forgotten about it because he’d made the date up once while talking to Drake. He was touched that Drake had remembered and that all his friends and co-workers had pitched in for the organization of the event. His friends seemed like good people and even a criminal he met didn’t seem that bad, just a bit impulsive.

Looking at all of those people, Cadonif felt content with his life on Earth and was beginning to question whether humanity was all that evil.

* * *

It was time for the Expedition. A sizeable portion of the Defense Force was preparing outside a gate of the Walls. Between a large animal with a mind of its own that could mutate at any moment and a machine that obeyed its driver and that ran directly on the sun, he knew which he’d choose.

Steve, standing outside his buggy, gazed at Drake a few yards away, talking to his friends and followers; he built up quite the fanbase no matter where he went. Drake appeared determined.

“He’s quite the interesting character.” Rein appeared beside Steve, who jumped.

“Ah! Commander! You startled me.”

The Commander continued: “From my experience with him, Drake has quite the determination and courage. You see it, too, don’t you?”

“Y-yeah.” He turned his gaze back.

“In that sense, he reminds me of the General. Arthur’s always had a sense of duty, unlike the other higher-ups in the Land Army. And, although Drake’s is a bit twisted, he, too, is acting based on his love for his friends and family…

“Ah, you must be Steve, the associate in charge of this mission. I’m—”

“Commander Rein. I know. You’re… quite famous.

“And I agree with you about Drake and the General. I think Drake is going to accomplish many great things too. The difference between them, I think, is that the General remains calm and tries to find an optimal solution to the problem whereas Drake sometimes lets emotions get the better of him.”

“Mmm…”

“Sometimes, looking at people like them, it feels like what I’m doing is not enough—that I’ll never catch up. It’s like they’re main characters in a world designed around them and that I’m just watching their rise to success. They’re really something.”

“I feel that way sometimes, too. They seem to achieve great things. But it’s important to remember that we’re trying our best, also, and that our work is still meaningful. Do what you think is best. For me, aiding Darian in his endeavors gives me purpose.”

What I think is best… For Steve, helping humanity was the main goal, and helping Drake out of his vengeance and into leading humanity was part of that goal.

He looked at his fist and smiled. “Thanks, Commander.”