Reunion: Chapter 15
Adrian kicked his feet at the dirt through his ill fitting boot. The ship had plenty of radiological protection gear, but it was all for humans. There was too much toe room, not enough room for his high ankle that pressed into the back of the fabric and his face was too close to the face plate of his helmet. Each breath he took fogged up the lead infused glass even though the internal ac of the suit worked hard to stop condensation.
Each step was awkward. The boot kept slipping, creating the illusion that he was breaking his ankle with every step and sometimes it felt that way as he climbed over rubble. There was also the uncomfortable dilemma of him having to stuff his tail down his right pant leg. He would have preferred to stay on the ship. There was food, water, it was heated and for once in a long time, he didn’t feel hunted.
He knew that he was being hunted. Dog reminded him that it wouldn’t be long before the Dominion tracked its missing ship and sent a team after them. Time was in short supply and Dog wanted to find this Charlie Protocol. It was an AI from the war and therefore it would contain a vast amount of information, some of which could potentially be used against the Dominion.
Adrian learned a lot from Dog in the past few hours. He was surprised to find that he was a direct descendent of an old war hero, Admiral Jay Anderson who had led much of humanity to victory. He became the first prime minister after the way and led mankind back from the ashes.
“He died old and happy to see the world prosper again after devoting his entire life to rebuilding everything that was lost.” Dog said and Adrian nearly tripped over a chunk of concrete that was jutting out of the ground. He was getting better at dividing his attention between talking to Dog and moving, but he still had to be careful. If his suit ripped, there would be trouble from the radiation that still lingered.
“Then how did the Dominion come into power?” Adrian asked and stepped over some rubble. They had made it about a mile from their landing site, heading towards the remainders of a park. Adrian could see it down the ruined road, a massive clearing among the ruins of the city.
“That didn’t happen for a while.” Dog replied while directing Adrian around a collapsed building that could have been an apartment since many of the rooms that were exposed in the half of the building that was still standing were too small to be offices, but too large and numerous to be anything else.
“Anderson got married to another officer in the Navy. A kind woman with a caring heart.” An image of a red haired woman with high, but not overly prominent cheek bones came to mind. She had a small smile and deep green eyes. She was beautiful. “They had two children, a Canis and a human.”
“Canis and humans can have children?” The Dominion had outlawed the union of the two species and they looked so different that Adrian had just assumed that it wasn’t possible.
“I don’t know about now, but back then, humans and Canis were closely related with nearly identical DNA. So, yeah, it was possible.” They came up to another collapsed building, the city was nothing but collapsed buildings and in a city that used to have skyscrapers that would grace the clouds, hundreds of years couldn’t diminish the amount of destruction that there was.
“I think we’ll need to go around.”
“Or through.” Dog directed his attention to a wide, dark opening that led into the belly of the dead beast.
Adrian walked over to the hole that went almost straight down into the ground. “I could still go around.” He tried to not sound scared, but the thought of just going into a dark hole didn’t sound appealing.
“Don’t be scared, nothing’s going to hurt you.” Dog reassured him. “Plus, I’ve seen worse and even before me, Anderson saw the worst.” More images.
A dark metal hallway, empty and devoid of all life. Adrian was looking through the eyes of someone, also in some sort of suit. He was flanked by three others, all carrying weapons, their faces obscured by helmets. Information streamed across the inside of the helmet. Adrian couldn’t make sense of it all.
They came up to a door, weapons drawn at the ready. He could hear his breathing, steady, but heavy. The light from his weapon gleamed against the polished surface of the door, twin sliding doors of a ship, massive and sealed shut.
There was something on the other side.
Adrian felt a little dizzy and had to crouch down to let the blood flow back into his head. “What was that?”
“Sorry.” Dog apologized. The memory isn’t one of mine, but Anderson’s “Anyways, nothing’s going to hurt you down there, this placed was nuked remember? Nothing survived.”
Adrian regarded the hole one more time and got onto his read to slide down the hall.
Dirt kicked up behind him and he felt every pebble, but he got down to the bottom. He was in the dark with only the light from above shining down on him.
Adrian fumbled with the side of his helmet. His thick fingers trying to find the switch for the light on his helmet while being contained in the small gloves. He flipped it by pushing a claw to the edge of the glove and sliding it up and down his helmet until he eventually got the switch.
The bright light came on immediately, revealing a dusty hall way that had numerous rooms on either side still leading at a slightly downward angle. There was nowhere to go but forward.
The darkness hugged the edge of the light, ready to pounce as he walked down the hall. He had no idea where he was going, but he could feel Dog keeping watch, nudging him left or right whenever another hallway intersected with their own.
Adrian needed to watch his step as some sweat trickled between the bottom of his foot pad and the inside of his boot, making walking all that more awkward as he could now slip on the inside of his own foot wear.
“So let’s continue about how the Dominion came to power? You said Anderson had children.”
“Mm, yes.” Dog said. “The Canis, a male, Jeanne. He was a smart, but rebellious child. He hated the attention he got for being the son of a hero. Then there was the daughter, Lily. A defiant and hard headed girl who never did anything she didn’t want to do. I used to joke that she took on after me.” Dog chucked internally. “They were both good children and they didn’t experience anything spectacular. They each got married and had children, their children had children and everything was fine as the Anderson line grew more and more, then there was a set of twins, another Canis and human. Jaina and Luke.”
“What happened?” Adrian asked as he began to climb a set of side ways stairs. The hand railing had rusted away a long time ago forcing Adrian to pull himself up onto the side of the stairs and shimmy his way up.
“A first nothing. Then around their teens, Jaina began to show some psionic potential which was actually very rare in the family tree. This got her a lot of attention, attention that Luke craved. It also didn’t help that because she was a Canis, she ended up inheriting me.” He sighed. “It started small, it always does, but that small amount of jealousy quickly grew into hate.”
“Ok.” Adrian pulled himself up the last sideways step and onto a new floor. He had somehow transitioned from walking on the floor to walking on the wall with him having to jump over the holes where doors used to be. He took it slowly.
“One day, shortly after he graduated from the academy, he disappeared. Vanished. Poof. Gone. Spent months looking for him, didn’t actually ever stop, but after some time there’s just nothing more to do.”
Adrian understood. People disappeared in the slums all of the time. Maybe they owed money to some gang or they took a. Wrong corner, got picked up by the Dog Catchers. Sometimes they simply packed up and moved away with telling anyone. People went missing and it was a part of life.
“It hit the family hard, but they had to move on. Jaina developed her abilities. She was what you would call a reader, though she was never that strong. It was nice to know what people were thinking… Sometimes, there’s always perverts.”
Adrian barked a laugh. “Yeah, you haven’t been doing that with me, have you. I can sometimes get a feeling for what people are thinking.”
“Not really.” Dog replied and kept guiding Adrian through the building. He had been keeping track of how far they had gone both vertically and horizontally. They were getting close to the other side. “I just used it to get an idea of where people are. I must admit that your ability to move objects and people is phenomenal.”
“Thanks, I suppose.” Adrian took a moment for a breather. This would have been a hard enough trek with all of the climbing and jumping, but the suit was taking a lot out of him. “Now back to Luke. I’m guessing he showed back up?”
“That he did. At the time, the Dominion was a relatively new party and rather unpopular. They preached against Canis, calling for them to be separate from society. He appeared at one of their rallies. It was the first time we had seen him in years at that point.”
A man, handsome with thick curls stood in a suit, his hands behind his back as he stood at the back of a stage in front of hundreds of people who looked at him with a mix of emotions. Some were filled with hope, others anger, some, fear. He spoke. There were no words, but Adrian got the sense that he was a very angry man.
“It was soon after that the murders happened. The Anderson line was large at that point and at first we didn’t notice as the more obscure members disappeared. By the time were noticed, it was too late. In less than a year, Jaina and her daughter, Riora were the only ones left. Luke had hunted down every Canis that shared blood with him.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, a lot of good people that I had the joy of seeing grow up were gone.” Dog faded slightly. “I’ll tell you more later… Outside should just be around the next corner.”
Before Adrian could say anything to stop him, Dog retreated back into a deep part of Adrian’s mind where he couldn’t be reached.
Adrian was left with an overwhelming sense of emptiness, a residual feeling of what Dog was feeling and had been keeping from him. The poor thing had gone through so much.
Wordlessly, Adrian slowly crawled out from the building, out of a window since the door frame was buried under dirt. He dusted himself off and stood up, letting the sun light shine down on him to get his strength back.
The park was straight ahead now. Adrian imagined that it once used to be green and lush with a large pond in the middle where there was a massive divot. Now there was just bare ground, dry, cracked and dead with the occasional dead tree that had withstood the test of time to just remind anyone who came by of what used to be there.
Adrian didn’t know what to look for without Dog there to help so he stayed put near the hole he had just crawled out of until Dog would come back.
It wasn’t much of wait for something to happen though.
It started as a low hum coming from in front of Adrian. His ears perked up at the sound, only to flatten themselves on the inside of his helmet. He frowned and shook his head when one of his ears pinched itself at painful angle between his scalp and the helmet.
The sound grew louder until he saw the source.
Three ships, the exact same model as the one Dog had stolen, broke the cloud line. Their hulls were painted black with the only other color being the blue glow of their engines and thrusters as they broke from their descent into a more steady flight path.
Adrian ducked back into the building, out of sight and watched as the ships flew overhead, leaving contrails behind them. Adrian wasn’t alone anymore and he had a good idea that those ships didn’t hold a bunch of tourists. The Dominion was here now.
As for Dog, he is a lot diffrent than when I originally introduced him. He's playing the part as both the family historian, being there since very near the beginning. He's also trying fix the mistakes of the past.
Dog shall return from the depths or the ether. "What the hell happened here"
"I..er...Ahm I sneezed .... and farted"
"I know that I can smell it you know but I was referring to the dog catch...oooooohhhhhh....."
It's great we have learned more about Dogs time with the Andersons over the last 100 years and it's very sad what happened with the nut job human, killing so many of his family.
Hopefully Dog will wake up soon, Adrian is tough and brave but I think Dogs combat experience will be needed in the very near future, if they are to activate the protocol.