Grounded | The Trapped Trilogy

Three (Part 3)

Three (Part 3)

o0o0o

Sixteen hours.

It took a while to get the Cooker who I brought the food to to make the bacon from the pig, but finally she did it. Luckily, she had just finished making her portion of the lunches. I'm just glad I didn't have to use my gun for force.

So now I walk down the busy streets inside of the Dame's Dome, just looking around.

I wonder how Mer is doing with the new Upgraders. Has she upgraded them yet? Probably not. She takes her time with every patient.

Bleh.

I'm glad I don't have her job anymore.

And now I'm out of bacon.

I touch the purple on my host's arm. My host? Well, I guess I can call her that. She's not me, but I'm being carried inside of her brain. Using her body. Host. Yeah. I like the sound of that.

I sit down on one of the swings in the park near the houses and check the watch.

Fifteen hours and fifteen minutes.

Absentmindedly, I rock back and forth. I wonder what my host did before I replaced her memories.

I look at the purple again. There's so much of it... I didn't even have that much purple on me when I changed. I wonder what it is about her-what it was about her that made such a difference in the changing process. Does it even matter that much?

No, I interrupt my own questions.

It doesn't matter anymore. In fifteen hours and ten more minutes, everyone will be like one brain under one set of orders: protect the Rethurps, protect the Ring.

I clear my mind and start to swing higher. I have to stop thinking about these things. This is what got me in trouble in the first place.

I do remember the day I died, but vaguely. It slowly returns to me as I think about it, which makes sense, considering my host had been wiped. My whole life was stored on that hunk of machine. All of it was uploaded, that's regulatory, so I do have all of the memories I acquired throughout my entire life. It just takes holes to get through to it.

Holes.

Why would there be holes?

Unless...

The swing starts to beep at me. I'm swinging too high for it. Oh well. It can get over it.

The day I died. Right.

I got really sick. Which is weird, considering Halflings don't get sick. We're immune to all human and Rethurp viruses because of the speed our body heals itself. It's constantly changing in some way. Not Upgrading or whatever, but just... changing. It's hard to explain.

Anyway, the virus was deadly. No one knew what it was or where it came from, but Peratt had his suspicions. He listed off a ton of things, ranging from the little yellow tablets humans have to take to breathe on the Ring, to how long it took me to change. It had taken me months and my body went through an enormous amount of pain before I finally finished Upgrading. By then, I had created a shot to stop the changing where it was and had injected myself, halting the process, and just in time too.

Years and years passed and nothing happened. At least not on the outside.

One day I just woke up and started upchucking the food I ate the night before. It wasn't even good the first time...

But I alerted Peratt, who immediately showed up at my side.

A fever spread throughout my body and every inch of me was sore. I couldn't move without the threat of crying from the pain. I don't cry. So I barely moved, my muscles wasting away.

It only took a few days for the darkness to come.

And that's where my memories, and my life, cut off.

I sigh.

The beeping speeds up, becoming more frantic as I go higher. I groan and ignore it.

I look up at the sky lid and watch the flashing fake clouds fly across the flashing fake sky. Simulated birds fly by between the flickers. It's nothing like the real thing, although it's programmed to be. If only everyone knew that they were just living to become one of us, one of the Rethurps. And that the only things that matter inside of these Domes is their job and if they can reproduce. No job, no intelligence. No kids, no more humans to manipulate.

It might sound all vile and evil and whatnot, but we really do try to make everyone happy and safe and comfortable. It might be a little over the top with the safety stuff, but, from what we've learned about humans and their recklessness, I'm glad it's like that, for their sake.

I hear the swing start to break, and I see smoke drift from the crevices and cracks holding the seat.

I smirk.

Bring it.

The swing goes flying through the air, and I feel myself tip back. The sky before me turns to night, and stars sprinkle themselves across my vision.

...wake up...

"Gah!"

The ground hits me hard, and for a moment, I think I see people with white masks hovering over me.

I sit up and rub my neck. Someone will be here soon to inspect what happened.

I'd better leave.

o0o0o

Why is this stupid place so boring? There's barely anything to do, and a myriad of people crowding the streets.

Ugh.

What am I supposed to do for the next fourteen and a half hours in here, huh?

Maybe assigning myself to make sure everything goes according to plan inside of the Domes was a bad idea. Or not. I don't really have bad ideas...

I could sleep.

For fourteen hours?

Maybe ten. Then I can just blow off the other four doing something interesting.

Sigh.

Okay. I guess that's what I'm gonna do. Sleep.

Yawn.

I make my way to the house, then take a moment to be pleased with the amazing job I did at cleaning. Then crawl into the bed. It smells like sweat and the river. I get up again and take all of the sheets off and cover myself up with two of the Government Official/Safety jackets. I am not laying on something someone else slept in, especially if it smells like that.

The lights shut off as soon as my feet leave the ground.

I remember learning on how they designed these. There are scales in the bed that trigger the light switches, as well as heat monitors in the floor around the bed, so the light turns off when the heat is gone from the floor and the weight is applied evenly across the bed. Pretty genus, huh?

It takes maybe half an hour for me to fall asleep.

Fourteen more hours...