Grounded | The Trapped Trilogy

Seven

Seven

SIER

It should be working now. Erit should have programed all of the nanos and sent them their instructions. Their instructions to obey me.

I hear doors open as the zombified people march out of their little house-rooms or Domeshouses or whatever they're called. I don't remember.

But that's my cue.

I stand in front of them all and they stop briefly to look at me, their faces slack and vacant.

"Follow me," I tell them, and they obey.

Good.

That means Erit has a brain.

They follow me to both the Home Dome and the Dude's Dome, where I gather all of the other people that live in those Domes. I place my hand on the spikeless spot on the Dome wall, and it reads my handprint, seeing if I'm in the database or not.

It opens with a loud sucking noise and I walk through, everyone following behind me. I guess the wall can sense all of the people going through it so it's just staying open. After all, I'm leading hundreds, maybe thousands of people out of these Domes to fight for the Ring and the Rethurps.

We knew that a battle like this would happen one day. That's the main reason why we started Upgrading people into Halflings and Rethurps. We were building an army. Also, we would wipe the memory of the people who had changed all of the way and let them... you know... reproduce.

The good news is, is that no one came out deformed. I just think that adding post-human Rethurps made them a slight bit more stupid.

Oh well. Can't change the past. It's the future we gotta worry about.

We reach the Outer Dome, and I hear small, scared voices to my left. Everyone should be brainwashed by the nanos, so why am I hearing voices of free will?

The Dome wall opens once it realizes who I am, and I lead everyone through. I make a mental note that I'm going to come back to see what went wrong, and I'm going to fix it.

...Eenie...

I whirl around to see who said that, but I know no one did. Stupid half-human brain...

We walk through the Outer Dome wall and onto the connection metal between the Ring and the Dome.

I walk full circle around the Dome, having the Domespeople follow me around so they can all get out, and, when I reach the opening again, I tell them to stop. The last of the humans come out and stop, and the door shuts, making its disgusting sucking noise.

"Stay," I command.

They almost seem to freeze.

I head to the Government Building in Section One. Peratt is pacing anxiously by the door.

"They're all on the Bridge, and they're all brainwashed. Tell me I'm not a flipping genius."

He smiles at me hesitantly and nods.

"Good," He calls as he walks off. I follow him. "Now all we need to do is have Erit download the information on fighting into their systems and everything should be just fine."

We reach Erit's door, and he opens up, his nose glued to the screen in his hands.

"There seem to be no errors, no errors in the code so far," He mumbles to us, drawing his finger across the screen.